Ekaterina II-class battleship

The ''Ekaterina II'' class were a class of four battleships built for the Imperial Russian Navy in the 1880s. They were the first battleships built for the Black Sea Fleet. Their design was highly unusual in having the main guns on three barbettes grouped in a triangle around a central armored redoubt, two side-by-side forward and one on the centerline aft. This was intended to maximize their firepower forward, both when operating in the narrow waters of the Bosphorus and when ramming. Construction was slow because they were the largest warships built until then in the Black Sea, and the shipyards had to be upgraded to handle them.

All four ships were in Sevastopol when the crew of the battleship mutinied in June 1905. s crew was considered unreliable, and she was disabled to prevent her from joining the mutiny. s crew was also considered unreliable, but she did escort ''Potemkin'' as towed her back to Sevastopol from Constanța, Romania, where ''Potemkin''s crew had sought asylum. ''Sinop'' and both pursued ''Potemkin'' to Odessa, but the crew of the latter mutinied themselves in sympathy with the crew of the ''Potemkin''. However, loyal members of the crew regained control of the ship the next day and grounded her.

A number of proposals were made in the 1900s to reconstruct them and replace their obsolete armor and guns, but none of these were carried out. ''Ekaterina II'' and ''Chesma'' were both eventually sunk as target ships after being decommissioned in 1907, but both ''Sinop'' and ''Georgii Pobedonosets'' were converted into artillery training ships before becoming guardships at Sevastopol before World War I. There they spent most of the war and were captured by the Germans in 1918, who eventually turned them over to the British, who sabotaged their engines when they abandoned the Crimea in 1919. Immobile, they were captured by both the Whites and the Bolsheviks during the Russian Civil War. ''Sinop'' was abandoned when Wrangel's fleet sailed for Bizerte, but ''Georgii Pobedonosets'' was towed there. ''Sinop'' was scrapped beginning in 1922 by the Soviets, while ''Georgii Pobedonosets'' was eventually scrapped in Bizerte beginning in 1930 by the French.

Design

The ''Ekaterina II''-class battleships were intended to support an amphibious assault on the Bosphorus and to oppose any attempt of the British Mediterranean Fleet to force the Bosphorus and enter the Black Sea. This meant that they would have to engage Turkish coastal artillery batteries and warships in the narrow confines of the Turkish Straits. This put a premium on forward-facing guns because ships might not be able to turn to bring their broadsides to bear on the enemy. Three gun mounts, two forward and one in the rear, were settled upon relatively early in the design process, but the number of guns and the choice between turrets or barbettes was the subject of much debate. The Russians had been impressed by the performance of the barbette-mounted disappearing guns of during the bombardment of Alexandria in 1882 and began to seriously consider the use of this type of installation in their new battleships. The lighter weight of barbettes versus turrets allowed for the addition of several guns, but it was later realized that they could be deleted in exchange for twin gun mounts in the barbettes for very little cost in weight.

Construction had already begun when the armor scheme was revised after a visit to France by two naval constructors. Upon their return they argued for a complete waterline armor belt to preserve the ship's buoyancy and speed if it was hit fore and aft. The original armor scheme was very close to British practice, with a short, very thick waterline belt that covered the machinery and magazines, but left the ends unprotected other than by an armored deck. Their suggestions were incorporated in the ships, but the armor scheme had to be drastically revised to cater for the complete armor belt. The maximum thickness was reduced from to and the belt reduced to at the bow and stern with a strake on the upper side of the ram bow. The middle redoubt was shortened from a length about to , just enough to cover the ammunition hoists and the funnel uptakes to save weight. Even so, the design displacement increased to , which increased draft by .

Originally only three ships were going to be built in the class, but ''Georgii Pobedonosets'' was built to a modified ''Ekaterina II'' design when a more modern design could not be prepared in a timely manner after ''Sinop'' was launched. She mainly differed from her half-sisters in her armor layout and composition.

General characteristics

The ''Ekaterina II''-class ships were long at the waterline and long overall. They had a beam of and a draft