Andrei Pervozvanny-class battleship


The Andrei Pervozvanny class were a pair of pre-dreadnought battleships built in the first decade of the twentieth century for the Baltic Fleet of the Imperial Russian Navy. They were conceived by the Naval Technical Committee in 1903 as an incremental development of the s with increased displacement and heavier secondary armament. The disastrous experiences of the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905 and the unrest resulting from the 1905 Russian Revolution led to countless redesigns, change orders and delays in construction. Despite the designers' repeated attempts to modernize the ships while under construction, they were obsolete in concept from the beginning, and even more so when they entered service in 1911.
In the first year of World War I, Andrei Pervozvanny and Imperator Pavel I formed the core of the Baltic Fleet. For most of the war they remained moored in the safety of Sveaborg and Helsingfors. Idle, demoralized ratings subscribed to Bolshevik ideology and on took control of the ships in a violent mutiny, killing many of their officers in the process. The battleships participated in the Ice Cruise of 1918, and Andrei Pervozvanny later helped to put down the Krasnaya Gorka fort mutiny of 1919. After the Kronstadt rebellion of 1921, the Bolshevik government lost interest in maintaining the battleships, and they were scrapped beginning in November–December 1923.

Design and description

The planned completion of the five in 1904 would leave Russian shipbuilders with little work, so the Naval Technical Committee organized a conference in late 1902 on the new 20-year shipbuilding program, which included money for four battleships in 1903 and 1904, a pair for the Black Sea Fleet and another for the Baltic Fleet. Based on the recommendations of the participants, the NTC chose a much larger and heavily armoured version of the Borodinos for the Baltic ships, with their secondary armament upgraded to quick-firing guns rather than the guns of the older ships. The initial estimate of the design's displacement became an informal upper limit which constrained the design of the ships.
At the beginning of 1903, the Russian Naval General Staff considered sketch designs by the designer of the Borodino class, Dmitry Skvortsov, and the NTC and selected the former's proposal. It also issued more detailed requirements for the new ships. They were to be fitted with 12- and 8-inch guns, each in twin-gun turrets, and equipped with twenty guns for defence against torpedo boats. Their protection was to consist of a waterline belt with an upper strake of armour or a uniform belt 8 inches thick. The speed of the battleships was to be no less than and they were to have a maximum draught of to allow passage through the Suez Canal. Concerned about stability, the staff reduced the superstructure by one deck. Skvortsov presented his drawings and calculations in June.
Skortsov warned about the unacceptable drag of the hull form that he was forced to use and Alexey Krylov, then chief of the Navy's ship model basin agreed, but nothing was done to improve its efficiency. Krylov's planned departure for the Far East forced the NTC to hasten official approval of the draft design. Their presentation on ended in an embarrassment: the NTC intended to award the contract for one of two new ships to Baltic Works, but did not even inform its master builder Sergey Ratnik about the project's existence. Ratnik, who had built two of the Borodino-class ships, believed that the new design was inferior to its predecessors. It had no displacement reserve compared to the allowed for the Borodino class and the British standard of at least 4% of displacement. The NTC overruled his objections and approved the design for construction. At the end of July, Ratnik appealed to the NTC again, arguing that the mechanisms and systems overlooked by the designers would add to the ship's weight. The NTC dismissed his complaint and proceeded with the flawed design. In line with Russian practice of the period, it was a collective work signed off by a ring of designers and bureaucrats. No one dared to take the lead and assume full responsibility. In August the NTC finalized the design with only marginal improvements. On the Ministry of the Navy awarded construction contracts to the Galernyi Island Shipyard and the Baltic Works in Saint Petersburg.

Construction

Actual work on Andrei Pervozvanny commenced on and construction began on Imperator Pavel I on. Coal-firing boilers and steam engines were ordered from the Franco-Russian Works. In an inexplicable twist of the NTC bureaucracy, engines for the two sister ships were ordered to different specifications. In line with Russian tradition Andrei Pervozvanny was formally laid down in May 1905, after more than a year of construction work. The ceremony coincided with the beginning of a six-month hiatus caused by the 1905 Russian Revolution. Baltic Works cancelled the laying-down ceremony of Imperator Pavel I altogether: officially, Pavel was laid down and launched on the same date,.
Construction proceeded at a slow pace, frequently interrupted by redesign proposals, change orders, rework and inevitable delays. After the completion of Andrei Pervozvanny its builders identified seventeen distinct stages of its design. The sinking of the battleship Petropavlovsk in April 1904, which was blamed on a detonation of its stored naval mines or the forward 12-inch magazine, or both, compelled the NTC to reconsider the use of mines. Russian battleships carried their own stock of naval mines to protect themselves at anchorage, even when accompanied by minelayers and destroyers. The NTC banned mines from battleships on. In December 1904 the NTC also agreed to strip the new battleships of their stern torpedo tubes, but kept the bow and broadside tubes. In mid-1905 the torpedo armament was reduced to only two broadside tubes.
The NTC flooded Skvortsov in 1905 with a chain of conflicting and poorly formulated change orders influenced by war-time experience. The war demonstrated the uselessness of keeping small-calibre guns on capital ships; in the NTC replaced the guns with more 75 mm guns in an upper-deck casemate. The 75 mm guns were replaced with guns on, a few days after the Battle of Tsushima. More thorough analysis of the battle revealed that earlier Russian ships relied too much on unarmoured plating to preserve stability and that splinters from shells that penetrated the unarmoured sides could damage or disable important equipment like ammunition hoists and boiler exhausts. The additional armour required to cover the entire side of the design boosted its displacement to as of late 1905. In May 1906, the NTC decided to save weight by replacing the central 8-inch turret with three 8-inch guns in casemates. It also eliminated openings in the sides of the hull such as gun embrasures and portholes, believing that they were a flooding danger if damaged or if the ship had a list. This caused major problems with ventilation and adversely affecting their habitability, while the 120-millimetre guns had to be moved to positions above the central casemate.
Assessment of the damage incurred in the Battle of the Yellow Sea led the NTC to another incorrect conclusion. The NTC tacticians noted that a single hit on the mast of Tsesarevich had nearly knocked it down; a fallen mast would have probably disabled its secondary-gun turrets. Lattice masts, introduced with the American s, seemed to be a robust solution and the Andrei Pervozvanny-class ships became the only Russian battleships fitted with them. They proved to be unstable and prone to vibration in service and the signal positions in them were regularly enveloped by funnel gases. Despite those drawbacks, the captain of Andrei Pervozvanny fiercely defended them and objected to all alternatives proposed by the NTC. On the day when Austria-Hungary declared war against Russia, the captain of Imperator Pavel I, who held an opposite opinion, volunteered to replace the masts in three days. Fleet commander Admiral Nikolai Essen concurred, and by the middle of August 1914, the old lattice masts were largely gone. Both ships retained the lower baskets of their masts, cut at different heights.

Description

The Andrei Pervozvanny-class ships were long at the waterline and long overall. They had a beam of and a draught of at deep load. The ships displaced at normal load and at deep load. Their hull was subdivided by 17 transverse watertight bulkheads and the engine rooms were divided by a centreline longitudinal bulkhead. They had a double bottom and a metacentric height of. The ships' crew consisted of 31 officers and 924 crewmen.
The ships had two 4-cylinder vertical triple-expansion steam engines, each driving a propeller, using steam provided by twenty-five Belleville boilers at a working pressure of. The engines had a total designed output of. During the ships' sea trials, they produced and gave the sisters a top speed of. The ships carried a maximum load of of coal that gave at a speed of. Electricity was provided by six steam-driven dynamos.

Armament

The main armament consisted of four Model 1895 40-caliber guns mounted in twin-gun turrets fore and aft. These guns had a maximum elevation of 35° and could depress to -5°. Eighty rounds per gun were carried and they could fire about one round per minute. The guns could be loaded at any angle between +5° and -3°. They fired a M1911 armour-piercing shell at a muzzle velocity of. At maximum elevation the guns had a range of.
Eight of the fourteen 50-caliber Model 1905 guns were mounted in four twin-gun turrets at the corners of the superstructure while six were mounted in casemates in the superstructure. The turret-mounted guns had a rate of fire of two rounds per minute and a maximum elevation of +25° while the casemate guns were faster at 2.8 rounds per minute, but could only elevate to +19°. Each gun was provided with 128 rounds. Their M1913 shells weighed and were fired at a muzzle velocity of to a range of at an elevation of +15°10'.
For close-range defence against torpedo boats, the ships carried twelve 120mm 45 caliber Pattern 1892| guns mounted in casemates above the eight-inch guns in the superstructure. The corner guns were positioned to give them a clear field of fire over the eight-inch gun turrets. They had a rate of fire of 10 rounds per minute and the ships carried a total of 2,628 rounds for them. While their maximum elevation was +23°, they had a range of at +18° using their AP shell.
Two underwater torpedo tubes were mounted, one on each side, and they were provided with six spare torpedoes. The ships would have used M1908 torpedoes that had three range/speed settings: at, at, or at.

Protection

The sides of the hull were completely protected by Krupp cemented armour. The main waterline belt had a thickness of abreast the engine and boiler rooms and tapered to a thickness of at the lower edge. Abreast the main gun magazines the belt was in thickness and extended to the bow using plates with a thickness of. Aft of the rear magazine the belt used and plates to the stern. The belt was high, of which was underwater. The upper strake of armour had a maximum thickness of 5 inches amidships and it was high. It extended to the ends of the ship in plates 4 and thick.
The front and sides of the main-gun turrets were 8 inches thick and their roofs were thick. Their barbettes ranged from 4 to 5 inches in thickness. The armour plates on the front and sides of the secondary-gun turrets were 6 and 5 inches thick, respectively, and their roofs were 2.5 inches thick. The barbettes for the secondary turrets were protected by armour 4 inches thick. Protection for the single 8-inch guns consisted of 5-inch armour plates on the sides of the casemate while the transverse bulkheads protecting the guns ranged from 4 to 5 inches in thickness. The gun shields for the single guns were thick. Armour plates protecting the 120 mm guns were thick. A centreline bulkhead divided the casemate and the armour protecting the funnel uptakes ranged in thickness from. The greatest thickness of deck armour was.

Ships

Service histories

The sisters conducted their sea trials in September–October 1910. They turned out very "wet" ships even in calm seas because the protruding bow ram forced the bow wave up and over the forecastle. On one high-speed voyage to Reval, Estonia, in October during Force 3–4 weather, Imperator Pavel Is captain reported that the forecastle was covered by "a mass of water, in the form of a solid, unbroken rain of spray, flooding not only the upper deck, but also the 12- and 8-inch turrets, the lower bridge, conning tower and it even struck the 120 mm casemate deck". Ivan Bubnov recommended fitting Andreis ram with a scoop-shaped fairing, which was intended to decrease bow-wave height from to and eliminate flooding, but the NTC shelved the proposal. The powerplants of both ships performed well at the speed trials, but post-trial examination of Imperator Pavel I revealed unacceptable defects of its boilers, engine cylinders and crankshaft bearings. The NTC had no funds to replace the defective boilers and postponed the repairs until the following year, but this did not happen as the navy committed all available financing to the dreadnought program. Andrei Pervozvanny and Imperator Pavel I were not properly completed until late 1912.
They saw very limited seagoing service in 1910 through 1912; their few voyages within Baltic waters were trials, rather than active duty. Their combat readiness was crippled by shortage of personnel. Absence of proper portholes and the limited capacity of the electrical ventilation fans made living conditions unbearable, thus commissioned officers evaded transfer to the "ugly sisters" at all costs. The NTC seriously considered cutting portholes through the armour, but found it too expensive to be done. The ratings sabotaged the system by jamming the fan switches in "on" position, which caused frequent electrical failures. The Navy "fixed the problem" by building steel lockers around the switches but could not contain the discontent of the sailors.
On officers of Imperator Pavel I received first warnings of a conspiracy among the ratings, who allegedly planned an open mutiny on the night of July 24–25. In the few days preceding the strike the sailors openly disobeyed and taunted their officers, but refrained from violence. Only a minority of the ratings subscribed to the mutiny; the majority remained loyal and kept the officers informed. On July 24 the ringleaders were arrested, more arrests followed throughout July and August. 53 sailors of Imperator Pavel I were sentenced to terms ranging from six months to sixteen years. Attempts to spread the mutiny to Andrei Pervozvanny were foiled at the very beginning. The sisters made a port visit to Copenhagen, Denmark, in September 1912. A year later they made port visits to Portland, England, Cherbourg, France, and Stavanger, Norway, in September 1913. At this time the ships still harbored active Bolshevik militants, notably the future Red Army commander Pavel Dybenko, the future chief of the Soviet Black Sea Fleet and naval historian Nikolay Izmaylov and the future chief of the Soviet Navy Ivan Sladkov. Andrei Pervozvanny ran aground on Osmussaar Island off the Estonian coast on and was under repair for several months afterwards.

World War I

During June–July 1914 the ships represented the Empire in joint naval reviews with friendly British, French and Dutch ships in the Gulf of Finland. Sweden had not yet declared its neutrality, and, on, Imperator Pavel I, the predreadnoughts and Tsesarevich and the armoured cruiser sailed out to Stockholm to intimidate the Swedes. The diplomats called the fleet back, and Imperator Pavel I missed her chance to engage a weak German scouting flotilla operating in the same area. In August–September the battleships actively sailed north of the Gulf of Riga, but failed to intercept the German cruisers Augsburg and Blücher that were operating in the area.
The torpedoing of the armoured cruiser by the German submarine on effectively confined both Andrei Pervozvanny-class ships to harbour for the rest of the war. All battleships were ordered to return to safety of Finnish bases and stay there until the Navy could cope with the submarine threat. Slava and Tsesarevich returned to action in the Battle of the Gulf of Riga in 1915, but Imperator Pavel I remained moored in Helsingfors. Andrei Pervozvanny was mobilized for active operations twice, in April and November 1916. The first operation, a raid on a German convoy near the Swedish coast, was a moderate success; the second ended in a humiliating retreat after Rurik struck a mine laid by the German submarine UC 27. In October 1916 the crew of Imperator Pavel I, demoralized by boredom and Bolshevik propaganda, refused to obey orders and demanded better rations and easing of service. The Navy preferred to appease the sailors, and the ringleaders escaped punishment. In late 1916, the ships were fitted with four 3-inch Lender anti-aircraft guns.

Revolution

During the outbreak of the February Revolution of 1917, both battleships were moored in Helsinki. The ratings, demoralized by idle life and revolutionary propaganda, had already been organized for a mutiny by a well-entrenched core of conspirators. The exact history of the fleet revolt has been sanitized by Soviet historiography in the wake of the Kronstadt rebellion. It is known that the revolt of was coordinated from Imperator Pavel I. Sailors of Imperator Pavel I took control of the ship, killed the officers who stood in their way and signalled instructions to other ships. The two battleships accounted for the majority of casualties of this day. The captain of Imperator Pavel I did not even try to subdue the sailors and save his officers; he survived the mutiny and was killed by the Cheka in 1921. The captain of Andrei Pervozvanny opposed the revolt and emigrated overseas. The commander of the battleship squadron refused to confront the sailors and was killed on shore.
The ratings almost completely subscribed to communism, 520 sailors of Imperator Pavel I were carrying Bolshevik party cards by the end of April. On, the ship was renamed Respublika. The ship provided quarters to civilian Bolshevik functionaries who felt unsafe among the ethnic Finns of Helsinki. The disorganized crew declared allegiance to the Russian Provisional Government and even sailed out for a gunnery practice on orders from Alexander Kerensky. In August 1917 Respublika escorted Slava to her last station at Moon Sound. The latter was scuttled during Operation Albion, but neither Respublika nor Andrei Pervozvanny was sent to support her.
The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk of 1917 required the Soviets to evacuate their naval base at Helsinki in March 1918 or have their ships interned by newly independent Finland even though the Gulf of Finland was still frozen over. The sisters led the second group of ships on 5 April and reached Kronstadt five days later in what became known as the "Ice Voyage". Respublika was hulked in September 1918 and saw no further activity. Andrei Pervozvanny, now commanded by Lev Galler, although neglected by its revolutionary crew, remained in active service. On June 13–15, together with the dreadnought, the ship bombarded Fort Krasnaya Gorka whose garrison had mutinied against the Bolsheviks. She fired 170 main-gun shells and 408 eight-inch shells and the garrison surrendered on June 17 when Leon Trotsky promised them their lives, only to subsequently order them machine-gunned. Two months later, on the night of August 16/17, 1919, British Coastal Motor Boats attacked ships in Kronstadt harbour with torpedoes. One hit Andrei Pervozvannys armour belt, killing one sailor and flooding an isolated watertight compartment. Repairs continued slowly until the Kronstadt Rebellion of 1921 and completely stopped after its suppression due to a lack of resources. The sisters were sent to the breaker's yard in November–December 1923.