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The Russian ironclad ''Kreml'' ((ロシア語:Кремль)) was the third and last broadside ironclad built for the Imperial Russian Navy during the mid-1860s. She joined the Baltic Fleet upon completion and accidentally sank a Russian frigate in 1869. The ship was assigned to the Gunnery Training Detachment in 1870 and was frequently rearmed. ''Kreml'' sank in shallow water after a storm in 1885; she was refloated and returned to service. The ship was placed in reserve in 1904 and disarmed the following year before being sold for scrap in 1908. ==Design and description== The ''Pervenents''-class ironclads were designed as coastal defence ships to protect the approaches to Saint Petersburg and were referred to as "self-propelled armored floating batteries". As such, heavy armament and protection were the most important factors in their design.〔McLaughlin, pp. 115〕 ''Kreml'' was long overall, with a beam of and a mean draft of . Displacing at full load, she was somewhat larger than her half-sisters and displaced over more. She was fitted with a ram bow and lacked the stern ram of her half-sisters. Based on the experiences with her sister , bilge keels deep and long were fitted to reduce the ship's rolling. The ship did not steer well and historian Stephen McLaughlin notes that she had "an unpredictable habit of suddenly lurching to one side or another", probably as a result of poor water flow to the rudder. ''Kreml'' required six men to man her wheel and her total crew numbered 459 officers and enlisted men.〔McLaughlin, pp. 117–19〕 As a cost-cutting measure, the ship received the refurbished horizontal trunk steam engine from the wooden frigate , built by Carr and MacPherson of Saint Petersburg. It had two cylinders, each with a bore of and a stroke of . Using steam produced by four rectangular fire-tube boilers to drive a single propeller, the engine was designed to produce and gave the ship a maximum speed of during her sea trials on 18 October 1866. ''Kreml''s boilers proved to be unable to last more than about a decade in service before they had to be replaced, notably in 1876, 1886, 1892 and 1901. To save money, the replacement boilers were taken from retiring ships and reconditioned before installation in ''Kreml''.〔McLaughlin, pp. 117, 125–26〕 The ship was intended to be rigged as a three-masted schooner, like her half-sisters, but her first captain suggested that her fore- and mainmasts be square rigged to take advantage of her more seaworthy hull form. ''Kreml''s masts were hollow iron and were used to ventilate the lower decks, the first such masts in the Imperial Russian Navy. To protect her leadsmen, sailors who determined the depth of water under the keel, in combat, ''Kreml'' was fitted with two sounding tubes that led from the gun deck through the bottom of the hull.〔McLaughlin, pp. 119, 126〕 ''Kreml'' was completed with 17 of the most powerful guns available to the Russians, the 60-pounder smoothbore gun. Fifteen were mounted on the broadside and two guns were placed in pivot mounts on the upper deck to serve as chase guns. Unfortunately, it proved to be incapable of penetrating of wrought iron armor at a distance of only during trials in 1859–60. Despite this, the ship continued to be armed with varying numbers of these guns, as well as rifled guns throughout her career. Her upper deck armament changed even more frequently and used different configurations of and 8-inch rifled guns in addition to varying numbers of smaller guns.〔McLaughlin, pp. 114, 121–22〕 The ship's armor configuration differed from that of her half-sisters. Most of her side was covered by of wrought-iron armor, but transverse armored bulkheads of the same thickness protected the gun deck from raking fire and the upper part of the hull outside the bulkheads was unprotected. The teak backing of the armor was increased to . ''Kreml''s deck had a maximum thickness of . The conning tower was also protected by 4.5 inches of armor. The ship's hull was divided by four watertight transverse and two longitudinal bulkheads for protection against underwater damage.〔McLaughlin, pp. 117, 122, 124〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Russian ironclad Kreml」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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