Imperatritsa Mariya (Russian: Императрица Мария: Empress Maria) was the lead ship of her class of three dreadnoughts built for the Imperial Russian Navy during World War I. She served with the Black Sea Fleet during the war and covered older pre-dreadnought battleships as they bombarded Ottoman facilities in 1915. The ship engaged the Ottoman light cruiserMidilli,(formerly the German SMS Breslau) several times without inflicting anything more serious than splinter damage. Imperatritsa Mariya was sunk at anchor in Sevastopol by a magazine explosion in late 1916, killing 228 crewmen. She was subsequently raised, but her condition was very poor. She was finally scrapped in 1926, after the end of the Russian Civil War.
Description
Imperatritsa Mariya at anchor on 24 June 1915; the structure on her bow is a mooring boom, not a bowsprit
Imperatritsa Mariya was 168 meters (551 ft 2 in)
long at the waterline. She had a beam of 27.43 meters (90 ft 0 in) and a draft of 8.36 meters (27 ft 5 in). Her displacement was 23,600 long tons (23,979 t) at load, 1,000 long tons (1,016 t) more than her designed displacement of 22,600 long tons (22,963 t).[1] She proved to be very bow-heavy in service and tended to ship large amounts of water through her forward casemates.[2] The ammunition for the forward 12-inch (305 mm) guns was reduced from 100 to 70 rounds each, while the 130-millimeter (5.1 in) ammunition was reduced from 245 to 100 rounds per gun, in an attempt to compensate for her trim. This did not fully cure the problem, but Imperatritsa Mariya was lost before any other changes could be implemented.[3]
The ship was fitted with four
atm (1,770 kPa; 260 psi). Designed speed was 21 knots (39 km/h; 24 mph). Her maximum coal capacity was 1,700 long tons (1,727 t) plus 500 long tons (510 t) of fuel oil, which gave her a range of 1,640 nautical miles (3,040 km; 1,890 mi) at maximum speed. All of her electrical power was generated by three Curtis 360-kilowatt (480 hp) main turbo generators and two 200-kilowatt (270 hp) auxiliary units.[4]
Bosphorus. The Midillimined the harbor of Novorossiysk on 21 July, but the Russians, again alerted by radio intercepts, attempted to catch her on her return journey. Midilli was lured into range of Imperatritsa Mariya's guns the next day when the cruiser pursued the Russian destroyer Schastlivy, but she managed to escape with only splinter damage.[7]
Hull of the Imperatritsa Mariya in 1919 after salvage
On the morning of 20 October 1916, a fire was discovered in the Imperatritsa Mariya's forward powder magazine while at anchor in Sevastopol, but it exploded before any efforts could be made to fight the fire.
capsized a few minutes later, taking 228 sailors with her. The subsequent investigation determined that the explosion was probably the result of spontaneous combustion of the nitrocellulose-based propellant as it decomposed.[9]
Following a complex
Russian Revolution and Civil War prevented further repair work, although her 130 mm guns were removed. By 1923, the wooden blocks supporting her in place were rotting. She was floated out and grounded in shallow water in 1923. She was approved for scrapping in June 1925 and officially stricken on 21 November 1925, although the work did not begin until 1926 when she was refloated and moved back into the dry dock. Her gun turrets, which had fallen out of the ship when she capsized, were later salvaged. Two of them were used as the 30th Coast Defense Battery defending the city during the Siege of Sevastopol in World War II.[10]
Budzbon, Przemysław (1985). "Russia". In Gray, Randal (ed.). Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships 1906–1921. Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press. pp. 291–325.
Imperial Russian Navy
