Russian monitor Vitse-admiral Popov
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| Class overview | |
|---|---|
| Preceded by: | Novgorod |
| Built: | 1872–1876 |
| In service: | 1876–1903 |
| Completed: | 1 |
| Scrapped: | 1 |
| History | |
 Russian Empire
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| Name: | Vitse-admiral Popov |
| Namesake: | Vice Admiral Andrei Alexandrovich Popov |
| Builder: | Nikolaev Admiralty Shipyard, Nikolaev |
| Cost: | 3,260,000 rubles (excluding armament) |
| Laid down: | 8 September 1874 |
| Launched: | 7 October 1875 |
| Completed: | 1876 |
| Decommissioned: | 2 May 1903 |
| Reclassified: | As a coast-defense ironclad, 13 February 1892 |
| Struck: | 3 July 1903 |
| Fate: | Sold for scrap, December 1911 |
| General characteristics (as built) | |
| Type: | Monitor |
| Displacement: | 3,600 long tons (3,658 t) |
| Length: | 126 ft 10 in (38.7 m) |
| Beam: | 117 ft 8 in (35.9 m) |
| Draft: | 19 ft (5.8 m) |
| Installed power: |
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| Propulsion: | 6 shafts, 8 compound-expansion steam engines |
| Speed: | 8.5 knots (15.7 km/h; 9.8 mph) |
| Range: | 540 nautical miles (1,000 km; 620 mi) at full speed |
| Complement: | 19 officers and 187 crewmen |
| Armament: |
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| Armor: | |
Vitse-admiral Popov was a monitor built for the Imperial Russian Navy in the 1870s. It was one of the most unusual warships ever constructed, and still survives in popular naval myth as one of the worst warships ever built. The hull was circular to reduce draught while allowing the ship to carry much more armour and a heavier armament than other ships of the same size. Vitse-admiral Popov played a minor role in the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–78 and was reclassified as a coast-defence ironclad in 1892. The ship was decommissioned in 1903 and sold for scrap in 1911.
In 1868, the Scottish shipbuilder John Elder published an article that advocated that widening the beam of a ship would reduce the area that needed to be protected and allow it to carry thicker armour and heavier, more powerful guns in comparison to a normal ship. In addition such a ship would have a shallower draught and that only a moderate increase in power would be required to match the speed of the normal ship. Sir Edward Reed, then Director of Naval Construction of the Royal Navy, agreed with Elder's conclusions. Rear-Admiral Andrei Alexandrovich Popov of the Imperial Russian Navy further broadened Elder's concept by broadening the ship so that it was actually circular and he made the design flat-bottomed, unlike Elder's convex hull, to minimise its draught.
Popov's design was intended to meet an 1869 requirement to defend the Dnieper-Bug Estuary and the Kerch Strait. The requirement was for very heavily-armoured ships of 11-foot (3.4 m) draught and armed with 11-inch (279 mm) rifled guns, four of which should cost no more than four million rubles. The 2,100-long-ton (2,100 t) Charodeika-class monitor met all of the requirements except that their armament was not powerful enough, so General-Admiral Grand Duke Konstantin Nikolayevich selected Popov's circular design in late December 1869. A model was built with a circular hull and performed well during tests in the Baltic Sea at St. Petersburg in April 1870; when Tsar Alexander II received reports of the trials, he nicknamed the ship a "popovka".
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Wikipedia