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The ''Gangut''-class battleships, also known as the "Sevastopol class", were the first dreadnoughts begun for the Imperial Russian Navy before World War I. They had a convoluted design history involving several British companies, evolving requirements, an international design competition, and foreign protests. Four ships were ordered in 1909; two were named after victorious battles of Peter the Great in the Great Northern War and the other two were named after battles in the Crimean War. Three ships of the class used names of pre-dreadnought battleships of the lost in the Russo-Japanese War. Construction was delayed by financing problems until the Duma formally authorized the ships in 1911. They were delivered from December 1914 through January 1915, although they still needed work on the turrets and fire-control systems until mid-1915. Their role was to defend the mouth of the Gulf of Finland against the Germans, who never tried to enter, so the ships spent their time training and providing cover for minelaying operations. Their crews participated in the general mutiny of the Baltic Fleet after the February Revolution in 1917, and joined the Bolsheviks the following year. The Russians were forced to evacuate their naval base at Helsinki after Finland became independent in December 1917. The ''Gangut''-class ships led the first contingent of ships to Kronstadt even though the Gulf of Finland was still frozen. All of the dreadnoughts except for were laid up in October–November 1918 for lack of manpower. was severely damaged by a fire while laid up in 1919. ''Petropavlovsk'' was retained in commission to defend Kronstadt and Leningrad against the British forces supporting the White Russians although she also helped to suppress a mutiny by the garrison of Fort Krasnaya Gorka in 1919. Her crew, and that of the , joined the Kronstadt Rebellion of March 1921. After it was bloodily crushed, those ships were given proper 'revolutionary' names. The other two serviceable vessels were recommissioned and renamed in 1925–26 while some work was done to repair ''Frunze'', as ''Poltava'' was now known, but the money quickly ran out for her repairs. ''Parizhskaya Kommuna'', the former ''Sevastopol'', was modified in 1928 to improve her sea-keeping abilities so that she could be transferred to the Black Sea Fleet which had nothing heavier than a light cruiser available. This proved to be the first of a series of modernizations where each ship of the class was progressively reconstructed and improved. A number of proposals were made in the 1930s to rebuild ''Frunze'' to match her sisters or even as a battlecruiser by removing one turret, but these came to naught and she was hulked preparatory to scrapping. The two ships of the Baltic Fleet did not play a prominent role in the Winter War, but did have their anti-aircraft guns significantly increased before Operation Barbarossa in 1941. However this did not help either ship as they attempted to provide fire support for the defenders of Leningrad. ''Marat'' had her bow blown off and ''Oktyabrskaya Revolyutsiya'' was badly damaged by multiple bomb hits in September. The former was sunk, but later raised and became a floating battery for the duration of the Siege of Leningrad while the latter spent over a year under repair, although this was lengthened by subsequent bomb hits while in the hands of the shipyard. Both ships bombarded German and Finnish troops so long as they remained within reach, but ''Oktyabrskaya Revolyutsiya'' did not venture away from Kronstadt for the duration of the war. ''Parizhskaya Kommuna'' remained in Sevastopol until forced to evacuate by advancing German troops. She made one trip to besieged Sevastopol in December 1941 and made a number of bombardments in support of the Kerch Offensive during January–March 1942. She was withdrawn from combat in April as German aerial supremacy had made it too risky to risk such a large target. ''Sevastopol'' and ''Oktyabrskaya Revolyutsiya'' remained on the active list after the end of the war although little is known of their activities. Both were reclassified as 'school battleships' (''uchebnyi lineinyi korabl'') in 1954 and stricken in 1956 after which they were slowly scrapped. There were several plans (Project 27) to reconstruct ''Petropavlovsk'' using the bow of ''Frunze'', but they were not accepted and were formally cancelled on 29 June 1948. She was renamed ''Volkhov'' in 1950 and served as a stationary training ship until stricken in 1953 and subsequently broken up. ''Frunze'' was finally scrapped beginning in 1949. ==Design and development== After the end of the Russo-Japanese War the Imperial Russian Navy was in a state of confusion. Its leadership, tactics and ship designs had all been cast into disrepute by its repeated defeats by the Japanese at the Battle of Tsushima, Battle off Ulsan and the Battle of the Yellow Sea. The Navy took quite some time to absorb the design lessons from the war while the government reformed the Naval Ministry and forced many of its more conservative officers to retire. It conducted a design contest for a dreadnought in 1906, but the Duma refused to authorize it, preferring to spend the money on rebuilding the Army.〔McLaughlin, pp. 189–193, 203〕 The requirements for a new class of dreadnoughts were in a state of flux during 1907, but Vickers Ltd submitted a design that met the latest specifications and was very nearly accepted by the Navy for a ship with twelve guns in triple, superimposed turrets. However rumors of a contract with Vickers raised a public outcry as they had some problems with the armored cruiser then building in England. The Naval Ministry defused the situation on 30 December 1907〔All dates used in this article are New Style〕 by announcing an international design contest with the ship built in Russia regardless of the nationality of the winning firm. By the deadline of 12 March 1908 a total of 51 designs had been submitted by 13 different shipyards. The winner of the competition was a design from the German firm of Blohm & Voss, but the French protested that they did not want to see any of the money that they had loaned Russia to build up its defenses in German pockets.〔McLaughlin, p. 216〕 The Russians bought the design for 250,000 rubles and shelved it to placate both sides. A design by the Baltic Works had been the runner-up and was revised for the Navy's updated requirements with a complete design to be presented by 22 March 1909. This was extended by a month to allow the Baltic Works to finalize its contract with the British firm of John Brown & Company for design assistance with the hull form and machinery.〔McLaughlin, pp. 210–17〕 The Naval General Staff believed that a speed advantage over the German battle fleet would prove very useful in battle, as demonstrated at the Battle of Tsushima, but use of the heavy and bulky Belleville Water-tube boilers, as insisted upon by the Engineering Section of the Naval Technical Committee, would prevent the new design from exceeding 21.25 knots itself. However, after John Brown indicated that the ship's turbines could deliver if supplied with enough steam and that the hull form could reach with 45,000 horsepower, the Naval General Staff took the opportunity to get the speed it desired by using small-tube boilers. It convened a meeting of the Naval Technical Committee to discuss the issue, but packed it with engineers from the fleet who were in favor of small-tube boilers and the Engineering Section was outvoted.〔McLaughlin, p. 217〕 The Yarrow small-tube boiler was significantly smaller and lighter than Belleville large-tube boiler, but required more frequent cleaning and repair and their horsepower dropped off more rapidly with use.〔Roberts, pp. 72–75〕 The Russians did not believe that super firing turrets offered any advantage as they discounted the value of axial fire, believed that broadside fire was much more important and also believed that super firing turrets could not fire while over the lower turret because of muzzle blast interfering with the open sighting hoods in the lower turret's roof. They therefore designed the ships with a 'linear' arrangement (''lineinoe raspolozhenie'') of turrets distributed over the length of the ship. This arrangement had several advantages because it reduced the stress on the ends of the ship since the turrets were not concentrated at the end of the ship, increased stability because the lack of elevated turrets and their barbettes, improved the survivability of the ship because the magazines were separated from each other and gave a lower silhouette. Disadvantages were that the magazines had to be put in the middle of all the machinery, which required steam pipes to be run through or around them and the lack of deck space free from blast. This greatly complicated the placement of the anti-torpedo boat guns which ultimately had to be mounted in the hull, closer to the water than was desirable.〔McLaughlin, pp. 210, 212–13〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Gangut-class battleship」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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