Russian battleship Retvizan
Retvizan was a pre-dreadnought battleship built before the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905 for the Imperial Russian Navy. She was built by the American William Cramp & Sons because Russian shipyards were already at full capacity. Named after a Swedish ship of the line that was captured during the battle of Vyborg Bay in 1790, Retvizan was briefly assigned to the Baltic Fleet, but was transferred to the Far East in 1902.
Retvizan in the Delaware River, 1902
Retvizan under construction in Philadelphia, October 1900.
Diana and Retvizan in transit at Weh Island on their way to Port Arthur in 1903
Retvizan sunk in Port Arthur
Pre-dreadnought battleship
Pre-dreadnought battleships were sea-going battleships built from the mid- to late- 1880s to the early 1900s. Their designs were conceived before the appearance of HMS Dreadnought in 1906 and their classification as "pre-dreadnought" is retrospectively applied. In their day, they were simply known as "battleships" or else more rank-specific terms such as "first-class battleship" and so forth. The pre-dreadnought battleships were the pre-eminent warships of their time and replaced the ironclad battleships of the 1870s and 1880s.
HMS Royal Sovereign (1891) was the first pre-dreadnought battleship of the Royal Navy.
HMS Ocean was typical of pre-dreadnought battleships
HMS Dreadnought shows the low freeboard typical for early ironclad turret-ships. This ship, launched in 1875, should not be confused with her famous successor, launched in 1906, marking the end of the pre-dreadnought era.
HMS Ramillies was the fourth ship of the influential Royal Sovereign class. The diagonal tubes are spars for torpedo nets.
