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Russian battleship Oryol
Sunk
Oryol was a Borodino-class pre-dreadnought battleship of the Imperial Russian Navy, built in the first decade of the 20th century. She is best known for surviving the catastrophic Battle of Tsushima (1905) and being surrendered to Japan, where she served for nearly two decades under the name Iwami.
Kits of this ship
+ Add a kit| Russian Battleship Oriol | Zvezda | 1:350 | Injection-Molded Plastic | Discontinued |
Plans
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Resources
+ Submit a resourceHistory & specifications
- Wikipedia: Borodino-class battleshipWebsite
Class overview with construction data table and comparative service history useful for distinguishing Oryol from her sister ships.
- Wikipedia: Russian battleship OryolWebsite
Detailed service history, design specifications, and fate of Oryol, including her capture and Japanese career as Iwami.
History
Specifications
The ship displaced about 14,151 long tons, measured 397 feet (121 m) long with a 76 ft 1 in beam, and carried a main battery of four 12-inch guns in two twin turrets plus a secondary battery of twelve 6-inch Canet guns, along with numerous smaller 75mm and 47mm guns and four 15-inch torpedo tubes. Her twin triple-expansion engines and 20 Belleville boilers gave a designed top speed of 18 knots, though overloading on her long voyage to the Pacific submerged her armor belt and degraded stability.
Service history
Completed in October 1904, Oryol joined the Second Pacific Squadron under Admiral Rozhestvensky on its epic voyage from the Baltic around Africa to the Far East to relieve Port Arthur. At the Battle of Tsushima on 27-28 May 1905 she was the last ship in the Russian 1st Division, took the lead after her sister Borodino was sunk, and was ultimately surrendered to the Japanese along with the remnants of Nebogatov's command. The Japanese rebuilt and recommissioned her in 1907 as the coastal defense ship Iwami, in which role she served through World War I and the Siberian Intervention before being disarmed under the Washington Naval Treaty and sunk as a target around 1924.
Notable facts
Oryol fired the opening shots of the Battle of Tsushima under her captain Nikolay Yung. Naval historians have cited the overloaded, high-center-of-gravity Borodino-class design as among the more problematic battleship designs of the era, a detail modelers may want to reflect in waterline load markings.