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Russian ship Dvienadsat Apostolov (1841)
Scuttled
Dvienadsat Apostolov ("Twelve Apostles") was a 120-gun first-rate ship of the line and lead ship of her three-vessel class, built for the Imperial Russian Navy's Black Sea Fleet. She served her entire career based at Sevastopol and is remembered chiefly for her role in the Crimean War defense of that port rather than for any fleet action at sea.
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Resources
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- Naval Encyclopedia: Dvienadsat Apostolov ClassArticle
Class-level overview covering hull construction, armament variations, and the service histories of all three sister ships, useful for modeling context.
- Three Decks: Dvenadtsat Apostolov (1841) Ship RecordWebsite
Detailed dimensional and armament data drawn from Russian warship archival sources, useful for cross-checking specifications.
- Wikipedia: List of Ships of the Line of RussiaWebsite
Confirms class grouping and fate summary alongside sister ships Parizh and Velikiy Knyaz Konstantin.
- Wikipedia: Russian ship Dvienadsat Apostolov (1841)Website
Main reference article with full specifications, design history, and service history including her scuttling at Sevastopol.
History
Specifications
Built at Nikolaev by S. I. Chernyavskiy, laid down 4 October 1838 and launched 15 July 1841, completed in 1842. She measured roughly 211 ft (64.4 m) between perpendiculars with a 59 ft 6 in (18.1 m) beam and 25 ft 9 in (7.85 m) draught, displacing about 4,790 long tons. Her design was reportedly based on the 1839 British ship of the line HMS Queen, and she was armed on three decks with 28 sixty-eight-pounder Paixhans shell guns, dozens of 36-pounder guns and gunnades, and assorted smaller carronades, for a nominal rating of 120 guns (some sources cite up to 130-140).
Service history
After commissioning under her first captain, Vladimir Kornilov, she undertook Black Sea cruises through the 1840s, ferried troops between Sevastopol and Odessa in 1843, and in October 1853 transported over 1,400 Russian troops to Sukhum-Kale as the Crimean War began. Rather than risk her against the superior Anglo-French fleet, her guns were landed in 1854 to reinforce shore batteries and an onshore battery was named for her; she was briefly converted into a hospital ship before being scuttled as a blockship in Sevastopol's harbor in February 1855 to deny the enemy fleet entry.
Notable facts
A Russian naval jack believed to have been taken from the ship, reportedly by Henry Keppel, survives in the collection of the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich. Original construction plans for the ship no longer survive, so modern scale kits of the Twelve Apostles (such as the Artesania Latina/De Agostini partwork) have been based on a scratch-built museum model held in Sevastopol rather than original draughts. Post-war salvage attempts (1857-1862) found the scuttled wooden hulls too damaged by shipworm and embedded in silt to raise intact, so they were eventually cleared by demolition.