Yekaterina Velikaya (Catherine the Great) was the lead ship of a 4-ship class of Black Sea barbette ships. Click here for a fabulously detailed enlarged view of the top photo, in a new window. With a unique armament layout and mounting system, this was the most original of Russian designs and a final flowering of Russian inventiveness prior to the pre-dreadnought era, when Russian design rather lost its way. The ships carried six 12" main guns in a triangular layout with two twin mounts under the bridge wings and a third on the quarterdeck; this arrangement allowed excellent arcs of fire for the forward guns, permitting four guns to fire ahead or on broadside whatever the ship's position. The name ship mounted her 12" 40-calibre guns on hydraulic "disappearing gun" carriages. The disappearing gun used the barrels' recoil along with a system of counterweights to fold the barrels below decks, crouching in a special reloading position. The guns would then be swung up to the firing position with a hydraulic assist, only to "disappear" again when fired. While the system worked smoothly, it was nearly as heavy as a turret mount and much slower-firing. The remaining three ships in the class retained the triangular layout but used an armored gunhouse over a barbette mount -- an arrangement colloquially known as turret mounting, although it differed from the original 1860s turret designs in important particulars. The gun barrels were mounted only 4½ feet above the deck planking; when firing dead ahead or astern there was significant blast damage to the deck. Sinop was armed with 30-calibre Model 1877 Obukhov ordnance to balance out her technologically advanced Napier engines.
Forward in the hull, there were two rounded gouges in the outer shell plating to allow wider angles of train for the forward 6" guns ("recessed freeboard" in proper naval jargon). The aft 6" guns sat in small sponsons, allowing them to shoot past the bulging 12" barbettes on either side. The potpourri of contrasting bulges, recesses, and sponsons added visual interest to these rather homely creations of Russia's naval architects.
Plans and Specifications
Specifications for the Yekaterina class:
Dimensions: 339'6" x 69' x 28'8" Displacement: 11,032 tons std, 11,396 tons deep laden. Armament: (6) 12"/40, (7) 6", (8) 47mm guns; (7) 15" torpedo tubes. Armor: Compound type. 16"/6"/3.3" belt; 12" redoubt; 12"/9" conning tower; 12" barbette; 1½" barbette hood; 10/9" bulkhead; 3"/1.5" deck except all steel armor on Georgy Pobiedonosets, 12" central citadel style, no waterline belt. Fuel capacity: 870 tons of coal. Propulsion: (Yekaterina & Chesma): 14 coal-fired cylindrical boilers; (2) vertical compound steam engines developing 9,100 shp, shafted to twin screw. Speed: 15 kts. (Sinop & Gyorgy): 16 coal-fired cylindrical boilers; (2) vertical inverted triple expansion engines by Napier, developing 13,000 hp, shafted to twin screw. Speed: 16½ kts. Crew: 650 - 674.
Ships in class: Yekaterina II · Chesma · Sinop · Gyorgy Pobiedonosets.
Metric specifications:
Dimensions: 103.5m x 21.03m x 8.76m. Displacement: 11,032 tons std, 11,396 tons deep laden. Armament: (6) 305 mm/40, (7) 152mm, and (8) 47mm guns. (7) 38 cm torpedo tubes. Armor: Compound type. 406/152/83 mm belt; 305 mm redoubt; 305/229 mm conning tower; 305 mm barbette; 38 mm barbette hood; 254/229 mm bulkhead; 76/38 mm deck except nickel-steel armor on Georgy Pobiedonosets, central citadel style, 305 mm, no waterline belt. Fuel capacity: 870 tons of coal. Propulsion: (Yekaterina & Chesma): 14 coal-fired cylindrical boilers; (2) vertical compound steam engines developing 6,786 kW, twin screw. Speed: 27.8 km/hr. (Sinop & Gyorgy): 16 coal-fired cylindrical boilers; (2) vertical inverted triple expansion engines by Napier, developing 9,694 kW, shafted to twin screw. Speed: 29.6 km/hr. Crew: 650 - 674.
Color rendering of Sinop, commissioned 1889. Enlarge
Ships' Histories
Built at Nikolaiev for Black Sea service against the Turk, Yekaterina took the unconscionably long time of seven years to build and fit out. The first three ships were all completed in 1889-90. They were quite adequate deterrants to Turkey, being by far the most powerful ships on the Black Sea at the time of their commissioning. The Sinop was the first battleship in the world designed with triple-expansion engines. Together with the small battleship Rostislav, they formed the strength of the Black Sea fleet until the troublesome advent of the Potemkin in 1904. As the incumbent heavies of the Black Sea Fleet, the Yekaterinas were all involved in the nonviolent confrontations with the Potemkin depicted in the Einsenstein film. The class remained in commission until a few years after the Russo-Japanese War. They were all withdrawn from service in 1907 except the Sinop which eked out another 15 years as a harbor guard ship. Chesma was selected as a target for the Black Sea Fleet; after taking unbelievable amounts of punishment, she went to the bottom in 1913. The name ship went to the breakers in the early Twenties, melted down to fuel the first Five Year Plan.
Aerial observation for the purposes of reconnaissance and gunnery was coming into its own by the turn of the century. Small blimps were used for this purpose in the Russian navy; the 1905 photo of Chesma at left was snapped from a tethered balloon being towed by the ship.
Gyorgy Pobiedonosets (St. George the Victorious) was a somewhat improved version of the design laid down in 1889 and commissioned in 1894. She took advantage of such technological advances as the triple-expansion engine and hardened all-steel armor. The ship was noteworthy for its sympathetic rôle in the Potemkin mutiny in 1905 in which the crew first mutinied, then went along with a counter-revolution by Tsarist loyalists, abandoning the Potemkin. By this time, the foremast had been built up with fighting tops and a circular gunhouse (standard in the Russian fleet and seen on Potemkin at the time) containing a half-dozen machine-guns for close work -- massacring mutineers and revolutionaries, for instance. The ship was still active in WWI, being captured by the Whites and used in support of their counterrevolution in Ukraine. Eventually she was evacuated to the Mediterranean as part of the Wrangel fleet, and joined the small collection of ex-White armor rusting away in the colonial port of Bizerta, in French-ruled Tunisia. After a delegation of Soviet commissars declined responsibility for the antique warship, she was scrapped in place by the French beginning in the mid-Twenties.
A Yekaterina Class Mini Gallery
Quarter view of Yekaterina. Her big guns are folded up below decks.
Model of Yekaterina amidships, showing the arrangement of the 12" guns.
The Chesma from the bow. There was one wing barbette under each bridge wing and a third on the centerline aft of the superstructure. Yekaterina's guns were mounted in the same places, but ordinarily were stored below decks in the loading position. As you can see, Chesma's gunners were protected inside elaborate gunhouses of the sort that would soon be called turrets.
Details of bow and stern underwater hull: The Chesma on her launch day, June 5, 1886.
Gyorgy Pobiedonosets moored off Sevastopol, Russia's principal navy base on the Black Sea.
Gyorgy Pobiedonosets at her mooring at Sevastopol. The ship's crew mutinied in response to the Potemkin mutiny, but loyalist officers later succeded in wresting the ship back and grounding her at Odessa. This failure sounded the knell for the Potemkin uprising.
Main battery of the Gyorgy Pobiedonosets.
The crew poses in front of the Gyorgy Pobiedonosets' big guns.
Profile section of one of Chesma's 12"/30 M1877 mounts; 12" armored barbette with 1.5" armored "hood" (overhead shield).
Years after the White defeat in the Russian Civil War, Gyorgy Pobiedonosets lingered at Bizerta, part of a rusting Tsarist fleet that also included the dreadnought General Alexeiev.
The Chesma meets her doom as a target ship, 1913.
