Russian battleship Borodino

Career
Name:	Borodino
Builder:	Admiralty Shipyards, Saint Petersburg
Laid down:	July 1889
Launched:	September 1901
Completed:	August 1904
Commissioned:	1 September 1904
Fate:	Sunk at the Battle of Tsushima, 27 May 1905
General characteristics
Class and type:	Borodino-class battleship
Displacement:	13,516 long tons (13,733 t) standard 14,151 long tons (14,378 t) full load
Length:	121 m (397 ft)
Beam:	23.2 m (76 ft)
Draught:	8.9 m (29 ft)
Propulsion:	2 shaft reciprocating vertical triple-expansion (VTE) steam engines 12 Belleville coal-fired boilers 15,800 ihp (11,800 kW) 1,580 tons coal
Speed:	18 knots (21 mph; 33 km/h)
Complement:	28 officers, 754 men
Armament:	• 4 × 305 mm (12 in) guns (2×2) • 12 × 152 mm (6 in) guns (6×2) • 20 × 75 mm (3 in) guns (20×1) • 20 × 47 mm (2 in) guns (20×1) • 4 × 381 mm (15 in) torpedo tubes
Armour:	Krupp armour Belt: 193 mm (7.6 in) Turrets: 254 mm (10 in) max Deck: 51 mm (2 in) Anti-torpedo bulkhead: 25 mm (1 in)

The Borodino (Russian: Бородино) was the class leader of the Borodino-class battleship, and the second ship of her class to be completed. The ship was named after the 1812 Battle of Borodino. Borodino was lost at Tsushima with only one survivor out of a crew of 785 officers and men.

Service

Borodino sailed as part of the Russian Baltic Fleet in October 1904, for the Pacific. While under way, the fleet was redesignated the Second Pacific Squadron. She formed part of Admiral Zinovy Rozhestvensky's battle line at the Battle of Tsushima on 27 May 1905. Borodino was struck in one of her secondary batteries, a 152 mm turret by a 305 mm shell from the Fuji, resulting in a catastropic detonation in one of her magazines. Borodino exploded, rolled over, and sank quickly, leaving only one surviving crewman.

References

• Antony Preston, World's Worst Warships (2002) Conway's Maritime Press
• Tomitch, V. M., Warships of the Imperial Russian Navy (1968) Volume 1, Battleships
• Corbett, Julian, Sir. Maritime Operations in the Russo-Japanese War 1904-1905. Originally classified Secret/Confidential until the 1950s. Published (1994), in two volumes. ISBN 1557501297.
• Semenov, Vladimir, Capt. The Battle of Tsushima. E.P. Dutton & Co. (1912).
• Pleshakov, Constantine. The Tsar's Last Armada: The Epic Voyage to the Battle of Tsushima. (2002) ISBN 0-46505-792-6.