Construction
All three ships were laid down on 30 October 1911, but this was just a ceremonial event as the design had not yet been finalized nor the contracts signed. A contract was finally signed on 13 April 1912 with Russud that specified delivery dates of 2 September 1915 for both Imperatritsa Mariya and Imperator Aleksander III. Imperatritsa Ekaterina Velikaya was built to a larger design that added over two million gold rubles to her cost and delayed the start of her construction three months after her half-sisters. Despite the demanding schedule the ships suffered from a number of delays during construction. On 10 February 1914 changes were ordered by the Naval Ministry to incorporate the lessons learned from the full-scale armor trials conducted using the Chesma. This added almost 500 long tons (508 t) of weight to the ships and raised their cost by 220,000–250,000 rubles. Other delays were incurred after the war began as imported components took longer to reach the shipyards and factories switched over to war production. The construction of Imperator Aleksander III was deliberately delayed in order to accelerate the completion of her two sisters and some of her turrets were transferred to Imperatritsa Mariya as well.
Read more about this topic: Imperatritsa Mariya Class Battleships
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