The ''Admiral Ushakov'' class were coastal defense
battleship
A battleship is a large armored warship with a main battery consisting of large caliber guns. It dominated naval warfare in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
The term ''battleship'' came into use in the late 1880s to describe a type of ...
s built for the
Imperial Russian Navy
The Imperial Russian Navy () operated as the navy of the Russian Tsardom and later the Russian Empire from 1696 to 1917. Formally established in 1696, it lasted until dissolved in the wake of the February Revolution of 1917. It developed from a ...
during the 1890s to counter armored ships of the
Swedish Navy
The Swedish Navy ( sv, Svenska marinen) is the naval branch of the Swedish Armed Forces. It is composed of surface and submarine naval units – the Fleet () – as well as marine units, the Amphibious Corps ().
In Swedish, vessels o ...
. All three ships were stationed in the
Baltic Sea
The Baltic Sea is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that is enclosed by Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, Sweden and the North and Central European Plain.
The sea stretches from 53°N to 66°N latitude and from ...
when the
Russo-Japanese war
The Russo-Japanese War ( ja, 日露戦争, Nichiro sensō, Japanese-Russian War; russian: Ру́сско-япóнская войнá, Rússko-yapónskaya voyná) was fought between the Empire of Japan and the Russian Empire during 1904 and 1 ...
began and sailed with the
Baltic Fleet
, image = Great emblem of the Baltic fleet.svg
, image_size = 150
, caption = Baltic Fleet Great ensign
, dates = 18 May 1703 – present
, country =
, allegiance = (1703–1721) (1721–1917) (1917–1922) (1922–1991)(1991–present)
...
around the Cape of Good Hope to the Pacific. Two ships were captured by the Japanese and one was scuttled during the
Battle of Tsushima
The Battle of Tsushima (Japanese:対馬沖海戦, Tsushimaoki''-Kaisen'', russian: Цусимское сражение, ''Tsusimskoye srazheniye''), also known as the Battle of Tsushima Strait and the Naval Battle of Sea of Japan (Japanese: 日 ...
.
Design
General characteristics
They had an
overall
Overalls, also called bib-and-brace overalls or dungarees, are a type of garment usually used as protective clothing when working. The garments are commonly referred to as a "pair of overalls" by analogy with "pair of trousers".
Overalls were ...
length of , a
beam
Beam may refer to:
Streams of particles or energy
*Light beam, or beam of light, a directional projection of light energy
**Laser beam
*Particle beam, a stream of charged or neutral particles
**Charged particle beam, a spatially localized grou ...
of , and a
draft
Draft, The Draft, or Draught may refer to:
Watercraft dimensions
* Draft (hull), the distance from waterline to keel of a vessel
* Draft (sail), degree of curvature in a sail
* Air draft, distance from waterline to the highest point on a vessel ...
of at deep load. They displaced .
[Conway's, p. 181]
Propulsion
The ''Admiral Ushakov''s used
vertical triple expansion
A compound steam engine unit is a type of steam engine where steam is expanded in two or more stages.
A typical arrangement for a compound engine is that the steam is first expanded in a high-pressure ''(HP)'' cylinder, then having given up h ...
steam engines that produced . They were fed by 8 cylindrical coal-fired boilers, except in which only had four boilers. The engines drove 2 shafts for a maximum speed of . They carried of coal at normal load and at deep load.
[
]
Armament
The ''Admiral Ushakov''s had four 45-caliber
In guns, particularly firearms, caliber (or calibre; sometimes abbreviated as "cal") is the specified nominal internal diameter of the gun barrel Gauge (firearms) , bore – regardless of how or where the bore is measured and whether the f ...
guns in two twin-gun turrets, mounted fore and after of the superstructure, except for , whose rear turret only had a single gun. Their secondary armament consisted of four guns mounted in casemate
A casemate is a fortified gun emplacement or armored structure from which artillery, guns are fired, in a fortification, warship, or armoured fighting vehicle.Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary
When referring to Ancient history, antiquity, th ...
s at the corners of the superstructure.[
]
Armor
Their armour consisted of a waterline belt
Belt may refer to:
Apparel
* Belt (clothing), a leather or fabric band worn around the waist
* Championship belt, a type of trophy used primarily in combat sports
* Colored belts, such as a black belt or red belt, worn by martial arts practition ...
long that protected the ship's vitals. It tapered down to at the ends where it met bulkheads thick that protected the ends of the ship. The deck was thick. The turret
Turret may refer to:
* Turret (architecture), a small tower that projects above the wall of a building
* Gun turret, a mechanism of a projectile-firing weapon
* Objective turret, an indexable holder of multiple lenses in an optical microscope
* Mi ...
s and the conning tower
A conning tower is a raised platform on a ship or submarine, often armored, from which an officer in charge can conn the vessel, controlling movements of the ship by giving orders to those responsible for the ship's engine, rudder, lines, and gro ...
had of armour. Harvey armour
Harvey armor was a type of steel naval armor developed in the early 1890s in which the front surfaces of the plates were case hardened. The method for doing this was known as the Harvey process, and was invented by the American engineer Hayw ...
was used throughout.[
]
Construction
In service
Russo-Japanese War
The three ''Admiral Ushakov''s were assigned to the 3rd Pacific Squadron, under the command of Rear-Admiral Nikolai Nebogatov
Nikolai Ivanovich Nebogatov (; occasionally transliterated as Nebogatoff; April 20, 1849 – August 4, 1922) was a rear admiral in the Imperial Russian Navy, noted for his role in the final stages of the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905.
...
, and sailed on 2 February 1905 to reinforce Admiral Zinovy Rozhestvensky
Zinovy Petrovich Rozhestvensky (russian: Зиновий Петрович Рожественский, tr. ; – January 14, 1909) was an admiral of the Imperial Russian Navy. He was in command of the Second Pacific Squadron in the Battle of Tsu ...
's 2nd Pacific Squadron en route to the Pacific. They left the Baltic Sea and sailed around Europe, through the length of the Mediterranean Sea, through the Suez Canal, across the Indian Ocean, into the South China Sea where they rendezvoused at Van Fong in French Indochina on 26 April. They departed the anchorage on 1 May and encountered the Japanese fleet on 14 May at what would be called the Battle of Tsushima
The Battle of Tsushima (Japanese:対馬沖海戦, Tsushimaoki''-Kaisen'', russian: Цусимское сражение, ''Tsusimskoye srazheniye''), also known as the Battle of Tsushima Strait and the Naval Battle of Sea of Japan (Japanese: 日 ...
.
For most of the first part of the battle Nebogatov's ships trailed the more powerful 2nd Squadron and were largely ignored by the Japanese so his ships were in good shape when night fell. ''Admiral Siniavin'' had not been hit at all, although ''Admiral Ushakov'' had had her bow smashed. He had ordered his ships to turn north to make for Vladivostok earlier in the day, after Admiral Rozhestvensky had been wounded, but he ordered a turn to the southwest to evade Japanese torpedo boats during the evening, but turned north during the night. ''Admiral Ushakov'' could not make the required speed to keep up and fell out. She was either sunk or scuttled by her crew during the following morning. ''Admiral Seniavin'' and ''General Admiral Graf Apraksin'' remained with him and surrendered the following morning when he was spotted by the Japanese fleet.[Pleshakov, pp. 279–83]
Notes
Bibliography
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External links
individual ship histories
{{Russo-JapaneseWarRussianShips
Battleships of Russia
Ships of the Imperial Russian Navy