Bogey Warships of the Past

Cromwell Argus, Volume LXI, Issue 3166, 8 June 1931, Page 3

Bogey Warships of the Past

EEARS Or' RUSSIAN MARVELS

An album of old naval photographs now before me brings back memori >s of an age when public opinion in this country was more prone to -panic ' than it seems to-day (writes Heccor C. By water). From the early 'seventies onward Russia was the special 'bogev' of the man in the street. Obsessed with visions of grey-coated masses pouring through the Himalayan defiles into the plains of India, he also pictured Muscovite cruisers spreading death and destruction on the high seas, what time the British Fleet had been either defeated or lured away on a wild-goose chase. Late Victorian literature teemed with sensational novels on this theme. The power of the Russian Navy was absurdly exaggerated, and.every Tsarist warship became a potential terror of the seas. Most dreaded, perhaps, were the famous -belted cruisers,' a typo that Russia particularly favoured.. The earlier vessels of this class were ship-rigged, and under a full spread of canvas, with their toweringsides and frowning guns, they made an imposing show. Lving before me are photographs of the Kheml. Kuiaz Pojarski, General Admiral Gcrzog ' Edinburgski, and Minin, all of which figured in the imaginary war stories of the; period* HELPLESS TARGETS.

As there was really nothing remarkable about these ships all of which were matched by British men-of-war of equal or superior power, the awe they inspired can only be explained- on the "omne ignotum pro magnifico" principle. Some of them survived long* enough to become the almost* helpless targets for Japanese gunners at Tsushima in IQOS, where, among others, Vladimir Monomakh and Dimitri Donskoi came to a gallant if futile end.

But during the last two decades of the nineteenth century these Russian belted cruisers loomed so formidable in British imagination that we) built ships specially to fight them. Still more overt was our rctply Lo the Russian challenge in the case of tho Rurik, Rossiyn, and Gromoboi, in the 'nineties. To neutralise these era ft wo produced the Powerful and Terrible, the largest and most expensive cruisers ever built. They proved voracious coal-caters, and their fighting value was in no way commensurate with their inordinate size and cost. As for the Rurik and her consorts, their bubble reputation was pricked in KJO4 by Admiral Kamimura, whose cruiser squadron defeated thpm in the Sea of Japan. CIRCULAR IROX'C'I.ADS.

While the gallantry of the old Russian navy was above reproach, the test of war revealed its many shortcomings and we know now) that no grounds existed for the apprehension it excited in the Victorian breast. Here, too, are views of the ironclad Pedr Veliky (Peter the Great), which even British experts invested with fabulous powers. Supposed to be capaide of blowing our battleships out of the water, she iva* in truth, little more than a copy of contemporary British turret ships, and had no points •of superiority. Yet a sigh of relief went up in England when it became known that her hull had become irreparably damaged by the firing of her big guns as slit; lav ice-bound at Kronstadt.

Other well-known Russian war craft of a former generation were the Navarin, whoso four large funnels, placed athwartship in pairs, earned her the nickname of "Lot's Road Power Station," and the» circular irou-clads, I'opoff and Novgorod. The latter were freak ships, which proved utter failures. Although propelled by six screws ' they were found to be unmanageable at sea. On one occasion the Popoff, while steaming down the Dnieper, was caught in the current and began spinning round on her axis, and remained in tbis absurd predicament for hours.