Petropavlovsk-class battleship

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A postcard of Poltava
Class overview
Operators
Preceded bySissoi Veliky
Succeeded byRostislav
Built1892–1898
In commission1897–1923
Completed3
Lost2
Scrapped1
General characteristics
TypePre-dreadnought battleship
Displacement11,354–11,842 long tons (11,536–12,032 t)
Length376 ft (114.6 m)
Beam70 ft (21.3 m)
Draught28 ft 3 in (8.6 m)
Installed power
Propulsion2 shafts, 2 triple-expansion steam engines
Speed16 knots (30 km/h; 18 mph)
Range3,750 nmi (6,940 km; 4,320 mi)
Complement631–652, 750 as flagship
Armament
Armor

The Petropavlovsk class, sometimes referred to as the Poltava class, was a group of three

scuttled during the final stages of the siege of Port Arthur
in early 1905.

Poltava was

Bolsheviks later that year. Chesma was seized by the British in early 1918 when they intervened in the Russian Civil War, abandoned by them when they withdrew and scrapped
by the Soviets in 1924.

Background and description

Brassey's Naval Annual
1902

Vice Admiral Nikolay Chikhachyov [ru], proposed that six first-class and four second-class battleships be built together with some armored coast-defense ships to make up the numbers required. The Petropavlovsk-class ships were designed as first-class battleships to meet his requirement for a heavily armored ship that displaced 10,500 long tons (10,700 t) and had a speed of 17 knots (31 km/h; 20 mph), a maximum draught of 26 feet (7.9 m) and a range of 3,750 nautical miles (6,940 km; 4,320 mi) with good seakeeping qualities.[1]

The design began as an enlarged and improved version of the battleship

barbettes rather than the heavy gun turrets of the older ship. Based on experience with Imperator Aleksandr II, in which the casemate-mounted secondary armament could often not be worked in rough weather, the Naval Technical Committee (NTC) adopted the layout of the American Indiana-class battleships with the secondary armament mounted in turrets on the upper deck. Use of the lighter barbette mounting allowed for a flush-deck hull, which gave the design high freeboard. It was approved in January 1891 by the NTC with a displacement of 10,960 long tons (11,136 t) and a full-length waterline armor belt.[2]

The design was intended to have a maximum speed of 17 knots using forced draft, but model testing of the hull showed that it could only reach 16 knots (30 km/h; 18 mph). Rather than delay construction by redesigning the hull, the navy accepted the slower speed. Development of the quick-firing (QF) gun meant that an upper belt of armor was necessary and the weight required was gained by shortening the waterline armor belt, which left the ships' ends protected only by the sloping armor deck. Other changes included the replacement of the barbettes with turrets of the same type as used in the battleship Sissoi Veliky and the substitution of QF six-inch (152 mm) guns for the original eight-inch (203 mm) guns. This last change saved enough weight to permit four more six-inch guns to be added.[3]

The Petropavlovsk-class ships were 376 feet (114.6 m)

centerline bulkhead divided the machinery spaces. The upper part of the hull between the main and upper decks curved inwards (tumblehome). The Petropavlovsks had a designed metacentric height of 5.43 feet (1.7 m) and were good seagoing ships. Their crew consisted of 26–27 officers and 605–625 enlisted men; Petropavlovsk had a crew of 750 when serving as a flagship.[4]

The ships were powered by two

atm (892 kPa; 129 psi). Unlike her sisters, Sevastopol had 16 boilers. The engines were rated at 10,600 indicated horsepower (7,904 kW) and designed to reach a top speed of 16 knots. Poltava and Petropavlovsk used turbines and boilers imported from Britain and slightly exceeded their specifications; during their sea trials, the ships reached maximum speeds of 16.29 and 16.38 knots (30.17 and 30.34 km/h; 18.75 and 18.85 mph) from 11,213 and 11,255 ihp (8,362 and 8,393 kW), respectively. Sevastopol, using domestically built machinery, only reached a speed of 15.3 knots (28.3 km/h; 17.6 mph) from 9,368 indicated horsepower (6,986 kW), despite the extra boilers. The Naval Ministry chose not to exercise the penalty provisions of the contract for failing to attain the design speed because it had specified the machinery to be used. The Petropavlovsks carried a maximum of 1,050 long tons (1,070 t) of coal which allowed them to steam for 3,750 nautical miles (6,940 km; 4,320 mi) at a speed of 10 knots (19 km/h; 12 mph).[5]

Armament

The main armament of the Petropavlovsk class consisted of four 40-

traverse 270°; each was provided with 58 rounds.[6] They fired a 731-pound (331.7 kg) shell at a muzzle velocity of 2,600 ft/s (792 m/s). This gave them a range of 12,010 yards (10,980 m) at an elevation of 10°.[7]

The secondary armament of the ships consisted of a dozen 45-caliber QF

Canet Model 1892 six-inch guns. Eight of these were mounted in four twin-gun turrets on the upper deck and the remaining four guns were on pedestal mounts in unarmored embrasures in the sides of the hull, one deck below and between the turrets. Electric motors traversed the turrets and worked the ammunition hoists, but the guns were elevated manually. They had a 135° arc of fire, and the guns could elevate to a maximum of +15° and depress to −5°. The rate of fire of the turret-mounted guns was generally only about half that (two to three rounds per minute) of the pedestal-mounted guns. The motors and mechanism of the ammunition hoists were troublesome and sometimes reduced the rate of fire down to one round per minute. The guns in the hull could traverse 100° and each six-inch gun was provided with 200 rounds.[8] Their muzzle velocity of 2,600 ft/s (792.5 m/s) gave their 91.4-pound (41.46 kg) shells a maximum range of 12,602 yards (11,523 m).[9]

Smaller guns were carried for defense against

quick-firing (QF) 47-millimeter (1.9 in) Hotchkiss guns in hull embrasures and on the superstructure. They fired a 3-pound-3-ounce (1.4 kg) shell at a muzzle velocity of 1,867 ft/s (569 m/s). Twenty-eight smaller Maxim QF 37-millimeter (1.5 in) guns were positioned in hull embrasures, on the superstructure and in the fighting tops. They fired a 1-pound (0.45 kg) shell at a muzzle velocity of 1,319 ft/s (402 m/s).[8][10]

The Petropavlovsk-class ships carried four 15-inch (381 mm)

anchorage in remote areas.[8]

The ships were fitted with Liuzhol stadiametric rangefinders that used the angle between two vertical points on an enemy ship, usually the waterline and the crow's nest, to estimate the range. The gunnery officer consulted his references to get the range and calculated the proper elevation and deflection required to hit the target. He transmitted his commands via a Geisler electro-mechanical fire-control transmission system to each gun or turret.[11]

Protection

The Russian armor-plate industry had not yet mastered the process for forming thick steel plates so the armor for these ships was ordered from companies in Germany and the United States. Even they could not produce enough of the latest types of armor plate in the quantities required for all three ships. Petropavlovsk had ordinary

Krupp armor. The thicknesses of the armor plates varied in an attempt to equalize their effectiveness. In Petropavlovsk, the maximum thickness of the waterline armor belt over the machinery spaces was 16 inches (406 mm), which reduced to 12 inches abreast the magazines and tapered to a thickness of 8 inches at its bottom edge. In the other two ships, it was 14.5 inches (368 mm) thick over the machinery spaces, 10 inches (254 mm) over the magazines and 7.25 inches (184 mm) at its lower edge. The belt covered 240 feet (73.2 m) of the ships' length and was 7 feet 6 inches (2.3 m) high, of which the upper 3 feet (0.9 m) was intended to be above the waterline. It terminated in transverse bulkheads 9 inches (229 mm) thick fore and aft, leaving the ends of the ships unprotected. Above the waterline belt was an upper strake of 5-inch (127 mm) armor that ran between the turret bases, seven and a half feet high. The ends of the upper belt were closed off by five-inch angled transverse bulkheads that connected the ends of the upper belt to the turret support tubes.[12]

The armor of the main-gun turrets and their supporting tubes was 10 inches thick (Krupp armor in Poltava, nickel steel in the other two) with roofs 2 inches (51 mm) thick. The turrets of the secondary armament had 5-inch sides with 1 inch (25 mm) roofs. The six-inch guns in the hull embrasures were unprotected. The sides of the conning tower were 9 inches thick while the armor deck in the central citadel was 2 inches thick. Outside the area covered by the belt armor, the flat portion of the deck was 2.5 inches (64 mm) thick, while the sloped portion was 3 inches (76 mm) thick.[13]

Ships

Construction data
Ship Namesake Builder[14]
Laid down[14]
 Launched[14] Entered service[14] Fate
Petropavlovsk (Петропавловск) Battle of Petropavlovsk[15]
Galernyi Island Shipyard, Saint Petersburg
 19 May 1892[Note 2] 9 November 1894 1899 Sank after striking a mine, 13 April 1904[13]
Poltava (Полтава) Battle of Poltava[16]
New Admiralty Shipyard
, Saint Petersburg 		6 November 1894 Scrapped, 1924[17]
Sevastopol (Севастополь) Siege of Sevastopol[18] Galernyi Island Shipyard, Saint Petersburg 1 June 1895 1900 Scuttled, 2 January 1905[19]

Service

A Japanese depiction of the sinking of Petropavlovsk. The original caption reads: "Picture of the Eighth Attack on Port Arthur. The Flagship of Russia Was Destroyed by the Torpedo of Our Navy and Admiral Makaroff Drowned."

Petropavlovsk was the first of the sisters to enter service; she departed

Oskar Stark at the beginning of the Russo-Japanese War in February 1904.[20]

During the Battle of Port Arthur on the second day of the war, Poltava was hit twice in the aft hull, Petropavlovsk was hit three times in the bow and Sevastopol was hit once. Between them, the sisters had two men killed and seven wounded and were not significantly damaged. None of them made any hits on Japanese ships.

minefield en route and Petropavlovsk struck at least one of the mines, sinking in less than two minutes.[22] Casualties included Admiral Makarov and his guest, the war artist Vasily Vereshchagin,[23] 26 other officers and 652 enlisted men. Only 7 officers and 73 crewmen were rescued.[22]

The new commander, Rear Admiral Wilgelm Vitgeft, made an attempt to lead the Pacific Squadron to Vladivostok on 23 June, but abandoned the sortie when the squadron was discovered and pursued by the Japanese. While returning to Port Arthur, Sevastopol struck a mine, and the ship took on an estimated 1,000 long tons (1,000 t) of water; despite the flooding she was able to keep up with the fleet and reached port successfully. While under repair, which lasted until 9 July, a fire broke out aboard the ship, killing 2 crewmen and injuring another 28. All of the 47- and 37-millimeter guns in the lower hull embrasures were removed from Poltava and Sevastopol during this time; some were remounted on the superstructure, but others were used to reinforce the land defenses of Port Arthur.[24]

Vitgeft made another attempt to break through the Japanese blockade on 10 August in obedience to a direct order from Tsar

Pavel Ukhtomsky, eventually gained control of the squadron and led most of the ships back to Port Arthur. Poltava was hit by 12–14 large-caliber shells and lost 12 crewmen killed and 43 wounded; Sevastopol was hit by several shells that killed 1 and wounded 62 crewmen.[25]

Port Arthur

On 23 August, Sevastopol sortied to bombard Japanese troops and struck a mine near her forward magazines while returning to port. She was badly damaged and three of her magazines were flooded. The ship was towed back into Port Arthur and her repairs lasted until 6 November. In the meantime, the new squadron commander, Rear Admiral

Hill 203, which overlooked the harbor, on 5 December allowed them to fire directly at the Russian ships, and Poltava was sunk in shallow water that same day by a shell that started a fire in a magazine that eventually exploded. By 7 December all of the Russian battleships except Sevastopol had been sunk and the ship's captain, Nikolai von Essen, anchored her under the guns of the remaining coast defense guns outside the harbor. He rigged torpedo nets and laid a minefield around his ship that thwarted repeated attacks until 16 December when one torpedo struck the ship in the stern during a blinding snowstorm. Badly damaged, Sevastopol was towed to deep water about two weeks later, when Port Arthur surrendered on 2 January 1905 and scuttled.[26]

Tango at anchor about 1908–1909

Poltava was subsequently raised, repaired and reclassified as a first-class

Navy List on 3 July 1924 and subsequently scrapped.[17]

Notes

  1. ^ Sevastopol carried only ten 47-millimeter guns.[8]
  2. ^ All dates used in this article are New Style.

Footnotes

  1. ^ McLaughlin, pp. 15, 85.
  2. ^ McLaughlin, p. 85.
  3. ^ McLaughlin, pp. 85–86.
  4. ^ McLaughlin, pp. 84–87.
  5. ^ McLaughlin, pp. 85, 90.
  6. ^ McLaughlin, pp. 84, 87–89.
  7. ^ Friedman, p. 253.
  8. ^ a b c d McLaughlin, pp. 84, 89.
  9. ^ Friedman, p. 260.
  10. ^ Friedman, pp. 118, 120, 265.
  11. ^ Forczyk, pp. 27–28, 57.
  12. ^ McLaughlin, p. 89.
  13. ^ a b McLaughlin, p. 90.
  14. ^ a b c d McLaughlin, p. 84.
  15. ^ Silverstone, p. 381.
  16. ^ Silverstone, p. 382.
  17. ^ a b c McLaughlin, p. 91.
  18. ^ Silverstone, p. 384.
  19. ^ McLaughlin, p. 92.
  20. ^ McLaughlin, pp. 90–91.
  21. ^ Forczyk, p. 43.
  22. ^ a b McLaughlin, p. 161.
  23. ^ Pleshakov, p. 34.
  24. ^ McLaughlin, pp. 91–92, 162–163.
  25. ^ Forczyk, pp. 48–54.
  26. ^ McLaughlin, pp. 163–165.
  27. ^ Jentschura, Jung & Mickel, p. 20.
  28. ^ Watts, p. 43.
  29. ^ McLaughlin, pp. 91, 207.
  30. ^ a b Preston, p. 207.

Sources

External links
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