Qualla: Russian Battleship Ekaterina II

Russian Battleship Ekaterina II: Introduction

Mon, 13 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit After Vasily Ignatius, Public domain. In June 1905, as the battleship Potemkin's crew rose in mutiny and shocked the Russian Empire, the navy made a quiet, telling decision about another warship in the Black Sea Fleet. Rather than trust the crew of the ironclad Ekaterina II, officers decoupled her engines from her propellers, deliberately paralyzing one of their own capital ships. The men aboard were thought too sympathetic to the revolution to be relied upon. It is a strange distinction for a vessel named after an empress: the flagship of her class was considered dangerous not to the enemy, but to the very fleet that built her.

Image: After Vasily Ignatius | Public domain

Russian Battleship Ekaterina II: An Empress in Iron

Mon, 13 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Unknown author, Public domain. Ekaterina II was named for Catherine the Great and launched into an era when navies were reinventing themselves in steel. She was the lead ship of a class of ironclad battleships built for the Imperial Russian Navy in the 1880s, laid down in 1883, launched in 1886, and completed ...

Image: Unknown author | Public domain

Russian Battleship Ekaterina II: Guns That Wrecked the Deck

Mon, 13 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Kinney Brothers Tobacco Company, CC0. Ekaterina II differed from her sisters chiefly in her main armament, and the difference was memorable. Her twelve-inch guns sat in bulky, hydraulically powered Moncrieff disappearing mounts, an ingenious idea meant to let a gun rise to fire and then drop back behind armor to relo...

Image: Kinney Brothers Tobacco Company | CC0

Russian Battleship Ekaterina II: A Quiet End at Sea

Mon, 13 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Alexandco, CC BY-SA 3.0. After the mutinies subsided, Ekaterina II's story wound down without glory. She was turned over to the Sevastopol port authorities and stricken from the register in 1907. In 1912 she was reduced to an anonymous designation, Stricken Vessel Nr. 3, and given a final duty no crew wo...

Image: Alexandco | CC BY-SA 3.0