Smerch was a monitor built for the Imperial Russian Navy in the early 1860s. She was designed by the British shipbuilder Charles Mitchell and built in Saint Petersburg. The ship spent her entire career with the Baltic Fleet. She ran aground and sank shortly after she entered service in 1865. Smerch was refloated and repaired shortly afterwards. She became a training ship sometime after 1892 and was stricken from the Navy List in 1904. The ship was hulked five years later and renamed Blokshiv No. 2. She was in Finland when that country declared its independence in 1918, but was returned to the Soviets after the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was signed. Blokshiv No. 1, as the ship was now known, was sunk by German artillery fire in 1941. She was salvaged the following year and remained in service until she was stricken in 1959 and subsequently broken up.
Smerch at anchor; her two turrets are painted white
The Uragan class was a class of monitors built for the Baltic Fleet of the Imperial Russian Navy. The ships were built to the plans of the American Passaic-class monitors, a design that was tested on a smaller scale on USS Monitor. A total of 10 ships were constructed at five different shipyards in Saint Petersburg, all entering service in 1865. The ships were among the first ironclad warships in the Russian Navy.
Veschun («Вещун»)
Comparison of the turrets of the Passaic / Uragan class (left) and the later Canonicus class (right). The 15-inch Rodman guns for the Uragan class were produced at the Aleksandrovsk gun factory in Petrozavodsk.
229 mm naval gun M1867 in Suomenlinna.