The ''Admiral Ushakov'' class were coastal defense

battleship A battleship is a large, heavily naval armour, armored warship with a main battery consisting of large naval gun, guns, designed to serve as a capital ship. From their advent in the late 1880s, battleships were among the largest and most form ...

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 being dissolved in the wake of the February Revolution and the declaration of ...

during the 1890s to counter armored ships of the

Swedish Navy The Swedish Navy () is the maritime service branch of the Swedish Armed Forces. It is composed of surface and submarine naval units – the Fleet (), formally sometimes referred to as the Royal Navy () – as well as marine units, the Amph ...

. All three ships were stationed in the

Baltic Sea The Baltic Sea is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that is enclosed by the countries of Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, Sweden, and the North European Plain, North and Central European Plain regions. It is the ...

when the

Russo-Japanese war The Russo-Japanese War (8 February 1904 – 5 September 1905) was fought between the Russian Empire and the Empire of Japan over rival imperial ambitions in Manchuria and the Korean Empire. The major land battles of the war were fought on the ...

began and sailed with the

Baltic Fleet The Baltic Fleet () is the Naval fleet, fleet of the Russian Navy in the Baltic Sea. Established 18 May 1703, under Tsar Peter the Great as part of the Imperial Russian Navy, the Baltic Fleet is the oldest Russian fleet. In 1918, the fleet w ...

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 (, ''Tsusimskoye srazheniye''), also known in Japan as the , was the final naval battle of the Russo-Japanese War, fought on 27–28 May 1905 in the Tsushima Strait. A devastating defeat for the Imperial Russian Navy, the ...

Design

General characteristics

They had an overall length of , a beam 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 v ...

of at deep load. They displaced .Conway's, p. 181

Propulsion

The ''Admiral Ushakov''s used vertical triple expansion 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, but not #As a measurement of length, artillery, where a different definition may apply, caliber (or calibre; sometimes abbreviated as "cal") is the specified nominal internal diameter of the gun barrel Gauge ( ...

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 armoured structure from which guns are fired, in a fortification, warship, or armoured fighting vehicle.Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary When referring to antiquity, the term "casemate wall" ...

s at the corners of the superstructure.

Armor

Their armour consisted of a waterline belt 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 * Optical microscope#Objective turret (revolver or revolving nose piece), Objective turre ...

s and the

conning tower A conning tower is a raised platform on a ship or submarine, often armoured, from which an officer in charge can conn (nautical), conn (conduct or control) the vessel, controlling movements of the ship by giving orders to those responsible for t ...

had of armour. Harvey armour 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, and sailed on 2 February 1905 to reinforce Admiral Zinovy Rozhestvensky'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

. 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 Seniavin'' 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 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 Coastal defence ships