Russian battleship Imperatritsa Ekaterina Velikaya

Coordinates: 44°42′23″N 37°48′43″E / 44.70639°N 37.81194°E / 44.70639; 37.81194
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A Russian stamp honoring Imperatritsa Ekaterina Velikaya
History
Russian Empire
NameImperatritsa Ekaterina Velikaya (Императрица Екатерина Великая (Empress Catherine the Great))
NamesakeCatherine the Great
OperatorImperial Russian Navy
BuilderONZiV Shipyard, Nikolayev
Laid down30 October 1911[Note 1]
Launched6 June 1914
Commissioned18 October 1915
RenamedSvobodnaya Rossiia (Свободная Россия (Free Russia)), 29 April 1917
Russian SFSR
NameSvobodnaya Rossiia
OperatorRed Fleet
AcquiredNovember 1917
FateScuttled, 18 June 1918
General characteristics
Class and typeImperatritsa Mariya-class battleship
Displacement24,644 long tons (25,039 t)
Length556 ft (169.5 m) (waterline)
Beam92 ft (28 m)
Draft28 ft 7 in (8.7 m)
Installed power
Propulsion4 shafts; 4 steam turbines
Speed21 knots (39 km/h; 24 mph)
Range1,680 nautical miles (3,110 km; 1,930 mi) at 21 knots (39 km/h; 24 mph)
Complement1,154
Armament
Armor

Imperatritsa Ekaterina Velikaya (Russian: Императрица Екатерина Великая (Empress Catherine the Great)) was the second of three

minelaying operations off the Bosporus and anti-shipping sweeps of the coast of Anatolia. Imperatritsa Ekaterina Velikaya was renamed Svobodnaya Rossiya (Russian: Свободная Россия, Free Russia) after the February Revolution
of 1917.

She was evacuated from

scuttled in Novorossiysk harbor the following month when the Germans demanded that the Soviets hand her over according to the terms of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. Svobodnaya Rossiya was only partially salvaged
after the war.

Description

Awarded the contract for one of the three Black Sea battleships authorized in 1911, the

long at the waterline and had a beam of 92 feet (28 m); 4 feet 10 inches (1.47 m) longer and 2 feet (0.6 m) wider than her half-sisters. Her exact draft is not known, but she had a draft of 28 feet 7 inches (8.7 m) during her sea trials. The ship displaced 24,644 long tons (25,039 t) at normal load, over 900 long tons (910 t) more than her designed displacement of 23,783 long tons (24,165 t).[2] The lead ship of the class, Imperatritsa Mariya, had proven to be very bow-heavy in service and tended to take large amounts of water through her forward casemates.[3] The ammunition for Imperatritsa Ekaterina Velikaya's forward 12-inch (305 mm) guns was reduced from 100 to 70 rounds each while the ammunition for the forward 130-millimeter (5.1 in) guns was reduced from 245 to 100 rounds per gun in a successful attempt to compensate for her trim. This was successful because Imperatritsa Ekaterina Velikaya's longer length meant that she was less affected by the trim problem to begin with.[4]

Imperatritsa Ekaterina Velikaya was fitted with four

kW) which was intended to give the ship a speed was 21 knots (39 km/h; 24 mph), the turbines produced 33,000 shp (25,000 kW) on trials, although no figures for her speed have been found. The ship carried enough coal and fuel oil to give her a range of 1,680 nautical miles (3,110 km; 1,930 mi) at full speed and 3,000 nautical miles (5,600 km; 3,500 mi) at a more economical speed. All of her electrical power was generated by four primary Curtis 360-kilowatt (480 hp) turbo generators and two 200-kilowatt (270 hp) auxiliary units.[5]

Armament and protection

Her

anti-aircraft guns, one mounted on the roof of the fore turret and two side by side on the aft turret. The ship was fitted with four 17.7-inch (450 mm) submerged torpedo tubes, two tubes on each broadside.[6]

The waterline armor belt of the Imperatritsa Mariya class was 4.9–10.3 inches (124–262 mm) thick with the thickest portion covering the length of the ships between the 9.8-inch-thick (250 mm) barbettes. The armor of their gun turrets was also 9.8 inches thick and their decks ranged from 1 to 2 inches (25 to 51 mm) in thickness. The armor plates protecting the conning tower were 11.8 inches (300 mm) thick[7]

Service

Imperatritsa Ekaterina Velikaya was built by the ONZiV Shipyard at

laid down on 30 October 1911 as Ekaterina II, but this was just a ceremonial event as neither the design had been finalized nor the contract signed. ONZiV decided, on advice from Vickers, to increase her dimensions over those of her sisters to prevent her from being overweight. This added over two million gold rubles to her cost and delayed the start of her construction three months past her half-sisters. She was launched on 6 June 1914, renamed on 27 June 1915, and completed on 18 October. She ran her trials over the remainder of the year.[8]

She was nearly sunk by the

Odessa to Novorossiysk in preparation for an amphibious landing the next month.[11] The battleship may have briefly engaged the light cruiser Midilli on 4 April, firing at the smaller ship for about 15 minutes with little effect before she was able to disengage.[12] Other sources, however, state that the Ottoman ship actually encountered Imperatritsa Mariya.[13][Note 2]

Three months later Imperatritsa Ekaterina Velikaya and her half-sister Imperatritsa Mariya, alerted by intercepted radio transmissions, sortied from Sevastopol in an attempt to intercept Yavuz and Midilli as they returned from a bombardment of the Russian port of Tuapse on 4 July. The Ottoman ships dodged north and avoided the Russians by paralleling the Bulgarian coastline back to the Bosporus.[16] Imperatritsa Ekaterina Velikaya escorted another seaplane carrier attack on Varna harbor on 25 August; German aircraft counterattacked and damaged one of the escorting destroyers.[17] On 11 October 1916, she ran aground off Sevastopol. She was refloated and taken in to Sevastopol for repairs.[18]

1917–1918

Together with three

Bolshevik Decree on Peace before a formal Armistice was signed the next month.[22]

The ship sailed from Sevastopol to Novorossiysk on 30 April 1918 as German troops approached the city. Svobodnaya Rossiya was

capsized and sank in four minutes.[23] No attempt was made to salvage her during the 1920s, but the 12-inch shells were salvaged from her wreck. Explosive charges were used to gain access to her magazines until one day in 1930 when a charge set off a torpedo warhead, which caused a nearby powder magazine to explode, throwing a column of water 100–120 meters (110–130 yd) into the air. No one was injured, but work of this type ceased,[24] although parts of her engines and boilers were later salvaged.[25]

Notes

  1. ^ All dates used in this article are New Style, which is 13 days later after 1900
  2. ^ Halpern was citing Pavlovich,[14] but the situation is even more confusing as Langensiepen & Güleryüz claim that the engagement between Imperatritsa Mariya and Midilli actually happened on 19 April.[15]

Footnotes

  1. ^ McLaughlin, pp. 230–232
  2. ^ McLaughlin, p. 228
  3. ^ Gardiner & Gray, p. 303
  4. ^ McLaughlin, p. 237
  5. ^ McLaughlin, pp. 229, 235–237
  6. ^ McLaughlin, pp. 233–234
  7. ^ McLaughlin, pp. 136–138, 142–144
  8. ^ McLaughlin, pp. 228, 231–232
  9. ^ Halpern, p. 237; Nekrasov, p. 68
  10. ^ McLaughlin, pp. 304–305
  11. ^ Greger, pp. 53–54
  12. ^ Halpern, pp. 242–243 and fn. 44
  13. ^ Greger, p. 54; Nekrasov, p. 83
  14. ^ Pavlovich, p. 369
  15. ^ Langensiepen & Güleryüz, p. 50
  16. ^ McLaughlin, p. 305
  17. ^ Greger, p. 57
  18. ^ Chernyshev, Alexander Alekseevich (2012). Погибли без боя. Катастрофы русских кораблей XVIII–XX вв [They died without a fight. Catastrophes of Russian ships of the XVIII-XX centuries] (in Russian). Veche.
  19. ^ Greger, p. 61
  20. ^ McLaughlin, p. 242
  21. ^ Halpern, p. 253
  22. ^ Greger, pp. 62–65
  23. ^ a b McLaughlin, p. 308
  24. ^ McLaughlin, pp. 330–331
  25. ^ Breyer, p. 37

Bibliography

External links

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