Rurik's War

[SunScream]

Taken from a single two hour night action in my DG Russian campaign, dramatized and with a little poetic licence added. The major events are pretty much as they happened. I hope you enjoy it. Any factual, process and grammatical errors are mine alone, and I would like to apologise now to the real Lieutenant Ivanov of the real life Rurik, who is probably revolving in his grave.
__________________________________________________ _____

Night Action.

Rurik glided quietly through the late february night, only the faint rumble of her triple-expansion engines churning deep inside the ship audible above the sea.

The huge armoured cruiser was well known around the world, having caused a scare when her construction was announced, as she was to have been the fastest, best protected and armed commerce raider ever built. However it took five long years between laying down the keel and entering service and she had a hint of obsolecence when she was commissioned in May 1895, which was not helped by her prominent sailing rig. Rurik actually exceeded her designed speed and could do nearly nineteen knots on a calm sea, but was nowhere near as fast as had been feared. She was also a long, narrow vessel and was not manoeuvrable. At nearly twelve thousand tons she was almost a thousand tons over her designed weight. She had less than half the range originally planned and her boilers were not a modern design either. She was, however, heavily armed and protected by Creusot armour a maximum of ten inches thick, and also designed to carry two torpedo boats to further her abilties as a commerce raider.

Lieutenant Ivanov leaned on the port wing rail looking at the faint phosphorescence the ship was creating as she moved through the slight sea. It was not at all warm, but he was bundled up against any weather, and besides, it was peaceful as the sea was calm. The ship was in a state of low alert, guns partially manned and watertight doors closed, although not dogged shut as it caused too much inconvenience.
"Ship dead ahead!"
Ivanov bounded towards the starboard lookout, who had spotted something.
The cry from the lookout also galvanized the crew into action. There were cries of "Action stations!" Whistles blew, feet pounded across the deck, doors slammed shut, fire hoses were laid on deck, water running from them, and guns trained around to point ahead. Shells were rammed into breeches as gunlayers strained to spot their target in the dark.
"Where is he?", Ivanov asked the lookout, who pointed into the night.
"There, sir. I think it is a ship."
Ivanov peered through his binoculars. Was there something? There! A smudge in the darkness and the same, faint phosphorescence he had watched his own ship making. His concentration was broken by voice of the Captain by his side.
"What do you see, Mr. Ivanov?"
"A small ship, sir. Moving much slower than us."
"Hopefully a merchant", said the Captain, raising his binoculars.
His hopes were immediately dashed as there was a bright red flash from the other ship and a shell tore past a few seconds later. It struck the sea astern and threw up a waterspout that was a good hundred feet high, possibly higher.
"Six inch", said the Captain. "I am going into the conning tower. Come with me."

By the time they had arrived in the protection of the conning tower, the engine beat had increased and the vibration was making loose fittings rattle. The telegraph was Full Ahead and the speed was already approaching eighteen knots.
The enemy six inch fired again, but from the confines of the tower no-one saw where the shell fell.
"Can any gunners see the target?", asked the Captain. The starboard forward eight inch gun captain reported he could.
"Shoot", said the Captain. A moment later there was a huge flash and thunderous bang. Stinking cordite smoke poured in through the vision slits, to be whipped away by the wind of the ship's passage. A tall white column arose from the sea in the gloom ahead. The eight inch crew began the back breaking task of loading another shell into the breech.
Rurik was eating up the distance between the two ships now. Armed or not, the enemy was still travelling no faster than a merchant, and Rurik had eight knots extra speed. The enemy fired again, but did not score. Neither did the eight inch with it's second shot. Then the moon appeared from behind the clouds, bathing the two combattants in light. Rurik loomed tall and long, smoke belching from her funnels. Her target was short and squat, single funneled. From what Ivanov could make out, she only had one gun that could bear. One of the officers was riffling furiously through a ship identification book.
"No need for that", said the Captain, "I recognise him, he is Ping Yuen, a Chinese ship the Japanese captured at Wei-Hai-Wei."
"Two thousand five hundred tons, ten and a half knots, nine point four inch steel armour, one ten point two inch twenty-two calibre forward, two five point nine inch quick firers, one each side", said the officer with the identification book. "One bow tube, one stern tube, one trainable tube either side, all eighteen inch. The Japanese call him Hei Yen."
"We need to unmask the six inch battery", said the Captain, "Port ten rudder."
"Port ten rudder, aye", the helmsman wound the wheel round. "Ten degrees port rudder on, sir."
Nothing much happened at first, then very slowly the bow began to swing to port. Rurik's turning circle was not its best feature.
"Tell the guns to fire as they bear", said the Captain.
"Target is turning to starboard, sir", Ivanov said, eyes glued on the enemy.
"Midships."
"Helm midships, sir."
Rurik's turn slowed as the helmsman expertly straightened the ship on the new course, although she crabbed sideways until her inertia was overcome.
There was a flurry of activity around the guns on the deck and then the six inch battery and the aft eight inch erupted gouts of flame and smoke. The ship shook and glowing shells shot into the dark, descending on Hei Yen. The little cruiser sailed unharmed through a wall of shell splashes. A lone five-point-nine barked in defiance and the single shell struck forward with a crash. A thin stream of smoke poured over the deck edge from below. It gradually faded away.
"They'll pay for that", said the Captain, grimly. The six inch battery fired again. Five shell splashes. No sign of where the sixth went.
Something caught Ivanov's eye. A strange streak in the water, it looked almost unnatural...
"Torpedo! Torpedo starboard side!" The cry was not just Ivanov's, it was a chorus of lookouts and other crewmen who had spotted the danger.
"Port twenty", the Captain ordered. The helmsman flung the wheel round.
"Twenty degrees port rudder on, sir!"
Slowly, too slowly, the ship began to swing. The torpedo approached rapidly. Eventually it vanished from Ivanov's view as it neared the ship's side. The gun crews were running back from their guns, away from the deck edge. The ship leaped violently as the torpedo hit and exploded. Water shot up and cascaded across the deck before running out of the scuppers. Braced against the tower side Ivanov was unhurt, but some of the gun crews had been knocked off their feet. There was a mad scramble to get back to the guns, although some sailors appeared to be looking over the side to see if the ship was sinking. Rurik quickly developed a distinct starboard list.
"Mr.Ivanov, go and see what the damage is. Coordinate the damage control parties if necessary", the Captain said, after cancelling the turn.

[SunScream]

Ivanov went out on deck just as the guns fired again. He was immediately surrounded by acrid cordite smoke that made his passage along the deck difficult. Even when the smoke cleared it was not much better, areas of moonlight and pitch black shadow made the journey treacherous. There are a lot of strange projections and cables waiting to trip you up on the tidiest ship's deck. A shell moaned overhead, lost in the smoke and dark. There was the rumble of a shell splash shortly afterwards. As Ivanov reached the area around where the torpedo had hit he could hear shouted orders coming up through the ventilators, as well as the sound of rushing water. These were all drowned out as the broadside guns fired again. This time however there was cheering from the gunners as a hits were scored. Ivanov saw two distinct red winks on the enemy hull as the shells speared into the interior and exploded. The gun crews carefully reloaded, taking far longer than during their gun drill. Any experienced gun crew knew that rushing the process was inviting accidents and injury, especially when under fire and on an actively moving ship. It could take twice as long as during drill, where loading speed was the only criterion of success. It could also be counter-productive, using up limited ready use ammunition faster than it could be replenished from the magazines.
Ivanov reached the deck hatch he needed and went below. The electrics were acting up and the lights were either out or flickering. Behind him the gun battery crashed out again.
Feeling his way along a dimly lit passageway past the purser's office, Ivanov came to a hatch coaming in the armoured deck. He hammered on it and was answered by a series of knocks from below. The hatch dogs started to undo as the man below released them. The door popped as the last dog came off, the hatch opened and a questioning face peered up at the lieutenant.
"I'm coming down", said Ivanov.
Once the hatch was safely shut behind him, he made his way along to the fore boiler room. The torpedo had struck just about amidships, between the funnels. Hopefully it had not distorted the bulkhead dividing the two boiler rooms, or any flooding could be a serious danger. Arriving at the airlock, Ivanov hammered on the door. It was immediately opened by the sailor stationed there, who stepped back to let Ivanov in. Outer door shut and inner door open, ears popping with the change in air pressure, Ivanov surveyed the cramped boiler room with it's twists and turns of heavily lagged piping, roaring boilers and frantic activity.
There was no sign of damage. Everything was operating almost normally, just a few crewmen nursing bruises and a rather shocked looking trimmer being helped out of a bunker space.
Back out again, through the airlock, and off to the aft boiler room. Undog a bulkhead door, the same bulkhead that separated the two boiler rooms, reseal the door after passing through. Through the aft boiler room airlock and a different scene. Stokers, ankle deep in water, shovelled coal into the boilers, trimmers moving coal from the bunkers to where the stokers could reach it. Everything was filthy with coal dust. In between this normal work was a crew bracing baulks of timber in position to take the strain on the ruptured starboard coal bunker. The bunker doors were already wound shut, but water squirted around strained seams. A portable pump was being manhandled into position to assist draining the compartment. Non return valves had been opened and small whirlpools had formed over the drains.
Ivanov weaved his way through pipework and stokers to the repair crew. The midshipman in charge saluted.
"We are about done here, sir," he yelled above the scream of air and scraping of shovels. "A few more minutes and we will be about as dry as we can get. We just need to brace that bunker door."
"Is everyone safe?"
The midshipman hesitated. He looked very young and lost for a moment.
"There were four trimmers working in the bunker space, sir."
Buried in coal, drowned or blown apart by the torpedo.
"You are doing a good job. Keep at it!"
"Aye aye, sir! You and you! Get that beam and place it against that door."
The midshipman busied himself at the task in hand. Ivanov waded back through freezing water and roasting air to the airlock ladder amongst stokers who were working like automatons, eyes only for the coal and the hungry maw of their boiler.
Water started to stream from starboard to port. Rurik was turning.
Above, the guns crashed out almost rhythmically, every thirty seconds or so for the four-point-sevens and six inch, interspersed with the slower firing, louder eight inch guns.
The ladder was easier to climb this time. The pumps and repairs were doing their job, getting water out of the ship, bringing Rurik upright.
Out through the airlock and heading back up to the weather deck, Ivanov heard the port guns fire for the first time. There was less smoke this time. The wind was blowing it away from the ship, not across the decks as before. In the distance was Hei Yen. Closer than before and easily identfiable even though the moon had been partially obscured by cloud.
Hei Yen was on fire. Flames gouted and streamed from holes blasted in her structure and scuttles glowed with fires behind them, which illuminated thick clouds of smoke from below. Hei Yen was still stern-on, desperately trying to elude her attacker. Surely, Ivanov thought, he must know he is doomed. Why did he not at least bring the big gun to bear? Unless fire had already disabled it.
Rurik fired again and again. Red flashes indicated hits, tall columns of water misses. The single five-point-nine that could bear was still gamely plugging away. A shot hit Rurik close to where Ivanov stood with a bang. Splinters rattled and pinged. Ivanov headed back to the safety of the conning tower to report. He passed where the shell had hit. Flames licked out of what minimal superstructure Rurik had, but a gang of sailors were already manhandling a hose towards the fire. Ivanov paused to observe them as they aimed at the fire and turned the nozzle handle so the water running from the hose became a jet. The fire was rapidly quenched, but they continued to pour water over the area to make sure it would not restart. Satisfied that the peasant sailors, who had probably never even seen the sea until a few months ago, knew what they were doing, Ivanov picked his way forward. He only stumbled once, on a fire hose that managed to soak his trousers with freezing sea water as he tripped on it. Muttering under his breath and disentangling himself in the blackness, he almost missed what was happening. There was shouting, the ship was heeling as she turned away from the enemy, the guns fired once more and the gun crews, instead of reloading, abandoned their guns and threw themselves on the deck. There was a brief moment of silence then a shattering roar. The deck heaved. Ivanov was effectively bounced back onto his feet, just in time to be deluged in sea water again.
Another torpedo!

Below him there was a rumbling noise. High pressure steam shrieked from one of the steam pipes running up the funnels. He was aware that the deck was tilting, the funnel above him swinging over his head. Stays hummed with the strain. Rurik was not coming upright. She was still turning, heeling away from the turn. That was why. He grabbed a man from one of the light gun crews.
"Go to the conning tower. Tell the captain that Lieutenant Ivanov reports little permanent damage from the first torpedo hit, and is investigating the second."
The gunner looked startled then apprehensive about talking to the hallowed captain, but Ivanov gave him a shove, "Go!"
As the man went forward Ivanov headed down the ladder again, hoping that he would not be met by a wall of water coming the other way.

[SunScream]

The armoured hatch had blown open when the last dog had been knocked off - the pressure below was considerably higher than above. It had slammed back against the stops and had to be fought shut again. Once below Ivanov heard hammering and scraping, splashing and shouts. There was also a faint tang of picric acid. Moving down and aft, he found himself in a scene of pandemonium, water everywhere, men manhandling timbers and hammering softwood plugs into small holes, some of which spurted yet more water. A dishevelled lieutenant controlled the chaos, ordered a door shut, directed a man to open a valve, supervised the construction of an intricate frame of timbers that were shoring up the bulkhead and holding the sea back. Ivanov assisted himself, grabbing a timber prop and throwing his weight against it, ramming the prop against the bulkhead. This gave another man the ability to hammer home a wedge elsewhere, and so a split bulkhead seam was closed just that little bit more. By the time the pumps started gaining on the water it was nearly up to their necks and some of the work had to be done by diving under the surface. The damage control lieutenant ordered everyone out of the compartment and dogged the door shut behind him. All slumped on the floor, exhausted, shivering.
"Two compartments flooded", gasped the lieutenant, "but the pumps should hold it if they don't get clogged."
Ivanov remembered his mission and struggled to his feet.
"I have to check the boiler rooms. Good luck."
He headed aft, weaving slightly, dripping water in profusion. The engineering officer had more bad news.
"We had three boilers go out when the torpedo hit, and nine men hurt, burns mostly. Numbers two and three boilers just had their fire go out. Number four had a number of tubes fail, it blew live steam out the firehole and scalded it's stoking team. I have had it shut down. I will get two and three back in action but I can't tell the condition of four until I can inspect it inside. At least number one seem fine. The aft boiler room partially flooded again, but the boilers are still alight. The repair team are finishing off the repair work, so we can pump dry again soon. I have done some counterflooding to maintain our trim, but I can't do much more without affecting our stability."

Finally Ivanov reached the upper deck. As he did so he realised that the guns were silent. He looked about for the Hei Yen but could not find any sign of her. He went over to a four-point-seven gun crew who were warming their hands on the barrel of their gun.
"The enemy, did he sink or escape?" asked Ivanov.
"No, sir, if you look between the funnels you can just make out his fires in the distance. He is hard to spot because the smoke is blowing towards us."
The Hei Yen was back on the starboard side. The faint flicker of fires showed Rurik had mauled her just as badly as she had hurt Rurik.
Ivanov went forward, trying to stay upright on the canted deck. The cold night air chilled him through his soaking clothes but the wind did not cut as sharply as before. Rurik was going nowhere near eighteen knots now. It made little difference to the frozen Ivanov anyway - he wondered whether he would ever be warm again.

The conning tower repeaters showed Rurik doing nine knots, course south-south-east. The engine room telegraph was still at Full Ahead, but the damage and chaos below had made any greater speed impossible. The gentle motion in the calm seas did not mask the ship was listing to port.
Ivanov made his report.
The Captain looked faintly relieved. The small torpedoes had not caused the instant doom of the ship as had been expected, indeed, Rurik's fighting capability had barely been reduced at all.
"We will stand off and let the repair crews do their work. Then we will defeat this menace. Let the gun crews get some warm food in their bellies." He smiled fleetingly at Ivanov. "You too, Mr. Ivanov. Get some dry clothes on. Your shivering is making the deck plates rattle."

In the cramped cabin he called home, Ivanov struggled into a fresh uniform and greatcoat. The list was decreasing slowly and he no longer felt like the desk was about to slide across the cabin. His mirror had cracked, and the fractured glass reflected wild eyes and a ragged, wind blown beard. The engine vibrations picked up, making his toiletries rattle in their glass and the electric lighting flickered briefly and then became considerably brighter. Ivanov quickly checked the scuttle deadlight was secure. As he left his cabin he spotted a small brown shape creeping along the passageway. A good sign, he thought, the rats are not leaving yet. His journey through the ship was interrupted by the chief engineer.
"Ah, Ivanov, please be so good as to inform the captain we have all but number four boiler back in action and the pumps and shoring have stopped the flooding."
"That was quick."
"Yes, barely an hour."
Had it been that long since the last torpedo?
"We should be good for about fourteen knots now, but it would be nice if we could avoid being torpedoed again."
Both grinned, and the chief engineer went back below. The armoured hatch was pulled shut against the counterweight and the dogs were knocked into the latched position.

Yet again, Ivanov worked his way forward in the dark to the conning tower, past guns with just skeleton crews as the remainder attempted to get warmed up below. The moon and any stars were now completely hidden by cloud and even with night vision it was hard to see anything. The Captain was not in the tower, and Ivanov climbed the ladder to the charthouse. With the glass removed the wind streamed through the minimalist structure which was bare of fittings other than the chart table, binnacle, repeaters and voice pipes. Indicators read Half Ahead and the speed ten knots. The Captain was out on the starboard wing, peering at the Hei Yen through binoculars.
"Mr. Ivanov. Are you comfortable now?"
"Yes, sir. I have spoken to the Chief Engineer. The flooding is under control and we should be able to make fourteen knots. One boiler is still out of action."
"Excellent. It is time to finish the enemy off. He is making nearly seven knots and there is a serious fire aft. I feel it is now our turn to try our luck with torpedoes."
The Captain moved to the ladder to the conning tower. "Go aft and rouse out the gunners, then get to the torpedo station and let them know they will be needed soon."

Battle, Ivanov reflected, seems to consist of fumbling your way backward and forward over the weather deck in the dark, while being deafened by your own guns and soaked in freezing water by the enemy, all the while breathing smoke. At least at the moment he was dry, and although the Rurik was approaching the enemy there was no firing. He had ordered the gunners back to their weapons (they had gone cheerfully enough) and had warned the torpedo station about their coming attack. Now he was as far aft as he had been all night. He passed the aftmost gun in the starboard battery, the eight inch, and went to inspect the lifeboat a gunner had reported damaged. His feet scattered pieces of wood as he approached. The whaler had been shattered in two, both halves still attached to the davits and hanging down enmeshed in wire and jacob's ladder. The remains of the boat squeaked and chirped as they rubbed against the davit's griping beam.
Nothing I can do about that now, thought Ivanov, It can wait until daylight and we can see what we are doing.
He started to navigate forward again, guided by the faint glow issuing from the engineroom skylights. The aft starboard gun crew crouched expectantly around their giant gun, the gunlayer making slight corrections as he tracked the Hei Yen.
Hei Yen was still trying to flee. As the range fell more and more detail could be made out. A fire burning in the superstructure, holes in the funnel, a mast smashed but still upright, the muzzle of the port five-point-nine pointing skyward, abandoned. Fifteen hundred yards. The relative sizes of the ships were now apparent. Hei Yen was a minnow, Rurik a pike. You could now see Rurik clearly in the light from the her opponent, smashed boat aft, a few holes forward. One thousand yards. A clanging of a gong and the gun crew stepped back.
"Clear!" The eight inch roared in unison with the other guns. Hei Yen reeled under a number of hits and was buried in a wall of shell splashes. The eight inch crew began reloading. Ivanov then saw a torpedo spear into the water from the torpedo station. It looked like it would miss Hei Yen ahead, but the little ship was inevitably moving into the torpedo's path. The six inch guns fired again, smoke and flame, water and explosions. When the smoke had cleared Hei Yen could be clearly seen turning to starboard, trying to evade the torpedo. It very nearly made it, but the torpedo had been perfectly timed and the angle had been just right. A column of water shot up right aft with a thump clearly audible across the gap. Hei Yen's speed fell off even more and her avoidance turn gradually reduced until she was running straight. Rurik was coming up along side, range six hundred yards, firing her guns continually. More fires erupted on board Hei Yen. The funnel collapsed. The five-point-nine vanished behind a wall of flame. The bridge structure disintegrated. The already shattered mast went over the side. Wood, metal and bodies were blasted into the water. The big gun remained pointing fore-and-aft. It never fired or attempted to move.

Then Hei Yen fired torpedoes. Two of them.

Ivanov stood paralysed. The gun crew reloading the eight inch faltered.
Someone said, "We're dead."
Ahead, illuminated by the inferno alongside, the gun crews were abandoning their positions. A four-point-seven shell rolled over the deck edge and into the water as Rurik began to heel into a port turn; a token gesture only, the torpedoes couldn't miss. One of the torpedoes seemed to be aiming right for where Ivanov was standing. He watched it, mesmerised, until he felt a hard tug on his sleeve.
"Sir! Get back, please, sir!"
This broke the spell, and Ivanov and the sailor scrambled for safety. When they were half way across the quarterdeck the torpedoes struck. Rurik seemed to snap like a whip, the deck dropped away beneath their feet then came back like the world's biggest hammer. Ivanov's legs buckled and he sat down hard, the sailor went flying, all around others were falling. The engine room skylights vanished in a cloud of glass fragments and there was a series of bangs from above as wire ropes parted. There was an immense roar behind him, he saw a ventilator topple off the superstructure and then something struck him hard on the back and knocked him flat.


"Good afternoon, Lieutenant. How are you feeling?", asked the doctor. Ivanov was propped up in bed. A cold light streamed through the cabin scuttle.
"I ache, Doctor. My ankles..."
"Just sprained. You will be on your feet in a few days." The doctor handed Ivanov some small white pills. "Aspirin. Courtesy of our German friends. They will take the edge off the aches and pains."
"Doctor, can you tell me what happened after the torpedoes hit?"
"Torpedo. One did not go off, apparently. The forward boiler room flooded and had to be abandoned. Eleven killed and forty-three injured, including yourself, and six missing. Now we are heading back to Vladivostock, very slowly, following the coastline."
"And the Hei Yen, Doctor?"
"Ah, I was busy down here, practising my sewing", said the doctor, "However as far as I know, after the last torpedo hit we left him to his own devices and withdrew."
So, could all that have been for nothing? wondered Ivanov.
There was a thump on the door. The Chief Engineer peered into the cabin and grinned.
"Ivanov!" He waved a bottle. "I bring vodka! Will you join us, Doctor?"
"Thank you, no. I will be off on my rounds. Be sure to take your aspirin, Lieutenant."
"Yes, Doctor."
After the doctor left, the Chief Engineer filled two glasses with the clear spirit and handed one to Ivanov.
"Thank you for your help during the battle. I heard you did some good work in shoring up the bulkhead after the second torpedo hit. But you must learn to duck when bits of rigging are swinging about in the breeze."
"Is that what hit me?"
The Chief Engineer nodded. "Part of a spar with attached blocks. I was surprised to hear you were not killed."
"No wonder I ache."
"Take your tablets", the Chief waved his glass about, "and don't forget the vodka!"
They downed their drinks. The Chief put the bottle on the table and moved to leave.
"Get better quickly", he said, "I need a good man to help me pump out the forward boiler room." He paused at the door. "Oh, and next time I advise the Captain that it would be a good idea not to get torpedoed, please could you actually pass the message on?"
He winked, and was gone before Ivanov could reply.

[Bullethead]

Damn, the excellence of the writing, with all the RJW ship details thrown in, really puts you THERE! Who needs screenshots and track charts? A good sea story more than compensates for you letting Rurik get torpedoed :clown:

BTW, I'm sure the real Lt. Ivanov, who I suppose went down with his ship in real life, is probably glad to be remembered at all. I drink to his shade :drink:

[SunScream]

Thank you for the nice reply :) I don't think I'm Patrick O'Brian yet...

I was getting really tired of the writing by the end, so I apologise for the cliched "everything went black and he woke up in hospital" ending. I was going to write about the efforts to save a flooding engine room, but decided to swap the torpedoes around so that the one that didn't go off was the one aft, not forward, and KO Ivanov, which saved me a lot of effort ;)

I deliberately left other characters unnamed due to minimal research into the area. If I find out any names later I may plug them in. In Anthony Preston's "The Worlds Worst Warships" Ivanov is mentioned as the senior surviving officer at Ulsan, who organised the orderly evacuation of the "clearly doomed" ship, including securing the wounded to life rafts and opening the Kingston valves to scuttle the ship after her four and a half hour fight.
I'm still pretty wary of "You didn't sink us, we scuttled the ship" revelations, but Rurik's eventual demise was clearly too carefully orchestrated to dismiss this possibility. Final personnel figures were 625 rescued (including 230 wounded), and approximately 170 lost. I like to think Ivanov survived the war and later had many free dinners in exchange for recounting his experiences :D

[Bullethead]

In Anthony Preston's "The Worlds Worst Warships" Ivanov is mentioned as the senior surviving officer at Ulsan, who organised the orderly evacuation of the "clearly doomed" ship,

Good for him :). My hope for him is that he got well away from Russia before he ended up against a wall somewhere like so many other Imperial officers a few years later.

Just out of curiousity, why did Prestion consider Rurik one of the worst warships ever? If in real life, the ship got pounded for 1/2 a day before sinking in frigid water with no friendlies around, and still only took about 20% casualties, it must have been pretty good in some respects at least :). Sure, Rurik wasn't up to expectations, but very few ships are.

My list of "worst-ever" warships is pretty much exclusively those that had some extremely bad design faults, so that they either sank by themselves or died much easier than expected in combat. IOW, things like Henry #8's Mary Rose, the ironclad HMS Captain, the WW2 "Liberty" ships that often just broke in half, etc. Maybe SMS Blucher, due to her fatally vulnerable ammo supply system. And of course many of the inter-war IJN ships as originally built, extremely unstable and/or structurally weak, requiring huge amounts of rework to make them effective.

[Zakalwe]

Great writing! THX!

Z.

[SunScream]

Preston's selection does make for some head scratching at times.
While he has logical inclusions such as HMS Captain, Russian Popov coastal defense ships, HMS Furious, IJN Mogami and Russian Alfa attack subs, he also includes less obvious candidates such as Hood, Bismarck and Yamoto.

The primary reason Rurik is included seems to be due to her not achieving the wildly exaggerated claims that were published in journals and newspapers regarding her protection, firepower, speed and endurance.
When completed her range was not the quoted 20,000NM but 6,500NM, speed not 21kts+ but 18.7 (still greater than her actual designed speed). Guns were unprotected and all on the broadside, so end on fire was weak. Due to wrangling at the design bureau the Belleville water tube boilers were never fitted and an old style and fuel inefficient cylindrical type were used instead. To cap it all that anachronistic sailing rig made her look old fashioned. If she had been built in a couple of years and entered service in 1891-2 then she could have been the terror of the seas, but by 1895 the British had nearly completed their "Rurik answers", the cruisers Powerful and Terrible (which also appear in the book) and Rurik would not have been able to defeat them, nor run away, especially in her true guise.

Preston also includes a Conclusion section for each ship, and notes that a lot of these "worst" ships could only be called so in specific areas. He points out that Rurik's protection certainly seemed capable of withstanding most of what was thrown at it, and describes Iessen's repeated attempts to rescue her from the clutches of the Japanese before abandoning her to her fate.

[Bullethead]

While he has logical inclusions such as HMS Captain, Russian Popov coastal defense ships, HMS Furious, IJN Mogami and Russian Alfa attack subs, he also includes less obvious candidates such as Hood, Bismarck and Yamoto.

Hmm, that is a strange list. I always figured the circular Russian ships would have worked perfectly well in their intended role, basically being anchored under the guns of a major fortress. I suppose he included Hood, Bismarck, and Yamato for the same reason as Furious: simply for being in hindsight unnecessary expenses of very little practical value to their owners, rather than being utterly bad ships from a design standpoint. Of course, you could include Renown, Repulse, Alaska, IOW just about any BB or BC laid down after 1930 for the same reason, which doesn't seem to make this a good criterion for selection.

The primary reason Rurik is included seems to be due to her not achieving the wildly exaggerated claims that were published in journals and newspapers regarding her protection, firepower, speed and endurance.

I suppose that the validity of this criticism depends on who was making the exaggerated claims. If this was deliberate deception by the Russian navy to influence foreign opinion, then it seems to have been successful, making Rurik a good ship :). OTOH, if they were made by her designers and taken seriously by the Russians during the pre-construction phase, then I'd have to salute the designers for pulling off such a successful swindle :D.

When completed her range was not the quoted 20,000NM but 6,500NM, speed not 21kts+ but 18.7 (still greater than her actual designed speed).

With a sailing rig, her endurance was effectively unlimited, which is why cruisers, not to mention their targets, retained sails for so long. But to claim all this for a steam plant of that day was absurd. I don't see how anybody back then with knowledge of the art could have taken it seriously.

It's kinda like DG's infamous DD Lt. Burakov. Her stats in DG are the propoganda figures, which nobody in the RN believed at the time, based on what they knew was possible with their own state-of-the-art DDs, although the uninformed naval press swallowed it and caused much agitation for Brit DDs of similar speed. But in fact when the RN got their hands on Lt. Burakov's sister (captured at the same place and time), they found her capable of speeds only in the low- to mid-20s.

If she had been built in a couple of years and entered service in 1891-2 then she could have been the terror of the seas, but by 1895 the British had nearly completed their "Rurik answers", the cruisers Powerful and Terrible (which also appear in the book) and Rurik would not have been able to defeat them, nor run away, especially in her true guise.

It's good that Powerful and Terrible are in the book :). They were definitely bad investments of very limited utility. However, the fact that the Russians conned the Brits into building them thanks to scarsely credible propoganda about Rurik tends to make Rurik appear rather successful :).

[SunScream]

Kicking myself at the moment (ouch) because rereading the narrative I have spotted (ouch) that I have made an error.

The captain is giving the helmsman reversed helm instructions.
In this period helm orders were given relating to the tiller position, not the rudder, and the tiller swings in the opposite direction to the rudder, so "Port twenty" would turn the ship to starboard.
The captain's first order, "Port ten rudder" is unlikely to be used as it would be confusing to the helmsman who would be expecting instructions based on tiller position.
It was post-WW1 that steering by rudder position became the norm.

Trouble is I can't edit it now.
Ho hum. At least I have the .txt copy amended.

[Bullethead]

It was post-WW1 that steering by rudder position became the norm.

Back in the early 80s I stood a few watches as helmsman of a USN destroyer. The way it worked then was as follows:

Out in the open sea, helm orders from the OD were always given as courses to follow. We didn't use points, we used degrees. The helmsman spent most of his time looking down at the compass and making constant little corrections to stay on course.

During normal navigation, when the OD wanted to turn, he's say to come left or right to the new course. The direction specified was the direction of the turn and didn't mention the wheel, tiller, or rudder, although of course the turn, wheel, and rudder directions were the same. By specifying the direction of the turn, the OD had the choice to go the shorter angle or make most of a circle (usually only done about 0200 when everybody was very bored). The helmsman, after repeating the instruction to make sure he had it right, would then turn the wheel in the direction indicated and eventually steady the ship on the new course.

The OD could also specify the amount of rudder to use, which determined the radius of the turn and the rate of the turn in degrees/second. Under normal conditions, he wouldn't specify this, however. We used 3 amounts of rudder: 5^ standard, 10^ full, and 15^ hard. The helmsman had a rudder indicator to help him achieve these settings. The default if the OD didn't specify otherwise was standard rudder. Hard was normally used only in emergencies when you needed to turn RIGHT NOW to avoid something unexpected. This was because if you spun the wheel fast over to the hard position, you could jam the rudder. While this wasn't a risk if you did it slowly, the ship would still heel over and skid under hard rudder, which could get people hurt if they weren't expecting it.

[rgreat]

Excellent read.