Russia 2016, Ships, WW-I, Battleship Imperatritsa Ekaterina Velikaya, VF MNH**
Russian battleship Imperatritsa Ekaterina Velikaya.
Empresses Catherine-II the Great
Императрица Екатерина Великая (линкор)
«Императри́ца Екатери́на Вели́кая» — российский дредноут типа «Императрица Мария». Активно использовался в боевых операцях русского Черноморского флота во время Первой мировой войны.
Название корабля неоднократно менялось. 11 октября 1911 года предварительно зачислен в списки Императорского флота под названием: «Екатерина II» (в память о первом черноморском броненосце), заложен 11 июня 1911 года (по другим данным 17 октября 1911 года) на заводе Общества Николаевских заводов и верфей (ОНЗиВ, впоследствии «Наваль») в Николаеве, в один день с закладкой однотипных линкоров на заводе «Руссуд»: «Императрица Мария» и «Император Александр III». 27 июня 1915 года при зачислении в действующий состав флота переименован в «Императрица Екатерина Великая» в связи с тем, что аналогичные корабли, заложенные на заводе «Руссуд», изначально имели названия с императорскими титулами. 18 апреля 1917 года переименован в «Свободная Россия».
В процессе постройки корабль подвергся модернизации с учётом недостатков, выявившихся в ходе государственных испытаний головного дредноута «Императрица Мария». Отличительные особенности силуэта: бушпритный прилив в носовой части корпуса; смещение, с целью облегчить носовую часть судна, на две шпации (на 2,4 метра) в корму всех боевых рубок, мачт и дымовых труб, всех башен главного калибра и всех казематных орудий противоминного калибра, индивидуальное конструктивно-архитектурное исполнение мостиков на носовой боевой рубке.
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Imperatritsa Ekaterina Velikaya (Russian: Императрица Екатерина Великая (Empress Catherine the Great)) was the second of three Imperatritsa Mariya-class dreadnoughts built for the Imperial Russian Navy during World War I. Completed in 1915, she was assigned to the Black Sea Fleet. She engaged the ex-German battlecruiser Yavûz Sultân Selîm once, but only inflicted splinter damage while taking no damage herself. The ship briefly encountered an Ottoman light cruiser, but mostly covered the actions of smaller ships during the war without firing her guns. These included minelaying operations off the Bosporus and anti-shipping sweeps of the coast of Anatolia. Imperatritsa Ekaterina Velikaya was renamed Svobodnaya Rossiya (Russian: Свободная Россия, Free Russia) after the February Revolution of 1917.
She was evacuated from Sevastopol as German troops approached the city in May 1918, but was scuttled in Novorossiysk harbor the following month when the Germans demanded that the Soviets hand her over according to the terms of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. Svobodnaya Rossiya was only partially salvaged after the war.
Description
Awarded the contract for one of the three Black Sea battleships authorized in 1911, the Associated Factories and Shipyards of Nikolayev (ONZiV) lacked an experienced design staff of its own, the company hired the British shipbuilder Vickers 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. Imperatritsa Ekaterina Velikaya was 556 feet (169.5 m) long at the waterline and had a beam of 92 feet (28 m); 4 feet 10 inches (1.47 m) longer and 2 feet (0.6 m) wider than her half-sisters. Her exact draft is not known, but she had a draft of 28 feet 7 inches (8.7 m) during her sea trials. The ship displaced 24,644 long 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). The lead ship of the class, Imperatritsa Mariya, had proven to be very bow-heavy in service and tended to take large amounts of water through her forward casemates. The ammunition for Imperatritsa 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 her trim. This was successful because Imperatritsa Ekaterina Velikaya's longer length meant that she was less affected by the trim problem to begin with.
Imperatritsa Ekaterina Velikaya was fitted with four license-built Parsons steam turbine sets, each driving one shaft using steam provided by 20 triangular Yarrow boilers that burned either coal or fuel oil at a working pressure of 250 psi (1,724 kPa; 18 kgf/cm2). Designed to produce 27,000 shaft horsepower (20,000 kW) which was intended to give the ship a speed was 21 knots (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 3,000 nautical 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.
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