Pamyat' Merkuria | |
History | |
---|---|
Russian Empire | |
Name | Pamiat' Merkuria |
Namesake | Brig Mercury |
Builder | Admiralty Wharf, Nikolayev, Russian Empire |
Laid down | 23 August 1901 |
Launched | 20 May 1902 |
Commissioned | 1905 |
Fate | Ship's crew pledged its allegiance to the Ukrainian People's Republic |
Ukrainian People's Republic | |
Name |
|
Acquired | 12 November 1917 |
Fate | Integrated into the Soviet Navy |
Soviet Union | |
Name | Komintern |
Namesake | Communist International |
Acquired | 1920 |
Commissioned | June 1923 |
Decommissioned | 17 July 1942 |
Fate | Sunk as breakwater, late 1942 |
General characteristics (as built) | |
Class and type | Bogatyr-class protected cruiser |
Displacement | 6,645 long tons (6,752 t) |
Length | 134 m (439 ft 8 in) |
Beam | 16.6 m (54 ft 6 in) |
Draught | 6.3 m (20 ft 8 in) |
Installed power |
|
Propulsion | 2 shafts; 2 triple-expansion steam engines |
Speed | 23 knots (43 km/h; 26 mph) |
Complement | 589 |
Armament |
|
Armour |
|
General characteristics (after 1920s repair) | |
Type | Light cruiser |
Displacement | 6,340 long tons (6,440 t) |
Length | 134.9 m (442 ft 7 in) |
Beam | 16.4 m (53 ft 10 in) |
Draft | 6.8 m (22 ft 4 in) |
Installed power |
|
Range | 2,100 nmi (3,900 km; 2,400 mi) at 12 knots (22 km/h; 14 mph) |
Complement | 730 |
Armament |
|
Armor |
|
Komintern was a Soviet light cruiser originally named Pamiat' Merkuria (Memory of Mercury), a Bogatyr-class protected cruiser built for the Imperial Russian Navy. She saw service during World War I in the Black Sea and survived the Russian Civil War, although heavily damaged. She was repaired by the Soviet Navy and put into service as a training ship. In 1941 she was reclassified as a minelayer and provided naval gunfire support and transported troops during the sieges of Odessa, Sevastopol, and the Kerch–Feodosiya operation in the winter of 1941–1942. She was damaged beyond repair at Poti by a German air attack on 16 July 1942. Afterwards she was disarmed and hulked. At some point [1] she was towed to the mouth of the Khobi river and sunk there as a breakwater on 10 October 1942.
Komintern normally displaced 6,340 long tons (6,440 t ). The ship had an overall length of 134.9 metres (442 ft 7 in), a beam of 16.4 metres (53 ft 10 in) and a mean draft of about 6.8 metres (22 ft 4 in). She was powered by two vertical triple-expansion steam engines, each driving one shaft, which developed a total of 19,500 shaft horsepower (14,500 kW ) and gave a maximum speed of 23 knots (43 km/h; 26 mph). The engines were powered by 16 coal-fired Belleville boilers. The ship had a range of 2,100 nautical miles (3,900 km; 2,400 mi) at a speed of 12 knots (22 km/h; 14 mph). Komintern's crew consisted of 573 officers and men. [2]
The ship was rearmed during World War I with fourteen 55-caliber 130 mm (5.1 in) B7 Pattern 1913 guns in single mounts, four of which were positioned in casemates. Her anti-aircraft armament consisted of two 75-millimeter (3 in) guns. She also mounted six submerged 457-millimeter (18 in) torpedo tubes, three on each broadside. [2]
Komintern's armored deck and her casemates were 76 mm thick. The armor of the conning tower was 152 millimeters (6 in) thick. [2]
Pamiat' Merkuria was originally named Kagul and did not receive her name until 25 March 1907. This has caused much confusion between her and her sister Ochakov regarding construction data. Some of the data presented here is taken from Russian-language sources. [3] [4]
On 18 November 1914 Pamiat' Merkuria was escorting five pre-dreadnought battleships of the Black Sea Fleet off Cape Sarych when they encountered the German battlecruiser SMS Goeben and the light cruiser SMS Breslau. The Germans sheered off after an early hit on one of Goeben's 15 cm (5.9 in) casemates that started an ammunition fire. [5]
In January 1915 Pamiat' Merkuria and her sister Kagul twice encountered Breslau and the Ottoman protected cruiser Hamidiye, also spelled Hamidieh, but the Ottoman ships escaped both times without either side inflicting any damage. [6]
On 10 May 1915 the Black Sea Fleet bombarded the Ottoman forts defending the Bosporus. Two cruisers, Pamiat' Merkuria and her sister Kagul were posted further out as pickets. Pamiat' Merkuria was spotted by Goeben, which was returning from a patrol off Eregli, 115 miles (185 km) east of the Bosporus. Goeben immediately set off in pursuit while Pamiat' Merkuria headed at full speed for the main body, dodging shells from the German battlecruiser. The Russian pre-dreadnoughts quickly hit Goeben three times, and the battlecruiser broke off the engagement using her superior speed. Pamiat' Merkuria was not damaged during the battle. [7]
Her 6-inch guns were exchanged for sixteen 130 mm (5.1 in)/55 guns during her refit from December 1916 to April 1917. [8] She was dispatched to Constanta on 1 November 1916 [9] to destroy the oil depot abandoned by the Romanians before it was captured by the Germans. A false submarine alarm caused her to abandon the bombardment before she inflicted any damage. But on 4 November Pamiat' Merkuria returned and fired 231 shells, destroying 15 of the 37 oil tanks. [10]
The crew of Pamiat' Merkuria pledged its allegiance to the Ukrainian People's Republic on 12 November 1917 soon after the October Revolution. The occupation of the Ukrainian People's Republic by the Red Army early in 1918 led it to lay up on 28 March 1918 with her guns stripped by Bolsheviks to equip armoured trains. She was captured by the Germans on 1 May 1918 after being left behind in Sevastopol due to its uselessness and used as a barracks ship. She was renamed to Hetman Ivan Mazepa on 17 September 1918 and formally handed over to the Ukrainian State's Navy.
Upon the end of World War I and withdrawal of the Armed Forces of Central powers, she fell into the hands of the Whites under the support of the Triple Entente in November 1918. The British wrecked her engines in April 1919 when the Whites temporarily lost control of Sevastopol, in order to stop the cruiser from being of any use to the advancing Soviets. [11] She was further damaged by the explosion of a mine when the Whites abandoned the Crimea in 1920. Once she fell into Soviet hands she spent several years under repair, which required parts and material from her sisters that were even more damaged. She was given the proper revolutionary name of Komintern, after the Communist International on 31 December 1922 and was recommissioned in June 1923. [3]
She was refitted in 1930 as a training cruiser and lost four boilers which were converted to classrooms. Six of her waist guns were replaced by four obsolete 75 mm/50 guns. Her submerged broadside torpedo tubes were also removed during this refit. [12] She collided with Krasny Kavkaz in 1932 and seriously damaged the forecastle of the latter ship. [13] Sources are unclear when she was rearmed, but it probably wasn't until the late 1930s, probably when her forward smokestack was also removed. She landed all of her 75 mm/50 guns in exchange for a modern suite of anti-aircraft guns: three single 76.2 mm (3 in) 34-K, three single 45 mm (1.8 in) 21-K, two single 25 mm (0.98 in) and five 12.7 mm (0.50 in) machine guns. In 1941 she was modified as a minelayer and could carry 195 mines, but her speed had been reduced to 12 knots. [3]
Komintern, in company with the cruisers Krasny Kavkaz, Chervona Ukraina and a number of destroyers, laid down a defensive mine barrage protecting the Black Sea Fleet base at Sevastopol on 22 June. [14] Komintern, along with the destroyers Nezamozhinsk and Shaumyan, was assigned to cooperate with the Separate Coastal Army on 8 August 1941 and spent much of the next month bombarding Romanian positions and coast defenses. [15] During the siege of Odessa she escorted a number of convoys to and from the besieged city. [16] During the Crimean Campaign Komintern delivered supplies to the 44th Army at Feodosiya on 1 January 1942 and ferried troops and supplies to Sevastopol for the next several months. [17]
She was badly damaged by a German air attack on 11 March, [3] but was able to continue under her own power. She was damaged again in Novorossiysk by I. Gruppe, Kampfgeschwader 76 on 2 July 1942 and moved to Poti shortly afterwards. She was so severely damaged again, or sunk, by another German air attack on 16 July 1942 at Poti that she was deemed non-repairable. She was disarmed in August—September 1942, her guns forming coast defense batteries at Tuapse, and hulked. [11] If she was sunk, she was refloated at some point and on 10 October she was towed to the mouth of the Khobi river, just north of Poti, and sunk as a breakwater. [3] [18]
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: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)SMS Goeben was the second of two Moltke-class battlecruisers of the Imperial German Navy, launched in 1911 and named after the German Franco-Prussian War veteran General August Karl von Goeben. Along with her sister ship, Goeben was similar to the previous German battlecruiser design, Von der Tann, but larger, with increased armor protection and two more main guns in an additional turret. Goeben and Moltke were significantly larger and better armored than the comparable British Indefatigable class.
Chervona Ukraina was an Admiral Nakhimov-class light cruiser of the Soviet Navy assigned to the Black Sea Fleet. During World War II, she supported Soviet forces during the Sieges of Odessa and Sevastopol before being sunk at Sevastopol on 12 November 1941 by German aircraft. She was raised in 1947 and was used as a training hulk before becoming a target ship in 1950.
Krasny Kavkaz was a cruiser of the Soviet Navy that began construction during World War I, but was still incomplete during the Russian Revolution. Her design was heavily modified by the Soviets and she was completed in 1932. During World War II she supported Soviet troops during the siege of Odessa, siege of Sevastopol, and the Kerch–Feodosiya operation in the winter of 1941–42. She was awarded the Guards title on 3 April 1942. She was reclassified as a training ship in May 1947 before being expended as a target in 1952.
Krasny Krym was a light cruiser of the Soviet Navy. She was laid down in 1913 as Svetlana for the Imperial Russian Navy, the lead ship of the Svetlana class. She was built by the Russo-Baltic Shipyard in Tallinn, Estonia, and launched in 1915. Her hull was evacuated to Petrograd when the Germans approached the port in late 1917 and laid up incomplete during the Russian Revolution. The ship was completed by the Soviets in 1926. During World War II she supported Soviet troops during the Siege of Odessa, Siege of Sevastopol, and the Kerch-Feodosiya Operation in the winter of 1941–42. Krasny Krym was awarded the Guards title on 18 June 1942. The ship was reclassified as a training ship in November 1954 before being scrapped in July 1959.
Sevastopol was the first ship completed of the Gangut-class battleships of the Imperial Russian Navy, built before World War I. The Ganguts were the first class of Russian dreadnoughts. She was named after the Siege of Sevastopol during the Crimean War. She was completed during the winter of 1914–1915, but was not ready for combat until mid-1915. Her role was to defend the mouth of the Gulf of Finland against the Germans, who never tried to enter, so she spent her time training and providing cover for minelaying operations. Her crew joined the general mutiny of the Baltic Fleet after the February Revolution and joined the Bolsheviks later that year. She was laid up in 1918 for lack of manpower, but her crew joined the Kronstadt Rebellion of 1921. She was renamed Parizhskaya Kommuna after the rebellion was crushed to commemorate the Paris Commune and to erase the ship's betrayal of the Communist Party.
Imperatritsa Ekaterina Velikaya was the second of three Imperatritsa Mariya-class dreadnoughts built for the Imperial Russian Navy during World War I. Completed in 1915, she was assigned to the Black Sea Fleet. She engaged the ex-German battlecruiser Yavûz Sultân Selîm once, but only inflicted splinter damage while taking no damage herself. The ship briefly encountered an Ottoman light cruiser, but mostly covered the actions of smaller ships during the war without firing her guns. These included minelaying operations off the Bosporus and anti-shipping sweeps of the coast of Anatolia. Imperatritsa Ekaterina Velikaya was renamed Svobodnaya Rossiya after the February Revolution of 1917.
The Bogatyr class were a group of protected cruisers built for the Imperial Russian Navy. Unusually for the Russian navy, two ships of the class were built for the Baltic Fleet and two ships for the Black Sea Fleet.
The six Leningrad-class destroyer leaders were built for the Soviet Navy in the late 1930s. They were inspired by the contre-torpilleurs built for the French Navy. They were ordered in two batches of three ships each; the first group was designated Project 1 and the second Project 38. These ships were the first large vessels designed and built by the Soviets after the October Revolution of 1917.
Two cruisers of the Imperial Russian Navy have been called Pamiat Merkuria:
Pamiat' Merkuria was an unarmored cruiser of the Imperial Russian Navy. She was initially named Yaroslavl, but was renamed on 9 April 1883.
Voroshilov was a Project 26 Kirov-class cruiser of the Soviet Navy that served during World War II and into the Cold War. She bombarded German troops during the siege of Odessa before being badly damaged in November 1941 by German bombers. Upon her return from repairs in March 1942 she supported Soviet troops during the siege of Sevastopol, the Kerch–Feodosiya operation and the amphibious landings at Novorossiysk at the end of January 1943. Her active participation in the war ended in October 1943 when three destroyers were lost to air attack and Joseph Stalin forbade missions using large ships without his permission. Postwar she was converted to a missile test ship before being sold for scrap in 1973.
Molotov was a Project 26bis Kirov-class cruiser of the Soviet Navy that served during World War II and into the Cold War. She supported Soviet troops during the Siege of Sevastopol, the Kerch-Feodosiya Operation and the amphibious landings at Novorossiysk at the end of January 1943.
The Admiral Nakhimov-class cruisers were a group of four light cruisers built for the Imperial Russian Navy just before World War I began in 1914. Construction was interrupted by the Russian Revolution and only two of the ships were eventually completed well after the end of the Russian Civil War by the Soviets. Chervona Ukraina was the first ship completed and was built to essentially the original design. Krasnyi Kavkaz was much modified and completed five years after Chervona Ukraina. Both ships participated in the Sieges of Odessa and Sevastopol after the Germans invaded Russia in June 1941. They ferried troops into the cities, evacuated wounded and bombarded the besieging German troops. Chervona Ukraina was bombed and sunk by dive bombers in November during one of these missions and Krasny Kavkaz was badly damaged by the same type of aircraft in January 1942. After her lengthy repairs were completed, the ship transported reinforcements to cities on the Black Sea coast during the Battle of the Caucasus. She was reclassified as a training ship in 1947 before she was sunk as a target in 1956. Chervona Ukraina was salvaged in 1947 and then became a hulked. She became a target ship in 1950.
Nezamozhnik was one of eight Fidonisy-class destroyers built for the Imperial Russian Navy during World War I. Originally named Zante (Занте), the ship was left unfinished during the Russian Revolution in 1917 and later captured by Ukrainian and White forces. The mostly complete destroyer was towed from her shipyard by retreating White forces and wrecked during a storm in 1920. She was refloated by the Soviets following their victory in the Russian Civil War and completed in 1923 as Nezamozhny (Незаможный).
Kharkov was one of six Leningrad-class destroyer leaders built for the Soviet Navy during the 1930s, one of the three Project 1 variants. Completed in 1938, she was slightly damaged during the Raid on Constanța a few days after the German invasion of the Soviet Union on 22 June and covered the evacuation of the Danube Flotilla to Odessa the following month. During the Siege of Odessa and the Siege of Sevastopol in 1941–1942, the ship ferried reinforcements and supplies into those cities, evacuated wounded and refugees and bombarded Axis troop positions. Damaged by German aircraft a few weeks before the surrender of Sevastopol on 4 July, Kharkov was under repair until the beginning of August.
Shaumyan (Шаумян) was one of eight Fidonisy-class destroyers built for the Imperial Russian Navy during World War I. She was originally named Levkas (Левкас) before she was renamed Shaumyan in 1925. Left unfinished during the Russian Revolution in 1917 and later captured by Ukrainian and White forces, the destroyer was completed by the Soviets in 1925 following their victory in the Russian Civil War.
Bodry was one of 29 Gnevny-class destroyers built for the Soviet Navy during the late 1930s. Completed in 1938, she was assigned to the Black Sea Fleet. After the German invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, the ship covered the evacuation of the Danube Flotilla to Odessa the following month. During the Siege of Odessa, Bodry transported troops and supplies while providing naval gunfire support to the defenders and then helped to evacuate them in October. During the Siege of Sevastopol, she performed the same sorts of missions and then participated in the Battle of the Kerch Peninsula at the end of 1941. The ship bombarded German troops in January 1942 before beginning repairs the following month. Bodry was badly damaged during a German air raid in July and was under repair until the end of 1944.
Boyky was one of 29 Gnevny-class destroyers built for the Soviet Navy during the late 1930s. Completed in 1939, she was assigned to the Black Sea Fleet. After the start of the German invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, the ship helped to lay minefields off Sevastopol. During the Siege of Odessa, Boyky transported troops and supplies while providing naval gunfire support to the defenders and then helped to evacuate them in October. During the Siege of Sevastopol, she performed the same sorts of missions and then participated in the Battle of the Kerch Peninsula at the end of 1941.
Sposobny was one of 18 Storozhevoy-class destroyers built for the Soviet Navy during the late 1930s. Although she began construction as a Project 7 Gnevny-class destroyer, Sposobny was completed in 1941 to the modified Project 7U design and assigned to the Black Sea Fleet.
Soobrazitelny was one of 18 Storozhevoy-class destroyers built for the Soviet Navy during the late 1930s. Although she began construction as a Project 7 Gnevny-class destroyer, Soobrazitelny was completed in 1941 to the modified Project 7U design.
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