Thiaria: Other People's ships

Hello again!

This one has been cooking on a low flame for over a year, but now I've got all the drawings for the first episode:

The Ottoman Navy and the Balkan Wars in the Thiariaverse - Part 1: Reviving a corpse / The 1892 fleet programme
In the 1860s and early 1870s, the Ottoman Empire had acquired a sizeable fleet of ironclads. But between 1872 and 1892, only two small central battery ironclads were acquired, and the older ones had received little maintenance and were in a poor state, as the Sultan did not trust his naval officers and turned a blind eye on the naval budget - quite substantial even by contemporary European standards - being diverted into dubious channels by corrupt officials on every level, year after year after year. But after an incident in 1891, when Marines and other Navy personnel thwarted an attempt to murder the Sultan during a regatta in the Golden Horn (the perpetrator was a mentally ill Christian from Lebanon, but the Armenians were subsequently blamed), the Sultan's view of the Navy changed, and he suddenly cracked down heavily on corrupt civilian officials in the naval administration. Simultaneously, the Sultan approved an ambitious scheme to bring its navy up-to-date. Although the fight against corruption proved beyond the government's powers on the long run, the initial enthusiasm had a drastic, if short lived positive effect on the Navy's ability to acquire new and modernize old vessels and improve infrastructure. A second naval yard was established at Gölcük in the Marmara Sea, and the naval bases at Beirut and Trabzon were enlarged and fortified. Three battleships and two protected cruisers were to be built on domestic yards, and two armoured cruisers were ordered abroad. Of the existing ironclads, the five which were in the best shape were to be completely refurbished. 16 Torpedo boats were ordered as well. The programme proceeded sluggishly, and one of the battleships and both protected cruisers were never laid down; the latter were re-ordered in Great Britain and the USA in 1900, the battleship was cancelled in 1898. But despite all delays, the programme survived nearly intact and was completed in 1904, when all projected ships save one battleship were delivered. The new yard at Gölcük opened in 1910; with four slips and a 200 meter drydock, it was not only much more modern, but also larger than the Imperial Arsenal (Tersane-i Amire) in Constantinople.

1.1. Messoudieh and Nusretieh class battleships
Three 9.000 ton hulls of 1874/5 vintage (Messoudieh, Mahmoudieh and Selimieh) and two 6.000 tonners of 1885/6 vintage (Nusretieh and Ibrahimieh) were deemed worthy of modernization in 1892. All four were to be converted from central battery to turret configuration: initially, the larger ones were to receive twin 240mm/35 turrets fore and aft and six 150mm/35 guns on either beam, while the smaller ones were to receive half the armament, with 240mm/35 singles and only four 150mm pieces on either beam. New twin-shaft machinery was to replace the existing single-shaft plants, they were to be reboilered and receive new Harvey armour instead of their spongy and flaky wrought-iron protection. All four were to achieve 16 knots after modernization. Nusretieh and Ibrahimieh were taken in hand immediately at the Tersane-i Amire and gutted; the new equipment was delivered from Germany and France in 1893. Then things slowed down; the yard was working at four hulls simultaneously and reached the limit of its capacity, and funding was always a somewhat chancy affair. Nusretieh was eventually completed in 1898, Ibrahimieh in 1900, looking like this:
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Messoudieh, Mahmoudieh and Selimieh were originally also destined to be modernized at the Tersane-i Amire, but only Mahmoudieh could be started before Nusretieh and Ibrahimieh were complete. In 1896, the Ottoman Admiralty decided this would take too long. Mahmoudieh was taken in hand as planned and completed in 1902.
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Messoudieh and Selimieh were to be modernized abroad. Ansaldo eventually won the bid, and they were towed to Genova in 1897 and 1899. The original plans had been revised; British-supplied 234mm/45 high velocity breech-loaders in single turrets replaced the original German 240mm twins, resulting in 50% more firepower due to the new guns having three times the ROF of the old ones. The 150mm secondaries were still German, but new 45-caliber pieces. Ansaldo quickly went to work and completed the reconstruction in an average of 30 months; Messoudieh returned to Turkey in 1903, Selimieh in 1905. Except from fitting w/t aerials in 1912, neither received any significant modernization afterwards; during the Balkan Wars, both looked like this:
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1.2. Abdul Kadir class battleships
For the domestically built battleships, a French design was chosen from a dozen proposals both domestic and foreign. The ship resembled a reduced version of France's Magenta-class ironclads. Artillery and armour were purchased in Germany. Four 280mm/35 Krupp guns were placed in single French-style barbette mounts; six 150mm/35 Krupp guns were mounted in an unprotected battery amidships and eight 88mm/35 guns on the superstructure. Abdul Kadir was laid down in 1892 at the Tersane-i Amire, her sister Abdul Aziz in 1894. The third unit approved under the 1892 programme never materialzied. Construction dragged on more than twice as long as anticipated due to lack of experience and conflicting advice from French and German technical advisors; Abdul Kadir was completed in 1901 and Abdul Aziz in 1902, at a time when their design - obsolescent when they were laid down - was utterly outdated. During construction, the originally planned 350mm Harvey belt was replaced with a 225mm Krupp belt, and an upper strake of 105mm was added; the casemate received internal protective bulkheads of 150mm and the originally planned cylindrical boilers were replaced with Belleville small-tube boilers. The planned 350mm torpedo tubes were replaced with 450mm ones. Displacement increased from the planned 8.200 to over 9.000 tons, as the hull was lengthened by seven meters during construction; the design speed of 18 kts was still secured by both ships although engine power remained the same. The slow-firing main and secondary armament was however retained. As completed, both ships looked like this:
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1.3. Barbaros Hayrettin class armoured cruisers
The armoured cruisers were ordered in Germany from the AG Vulcan shipbuilding company. One was built on the company's Hamburg yard, the other at Stettin; both were laid down in 1893. They were designed exclusively for Turkey and featured a very steep ram bow, three equally spaced funnels and a relatively heavy armament of four 240mm/35 guns, eight 150mm/35 guns and eight 88mm/35 guns plus four 350mm torpedo tubes. The waterline belt was very narrow and would actually be fully submerged at battle load; at 225mm it was quite strong, but not really useful. Machinery was high end, with Belleville narrow-tube boilers which provided a design speed of 20 knots. They were considered handsome in an old-fashioned way, and at 9.000 tons had the same size as the revised design of the Abdul Kadir class battleships. Unlike the domestically built battleships, the German-style cruisers were built quicky; Barbaros Hayrettin was delivered in 1896 and Turgut Reis in 1897, building times averaging three years. Although their slow-firing armament made them obsolete as soon as they were commissioned, they were the most prestigious vessels of the Ottoman Navy in their time. They looked like this:
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1.4. Abdul Mecid class protected cruisers
The light cruisers Abdul Hamid and Abdul Mecid - later renamed Hamidieh and Mecidieh - have the same statistics and building data as in OTL.
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1.5. Istanbul class torpedo boats
Although approved under the 1892 programme, funding for these torpedo boats was not made available before 1899; they were ordered to a French design in 1900, divided between Schneider (Istanbul, Izmit, Iskenderun, Icel), Ansaldo (Alpagot, Antalya, Alanya, Ankara), Normand (Yunus, Drac, Tokat, Kütahya) and Pattison (Musul, Hamidabad, Urfa, Konya). They were conventional 120-tonners, looking like this:
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Stay tuned, a LOT more to come.

Greetings
GD

Shipbucket

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