List of battleships of Russia and the Soviet Union

Starting in 1886 with the Ekaterina II class battleship, the Russian Empire started to construct battleships. Their last class was built in 1941.

Key

Main guns	The number and type of the main battery guns
Armor	Waterline belt thickness
Displacement	Ship displacement at full load
Propulsion	Number of shafts, type of propulsion system, and top speed in knots
Service	The dates work began and finished on the ship and its ultimate fate
Laid down	The date the keel began to be assembled
Launched	The date the ship was launched

Pre-Dreadnoughts

Ekaterina II class

Main article: Ekaterina II class battleship

Battleship Chesma (1886) off Sevastopol in 1892

The Ekaterina II class was the first true class of battleships built by the Russians. They were intended to support an amphibious assault on the Bosphorus Strait and to oppose any attempt of the British Mediterranean Fleet to enter the Black Sea through the Bosphorous. The first ship of the class to be laid down was Georgii Pobedonosets in 1881, with the other ships being laid down in 1883. Georgii Pobedonosets was a half-sister to the other ships of the class due to the fact that her armor scheme was largely different from her sisterships. For the first 15 years after their commissionings in 1889, the class lay idle.

However, after the crew on the new battleship Potemkin mutinied in June 1905, the class was put into action. Ekaterina II had her engine disabled due to the fact that her crew was considered disloyal. Chesma, also considered disloyal, was not sent on the chase but escorted Potemkin back to Sevastopol as Sinop towed her. Sinop and Georgii Pobedonosits both participated in the pursuit, but Georgii Pobedonosets joined the mutineers. She rad aground the following day after Potemkin threatened to fire if she left Odessa Harbor.

After the Potemkin mutiny, the ships were all relegated to gunnery training and second class duties. The only shots fired in anger by the class were fired by Georgii Pobedonosits when the German battlecruiser Goeben raided the port of Sevastopol. In 1912, Ekaterin II was sunk as a target, while the others survived until the 1920s, although badly amaged by evacuating British troops in 1919 during the Russian Civil War. Sinop and Chesma were both scrapped in Russia yards, the latter after being raised after her sinking as a test ship by torpedo boats. Georgii Pobedonosits was scrapped in Bizerte in France in the early 1920s.

Ship	Main guns	Armor	Displacement	Propulsion	Service
					Laid down	Launched	Fate
Ekaterina II (Russian: Екатерина II)	6 × 12 in (305 mm)	203 mm (8.0 in)	11,400 long tons (11,583 t)	2 shaft vertical compound or vertical triple expansion steam engines 14 or 16 cylindrical boilers, 15 kn (28 km/h; 17 mph)	26 June 1883	20 May 1886	Sunk as target ship, 22 April 1912
Chesma (Russian: Чеcма)					26 June 1883	18 May 1886	Scrapped, starting in early 1920s
Sinop (Russian: Синоп)					26 June 1883	1 June 1887	Scrapped beginning in 1922.
Georgii Pobedonosits (Russian: Георгий Победоносец)					5 May 1891	9 March 1892	Scrapped, beginning in 1924

Imperator Aleksandr II class

Main article: Imperator Aleksandr II class battleship

The Imperator Aleksandr II class was the first all-steel class of battleships in the Baltic Fleet. They were built by the Russians to counter other ships in the area like the Danish ironclad Helgoland and the German Sachsen-class ironclads, both of which were built of wrought iron. The Imperator Aleksandr II ships were designed according to the tactical theories of the day which emphasized ramming and incorporated a ram bow.

The first ship of the class, Imperator Aleksandr II, was laid down on 12 July 1885, while the other, Imperator Nikolai I on 20 March 1886. Both ships were commissioned a month apart in the summer of 1891. Imperator Aleksandr II, along with the cruiser Rurik represented Russia at the 1895 opening of the Kiel Canal, while Imperator Nikolai I did not participate in any events during her first years, although she sailed to China during the First Sino-Japanese War, after when she returned to Russia.

Imperator Nikolai I was again called up during the Russo-Japanese War as part of the Third Battle Division under the command of Rear Admiral Nikolai Nebogatov. She surrendered the day after the Battle of Tsushima to the Japanese and was reclassified as a gunnery training ships. Sources conflict on the fate of Imperator Nikolai I, with Stephen McLaughlin saying that she was stricken 1 May 1915 and sunk as a target by the battlecruisers Kongō and Hiei, although Watts and Gordon say that she was scrapped in 1922.

Imperator Aleksandr II was active during the Cretan Revolt of 1897, protecting Russian interests in the area. Re-classified as a gunnery training ship in 1903, she returned to active service when she defeated the mutinous garrison of Fort Konstantin during the Kronstadt revolt of April 1906. She was at Kronstadt for most of World War I, with her crew actively participating in revolutionary activities. Renamed Zarya Svobody in May 1917, she was sent to Germany for scrapping in 1925.

Dvenadsat Apostlov

Main article: Russian battleship Dvenadsat Apostolov

The Dvenadsat Apostlov was laid down in February 1888. Although she was originally planned to be one of two battleships for the Black Sea Fleet, but the other was awarded to a near-bankrupt firm which did not make any substantial progress. Dvenadsat Apostlov was launched in September 1890 in Nikolaiv and commissioned in December 1892. She was used for the testing of new naval mines and torpedoes in 1895, and had a gun burst in 1903 killing, one man. In 1905, she participated in the pursuit of Potemkin. She was decommissioned to a submarine depot in 1912 but was reinstated into the Fleet in 1914 after Russia's entrance into World War I and renamed Blokshiv. she was captured immobile by the Germans and handed over to the Allies. She was used as a stand-in during the movie The Battleship Potemkin in place of the title ship and was scrapped in 1931.

Navarin

Main article: Russian battleship Navarin

Squadron battleship Navarin (1891). Baltic sea, 1902

The Navarin was laid down in 1889 at the Galerniy Yard in St. Petersburg. She was launched on October 24, 1891, the sixty-fourth anniversary of the battle of Navarino and completed in 1896. Her design was based on the British Trafalgar class battleship. After her completion, she was sent to the Pacific in 1898, helping suppress the Boxer Rebellion two years later. She then returned to the Baltic in 1902, only to be sent back east at the start of the Russo-Japanese War. She was sunk at the Battle of Tsushima with only three survivors.

Tri Sviatitelia

Main article: Russian battleship Tri Sviatitelia

The Tri Sviatitelia was a pre-dreadnought battleship of the Black Sea Fleet. She was laid down on October 15, 1891, launched on November 12, 1893 and completed in 1896. She became the first ship in the world to be fitted with a radio, an installation designed by the Russian physicist Alexander Stepanovich Popov that had a range of about 3 miles (4.8 km). In 1905, she was the flagship for the squadron the pursued the mutinous battleship Potemkin. In 1908 her fighting top was removed, followed by a major refit during 1911 and 1912.

In November 1914, after the start of World War I, Tri Sviatitelia, accompanied by the pre-dreadnoughts Evstafi (flagship), Ioann Zlatoust, Pantelimon, Rostislav, bombarded Trebizond, a Turkish port. They were intercepted on the following day by the German battlecruiser SMS Goeben and the light cruiser SMS Breslau in what became the Battle of Cape Sarych. Tri Sviatitelia emerged unscathed, but failed to score any hits. She, along with Rostislav, bombarded Ottoman fortifications on the Bosporous five times during 1915, on March 18, April 25 and May 2, 3, and 9. She conducted coastal bombardment and merchant raiding operations during 1916 and 1917. During refitting at Sevastopol in February 1917, she was imbolized and captured by the Germans in May 1918 before being handed over to the Allies. After being immobilized once again by the retreating British in 1919, she changed hands during the Russian Civil War and was ultimately scrapped in 1923, but was not stricken from the Navy List until November 21, 1925.

Sissoi Veliky

The Sissoi Veliky was a single class battleship planned by the Russian Navy to be one of 16 ocean-going battleships proposed by Grand Duke Alexey. She was laid down on 7 August 1891, but construction problems kept the ship from being launched until 2 June 1894. She was commissioned on 18 October 1896. Immediately after sea trials Sisoy sailed to the Mediterranean to enforce the naval blockade of Crete. On March 3, 1897 she suffered a devastating explosion of the aft gun turret that killed 21 men. After nine months in the docks of Toulon, she sailed to the Far East to reinforce the Russian presence in the area. In the summer of 1900 Sisoy supported the international campaign against the Boxer Rebellion in China. A landing company from Sisoy and Navarin reached the Embassy Row in Beijing and defended it from the mob for more than two months.

In 1902 Sisoy returned to Kronstadt for repairs, and again very little was achieved until the early losses of the Russo-Japanese War hastened formation of the Second Pacific Squadron. Sisoy sailed out to the Far East with the rest of the Baltic battleships and met her fate in the Battle of Tsushima. On May 27 [O.S. May 14] 1905 she survived the daytime artillery duel with Admiral Togo's forces. The crew extinguished resultant fires and prevented the explosion of ammunition magazines, but could not contain the flooding of the ship. During the night the Japanese destroyers scored a torpedo hit against Sisoy. In the morning her engines were shut down, since she was unable to maintain way, and the crew surrendered to a Japanese armed merchantmen. The abandoned ship sank at 10:05 May 28 [O.S. May 15].

• Sisoi Velikii («Сисой Великий», 1894 BF) – Torpedoed and sank after the Battle of Tsushima, 1905 (50 men lost)

Petropavlovsk class

• Poltava («Полтава», 1894 BF) – Scuttled at Port Arthur 1904, refloated by Japan 1905 and commissioned as Coastal Defence Ship Tango, purchased by Russia in 1916 and commissioned as Battleship Chesma («Чесма»), decommissioned 1924
• Petropavlovsk («Петропавловск», 1894 BF) – Mined 1904 at Port Arthur (681 men lost)
• Sevastopol («Севастополь», 1895 BF) – Scuttled at Port Arthur 1905

Rostislav

Rostislav was a pre-dreadnought battleship built by the Nikolaev Admiralty Shipyard in the 1890s for the Black Sea Fleet of the Imperial Russian Navy. She was conceived as a small, inexpensive coastal defence ship, but the Navy abandoned the concept in favor of a compact, seagoing battleship with a displacement of 8,880 long tons (9,020 t). Poor design and construction practices increased her actual displacement by more than 1,600 long tons (1,600 t). Rostislav became the world's first capital ship to burn fuel oil, rather than coal. Her combat ability was compromised by the use of 10-inch (254 mm) main guns instead of the de facto Russian standard of 12 inches (305 mm).

Her hull was launched in September 1896, but non-delivery of the ship's main guns delayed her maiden voyage until 1899 and her completion until 1900. In May 1899 Rostislav became the first ship of the Imperial Navy to be commanded by a member of the House of Romanov, Captain Alexander Mikhailovich. From 1903 to 1912 the ship was the flagship of the second-in-command of the Black Sea Fleet. During the 1905 Russian Revolution her crew was on the verge of mutiny but remained loyal to the regime, and actively suppressed the mutiny of the cruiser Ochakov.

Rostislav was actively engaged in World War I until the collapse of the Black Sea Fleet in the beginning of 1918. She was the first Russian ship to fire upon enemy targets on land during World War I, the first Russian ship to be hit by a German airstrike, and the first one to destroy a submarine, albeit a Russian one. In April 1918 the fleeing Bolsheviks abandoned Rostislav in Sevastopol. One year later the British occupation forces permanently disabled her engines. The White forces repurposed the ship as a towed floating battery, then scuttled her in the Strait of Kerch in November 1920.

Peresvet class

Squadron battleship Peresvet (1898). Mediterranean sea, 1901

Something middle between battleships and armoured cruisers. Officially classified as "squadron battleships".

• Peresvet («Пересвет», 1898 BF) – Scuttled at Port Arthur 1904, refloated by Japan 1905 and commissioned as Coastal Defence Ship Sagami, purchased by Russia and commissioned as Cruiser Peresvet, mined near Suez 1917
• Osliabia («Ослябя», 1898 BF) – Sunk at the Battle of Tsushima, 1905 (514 men lost)
• Pobeda («Победа», 1900 BF) – Scuttled at Port Arthur 1904, refloated by Japan 1905 and commissioned as Coastal Defence Ship Suwo, hulked 1922, BU 1946

Potemkin

Kniaz’ Potemkin-Tavricheskiy («Князь Потёмкин-Таврический», 1900 BSF) – Renamed Panteleimon («Пантелеймон») 1905, renamed Potiomkin-Tavricheskii («Потёмкин-Таврический) 1917, Borets za Svobodu («Борец за Свободу») 1917, destroyed by British troops at Sevastopol 1919, decommissioned for BU 1923

Retvizan

Retvizan (Russian: Ретвизан) was a Russian pre-dreadnought battleship built before the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–05 for the Imperial Russian Navy in the United States. She was built by the William Cramp and Sons Ship & Engine Building Company of Philadelphia, although the armament was made at the Obukhov works in Saint Petersburg and shipped to America for installation. Retvizan was named after the Swedish ship of the line Rättvisan (meaning The Justice) which was captured by the Russians at the Battle of Viborg Bay in 1790.

Retvizan was torpedoed during the Japanese surprise attack on Port Arthur during the night of 8–9 February 1904 and grounded in the harbor entrance when she attempted to take refuge inside as her draft had significantly deepened from all of the water she had taken aboard after the torpedo hit. She was eventually refloated and repaired by mid-June. She joined the rest of the 1st Pacific Squadron when they attempted to reach Vladivostok though the Japanese blockade on 10 August. The Japanese battle fleet engaged them in the Battle of the Yellow Sea and forced most of the Russian ships to return to Port Arthur after killing the squadron commander and damaging his flagship. She was sunk by Japanese howitzers in December after the Japanese had gained control of the heights around the harbor.

The Japanese raised her after the surrender of Port Arthur in January 1905 and repaired her. She was commissioned in the Imperial Japanese Navy as Hizen (肥前) in 1908. In Sasebo when the Japanese declared war on Germany in 1914 she was sent to reinforce the weak British squadron in British Columbia, but was diverted to Hawaii when reports of the arrival of a German gunboat there were received. She was sent to search for other German ships after the Americans interned the German ship in November, but did not encounter any. After World War I she supported the Japanese intervention in the Russian Civil War, but was disarmed in 1922 in accordance with the Washington Naval Treaty. She was sunk as a gunnery target in 1924.

Tsesarevich

Tsesarevich («Цесаревич», 1901 BF, La Seyne) – Renamed Grazhdanin («Гражданин») 1917, BU 1924

Borodino class

Battleship Slava in Kronstadt, early 1910s

• Borodino («Бородино», 1901 BF) – Sunk at the Battle of Tsushima, 1905 (865 men lost)
• Imperator Aleksandr III («Император Александр III», 1901 BF) – Sunk at the Battle of Tsushima, 1905 (867 men lost)
• Oriol («Орёл», 1902 BF) – Captured by Japan at the Battle of Tsushima (1905), renamed Iwami, decommissioned 1922, sunk as target 1924
• Kniaz’ Suvorov («Князь Суворов», 1902 BF) – Torpedoed at the Battle of Tsushima, 1905 (935 men lost)
• Slava («Слава», 1903 BF) – Scuttled after the Battle of Moon Sound, 1917.

Evstafii class

The Evstafi-class were a pair of pre-dreadnought battleships of the Imperial Russian Navy built before World War I for the Black Sea Fleet. They were slightly enlarged versions of the Russian battleship Potemkin, with increased armour and more guns. Numerous alterations were made as a result of experience in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–5 that seriously delayed the completion of the two ships.

They were the most modern ships in the Black Sea Fleet when World War I began and formed the core of the fleet for the first year of the war, before the newer dreadnoughts entered service. They forced the German battlecruiser SMS Goeben to disengage during the Battle of Cape Sarych shortly after Russia declared war on the Ottoman Empire in late 1914. Both ships covered several bombardments of the Bosphorus fortifications in early 1915, including one where they were attacked by the Goeben, but they managed to drive her off. Later, Evstafi and Ioann Zlatoust were relegated to secondary roles after the first dreadnought entered service in late 1915, and were subsequently put into reserve in 1918 in Sevastopol.

Both ships were captured when the Germans took the city in May 1918 and was turned over to the Allies after the Armistice in November 1918. Their engines were destroyed in 1919 by the British when they withdrew from Sevastopol to prevent the advancing Bolsheviks from using them against the White Russians. They were abandoned when the Whites evacuated the Crimea in 1920 and were scrapped in 1922–23.

Andrei Pervozvanny class

The Andrey Pervozvanny class were a pair of predreadnought battleships built in the mid-1900s 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 Borodino class battleships with increased displacement and heavier secondary armament. Work on the lead ship, Andrey Pervozvanny (Saint Andrew), commenced at the New Admiralty, Saint Petersburg in March 1904; Imperator Pavel I trailed by six months.

The disastrous experiences of the Russo-Japanese War led to countless redesigns, change orders and delays in construction. After the completion of Andrey Pervozvanny its builders identified seventeen distinct stages of her design. Andrey Pervozvanny was launched in October 1906 but subsequent alterations delayed completion until 1911. Almost all of her hull was armored, albeit thinly; redesign and refinement of protective armor continued until 1912. The ship's artillery mixed novel quick-firing long range 8-inch guns with obsolescent 12-inch 40 caliber main guns. The Andrey Pervozvanny class battleships became the only battleships of the Old World fitted with lattice masts, which were replaced with conventional masts at the beginning of World War I. The imposing ships, the largest in the Russian Navy until the completion of the Gangut class dreadnoughts, were obsolete from the start: by the time of their sea trials the Royal Navy had already launched the Orion class super-dreadnoughts.

In the first year of the World War I Andrey Pervozvanny and Imperator Pavel I comprised the battle core of the Baltic Fleet. For most of the war they remained moored in the safety of Sveaborg and Helsingfors. Idle, demoralized enlisted men subscribed to Bolshevik ideology and on March 16 [O.S. March 3] 1917 took control of the ships in a violent mutiny. The battleships survived the Ice Cruise of 1918, and Andrey Pervozvanny later ruthlessly gunned down the Krasnaya Gorka fort mutiny of 1919. After the Kronstadt rebellion the Bolshevik government lost interest in maintaining the battleships, and they were laid up in November–December 1923.

Dreadnoughts

Main article: List of dreadnought battleships of Russia

Gangut class

Main article: Gangut class battleship

A postcard of the battleship Poltava (1911) at full steam

The Gangut-class battleships were the first dreadnoughts begun for the Imperial Russian Navy before World War I. They had a convoluted design history involving several British companies, evolving requirements, an international design competition, and foreign protests. Their role was to defend the mouth of the Gulf of Finland against the Germans, who never tried to enter, so the ships spent their time training and providing cover for minelaying operations. Their crews participated in the general mutiny of the Baltic Fleet after the February Revolution in 1917, and joined the Bolsheviks the following year. The Russians were forced to evacuate their naval base at Helsinki after Finland became independent in December 1917. The Gangut-class ships led the first contingent of ships to Kronstadt even though the Gulf of Finland was still frozen.

All of the dreadnoughts except for Petropavlovsk were laid up in October–November 1918 for lack of manpower. Poltava was severely damaged by a fire while laid up in 1919. Petropavlovsk was retained in commission to defend Kronstadt and Leningrad against the British forces supporting the Whites Russians although she also helped to suppress a mutiny by the garrison of Fort Krasnaya Gorka in 1919. Her crew, and that of the Sevastopol, joined the Kronstadt Rebellion of March 1921. After it was bloodily crushed, those ships were given proper 'revolutionary' names. Parizhskaya Kommuna, the former Sevastopol, was modified in 1928 to improve her sea-keeping abilities so that she could be transferred to the Black Sea Fleet which had nothing heavier than a light cruiser available. This proved to be the first of a series of modernizations where each ship of the class was progressively reconstructed and improved. A number of proposals were made in the 1930s to rebuild Frunze, ex-Poltava, to match her sisters or even as a battlecruiser by removing one turret, but these came to naught and she was hulked preparatory to scrapping.

The two ships of the Baltic Fleet did not play a prominent role in the Winter War, but did have their anti-aircraft guns significantly increased before Operation Barbarossa in 1941. However this did not help either ship as they attempted to provide fire support for the defenders of Leningrad. Marat had her bow blown off and Oktyabrskaya Revolyutsiya was badly damaged by multiple bomb hits in September. The former was sunk, but later raised and became a floating battery for the duration of the Siege of Leningrad while the latter spent over a year under repair, although this was lengthened by subsequent bomb hits while in the hands of the shipyard. Both ships bombarded German and Finnish troops so long as they remained within reach, but Oktyabrskaya Revolyutsiya did not venture away from Kronstadt for the duration of the war. Parizhskaya Kommuna remained in Sevastopol until forced to evacuate by advancing German troops. She made one trip to besieged Sevastopol in December 1941 and made a number of bombardments in support of the Kerch Offensive during January–March 1942. She was withdrawn from combat in April as German aerial supremacy had made it too risky to risk such a large target.

Sevastopol and Oktyabrskaya Revolyutsiya remained on the active list after the end of the war although little is known of their activities. Both were reclassified as 'school battleships' (uchebnyi lineinyi korabl) in 1954 and stricken in 1956 after which they were slowly scrapped. There were several plans (Project 27) to reconstruct Petropavlovsk using the bow of Frunze, but they were not accepted and were formally cancelled on 29 June 1948. She was renamed Volkhov in 1950 and served as a stationary training ship until stricken in 1953 and subsequently broken up. Frunze was finally scrapped beginning in 1949.

Ship	Main guns	Armor	Displacement	Propulsion	Service
					Laid down	Launched	Fate
Gangut (Russian: Гангут)	12 × 12 in (305 mm)	225 mm (8.9 in)	24,400 long tons (24,792 t)	4 screws, steam turbines, 24 kn (44 km/h; 28 mph)	16 June 1909	20 October 1911	Stricken, 17 February 1956
Petropavlovsk (Russian: Петропавловск)						22 September 1911	Stricken, 4 September 1933
Sevastopol (Russian: Севастополь)						10 July 1911	Scrapped beginning in 1949.
Poltava (Russian: Полтава)						23 July 1911	Stricken, 17 February 1956

Imperatritsa Mariya class

Main article: Imperatritsa Mariya class battleship

The Imperatritsa Mariya-class (Russian: Императрица Мария) battleships were the first dreadnoughts built for the Black Sea Fleet of the Imperial Russian Navy. All three ships were built in Nikolayev during World War I. Two ships were delivered in 1915 and saw some combat against ex-German warships that had been 'gifted' to the Ottoman Empire, but the third was not completed until 1917 and saw no combat due to the disorder in the navy after the February Revolution earlier that year.

Imperatritsa Mariya was sunk by a magazine explosion in Sevastopol harbor in 1916. Imperatritsa Ekaterina Velikaya, having been renamed Svobodnaya Rossiya in 1917, was scuttled in Novorossiysk harbor in 1918 to prevent her from being turned over to the Germans as required by the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. The crew of Volia, as Imperator Aleksander III had been renamed in 1917, voted to turn her over to the Germans. They were only able to make one training cruise before they had to turn her over the victorious Allies in 1918 as part of the armistice terms. The British took control of her, but turned her over to the White Russians in 1920 who renamed her General Alekseyev. She only had one operable gun turret by this time and she provided some fire support for the Whites, but it was not enough. They were forced to evacuate the Crimea later that year and sailed for Bizerte where she was interned by the French. She was eventually scrapped there during the 1930s to pay her docking fees.

Ship	Main guns	Armor	Displacement	Propulsion	Service
					Laid down	Launched	Fate
Imperatritsa Mariya (Russian: Императрица Мария)	12 × 12 in (305 mm)	262.5 mm (10.3 in)	23,413 long tons (23,789 t)	4 screws, steam turbines, 21 kn (39 km/h; 24 mph)	30 October 1911	19 October 1913	Stricken 21 November 1925
Imperatritsa Ekaterina Velikaya (Russian: Императрица Екатерина Великая)						6 June 1913	Scuttled, 19 June 1918
Imperator Aleksandr III (Russian: Император Александр Третий)						15 April 1914	Sold for scrap, 1936

Imperator Nikolai I

Main article: Russian battleship Imperator Nikolai I (1916)

Imperator Nikolai I (Russian: Император Николай I or Emperor Nikolai I) was built during World War I for service in the Black Sea. She was designed to counter the multiple Ottoman orders for dreadnoughts which raised the possibility that the Russian dreadnoughts being built for the Black Sea Fleet could be out-numbered. The ship used the same main armament as the preceding Imperatritsa Mariya class, but was larger and more heavily armored. Imperator Nikolai I was launched in 1916, but construction was suspended on 24 October 1917. The Soviets considered completing her in 1923, but rejected the idea. She was towed to Sevastopol in 1927 and scrapped.

Ship	Main guns	Armour	Displacement	Propulsion	Service
					Laid down	Commissioned	Fate
HMS Imperator Nikolai I (Russian: Император Николай I)	12 × 12 in (305 mm)	270 mm (11 in)	31,877 long tons (32,389 t)	4 screws, steam turbines, 21 kn (39 km/h; 24 mph)	28 April 1915	18 October 1916	Scrapped beginning 28 June 1927

Sovetsky Soyuz class

Main article: Sovetsky Soyuz class battleship

The Sovetsky Soyuz class battleships (Project 23, Russian: Советский Союз), also known as "Stalin's Republics", were a class of battleships begun by the Soviet Union in the late 1930s but never brought into service. They were designed in response to the battleships being built by Germany. Only four hulls of the sixteen originally planned had been laid down by 1940, when the decision was made to cut the program to only three ships to divert resources to an expanded army rearmament program.

These ships would have rivaled the Imperial Japanese Yamato class in size if any had been completed, although with significantly weaker firepower: 406-millimeter (16.0 in) guns compared to the 460-millimeter (18.1 in) guns of the Japanese ships. However they would have been superior to their German rivals, the Bismarck class, at least on paper. The failure of the Soviet armor plate industry to build cemented armor plates thicker than 230 millimeters (9.1 in) would have negated any advantages from the Sovetsky Soyuz class's thicker armor in combat.

Construction of the first four ships was plagued with difficulties as the Soviet shipbuilding and related industries were not prepared to build such large ships. One battleship, Sovetskaya Belorussiya, was cancelled on 19 October 1940 after serious construction flaws were found. Construction of the other three ships was suspended shortly after Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941, and never resumed. All three of the surviving hulls were scrapped in the late 1940s.

Ship	Main guns	Armor	Displacement	Propulsion	Service
					Laid down	Launched	Fate
Sovetsky Soyuz (Russian: Советский Союз)	9 × 406 mm (16.0 in)	420 mm (16.5 in)	65,150 t (64,121 long tons)	4 screws, steam turbines, 28 kn (52 km/h; 32 mph)	15 July 1938	Never	Ordered scrapped, 29 May 1948
Sovetskaya Ukraina (Russian: Советская Украина)					31 October 1938		Ordered scrapped, 27 March 1947
Sovetskaya Rossiya (Russian: Советская Россия)					22 July 1940
Sovetskaya Belorussiya (Russian: Советская Белоруссия)					21 December 1939		Cancelled, 19 October 1940

Non-Russian ships

Battleship Novorossiysk (1911). Sevastopol, 1950

Archangelsk

• Arkhangel’sk («Архангельск») (1915; ex-HMS Royal Sovereign, transferred 1944 Northern Fleet in account of reparations from Italy) – Returned 1949 (instead of Giulio Cesare), BU after 1949

Novorossiysk

• Novorossiysk («Новороссийск») (1911; ex-Italian Giulio Cesare) – Taken according to reparations from Italy, transferred in 1948 (BSF), Exploded by an unknown reason in 1955

Sources

• Moiseev S. P. Spisok korabley russkogo parovogo i bronenosnogo flota (s 1861 po 1917 god). – Voyenizdat, Moskva, 1948. (List of the Ships of Russian Steam and Armoured Navy (from 1861 to 1917)).
• Boyevye korabli russkogo flota 8.1914-10.1918 gody: Spravochnik / Ed. by Yu. V. Apalkov. – INTEK, St. Peterburg, 1996. (Warships of the Russian Navy in August 1914 – October 1918).
• Burov V. N. Otechestvennoye voyennoye korablestroyenoye v tretyem stoletii svoyei istorii. – Sudostroyeniye, St. Peterburg, 1995. (Native Naval Shipbuilding in 3rd century of its history [i. e. in XX c.])
• Berezhnoi S. S. Trofei i reparatsii VMF SSSR. – Sakhapoligraphizdat, Yakutsk, 1994. (Trophies and Reparations of the USSR Navy)