 A Russian stamp honoringImperatritsa Ekaterina Velikaya | |
| History | |
|---|---|
 Russian Empire | |
| Name | Imperatritsa Ekaterina Velikaya (Императрица Екатерина Великая (Empress Catherine the Great)) |
| Namesake | Catherine the Great |
| Operator | Imperial Russian Navy |
| Builder | ONZiV Shipyard,Nikolayev |
| Laid down | 30 October 1911[Note 1] |
| Launched | 6 June 1914 |
| Commissioned | 18 October 1915 |
| Renamed | Svobodnaya Rossiia (Свободная Россия (Free Russia)), 29 April 1917 |
.svg) Russian SFSR | |
| Name | Svobodnaya Rossiia |
| Operator | Red Fleet |
| Acquired | November 1917 |
| Fate | Scuttled, 18 June 1918 |
| General characteristics | |
| Class & type | Imperatritsa Mariya-classbattleship |
| Displacement | 24,644long tons (25,039 t) |
| Length | 556 ft (169.5 m) (waterline) |
| Beam | 92 ft (28 m) |
| Draft | 28 ft 7 in (8.7 m) |
| Installed power |
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| Propulsion | 4 shafts; 4steam turbines |
| Speed | 21knots (39 km/h; 24 mph) |
| Range | 1,680nautical miles (3,110 km; 1,930 mi) at 21 knots (39 km/h; 24 mph) |
| Complement | 1,154 |
| Armament |
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| Armor |
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Imperatritsa Ekaterina Velikaya (Russian:Императрица Екатерина Великая (Empress Catherine the Great)) was the second of threeImperatritsa Mariya-classdreadnoughts built for theImperial Russian Navy duringWorld War I. Completed in 1915, she was assigned to theBlack Sea Fleet. She engaged the ex-GermanbattlecruiserYavûz Sultân Selîm once, but only inflicted splinter damage while taking no damage herself. The ship briefly encountered anOttomanlight cruiser, but mostlycovered the actions of smaller ships during the war without firing her guns. These includedminelaying operations off theBosporus and anti-shipping sweeps of the coast ofAnatolia.Imperatritsa Ekaterina Velikaya was renamedSvobodnaya Rossiya (Russian:Свободная Россия,Free Russia) after theFebruary Revolution of 1917.
She was evacuated fromSevastopol asGerman troops approached the city in May 1918, but wasscuttled inNovorossiysk harbor the following month when the Germans demanded that the Soviets hand her over according to the terms of theTreaty of Brest-Litovsk.Svobodnaya Rossiya was only partiallysalvaged after the war.
Awarded the contract for one of the three Black Sea battleships authorized in 1911, theAssociated Factories and Shipyards of Nikolayev (ONZiV) lacked an experienced design staff of its own, the company hired the British shipbuilderVickers Limited to assist with the process of producing detailed drawings from the preliminary sketch design. Based on the historic tendency for Russian ships to be overweight, the Vickers consultants suggested that the ship's hull be enlarged to create a greater reserve of buoyancy and the Naval Ministry agreed despite the additional costs involved.[1]Imperatritsa Ekaterina Velikaya was 556 feet (169.5 m)long at the waterline and had abeam of 92 feet (28 m); 4 feet 10 inches (1.47 m) longer and 2 feet (0.6 m) wider than herhalf-sisters. Her exactdraft is not known, but she had a draft of 28 feet 7 inches (8.7 m) during hersea trials. The shipdisplaced 24,644long tons (25,039 t) at normal load, over 900 long tons (910 t) more than her designed displacement of 23,783 long tons (24,165 t).[2] Thelead ship of the class,Imperatritsa Mariya, had proven to be verybow-heavy in service and tended to take large amounts of water through her forwardcasemates.[3] The ammunition forImperatritsa Ekaterina Velikaya's forward 12-inch (305 mm) guns was reduced from 100 to 70 rounds each while the ammunition for the forward 130-millimeter (5.1 in) guns was reduced from 245 to 100 rounds per gun in a successful attempt to compensate for hertrim. This was successful becauseImperatritsa Ekaterina Velikaya's longer length meant that she was less affected by the trim problem to begin with.[4]
Imperatritsa Ekaterina Velikaya was fitted with fourlicense-builtParsonssteam turbine sets, each driving one shaft using steam provided by 20 triangularYarrow boilers that burned either coal orfuel oil at a working pressure of 250 psi (1,724 kPa; 18 kgf/cm2). Designed to produce 27,000shaft horsepower (20,000 kW) which was intended to give the ship a speed was 21knots (39 km/h; 24 mph), the turbines produced 33,000 shp (25,000 kW) on trials, although no figures for her speed have been found. The ship carried enough coal and fuel oil to give her a range of 1,680 nautical miles (3,110 km; 1,930 mi) at full speed and 3,000nautical miles (5,600 km; 3,500 mi) at a more economical speed. All of her electrical power was generated by four primary Curtis 360-kilowatt (480 hp)turbo generators and two 200-kilowatt (270 hp) auxiliary units.[5]
Hermain battery consisted of a dozenObukhovskii 12-inch Pattern 1907 guns mounted in four triple turrets distributed over the length of the ship. Hersecondary armament consisted of ten130 mm B7 Pattern 1913 guns positioned in hull-mountedcasemates. They were arranged in two groups, six guns per side from the forward turret to the rear funnel and the remaining four clustered around the rear turret.Imperatritsa Ekaterina Velikaya was also fitted with three75-millimeter (3 in)anti-aircraft guns, one mounted on the roof of the fore turret and two side by side on the aft turret. The ship was fitted with four 17.7-inch (450 mm) submergedtorpedo tubes, two tubes on eachbroadside.[6]
Thewaterlinearmor belt of theImperatritsa Mariya class was 4.9–10.3 inches (124–262 mm) thick with the thickest portion covering the length of the ships between the 9.8-inch-thick (250 mm)barbettes. The armor of their gun turrets was also 9.8 inches thick and theirdecks ranged from 1 to 2 inches (25 to 51 mm) in thickness. The armor plates protecting theconning tower were 11.8 inches (300 mm) thick[7]
Imperatritsa Ekaterina Velikaya was built by the ONZiV Shipyard atMykolaiv. She waslaid down on 30 October 1911 asEkaterina II, but this was just a ceremonial event as neither the design had been finalized nor the contract signed. ONZiV decided, on advice from Vickers, to increase her dimensions over those of her sisters to prevent her from being overweight. This added over two million gold rubles to her cost and delayed the start of her construction three months past her half-sisters. She waslaunched on 6 June 1914, renamed on 27 June 1915, and completed on 18 October. She ran her trials over the remainder of the year.[8]
She was nearly sunk by theRussian destroyer Bystry on 5 January 1916 when thedestroyer fired seventorpedoes at her in a case of mistaken identity; luckily they all missed. Three days later sheencountered theYavûz Sultân Selîm at long range. The battlecruiser was in pursuit of the Russian destroyersPronzitelny andLeytenant Shestakov after they had sunk the 4,400-gross register ton (GRT)collierSS Carmen earlier that morning. The destroyers had alertedImperatritsa Ekaterina Velikaya which had increased her speed in an attempt to intercept the faster Ottoman ship.[9] The ships opened fire at about 22,000 yards (20,000 m) andYavûz Sultân Selîm fired fivesalvoes without damaging the Russian battleship before she disengaged from the slower ship.Imperatritsa Ekaterina Velikaya fired 96 shells from her longer-ranged guns, but inflicted only splinter damage onYavûz Sultân Selîm before she pulled out of range.[10]Imperatritsa Ekaterina Velikaya was escorting threeseaplane carriers to attackVarna,Bulgaria, on 9 March when the operation was cancelled after a destroyer reconnoitering the harbor struck amine and sank. At the end of the month, she helped to cover the movement of 36 transports fromOdessa to Novorossiysk in preparation for an amphibious landing the next month.[11] The battleship may have briefly engaged thelight cruiserMidilli on 4 April, firing at the smaller ship for about 15 minutes with little effect before she was able to disengage.[12] Other sources, however, state that the Ottoman ship actually encounteredImperatritsa Mariya.[13][Note 2]
Three months laterImperatritsa Ekaterina Velikaya and her half-sisterImperatritsa Mariya, alerted by intercepted radio transmissions,sortied from Sevastopol in an attempt to interceptYavuz andMidilli as they returned from a bombardment of the Russian port ofTuapse on 4 July. The Ottoman ships dodged north and avoided the Russians by paralleling the Bulgarian coastline back to the Bosporus.[16]Imperatritsa Ekaterina Velikaya escorted another seaplane carrier attack on Varna harbor on 25 August; German aircraft counterattacked and damaged one of the escorting destroyers.[17] On 11 October 1916, she ran aground off Sevastopol. She was refloated and taken in to Sevastopol for repairs.[18]
Together with threepre-dreadnought battleships and theprotected cruiserPamiat Merkuria, the battleship patrolled off the northwestern coast of Anatolia on 5–9 January 1917, helping to sink 39 sailing cargo ships. Escorted by three destroyers andPamiat Merkuria,Imperatritsa Ekaterina Velikaya cruised off the Anatolian coast on 23–25 February and her escorts sank 3 sailing ships.[19] After theFebruary Revolution she was renamedSvobodnaya Rossiya (Свободная Россия, "Free Russia") on 29 April.[20] She was part of the covering force for minelaying operations off the mouth of the Bosporus on 17–24 May. While covering another such operation a month later, the ship briefly engagedMidilli on 25 June as the cruiser was returning from a minelaying sortie off themouths of the Danube River.Svobodnaya Rossiya was only able to fire nine salvos from her forward turret without effect before the much fasterMidilli was able to disengage.[21] On 24 AugustSvobodnaya Rossiya helped to screen araid on the harbor of the Anatolian city ofOrdu. The ship was ordered to interceptMidilli on 1 November, but the crew refused to participate and returned to Sevastopol. The navy ceased offensive operations against theCentral Powers in early November in response to theBolshevikDecree on Peace before a formalArmistice was signed the next month.[22]
The ship sailed from Sevastopol to Novorossiysk on 30 April 1918 as German troops approached the city.Svobodnaya Rossiya wasscuttled on 19 June by four torpedoes fired by the destroyerKerch in Novorossiysk harbor to prevent her from being turned over to the Germans as required by theTreaty of Brest-Litovsk.[23] The fourth torpedo caused a massive explosion and shecapsized and sank in four minutes.[23] No attempt was made to salvage her during the 1920s, but the 12-inch shells were salvaged from her wreck. Explosive charges were used to gain access to hermagazines until one day in 1930 when a charge set off a torpedo warhead, which caused a nearby powder magazine to explode, throwing a column of water 100–120 meters (110–130 yd) into the air. No one was injured, but work of this type ceased,[24] although parts of her engines and boilers were later salvaged.[25]
44°42′23″N37°48′43″E / 44.70639°N 37.81194°E /44.70639; 37.81194
Shipwrecks and maritime incidents in October 1916 | |
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Shipwrecks and maritime incidents in June 1918 | |
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