Bayan class cruiser

Admiral Makarov and Bayan at anchor, circa 1913
Class overview
Name:	Bayan
Operators:	Imperial Russian Navy  Imperial Japanese Navy
Preceded by:	Gromoboi
Succeeded by:	Rurik
Built:	1899–11
In commission:	1902–20
Completed:	4
Lost:	1
Scrapped:	3
General characteristics
Type:	Armored cruiser
Displacement:	7,750–7,802 long tons (7,874–7,927 t)
Length:	449 ft 7 in (137.0 m)
Beam:	71 ft 6 in (21.8 m)
Draft:	22 ft (6.7 m)
Installed power:	26 Belleville boilers 16,500 ihp (12,300 kW)
Propulsion:	2 shafts, 2 vertical triple-expansion steam engines
Speed:	21 kn (39 km/h; 24 mph)
Range:	3,900 nmi (7,200 km; 4,500 mi) at 10 knots (19 km/h; 12 mph)
Complement:	573
Armament:	2 × single 8 in (203 mm) guns 8 × single 6 in (152 mm) guns 20 × single 75 mm (3 in) guns 4 or 8 × single 47 mm (1.9 in) guns 0 or 2 × single 37 mm (1.5 in) guns 2 × single 15 or 18 in (381 or 457 mm) torpedo tubes
Armor:	Belt: 3.5–7.9 inches (90–200 mm) Deck: 2.0 inches (50 mm) Gun turrets: 5.2–6.3 inches (132–160 mm) Barbettes: 6.7 in (170 mm) Conning tower: 5.4–6.3 in (136–160 mm)

The Bayan class was a group of four armored cruisers built for the Imperial Russian Navy around the beginning of the 20th century. Two of the ships were built in France, as Russian shipyards had no spare capacity. The lead ship, Bayan, was built several years earlier than the later three. The ship participated in several of the early naval battles of the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–05, and provided naval gunfire support for the Imperial Russian Army until she struck a mine. Bayan was trapped in harbor during the subsequent Siege of Port Arthur, and was sunk by Japanese artillery. She was salvaged and put into service with the Imperial Japanese Navy with the name of Aso. She mostly served as a training ship before she was converted into a minelayer in 1920. The ship was sunk as a target in 1932.

Her three sisters were all assigned to the Baltic Fleet. Pallada was the first ship lost by the Russians during World War I when she was sunk by a German submarine in October 1914. The two surviving ships were modified to lay mines, and participated in the Battle of Åland Islands in 1915 and the German invasion of the Estonian islands in 1917. They were decommissioned in 1918 and sold for scrap in 1922.

The Bayan class marked a departure from the previous Russian armored cruisers, as they were smaller ships designed to serve as scouts for the fleet rather than as commerce raiders. Authorized in the 1896–1902 building program, the design was outsourced to a French shipyard, Forges et Chantiers de la Méditerranée, because Russian shipyards were already at full capacity. Negotiations began in March 1897, and a contract was signed in May 1898 for one ship with delivery in 36 months.