Peresvet-class battleship

Pre dreadnought battleship class

The Peresvet class was a group of three pre dreadnought battleships built for the Imperial Russian Navy around the end of the 19th century. Russian battleship Peresvet and Russian battleship Pobeda were transferred to the Pacific Squadron upon completion and based at Port Arthur from 1901 and 1903, respectively. All three ships were lost by the Russians in the Russo Japanese War of 1904–05; Peresvet and Pobeda participated in the Battles of Port Arthur and the Yellow Sea and were sunk during the siege of Port Arthur. Oslyabya, the third ship, sailed to the Far East with the Second Pacific Squadron to relieve the Russian forces blockaded in Port Arthur and 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, as the two countries were by now allies, and sank after hitting German mines in the Mediterranean in early 1917 while Pobeda, renamed Suwo, remained instead in Japanese service and participated in the Battle of Tsingtao in late 1914. She became a gunnery training ship in 1917. The ship was disarmed in 1922 to comply with the terms of the Washington Naval Treaty and probably scrapped around that time.

After the humiliating Russian defeat during the Crimean War of 1854–55, General Admiral Grand Duke Konstantin Nikolayevich understood that Russia would never be able to outbuild Britain or France, but still needed a maritime strategy that could defend Russia, give the fleet a useful role in peacetime and act as a deterrent. He decided that a guerre de course (commerce raiding) strategy was Russia's only effective means of attacking the British Empire or France if war broke out and built a series of fast, long range, armored cruisers like Russian cruiser Rossia and Russian cruiser Rurik to implement his strategy. The British responded by building the second class battleships of the to defeat the cruisers and the Russians countered with the three ships of the Peresvet class that were designed to support their armored cruisers. This role placed a premium on high speed and long range at the expense of heavy armament and armor. As was common with Russian ships of the time, changes were made while the ships were under construction. The most important was the revision of the secondary armament from eight and five guns to eleven 6 inch guns and additional light guns. Only two ships were originally planned, but a third was ordered to keep the Baltic Works shipyard busy until a new design could be prepared. Ironically, it was completed before the second ship, despite having been laid down over three years later. The Peresvet class ships were 434 feet (132 m) long overall, with a beam of 71 feet (22 m) and a draft of 26 feet (8 m). Designed to displace , they were overweight and actually displaced To reduce biofouling, the hulls of the first two ships were sheathed with wood and copper, but this was eliminated in Pobeda to reduce weight. The vessels had a partial double bottom and the hull was divided by 10 watertight transverse bulkheads; a centerline bulkhead divided the forward engine rooms. Each crew consisted of 27 officers and 744 enlisted men. The ships were powered by three vertical triple expansion steam engines, each driving one propeller shaft, using steam generated by 30 Belleville boilers. The engines were rated at , using forced draft, and designed to reach a top speed of All three ships slightly exceeded their specifications and reached top speeds of from during their sea trials. They carried a maximum of of coal which allowed them to steam for at a speed of Their electrical equipment consisted of four steam driven dynamos with a total capacity of .

The ships' main battery consisted of four 45 caliber, guns mounted in electrically powered twin gun turrets, one forward and one aft of the superstructure. These guns had major development problems as they proved to be too weak to use a full strength charge of propellant and had to be reworked and the charge reduced. The guns in Peresvet and Oslyabya were the original model and could be elevated to a maximum of +35°, while the reinforced guns used in Pobeda could only elevate to a maximum of +25°. The guns were designed to fire once every 40 seconds, but in service they fired at half that rate. The ships carried 75 rounds for each gun. The older guns fired a shell at a muzzle velocity of while Pobedas newer ones may have reached a muzzle velocity of At an elevation of +6°, the gun had a range of The secondary armament of the Peresvet class ships consisted of eleven 45 caliber, 6 inch Canet Model 1891 quick firing (QF) guns, 10 mounted in casemates on the sides of the hull and one underneath the forecastle as a bow chaser. Each gun was provided with 220 rounds. Smaller guns were carried for close range defense against torpedo boats. These included 20 quick firing (QF) Canet Model 1891 guns. Of these guns, eight were mounted in embrasures in the hull, four on the main deck, four on the battery deck and the last four at the corners of the superstructure on the forecastle deck. The ships carried 300 rounds for each gun. The smaller guns included twenty QF Hotchkiss guns in hull embrasures and on the superstructure. Each gun had 810 rounds provided. They fired a shell. Eight Hotchkiss guns were positioned between the 47 millimeter guns on the forecastle deck. They fired a shell at a muzzle velocity of
The Peresvet class had five torpedo tubes, three of which were above water, one in the bow and one pair of broadside tubes, and two broadside underwater tubes. The ships carried a total of 12 torpedoes. They also carried 45 mines to be laid to protect their anchorage in remote areas.

Peresvet, named after Alexander Peresvet, a Russian monk who fought against the Golden Horde at the Battle of Kulikovo in 1380, and Pobeda (the Russian word pobeda means "victory") steamed to the Far East almost immediately after entering service in 1901 and 1902 respectively. Upon her arrival, Peresvet became the flagship of the squadron's second in command, Rear Admiral Prince Pavel Ukhtomsky. During the Battle of Port Arthur (February 1904) on the second day of the war, Peresvet was not hit, but Pobeda was hit once amidships, sustaining little damage but losing two men killed and four wounded. Pobeda struck a mine during the squadron's sortie on 13 April and remained under repair for almost two months. Construction of Oslyabya, named after Rodion Oslyabya (another monk who had fought at the Battle of Kulikovo), was greatly delayed, and the ship found herself en route to the Far East when the Russo Japanese War began in February 1904. She was ordered home and assigned to the Second Pacific Squadron that was intended to relieve the forces in Port Arthur. The ship served as the flagship of Rear Admiral Baron Dmitry von Fölkersam, second in command of the squadron, but he died two days before the Battle of Tsushima in May 1905. Oslyabya led the Second Division of the squadron during the battle and was the target of numerous Japanese ships during the early part of the battle. Many of the hits on the ship were along the waterline and caused extensive flooding. Efforts to counteract the resulting list destroyed her remaining stability and she sank just over an hour after the Japanese opened fire—the first modern battleship to be sunk solely by gunfire. Sources differ on the exact number of casualties, but the lowest figure given is 471.

The Japanese raised, repaired, and rearmed Peresvet and Pobeda. They incorporated the refurbished vessels into the Imperial Japanese Navy as Sagami and Suwo, respectively, and reclassified them as first class coastal defense ships. After the beginning of World War I in 1914, Sagami was sold to Russia in March 1916 and arrived in Vladivostok on 3 April 1916, where she resumed her former name of Peresvet. During World War I Suwo served as the flagship for the Japanese squadron during the siege of Tsingtao from 27 August to 7 November 1914. The ship served as flagship of the Second Squadron of the Second Fleet in 1915–1916 before becoming a gunnery training ship for the rest of the war. In April 1922, in compliance with the Washington Naval Treaty, Suwo was disarmed at the Kure Naval Arsenal.