On the battleship, "Oslyabya" instead of steel armor was changed steel armor with cementation of the front side. This resulted in a decrease in its thickness and some increase in the total surface of the armor. For the first time in the Russian Navy on the armored carriers of this type using the design of the armored deck with bevels, closing with the lower edge of the armored belt, as it was done on the English armored carrier "Majestic". This is how the standard design was developed for all subsequent battleships. Armored battleships of the Oslyabya type were only 23 in weight about the displacement of the ship and were approaching the armored cruisers. At the initiative of S. O. Makarov, a number of measures were taken to ensure the survivability of the battleship. Squadron battleship "Caesarevich" with a displacement of 12 900 tons at a speed of 18 knots was ordered by Russia in France and launched in 1901. Its armament consisted of two two two gun towers with 305-mm guns, twelve 152-mm guns in six two gun towers and twenty 75-mm guns, located on the unprotected battery deck. Being reserved on the French system, the ship had an armored belt along the entire length of the hull with a thickness of 200-250 mm in the middle part and 125-170 mm in the window. The upper deck was 38 mm thick. The lower deck, 38 mm thick, bending downwards, forming a longitudinal armored bulkhead 2 m from the sides for protection against underwater explosions. Cuttings, main caliber towers, and their barrels were protected by armor 254 mm thick, and medium caliber towers - 152 mm thick. January 27, 1904. The Caesarevich was torpedoed during the night attack by Japanese destroyers. The mine clearance bulkhead withstood the test perfectly. With a roll of 17°, the ship stayed afloat and in this position all night repulsed the attacks of Japanese destroyers.
- Ships like the Borodino differed significantly from armadillos like the Oslyabya. They were characterized by more complete armor, which included two solid armor belts: the lower one - 203 mm thick and the upper one - 152 mm thick.
- On the last three ships of this series "Eagle", "Prince Suvorov" and "Glory" the thickness of armored belts was slightly reduced.
As can be seen, the armor thickness of the armadillos of the Borodino type is a little less than the thickness of the side armor of the Caesarevich. But this made it possible to cover the armor with anti-mine 75-mm artillery, placing it in an armored casemate, covered with 32-mm armor and separated by 25-mm armored bulkheads in accordance with the number of guns. Thanks to this, it was supposed to provide high survivability of mine artillery. Reduced thickness of the onboard armor was compensated by the use of chrome-nickel cemented steel, the resistance of which exceeded the resistance of conventional cemented steel by 20 25 %. The medium caliber artillery (152-mm) was also well protected, which was located, on the "Caesarevich", in six two-armored DIY towers. The convenient location of the two middle-size 152-mm artillery towers provided them with the angles of fire in 180 The 305-mm artillery of the main caliber remained the same as that of the battleship "Caesarevich".
- In many respects, the system of the internal armored corps adopted on the armadillos of the type "Borodino" was original. If on the armadillo Caesarevich the lower armored deck, bending down, formed a longitudinal mine bulkhead, then on the last three ships of this series the lower armored deck, also bending down, rested on the lower section of the armored belt was not rigidly attached to it. The 38 mm thick and 90 m long armored mine clearance bulkhead was installed independently and was attached to the top of the armored deck bend.
All Borodino armadillos had the same displacement of 13,500 tons and a speed of 18 knots. Their power plant consisted of two vertical steam machines of triple expansion and 20 water tube boilers.
- Even before the end of the acceptance tests, the ships were enrolled in the squadron, except for the battleship "Slava", which was completed.
- The most perfect armored ships of the Japanese Navy, approaching in its tactical and technical nature to the battleships such as "Borodino", were battleships such as "Mikasa".
Squadron battleship "Mikasa", built by the factory Vickers in England, had a displacement of 15 300 tons and a speed of 18 knots. Its artillery armament consisted of four 305-mm guns, located in two two gun towers, and fourteen 152-mm rapid-fire guns, of which ten were located on the sides in the citadel and four on the upper deck in separate armored casemates. In addition, the ship had twenty 76-mm anti-mine guns and four underwater torpedo tubes. Armor protection of the squadron battleship "Mikasa" included the main armor belt along the waterline with a thickness of 228 mm in the middle part and 102-180 mm in the extremities. The height of the armored belt was 2.4 m from the waterline. A citadel rising up to the upper deck, protected by 152-mm armor, stretched over the armor belt for 0.65 lengths of the ship. The battleship had two armored decks 75-125 mm thick and 25 mm thick. Unprotected by armor surface area of the surface of the ship was slightly more than 30%.
Comparison of Japanese and Russian armadillos shows that armadillos of Borodino type are insignificantly inferior to Japanese ones only in armor thickness.
How then to explain their death in the Tsushima battle?
- First of all, it is necessary to mention the imperfection of the main weapon of armadillos - large-caliber artillery - and the ways of its combat application.
- The most serious consequences were the decision of the Ministry of Transport to adopting new lighter shells in 1892, which should have contributed to the increase (up to 20%) of their initial flight speed and, consequently, a significant increase in the penetration capacity and flatness of the trajectory.
- The latter significantly improved the accuracy of firing, which was considered the most important quality in the Russian Navy. These conclusions were valid only for combat distances up to 20 kb, which were considered to be limiting in the Russian rules of artillery service.
- However, the main trend in the tactics of armored fleets was a rapid increase in combat distances, which reached in the Battle of Tsushima 55-70 Kb. This, as well as the use of charges with smokeless powder, increasing the range almost three times regardless of the weight of the shell, reduced to zero the dignity of light shells.
At large distances, they had a small penetrating capacity and large scattering, which sharply reduced the accuracy of the projectiles. Besides, Russian shells possessed small high-explosive action at the expense of the insufficient maintenance of an explosive substance and its low quality in comparison with the Japanese Shimoda (melinite). It was not uncommon for the projectiles not to explode. In addition, they had coarse fuses that did not explode when hit by neonirons.