 Postcard of Imperator Pavel I underway with the original cage masts
| |
| Class overview | |
|---|---|
| Operators | |
| Preceded by | Evstafi class |
| Succeeded by | Gangut class |
| Built | 1904–1911 |
| In service | 1911–1919 |
| In commission | 1911–1924 |
| Planned | 2 |
| Completed | 2 |
| Scrapped | 2 |
| General characteristics (as built) | |
| Type | Predreadnought battleship |
| Displacement |
|
| Length | 460 ft (140.2 m) (o/a) |
| Beam | 80 ft (24.4 m) |
| Draught | 29 ft 6 in (9 m) (deep load) |
| Installed power |
|
| Propulsion | 2 Shafts, 2 triple-expansion steam engines |
| Speed | 18.5 knots (34.3 km/h; 21.3 mph) (sea trials) |
| Range | 2,400 nmi (4,400 km; 2,800 mi) at 12 knots (22 km/h; 14 mph) |
| Complement | 955 |
| Armament |
|
| Armour |
|
The Andrei Pervozvanny class were a pair of pre-dreadnought battleships built in the first decade of the twentieth century for the Baltic Fleet of the Imperial Russian Navy. They were conceived by the Naval Technical Committee in 1903 as an incremental development of the Borodino-class battleships with increased displacement and heavier secondary armament. The disastrous experiences of the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905 and the unrest resulting from the 1905 Russian Revolution led to countless redesigns, change orders and delays in construction. Despite the designers' repeated attempts to modernize the ships while under construction, they were obsolete in concept from the beginning, and even more so when they entered service in 1911.
In the first year of World War I, Andrei Pervozvanny and Imperator Pavel I formed the core of the Baltic Fleet. For most of the war they remained moored in the safety of Sveaborg and Helsingfors.[note 1] Idle, demoralized ratings subscribed to Bolshevik ideology and on March 16 [O.S. March 3] 1917 took control of the ships in a violent mutiny, killing many of their officers in the process. The battleships participated in the Ice Cruise of 1918, and Andrei Pervozvanny later helped to put down the Krasnaya Gorka fort mutiny of 1919. After the Kronstadt rebellion of 1921, the Bolshevik government lost interest in maintaining the battleships, and they were scrapped beginning in November–December 1923.
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