Russian battleship Dvenadsat Apostolov

Dvenadsat Apostolov (Двенадцать Апостолов—"Twelve Apostles") was a pre-dreadnought battleship built for the Imperial Russian Navy, the sole ship of her class. She served in the Black Sea Fleet and was built by Nikolayev Admiralty Dockyard. Laid down in February 1888, and launched in September 1890, she was commissioned in December 1892. She became an immobile submarine depot ship in 1912 after she was decommissioned and disarmed the previous year. She was captured by the Germans in 1918 in Sevastopol and was handed over to the Allies in December 1918. Lying immobile in Sevastopol, she was captured by both sides in the Russian Civil War before permanently falling into the hands of the Soviets when the White Russians evacuated the Crimea. She was used as a stand-in for the title ship during the filming of The Battleship Potemkin and was finally scrapped in 1931.

Design
Dvenadsat Apostolov was originally ordered as one of a pair of battleships for the Black Sea Fleet, but the second ship was awarded to a firm on the verge of bankruptcy and they made no significant progress. Her initial armament was planned to be eight 9 in guns, four in two twin-gun turrets and four in the central casemate. However, the final form of the turrets and machinery layout was not decided upon, even after construction of the hull began in early 1888. The following September the Naval Technical Committee decided to increase the thickness of the waterline armour belt from 13 in to 14 in at the cost of 75 LT. It also decided to move the forward turret back 7 ft because it thought that the ship might be bow-heavy. They also decided against the original armament and fixed on four 12 in guns in twin-gun barbettes at each end of the ship with four 6 in guns in a shortened central battery, although it added over 100 LT of additional weight to the ship.

General characteristics
She was 335 ft long at the waterline and 342 ft long overall. She had a beam of 60 ft and a draft of 27 ft. Her exact displacement was never measured, but has been estimated at 8710 LT, over 600 LT more than her designed displacement of 8076 LT.

Her hull was generally similar to that of the Imperator Aleksandr II-class battleship although her ram was 4 ft longer. It was subdivided by eleven transverse and one centreline longitudinal watertight bulkheads and she had a complete double bottom 35.4 in deep. She had a metacentric height of 2.62 ft. She demonstrated better seagoing qualities than the older Ekaterina II-class battleship during a storm in October 1894, although she rolled badly and leaked through her ports and hatches. She was assessed as a considerably better fighting ship that the Imperator Aleksandr II class.

Propulsion
Dvenadsat Apostolov had two 3-cylinder vertical triple expansion steam engines built by Baltic Works and had a total designed output of 8500 ihp. Eight cylindrical boilers, four single-ended and four double-ended, provided steam to the engines, which drove two 5.26 m screw propellers. On trials, the powerplant produced 8758 ihp and a top speed of 15.15 knots. After her initial engine trials her funnels were raised by 12 ft to improve their draft and to keep the superstructure clear of funnel gases. She carried 710 LT of coal at full load that provided a range of 1900 nmi at a speed of 10 kn. She had six Siemens dynamos with a total output of 540 kW.

Armament
The main armament of Dvenadsat Apostolov were two pairs of 12 in Obukhov Model 1877 30-caliber guns mounted in twin barbette mounts forward and aft. They had a maximum elevation of 15° and could depress to −5° and could traverse 270°. 66 rounds per gun were carried. They fired a 731.3 lb shell at a muzzle velocity of 1870 ft/s to a range of 5570 yd at an elevation of 6°. The rate of fire was one round every five minutes, but the loading machinery would not work if the ship was heeled more than 5°.

The four 6 in Model 1877 35-caliber guns were mounted on pivot mounts in the central casemate. The sides of the hull were recessed to give them axial fire. They could traverse a total of 100°. Each gun had an arc of fire of 130°. The ship carried 130 rounds for each gun. The guns could elevate to a maximum of 8.5° and depress to −8°. They fired a 'heavy' shell that weighed 119 - 123.5 lb at a velocity of 1896 ft/s or a 'light' shell that weighed 91.5 lb with a muzzle velocity of 2329 ft/s. A 'light' shell had a maximum range of 8170 yd when fired at an elevation of 12°, although the casemate only permitted a maximum elevation of 8.5°. The guns could fire one round per minute.

Her ten 47 mm Hotchkiss guns were mounted in embrasures in the hull or superstructure. They fired a 3.3 lb shell at a muzzle velocity of 1476 ft/s at a rate of 20 rounds per minute to a range of 2020 yd. Two 37 mm Hotchkiss revolving cannon were mounted at the forward end of the superstructure and two on the platform just abaft the second funnel. They fired a 1.1 lb shell at a muzzle velocity of 1450 ft/s at a rate of 32 rounds per minute to a range of 3038 yd. Six single-barrelled versions, with a rate of fire of only twenty rounds per minute, were carried in the fighting top on the foremast and two were in small embrasures at the after end of the superstructure. The location of the other two guns is unknown.

Dvenadsat Apostolov carried six above-water 15 in torpedo tubes. One tube was in the bow, two tubes on each broadside and a tube in the stern.

Protection
Compound armour was supplied by Charles Cammell of Sheffield, England and comprised the bulk of the armour used in Dvenadsat Apostolov. The main waterline belt had a maximum thickness of 14 in abreast the machinery spaces, but thinned to 12 inches abreast the magazine and was only 7 - 8 in thick at its lower edge. It was 228 ft long and 5 ft high, most of which (4 ft) was below the waterline as actually completed because she was overweight. The belt tapered to eight inches at the lower edge. Bulkheads nine to twelve inches thick provided transverse protection for the ship's vitals. The lower casemate armour was 214 ft long and twelve inches thick. Above it was the casemate armour for the six-inch guns that consisted of 5 in of steel armour. The barbette armour was 10 - 12 in thick. Initially the barbette was open-topped, but a 2.5 in thick protective hood was added later, possibly in 1893. The conning tower had eight-inch sides of steel armour.

History
Dvenadsat Apostolov was built by the Nikolayev Admiralty Dockyard at Nikolayev. She was laid down in 21 August 1889, launched in 13 September 1890, and sailed to Sevastopol for fitting out on 11 May 1892. She joined the fleet on 17 June 1893, but she was not fully ready for service until 1894. In 1895 she was used to test a new system of laying mines by rails that had been invented by Lieutenant A. P. Ygrumov and also to evaluate the proper dimensions for anti-torpedo nets and their booms. For this last test torpedoes were fired at the ship with the anti-torpedo nets deployed. One gun, of an unknown calibre, burst in 1903, killing one man and wounding two others.

Dvenadsat Apostolov participated in the failed attempt to recapture the mutinous battleship RUSSIAN BATTLESHIP Potemkin on 30 June 1905. She attempted to ram Potemkin but sailors sympathetic to the mutiny reversed the engines and then prevented an attempt by Captain Kolands to blow his own ship by severing the detonating wires.

The Naval Technical Committee proposed to reboiler her in 1907 with new Belleville water-tube boilers, but this was forestalled by a plan to reuse those of the RUSSIAN BATTLESHIP Chesma. Simultaneously a proposal to rearm her with four ten-inch guns in two turrets and several 6-inch guns in a new casemate was made by the Naval General Staff. This was estimated to cost 1,275,000 roubles and would only add 15 LT to her displacement, but both proposals were rejected by the Naval Technical Committee which believed it was a waste of money given her obsolete layout. The General Staff made another proposal in 1909 to rearm her as with smaller guns as a guardship intended to defend Sevastopol from attacks by enemy light forces. This was initially approved by the Navy Minister, Admiral Ivan Grigorovich in June 1909, but this was later reversed.

Dvenadsat Apostolov was transferred to the Sevastopol Port Authority on 1 April 1911, stricken from the Navy List and disarmed on 15 April. She became a depot ship for submarines in 1912. Renamed as Blokshiv (hulk) No. 8 on 4 September 1914, she was used on various harbour duties. Immobile, she was captured by the Germans in Sevastopol in May 1918 and handed over to the Allies in December 1918. She was captured by both sides during the Russian Civil War, but was abandoned by the White Russians when they evacuated the Crimea. Her machinery was removed in 1921. She was used as a stand-in for the Potemkin during the filming of The Battleship Potemkin, while reportedly serving as a mine storage hulk, before she was sold for scrap on 28 January 1931.