Soveren class Battleship

Soveren class Battleship
Class overview
Name	Soveren class Battleship
Operators	Far Eastern Imperial Navy
Class after	Imperator Petr Silny class Battleship
Planned	3
Built	3
Active	1
Destroyed	2
General Characteristics
Type	Battleship
Displacement	13700 tons standard 14250 tons full load
Length	132.6 metres (435 ft)
Beam	21.8 metres (72 ft)
Draught	8.43 metres (27.7 ft)
Propulsion	3 shafts, 3 VTE steam engines
Power	30 Cylindrical boilers 14,500 ihp (10,800 kW)
Speed	18 kts
Range	6200 nm at 10 kts
Complement	770
Armament	4 × 1 254mm/45 KO 1893 g gun 8 x 2 120mm/45 KO 1893 g gun 8 x 37mm/40 KO 1893 g gun 3 457mm torpedo tubes
Armour	Belt: 229 mm Deck: 36-76 mm conning tower: 152 mm

Development

After the naval expansion of Far Eastern Empire had started, foreign navies, specially the British begun to make counter moves to face the threat of the large cruisers of Far Eastern fleet. British introduced so-called second class battleships being stationed in China to counter Far Eastern cruiser force. To protect the cruisers, 3 special type of "cruiser-battleships" were decided to reinforce the Imperial fleet. Far Eastern Empire turned into France as there were no battleship building experience in the domestic shipbuilders. As with the Khabarovsk class cruisers, Forges et Chantiers de la Méditerranée shipyard was given the task to develop these specialized ships. The french shipyard used their own Jauréguiberry battleship-design and basic layout for the Far Eastern ship. It featured larger hull for large coal storage intended for long range operations with the cruisers. Main armament was fitted in typical french lozenge arrangement in single turrets accompanied by 8 twin 120mm turrets. Two additional ships were build in domestic shipyards after the same design.

The Soveren class were unique ships intended originally for rather specialized task for which they were heavily criticized. However even during the construction of the ships the balance of power in Asia had turned dramatically. Japan had emerged as new rising power and after victorious war against China, it now had the Chinese battleships in its own service. Japanese also planned to us the war-indemnities to build even larger fleet based around modern battleships. This forced Far Eastern Empire to follow and to start their own fleet expansion program. Thus the new cruiser-battleships were now obsolete in their concept and inadequate to face the new Japanese threat. However construction of all three ships continued and they entered service as second-class battleships. None were ready for the 1898 war against Spain.

In service, Slava and Suyzeren served in the First Squadron despite having weaker armament as the follow-on battleships. Soveren served as flagship of the Light Squadron. Both Slava and Suyzeren were sunk at the battle of Tsusima in 1905.

Ships in class

Name	Builder	Laid down	Launch Date	Entered Service	Fate
Soveren	Forges et Chantiers de la Méditerranée, La Seine, France	April 1895	June 1897	September 1899	Extant in 1920
Slava	Admiralteyskiye verf, Vladivostok	May 1896	November 1897	December 1899	Sunk in 1905
Suyzeren	Admiralteyskiye verf, Vladivostok	May 1896	January 1898	February 1900	Sunk in 1905

See Also

Ships of Far Eastern Imperial Navy 1920