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2 israel - статейка по Везувию #04.06.2004 14:03

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Dynamite cruiser!
Patrick McSherry, Nicholas Mitiuckov. Sea Classics. Canoga Park: Jan 2003. Vol. 36, Iss. 1; pg. 62, 5 pgs
Author(s): Patrick McSherry, Nicholas Mitiuckov
Publication title: Sea Classics. Canoga Park: Jan 2003. Vol. 36, Iss. 1; pg. 62, 5 pgs
ISSN/ISBN: 00489867
Copyright Challenge Publications Inc. Jan 2003

[Headnote]
An eruption subduedthe strange saga of the Vesuvius

The night had been hot; another steamy night in the tropics. Stealthily, the small yacht-like vessel crept toward the approaches of Santiago Harbor. On the bridge of the vessel, silence reigned. Lieutenant Commander John Pillsbury, Ens. L.C. Palmer and a Cuban pilot guided the vessel through the darkness. The vessel slinked past the other ships blockading the town's harbor entrance, moving ever closer to the menacing fortifications of El Morro and the Socapa Battery. The date was 15 June 1898. United States forces had landed in Cuba just days before, and the Cuban Campaign of the Spanish American War was now in full swing.

When the vessel, the sleek US Dynamite Cruiser Vesuvius, was within only 600 yards of the harbor entrance, the vessel hesitated. Her bow was pointed directly toward the fortifications. The silence was broken by a sound that can only be described as a "loud cough." No flame belched forth, nor any cloud of smoke, and virtually no noise was heard. Still, an unseen projectile carrying 250-lb of explosive guncotton arched through the air. It struck "near the ridge of the hills and exploded with a tremendous roar." Earth was thrown 200 feet into the air and a " ...brilliant flash illuminated the heavens and topped the distant mountains with fire. The earth trembled as though it were a live volcano."

In the noise and excitement, the sound of two more "coughs" were virtually indistinguishable as two more projectiles were sent arching toward the fort walls. One shell hit higher on the hill with a similar effect to the first, the other passing over the hills into the harbor beyond. In the waters off Santiago, the concussion was so strong that it shook the cruiser Brooklyn and jarred Capt. Chadwick of the cruiser New York awake.

Aboard Vesuvius, where silence and tension had reigned, was now a scene furious action. The ship trembled as her engines were thrown into full astern. Two Spanish cannon returned fire, as the Vesuvius backed away at an ever-increasing speed until out of range and hidden in the blessed darkness. Crews on other vessels in the blockade breathed a sigh of relief; mistakenly thinking that if the "dynamite cruiser" was hit, surely the explosion would destroy the other ships in the squadron.

The experimental vessel ahd finally fired her guns in action. She would repeat this same nighttime attack a total seven more times in the following nights, rousing the Spanish from their badly needed rest with tremendous blasts in the hot Cuban night. Beyond the demoralizing aspect of his shells, the damage from the Vesuvius' guns was minimal - the destruction of the house of the lighthouse keeper, some damage to the fortifications, and the Spanish torpedo boat destroyer Pluton. Three sailors from the Reina Mercedes were wounded as was one soldier in the garrison.

Though her efforts had the potential for success, she would never gain the confidence of the US Navy. In fact, in spite of newspaper reports almost inebriated with predictions of her great success, the battle for confidence in the vessel's unique weapons system had been lost long 'ere her guns fired on he Santiago hills.

Authorized by Congress on 3 August 1886, the ship was to take advantage of the experiments with pneumatic guns conducted by US Army Lt. Edmund Zalinski. The Vesuvius' unique weapons, promised much. After all, the late 1800s represented a time of naval innovation with many unusual ideas surfacing which either proved their worth or were cast to the wayside. The pneumatic guns represented a new direction in shipboard battery systems and the concept seemed promising. Vesuvius "...was intended to be a

very volcano belching forth destruction." Some considered Vesuvius to be the ship that would revolutionize naval warfare.

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With her crew leisurely gathered on deck surrounding the conning tower, Dynamite Cruiser Vesuvius cuts through a smooth sea. The distinctly yacht-like lines of the vessel and her general lack of military appearance can be seen in this photo. (Library of Congress)

The Vesuvius' main armament consisted of three huge 15-in "pneumatic" compressed air guns which could fire a total of 30 rounds, each containing up to 500-lb of guncotton, dynamite or other high explosive, all in the space of half an hour. It was the ability to fire a shell of this sort that gave the ship its "dynamite cruiser" designation.

The somewhat frightening sound of the official designation, however, was a source of much misinformation and concern. Newspapers reported that "[Vesuvius] carries an enormous supply of dynamite, and a hostile projectile correctly aimed would explode this leaving not a trace of vessel or men. She will either hurl dreadful but sudden death or suffer annihilation, perhaps both.

While drifting in the waters off Santiago, George Robinson, a fireman on the battleship Oregon recorded in his diary that "The Dynamite Cruiser" Vesuvius ...came in today. [She] is some three miles away from us and we sincerely hope she will stay that distance away as she carries tons of high-explosives and is quite dangerous, if the Spaniards ever hit her she might sink the entire fleet. Of course, the same result could be expected of virtually any warship taking a direct hit to the magazines.

From the beginning, the design of the ship got off to an unusual and illfated start. Instead of issuing the contract for the vessel to a shipbuilder, the main contract was issued to the Pneumatic Gun Company. This company, in turn, subcontracted to the well-known shipbuilder of Cramp and Sons of Philadelphia. Unfortunately, this created the situation of the proverbial "tail wagging the dog." The design of the ship seems to have become secondary to the weapons system rather than both aspects combined into the well-integrated whole, required for a successful warship. Progress on the ship was slow for such a small vessel - she was but 250 feet long and 26 feet in beam with a displacement of 930 tons.

Lieutenant Commander Seaton Schroeder, later a Rear Admiral, had the auspicious task of being the first commander of the unique vessel. He joined the ship while she was still under construction. He would sum up the general frustration with the ship's progress, writing "For 20 months I danced attendance upon that little ship.. hoping each month that the next would see a successful functioning of the air valves regulating the amount of compressed air admitted to the guns..But it was a continuous succession of disappointments..." Slowly, however, she approached completion.

The design of the ship centered on her immense guns. The gun tubes, fabricated from cast-iron, were fixed in place at an 18-degree angle to the deck and were an incredible 54 feet long. When they were to be loaded, the final few feet of the gun tube, deep in the bowels of the ship, would pivot, and a new shell, seven feet in length from tip to tailfin, slid in place from a specially designed revolving loader. This created a situation that was far different from that on most ships. The gun crew was deep within the vessel, not in a turret or in the open.

The guns, of course, functioned on air, compressed to a pressure of about 750 pounds per square inch by two Norwalk compressors and stored in a series of tube-shaped reservoirs aboard ship. Originally, the design called for the air to be compressed to 1000 pounds per square inch, but in practice it…

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