Russian battleship Poltava (1911)

History
Russian Empire
NamePoltava
NamesakeBattle of Poltava
OperatorImperial Russian Navy
BuilderAdmiralty Shipyard, Saint Petersburg
Laid down16 June 1909[Note 1]
Launched23 July 1911
In service30 December 1914
Soviet Union
NameFrunze
NamesakeMikhail Frunze
OperatorSoviet Navy
Acquired1917
DecommissionedOctober 1918
Renamed7 January 1926
Stricken1 December 1940
FateScrapped from 1949
General characteristics
Class and typeGangut-class battleship
Displacement24,800 tonnes (24,400 long tons; 27,300 short tons)
Length181.2 m (594 ft)
Beam26.9 m (88 ft)
Draft8.99 m (29.5 ft)
Propulsion
Speed24.1 knots (44.6 km/h; 27.7 mph) (on trials)
Range3,200 nautical miles (5,900 km) at 10 knots (19 km/h; 12 mph)
Complement1,149
Armament
Armor

Poltava (Полтава) was the second of the Gangut-class battleships of the Imperial Russian Navy built before World War I. The Ganguts were the first class of Russian dreadnoughts. She was named after the Russian victory over Charles XII of Sweden in the Battle of Poltava in 1709. She was completed during the winter of 1914–1915, but was not ready for combat until mid-1915. Her role was to defend the mouth of the Gulf of Finland against the Germans, who never tried to enter, so she spent her time training and providing cover for mine laying operations. She was laid up in 1918 for lack of trained crew and suffered a devastating fire the following year that almost gutted her. Many proposals were made to reconstruct or modernize her in different ways for the next twenty years, but none were carried out. While all this was being discussed she served as a source of spare parts for her sister ships and was used as a barracks ship. She was finally struck from the Navy List in 1940 and scrapping began at a very leisurely rate. She was intentionally grounded in late 1941 to prevent her from being sunk in some inconvenient location by the Germans. She was refloated in 1944 and scrapped beginning in 1949.
Cite error: There are <ref group=Note> tags on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist|group=Note}} template (see the help page).