Retvizan () was a pre-dreadnought battleship built before the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905 for the Imperial Russian Navy. She was built by the American William Cramp & Sons because Russian shipyards were already at full capacity. Named after a Swedish ship of the line that was captured during the battle of Vyborg Bay in 1790 (, meaning both fairness and justice), Retvizan was briefly assigned to the Baltic Fleet, but was transferred to the Far East in 1902.
The ship was torpedoed during the Japanese surprise attack on Port Arthur during the night of 8/9 February 1904 and grounded in the harbour entrance when she attempted to take refuge inside, as her draft had significantly deepened from the amount of water she had taken aboard after the torpedo hit. She was refloated and repaired in time to join the rest of the 1st Pacific Squadron when they attempted to reach Vladivostok through the Japanese blockade on 10 August. The Japanese battle fleet engaged them again in the Battle of the Yellow Sea, forcing most of the Russian ships to return to Port Arthur after their squadron commander was killed and his flagship damaged. Retvizan was sunk by Japanese howitzers in December after the Japanese gained control of the heights around the harbour.
The Japanese raised and repaired Retvizan after Port Arthur surrendered in January 1905. She was commissioned into the Imperial Japanese Navy as in 1908. Based in Sasebo when Japan declared war on Germany in 1914, the ship was sent to reinforce the weak British squadron off British Columbia, but diverted to Hawaii after reports of a German gunboat there. Hizen was unsuccessfully sent to search for other German ships after the Americans interned the gunboat in November. After World War I she supported the Japanese intervention in the Russian Civil War and was disarmed in 1922 in accordance with the terms of the Washington Naval Treaty. The ship was sunk as a gunnery target in 1924.
Background Tsar Nicholas II had desired a warm-water port on the Pacific since his accession to the throne in 1894. He achieved this ambition in March 1898 when Russia signed a 25-year lease for Port Arthur and the Liaotung Peninsula with China. Japan had previously forced China to sign over the port and its surrounding territory as part of the treaty that concluded the First Sino-Japanese War of 1894–95, but the Triple Intervention of France, Russia, and Germany forced them to return the port in exchange for a sizeable increase in the indemnity paid by the Chinese. Japan invested much of the indemnity money in expanding its fleet, while Russia began a major building programme ("For the Needs of the Far East") to defend its newly acquired port.McLaughlin 2003, pp. 100–103
Russian shipyards were already at maximum capacity so the Naval Ministry decided to order ships from abroad. Charles Henry Cramp, the owner and son of the founder of William Cramp & Sons in Philadelphia, had a relationship with the Imperial Russian Navy dating back to the late 1870s when his firm built the auxiliary cruisers , , and . Cramp also repaired several Russian warships visiting America in 1893, and he cultivated the contacts he made in the Russian Navy throughout the 1890s. As such, he was ideally positioned to offer to build a battleship for the Russians in his shipyard when they began to look abroad.McLaughlin 2000, pp. 48–51
Design and description
Preliminary design work on a battleship intended to equal the latest Japanese ships began in late 1897 and early 1898 by the Naval Technical Committee; the displacement was limited to for economic reasons. The basic design was that of the with its speed increased to using only two shafts and its steaming range increased to at . The Naval Ministry intended to conduct an international design competition with the ships being built abroad as the Baltic shipyards were at full capacity.McLaughlin 2000, p. 51
Cramp's contacts kept him informed of the Russians' intentions and he sailed to Saint Petersburg to offer his services and design expertise in March 1898. Initially Cramp offered American designs to the Russians, including an updated version of as it was a relatively close match for the Russian specification, but the Russians preferred their own designs. Both sides compromised and the final design was based on the . The new ship had four fewer guns, but twice the coal capacity for improved range and a longer, slightly narrower hull for more speed. The contract was signed on 23 April 1898 for a price of $4,360,000. The protected cruiser was ordered at the same time for $2,138,000.McLaughlin 2000, pp. 52–53
General characteristics Retvizan was long at the waterline and long overall. She had a beam of and a draught of . The ship displaced at normal load. Her hull was subdivided by fourteen transverse watertight bulkheads; in addition a longitudinal centreline bulkhead divided the engine room. Retvizan had a complete double bottom that extended up the side to the lower edge of the armoured deck. She had a metacentric height of . Her crew consisted of 23 officers and 722 enlisted men.McLaughlin 2000, pp. 54–55
Propulsion Retvizan had a pair of three-cylinder vertical triple-expansion steam engines with a total designed output of . The Russian Navy preferred to use Belleville boilers, but Cramp pressed for Niclausse boilers, not least because he was the American agent for them and was supported by the General Admiral Grand Duke Alexei Alexandrovich. Twenty-four Niclausse-type boilers provided steam to the engines at a working pressure of . On sea trials, the engines produced and a top speed of , just under the contract speed of 18 knots. Not surprisingly, Cramp claimed that she reached 18.01 knots to avoid contractual penalties. Following Retvizans arrival in Russia, the propeller pitch was adjusted and she exceeded 18 knots. She carried a normal load of of coal that gave her a range of at , and a maximum load of that increased her range to at the same speed.McLaughlin 2000, p. 55
Armament and fire control Retvizans armament was built by the Obukhov Works in Saint Petersburg and shipped to America for installation. The main armament consisted of two pairs of 12-inch 40-calibre guns mounted in French-style electrically operated centre-pivot twin turrets fore and aft. These guns had a maximum elevation of +15° and could depress to −5°. The ship carried 77 rounds per gun and the guns could fire one round every 80 to 90 seconds. They fired a shell at a muzzle velocity of to a range of .McLaughlin 2000, p. 57
Eight of the twelve 45-calibre 6-inch Canet Pattern 1892 quick-firing (QF) guns were mounted in casemates on the main deck while four were mounted on the upper deck. They fired shells that weighed with a muzzle velocity of .Friedman, p. 261 They had a maximum range of around and could fire three to five rounds per minute. The guns were provided with 200 rounds each.
The ship carried many smaller guns to defend itself against attack by torpedo boats. The largest of these were twenty QF Canet Pattern 1892 guns. Fourteen of these were in embrasures on the main deck and six were mounted on the upper deck, between the six-inch casemates. Each gun was provided with 325 rounds.McLaughlin 2000, pp. 57–58 They fired an shell at a muzzle velocity of to a maximum range of .Friedman, p. 264 The rate of fire was between twelve and fifteen rounds per minute. A total of twenty-four Hotchkiss guns were carried; four in each fighting top and eight at each end of the superstructure. They fired a shell at a muzzle velocity of .Friedman, p. 228 Six Hotchkiss guns were mounted in the bridge wings. They fired a shell at a muzzle velocity of .Friedman, p. 120
Retvizan carried six torpedo tubes. Four were above water, one each in the bow and stern and the aft pair of broadside tubes; the forward broadside tubes were underwater. A total of 17 torpedoes were carried. The ship was designed to carry two second-class torpedo boats each equipped with a single torpedo tube and a small quick-firing gun. The ship could also carry 45 mines.McLaughlin 2000, p. 58
The ship was fitted with Liuzhol stadiametric rangefinders that used the angle between two vertical points on an enemy ship, usually the waterline and the crow's nest, to estimate the range. The gunnery officer consulted his references to get the range and calculated the proper elevation and deflection required to hit the target. He transmitted his commands via a Geisler electro-mechanical fire-control transmission system to each gun or turret.Forczyk, pp. 27–28, 57
Armour The total weight of the Krupp armour was or 25.8% of the displacement. The armour was mostly made in the United States, although a contract was let for deck armour from Russia on 6 January 1899.McLaughlin 2000, p. 53 The main waterline belt had a maximum thickness of and tapered to thick at its lower edge. It was long and high, of which about was above the waterline. The 6-inch upper belt was as long as the main belt and was high. Armour plates thick protected the ends of the ship to a height equal to that of the main and upper belts combined. Bulkheads thick provided transverse protection for the ship's vitals. The lower casemate armour was thick and armour screens thick separated each gun. The upper casemate armour consisted of five inches of armour plate with semicircular 1.5-inch thick gun shields enclosing the guns.
The front and sides of the turrets were thick with 2-inch roofs. Their barbettes were thick above the upper deck, but diminished to below it. The conning tower and its communication tube had walls. The armour deck inside the central citadel was level with the top of the main belt and sloped down to meet the lower edge of the main belt. It was two inches thick on the flat and on the slope. Fore and aft of the citadel the deck thickened to to the ends of the ship and reinforced the ram bow.
Construction and service
Named after the Swedish ship of the line Rättvisan (Justice) which was captured by the Russians at the Battle of Viborg Bay in 1790, Retvizan was ordered on 2 May 1898 for delivery in thirty months. The detailed sketch design was forwarded at the end of 1898 to Saint Petersburg for approval and work commenced on the ship around that time, although she was not officially laid down until 29 July 1899 as yard number 300. Construction was delayed by a strike at the shipyard that began in August 1899 and continued until the strike collapsed in early 1900. Other delays were caused by differences between American and Russian shipbuilding techniques and the insistence of the Naval Ministry on approving any design changes even though a Russian commission had been sent to Philadelphia to supervise her construction.McLaughlin 2000, p. 54
Her armament arrived in Philadelphia missing electrical cables and with incomplete documentation, which required Cramp's electricians to piece things together themselves, for which Cramp charged an extra $50,000. She was launched on 23 October 1900 and ran her acceptance trials in October 1901. The trials were successful but revealed incomplete work that Cramp had to finish before he received his last payment. More work needed to be done on the armament, but it had to wait until she arrived in Russia. Retvizan was accepted on 23 March 1902, under the command of Captain Eduard Schensnovich who commanded her throughout her Russian service.McLaughlin 2000, pp. 54, 57, 59