The result was decent: quite small by modern standards, however, is intended, in General, for a strictly coastal activity, more likely to “work” within the harbors, behaved quite predictable, even in the open sea. Already on the tests, they were 50 miles in the Atlantic, 10 of them in a submerged position for a maximum of 7 base speed. A great achievement, considering the fact that some units of the first series are about, a miracle! exceed the design speed, the work of American designers and shipbuilders are considered to be very successful. (Remember the French boats, most of them are not dobiratsya half of the design speed characteristics.) The build quality is also not satisfactory: the number of accidents did not force engineers to give up. Even with such a primitive periscope and compass one of the boats went under water in a straight line for two hours, never podplyvaya for observation.
Surprisingly, the primitive “Cup” served in the us Navy for almost 20 years; they were sent to be scrapped only after the “great war”, in the period a total reduction of VMS almost all the major naval powers in the world. They have undergone several upgrades (starting almost from the time of entry into service) with the installation of a pair of more modern periscopes and advanced equipment, as well as change the shape of the superstructure and deckhouses. It should be noted that the original deck was very small, but armored! Its walls were covered with real plates with a thickness of 102 mm, as many contemporary cruisers. On the surface, on deck person simply nowhere to Nestle, so the cutting has attached a small light hanging bridge similar to roost.
Submarine No. 4, England, 1903
Firm was built by Vickers shipyard in barrow by an American license. Type of single-casing design. Displacement underwater/surface 113/122 T. Dimensions: length of 19.46 m, width 3.58 m, height 3,0 m. Material of hull: steel. Immersion depth up to 30 m. Engine: petrol engine capacity: 160 HP + electric motor producing 74 HP, speed, surface/ underwater design 8/7 knots testing of 8.5/7.2 m Armament: one 450-mm torpedo tubes in the nose (3 torpedoes). Crew: 8 persons In 1903 built 5 units (№№ 1 – 5). № 4 used in 1912 as the goal, raised and scrapped in the same year as No. 5. The rest scrapped in 1913
It must be noted that the new owners of the company did not hesitate to squeeze out of your luck maximum. Simple and small boats cost US 170 thousand dollars, of which, as estimated by the financial experts of the fleet, almost 100 thousand accounted for net profit! The reason is simple: at the time of Contracting none of the customers just could not imagine the cost of “underwater wonder” – combat unit a completely new class. And rice and frost is not going to do charity work. And partly it was justified: after all, in previous years, the firm of Holland built boats almost exclusively at their own expense, and the government did not compensate for the costs and forcing entrepreneurs deeper into debt. Now came the day of reckoning.
By the way, the new owners hollandsche legacy managed to attach even rejected by the domestic fleet, “Fulton”. Soon broke out the Russo-Japanese war and, in the end, “Fulton” joined Russian “underwater vehicles” in April 1904 the submarine in complete secrecy acquired the Marine Ministry of Russia. That summer, on a specially chartered transport (curiously, the British!) “Fulton” the acquisition was taken to Helsingfors where the railroad sent the “low speed” in the far East in a semi assembled form. Formally, the submarine, named “Som”, entered service in January, 1905, five months before the tragic Tsushima, but in a fight to use it and failed because of the lack of torpedoes. The fact that 450-mm torpedoes had to order in Germany known at the time the company “Schwarzkopf”, hardly probable not the main competitor of the British Whitehead”. When February 9, Vladivostok seemed Japanese ships, the authorities gave the order to leave the boat in the sea and to attack the enemy. Well, what about the absence of weapons was recalled and the order was canceled. In fact, “Som” was tested before the war ended, leaving several times in military campaigns from the Harbor of Vladivostok for a distance of as much as 120 miles. Great result, as we will see shortly in the monitoring of the first trips of the same boats at the main naval powers of the world.
Japanese “Holland”
Indeed, the American firm managed to finally secure his triumph, received an order from the “mistress of the seas”. For many years stolid watching “underwater fuss” British Admiralty sharply roused in the first months of the new century, after receiving information about the progress in this area, their main rivals in the oceans. In may 1900, the First Sea Lord Admiral Walter Kerr stated unequivocally: “the development of submarines can no longer be neglected, and we must catch him.” Then, he added: “the First thing we need project”. An apt remark. However, due to the complete disregard for their own developments in previous years, no suitable projects for the presence just wasn’t there. The only really fast solution became the purchase of “standing” from its own competitors. Those were only two: the United States and France. While European neighbors have probably reached a much more impressive success: even “Gustave Zede” in no way inferior to kolendowski submarines, at least on paper, not to mention to build “the Narwhal”, and in many respects the French boats are superior to overseas. However, from purely political considerations, procurement of project or license, or, God forbid, ready submarines from France found it quite impossible.
So, there were only Americans-submarines of the firm of rice and frost and “chariot” of the lake. The last British wisely rejected after comparison of design data. There is only one seller. Fortunately, the contractor himself longed for contract. Rice immediately went to England, where American capitalists has presented to the lords of the Admiralty the other, much more famous millionaire Rothschild. Not just for the love of entrepreneurial “colleague”: the financier had significant interests in the company “Vickers”, which he tried to promote (and pushed) as the main and only Builder.
Began intensive negotiations in an atmosphere of the highest secrecy. Step by step overseas entrepreneur was able to succeed. The British initially thought that with their definitely outstanding shipbuilding industry they themselves will be able to build submarines by buying just the drawings. However, rice has ensured that world-famous firm will operate under license, with American experts. His “team” were to participate in the trials. Pretty humiliating, but practical British soon realized that they do not “know all about the submarines,” as confidently stated official Royal Navy just a couple of months ago. Equally clearly were and financial conditions: “Vikkers” has pledged to pay half the profits derived from the construction of submarines of all and not just ordered the first five! However, British capitalists also not left out either: their own profit is about 70%. In General, they had a typical “layout”, “cut”; the boats came out truly “Golden”, about the same price as the us. The Admiralty had consoled by the fact that “the quality of construction was great, even the incomparable”. Yes, and “Vickers” (including its prominent shareholders “lobbyist” Rothschild and American Hiram Maxim) does not remain vnaklade. The fact that at the time some financial “hitch” in “electric boat” much more rich Vickers bought about a third of the shares. It turned out that the British firm was not content to just own profit, but had also its share from the Americans paid for the license amounts and profit from the construction of submarines in the United States. The scheme is quite typical for the “free capitalism”, both then and now. The us government woke up only closer to the beginning of the First world war and made the “electric boat” to redeem its shares from a foreign state.
But let us return to the boats. In the course of construction and later, when ready-made submarines, one after another began to get into a crash, there was a rumor that “finicky rebel” (of course, Holland) gave the “wrong” drawings, full of malicious errors! Utter nonsense: by the time Holland was no longer a designer, and drawings exactly correspond to those, which were built at the same time American “eddery”. Everything, from Irish nationalism Holland nothing left, but a long time he had fully appeared, the design pride in their products.
The General arrangement of podvodnoi submarines of type “Com” (formerly “Fulton”):
1, 8, 9 tanks with high pressure air; 2 – coredocumentimpl tank; 3 – compass; 4 – main ballast tank; 5 – bilge pump; 6 – the accumulator pit; 7 – fuel tank; 10 – torpedo tube; 11 – differentia tank; 12 – surge tank; 13, 18 – subsidiary tank; 14 – Kingston; 15 – gasoline engine Otto-Deutz; 16 – a collar; 17 – thrust bearing; 19 – propeller motor
Submarine “Sudak” (“Pike”), Russia
Built on Nevsky plant in St. Petersburg, with the installation of equipment of American manufacture. Type of single-casing design. Displacement underwater/surface t 110/120 Dimensions: length of 20.45 m, width 3.65 m, the recess 2.9 m hull Material: steel. Immersion depth up to 30 m. Engine: petrol engine capacity: 160 HP + electric motor 60 HP capacity, speed, surface/underwater design 8,5/6 ties. Armament: one 450-mm torpedo tubes in the nose (3 torpedoes). During the First world war is set to one 37-mm gun. Crew: 18 – 20 persons In 1906 1907. built 6 units (“Pike”, “Minnow”, “Sturgeon”, “sturgeon”, “Salmon” and “pike”). “Salmon” and “pike” are transported on the Black sea in 1907, and In 1918 removed from the fleet, occupied first by German troops, then by Anglo-French invaders. Flooded in April 1919 by the British, raised in 1932 “Salmon” served as a training mock-up, 1975 scrapped, “Sudak” suffered the same fate after recovery. The rest captured by the Germans in Reval (Tallinn) in 1918 and sent to Germany for cutting
The construction of British “Hollands” proceeded as fast as the American, and in order they came even earlier. The ocean does not hurry with acceptance, preferring to debug a fundamentally new combat units at the shipyards. And the British had fully SIP bitter water, slipped during the test all the way “underwater pioneer”. However, practical British introduced many useful things, for example, for the first time gave their boats to the mother ship – the torpedo-gunboat “Hazard”, even not too old.
After the entry into operation practical tests have become much more serious. So, in 1903, all five units have committed “a big campaign” from Portsmouth around the Wight. It is clear that submerged submarines could not do a “boat trip”, but on the surface they not waited for the triumph. Weak and unreliable gasoline engines of that time fully demonstrated his “nasty” character. Three boats were able to defeat just one mile(!), and of the remaining pair, only one was able to overcome the distance to the roadstead of Cowes. In General, a complete fiasco. But gradually underwater boats were drawn into service: the following year the naval maneuvers of the squadron Channel they counted four “hit” in the battleships of the enemy. However, the British sensibly considered the possibilities of the first series of his “secret Navy” and attributed all five for coastal defense of the main base in Portsmouth. So disciplined all the “Hollands” British bottling went for scrapping nine months before the outbreak of the First world war before the other submarines of this type among all the countries-owners.
And the latter meanwhile is growing rapidly. An example of the world’s leading naval powers, Britain and the United States, caused a surge of enthusiasm (and orders for “electric boat”) to other countries. The leaders followed by Russia and Japan, for which an additional stimulus was broke out in 1904, the Russo-Japanese war. Both sides immediately rushed into the firm of rice for boats. And both, in fact, of late, although the vendor worked up a sweat. Five Japanese “hedgerow” during 1904 have time to assemble in the U.S. in the shipyards of the company “Fore river”, to take apart and deliver them to Yokosuka in December. The action has stalled: on-site Assembly took another six months and submarines even formally possible only at the finish in may next year, after the battle of Tsushima. But really all five boats, without special claims received number designations 1 through 5, could begin only in late autumn, when the war has ended.
Not the best way things were in Russia. Although the Naval Ministry had to bless Nevsky Zavod in St. Petersburg to sign the contract even before the war, in September 1903, the real work began after the outbreak of hostilities. Unlike the Japanese, mastered only Assembly of the submarines with the help of American experts, the Russian version was much closer to the British. Nevsky shipyard has purchased a license for the right to build over 25 years of boat projects Holland, or rather the “electric boat”. In this case the first series were made in Russia alone, but the “stuffing” had to bring from the United States. Anyway, the war spurred the process: at the beginning of may, 1904, laid the five submarines will receive an already existing tradition of “fish” names. First begun operation “Pike”, but held it only in June 1905, and in Vladivostok she arrived (by rail, on the platform without disassembly) at the end of the year, after the end of hostilities. The rest of the unit entered service the next year, and databasenya advanced “perch” – in 1907. Them to the far East, where, after the defeat of the Russian fleet had only a small force, not even trying to send.
As a result, the use of submarines in the Russo-Japanese war did not take place.
Meanwhile, the command of the combined fleet gradually began to get nervous: exploration in six years of war has delivered more than 1000 messages about submarines, including over 80 – particularly on the Russian. The Japanese feared that the 2nd Pacific squadron will take on Board the accompanying transports, this is the most strange “secret weapon”. Last but not least such fears forced to spend on something else, “accompanying” campaign Z. P. Rozhdestvensky, one million yen – a very considerable sum. Especially after the tragedy near Port Arthur, may 15, 1905, when Russian mines blew up and sank two battleship – third of Japanese vehicles in this class. The sailors of the rising sun saw near the Russian submarines, on which several ships opened fire, and only one “Shikishima” spent 230 shells of medium caliber (76 152 mm). These assumptions (they were considered more than serious) forced to observe complete secrecy about the circumstances of the death of the ironclads, even for the most part the commanders of his fleet, until the end of the war. Last but not least it concerns the Russian submarines was due to the care with which the enemy were in force during the bombardment of Vladivostok.
The submarine “Salmon”, Sebastopol, 1912
However, the Russian side is not far behind in a fight with an invisible (in the literal sense of the word) opponent. Many sailors who participated in the battle of Tsushima, saw submarines as the captain of 1 rank Dobrotvorskaya in his memoirs, pointed to the enemy’s submarines, “drown” our armadillos as one of the main reasons for the defeat.
What, to the “latecomers” of submarines, Japanese and Russian “eddery” very slightly different from the prototype. Our “pike” from the very beginning had periscopes and increased felling of the modified form of modifications made to overseas prototypes only after the commissioning. The sailors of the rising sun wanted to get greater depth of immersion, which few of them received additional bronze plates-“hoops” on the case. And yet the “passport” depth was limited to the 38th meters. More “Japanese women” were armed with the most advanced torpedoes of the sample of 1905. Like the British, the Japanese at the time of entry of boats into operation equipped them mother ships, with just two units. Paid much attention to the video and create a rescue service, having bought in Italy and Sweden the most modern vessels of this assignment. As we shall see later, not in vain.
For serious players in the oceans in pursuit of submarines tried to follow and less ambitious Maritime power. The negotiations have been conducted with many European countries; from the purchase of finished boats or licenses for their construction and some potential buyers were scared off mostly the high price. “Sdyuzhil” only the Netherlands, laying at the shipyard “De Schelde” in the summer of 1904 his “Holland”. The building was, of course, not too fast, but for a small country with a complete lack of experience in the field of underwater shipbuilding and two years before the entry into operation can be considered a good result. In fact, “shipbuilding giants” spent about the same time. Dutch “adder” received the designation “O. 1” from the spelling of the word “submarine” on the Dutch Onderzeeboot for number 1. Thus, the total number built under this project submarines reached 25 pieces. Initially, five units of the same type were planned with Brazil, but an extensive program for the creation of a powerful fleet in the largest South American power burst for financial reasons. The same fate befell the Portuguese and the planned order. Later, both countries still “bought” submarines, but the new supplier – Italy. Bypassed the American “concessionaires” and Sweden. Her government sent engineer Charles Rickson in the United States is still under construction there “hedgerow”. Representative neutral and seems to be no pretending the country is not considered a competitor. But in vain: it is enough to recall the previous Swedish-American exercises with the participation of Nordenfeld. And Rickson was taken home is not a pricey license, and in his own mind and outline the most know-how. This allowed him to lay in 1902 as his own boat. As a result, “Chien”, of course, much like “eddery”, but no punitive sanctions from the side of seasoned rice and his advisers followed.
In fact, purchase multi-year licenses for the products of “electric boat” Russia and Britain proved to be quite a few useful. Own designers and design appeared virtually in all countries. So the brainchild of Holland actually became the “public domain”, although the data and designs for submarines produced in the countries-holders of licences remained secret almost until the outbreak of the First world war.
But the inventor himself was in the network of rights-holders and capital is entangled in them. After the final break with the “electric boat” in March 1904 Holland organized a new firm. He began with attempts to create a new boat of his own project that would be a higher surface speed. But almost all of his patents were already in the hands of former companions (and later employers), and an old “Irish rebel” is not even dare to sue them for the restoration of their rights. So could not build submarines, at least in the US, and therefore, to obtain an order from the Naval Ministry. I had to sell the project to the warring Japan. There in a state factory in Kobe in 1905 and 1906 and was built to last true hollandskiy of the submarine, received the number 6 and 7. They generally repeat the common features of the prototype “Fulton”, but was considerably smaller: surface displacement was 57 MT, and 78 MT, and submerged 63 t and 95 t, respectively.
Having heard about the negotiations, his former companions started a real war against the inventor and forced him to participate in a legal “dispute” that required money and connections. Holland failed to bring to his new firm new powerful financiers or lobbyists. “Irish rebel” had finally to retire.
At the end of life he himself refused even to give advice on the underwater case, sending those wishing to… to Washington politicians, “who will tell you that I know nothing about this subject”. The founder of serial submarines quietly died, forgotten by press and public, on the threshold of the great war in August 1914.
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We left a tireless worker submarine building John Holland at the end of the XX century, at the time of his career, when the impression that finally his long labors were crowned with success. Indeed, he created the submarine, named with his own name, finally became part of the United States Navy. On the stocks of the company, also bearing the name “Holland”, built next boat, the ninth, in which was made additional improvements. It showed the interest of Maritime agents of some foreign powers when the mounted body only. It seemed that one more step and the production designer will be able to break the “operating room”.