Imperator Aleksandr II-class battleship

Imperator Aleksandr II
Class overview
Name:	Imperator Aleksandr II-class battleship
Operators:	Russian Navy  Imperial Japanese Navy
Preceded by:	Ekaterina II class
Succeeded by:	Dvenadsat Apostolov
Subclasses:	Imperator Nikolai I
Cost:	8,000,000+ rubles
Built:	1885–1891
In commission:	1891–1921
Completed:	2
General characteristics Imperator Aleksandr II
Type:	Battleship
Displacement:	9,244 long tons (9,392 t)
Length:	346 ft 6 in (105.61 m)
Beam:	66 ft 11 in (20.40 m)
Draft:	25 ft 9 in (7.85 m)
Installed power:	8,289 ihp (6,181 kW)
Propulsion:	2 shaft vertical compound steam engines, 12 cylindrical boilers
Speed:	15.27 knots (28.28 km/h; 17.57 mph)
Range:	4,440 nautical miles (8,223 km) at 8 knots (15 km/h; 9 mph)
Complement:	616
Armament:	1 × 2 – 12-inch (305 mm) guns 4 × 1 – 9-inch (229 mm) guns 8 × 1 – 6-inch (152 mm) guns 10 × 1 – 47-millimeter (1.9 in) Hotchkiss revolving cannon 10 × 1 – 37-millimeter (1.5 in) Hotchkiss revolving cannon 5 × 1 – 15-inch (381 mm) torpedo tubes
Armor:	Compound armor Belt: 4–14 in (102–356 mm) Deck: 2.5 in (64 mm) Barbette: 10 in (254 mm) Barbette hood: 3 in (76 mm) Conning tower: 8 in (203 mm) Bulkheads: 6 in (152 mm)

The Imperator Aleksandr II-class battleships were two battleships built for the Imperial Russian Navy in the 1880s. They were intended to counter the small armored ships of the other Baltic powers. Construction was very prolonged and the ships were virtually obsolescent when completed. They were optimized for ramming.

Imperator Aleksandr II served in the Baltic and Mediterranean Seas before becoming a gunnery training ship in 1904, but she was inactive during World War I before joining the Bolsheviks in 1917. She was sold for scrap in 1922. Imperator Nikolai I served in the Baltic and Mediterranean Seas as well as the Pacific Ocean during the First Sino-Japanese War and the Russo-Japanese War. She surrendered after the Battle of Tsushima in 1905 and was commissioned in the Imperial Japanese Navy before she was sunk as a target in 1915.

The Imperator Aleksandr II-class battleships were the first all-steel battleships to be built for the Baltic Fleet and were designed to allow Russia to dominate the Baltic Sea by defeating rival ships like the Danish ironclad Helgoland and the German Sachsen-class ironclads, both of which were built of wrought iron. They were designed according to the tactical theories of the day which emphasized ramming and incorporated a ram bow. In addition their forecastle deck sloped slightly downwards to allow the main guns to fire at the waterline of the enemy at short range as the ship closed to ram. A full transverse armored bulkhead protected the forward 9 in (229 mm) guns from raking fire and no armor was originally provided to protect them from the side. They were given a full sailing rig to allow for deployments to the Mediterranean and other distant locations although it was never actually used. Imperator Nikolai I was originally going to be built to a completely different design, but this was changed at the last minute to a modified version of the Imperator Aleksandr II design, so there were significant differences between the two ships.

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Wikipedia