Russian battleship Retvizan

Russian Battleship Retvizan

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Russian battleship Retvizan

Retvizan (????????) was a Russian pre-Dreadnought

Pre-dreadnought

File:USS Texas2.jpgPre-dreadnought battleship is the general term for all of the types of sea going battleships built between the mid-1890s and 1905....
battleship which fought in the Russo-Japanese War

Russo-Japanese War

The Russo-Japanese War or the Manchurian Campaign in some English sources, was a conflict that grew out of the rival imperialism ambitions of the Russian Empire and the Empire of Japan over Manchuria and Korea....
. She was unique in that many of her components and their actual fabrication was done in the United States

United States

The United States of America is a Federal government constitutional republic comprising U.S. state and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its Contiguous United States and Washington, D.C., the Capital districts and territories, lie between the Pacific Ocean and Atlantic Oceans, Borders of the U...
for the Imperial Russian Navy

Imperial Russian Navy

The Imperial Russian Navy refers to the Tsarist Naval fleet prior to the Bolshevik Revolution....
. Much of her side armor was forged by the Bethlehem Steel Corporation, and she was built by the William Cramp and Sons

William Cramp and Sons

William Cramp & Sons Shipbuilding Company of Philadelphia was founded in 1825 by William Cramp, and was the preeminent U.S. iron shipbuilder in the 19th century....
Ship & Engine Building Company of Philadelphia. The armament was made at the Obukhov works in St Petersburg and shipped to America for installation.

Retvizan was named after the Swedish battleship Rättvisa (meaning Justice) which was captured by the Russians at the Battle of Sveaborg

Battle of Vyborg Bay

The Battle of Vyborg Bay was a naval battle fought between Russia and Sweden on July 4, 1790 during the Russo-Swedish War . The Swedish Navy suffered heavy losses, losing six ships of the line and four frigates, but Gustav III of Sweden eventually ensured a Swedish naval escape through a Russian naval blockade composed of units of the Balti...
in 1790.

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Encyclopedia

Retvizan (????????) was a Russian pre-Dreadnought

Pre-dreadnought

Russo-Japanese War

United States

Imperial Russian Navy

William Cramp and Sons

Battle of Vyborg Bay

Contracting and Construction

Charles Henry Cramp the owner and son of the founder of William Cramp and Sons

William Cramp and Sons

William Cramp & Sons Shipbuilding Company of Philadelphia was founded in 1825 by William Cramp, and was the preeminent U.S. iron shipbuilder in the 19th century....
had a relationship with the Russian Navy dating back to the late 1870's when his firm built the auxiliary cruisers Afrika, Azia

Russian cruiser Asia (1878)

The Asia was a cruiser of the Imperial Russian Navy. The ship was one of three merchantmen purchased in the United States by the Russian government in 1878 to be transformed into cruisers; the State of California became the Europa, the Saratoga became the Afrika, and the Columbus became the Asia....
, Evropa and Zabiiaka. Cramp also reapired several Russian warships cisiting America in the 1890's. At that time the Imperial Russian Navy was undergoing rapid expansion and domestic Russian shipyards were not able to meet the demand. Russian forces in the Far East needed strengthening to cope with the emergence of Japan as a naval power.

Initially Cramp offered American designs to the Russians included an updated version of the USS Iowa (BB-4)

USS Iowa (BB-4)

USS Iowa was the first ship commissioned in honor of Iowa. She was of unique design, not a member of a class of ship. Her keel was laid down by William Cramp and Sons of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on 5 August 1893....
but the Russians preferred their own design based on the Russian battleship Potemkin

Russian battleship Potemkin

The Potemkin was a pre-dreadnought battleship of the Russian Black Sea Fleet. It was built at the Nikolayev shipyard from 1898 and commissioned in 1904....
. The contract was signed on 23 April 1898 for a price of $4,360,000. The Russian cruiser Varyag (1899) was ordered at the same time for $2,138,000.

Design

The design was produced by Cramp and Russian engineers and was a modifed and enlarged version of the Potemkin. The new ship had four fewer 6 inch guns but twice the coal capacity and greater internal volume for improved range

Armament

The armament was supplied by the Russians and shipped to America for installation.

Main armament consisted of four 12 inch guns in twin turrets (75 rounds per gun).
Secondary armament consisted of twelve 6 inch Canet pattern
Canet guns

The Canet guns were a series of weapon systems developed by the French engineer Canet, who was design engineer for Schneider et Cie of Le Creusot....
guns in casemates (200 rounds per gun)
The anti torpedo boat armament consisted of twenty 75mm Canet pattern guns (325 rounds per gun)
six torpedo tubes were fitted with 17 torpedoes carried

Armour

The total weight of the armour was 3,300 tons or 25.8 % of the displacement. The armour was made by the Krupp process

Krupp armour

Krupp armour was a type of steel armour used in the construction of capital ships starting shortly before the end of the 19th century. It was developed by Germany's Krupp Arms Works in 1893 and quickly replaced Harvey armor as the primary method of protecting naval ships....
by Bethlehem Steel and Metal works, St Petersburg (turrets only)

Machinery

The machinery consisted of two vertical triple expansion engines driving two propeller shafts. The boilers were of Niclausse design and there were 24 of them. The Niclausse boiler was chosen by Cramp as his firm were the US agents and proved less than popular with the Russians due to their low reliability and high fuel consumption(McLaughlin 2001). The Japanese replaced the boilers in 1910

Influence

The Maine class battleship

Maine class battleship

The Maine class of battleships were launched around the dawn of the 20th century, including three ships: the , , and . The Maine class was the first to utilize submerged torpedo tubes in part due to the hull length being 20 feet longer than the previous class ships....
s built for the US Navy were designed by Charles Cramp and based on the Retvizan (McLaughlin 2001). The Maine had a lower quaterdeck, two more 6 inch guns and a slightly thicker belt.

Service

The ship had extensive trials in America before delivery to the Baltic where she took part in a Naval Review in Reval

Tallinn

Tallinn is the capital and largest city in the Republic of Estonia and of Harju County. It occupies a surface of 159.2 km? in which 397,617 inhabitants live....
staged for the State visit of Kaiser Wilhelm II in August 1902.

The Retvzan was transferred to the Russian Pacific Fleet

Russian Pacific Fleet

The Pacific Fleet is part of the Russian Navy stationed in the Pacific Ocean, which formerly secured the Far Eastern borders of the Soviet Union....
in late 1902 sailing in company with the Russian battleship Pobeda and the cruisers Diana

Russian cruiser Diana (1899)

The Diana was the second of three Pallada class cruiser protected cruisers built for the Imperial Russian Navy. The cruiser served as part of the First Pacific Squadron at Port Arthur during the Russo-Japanese War and took part in the Battle of the Yellow Sea on August 10, 1904....
, Pallada

Russian cruiser Pallada (1899)

The RUS Pallada was the lead ship in the of protected cruisers in the Imperial Russian Navy. It was built in Admiralty Shipyard, Saint Petersburg, Russia....
and Bogatyr. She arrived at Port Arthur (now Lüshunkou

Lüshunkou

L?shun city or L?shunkou or L?shun Port , formerly known as both Port Arthur and Ryojun, is a town located at the extreme southern tip of the Liaodong Peninsula, in the district of Dalian of the People's Republic of China....
) China on 4 May 1903.

She was present at the Battle of Port Arthur

Battle of Port Arthur

The Battle of Port Arthur was the starting battle of the Russo-Japanese War. It began with a surprise night attack by a squadron of Imperial Japanese Navy destroyers on the Imperial Russian Navyn fleet anchored at L?shunkou, Manchuria, and continued with an engagement of major surface combatants the following morning....
where she was torpedoed by Japanese destroyers and grounded, five men were killed. She was repaired and took part in the Battle of the Yellow Sea

Battle of the Yellow Sea

The Battle of the Yellow Sea , a major Naval battle of the Russo-Japanese War, was fought on 10 August 1904. In the Russian Navy, it was referred to as the Battle of 28 July....
, where she was hit by 18 shells and suffered 6 dead and 43 wounded. She was subsequently trapped in Port Arthur and sunk at her moorings by numerous howitzer shells on 6 December 1904, during the Siege of Port Arthur

Siege of Port Arthur

The Siege of L?shunkou , 1 August 1904 - 2 January 1905, the deep-water port and Russian naval base at the tip of the Liaotung Peninsula in Manchuria, was the longest and most vicious land battle of the Russo-Japanese War....
.

Retvizan was raised by the Japanese and repaired at Sasebo between 1906 and 1908. Renamed Hizen, she served in the Imperial Japanese Navy

Imperial Japanese Navy

The origins of the Imperial Japanese Navy trace back to early interactions with nations on the Asia, beginning in the early history of Japan#Feudal Japan and reaching a peak of activity during the 16th and 17th centuries at a time of cultural diffusion with European power during the Age of Discovery....
during World War I

World War I

World War I, or the First World War , was a global military conflict which involved the Great powers, organized into two opposing military alliances: the Allies of World War I and the Central Powers....
, in which she took part in the hunt for the cruiser squadron of Maximilian von Spee

Maximilian von Spee

Vice Admiral Maximilian Graf von Spee was a Germany admiral. Although he was born in Copenhagen, Denmark, the counts von Spee belonged to the prominent families of the Rhenish nobility....
and in the Japanese intervention in the Russian Civil War

Russian Civil War

The Russian Civil War was a multi-party war that occurred within the former Russian Empire after the Russian provisional government collapsed and the Bolshevik party assumed power in Saint Petersburg....
. She was retired as a result of the Washington Naval Treaty

Washington Naval Treaty

The Washington Naval Treaty, also known as the Five-Power Treaty, limited the naval armaments of its five signatories: the United States of America, the British Empire, the Empire of Japan, the French Third Republic, and the Kingdom of Italy ....
in 1923 and sunk as a target ship in the ungo straits on 12 July 1924.