Category Archives: Russo-Japanese war

Warship Wednesday, Sept. 20, 2017: The Potemkin’s little red brother

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Here at LSOZI, we are going to take off every Wednesday for a look at the old steam/diesel navies of the 1859-1946 time period and will profile a different ship each week. These ships have a life, a tale all their own, which sometimes takes them to the strangest places.- Christopher Eger

Warship Wednesday, Sept. 20, 2017: The Potemkin’s little red brother

Here we see the modified Bogatyr-class 1st class protected cruiser Ochakov (Очаков) of the Tsarist Navy as she appeared when first commissioned. She went by several different names and flew a myriad of different ensigns in her time, including that of the first Red admiral and the last White Russian general.

Ordered as part of the Imperial Russian Navy’s 8-year building plan, the German yard of AG Vulcan Stettin won the contract to design and build a class of protected cruisers that, for the time of the Spanish-American War, were modern. The basic design was a 6,000-ton ship with a main battery of 152mm guns, a secondary battery of a dozen 75mm guns, six torpedo tubes (four on deck and two submerged), the capability to carry sea mines and make 23-knots. In short, the Tsar’s admiralty described these ships as “a partially armored cruiser, resembling a high-breasted battleship in appearance, and in fact is a linear, lightly armored ship.”

Bogatyr. Colourised photo by Atsushi Yamashita/Monochrome Specter http://blog.livedoor.jp/irootoko_jr/

The cruisers of this type were rightly considered the best representatives of the class of medium armor deck cruisers of their day.

Only class-leader Bogatyr was built in Germany. Follow-on vessels Oleg and Vityaz were built in two Russian yards in St Petersburg, intended for the Baltic Fleet, while two others, Kagul (we’ll call her Kagul I, for reasons you will see later) and Ochakov were constructed in the Black Sea– the latter at the Lazarev Admiralty Yard in Sevastopol. As the five cruisers were built in five different yards spread across the continent, it should come as no surprise that they were all slightly different.

Laid down within 14 months of each other, they were envisioned to commission about the same time, however Vityaz was destroyed by fire on the builder’s ways in 1901 and scrapped, leaving the other four ships to enter service between August 1902 and October 1905, with the hero of our tale, Ochakov, named after a city in Mykolaiv region of Ukraine, joining the fleet on 2 October 1902 though, suffering from several defects in her electrical system and boilers, she was still in what could best be described as extended builder’s trails as late as November 1905.

OCHAKOV (Russian Protected Cruiser, 1902-1933). View made on the deck looking aft toward the ship’s twin 6-inch mount and the bridge. Courtesy of Mr. Boris V. Drashpil of Margate, Florida, 1986. Description: Catalog #: NH 101049

Trapped in the Black Sea due to Ottoman control of the Straits, Ochakov, and Kagul I did not participate in the Russo-Japanese War in 1904-1905 though sister Oleg fought at the Battle of Tsushima and managed to barely escape to be interned in the Philippines while Bogatyr sortied from Vladivostok for commerce raiding during the conflict.

Speaking of the Black Sea Fleet in 1905, something happened that you may have heard of:

Caught up in the anti-Tsarist backlash that resulted from defeat in the Pacific and loss of two out of three Russian fleets, the country was thrown into the what is described as the Russian Revolution of 1905. Some two months after the war ended, one of the darkest chapters of that unsuccessful episode was The Sevastopol Uprising.

There, one Lt. Pyotr Petrovitch Schmidt, from an Odessa-based naval family of German descent (his father fought at Sevastopol during its great siege in the Crimean War), was something of a rabble-rouser.

Schmidt

A graduate of the Naval Officers’ Corps in Saint Petersburg (53rd out of 307, class of 1886) he was soon dismissed to the reserves in 1889 after spending much of his time with the frozen Baltic Fleet on the sick list, but rejoined the warm Black Sea Fleet in 1892 only to transfer into the merchant shipping service in 1900, going on to command several steamers. Recalled to the colors for the Russo-Japanese War in 1904, he was given command of the coal transport Irtysh which was sailing for the Pacific to be sunk at Tsushima but before it left Russian waters he was thrown in the brig for insulting a fellow officer but later let out to rejoin his ship. However, by the time the fleet made it to Africa, he was back on the sick list and sent to the Black Sea Fleet to help hold it down for the duration of the war, nominally given command of Torpedo Boat No. 253.

Stripped of most effective officers and NCOs to man the other ill-fated Russian task forces and left with ships full of raw recruits and untalented leaders, the Black Sea Fleet in late 1905 was a powder keg of inefficiency that led to the famous mutiny of the battleship Potemkin in June, which was quickly put down and the ship recaptured, the 42 men considered to be in the thick of it thrown in the brig on the minelayer Prut.

Enter Schmidt, stage left.

He formed the “Union of Officers-Friends of the People in Sevastopol” and in October 1905 led a crowd to the Odessa city prison to protest the arrest of local revolutionaries and began distributing leaflets. This landed him in the jail alongside the other reds, but he was quickly released. He was cashiered at the rank of Captain 2nd Rank.

However, by 11 November, representative crew members from at least seven Black Sea Fleet warships were attending Schmidt’s group’s fiery meetings, with some calling for outright rebellion. The new sailors’ soviet elected him as their leader.

By 13 November, with an estimated 2,000 sailors and longshoremen in mutiny across Odessa, the officers of the Ochakov beat feet and left the mutineers in charge. The leaderless crew signaled that Schmidt should join them and he did, arriving at around 2 p.m. on 14 November with his 16-year-old son in tow and Imperial shoulder boards still on his uniform. Understrength– just 350 crew, with few senior NCOs and no officers, remained– the unfinished warship was clearing for an uncertain fight.

Then they went to get the Potemkin‘s locked up leaders:

Having thrown out the Admiral’s flag on Ochakov and gave the signal: “I command the fleet, Schmidt”, with the expectation of immediately attracting the whole squadron to this insurrection, he sent his cutter to the “Prut” in order to release the Potemkin people. There was no resistance. “Ochakov” received the sailors-convicts on board and went around with them the whole squadron. From all the courts, there was a welcome “Hurray.” Several of the ships, including the battleships Potemkin [which had been renamed St. Panteleimon, the patron saint of accidents and loneliness] and Rostislav, raised a red banner; at the latter, however, it only fluttered for a few minutes.

By the morning of the 15th, Schmidt fired off a telegram to Tsar Nicholas II:

“The glorious Black Sea Fleet, sacredly devoted to the people, demands Your Majesty to immediately call a meeting of the Constituent Assembly, and no longer obeys orders of Your ministers. Commander of the Fleet P. Schmidt.”

While he initially had seven other warships answering his signals, and his little red fleet was a sight that no doubt gave every Bolshevik a lump in their throat, they really had no chance.

Over the course of the day, one by one the ships took down their red flag, leaving only the cruiser and a destroyer as the only rebels. Gen. Meller-Zakomelsky, the Tsar’s commander ashore, trained every gun in the harbor– including some 12-inch pieces– on the Ochakov and the gunners were loyal. An ultimatum was issued. The battleship Rostislav, with her 254mm guns and Vice Admiral Alexander Krieger aboard, closed to within 900m of the cruiser.

At 1600, the shore batteries and Rostislav opened fire, riddling the cruiser with at least 2 254-mm and 16 152-mm shells. She was able to get six shots off in return, which missed. A fire soon broke out on Ochakov, and Schmidt stopped the fight, lowered the national ensign and red flag, then hoisted a white one. It was all over in 20 minutes. Schmidt and 35 of the sailors thought the key to the uprising were carted off in chains.

In March 1906, Schmidt and three men from Ochakov (sailors AI Gladkov, NG Antonenko, Quartermaster S. P. Priknik) were executed by a firing squad on windswept Berezan Island at the entrance of the Dnieper-Bug Estuary by the crew of the gunboat Terets.

Thrown into a shallow grave, it was unmarked until 1924 when the Soviets began erecting monuments to the people’s heroes of 1905. Of the other 300~ survivors of her red crew and the men that were recycled from the Potemkin mutineers, 14 were exiled to Siberia, 103 imprisoned at hard labor at terms several years, and 151 sent to labor battalions to serve the rest of their original enlistment.

As for Ochakov, her magazines flooded to prevent her from going in one quick puff of smoke, she smoldered for two days but did not sink. Towed into the yard for repairs, the blackened ship had 63 shell holes in her hull and superstructure and several compartments with human remains.

To erase her memory from the fleet, the ship was extensively reconstructed and, oddly enough, given the name of her sister– Kagul, which was, in turn, renamed Pamyat’ Merkuriya in March 1907.

Returning to the fleet, Kagul II as we like to call her (ex-Ochakov), was a much different ship. She proved relatively effective, rebuilt with lessons learned from her plastering by the fleet in 1905 and from against the Japanese.

She also became a test bed for seaplane use for reconnaissance and scouting purposes.

Russian Navy Curtiss Floatplane being hoisted aboard the Cruiser KAGUL (1902-1933) in February 1915, in the Black Sea. Courtesy of Mr. Boris V. Drapshil of Margate, Florida, 1984. Description: Catalog #: NH 100152

Russian Navy Curtiss Floatplane being hoisted aboard the Cruiser KAGUL (1902-1933) in February 1915, in the Black Sea. Courtesy of Mr. Boris V. Drapshil of Margate, Florida, 1984. Description: Catalog #: NH 100152

Russian Navy Curtiss F-type flying boat serial number 15 seen in the Black Sea, with the cruiser KAGUL (1902-1933) in the background. Information accompanying this photograph indicates that it was taken during the 28 March 1915 operation off the Bosporus. Description: Courtesy of Mr. Boris V. Drashpil of Margate, Florida, 1984.Catalog #: NH 100153

Russian Navy Curtiss F-type flying boat serial number 15 seen in the Black Sea, with the cruiser KAGUL (1902-1933) in the background. Information accompanying this photograph indicates that it was taken during the 28 March 1915 operation off the Bosporus. Description: Courtesy of Mr. Boris V. Drashpil of Margate, Florida, 1984.Catalog #: NH 100153

When the Great War came, the two cruisers served as the eyes of the Black Sea Fleet and hunted for the German cruisers Goeben and Breslau, bombarded fired the Turkish coast, covered minelaying expeditions (and themselves laid several of their own mine barriers) and captured or sank a number of Ottoman and later Bulgarian coasters.

Unidentified personnel seen on deck aboard the protected cruiser KAGUL (1902-1934) in The Black Sea on 20 March 1915. A twin 152mm/ 6-inch, 45-caliber gun turret appears in the center. Description: Courtesy of Mr. Boris V. Drashpil of Margate, Fla., 1983 Catalog #: NH 94406

Unidentified personnel seen on deck aboard the protected cruiser KAGUL (1902-1934) in The Black Sea on 20 March 1915. A twin 152mm/ 6-inch, 45-caliber gun turret appears in the center. Description: Courtesy of Mr. Boris V. Drashpil of Margate, Fla., 1983 Catalog #: NH 94406

AMALIA (Turkish Merchant Ship) Photographed in the Black Sea at the time of capture on 4 May 1915 off the Rumelian coast. This 430-register ton merchant ship was carrying a cargo of petrol. This view was taken from aboard the Russian cruiser KAGUL (1902-1932) which made the capture while on a raiding cruise. Description: Courtesy of Boris V. Drashpil Catalog #: NH 94798

AMALIA (Turkish Merchant Ship) Photographed in the Black Sea at the time of capture on 4 May 1915 off the Rumelian coast. This 430-register ton merchant ship was carrying a cargo of petrol. This view was taken from aboard the Russian cruiser KAGUL (1902-1932) which made the capture while on a raiding cruise. Description: Courtesy of Boris V. Drashpil Catalog #: NH 94798

Photographed in Port at Novorossiysk on the Black Sea on 27 March 1916 (old style calendar, 13 days behind present western dating). Courtesy of Mr. Boris V. Drashpil of Margate, Fla., 1893 Catalog #: NH 94408

Photographed in Port at Novorossiysk on the Black Sea on 27 March 1916 (old style calendar, 13 days behind present western dating). Courtesy of Mr. Boris V. Drashpil of Margate, Fla., 1893 Catalog #: NH 94408

After her Great War redemption, again came the revolution.

On 15 March 1917, Tsar Nicholas II abdicated after a week of riots and mutinies by the Imperial Guard in Petrograd. The Baltic Fleet, Northern Fleet, and Pacific Squadron followed suit in swearing allegiance to the Provisional Government, as did the Black Sea Fleet. Memories of the 1905 Mutiny in Odessa and Sevastopol were still strong and, at the end of the month with a red flag on her mast once more, Kagul (II) became Ochakov again, her sailor’s committee in charge.

With the decline of the Russian war effort against the Central Powers, and Lenin and Co removing the Provisional Government in November, the country dropped out of the conflict with the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk in March 1918. Ceded to German/Austrian control as part of the pact, Ochakov was captured by the Germans in May and remained in nominal service to the Kaiser until the British arrived on 24 November, two weeks after the Armistice.

Turned over to the anti-Bolshevik White Army forces, the largely crewless warship became part of Lt. Gen. Anton Denikin’s Armed Forces of the South of Russia, which led to the cruiser being renamed after that force’s early leader, General Lavr Kornilov (who himself was zapped by Red artillery in April 1918).

In 1919, after Denikin’s attack upon Moscow faltered, he fell back to the Black Sea and evacuated the remnants of his forces from Novorossiysk to the Crimea where Lt. Gen. Piotr Wrangel took over the force, our cruiser included.

The endgame of Wrangel’s effort came in November 1920 when 140,000 soldiers, Cossacks, monarchists and general White Russian diaspora left the Crimea on everything that could float. Wrangel, on his yacht Lucullus, led the working ships of the Black Sea Fleet including two battleships, two cruisers (including our subject), 15 destroyers/escorts, and five submarines first to Constantinople and then to Bizerte in French North Africa where they arrived in December.

There, the fleet in being remained for four years under RADM. Mikhail Berens until its disarmament after the recognition by France of the Soviet Union on 29 October 1924, when her old Cross of St. Andrew was hauled down as ownership had been transferred to the Soviets. After inspection by emissaries from Moscow, Ochakov/Kornilov never left Tunisia and was instead sold as scrap in 1933. Some of her guns were later likely used in French coastal defenses.

GENERAL KORNILOV Possibly photographed at Bizerte, where the ship spent 1920 to 1932 as a unit of the White Russian "Wrangel-Fleet." From the P.A. Warneck Collection, 1981; Courtesy of B. V. Drashpil of Margate, Florida. Catalog #: NH 92158

GENERAL KORNILOV Possibly photographed at Bizerte, where the ship spent 1920 to 1932 as a unit of the White Russian “Wrangel-Fleet.” From the P.A. Warneck Collection, 1981; Courtesy of B. V. Drashpil of Margate, Florida. Catalog #: NH 92158

Of her sisters, Bogatyr was scrapped in Germany in 1922 after the Reds sold her for spare change along with a number of other Baltic Fleet vessels while Oleg was written off by the Bolsheviks as a combat loss 17 June 1919 after she was torpedoed and sunk by Royal Navy speedboat CMB-4 commanded by Captain Augustus Agar at Kronstadt. As for Kagul I (Pamiat’ Merkuria) she was unable to sortie with Wrangel’s last fleet and, captured at Sevastopol, was renamed Komintern and refitted with material salvaged from Bogatyr and Oleg, later fighting the Germans in WWII until her loss in 1942.

The name Ochakov was celebrated in the Soviet Union, going on to grace a Kara-class cruiser in 1969. Based in the Black Sea (where else?) she was decommissioned in 2011 but later sunk as a blockship to piss off the Ukrainians in 2014.

The more things change.

Specs:

Displacement: 7800 fl
Length: 439 ft. 8 in
Beam: 54 ft. 6 in
Draft: 20 ft. 8 in
Propulsion:
2 shaft vertical triple-expansion steam engines
16 Normand-type boilers
23,000 hp
Speed: 23 knots
Endurance: 5320 (10) on 1194 tons coal
Complement: 30 officers and 550 sailors
Armament:
(As built)
12 × 152mm (6 in/44cal) Obuhovsky/Canet guns (2 twin turrets and 8 single guns), 2160 rounds
12 × 75mm (3in/48cal) 11-pounder guns, singles, 3600 rounds
8 × 47mm Hotchkiss guns, single
2 × 5-barrel 37 mm guns Hotchkiss guns
6 × 17.7 in (450 mm) torpedo tubes
292 M08 Sea mines
(1917)
10x 130mm/53cal singles
12 × 75mm (3in/48cal) 11-pounder guns, single
2x 64mm landing guns
8 × 47mm Hotchkiss guns, single
2 × 5-barrel 37 mm guns Hotchkiss guns
2 x Maxim machine guns
6 × 17.7 in (450 mm) torpedo tubes
292 M08 sea mines
Armor:
Deck: 80 mm (3.1 in)
Turrets: 127 mm (5.0 in)
Casemates: 80 mm (3.1 in)
Conning tower: 140 mm (5.5 in)

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Of Russians and palm trees

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In December 1908, when the slava Glory was in the Sicilian city of Messina, there was the strongest earthquake.

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Here we see past Warship Wednesday alumni and the only survivor of the Borodino-class of predeadnought battleship Slava (Russian: Слава “Glory“) in December 1908, while in the Sicilian city of Messina providing assistance to the locals following a strong earthquake that left as many as 200,000 dead.

We say Slava was the last of class because her four sister ships–Borodino, Imperator Alexander III, Knyaz Suvorov, and Oryol– were all either sunk or captured at the Battle of Tsushima, 27 May 1905 during the Russo-Japanese War, which was its own sort of strong earthquake for Tsarist Russia.

Combat Gallery Sunday : The Martial Art of Y. Mizuno

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Much as once a week I like to take time off to cover warships (Wednesdays), on Sundays (when I feel like working), I like to cover military art and the painters, illustrators, sculptors, and the like that produced them.

Combat Gallery Sunday: The Martial Art of Y. Mizuno

Y. Mizuno is a Japanese watercolor artist who specializes in war art, specifically the ships of the Imperial Japanese Navy’s Combined Fleet in World War II. His work is truly epic.

Yugumo class destroyer

Yugumo class destroyer

Chiyoda

Chiyoda

IJN submarine with piggyback midget sub. prior the attack on Pearl harbor 1941

IJN submarine with piggyback midget sub. prior the attack on Pearl Harbor 1941

IJN Akitsushima flying boat tender

IJN Akitsushima flying boat tender

Heavy cruisers Tone and Chikuma during the Battle of Leyte Gulf.

Heavy cruisers Tone and Chikuma during the Battle of Leyte Gulf.

Heavy cruiser Furutaka during the Battle of Savo Island.

Heavy cruiser Furutaka during the Battle of Savo Island.

Destroyer Take under attack by a B-25 Mitchell bomber during the Battle of Ormoc Bay

Destroyer Take under attack by a B-25 Mitchell bomber during the Battle of Ormoc Bay

Destroyer Kuwa during the Battle of Cape Engaño, an aircraft carrier in the background

Destroyer Kuwa during the Battle of Cape Engaño, an aircraft carrier in the background

For more, please visit the Marine Gallery where the work of Mizuno as well as the art of Takeshi Yuki, an artist and a war veteran himself and Mr. Ueda Kihachiro reside.

Thank you for your work, sirs.

Warship Wednesday May 27, 2015 The coldest boat in the Russian Navy

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Here at LSOZI, we are going to take off every Wednesday for a look at the old steam/diesel navies of the 1859-1946 time period and will profile a different ship each week. These ships have a life, a tale all of their own, which sometimes takes them to the strangest places.
– Christopher Eger

Warship Wednesday, May 27, 2015, The coldest boat in the Russian Navy

Click to big up

Click to big up

Here we see the unique vessel of the Tsar’s Imperial Russian Navy, the icebreaker Yermak (also spelled Ермак, Ermak, and Yermack due to transliteration) doing what she did best—breaking sea ice. She was the first true modern sea-going icebreaker in any navy and lasted an impressive 80~ years and through five world wars in which she got bloodier than could be expected for a ship of her type.

In the late 1890s, polar exploration was all the rage and Holy Russia, pushing ever further to control the Western Pacific, sought to join Europe and Asia via the Northeast Passage across the top of the country. The thing is the ships that had tried this arduous journey had all failed. One renowned Russian polar explorer and naval officer, Stepan Makarov, fresh off his expeditions to the mouth of the north-flowing Siberian rivers Ob and Yenisei, proposed a radical new steel-hulled steamship with powerful engines and screws on both the stern and bow, ready to chop up polar ice as she went.

Note the close arrangement of her three stern screws

Note the close arrangement of her three stern screws

The ship, some 319 feet long and 70 abeam, was very tubby in design. Six boilers fed either three shafts aft or one forward, allowing her to back and ram if needed– now standard procedure for icebreakers but novel at the time. Speaking of the bow, she had a strengthened hull of 29 mm plate steel sandwiched with oak and cork to allow her to break sea ice at over 7 feet thick.

Under construction

Under construction. Note the strengthened steel ‘nose’ over which in essence a second double hull would be constructed.

Her twin 55-foot high stacks and round sloping bow with a small stem and flare angles made her readily distinguishable and came to typify early icebreaker design. Even today, her hull form is imitated in even the most advanced polar icebreaker design.

The resulting design was authorized by Count Witte in 1897 at the cost of 3 million gold rubles and ordered abroad to ensure fast and reliable delivery. Laid down in December at Sir W.G. Armstrong, Whitworth & Co Ltd, Newcastle upon Tyne, she was completed 29 January 1899– and delivered at half the price.

Launching

Launching

On trails. How many times have you seen an icebreaker with a bone in her mouth?

On trails. How many times have you seen an icebreaker with a bone in her mouth?

She carried the name of cossack ataman (head man) Vasiliy `Yermak` Timofeyevich Alenin, the Don Cossack who conquered Siberia under the reign of Ivan the Terrible in the 1580s, her purpose was clear.

Surikov's "The Conquest of Siberia by Yermak" The cossack swashbuckler took 800 men east and won an empire from the khans of the tartars and tribal people of the region that the Russians hold until today.

Surikov’s “The Conquest of Siberia by Yermak” The cossack swashbuckler took 800 men east and won an empire from the khans of the tartars and tribal people of the region that the Russians hold until today.

Arriving at the headquarters of the Russian Baltic Fleet in March after a ten-day voyage from the UK, Yermak made her smashing debut ( I love a pun) by breaking her way into the ice-bound harbor Kronstadt and then up the Neva River to St. Petersburg– where thousands thronged to see her across the frozen river.

Yermak in St Petersburg on the Neva

Yermak in St Petersburg on the Neva

By that November, she came in handy. The massive 12,500-ton armored cruiser Gromoboi had been forced by early ice from her moorings to the shore, and future ice movement threatened to sink the ship. Three days later, Yermak pulled her free.

Then, just weeks later, she had to help pull the 4,200-ton Admiral Ushakov-class coastal defense ship General-Admiral Graf Apraksin from the rocks and tow her back to Kronstadt.

Yermack was the first polar icebreaker in the world, colorized photo of it assisting the Graf Apraksin in 1899.

Yermack was the first polar icebreaker in the world, a colorized photo of it assisting the Graf Apraksin in 1899. Whoever colorized the photo neglected to add the correct cap bands to the breaker, which should be blue.

She was one of the first ships to use a wireless for rescue at sea when she rescued 27 lost Finnish fishermen from the rocks near Hango and transmitted the fact to a land station there with the help of Professor Alexander Stepanovich Popov (the Russian Marconi) who had set up a station near Apraksin and relayed messages back and forth.

"Icebreaker " Yermak ", who worked for the removal of stones from the battleship "Adm. Apraksin ", saved the 10th February 1900 27 fishermen, the news of the death of the first of which was received on a radio installation"

“Icebreaker ” Yermak “, who worked for the removal of stones from the battleship “Adm. Apraksin “, saved the 10th February 1900 27 fishermen, the news of the death of the first of which was received on a radio installation”

In 1901 Yermak helped Makarov complete his Third (and last) Siberian exploration expedition, reaching as far as Nova Zemyla. It was the last time the admiral was aboard the ship that was his magnum opus.

Picture M. G. Platunova First swimming polar icebreaker Ermak, depicting her first encounter with sea ice in 1899

Painting by M. G. Platunova “First swimming polar icebreaker Ermak,” depicting her first encounter with polar sea ice. Note her buff superstructure and blue cap bands.

Makarov, sadly the best Russian naval mind of his era, was blown sky high on his flagship, the battleship Petropavlovsk, on a sortie out of Port Arthur in 1904.

During the Russo-Japanese War, Yermak helped rush reinforcements to the front, freeing first the cruisers of Capt. Yegoryev’s unit in February 1904 from Libau and then the 12 ships of Rear Admiral Nebogatov’s division the next January.

In port, click to big up

In port, click to big up

She was ordered to follow the fleet as a coal supply ship and, once in the Pacific, assist in helping to Vladivostok free of ice. Five days after leaving Russian waters, however, Yermak suffered a shaft failure, which Adm. Rozhdestvensky, enraged at the time, did not believe, and took as an act of mutiny until he personally came aboard and verified it himself.

In the end, she was allowed to limp back to Kronstadt after cross-decking a number of her officers and crew to other vessels that were short. This act saved Yermak from what would certainly have been death at the hands of the Japanese at Tsushima (though not the men she transferred).

In the summer of 1905, with the completion of the Trans-Siberian Railway all-important to a Russian victory in the Far East and her shaft repaired, she escorted supplies and rails for the project to along the Russian Arctic coast to the mouth of the Yenisey River, about half the distance.

Yermak in heavy sea ice

Yermak in heavy sea ice

A great stern shot in warm waters. Click to big up

A great stern shot in warm waters. Click to big up

She conducted some of the first through-ice dives in frozen waters

She conducted some of the first through-ice dives in frozen waters

With the war over, she went back to merchant and research service, breaking the ice around the Baltic. In 1908, she rescued her third warship when she pulled the cruiser Oleg from the ice off Finland.

By the time of the next war in 1914, Yermak was armed with some small deck guns to help ward off German submarines but again stuck to breaking out Russian warships when needed. This included freeing the cruiser Rurik for a sortie in March 1915 and the battleships Slava and Tsarevitch. Stationed in Revel for most of the war and with little for an icebreaker to do in summer months, she served as a depot ship for submarines.

Note the mascot and Tsarist uniforms with British influence

Note the mascot and Tsarist uniforms with British influence

When the rest of the Baltic Fleet raised the red flag in March 1917, she was one of the last ships to do so and even then her crew re-elected her longtime skipper, Estonian-born Capt. Rudolf Karlovich Felman, who had commanded the ship since 1903– one of the few fleet vessels to do so.

However, Felman, in the end, was kicked out in November with the coming of the Bolsheviks and promptly left Russia only to find easy work in Estonian service. He was the longest-serving of her more than 21 captains spanning seven decades.

Felman. This intrepid polar explorer and ship driver lived until 1928

Felman. This intrepid polar explorer and ship driver lived until 1928

With the Germans fast approaching and the war at its end (for the Russians anyway), Yermak sailed from Revel to Helsinki and broke out the fleet to include 7 battleships, 9 cruisers and 200~ misc vessels so that they could assemble in Kronstadt and not fall into the Kaiser’s hands. This event was later referred to as the Great Ice Cruise of the Baltic Fleet and is seen as saving the Soviet Navy. (It should be noted that the Whites sailed away in 1920 and 22 with the majority of serviceable vessels of the Black Sea and Pacific fleets respectively, leaving only those in the Baltic under the Red Flag)

At the end of March, Yermak tried to return to Helsinki with a contingent of Red Navy sailors to seize the town but after trading some naval artillery with the local Finnish ship Tarmo (2400-tons, 1 47mm gun), she turned back around when a German plane dropped a few small bombs danger close to the hapless Russian icebreaker.

Nonetheless, her service in the Revolution and later Civil War, where her crew was sent to fight on land, earned her the Revolutionary Red Banner of the Central Executive Committee for outstanding service in her third war.

By 1921, she was disarmed and back in service around the Baltic since she was one of the few operational vessels left. She was even loaned to the Germans in 1929 (at a price of 1 million DM, which was music to the ears of the cash-strapped Kremlin) to open the Kiel Canal early.

In 1935, she made an Arctic expedition equipped with a seaplane and helped pick up floating North Pole Station 1 under the famous explorer Ivan Papanin, cementing her place in polar history.

1-3

Note the Red Banner flag

 

Yermak’s fourth conflict, the Russo-Finnish Winter War; saw her again armed, this time much more heavily. In December of that year, the Finns came close to sinking the old girl when the submarine Vetehinen (Merman) stalked her without success over an 8-day period off Libau. By early 1940, Yermak helped escort Soviet Naval troops to occupy disputed islands in the Gulf of Finland—and again was scrapping with her old Civil War enemy, the Finnish Tarmo, without effect.

Click to big up

Click to big up

In 1941, her fifth war was upon her and she was soon going toe to toe with German and Finnish bombers and attack planes. According to Soviet historians, Yermak‘s gunners splashed 36 aircraft during the war while, again, she served as a depot and berthing ship for submarines as needed. In 1942, with the Axis powers closing in on Leningrad, most of her armament was shipped to the front, with all but 15 of her crew going with it to fight on shore as they had in the Civil War.

By 1944, disarmed, and her crew of dirt sailors advancing on Berlin, Yermak was transferred back to merchant service with the ship earning the Order of Lenin for her WWII service.

1950, at this point she had seen a solid half-century of service.

1950, at this point she had seen a solid half-century of service.

By 1950, after an inspection found her half-century-old hull still sound, she was sent to Antwerp for refit and then assigned to the White Sea based at Murmansk. Her floatplane long since gone, she was given a helicopter and pad in 1954 and spent the next decade assisting in breaking submarines in and out of Polyarni as well as escorting seal fishing expeditions out into the Arctic.

With new atomic icebreakers coming into Soviet service, the days of the old steam Yermak were numbered. On 23 May 1963, she was withdrawn from service and, when a bid to preserve her as a museum failed, she was ordered stripped. Her good British steel was stolen from her and everything of value slowly disappeared over a ten-year period.

What was left was burned 17 December 1975 in the bleak ship cemetery at nearby Gadzhiyevo. It is believed that part of her keel is still visible at the radioactive summer low tide in that rusty ship graveyard today.

Her monument in Murmansk

Her monument in Murmansk

A monument stands to her in Murmansk that includes one of her anchors, while a number of stamps have been issued by the Soviets and Russians to honor her memory. She has also been commemorated in Soviet maritime art.

Icebreaker Ermak

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Icebreaker Yermak by noted Soviet maritime artist Eugene Voishvillo

Icebreaker Yermak by noted Soviet maritime artist Eugene Voishvillo

Yermak at revel by Yuri Sorokin

Yermak at revel by Yuri Sorokin

A 20,000-ton icebreaker (made ironically in Finland) was commissioned in 1974 with her old name and continues service today.

In a twist of Baltic fate, Yermak’s longtime nemesis, the Finnish icebreaker Tarmo, retired in 1970, has been preserved in the Maritime Museum of Finland in Kotka since 1992. Her hull, also built by Armstrong, is still sound.

Specs:

ermak2

Displacement 7875 tons as designed, 10,000 by 1941
Length 319 feet
Width 70.8 feet
Draft 24 feet
Engines steam engines, 10,000 hp as designed
Three shafts, VTE steam engines, 6 boilers. Bow shaft as designed (removed in 1935)
Speed: 15 knots when new. 10 by 1939
Cruising range 5000 miles on 2200 tons of coal (bunkerage for 3,000 if needed). Coal consumption was 100 tons per day while underway.
Crew 89 as designed with berths for 102, 166 in naval service, 250 in 1939
Armament: 1914-1921: 2-4 small mounts of unknown caliber
1939-42ish:
2x 102 mm/45 (4″) B-2 Pattern 1930 mounts
4x 76.2 mm/30 (3″) Pattern 1914/15 mounts
4×45 mm/46 (1.77″) 21-K anti-tank guns in navalized AAA mounts
4x quad Maxim machineguns on GAZ-4M-AA mounts

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Warship Wednesday November 19, 2014 the Hard-to-Kill Russian Crown Prince

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Here at LSOZI, we are going to take off every Wednesday for a look at the old steam/diesel navies of the 1859-1946 time period and will profile a different ship each week. These ships have a life, a tale all of their own, which sometimes takes them to the strangest places. – Christopher Eger

Warship Wednesday, November 19, 2014, the Hard to Kill Russian Crown Prince

Tsarvitch at Portsmouth 1903
Here we see the Tsar’s own pre-dreadnought battleship Tsesarevich (Цесаревич, also transliterated as Tsarvitch and Czarevitch = “Crown Prince”) of the Imperial Russian Navy at Portsmouth 1903, just after commissioning, on her way to the Pacific.

She was the only ship of her class, built in France at Forges et Chantiers de la Méditerranée, La Seyne-Sur-Mer. The same yard had produced a series of 12,000-ton leviathans for the French Navy (Jauréguiberry et. al.) and patterned the new Russian ship along those lines.

The new ship would be 388-feet long and very beamy at some 76-feet, giving her a 5:1 length-to-beam ratio that was accentuated by her 1900s typical tumblehome hull (now brought back for the USS Zumwalt super destroyer). Weighing in at 13,000-tons due to her thicker armor (up to 10-inches of good German Krupp plate), she was powered by 20 Belleville water-tube boilers who ate coal like it was going out of style.

A view inside one of the 12/40cal mounts

A view inside one of the 12/40cal mounts

Armament was in two pairs of impressive Russian designed 12-inch/40 (305mm) low-angle naval rifles mounted in double turrets fore and aft with six  French-made Canet Model 1892 6-inch gun in double tube turrets arrayed along the hull of the ship.

At the builder's yard on launching day.

At the builder’s yard on launching day.

Capable of 18-knots and able to steam over 6,000nm before needed more coal, she was capable of deploying to the Pacific, which was to be her homeport at Port Arthur.

The Tsesarevich himself. He was born in 1904, with the ship that carried his title outliving him. He was executed July 1918 by the Reds at age 17.

The Tsesarevich himself. He was born in 1904, with the ship that carried his title outliving him. He was executed July 1918 by the Reds at age 17.

The Tsar’s naval architects liked her well enough that they used the design with only minor changes to build five ships of the same type in Russia. Of these five follow-on ships of the Borodino-class battleships, four near-sisterships of the Tsesarevich: Borodino, Imperator Alexander III, Knyaz Suvorov, and Oryol, were all either sunk or captured at the Battle of Tsushima, 27 May 1905 during the Russo-Japanese War. Warship Wednesday-alumni Slava, the last of the class to commission, only survived because she was under construction during the war and never left the Baltic.

Vladimir-Emyshev's painting "Battleship Tsesarevitch"

Vladimir-Emyshev’s painting “Battleship Tsesarevitch”

Laid down 8 July 1899, Tsesarevich was complete by late 1903 and rushed to the Pacific where tensions with the Japanese were mounting. In truth, just 68 days after she arrived at Port Arthur, she was attacked at her anchorage without warning by a torpedo boat of the Japanese Imperial Navy.

Tsessarevich02

Shrugging off damage from a Nippon torpedo, she was hastily repaired. However, Tsesarevich, along with most of the Russian 1st Pacific Squadron, was blockaded in the port while the Japanese landed armies to besiege the far-flung and isolated Manchurian installation. Facing the ignoble fate of being sunk at anchor by Japanese Army howitzers firing over the hills into the harbor, Admiral Vitgeft took command of the fleet, with his flag on the brand-new and recently patched-up Tsesarevich, and sailed out on 10 August 1904 to break the Japanese fleet in half– then make good their retreat to Vladivostok before that harbor was iced in for the winter.

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However, things soon turned pretty shitty for the Russians and within minutes, the Russian force of five battleships and four light cruisers and eight destroyers met Togo’s force of four battleships, two heavy cruisers, and seven light. After six hours of vain maneuvering on both sides, Tsesarevich was riddled with over a dozen large-caliber Japanese shells from the Japanese battleship Asahi that killed Vitgeft and shot up most of the ship’s topside.

While the Russian 2iC withdrew back into Port Arthur, (to have his new command sunk in December and his landlubber crews captured when that harbor fell to the Japanese January 2, 1905), Tsesarevich limped away into the night with three destroyers to try to make Vladivostok.

Computer generated image of a Borodino Class Battleship in action at Tsushima. Tsarevitch had her turn in the barrel in August 1904 and four out of five of her sisters would sink the following Spring in that epic naval clash.

Computer generated image of a Borodino Class Battleship in action at Tsushima. Tsarevitch had her turn in the barrel in August 1904 and four out of five of her sisters would sink the following Spring in that epic naval clash.

Unable to do make it Vladivostok due to smoke and sparks escaping from her nearly shot-away stacks, Tsesarevich  instead made for the closest non-Japanese harbor and was interned at the German treaty port of Tsingtao, to be nominally disarmed and sit out the rest of the war under the protection of the guns of the Kaiserlichemarine‘s Far East Squadron. There she remained even when the Japanese sank the Tsar’s Baltic Fleet (renamed the 2nd Pacific Squadron), rushed to avenge previous losses, at Tsushima.

Interned at Tsingtao, 1904.

Interned at Tsingtao, 1904.

Demolished compartment

Demolished compartment

Damage from more than a dozen hits from Togo's fleet

Damage from more than a dozen hits from Togo’s fleet

Damage to her side belt. Note the 6-inch turret

Damage to her side belt. Note the 6-inch turret

Splinters

Splinters

A Japanese 6-inch shell through her deck

A Japanese 6-inch shell through her deck

Another view

Another view

When the war ended that September, the rested Tsesarevich sailed back for the Baltic where she, along with her only surviving sister Slava, formed the backbone of the Baltic Fleet. For the next several years, the bruised veteran, the only Russian battleship to make it out of Port Arthur, had a quiet life that consisted mainly of summer cruises around the jetties of the Finnish coastline (then part of the Russian Empire), and winter cruises once that sea froze over to the Med and Atlantic.

Russian battleship Tsesarevich, in Baltic 1913. Note classic white scheme with cap bands. These were the salad-days of her life.

Russian battleship Tsesarevich, in Baltic 1913. Note classic white scheme with cap bands. These were the salad-days of her life.

When the next war erupted, she and Slava, still in their default roles as battle sisters of the Baltic, barred the gates to the Gulf of Finland, supported Russian army operations ashore through naval gunfire, and generally tried to avoid being sunk by the Kaiser’s U-boats.

Russian battleship Tsesarevich, a pre-dreadnought battleship of the Imperial Russian Navy, docked Krondsdat, ca. 1915. Note dark wartime scheme

Russian battleship Tsesarevich, a pre-dreadnought battleship of the Imperial Russian Navy, docked Krondsdat, ca. 1915. Note dark wartime scheme

In March 1917, her crew joined the general mutiny of the Baltic Fleet and several of her officers were cashiered at the point of a bayonet. With senior NCOs largely in command of understrength divisions, the ship fought alongside Slava at the Battle of Moon Sound in October. Sadly, Slava was destroyed and Tsesarevich (renamed Grazhdanin= Citizen), took a licking from the German Koenig class dreadnought battleship SMS Kronpriz (Crown Prince, talk about irony).

Tsesarevich dropping it like its hot. Her 4x12-inch and 12x6-inch guns were typical of pre-Dreadnought battleships.

Tsesarevich dropping it like its hot. Her 4×12-inch and 12×6-inch guns were typical of pre-Dreadnought battleships.

She retired to the Russian base at Kronstadt, where the British attempted to sink her during the Russian Civil War without luck while most of her sailors shipped out to fight alongside Red Guards in the Ukraine and Siberia. Deprived of the technical expertise to make the ship function, she never sailed again.

In March 1921, her remaining crew, mainly junior rates who had never seen blue water, mutinied with the bulk of the fleet, this time against the Reds. That didn’t work out so well as the Red Army soon invaded the naval base, killing over 1,000 sailors outright and executing 2600 more after the rebellion was put down.

A non-functional hulk, Tsesarevich/Grazhdanin was stricken 21 November 1925 and scrapped although some of her guns endured as coastal artillery pieces into WWII and likely a few fired rounds in anger against the Germans once more.

Of her wartime enemies, the Japanese battleship Asahi was sent to the bottom by an American submarine in WWII while the German SMS Kronpriz was scuttled 21 June 1919 in Gutter Sound, Scapa Flow after internment following WWI, where her wreck lies today.

 

Specs:

French profile for the Tsesarevich

French profile for the Tsesarevich

Displacement: 13,105 t (12,898 long tons)
Length: 118.5 m (388 ft. 9 in)
Beam: 23.2 m (76 ft. 1 in)
Draught: 7.92 m (26 ft. 0 in)
Installed power: 16,300 ihp (12,200 kW)
20 Belleville boilers
Propulsion: 2 shafts, 2 Vertical triple-expansion steam engines
Speed: 18 knots (33 km/h; 21 mph)
Range: 5,500 nmi (10,200 km; 6,300 mi) at 10 knots (19 km/h; 12 mph)
Complement: 778–79
Armament:
2 × 2 – 305 mm (12 in) guns
6 × 2 – 152 mm (6 in) guns
20 × 1 – 75 mm (3 in) guns
20 × 1 – 47 mm (1.9 in) guns
8 × 1 – 37 mm (1.5 in) guns
4 × 381 mm (15 in) torpedo tubes
Armor:
Krupp armor
Waterline belt: 160–250 mm (6.3–9.8 in)
Deck: 40–50 mm (1.6–2.0 in)
Main Gun turrets: 250 mm (9.8 in)
Barbettes: 250 mm (9.8 in)
Conning tower: 254 mm (10.0 in)

If you liked this column, please consider joining the International Naval Research Organization (INRO), Publishers of Warship International.

They are possibly one of the best sources of naval study, images, and fellowship you can find http://www.warship.org/

The International Naval Research Organization is a non-profit corporation dedicated to the encouragement of the study of naval vessels and their histories, principally in the era of iron and steel warships (about 1860 to date). Its purpose is to provide information and a means of contact for those interested in warships.

Nearing their 50th Anniversary, Warship International, the written tome of the INRO has published hundreds of articles, most of which are unique in their sweep and subject.

I’m a member, so should you be!

Warship Wednesday October 8, 2014: The Lost Loot of the Nakhimov

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Here at LSOZI, we are going to take off every Wednesday for a look at the old steam/diesel navies of the 1859-1946 time period and will profile a different ship each week. These ships have a life, a tale all of their own, which sometimes takes them to the strangest places. – Christopher Eger

Warship Wednesday, October 8, 2014: The Lost Loot of Nakhimov

Admiral Nakhimov, NYC, 1893

Admiral Nakhimov, NYC, 1893. Click to big up.

Here we see the one-off armored cruiser Admiral Nakhimov of His Majesty the Tsar of Russia’s Imperial Navy as she looked with a black hull and buff stack during the 1893 Columbia Naval Review in New York City. She was a pretty odd duck who had a hard end and a weirder legacy.

In the early 1880s, European powers became fascinated with the “Armored Cruiser” concept. These large ships were to be (stop me if you heard this already) fast enough to outrun capital ships, but sufficiently armed and armored to fight it out successfully against anything smaller. One such class of these vessels was the Royal Navy’s HMS Imperieuse/Warsprite class of very chunky (315-foot, 8500-ton) cruisers.

Well, taking this design and giving it even larger guns and more armor, the Tsar’s naval architects came up with a ship that was 8600 tons and 338 feet long (take that!) while mounting an impressive battery of eight 203mm (8-inch) naval guns protected by up to 10-inches of armor belt.

The ship had an interesting 8-gun arrangement in four twin turrets, one aft, one forward, two amidships. This was actually extremely progressive and was not copied in the fleets of the world until twenty years later

The ship had an interesting 8-gun arrangement in four twin turrets, one aft, one forward, and two amidships. This was actually extremely progressive and was not copied in the fleets of the world until twenty years later.

Aft barbette mount of the Russian armored cruiser Admiral Nakhimov

Aft barbette mount of the Russian armored cruiser Admiral Nakhimov

That was actually pretty good for the time, especially when you consider this Leviathan could make 17 knots on a standard load with a fresh hull and everything lit with good coal (remember this later).

The new warship, named after Fleet Admiral Pavel Stepanovich Nakhimov, the commander of Sevastopol during its epic Crimean War siege and the man who annihilated the Ottoman fleet at Sinope in 1853, was ordered in 1881.

The namesake Admiral at Sevastopol. He was killed at the siege.

The namesake Admiral at Sevastopol. He was killed at the siege.

Finally laid down at the Baltic Works, Saint Petersburg, she was commissioned at the end of summer in 1888, just before the Baltic froze over.

Note the ship's 1890s scheme. This later changed to an all-white scheme with buff stack and black cap

Note the ship’s 1890s scheme. This later changed to an all-white scheme with a buff stack and black cap.

Skedaddling put Europe ahead of the coming annual freeze, Admiral Nakhimov set sail for her duty posting with the Russian Pacific Squadron at Vladivostok (and after 1895, Port Arthur). Waving the flag on her epic nine-month voyage, as the strongest Russian ship in that great blue ocean, she was appointed squadron flag.

Over the next fifteen years, she would retain this posting, returning to St. Petersburg every few years for refit and replacement of boiler tubes.

Ironically for how this story ends, she also visited Japan several times for drydock periods, such as an 1890 stint at Nagasaki detailed below:

This put a lot of mileage on the proud cruiser, but she was able to make stops everywhere from New York to Greece to Toulon on the way each time, waving the crap out of the Tsarist naval jack for all to see.

Admiral Nakhimov, NYC, 1893. Dig the misspelling on the news photo. The detail is exceedingly fine.

Admiral Nakhimov, NYC, 1893, doing that whole waving the Russian Naval Jack thing. Dig the misspelling on the news photo. The detail is exceedingly fine, including the numerous launches on the side of the cruiser– some of these could be equipped with spar torpedoes and conduct their own attacks if needed. Also, note the Torpedo nets deployed. She was the first Russian ship so-equipped. Click to big up.

She took part in some sharp combat a few times, supporting the Boxer Rebellion relief group among others. She then was used as the shuttle boat between Russia and Japan during the diplomatic tension leading to the coming war. In this period before the Russo-Japanese War, Admiral Nakhimov’s crew included no less a figure than the young naval officer better known as Grand Duke Cyril, grandson of Tsar Alexander II and cousin of Nicholas II.

Cyril would later shamefully tie a red armband on his uniform and lead his elite Guards Naval Infantry battalion to swear personal allegiance to the Revolutionary government in St. Petersburg during the Russian Revolution. This, of course, did not stop him from pretending to the throne in exile after the Reds later wiped out half of his family while simultaneously hanging out with the Mladorossi group– who were actually something of a pawn of the Soviet secret police. Anyway, back to the cruiser.

Armoured Cruiser Адмирал Нахимов ‘Admiral Nakhimov’ in Port-Arthur between 1900 and 1903

AdmiralNakhimov1900-1903

When war broke out with Japan, the well-used Admiral Nakhimov was back in the Baltic on her regular refit period. This was fortuitous, as she likely would have been sunk at Port Arthur like the rest of the Russian Pacific Squadron. However, let us not congratulate ourselves just yet, as the Russian glass is always half empty.

03

Attached to the doomed “2nd Pacific Squadron” of ADM Zinovy Rozhestvensky at the last minute (who didn’t want the aging, slow cruiser), Admiral Nakhimov set sail for her end fate.

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Sailing with the fleet on its epic ride to Valhalla, eight months later the ship, aged 16 but with years of hard use on her, her hull a forest of underwater vegetation, her boiler tubes leaking, her guns hopelessly obsolete and her armor considered quaint compared to modern Harvey and Krupp designs, rounded the straits of Tsushima on May 28, 1905.

Vladimir-Emyshev's rendering of the batttle cruiser Admiral Nakhimov at Tsushima.

Vladimir-Emyshev’s rendering of the battlecruiser Admiral Nakhimov at Tsushima.

It was an easy day for Admiral Togo’s fleet and soon Admiral Nakhimov had her turn in the barrel, being hit by no less than 30 massive large-caliber shells in short order. Somehow, she remained in the fight and even landed some hits on the IJN’s armored cruiser Iwate— some of the only Russian successes of that day. However, in the end, she was doomed.

According to the Japanese, they sank her with a torpedo that night.

According to the Russians, they scuttled her.

The fact that the majority of her crew (623 men out of 651) escaped in good order lends credence to the Russian version of events.

Gold!

Then, years later, something odd happened.

In 1980 Japanese businessman (and fascist Class A war criminal) Ryoichi Sasakawa financed an expedition to dive on the Nakhimov in her watery grave in some 314 ft. of water 5.5 miles off Tsushima Island. The goal of the mission? What was believed by some to be as much as $40 billion in 5,500 boxes of gold bullion, ingots, and British sovereigns, as well as precious jewels and crates of platinum ingots that the ship was carrying when she was sunk. Surely the Tsar was in the habit of loading billions of precious metals on doomed ships, right?

You see a group of Russian naval officers, including the Nakhimov‘s paymaster, told wild stories after 1905 that the ship had picked up on the way to the Pacific some 700 million francs and 800 million marks worth of metals following the sale by the Russian government of overseas bonds to help finance the war. These officers and their statements circulated enough that groups of enterprising Japanese as early as the 1930s began looking for the ship to salvage its treasure. This continued over the decades as a myriad of groups kept looking for the Pacific’s equivalent of the Spanish treasure galleon. The Japanese considered it spoils of war and even mounted an official government salvage attempt in 1944 during the darkest days of WWII, losing three divers but accomplishing nothing.

Well, Sasakawa found the ship, and even brought up some pictures of the ship and its contents, offering to swap the prize to the Soviets for a group of isolated Japanese islands that the Reds picked up as a boobie prize in 1945. Only, in the end, the Russians didn’t bite and the “ingots” pictured on the Nakhimov turned out to be of iron and lead used in ship repair.

Doh.

Russian in 2007 placed a monument on the ship, which is considered a war grave by the country.

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One of Admiral Nakhimov‘s original 8-inch guns, raised during salvage operations in 1980, is on display at the Japanese Museum of Maritime Science in Tokyo.

Does this gu nlook familar to the one above? It should.

Does this gun look familiar to the one above? It should.

The namesake admiral and cruiser have proved to be a popular name for later Russian cruisers. A 1920s Svetlana class cruiser carried the moniker as did a 1950s Sverdlov class cruiser and a 1960s Kresta II-class cruiser. The memory of the ship sunk at the Battle of Tsushima, 28 May 1905 is today preserved by the Kirov class battlecruiser of the same name. Currently, in refit (some things never change), she is projected to rejoin the Russian Navy in 2018.

Formerly the Kalinin, the 25,000-ton batttlecruiser was renamed after the Nakhimov once the Kresta class warship with the same name retired.

Formerly the Kalinin, the 25,000-ton battlecruiser was renamed after the Nakhimov once the Kresta class warship with the same name retired.

 

Specs:

49

Displacement: 7,781 long tons (7,906 t) standard
8,473 long tons (8,609 t) full load
Length:     103.3 m (338 ft 11 in)
Beam:     18.6 m (61 ft 0 in)
Draught:     7.7 m (25 ft 3 in)
Propulsion: 2-shaft reciprocating vertical triple expansion (VTE) engines
12 cylindrical coal-fired boilers
9,000 shp (6,700 kW)
Speed:     17 knots (20 mph; 31 km/h)
Range:     4,400 nmi (8,100 km)
Boats & landing
craft carried:     2 × torpedo boats
2 × spar torpedo boats
Complement:     572-650
Armament:     • 8 × 203 mm (8 in) guns
• 10 × 152 mm (6 in) guns
• 4 × 110 mm (4.3 in) guns
• 15 × 47 mm (1.9 in) 3-pounder guns
• 3 × 381 mm (15 in) torpedo tubes
• 40 × mines
Armor:     Compound armor
Belt: 254 mm (10 in)
Deck: 51–76 mm (2–3 in)
Barbettes: 203 mm (8 in)
Turrets: 51–63 mm (2.0–2.5 in)
Conning tower: 152 mm (6 in)

 

If you liked this column, please consider joining the International Naval Research Organization (INRO), Publishers of Warship International.

They are possibly one of the best sources of naval study, images, and fellowship you can find http://www.warship.org/

The International Naval Research Organization is a non-profit corporation dedicated to the encouragement of the study of naval vessels and their histories, principally in the era of iron and steel warships (about 1860 to date). Its purpose is to provide information and a means of contact for those interested in warships.

Nearing their 50th Anniversary, Warship International, the written tome of the INRO has published hundreds of articles, most of which are unique in their sweep and subject.

I’m a member, so should you be!

Warship Wednesday Feb 5: Russian Thunder

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Here at LSOZI, we are going to take out every Wednesday for a look at the old steam/diesel navies of the 1859-1946 time period and will profile a different ship each week. – Christopher Eger

Warship Wednesday, Feb 5:  Russian Thunder

click to embiggen

click to embiggen

Here we see the Tsar’s armored cruiser Gromoboi (Thunderbolt) as she looked when visiting Australia in 1901. Built as a large warship capable of independent operations in far-flung seas, her primary role was to be that of a commerce raider against the British merchant fleet. You see when she was laid down 14 June 1897, it was Edwardian England that was seen as the greatest threat to Holy Russia, and not the Kaiser’s Germany.

The Russian cruiser Gromoboi shortly before its launch note imperial footman leaning over to get a better view.

The Russian cruiser Gromoboi shortly before its launch note imperial footman leaning over to get a better view.

An improvement on the earlier Rossia and Rurik class armored cruisers that came just before her, she was 481-feet long and tipped the scales at some 12,500 tons with a full load. This made her roughly the same size (and even larger in some cases) than the Pre-Dreadnought battleships of her age.

Oddly, her steel hull was sheathed in arsenic treated wood, to prevent fouling in distant harbors where drydocks were not available

Oddly, her steel hull was sheathed in arsenic-treated wood, to prevent fouling in distant harbors where drydocks were not available

Her battery of 20 eight and six-inch guns made sure she could slaughter any merchant ship, gunboat, or cruiser while her 19-knot speed enabled her to outrun the lumbering turn of the century battleships of the 1890s. The only ships fast enough to catch her were small scout cruisers and torpedo boats which her fifty small-caliber rapid fire guns and six inches of Krupp cemented armor belt could shrug off.

A handsome sight with her four funnels venting her 32 boilers

A handsome sight with her four funnels venting her 32 boilers

Capable of cruising over 8000-miles on a single load of coal, she could cross the Atlantic or sail to the far-flung Pacific with ease.

And she did.

Ordered from the Baltic Works, Saint Petersburg, she was commissioned November 1899, firmly a 19th-century ship in a 20th-century world. To keep her hull from fouling in tropical waters, it was sheathed with wood. Her three shafts were turned by amazingly and over complex series of 32 Belleville water-tube boilers with thousands of tubes that needed constant attention.

Note the Romanov eagle on her bow and the Imperial Russian Naval ensign fluttering. This ship was made to show the flag around the world

Note the Romanov eagle on her bow and the Imperial Russian Naval ensign fluttering. This ship was made to show the flag around the world. You have to dig the 3-inch gun as a hood ornament too. 

Her crew numbered nearly a thousand men to feed and care for these boilers, shovel 2400-tons of coal, and man her incredibly varied suite of weaponry.

Besides her twenty 8 and 6 inch guns in casemates, the cruiser had more than fifty of these smaller canet style guns to ward off torpedo boats. They offered little protection for their crews from splinters.

Besides her twenty 8 and 6 inch guns in casemates, the cruiser had more than fifty of these smaller canet style guns to ward off torpedo boats. They offered little protection for their crews from splinters.

She left the Baltic the spring after her commissioning and the gleaming white cruiser made appearances in Germany, Britain, and Australia on her way to the Tsar’s new colony of Port Arthur, recently garnered from ailing Manchu-controlled China by a lease.

Vladivostok cruisers in 1903. From left to right you have the Rossia, Bogatyr, Gromboi and Rurik ("Russia", "Hercules", "Thunderbolt", "Rurik") by Valery Shilyaeva

Vladivostok cruisers in 1903. From left to right you have the Rossia, Bogatyr, Gromboi, and Rurik (“Russia”, “Hercules”, “Thunderbolt”, “Rurik”) by Valery Shilyaeva. Click to embiggen.

Stationed in Vladivostok by 1903 along with the cruisers Rossia, Rurik and Bogatyr and the auxiliary cruiser Lena, their enemy changed from the planned British merchant fleet to that of the Japanese merchant fleet by a twist of fate in 1904 when the Russo-Japanese war started. The enemy soon bottled up most of the Russian Pacific Squadron inside Port Arthur but neglected to do so for the cruiser squadron at Vlad.

The last thing you wanted to see if you were a Japanese merchant ship in the North Pacific in 1904...

The last thing you wanted to see if you were a Japanese merchant ship in the North Pacific in 1904…

Painted a thick grey coat and made ready for war, the four cruisers formed a raider group that haunted the Northern Pacific Ocean, sinking the occasional Japanese ship. Led by the Baltic German commander Vice Admiral Karl Petrovich Jessen, they were a force to be reckoned with and almost drove the Japanese to drink.

Rossiya and Gromoboi sinking the unarmed wallowing 1,000-ton freighter, the Nakanoura Maru, built in 1865, just days after the war started in Feb 1904.

Rossiya and Gromoboi sinking the unarmed wallowing 1,000-ton freighter, the Nakamura Maru, built in 1865, just days after the war started in Feb 1904.

Their most important victory was against the Hitachi Maru, a 6,172 gross ton combined passenger-cargo ship built by Mitsubishi Shipbuilding in Nagasaki, for NYK Lines.

While transporting 1238 people, including 727 men of the 1st Reserve Regiment of the Imperial Guard of Japan and 359 men from the IJA 10th Division and 18 Krupp 11-inch (280 mm) siege howitzers desperately wanted for the siege at Port Arthur, the Hitachi Maru was found by  the Gromoboi in the southern Korean Strait between the Japanese mainland and Tsushima on June 15, 1904. The Tsar’s cruiser shelled and sank same which led to the resulting “Hitachi Maru Incident,” which ignited both British (the ship had a British captain) and Japanese anger (due to the loss of the politically important Imperial Guard regiment which included several officers from the Japanese petit nobility).

In all the cruiser force made six sorties from Vladivostok and sank 15 Japanese ships and captured two (British) merchant vessels.

The Japanese sent a fleet to Vladivostok to blockade the port and shelled the cruisers at anchorage. When the Russians did manage to emerge again in August, the fleet of six cruisers of Japanese Admiral Kamimura Hikonojō’s fast fleet caught up with the Rossia, Rurik, and Gromoboi off of Ulsan, Korea.

Japanese postcard with their version of how the Battle of Ulsan played out

Japanese postcard with their version of how the Battle of Ulsan played out

The resulting battle was a tactical Japanese victory fought over the morning of 14 August 1904.  Improved Japanese fire-control as well as a 2:1 ratio in hulls and guns won the day.

The Rurik was hit by a shell in her unarmored stern and the steering mechanism was destroyed, immobilizing her rudder in an elevated position, resulting in her being the target of intense bombardment by the Japanese cruisers. The stricken Russian ship was scuttled while Gromoboi and Rossia were able to slip their attackers and make it back to Vladivostok.

Gromoboi riddled with shrapnel after the battle. Dont worry though, its just a flesh wound

Gromoboi riddled with shrapnel after the battle. Don’t worry though, it’s just a flesh wound

All six of the Japanese cruisers received damage as did the two remaining Russian ones. The Gromoboi was riddled with shell fragments from 22 direct hits, severely damaged and had 91 dead and 182 wounded during the battle. Most of these deaths came from gunners manning the unprotected light canet guns on her decks.

Whereas the Japanese ships were able to return to the shipyard for repair, the two Russian ones could only retire to the primitive port facilities at their Siberian port. Unable to be repaired, they sat out the rest of the war and did not sortie again.

Iced in 1904-1905

Iced in 1904-1905

After spending the winter of 1904-1905 iced in, she emerged in the spring and hit a mine on 24 May, the war ended without her sailing from port again.

Following the end of the war, she was sent to the Baltic again to reinforce the fleet there. Rode hard and put up wet, she spent six years in the shipyard and emerged in 1911 with a refurbished engineering suite and upgraded fire control. Her armament was modified after experiences in the war, receiving 18-inch torpedo tubes and reducing the number of unprotected guns, and several searchlights were added.

When WWI started in 1914, she was still in the Baltic. Modified as a fast minelayer (18-knots was fast in 1914), she sortied from Krondstadt to German-frequented waters several times, sewing 200 mines per trip. Her armament was changed once more during the war and her displacement went to almost 14,000-tons.

On August 10, 1915, she tangled with the much larger and stronger German battlecruiser SMS Von Der Tann (23,000-tons, 8×11-inch guns, 9.8-inches of armor), in the waters around the Gulf of Finland. Both ships sailed away afterward, with the Gromoboi weaving her way back home safely.

Becoming part of the Red Banner Fleet by default in 1918, she survived both British and White Russian efforts to sink her during the Russian Civil War as well as the Bolshevik siege of Krondstat in 1921 only to be scrapped by a German company in 1922. No monument or memorial exists to her and her three unusual wars.

Hard aground in the port of Libau, she was scrapped in place in 1922 by the breaker who lost her there while under tow.

Hard aground in the port of Libau, she was scrapped in place in 1922 by the breaker who lost her there while under tow.

There is though, a memorial to her most famous opponent, the Hitachi-Maru Memorial Stele. It is located at the Yasukuni Shrine, Chiyoda, Tokyo, Japan.

800px-Yasukuni_Hitachi-Maru_Memorial_Stele

Specs:

click to embiggen

click to embiggen

Displacement:     12,455 long tons (12,655 t)
Length:     481 ft (146.6 m)
Beam:     68.6 ft (20.9 m)
Draught:     26 ft (7.9 m)
Installed power:     14,500 ihp (10,800 kW)
Propulsion:     3 shafts, 3 vertical triple expansion steam engines, 32 Belleville water-tube boilers
Speed:     19 knots (35 km/h; 22 mph)
Range:     8,100 nautical miles (15,000 km; 9,320 mi) at 10 knots (19 km/h; 12 mph)
Complement: 874 officers and crewmen
Armament:

(as built)
4 × 1 – 8-inch (203 mm)/45 guns
16 × 1 – 6-inch (152 mm)/45 guns
24 × 1 – 75-millimetre (3.0 in)/50 guns
12 × 1 – 47-millimetre (1.9 in)/43 guns
18 × 1 – 37-millimetre (1.5 in)/23 Hotchkiss Gatling guns
4 × 15-inch (381 mm) torpedo tubes

(after 1911)
4 × 1 – 8-inch (203 mm)/45 guns
22 × 1 – 6-inch (152 mm)/45 guns
4 × 1 – 75-millimetre (3.0 in)/50 guns
4 × 1 – 47-millimetre (1.9 in)/43 guns
2 × 18-inch torpedo tubes

(after 1915)
6 × 1 – 8-inch (203 mm)/45 guns
22 × 1 – 6-inch (152 mm)/45 guns
2x57mm guns
2 × 1 – 47mm high angle AAA guns
2 × 18-inch torpedo tubes
200 mines

Armor:     Krupp cemented armor
Belt: 6 in (152 mm)
Deck: 1.5–3 in (38–76 mm)
Conning tower: 12 in (305 mm)

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Warship Wednesday, June 12 The Tsars Lost Eagle

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Here at LSOZI, we are going to take out every Wednesday for a look at the old steam/diesel navies of the 1859-1946 time period and will profile a different ship each week. – Christopher Eger

Warship Wednesday,  June 12, 2013

orel 1904Here we see the Tsar’s mighty new battleship Orel (Russian for Eagle) in all of her black-painted brooding majesty as she sat at Krondstadt harbor in 1904. She looks like a ship in morning and for good reason, her country is at war with upstart Imperial Japan and she was soon to sail to the far-off Pacific to put things right.

Built at the Galerniy Island Shipyards, Saint Petersburg, she was brand new, only completed finally in October 1904. A  Borodino-class battleship, she was the pinnacle of pre-dreadnought design. Weighing in at nearly 15,000 tons full load, she was armed with four 12-inch guns and a dozen six inchers besides a huge battery of smaller 75 and 47mm rifles to ward away torpedo boats.  She could make 18-knots which was pretty fast for these types of ships. The thing is, to get this fast, she was comparatively lightly armored. It had long been a rule of thumb to armor battleships against the same size cannon they carried in inches (example, since she had 12-inch guns, her main belt should be 12-inches thick, with turrets and conning tower a little heavier). Instead, the Orel had a belt that ran 5-7 inches and her strongest armor was on her two main turrets of just 10-inches.

Oh well, you can’t have everything. At least it was good German Krupp armor and not that junk Harvey stuff. Trust me, where she was going, she was gonna need it.

The Orel's path was the long blue line. Sucks to be a Baltic battleship wih short legs on an 18,000 mile shakedown cruise

The Orel’s path was the long blue line. Sucks to be a Baltic battleship with short legs on an 18,000-mile shakedown cruise

Still, with her paint wet and her crew largely as new as the ship itself, her shakedown cruise was epic. She joined the 27 other Baltic fleet ships in the force designated as the 2nd Pacific Squadron (the first was trapped at Port Arthur by the Japanese) and set sail 18,000 miles to break the siege of that far off port. During the epic voyage, which predated that of the Great White Fleet by a half-decade, Orel was overloaded with coal at all times which made keeping sea hard and limited the vital underway training her crew needed to simply shovel coal.

Some 2000 tons overloaded with coal piled on deck, stacked in every compartment, and even piled around the shells in the magazines, this is how the Orel looked for most of her first and final voyage for the Tsar. Pretty safe freeboard!

Some 2000 tons overloaded with coal piled on deck, stacked in every compartment, and even piled around the shells in the magazines, this is how the Orel looked for most of her first and final voyage for the Tsar. Pretty safe freeboard!

Two months at sea and still more than 10,000 miles away, Port Arthur surrendered to the Japanese. Instead of logically turning back for the Baltic, the fleet under Admiral Zinovy Rozhestvensky pressed on, coaling at French ports around the world. By May 1905 the Russian fleet was trying to run the Straits of Tsushima between Japan and Korea. With a sneak attack preceded by seven months of foreshadowing, Japanese Admiral Tōgō Heihachirō met the 28 Russian ships with 89 of his own, a great tactical position, and all guns and tubes loaded.

The Orel had a pivotal part in the worst naval defeat in history.

The Orel had a pivotal part in the worst naval defeat in history.

The resulting battle, known as the ‘Battle of Tsushima’ in most of the world and ‘Holy Shit We Just Lost a Whole Fleet’ in Imperial Russia, was possibly the most one-sided naval engagement in history. Of the 8 Russian battleships in the line, 7 were sent to the bottom along with over 4300 brave Tsarist sailors. The Japanese lost a couple torpedo boats and 117 sailors.

But what about the 8th battleship?– well, that’s Orel‘s story.

She was itching to get into the fight and fired the first shots of the battle. She got her licks back from the Japanese. During the battle, Orel was hit by no less than five 12-inch, two 10-inch (254 mm), nine 8-inch (203 mm), 39 six-inch shells, and 21 smaller rounds or fragments. Although the ship had many large holes in the unarmored portions of her side, she was only moderately damaged as all of the four (one 12-inch and three 6-inch) shells that hit her side armor failed to penetrate.

Oryol_after_battle

The left gun of her forward 12-inch turret had been struck by an eight-inch sell that broke off its muzzle and another eight-inch shell struck the roof of the rear 12-inch turret and forced it down, which limited the maximum elevation of the left gun. Two six-inch gun turrets had been jammed by hits from eight-inch shells and one of them had been burnt out by an ammunition fire. Another turret had been damaged by a 12-inch shell that struck its supporting tube. Splinters from two 6-inch shells entered the conning tower and wounded Captian Nikolay Viktorovich Yung badly enough he was unconscious for the rest of the battle and later died of his wounds. Casualties totaled 43 crewmen killed and approximately 80 wounded.

Seven month old battleship...slightly used.

Seven-month-old battleship…slightly used.

A battered wreck that had taken tremendous punishment, the remaining crew pulled down her flag to stop the fight. Captain Yung’s body was buried at sea with full military honors after the surrender. As far as I can tell, it was the last time in Naval history that a capital ship was captured at sea after a battle.

The Japanese took her into service as the battleship Iwami although she needed nearly two years in a shipyard before she could serve again under her new flag. Her British made Bellville boilers were replaced by Japanese-built Miyabara boilers as well as her whole above-deck superstructure rebuilt. As her secondary armament was French made by Canet, the Japanese replaced it as well.

She continued to be used as a coastal defense ship throughout World War One and then as the flagship of the 90,000 man Japanese Army force that landed in Vladivostok during the Russian Civil War (1917-21)– just to rub the Russians faces in it a little further.

Odds are the Japanese would have kept her around as a trophy till this day but the battered and rebuilt warship’s tonnage counted against her in the Washington Naval Agreement, and she was disarmed used as a target ship for aircraft (see December 1941 for how that worked out) and her remains scrapped in 1925. Ironically, her service with the Japanese Navy was for almost twenty years while her service with the Russians was only seven months, and she spent most of her time in Russian waters flying the banner of the Rising Sun.

Orel-04d
Specs
Displacement:     14,151 long tons (14,378 t)
Length:     397 ft (121.0 m)
Beam:     76 ft 1 in (23.2 m)
Draft:     29 ft 2 in (8.9 m)
Installed power:     15,800 ihp (11,782 kW)
20 Belleville boilers
Propulsion:     2 shafts, 2 Triple-expansion steam engines
Speed:     18 knots (33 km/h; 21 mph)
Range:     2,590 nmi (4,800 km; 2,980 mi) at 10 knots (19 km/h; 12 mph)
Complement:     28 officers, 826 enlisted men
Armament:     2 × 2 – 12 in (305 mm) guns
6 × 2 – 6 inches (152 mm) guns
20 × 1 – 75 mm (3 in) guns
20 × 1 – 47 mm (1.9 in) guns
4 × 1 – 15 in (381 mm) torpedo tubes
Armor:     Krupp armor
Belt: 7.64–5.7 inches (194–145 mm)
Deck: 1–2 inches (25–51 mm)
Turrets: 10 inches (254 mm)

If you liked this column, please consider joining the International Naval Research Organization (INRO).

They are possibly one of the best sources of naval lore http://www.warship.org/naval.htm .

The International Naval Research Organization is a non-profit corporation dedicated to the encouragement of the study of naval vessels and their histories, principally in the era of iron and steel warships (about 1860 to date). Its purpose is to provide information and a means of contact for those interested in warships.

Nearing their 50th Anniversary, Warship International, the written tome of the INRO has published hundreds of articles, most of which are unique in their sweep and subject.

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Warship Wednesday, February 20 2013

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Here at LSOZI, we are going to take out every Wednesday for a look at the old steam/diesel navies of the 1859-1946 time period and will profile a different ship each week. – Christopher Eger

Warship Wednesday, February 20, 2013

Second battleship brigade in Helsingfors, winter 1914-1915
Here we see the Second Battleship Squadron of the Imperial Russian Navy’s Baltic Fleet with the ice and snow-clad Russian battleship Slava (Russian: Слава “Glory“) at anchor forefront in Helsinki during WWI. The Slava was one of the most famous and unlikely of Russian warships.

slava 1910
The last commissioned of a class of five Borodino-class battleships, her four sister ships: Borodino, Imperator Alexander III, Knyaz Suvorov, and Oryol, were all either sunk or captured at the Battle of Tsushima, 27 May 1905 during the Russo-Japanese War. Slava herself would more than likely have shared the same fate if it wasn’t for the fact that she was still under construction until October of that year.

The Slava at anchor off an unanmed inlet on the Finnish coast (Finalnd was part of Tsarist Russia at the time) guarding the Tsar and his yacht while the monarch, his family, and his suite relax ashore

The Slava at anchor off an unnamed inlet on the Finnish coast (Finland was part of Tsarist Russia at the time) guarding the Tsar and his yacht while the monarch, his family, and his suite relax ashore

As the largest and best-equipped battleship left in the Tsar’s Baltic Fleet until the Gangut class dreadnoughts were built, the Slava became a default flagship for the decade of service before WWI. During the war, she was the head of the Second Battleship Squadron (the Ganguts were the First) of three other pre-dreadnoughts. Slava, with just a pair of gunboats as escorts, sailed into the Gulf of Riga in 1915 to challenge the Germans there.

She exchanged fire first with the German pre-dreadnoughts Elsass and Braunschweig, then the Nassau and Posen a week later. Slava flooded her side compartments to give herself a 3° list which increased her maximum range to about 18,000 yards. For two years, Slava slugged it out with German ships and engaged the Kaisers troops onshore. Finally in 1917 the large modern dreadnoughts König and Kronprinz sailed into the Gulf and exchanged heavy fire with the old obsolete Slava in what became known as the Battle of Moon Sound.

After the Battle of Moon Sound

After the Battle of Moon Sound

Her 12-inch magazine exploded just after her crew scuttled her and the Russians fired six torpedoes into her hull for good measure. Her remains were salvaged in 1935.

In the end, her four sisters were sunk before she was born, but she successfully fought off four German battleships of the same vintage on her home territory before the Kaiser had to send a pair of his most modern sluggers to overwhelm her.

Glory indeed.

slava
Specs:
Displacement:     14,415 long tons (14,646 t) normally
15,275 long tons (15,520 t) full load
Length:     397 ft 3 in (121.1 m)
Beam:     76 ft 1 in (23.2 m)
Draft:     29 ft 2 in (8.9 m)
Installed power:     15,800 ihp (11,800 kW)
Propulsion:     2 shafts, 2 vertical triple-expansion steam engines
20 water-tube boilers
Speed:     17.5 knots (32.4 km/h; 20.1 mph)
Range:     2,590 nautical miles (4,800 km; 2,980 mi) at a speed of 10 knots (19 km/h; 12 mph)
Complement:     846
Armament:     2 × 2 – 12-inch (305 mm) guns
6 × 2 – 6-inch (152 mm) guns
20 × 1 – 75-millimeter (3.0 in) guns
4 × 1 – 47-millimeter (1.9 in) saluting guns
4 × 1 – 15-inch (381 mm) torpedo tubes
Armor:     Krupp armor
Waterline belt: 145–194 mm (5.7–7.6 in)
Deck: 25.4–51 mm (1–2 in)
Turrets: 254 mm (10.0 in)
Barbettes: 178–229 mm (7–9 in)
Conning tower: 203 mm (8.0 in)

If you liked this column, please consider joining the International Naval Research Organization (INRO)

They are possibly one of the best sources of naval lore http://www.warship.org/naval.htm

The International Naval Research Organization is a non-profit corporation dedicated to the encouragement of the study of naval vessels and their histories, principally in the era of iron and steel warships (about 1860 to date). Its purpose is to provide information and a means of contact for those interested in warships.

Nearing their 50th Anniversary, Warship International, the written tome of the INRO has published hundreds of articles, most of which are unique in their sweep and subject.

I’m a member, so should you be!

Warship Wednesday, May 9 2012

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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,  May 9, 2012

Here we have the Russian Battleship Tsar Nicholas I, about 1900.

Known in Russia as the Imperator Nikolai I (Russian: Император Николай I) was a Russian Imperator Aleksandr II-class pre-dreadnought battleship built for the Baltic Fleet in the late 1880s. Ordered in 1886, she was commissioned in 1891. Over the next 25 years, she sailed in every sea and ocean, fought in at least one war, was captured and finally sunk as a target by her new navy.

She participated in the celebration of the 400th anniversary of the discovery of America in New York City in 1892. She assigned to the Mediterranean Squadron and visited Toulon in October 1893. She sailed for the Pacific Ocean during the First Sino-Japanese War and remained in the Pacific until late 1896 when she returned to the Mediterranean Squadron and supported Russian interests during the Cretan Revolt. She returned to the Baltic in April 1898 and had a lengthy refit, which replaced all of her machinery, before returning to the Mediterranean in 1901.

Returning to the Baltic during the Russo-Japanese War Imperator Nikolai I was refitted in late 1904 to serve as the flagship of the Third Pacific Squadron under Rear Admiral Nikolai Nebogatov. She was slightly damaged during the Battle of Tsushima, receiving one hit from a twelve-inch gun, two from eight-inch guns and two from six-inch guns, and suffered only 5 killed and 35 men wounded.

She was surrendered, along with most of the Third Pacific Squadron, by Admiral Nebogatov the following day. She was taken into the Imperial Japanese Navy under the new name of Iki (壱岐?) and she served as a gunnery training ship until 1910 and then became a first-class coast defense ship and training vessel. She was sunk as a target ship in October 1915.

Displacement:     9,594 long tons (9,748 t)
Length:     346 ft 6 in (105.61 m)
Beam:     66 ft 11 in (20.40 m)
Draft:     24 ft 3 in (7.39 m)
Installed power:     7,842 ihp (5,848 kW)
Propulsion:     2 shaft vertical compound steam engines, 12 cylindrical boilers
Speed:     14 knots (16 mph; 26 km/h)
Range:     2,630 nautical miles (4,870 km) at 10 knots (12 mph; 19 km/h)
Complement:     616
Armament:     1 × 2 – 12-inch (305 mm) guns
4 × 1 – 9-inch (229 mm) guns
8 × 1 – 6-inch (152 mm) guns
10 × 1 – 47-millimeter (1.9 in) Hotchkiss revolving cannon
8 × 1 – 37-millimeter (1.5 in) Hotchkiss revolving cannon
6 × 1 – 15-inch (381 mm) torpedo tubes
Armor:     Compound armor
Belt: 6–14 in (152–356 mm)
Deck: 2.5 in (64 mm)
Turret: 10 in (254 mm)
Conning tower: 6 in (152 mm)
Bulkheads: 6 in (152 mm)

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