Sissoi Veliky () was a pre-dreadnought battleship built for the Imperial Russian Navy in the 1890s. The ship's construction was marred by organizational, logistical and engineering problems and dragged on for more than five years. She was commissioned in October 1896 with an appalling number of design and construction faults, and only a few of them were fixed during her lifetime. Immediately after sea trials, Sissoi Veliky sailed to the Mediterranean to enforce the naval blockade of Crete during the Greco-Turkish War. On , 1897 she suffered a devastating explosion of the aft gun turret that killed 21 men. After nine months in the docks of Toulon for repairs, the ship sailed to the Far East to reinforce the Russian presence there. In the summer of 1900, Sissoi Veliky supported the international campaign against the Boxer Rebellion in China. Sailors from Sissoi Veliky and the battleship participated in the defence of the International Legations in Beijing for more than two months.

In 1902 the ship returned to Kronstadt for repairs, but very little was achieved until the early losses of the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905 caused the formation of the Second Pacific Squadron to relieve the Russian forces blockaded in Port Arthur. Sissoi Veliky sailed for the Far East with the rest of the Baltic battleships and participated in the Battle of Tsushima on 1905. She survived the daytime artillery duel with Admiral Tōgō Heihachirō's ships, but was badly damaged and taking on water. During the night Japanese destroyers scored a torpedo hit on the ship that damaged her steering. The next morning the ship was unable to maintain speed because of flooding, and her crew surrendered to Japanese armed merchant cruisers. The ship capsized later that morning with the loss of 47 crewmen.

Background In 1881 a committee of admirals headed by General Admiral Alexei Alexandrovich drafted an ambitious program of rearming the Baltic Fleet with 16 ocean-going battleships and 13 cruisers.Bogdanov, p. 5. The man in charge of shipbuilding, Admiral Ivan Shestakov, saw little value in building uniform ship classes and regularly changed design and construction targets to match foreign novelties of the day. In 1885 the program was reduced to nine battleships; the freed funds were reallocated to torpedo boats in response to German advances with these weapons. The first ten years of the 1881 program were marked by indecision, bureaucracy and a shortage of funds,Bogdanov, p. 6. and only two battleships were actually built (, , and one coastal defense ship ). These were relatively small and slow ships, each with a single frontal barbette housing 12-inch (305 mm) guns (in case of Gangut, a single gun).Bogdanov, p. 7.

The fourth ship (the future ) was planned as an even cheaper and smaller () ship.Bogdanov, pp. 7–8. However, the superiority of the German compelled the Imperial Navy to lift cost and size constraints and build a large battleship with two main gun turrets. The Franco-Russian Works hastily proposed a draft based on the British . The Navy hesitated, and awarded the contract to the private company only after a push from Tsar Alexander III. Navarin, laid down in July 1889 and launched in 1891, set the standard configuration for all Russian pre-dreadnought battleships,Bogdanov, p. 8. but in 1890, when the Navy discussed plans for the fifth battleship, the future was uncertain. The admirals were still discussing whether the Navy should concentrate on large battleships, smaller coastal defence ships or on the ocean-going cruisers.Bogdanov, p. 11.

1891 draft with barbettes Post-1893 draft with turrets In September 1890 the Naval Technical Committee (MTK) rolled out a proposal for a medium-size (, long) battleship armed with three single 12-inch guns mounted in barbettes. Codenamed Gangut No. 2, it attempted to blend the hull of Alexander II and the armament of Navarin in a tightly budgeted, compromised design. None of the admirals who reviewed the proposal was satisfied with it, and the MTK was overwhelmed with a flurry of contradicting suggestions.Bogdanov, p. 12. The four main guns were to be mounted in two barbettes covered with armoured cupolas. The choice of secondary armament caused another round of debate. The MTK initially proposed a combination of Russian Model 1877 6-inch guns and Armstrong 4.7-inch guns. Admirals Stepan Makarov and Vladimir Verkhovsky advised against the use of weapons of two different sizes (as this caused problems with fire control and direction), and against using the obsolete 1877 guns. The MTK did just the opposite, dropping the modern Armstrong guns in favor of the 1877 model, probably as a result of not wanting to use foreign-built weaponry.Bogdanov, p. 15. In March 1891 the MTK presented a revised proposal that increased displacement to and the main armament to four 12-inch guns that was accepted by Admiral Chikachev.Bogdanov, p. 14.

Description The ship was long at the waterline and long overall. She had a beam of and a draught of . She displaced , over more than her designed displacement of .McLaughlin, p. 77. The ship had a partial double bottom and a centreline bulkhead separated the engine and boiler rooms. Sissoi Velikys crew initially consisted of 27 officers and 555 enlisted men, but grew to a total of 686 by 1905.McLaughlin, pp. 77, 80.

Sissoi Veliky had two vertical triple-expansion steam engines, each driving one four-bladed propeller. They had a total designed output of using steam provided by 12 cylindrical fire-tube boilers. The ship's designed speed was , but she reached a top speed of during her sea trials on 1896, despite from her engines. She carried a maximum of of coal at full load that gave her a range of at a speed of .McLaughlin, pp. 77, 81.

Armament Like many Russian ships before and after it, Sissoi Veliky was plagued by regular "improvements" of the original design that delayed construction for years.Bogdanov, p. 41. In the beginning of 1893, over a year after construction began, the MTK again redesigned Sissoi Velikys artillery.Bogdanov, p. 40. The two pairs of 12-inch 40-calibre guns were changed from barbette mountings to French-style twin turrets. These guns had a maximum elevation of +15° and the ship carried 80 rounds per gun for them. Their rate of fire was intended to be one round per 1.5 minutes, but it was one shot per 2.5–3 minutes in reality.McLaughlin, p. 81. They fired a shell at a muzzle velocity of to a range of at an elevation of +10°.Friedman, p. 253.

The secondary armament was replaced by a half-dozen 45-calibre quick-firing (QF) six-inch (152 mm) Canet guns that were mounted in casemates on the main deck. Each gun was provided with 200 rounds of ammunition. Alterations of the shell hoists to accommodate the larger rounds for the Canet guns began only in December 1895. They fired shells that weighed with a muzzle velocity of . They had a maximum range of when fired at an elevation of +20°.Friedman, p. 260.

The ship's anti-torpedo boat armament was changed more than once and, in the end, consisted of a dozen QF Hotchkiss guns and 10 Maxim QF guns. The 47 mm guns were mounted on the top of the superstructure and on the upper deck above the six-inch casemates. They fired a shell at a muzzle velocity of .Friedman, pp. 118, 265 The 37 mm guns were mounted in the fighting top. They fired a shell at a muzzle velocity of .Friedman, pp. 120, 265 Sissoi Veliky carried six above-water torpedo tubes, one each in the bow and stern and two on each broadside. The ship also could carry 50 mines.

Armour The ship's armour scheme was based on that of Navarin although it used nickel steel rather than the compound armour of the older ship. The maximum thickness of the waterline armour belt was over the machinery spaces which reduced to 12 inches abreast the magazines. It covered of the ship's length and was high. It tapered to a thickness of at the bottom edge. The upper of the belt was intended to be above the waterline, but the ship was significantly overweight and the entire belt was submerged at normal load. The belt terminated in and transverse bulkheads, fore and aft, respectively.

The casemate was above the belt, thick on all sides, long and high, and protected the six-inch guns. The sides of the turrets were thick and their roofs were thick. Above the casemate, the bases of the turrets were protected by 10 inches of armour; inside the casemate, only five inches of armour protected them. The conning tower's sides were nine inches thick. The armour deck connected to the top of the waterline belt and was 2.5 inches thick above the belt, but fore and aft of the belt it was thick.

Construction The MTK rushed Gangut No. 2 into production and, contrary to established practice, ordered structural steel and armour before the project was properly authorized. Construction began on , 1891 in the wooden shed of the Franco-Russian Works in Saint Petersburg. On she was officially named Sissoi Veliky to commemorate the victory in the Battle of Hogland which coincided with the day of St. Sisoes the Great of Egypt in the Eastern Orthodox liturgical calendar.Bogdanov, p. 16. The ship was formally laid down on , 1892.

The management of the construction was flawed from the start: the stem and sternposts, rudder frame, and propeller shaft brackets were not ordered in time, and the late discovery of this omission substantially delayed progress. Verkhovsky, having no time to place orders with reliable foreign suppliers, contracted the job to local plants already known for poor discipline and quality that were already loaded down with other Navy jobs. The industrial capacity of the Saint Petersburg area could not sustain even the modest rate of naval rearmament that the government was willing to finance. In April 1893 minor grievances evolved in a full-scale conflict between Verkhovsky and the board of the Alexandrovsky Steel Works, a ridiculous charge of 25 roubles nearly brought the work to a full stop. The savvy admiral always blamed the suppliers but did not even attempt to fix the disarray in his own office.Bogdanov, p. 17.

Nevertheless, in April 1894 the completed hull passed static pressure tests. It was launched , 1894 during a fleet review attended by Tsar Nicholas II.Bogdanov, p. 42. The commissioning of Sissoi Veliky was scheduled for September 1896, but an examination in August revealed that the steering gear, water pumps, ventilation system and one of the turrets were still missing or defective. The builders hastily equipped the ship with rudder controls built for Poltava and delivered the ship for her sea trials on , 1896. The Navy desperately needed Sissoi Veliky in the Mediterranean and she was commissioned regardless of her known faults.Bogdanov, p. 44.

Service

Mediterranean

Immediately after the trials Sissoi Veliky was ordered to join the Mediterranean Squadron which was engaged in the naval blockade of Crete in the wake of the 1896 Cretan riots and the Hamidian massacres. Her maiden voyage revealed more problems; the lack of ventilation in the steering compartment was so appalling that during the first port call the captain purchased electric fans with his own money and the electrical systems failed one by one before reaching Gibraltar.Bogdanov, p. 47. The copper rings for sealing the portholes were left in Kronstadt and were not found until February 1897.Bogdanov, p. 45.