Russian cruiser Rurik (1906)

''Rurik'' was the last armored cruiser to be built for the Imperial Russian Navy. The ship was designed by the British firm Vickers and built in their shipyard, being laid down in 1905 and completed in 1908. She was armed with a main battery of four guns and a secondary battery of eight guns; her top speed was rated at . Despite her powerful gun armament, ''Rurik'' was rendered obsolescent even before she was completed by the advent of the British battlecruisers of the , which were more powerfully armed and faster. Her design is nevertheless well regarded and naval historians rate her as one of the best vessels of her type ever built.

''Rurik'' served as the flagship of the Russian Baltic Fleet for much of her relatively short career. She made one overseas cruise with a trip to the Mediterranean Sea in mid-1910, but spent the rest of her early career in the Baltic Sea. After the start of World War I, she operated with the other cruisers of the fleet, making raids on German positions in the southern Baltic, and after being modified to carry naval mines, took part in laying offensive minefields to block German naval traffic. She saw one major action, the Battle of Åland Islands, in July 1915. There, she engaged three German cruisers; she failed to score any hits and was struck several times, though she was not seriously damaged and her presence convinced the Germans to retreat.

The ship was badly damaged by a German mine in November 1916 and spent the next several months under repair. During that period out of service, the Russian Revolution toppled the Imperial government and ultimately led to the Bolshevik seizure of power late that year. The resulting Treaty of Brest-Litovsk ended the war for Russia and ''Rurik'' was laid up in Kronstadt in October 1918. She lingered there for another three years in a state of preservation, but by November 1923, she was in poor condition. The new Soviet Navy decided to break up the ship and she was towed to Petrograd, being scrapped there between 1924 and 1925.

Design

In July 1904, the Imperial Russian Navy held a design competition that solicited tenders from several foreign and domestic shipyards to design a new armored cruiser. Maximum displacement was limited to , more than twice that of the preceding of armored cruisers. Vickers won the competition to build the ship in June 1905, and the company offered several proposals, including a vessel armed with a dozen guns, though the Russians opted for a slightly smaller vessel displacing around that carried four of the 254 mm guns and twelve guns, along with a defensive armament of twenty guns.

Before construction work began, refinements were made to the design based on experiences gathered during the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905. The defensive battery was increased to guns since the 75 mm guns were no longer sufficiently powerful to deal with modern torpedo boats and destroyers. To save weight, four of the 203 mm guns were removed. Side armor had proved to be critically important in the battles against Japan, and so the ship's armor was strengthened. Despite the weight savings measures, displacement increased by about . The Russian Navy had originally planned to build another two cruisers to the same design in domestic shipyards, but budgetary problems, coupled with the advent of the steam turbine-powered, all-big-gun battlecruisers of the British in 1907 rendered the plans moot.

Despite the appearance of more powerful battlecruisers before her completion, ''Rurik'' is generally considered to have been a very good design. ''Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships'' states that ''Rurik'' was "the best large ship laid down for the Russian Navy up to 1905 and one of the best armored cruisers ever built." Anthony Watts concurs, describing her as "one of the finest armoured cruisers ever built."

General characteristics and propulsion machinery

''Rurik'' was long between perpendiculars, long at the waterline, and long overall. She had a beam of and a draft of and displaced . Her hull featured a long forecastle deck that extended to her main mast and incorporated a pronounced ram bow. Her superstructure was minimal, consisting primarily of her main conning tower forward with a command bridge and a smaller, secondary conning tower aft.

She was completed with just the pole main mast that was placed just ahead of the rear conning tower, but around the time she entered service in 1909, a pole fore mast was installed atop her forward conning tower as well. By 1917, the fore mast had been replaced with a sturdier tripod mast to support a spotting top to help the direction of her armament. Steering was controlled by a single rudder. Her crew numbered 26 officers and 910 enlisted men.

The ship's propulsion system consisted of two vertical triple-expansion steam engines that drove a pair of screw propellers. Steam was provided by twenty-eight coal-fired Belleville type water-tube boilers, which were vented through three funnels located amidships. The power plant was rated to produce for a top speed of . Coal storage amounted to . While steaming at a more economical , ''Rurik'' could cruise for .

Armament

''Rurik''s main battery consisted of four 50-caliber (cal.) guns in a pair of twin gun turrets, mounted fore and aft on the centerline. These guns and their turrets were designed by Vickers specifically for ''Rurik''. The turrets were oval-shaped and sat atop a working chamber that handled shells and propellant charges brought up from the magazines below. One set of hoists brought the munitions up to the working chambers from their magazines, and another set transferred them up to the turrets. In addition to the split hoist arrangement, anti-flash precautions included a sprinkler system in the magazines and provisions to quickly flood them in the event of a serious fire. The guns fired armor piercing (AP) or high explosive (HE) shells at a muzzle velocity of . At their maximum elevation of 21 degrees, the guns had a range of for the AP round and for the HE variant. The guns had to be returned to between −5 and 8 degrees of elevation to be reloaded. The guns had a rate of fire of two shots per minute.

Her main battery was supported by a secondary battery of eight 203 mm 50 cal. Pattern 1905 guns in four twin turrets, which were placed on the corners of the superstructure, two turrets per broadside. These were also Vickers designs, though they had been used on a number of earlier Russian pre-dreadnought battleships. They fired a semi-armor-piercing (SAP) shell at a muzzle velocity of . At the elevation of 15 degrees, they could hit targets out to ; the turrets allowed elevation from −5 to 25 degrees, but range figures at maximum elevation are unknown. The turrets were broadly similar to the 254 mm guns, but the guns could be reloaded at any angle of elevation. The guns could fire three shells per minute.

For defense against torpedo boats, the ship carried a tertiary battery of twenty 120 mm 50 cal. guns carried individually in casemates. Sixteen were located in the forecastle deck, clustered around the superstructure, while the remaining four were located in the stern. They fired a SAP shell at a velocity of 792.5 m/s, and at an elevation of 19.5 degrees, had a range of . Their rate of fire was eight rounds per minute. Four 43 cal. Hotchkiss guns rounded out the armament. She was also armed with a pair of torpedo tubes. The M1908 torpedo carried a warhead and had a range of at a speed of ; the range doubled when they were set to . These were later replaced with M1912 variants, which increased the warhead to . Their performance increased considerably, reaching at a speed of and at .

Armor

The ship was protected with Krupp cemented armor plate. Her armor belt covered the side of the hull from above the waterline and below. The main section of belt, between the barbettes for the 254 mm guns, was thick, tapering to at the top edge and at the bottom. Forward of the main section, the belt was reduced to 102 mm with a bottom edge, while aft, the belt was a uniform thickness of 76 mm. The aft section did not extend all the way to the sternpost, instead terminating at a 76 mm transverse bulkhead. Above the belt, a strake of armor that was 76 mm thick covered the tertiary casemates. There were three armored decks; the lower deck was thick, with sloped sides that were and connected to the bottom edge of the belt. The main deck was also 38 mm thick, and above that, the roof of the casemate battery was 25 mm.

''Rurik''s conning tower had 203 mm of armor plate on the sides. Her main battery turrets consisted of 203 mm on the front and sides and sloped roofs, and they were supported by barbettes that extended down to the ammunition magazines. Behind the belt, the barbettes reduced in thickness to . The secondary turrets received slightly lighter protection, with 180 mm sides and faces and 50 mm roofs. Their barbettes were 152 mm thick above the belt and 38–76 mm below. Underwater protection consisted of a torpedo bulkhead that was 38 mm thick, set back about from the side of the ship. It covered the ship's citadel.

Service history

The keel for ''Rurik'' was laid down on 22 August 1905, and she was launched on 17 November 1906. Structural weaknesses were revealed during gunnery testing in 1907, but the Russian Navy decided to remedy the defects after delivery rather than delay her completion. The testing included firing thirty rounds from two of the 254 mm guns, another thirty shells from two of the 203 mm guns, and fifteen shots from the 120 mm guns. During steam trials in 1908, she exceeded her design speed and horsepower. The ship was completed in September 1908 and delivered to the Russian fleet. Upon arrival, she was sent to the shipyard in Kronstadt for modifications to her hull structure to correct the design problems. She operated in the Baltic Sea over the following two years, and in July 1910, she was sent on a cruise in the Mediterranean Sea. She returned to the Baltic, where she remained for the next three years. Starting in 1913, she served as the flagship of the Baltic Fleet.

World War I

At the start of World War I in July 1914, Russia had not yet completed its s or dreadnought battleships, leaving ''Rurik'' and the ''Bayan''-class cruisers as the core of the Baltic Fleet. These ships bore the burden of naval operations against the significantly more powerful Imperial German Navy in the Baltic. At the time, ''Rurik'' served as the flagship of Admiral Nikolai Ottovich von Essen, the commander of Russian naval forces in the Baltic. ''Rurik''s commander was initially Captain Mikhail Bakhirev. He sortied with ''Rurik'' and the armored cruiser on 27 August to make a sweep into the western Baltic in the vicinity of Bornholm, Denmark, and Danzig, Germany. They failed to locate any enemy vessels, however. The operation bolstered the morale of the Baltic Fleet, but Tsar Nicholas II refused to grant Essen the freedom of maneuver he sought to force action with the German fleet. The Russians nevertheless won a major intelligence victory that month when the German cruiser ran aground in Russian territory and they were able to recover German code books, allowing the Russian Navy to decrypt German wireless signals.

In November, ''Rurik'' was modified to serve as a fast minelayer with provisions to carry naval mines. She carried out her first operation on 14 December under the command of Admiral Ludvig Kerber, in company with the cruisers and , while another pair of cruisers covered another minelayer further north. ''Rurik'' laid a field of 120 mines off the German port at Danzig during the operation. On 12 January 1915, ''Rurik'' sortied for another minelaying operation, this time part of the escort force with ''Bayan'' and ''Admiral Makarov''. Over the following two days, three other cruisers laid a series of minefields off the island of Rügen; this was the furthest west the Russian fleet penetrated during the war. This minefield later damaged the German cruisers and , the latter beyond the point of repair.

''Rurik'' escorted a group of minelayers sent to lay another field off Danzig on 13 February 1915, ran aground east of Gotland, Sweden and was seriously damaged, forcing the Russians to cancel the operation. Despite taking on of water, with half of her boiler rooms flooded, she was able to free herself and return to Reval under her own power. She was subsequently repaired at Cronstadt. ''Rurik'' was out of action for 89 days. Heavy ice in the Baltic curtailed further operations. By that time, the ''Gangut''s had entered service, and the fleet was reorganized. ''Rurik'' was assigned to Group 5, along with ''Bayan'' and ''Admiral Makarov'', part of the 1st Cruiser Brigade. The cruisers continued to carry out most of the offensive operations, as the new dreadnoughts were considered too valuable to risk. They were instead used as a fleet in being and to guard the Gulf of Finland.

Battle of Åland Islands

In late June, the Russian naval command planned a bombardment operation to support the garrison at Windau (in what is now Latvia) during a German attack on the port. Initial plans called for an attack on the city of Rostock, well behind German lines, in part to demonstrate the strength of the Russian fleet, but Vice Admiral Vasily Kanin, who had replaced Essen as the fleet commander, refused to grant permission to send ''Rurik'' that far into enemy territory. The target of the operation was therefore changed to Memel. Bakhirev, by now promoted to rear admiral, led the bombardment force, the composition of which is unclear. According to Paul Halpern, it consisted of the cruisers ''Admiral Makarov'', ''Bayan'', , and , while ''Rurik'' and the destroyer covered them and a group of submarines screened ahead. But Gary Staff indicates that ''Rurik'', ''Oleg'', and ''Bogatyr'' were to conduct the bombardment while ''Admiral Makarov'' and ''Bayan'' covered them. The ships departed port shortly after midnight on 1 July. Heavy fog forced Bakhirev to cancel the bombardment since they could no longer reliably locate Memel and his cruisers became separated from ''Rurik'' and ''Novik''.

Bakhirev planned to make another attempt the next morning, but he learned by way of decrypted intercepts from German wireless signals of a minelaying operation on the 1st while en route to Riga and decided to try to intercept the vessels instead. He took the four cruisers from the bombardment group, and guided by wireless intercepts, steamed west to ambush the German flotilla that consisted of an armored cruiser, two light cruisers, a minelayer, and seven destroyers. The two sides made contact at around 06:30. In the ensuing Battle of Åland Islands, the Germans turned to flee while the Russian cruisers concentrated on the minelayer , forcing it ashore.

As he began the engagement, Bakhirev ordered ''Rurik'' to reinforce him, and at 09:45, she arrived in the vicinity but found no friendly or enemy vessels. The ship's commander, Captain A. M. Pyshnov, turned his ship north in an attempt to locate Bakhirev's ships, and shortly thereafter, she encountered the German light cruiser . The two ships quickly opened fire, and while ''Rurik'' was significantly more powerful than her opponent, she failed to score any hits, while receiving ten herself. One started a fire on ''Rurik''s forecastle and a near miss caused a large splash that damaged her forward rangefinder. The German shells were not powerful enough to penetrate her armor, but they nevertheless temporarily disabled one of her main battery turrets when fumes from an explosion threatened to poison its crew.

The German armored cruiser then intervened and ordered ''Lübeck'' to disengage, and at 10:04, ''Rurik'' ceased fire at the light cruiser. The Russian cruiser then turned to engage ''Roon'', which had by that time been joined by the light cruiser ''Augsburg'', opening fire at a range of . She concentrated most of her fire on ''Roon'', but again failed to score any hits. She received another hit, which struck the rear conning tower and damaged the surrounding superstructure. The German commander decided to attempt to disengage, using the poor visibility to cover his escape; at around the same time, Russian lookouts spotted what they mistakenly believed to be a U-boat. The threat of a submarine attack led ''Rurik'' to disengage, which gave the Germans enough time to make good their escape.

Later operations

On 11 November, ''Rurik'' was sent on another minelaying operation to sow a field of 560 mines off the Swedish island of Gotland. Another such mission on 6 December, laying a further 700 mines in the same area. As a result of the Russian mining effort and Allied submarine attacks, the Germans concluded that they could no longer safely operate capital ships in the Baltic. Starting in June 1916, ''Rurik'' was sent on several sweeps into the Baltic to search for German merchant shipping, but she only found and sank one vessel during these patrols. While on patrol off the island of Hogland, Russia, on 7 November, she struck a mine and was badly damaged. She remained under repair until April 1917; during this period, her foremast was replaced with the tripod version.

The Russian Revolution began in March 1917 and culminated in the October Revolution in November, which saw the Bolsheviks take power in Russia. The government signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk that ended Russia's participation in the conflict. As part of the treaty, Russia granted Finland independence, which forced the fleet to abandon its principal base at Helsingfors and return to Kronstadt. ''Rurik'' was reduced to reserve at Kronstadt in October 1918, and she lay there for the next three years. Initially listed for long-term preservation on 21 May 1921, she was disarmed and useful systems were removed to be preserved ashore. By late 1923, she was in poor condition, and the decision was made to break her up. She was struck from the naval register on 1 November and taken to Petrograd, where she was dismantled over the course of 1924–1925. Her 203 mm guns were later used as coastal artillery batteries.

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Rurik (1906)
World War I cruisers of Russia
Ships built in Barrow-in-Furness
Vickers
1906 ships
Cruisers of the Imperial Russian Navy
Maritime incidents in 1915
Maritime incidents in 1916
Ships sunk by mines