Russian battleship Retvizan

Retvizan (1902 - 1924)
History
Russia
Name	Retvizan
Ordered	2 May 1898
Builder	William Cramp and Sons, Philadelphia
Laid down	29 July 1899
Launched	23 October 1900
Commissioned	23 March 1902
Out of service	Sunk by Japanese howitzers in Port Arthur, China, 6 December 1904 Salvaged and repaired by the Japanese
Renamed	Hizen, 1908
Captured	2 January 1905
History
Japan
Name	Hizen
Acquired	1905
Commissioned	1908
Decommissioned	April 1922
Out of service	Sunk as gunnery target, 20 September 1924
General characteristics
Type	Pre-dreadnought battleship
Displacement	12,708 long tons (12,912 t) standard
Length	117.85 m (386 ft 8 in)
Beam	22 m (72 ft 2 in)
Draft	7.6 m (24 ft 11 in)
Propulsion	2 × Vertical triple expansion engines 24 coal-fired Niclausse-type boilers 2 shafts 16,000 shp (12,000 kW)
Speed	18 knots (21 mph; 33 km/h)
Range	4,900 nmi (9,100 km) at 10 kn (12 mph; 19 km/h)
Complement	28 officers, 722 men
Armament	• 4 × 305 mm (12 in) guns (2×2) • 12 × 152 mm (6 in) guns (12×1) • 20 × 75 mm (3 in) guns • 24 × 47 mm (1.9 in) guns • 6 × 37 mm (1.5 in) guns • 6 × 381 mm (15 in) torpedo tubes
Armor	Krupp armour Belt: 230 mm (9 in) Deck: 51–76 mm (2–3 in) Turrets: 230 mm (9 in) Barbettes: 203 mm (8 in) Conning tower: 254 mm (10 in)

Retvizan (Ретвизан) was a Russian pre-Dreadnought battleship which fought in the Russo-Japanese War. She was unique in that many of her components and their actual fabrication was done in the United States for the Imperial Russian Navy. Much of her side armor was forged by the Bethlehem Steel Corporation, and she was built by the William Cramp and Sons 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 in 1790. She was ordered in 1898, laid down 29 July 1899, launched 23 October 1900, and commissioned on 23 March 1902.

Contracting and construction

Charles Henry Cramp the owner and son of the founder of William Cramp and Sons had a relationship with the Russian Navy dating back to the late 1870s when his firm built the auxiliary cruisers Afrika, Azia, Evropa and Zabiiaka. Cramp also repaired several Russian warships visiting America in the 1890s. 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) but the Russians preferred their own design based on the Russian battleship Potemkin. 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 modified 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 ref in twin turrets (75 rounds per gun).
• Secondary armament consisted of twelve 6-inch Canet pattern guns in casemates (200 rounds per gun) ref
• The anti torpedo boat armament consisted of twenty 75 mm Canet pattern guns (325 rounds per gun)
• six torpedo tubes were fitted with 17 torpedoes carried

Armour

The total weight of the armor was 3,300 tons or 25.8% of the displacement. The armor was made by the Krupp process 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 battleships built for the US Navy were designed by Charles Cramp and based on the Retvizan (McLaughlin 2001). The Maine had a lower quarterdeck, 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 staged for the State visit of Kaiser Wilhelm II in August 1902.

The Retvzan was transferred to the Russian Pacific Fleet in late 1902 sailing in company with the Russian battleship Pobeda and the cruisers Diana, Pallada and Bogatyr. She arrived at Port Arthur (now Lüshunkou) China on 4 May 1903.

She was present at the Battle of Port Arthur 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, 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.

Retvizan was raised by the Japanese and repaired at Sasebo between 1906 and 1908. Renamed Hizen, she served in the Imperial Japanese Navy during World War I, in which she took part in the hunt for the cruiser squadron of Maximilian von Spee and in the Japanese intervention in the Russian Civil War. She was retired as a result of the Washington Naval Treaty in 1923 and sunk as a target ship in the Bungo straits on 12 July 1924.

Retvizan in sunk in Port Arthur

References

• S. McLaughlin The Retvizan, an American Battleship for the Czar, 2000, (in Warship 2000-2001, Conways maritime press)
• - article in Russian Language
• - article in English aimed at model builders
• - Cramp's shipyard founded by William Cramp, (Philadelphia: William Cramp and Sons Ship and Engine Company, 1902)
• Bethlehem Steel Company, 1904 Ordnance Material Catalog, (Bethlehem, Pa.: The Company, 1904)
• С. А. Балакин, Эскадренный броненосец «Ретвизан» (Коллекция, Яуза, Эксмо, 2005 г.) ISBN 5-699-12917-0
• Э. Н. Щенснович, Плавание эскадренного броненосца Ретвизан. 1902—1904 (Альманах `Цитадель`, Галея Принт, 1999 г.) ISBN 5-8172-0012-0