Russian battleship Sevastopol (1911)

Sevastopol during World War I
History
Russian Empire
NameSevastopol
NamesakeSiege of Sevastopol
BuilderBaltic Works, Saint Petersburg
Laid down16 June 1909[Note 1]
Launched10 July 1911
In service30 November 1914
Soviet Union
NameParizhskaya Kommuna
NamesakeParis Commune
AcquiredNovember 1917
Recommissioned17 September 1925
DecommissionedNovember 1918
Renamed
  • Parizhskaya Kommuna 21 March 1921
  • Sevastopol 31 May 1943
Stricken17 February 1956
Nickname(s)Parizhanka (Parisienne)
Honours and
awards
Order of the Red Banner 8 July 1945
FateScrapped in 1957
General characteristics
Class and typeGangut-class battleship
Displacement24,800 t (24,400 long tons; 27,300 short tons)
Length181.2 m (594 ft 6 in)
Beam26.9 m (88 ft 3 in)
Draft8.99 m (29 ft 6 in)
Installed power52,000 shp (38,776 kW) (on trials)
Propulsion
Speed24.1 knots (44.6 km/h; 27.7 mph) (on trials)
Range3,200 nmi (5,900 km; 3,700 mi) at 10 knots (19 km/h; 12 mph)
Complement1,149
Armament
Armor

Sevastopol (Russian: Севастополь) was the first ship completed 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 Siege of Sevastopol during the Crimean War. 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 minelaying operations. Her crew joined the general mutiny of the Baltic Fleet after the February Revolution and joined the Bolsheviks later that year. She was laid up in 1918 for lack of manpower, but her crew joined the Kronstadt rebellion of 1921. She was renamed Parizhskaya Kommuna after the rebellion was crushed to commemorate the Paris Commune and to erase the ship's betrayal of the Communist Party.

She was recommissioned in 1925, and refitted in 1928 in preparation for her transfer to the Black Sea the following year. Parizhskaya Kommuna and the cruiser Profintern ran into a severe storm in the Bay of Biscay that severely damaged Parizhskaya Kommuna's false bow. They had to put into Brest for repairs, but reached Sevastopol in January 1930. Parizhskaya Kommuna was comprehensively reconstructed in two stages during the 1930s that replaced her boilers, upgraded her guns, augmented her anti-aircraft armament, modernized her fire-control systems and gave her anti-torpedo bulges. During World War II she provided gunfire support during the Siege of Sevastopol and related operations until she was withdrawn from combat in April 1942 when the risk from German aerial attack became too great. She was retained on active duty after the war until she became a training ship in 1954. She was broken up in 1956–1957.
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