Russian Navy Commissions Round Ship Whose Gunfire Caused it to Spin in Circles
In 1874, the Russian Navy commissioned Novgorod, a monitor ship with a controversial design that featured a round hull. It quickly earned a reputation as one of the worst ships in history, often compared to a floating soup dish for its clumsiness. The 2500 ton vessel had six steam engines that drove six propeller screws. On the plus side, the Novgorod was largely immune to ramming – a common naval tactic of the day. It had a 9 inch armored belt, its round shape deflected strikes, and its vital components were well inside the hull. It had a pair of 11 inch guns, which were powerful for the era. Its shape and flat bottom also gave it a draft of only 12 feet, allowing it to operate close to the coastline in shallow waters.
However, the Novgorod’s advantages were outweighed by serious disadvantages. The circular hull played havoc with the rudder’s ability to steer the ship or turn it around: in a storm, the Novgorod was unsteerable, and even in calm weather, it took 45 minutes for the ship to make a full circle. In rough seas, the wide flat bottom led to severe pitching, that caused the propellers came out of the water. The blunt hull did not slice through water so as to reduce its resistance, but pushed large volumes of water out of the way by sheer brute force. That made the ship very fuel-inefficient, causing it to consume coal at a prodigious rate.
On top of the design defects, the Novgorod was also plagued with manufacturing defects. Low quality materials and poor workmanship led to persistent recurring problems with the ship’s propulsion, from blades to shaft to drive, that lasted for the vessel’s entire career. Additionally, the Novgorod suffered from poor ventilation that no amount of troubleshooting could fix, even after ventilation cowls were installed on the gun emplacements.
Even at its core function as a fighting platform, the Novgorod had serious problems. Its two 11 inch guns had an exceptionally slow rate of fire, at 10 minutes per shot. The rotating mounts on which the guns were placed were also slow, taking 3 minutes to traverse 180 degrees. The problem was made worse by weak locks that caused the gun mounts to rotate on their own from the guns’ recoil. And the guns’ firing caused the entire ship to rotate uncontrollably. Because the flat bottomed vessel had no stabilizing keel to keep her in line and keep her guns pointed towards the target, the only solution was to moor the Novgorod in a fixed position. That essentially transformed her from a ship to a floating fortress anchored in place, with her guns pointed seaward.
The Novgorod and other round hulls were summarized thus by a naval historian: ” they were a dismal failure. They were too slow to stem the current in the Dniepr, and proved very difficult to steer. In practice the discharge of even one gun caused them to turn out of control and even contra-rotating some of six propellers was unable to keep the ship on the correct heading. Nor could they cope with the rough weather which is frequently encountered in the Black Sea. They were prone to rapid rolling and pitching in anything more than a flat calm, and could not aim or load their guns under such circumstances“.
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Sources and Further Reading
Catton, Bruce – The Civil War, Three Volumes in One (1984)
Encyclopedia Britannica – Six-Day War: Causes and Summary
Inc. – What Tootsie Rolls and the Korean War Can Teach Us About Innovation on Veterans Day
Preston, Antony – The World’s Worst Warships (2002)
The Daily Beast – The Rhinoceros Who Won an Election by a Landslide
The Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia – Trenton and Princeton Campaign (Washington’s Crossing)
We Are the Mighty – Marines Were Once Saved by Candy From the Sky
Wikipedia – Capitulation of Stettin