4. A Warship That Could Not Function as a Ship
Yet another of the Novgorod’s myriad problems was caused by her flat bottom. While that allowed her to operate in shallow waters, it also meant that she had no stabilizing keel to keep her in line and keep her guns pointed towards the target. So the only solution the Russian Imperial Navy could come up with was to moor the Novgorod in a fixed position. That effectively transformed her from a ship to a floating fortress anchored in place, with her guns pointed seaward.
The Novgorod and other round hulls were failed designs that were summarized thus by a naval historian: “they were a dismal failure. They were too slow to stem the current in the Dniepr, and proved very difficult to steer. In practice the discharge of even one gun caused them to turn out of control and even contra-rotating some of six propellers was unable to keep the ship on the correct heading. Nor could they cope with the rough weather which is frequently encountered in the Black Sea. They were prone to rapid rolling and pitching in anything more than a flat calm, and could not aim or load their guns under such circumstances“.
Related: Biggest Warships in the World.
