Shipbucket

Hello again!

Maybe someone can help me with a little problem I've encountered. Usually when you concentrate on WWI era ships, the problem is too few sources. In the case of the unfinished russian dreadnought Imperator Nikolai I I ran into the opposite problem: There are too many, and they don't look alike.







Can anybody give me a hint which one is the real one? To me, the first one looks the least plausible and the second the most, but since the accompanying texts were all in Russian (in which language I know only a few insults) I am rendered dazed and confused.

Greetings
GD

If I am understanding google correct. here bow design was changed and some other area of here was changed late in the design process.



For later to be modified for better sea keeping, and newer technology:




BTW. PM Rurik, he do almost only Russian ships in the Non-shipbucket section of the forum. he might know something.

I'm glad to seize the opportunity to help you, as your drawings have always been "helpful" (i use a lot of them as bases for some of mine....)
I've faced the same probleme but in the other way as i was drawing the Imperatritsa Mariya-class battleship.
The Imperator Nikolai I is an enlarged version of this one, so there's very often drawings of one called as the other.
The third one is clearly not good as the ship should remains a flush deck.
The first one is to me the more accurate. As it realy look like a modified Imperatritsa Mariya.
The prow of the second one look more like sebastopol one.
as an exemple her is the a drawing of the Imperatritsa Mariya.

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"You can rape history, if you give her a child"
Alexandre Dumas

JE SUIS CHARLIE

The picture (i guess you found it on wikipedia) of the bow underconstruction is not the one of the Imperator Nikolai I.
It may be the one of a Sabastopol under construction, but i think it's a Borodino battlecruiser class one.
This shape was designed for icebreaking, and was quite uselesse in the black sea (compared to the baltic).

_________________
"You can rape history, if you give her a child"
Alexandre Dumas

JE SUIS CHARLIE

As far as I know, the first drawing of yours is the "final" or the definate version which were about to be build, with the british style overhead racks for boats above the 3rd turret. The one with the forecastle was what the navy intially wanted after experiences with the previous dreadnougths, but for some reason the final version setled into similar hull lines as in Mariyas and Gangut.

I can try to dig out/translate more, though Black sea fleet has never been my speciality compared to the baltic fleet.

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Shipbucket mainsite, aka "The Archive"
New AU project "Aravala"

Hello again!

Thanks in advance Golly for your efforts, I appreciate that.

The thing is, the first one with the flying boat bridge looks... well... a little fantastic for my taste. Like having no rangefinders, but light flaks on top of the CT, and this antiquated ram bow, and the flying bridge itself, which was being removed from british ships just at the time the Nikolai I was building for utter impracticability. Besides, according to wikipedia, which claims to have its wisdom from a russian site named 'wunderwaffe'

link: http://wunderwaffe.narod.ru/Articles/Nikolai/index.htm

the first picture posted by Heuhen (also features on Wikipedia) shows Nikolai I on stocks, clearly with an icebreaker bow; the explanation (hopes of using her outside the black sea) coincides with Russia's war goals during WWI (securing control over the Bosporus and ensure free access to the mediterranean, thus enabling ships of the black sea fleet, which would no longer be needed with Turkey neutralized, to be redeployed to the Baltic or the Arctic, or the far east, all areas where icebreaking capability might come in handy). This wunderwaffe site also features the version with the raised forecastle, which would make sense if the ships were to operate in northern waters.

It would really be nice if someone with Russian language skills could enlighten me; there is text enough on the site I linked to

Greetings
GD

I took a peak at the Wunderwaffe article and its actually an article from Gangut 2003/32 and since that publication is among the highest ranking ones among the russian sources, I would place very high trust upon it.
Now, accordig to that article, the one you posted in the middle (with icebreaking bow from the ganguts and the boats stowed on the deck) appears to be the final version (from 1916), since the topmost one is dated from 1914, when the contract was signed. Apparently (don't take my translations as ultimate dogma) the Gangut class icebreaking stem was chosen becouse it reduced the weigth of the bow section and allowed the armor plate to be implemented more economically.

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Shipbucket mainsite, aka "The Archive"
New AU project "Aravala"

From my "HOLY-BIBLE"

a PM sent if you request

Garlicdesign,
I advise you not to use this drawing
Maybe only a "Fan-Art" drawing ?

The second drawing is the correct drawing for the Imperator Nikolai I. McLaughlin's Russian & Soviet Battleships has a similar drawing with minor changes to the forward superstructure.

The first drawing that you posted shows a pilothouse atop the conning tower that no Russian battleship ever had at that time, though it does look like one that was taken from the modernized Gangut class. It also has a ram bow and after superstructure that no Russian design ever had. I think that the Russians went to such a mimimal superstructure after the experience of the Russo-Japanese war.

The third drawing is in my copy of McLaughlin's Russian & Soviet Battleshipson page 260. The caption under reads as follows: Drawing number 2 is the one that you should use.