Petr Velikii

Petr Velikii

 

(Peter the Great), an armor-clad of the Russian Baltic Fleet.

The Petr Velikii was designed by Admiral A. A. Popov and built under his direction. It was laid in St. Petersburg in 1869, launched in 1872, and commissioned in 1877. Its water displacement was 10,100 tons, its speed was 26 km per hour (14.3 knots), its cruising range was 6,700 km (3,600 miles), the main artillery consisted of four guns with a caliber of 305 mm, and its armor was up to 356 mm in thickness.

In terms of its performance, the Petr Velikii was the first big Russian oceangoing armor-clad to surpass the ships of foreign navies, and it became the prototype of the squadron armor-clads of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It became an artillery training ship in 1906. The crew of the Petr Velikii actively participated in the revolutionary movement of 1917. The armor-clad became a submarine tender after the Ice Campaign of the Baltic Fleet of 1918 and a ship of a training detachment of the Baltic Fleet in December 1918. It was dropped from the navy lists after the Civil War.