Shipbucket

1.The "Blücher disinformation" collateral victim:

A few month after the armored cruiser Rurik II was laid down in Barrow-in-Furness Vickers navy yards, work on two turbine driven domestically built sisterships started in New Admiralty Shipyard, Saint Petersburg. Focused on misleading the german designers, the british admiralty chose to keep there russian allies out of the secret surounding the data of what would became The first battlecruiser .

In august 1906, when the real caracteristics of the upcomming Invincible were known, the first russian derivative was already laid down and half the way from launching. This was far to much advanced to simply stop work on the now totally obsolecent ship. Althougt laid down too, the second ship was less advanced but significative amount of material was already stockpilled for it (including one main turrets , two secondery ones, and the complete powerplant).

To increase the effectiweness of the ship and make as much as possible good use af the available material, a new section was added between the powerplant and the rear turret to add a third one, raising its lenght to 175m. To avoid firecontrol flaws the seconderies turrets were suppressed. The remaining 203 mm turrets and powerplant were to be used in new ships derivated from the ongoing cruiser design studies : the Vladimir Monomakh class.

The new design was a category on his own being refered some time as semi-armored-cruiser others as semi-battlecruiser. Altought being lightly armed compared to pure battlecruisers, it was a good and fast ship.

The Vityaz' was the flagship of the new "Bystryy Pervyy Divizion Korabley" (First Fast division) also nikenamed "Turbinnyy Divizion" , constituted by the new cruisers. This units became a feared and famed unit in the baltic sea, arasing convoys between Germany and Sweden and laying offensive minefields. He was one of the most busy russian ship before and during the war. Plans were to keep him in active duty until true battlecruisers would be able to relieve it. But this never occured, so he never underwent a deep modernisation.

Being among the ships who were able to escape in the Ice Cruise of the Baltic Fleet, he was laid up in 1918 for lack of manpower and not recommissioned until 1924, by which time he had been renamed Afanasy Nikolayevich Matushenko (the sailor who leaded the Potemkine mutiny).

Despite unrealistic plans to rearm it with two triple 305 mm turrets from the damaged battleship Frunze (former Poltava), making it a true battlecruiser, were shelved, he underwent sevral modernizations. First, from 1929 to 1932, boilers were rebuilt for burning oil, clipper bow was built, fore mast was rebuilt, two fore funnels were merged. Then, Just before the outbreak of world war two, from 1938 to 1940 superstructure were again reworked and extended and main guns elevation was increased. In this guise he entered world war II with the rest of soviet navy.

A word about the sources and design:
I was projecting to draw a "Baltische" version of the russian armored cruiser Rurik II. Garlicdesign wonderful drawing of it gave me the perfect base to do so.

On this occasion, doing some additional research, i've discovered that russians had planned to build two turbine driven sisterships before the advent of battlecruiser.
In my alternate universe lots of world war two russians foes had a signicant increase of their fleets, so that was a long time i felt the need to beef up soviet navy.

I limited myself to add a single aft main turrets, therefor only one section would be needed. The secondary ones were suppressed to avoid fire control issue and reduce the displacement (maybe i should raise the ship a bit to reflect that). This way i hope the ship could achieve at least the same speed as Invincible with 30.000 hp (estimated power of a turbine replacing Rurik II triple-expansion steam engines) with a similar lenght but reduced beam and draught.

Soviets rebuilt will follows and maybe the 305mm project.

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"You can rape history, if you give her a child"
Alexandre Dumas

JE SUIS CHARLIE

Yet, it is still confusing to apply which category fits this ship. So Let’s say that this is just a “hybrid cruiser”, but it will still be a “mini battlecruiser”.

Nice design by the way.

PS: it almost looks exactly like your previous work, the Schwertbrüder.

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R.I.P, Paranormal-Thingum’s profile pic maker used to make my profile pic...

I have developed the description, fixed some small mistakes, and hadded 1917 version..........

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"You can rape history, if you give her a child"
Alexandre Dumas

JE SUIS CHARLIE

2.The Knight childs:
The redesign of the Vityaz' armored cruiser and the cancelation of its sister ship has produced a non-negligible quantity of leftovers. This materials amount couldn't be wasted, so it has been decided to use it in a new cruisers design. Initially two new ships were planned to a scaled down Vityaz' design, with three twin 203mm turrets and six 120mm single mounts. The first ship would make use of the stockpilled powerplant for the cancelled cruiser, a new one would be ordered for the second one.
The russian admiralty was already limed in a long lasting study process for the next generation light cruiser, who was to give birth to the Svetlana cruisers. Those ongoing studies influenced the design in several ways.
To reduce displacement (and therefore speed) and add the ability to lay mines, the stern 203mm turret was replaced by a single 120mm mount wile the boardside 120mms were reduced to four. The two 203mm turrets saved motivated the order of a third cruiser.
The hulls were layed down in 1910 and the three ships were commissionned in 1912. They were named after cruisers lost in Tsushima battle, respectively Vladimir Monomakh, Dmitrii Donskoi and Izumrud.

On the eve of first world war, being somewhat underarmed for their size, they swapped their seconderay armament against five new 130mm guns.
Forming the main core of the "Turbine Division" , they were famed vessels in the russian public as the "exploits" of this units were used for propaganda purposes.

The ships remained stationary in kronstadt until 1924. In the interlude they were renaimed in revolutionnary names , all sailors from the Potemkine mutiny: Grigory Mykytovych Vakulenchuk , Fiodor Mikichkine and Josef Dimtchenko.

During the Kronstadt rebellion, Dimtchenko , one of the last ships to surrender, was heavily damaged by Red Army artillery. Therfore he didn't joined its sister ships when the "Bystryy Pervyy Divizion Korabley" was reactivated, and underwent a huge reconstruction who transformed it into a trainning cruiser. The last rear 203mm turret (harmed by bolchevik shells) was suppressed in favor of a sixth 130 mm mount, mine carrying capacity was reduced to increase accomodations for cadets. The ship rejoined its brothers in 1931. In the meantime they had received a major refit with new masts end increased structure. Both three were operational at the beginning of world war II.

A word about the sources and design:
Of course the ships had no historical roots. The base was the garlicdesign Yaroslav Mudry cruiser. it size was increased and two twin 203mm turret hadded. Their prow was modded on the model of Gollevainen Mars class Novgorod cruiser. This ship was undoubtly based on russian studies from 1907.The historical sketch had also this strange height shaft layout.

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"You can rape history, if you give her a child"
Alexandre Dumas

JE SUIS CHARLIE