Osh (Armadillo)

Although the French armadillos of the Amiral Duperré and Amiral Baudin classes made a sufficient impression at the time of their appearance, they were never considered the French fleet to be completely successful ships. Their main drawback was the small booking area of ​​a high freeboard: a narrow armor belt covered only the waterline from enemy shells. The sailors feared that in the event of combat damage, the waves would sweep into the holes of the unarmored side above the belt and lead to the loss of stability of the ship.

Since the full reservation on the waterline was considered by the French admirals as an indispensable condition (the French military wanted the ship, even having received combat damage, to be able to maintain full speed), the only way to solve the problem was to reduce the freeboard height. Shipbuilders believed that the current level of technology allows you to build an armadillo with a low freeboard, which has acceptable seaworthiness and is as fast as previous high-board ships. The successful experience of building in the 1870s a series of second-class barbate battleships of the Terrible type inspired French engineers to try to implement the same concept in a larger ship.

The new type of armadillo project was developed on the initiative of the marine engineer Charles Ernst Ewen , chief designer of the armored ships of the French fleet from 1880 to 1897 . For a long time, the armament of the ship was discussed. As weapons, 406 mm guns were initially offered ^[2] , and even 450 mm guns, but more reasonable concepts prevailed and the gun caliber was reduced to 340 mm.

During the design process, the project underwent significant revisions due to the frequent change of naval ministers in France, each of which had its own views on the development prospects of the fleet. The final draft was approved only four months after the bookmark.

The battleship, named after General Lazard Osh, was significantly different from the French ships of the previous classes. It had a relatively low freeboard, fully protected by armor. Ancillary facilities and crew cockpits, previously housed in the hull, were transferred to extremely developed superstructures ^[3] . The only pipe was pushed forward a lot.

Two massive armored masts with heavy multi-tiered closed Mars towered along the edges of the superstructure. French admirals believed that it was convenient to control the battle from such masts. Also, Mars served to install light anti-mine artillery, which as a result had good sectors of fire. But for all its merits, developed superstructures and heavy combat masts caused a significant shift of the ship's center of gravity up.

The battleship had a total displacement of the order of 11,502 tons and was even slightly smaller than previous ships. Its total cost, according to estimates of 1891, amounted to 19.583 million francs, which was quite cheap by the standards of the time. But due to the constant budgetary problems of the French Admiralty ^{[4], the} construction of the ship dragged on for almost 9 years.

Armament

Initially, the French command was going to arm the battleship with four 340-mm guns in four rhombo-located barbets. But already during the construction, on August 17, 1882, the naval minister, Admiral Clouet, proposed replacing the bow and stern barbet installations (by which time they had already begun to be considered too vulnerable) with rotating armored towers. For reasons of weight saving, when remaking the project, it was decided to leave only two 340-mm guns in the bow and stern towers, and to install smaller guns in the airborne installations.

As a result, the armadillo's armament consisted of two 340-mm 28-caliber rifled guns, one each in the bow and stern rotating turrets, and two 274-mm 28-caliber rifled guns in airborne barbet installations. Although the presence of two close calibers made it somewhat difficult to control the fire, with the comparatively small battle distances of that time, it hardly mattered.

340-mm 28-caliber guns had a rate of fire of the order of 1 shot in 4 minutes, and could shoot 420-kg shells at a distance of up to 8000 meters. 274 mm guns had the same barrel length in calibers, but only fired at 6,530 meters. All guns could reload in any position ^[5] .

The main caliber artillery was located in a rhombus: on the bow, in a rotating armored turret, there was a 340-mm gun, in the center of the hull, on-board barbet installations, there were 274-mm guns and the second 340-mm gun in the turret was aft. Such an arrangement made it possible to aim 3/4 of the entire large-caliber artillery in any direction (which was very important for the French fleet, which appreciated active maneuvering with frequent rebuilding in battle), although it did not allow all guns to be aimed at one target.

The battleship’s auxiliary battery consisted of eighteen 140 mm guns, fourteen of which were on the main deck, and four more were in the superstructure. All guns were in the battery, not protected by armor.

The ship also carried ten 47-mm Hotchkiss anti-mine weapons, six of which were in the ledges of the superstructures above the side barbets of the main caliber, and four more - on the mars of the masts. Additionally, ten 37 mm turret guns were installed.

Torpedo armament consisted of five 480-mm surface rotary torpedo tubes, one of which shot directly at the stern, and the other four - on the sides in the bow, shooting in the sector up to 60 degrees.

Booking

The reservation scheme for the battleship Osh was, in general, a development of the protection scheme for previous ocean battleships. Steel slabs manufactured by Creuso were tested in 1880 and were recognized as the best existing ones at that time, far surpassing the welded armor Compound ^[6] .

A belt of steel slabs stretched along the entire waterline, ranging from 450 millimeters (in the center of the hull) to 350 millimeters (aft). The total height of the belt was 2.3 meters in the center of the body and 1.8 meters at the extremities. Initially, this was considered sufficient, but due to structural overload, most of the belt was hidden under water, and when fully loaded, only 0.3 meters of the belt height protruded above the water. In cross section, the slabs of the belt were a trapezoid, the thickest in the upper part and gradually tapering to the lower.

The belt was formed of two rows of plates, one above the other, laid on a teak lining. Due to this, they calculated to localize the damage caused by shells and to simplify the repair of damage. On the upper edge of the belt was laid 80 mm iron armored deck, covering the underwater part of the ship.

The armor towers of the 340-mm guns were covered by 320-mm armor, turret turrets, which housed the turning mechanisms - 350-mm. Airborne barbets of 274 mm guns were protected by 350 mm armor. As in previous projects, the barbets stood on the main deck and there was an unprotected gap between them and the armored deck, but due to the lower freeboard height, the vulnerability of the installations was significantly reduced.

Powerplant

The battleship was powered by steam engines with a total capacity of up to 11,000 hp. The maximum speed (with forced traction) was 16 knots. Without forcing, the maximum speed was about 12.5 knots.

The ship described at maximum speed a circulation of about 400 meters in radius. Maneuverability and stability on the course were considered very good. However, it should be noted that due to structural overload, the roll when turning at maximum speed reached 15 degrees.

Wearable boats

Upon entry into service, the ship was equipped with 15 boats. Additionally, on each side of the battleship there was a mine boat designed to attack enemy ships with pole mines. The equipment of large warships with wearable mine-torpedo units at that time was considered quite meaningful: it was assumed that the battleship would be able (in good weather) to use its minosacks to finish off enemy ships that had lost their course or for a night attack of blocked ships in the harbor.

The ship went into operation in 1890 . He was in continuous service until 1894 , when he was put on the first modernization. In the course of it, they tried to reduce the obviously overhead weight of the ship by dismantling the heavy combat main mast and replacing it with a light signal mast. Part of the bridges and superstructures were dismantled: the rounded protrusion of the superstructure hanging over the stern tower of the main caliber was removed.

Nevertheless, the stability of the ship was still a concern, and in 1898 , taking advantage of the accidental damage to the armadillo due to a navigation error, he entered the modernization a second time. The foremast was lowered: the hinged deck above the superstructures was removed. The boilers were replaced with new ones, and instead of an outdated auxiliary-caliber battery, twelve new quick-firing 140-mm guns were installed. However, modernization did not particularly enhance the combat capabilities of an already obsolete ship.

Osh was decommissioned and put into reserve in 1911 . November 25, 1913 he was sunk in the exercises.

Being a revolutionary design for French shipbuilding, Osh was a much more advanced ship than its predecessors. Reducing the freeboard height allowed to significantly reduce the area vulnerable to shells, not protected by armor: a rational rhombic arrangement of artillery made it possible to effectively concentrate the fire of 3/4 large-caliber guns in any direction. At the same time, 340 mm guns were located in armored towers and reliably protected.

However, this battleship was also not without flaws, the main of which was low stability. Turning around at full speed, Osh tilted 15 degrees. This was caused by excessively heavy superstructures and extremely bulky combat masts, the installation of which was largely due to political reasons and constant revisions of the project. The battleship was overloaded, and most of the armor belt was hidden under water.

Despite all the shortcomings, the Osh was a powerful ship, and the French fleet considered it very successful, repeating the design in subsequent armadillos of the Marceau type . The rhombic arrangement of main-caliber guns, first used on Osh, was subsequently repeatedly repeated on French warships, and ships being built in France for other countries.

• Regan, Geoffrey. Geoffrey Regan's Book of Naval Blunders. - André Deutsch, 2001. - P. 43–44. - ISBN 0-233-99978-7 .