Warship Wednesday Aug 15

Here at LSOZI, we are going to take out every Wednesday for a look at the old steampunk navies of the 1866-1938 time period and will profile a different ship each week.

- Christopher Eger

Warship Wednesday,  Aug 15

Here we see a good color rendering of the circular battleship Popov

One of the most unusual ships of thier day, or any other, the circular battleship Vice Admiral Popov (originally named the Kiev) and her sistership the Novogrod were designed after delivery to the Imperial Russian Navy of several US-built post-civil war era armored clad monitors. Thier father, Vice Admiral Andrei Alexandrovitch Popov (hmm, the name sounds familar…) came up with the idea of a circular floating platform that could move up and down the seacoast and defened weakspots and choke points. Since they could float in just 10-feet of water, they could hide in shallow esturaries where other larger and stronger ships could not follow. From thier with a pair of 11-inch rifled guns they could dish out some lovin to Turk, Swede, or British ships coming too close to the Motherland. (Remember Germany and Austria were Russia’s closest allies until Kaiser Willy Part II changed that) The two ships were built 1870-74.

On the positive, the ship was stable as a gunplatform, it just sailed like crap and was vulnerable to plunging fire, being effectively a large bullseye floating on the water. Her decks were armored with 60mm of plate steel, which was effective for 1870s era mortars and shells, but by the 1900s was totally ineffective. Thus in 1900 the Popov and the Novorgrod were stricken. Utilised as storeships and for the occasional dockside training they were scrapped in 1912 on the eve of World War One. Thier only war use was briefly in the Danube River Flotilla in 1877 where they traded shots with Turkish land batteries.

Specs:
Displacement:     2,491 tons
2,671 tons at full load
Length:     30.8 m
Beam:     30.8 m
Draught:     3.75 m
Propulsion:     8 coal-fired boilers, 6 screws, 2,000 ihp
Speed:     7 knots
Complement:     128
Armament:
2 × 11 inch guns
2 × 4-pounder guns
16 × 37 mm guns
Armour:
Belt: 230 mm
Deck: 60 mm