Design and Development
The Naval Ministry began planning a class of dreadnoughts for the Black Sea Fleet in 1910 when they learned that the Ottomans were on the verge of ordering dreadnoughts of their own from the British. This rumor proved to false, but the Russians had decided that they should continue the design process for the time when the Ottomans did procure dreadnoughts of their own. Preliminary specifications were issued on 12 August 1910 for a design based on that of the Gangut class battleships then being built for the Baltic Fleet. 23 knots (43 km/h; 26 mph) was thought to be excessive in the confined environs of the Black Sea so the new design was capable of only 21 knots (39 km/h; 24 mph) which allowed more weight to be devoted to more guns or heavier armor. A main armament of a dozen 12-inch (305 mm) guns in four triple turrets was specified in the same 'linear' non-superfiring arrangements as the Ganguts. The sixteen 120-millimeter (4.7 in) anti-torpedo boat guns of the Ganguts were replaced by twenty 130-millimeter (5.1 in)/55 B7 Pattern 1913 guns to counter the ever-increasing size of torpedo boats. The maximum elevation of the 12-inch guns was to be increased to 35°, 10° more than in the Gangut-class ships, and turret armor was to be increased from 200 mm (7.9 in) to 250 mm (9.8 in).
A design competition was announced in July 1911, but there were not many contenders. The Naval Ministry favored the design from the Russud Works and gave preliminary orders for three ships on 2 September, even before the competition was concluded in November. Russud's design was unsurprisingly selected and the government transferred designers from the government-owned Baltic Works as well as a complete set of drawings for the Gangut-class to speed up the detailed design process.
Read more about this topic: Imperatritsa Mariya Class Battleships
Famous quotes containing the words design and/or development:
“The reason American cars don’t sell anymore is that they have forgotten how to design the American Dream. What does it matter if you buy a car today or six months from now, because cars are not beautiful. That’s why the American auto industry is in trouble: no design, no desire.”
—Karl Lagerfeld (b. 1938)
“Such condition of suspended judgment indeed, in its more genial development and under felicitous culture, is but the expectation, the receptivity, of the faithful scholar, determined not to foreclose what is still a question—the “philosophic temper,” in short, for which a survival of query will be still the salt of truth, even in the most absolutely ascertained knowledge.”
—Walter Pater (1839–1894)