This is a list of battleships of Russian Empire and the Soviet Union.
+ Key Armament The number and type of the primary armament Armor The thickness of the belt armor. Displacement Ship displacement at full combat load Propulsion Number of shafts, type of propulsion system, designed indicated horsepower, and top speed in knots Service The dates work began and finished on the ship and its ultimate fate Laid down The date the keel began to be assembled Launched The date that the ship was launched Commissioned The date the ship was commissioned __TOC__
Pre-Dreadnoughts Dvenadsat Apostolov
Dvenadsat Apostolov was a pre-dreadnought battleship built for the Black Sea Fleet. She joined the fleet in mid-1893, but was not fully ready for service until 1894. Dvenadsat Apostolov participated in the failed attempt to recapture the mutinous battleship in 1905. Decommissioned and disarmed in 1911, the ship became an immobile submarine depot ship the following year. Dvenadsat Apostolov was captured by the Germans in 1918 in Sevastopol and was handed over to the Allies in December. Lying immobile in Sevastopol, she was captured by both sides in the Russian Civil War before she was abandoned when the White Russians evacuated the Crimea in 1920. The ship was used as a stand-in for the title ship during the filming of The Battleship Potemkin and was finally scrapped in 1931.
Ship Armament Armor Displacement Propulsion Service Laid down Launched Fate Dvenadsat Apostolov() 4 × 2 shafts, 2 triple-expansion steam engines, 21 August 1889 13 September 1890 Scrapped, 1931
Navarin
Navarin was a pre-dreadnought battleship built for the Baltic Fleet in the late 1880s and early 1890s. The ship spent the early part of her career deployed in the Mediterranean and in the Far East. She participated in the suppression of the Boxer Rebellion in 1900 before returning to the Baltic Fleet in 1901. Several months after the beginning of the Russo-Japanese War in February 1904, she was assigned to the 2nd Pacific Squadron to relieve the Russian forces blockaded in Port Arthur. During the Battle of Tsushima in May 1905, she was sunk by Japanese destroyers which spread twenty-four linked mines across her path during the night. Navarin struck two of these mines and capsized with the loss of most of her crew.
Ship Armament Armor Displacement Propulsion Service Laid down Launched Fate Navarin() 4 × 12 in 2 shafts, 2 triple-expansion steam engines, 31 May 1890 20 October 1891 Sunk at the Battle of Tsushima, 28 May 1905
Tri Sviatitelia
Tri Sviatitelia was a pre-dreadnought battleship built for the Black Sea Fleet. She was flagship of the forces pursuing the mutinous battleship in June 1905. During World War I the ship encountered the German battlecruiser (formally Yavuz Sultan Selim) twice, but never hit the German ship, nor was she damaged by her. From 1915 onward she was relegated to the coast bombardment role as she was the oldest battleship in the Black Sea Fleet. Tri Sviatitelia was refitting in Sevastopol when the February Revolution of 1917 began and she was never operational afterwards.
Tri Sviatitelia was captured when the Germans took the city in May 1918 and was turned over to the Allies after the Armistice in November 1918. Her engines were destroyed in 1919 by the British when they withdrew from Sevastopol to prevent the advancing Bolsheviks from using her against the White Russians. She was abandoned when the Whites evacuated the Crimea in 1920 and was scrapped in 1923.
Ship Armament Armor Displacement Propulsion Service Laid down Launched FateTri Sviatitelia() 4 × 12 in 2 shafts, 2 triple-expansion steam engines, 15 August 1891 12 November 1893 Scrapped, 1923
Sissoi Veliky
Sissoi Veliky was a pre-dreadnought battleship built for the Baltic Fleet in the 1890s. The ship's construction was marred by organizational, logistical and engineering problems and dragged on for more than five years. She was commissioned in October 1896 with an appalling number of design and construction faults, and only a few of them were fixed during her lifetime. Immediately after sea trials, Sissoi Veliky sailed to the Mediterranean to enforce the naval blockade of Crete during the Greco-Turkish War. In 1897 she suffered a devastating explosion of the aft gun turret that killed 21 men. After nine months in the docks of Toulon for repairs, the ship sailed to the Far East to reinforce the Russian presence there. In the summer of 1900, Sissoi Veliky supported the international campaign against the Boxer Rebellion in China. Sailors from Sissoi Veliky and Navarin participated in the defence of the International Legations in Beijing for more than two months.
In 1902 the ship returned to Kronstadt for repairs, but very little was achieved until the early losses of the Russo-Japanese War caused the formation of the Second Pacific Squadron to relieve the Russian forces blockaded in Port Arthur. Sissoi Veliky sailed for the Far East with the rest of the Baltic battleships and participated in the Battle of Tsushima on 27 May 1905. She survived the daytime artillery duel with Admiral Heihachirō Tōgō's ships, but was badly damaged and taking on water. During the night Japanese destroyers scored a torpedo hit on the ship that damaged her steering. The next morning the ship was unable to maintain speed because of flooding, and her crew surrendered to Japanese armed merchant cruisers. The ship capsized later that morning with the loss of 47 crewmen.
Ship Armament Armor Displacement Propulsion Service Laid down Launched FateSissoi Veliky() 4 × 12 in 14 in 2 shafts, 2 triple-expansion steam engines, 19 May 1892 1 June 1894 Sunk at the Battle of Tsushima, 28 May 1905
Petropavlovsk class
The Petropavlovsk class, sometimes referred to as the Poltava class, was a class of three pre-dreadnought battleships built for the Imperial Russian Navy during the 1890s. They were transferred to the Pacific Squadron upon completion and based at Port Arthur before the start of the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905. All three ships participated in the Battle of Port Arthur on the second day of the war. sank two months after the war began after striking one or more mines laid by the Japanese. The remaining two ships participated in the Battle of the Yellow Sea in August 1904 and were sunk or scuttled during the final stages of the Siege of Port Arthur.
was salvaged after the Japanese captured Port Arthur and incorporated into the Imperial Japanese Navy. The ship, renamed in Japanese service, participated in the Battle of Tsingtao in late 1914, during World War I. She was sold back to the Russians in 1916 and renamed as her original name was in use by another battleship. The ship became the flagship of the Russian Arctic Flotilla in 1917 and her crew supported the Bolsheviks later that year. She was seized by the British in early 1918 when they intervened in the Russian Civil War, abandoned by them when they withdrew and scrapped by the Soviets in 1924.
Ship Armament Armor Displacement Propulsion Service Laid down Launched Fate () 4 × 12 in 2 screws, 2 triple-expansion steam engines, 19 May 1892 6 November 1894 Scrapped, 1924 () 9 November 1894 Sunk by mine, 13 April 1904 () 1 June 1895 Scuttled, 2 January 1905
Rostislav
Rostislav was a pre-dreadnought battleship built for the Black Sea Fleet in the 1890s. She was conceived as a small, inexpensive coastal defence ship, but the Navy abandoned the concept in favor of a compact, seagoing battleship with a displacement of . Poor design and construction practices increased her actual displacement by more than . Rostislav became the world's first capital ship to burn fuel oil, rather than coal.Willmott, p. 57. Her combat ability was compromised by the use of main guns instead of the de facto Russian standard of 12 inches.
Her hull was launched in September 1896, but non-delivery of the ship's main guns delayed her maiden voyage until 1899 and her completion until 1900. In May 1899 Rostislav became the first ship of the Imperial Navy to be commanded by a member of the House of Romanov, Captain Alexander Mikhailovich. From 1903 to 1912 the ship was the flagship of the second-in-command of the Black Sea Fleet. During the 1905 Russian Revolution her crew was on the verge of mutiny but remained loyal to the regime, and actively suppressed the mutiny of the cruiser .
Rostislav was actively engaged in World War I until the collapse of the Black Sea Fleet in the beginning of 1918. She was the first Russian ship to fire upon enemy targets on land during World War I, the first Russian ship to be hit by a German airstrike, and the first one to destroy a submarine, albeit a Russian one. In April 1918 the fleeing Bolsheviks abandoned Rostislav in Sevastopol. One year later the British occupation forces permanently disabled her engines. The White forces repurposed the ship as a towed floating battery, then scuttled her in the Strait of Kerch in November 1920.
Ship Armament Armour Displacement Propulsion Service Laid down Launched Fate() 4 × 2 screws, 2 triple-expansion steam engines, 30 January 1894 (actual)19 May 1895 (formal) 2 September 1896 Scuttled, November 1920
Peresvet class
The Peresvet class was a class of three pre-dreadnought battleships built for the Imperial Russian Navy around the end of the 19th century. and were transferred to the Pacific Squadron upon completion and based at Port Arthur from 1901 and 1903. All three ships were lost by the Russians in the Russo-Japanese War; Peresvet and Pobeda participated in the Battles of Port Arthur and the Yellow Sea and were sunk during the Siege of Port Arthur. , the third ship, was sunk at the Battle of Tsushima with the loss of over half her crew. Peresvet and Pobeda were salvaged after the Japanese captured Port Arthur and incorporated into the Imperial Japanese Navy. Peresvet was sold back to the Russians during World War I and sank after hitting German mines in the Mediterranean in early 1917 while Pobeda, renamed , participated in the Battle of Tsingtao in late 1914. She became a gunnery training ship in 1917 until she was disarmed and hulked in 1922–1923. The ship was scrapped after the end of World War II.
Ship Armament Armor Displacement Propulsion Service Laid down Launched Fate () 4 × 10 in 9 in 3 screws, 3 triple-expansion steam engines, 21 November 1895 19 May 1898 Sunk by mine, 4 January 1917 () 8 November 1898Sunk during the Battle of Tsushima, 27 May 1905 () 30 May 1898 21 February 1899 Scrapped, 1946
Potemkin
(«Князь Потёмкин-Таврический», 1900 BSF) – Renamed («Пантелеймон») 1905, renamed («Потёмкин-Таврический) 1917, («Борец за Свободу») 1917, destroyed by British troops at Sevastopol 1919
Ship Armament Armor Displacement Propulsion Service Laid down Launched FatePotemkin () 4 × 12 in 2 shafts, 2 triple-expansion steam engines, 10 October 18989 October 1900Scrapped, 1923
Retvizan
Retvizan () was a pre-dreadnought battleship built before the Russo-Japanese War for the Imperial Russian Navy in the United States. She was built by the William Cramp & Sons Ship & Engine Building Company of Philadelphia, although the armament was made at the Obukhov works in Saint Petersburg and shipped to America for installation.