Russian ship Chesma (1849)
Chesma was an 84-gun ship of the line built for the Imperial Russian Navy in the 1840s.
Design
Beginning in the 1820s, the Russian Empire embarked on a naval construction program to strengthen the Black Sea Fleet; during this period, the Ottoman Empire was becoming progressively weaker, particularly after a combined Russo-Franco-British fleet annihilated an Ottoman fleet at the Battle of Navarino in 1827. The power vacuum created increased the risk of future conflicts with Britain and France, so the Russian government ordered a series of 84-gun ships of the line to prepare the fleet.[1]
Characteristics
Chesma was 196 feet (60 m) long, with a beam of 57 ft (17 m) and a draft of 23 ft 8 in (7.21 m). The ship was given a broad beam to allow her to carry a heavy battery of 68-pound guns on her lower deck. She displaced 4,030 metric tons (3,970 long tons; 4,440 short tons).[2]
As originally armed, the ship carried a battery of four 68-pounder shell-firing Paixhans guns and twenty-eight 36-pounder long guns on the lower gun deck and another thirty-two 36-pound short-barreled guns on the upper gun deck. In her forecastle and quarterdeck, she mounted eight 18-pound guns, ten 36-pound carronades, two 24-pound carronades, two 18-pound carronades, and two 8-pound carronads.[2][3]
In 1853, the armament carried in the forecastle and quarterdeck was considerably simplified; she now carried the ten 36-pound carronades and eight 18-pound carronades. The following year, those guns were replaced with twenty 24-pound gunnades and six of the 18-pound carronades.[2]
Service history
Notes
- ^ Sozaev & Tredrea, p. 297.
- ^ a b c Sozaev & Tredrea, p. 301.
- ^ Sondhaus, p. 58.
References
- Badem, Candan (2010). The Ottoman Crimean War: (1853–1856). Leiden: Brill. ISBN 9789004182059.
- Bartlett, Christopher John (1993). Defence and Diplomacy: Britain and the Great Powers, 1815–1914. Manchester UP. ISBN 9780719035203.
- Lambert, Andrew (2011). The Crimean War: British Grand Strategy Against Russia, 1853–56. Ashgate. ISBN 9781409410119.
- Sondhaus, Lawrence (2001). Naval Warfare, 1815–1914. New York: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-21478-5.
- Sozaev, Eduard; Tredrea, John (2010). Russian Warships in the Age of Sail 1696-1860: Design, Construction, Careers and Fates. Barnsley: Seaforth. ISBN 9781848320581.