Warship Weds July 25th

Here at LSOZI, we are going to take out every Wednesday for a look at the old steampunk navies of the 1866-1938 time period and will profile a different ship each week.

- Christopher Eger

Warship Wednesday,  July 25

Here we have the great colro painting by Russian naval master Gleb Vasilyev of the Imperial Russian Navy protected cruiser Askold. Bult in 1902 for the very modrn navy of Tsar Nicholas II by the William Cramp Yard in Phildelphia PA, Askold was was named after the legendary Viking hero Askold. Her thin, narrow hull and maximum speed of 23.8 knots (44.1 km/h) were considered shit hot for the time.
Askold had five thin funnels which gave it a unique silhouette for any vessel in the Imperial Russian Navy. This led British sailors to nickname her Packet of Woodbines after the thin cigarettes popular at the time.

It does kinda look like ……….

However, the five funnels also had a symbolic importance, as it was popularly considered that the number of funnels was indicative of performance, and some navies were known to add extra fake funnels to impress dignitaries in less advanced countries. By today’s standards she would be a slow frigate, but by those of 1900 she was quite impressive.

She fougth in and survived the Russo-Japanese War (and was the last Russian ship to visit Japan before the outbreak of war.) During the Battle of the Yellow Sea, she was flagship for Rear Admiral Nikolai Reytsenshteyn’s cruiser squadron during the failed attempt to escape the Japanese blockade and to link up with forces in Vladivostok. Together with Novik, Askold took heavy damage, but escaped from the pursuing Japanese fleet to Shanghai, where she was interned until the end of the war. During WWI she served admirably with the Allied fleet in the MED bombarding Gallipoli. She was back in Russia just after the Revolution and was seized by the Royal Navy who took her back  to Scotland.

She was scrapped in 1922.

Her Specs:
Displacement:     5910 tons full load
Length:     132.5 m (434.7 ft)
Beam:     15 m (49.2 ft)
Draught:     6.2 m (20.3 ft)
Propulsion:     3 shaft Triple expansion steam engines (VTE), 9 Shultz-Thonycroft Boilers – 19,650 hp
Speed:     23.8 knots (44.1 km/h)
Range:     6,500 nautical miles (12,000 km) @ 10 knots
Complement:     580 officers and crewmen
Armament:

12 – 6-inch (152 mm)/L45 Canet guns
12 – 75-millimetre (3 in)L50 Canet guns
8 – 47-millimetre (2 in) Hotchkiss rapid-fire guns
2 – 37-millimetre (1 in) Hotchkiss guns
2 – 7.62 mm Maxim machine guns
6 – 15-inch (381 mm) torpedo tubes

Krupp armour,

2-inch (51 mm) to 4-inch (102 mm) on sloping deck
6-inch (152 mm) at conning tower