Possible designs for Russian monitors (2)

Although the Imperial Russian Navy did not build the monitors to the designs that Vickers had proposed, they did continue to pursue the idea. In the Black Sea they rebuilt the old ironclad Sinop by removing her old 12/30-inch guns and replacing them with four modern 8-inch guns and eight 6-inch guns. They also added massive bulges (or side caissons) to protect her from mines and torpedoes.

The Sinop after she was rearmed with 8-inch guns but before her bulges were fitted.

In the Baltic, the Imperial Russian Admiralty proposed building monitors that could be armed with the triple 14-inch turrets being constructed for the Izmail-class of battle-cruisers. These ships were already being constructed when the war started, and it was felt that the turrets could be mounted on the monitors well before the battle-cruisers would be launched.

After several iterations, the final design to emerge looked like this:

She would have been armed with a triple 14-inch gun turret, eight 6-inch guns in casemates, two 76.2mm anti-aircraft guns, and two submerged torpedo tubes.

None of these monitors were built, but further design were proposed, including one for what can best be described as a coastal battleship.

This design would have been armed with three triple 14-inch gun turrets, twelve 4-inch guns in casemates, and two 76.2mm anti-aircraft guns. One suspects that she would have not been easy to handle in even moderate seas, and firing a broadside would have been an 'interesting' experience for the ship's crew!

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These designs were discovered in the archives by the Russian naval historian, Il Chernikov. How accurate they are is open to question, but they are of interest to naval historians and lovers of odd ship designs.