Russian Monitor Strelets

''Strelets'' (russian: Стрелец) is an built for the Imperial Russian Navy in the mid-1860s. The design was based on the American , but was modified to suit Russian engines, guns and construction techniques. Spending her entire career with the Baltic Fleet, the ship was only active when the Gulf of Finland was not frozen, but very little is known about her service. She was struck from the Navy List in 1900, converted into a floating workshop the following year and renamed ''Plavmasterskaia No. 1''. The ship served as such through 1955. The ship was identified as still afloat in St. Petersburg, Russia in 2015, and attempts are being made by the Foundation for Historic Boats and the Russian Central Military History Museum to restore her.

Description

''Strelets'' was long overall, with a beam of and a draft of . She displaced , and her crew numbered 8 officers and 88 enlisted men in 1865. They numbered 10 officers and 100 crewmen in 1877.McLaughlin 2012, p. 103

The ship was fitted with a two-cylinder, horizontal direct-acting steam engine built by the Baird Works of Saint Petersburg. It drove a single propeller using steam that was provided by two rectangular boilers. Specific information on the output of the ship's engine has not survived, but it ranged between for all the ships of this class. During ''Strelets''s sea trials on 16 July 1865, she reached a maximum speed of . The ship carried a maximum of of coal, which gave her a theoretical endurance of at full speed.

''Strelets'' was designed to be armed with a pair of smoothbore muzzle-loading guns purchased from Krupp of Germany and rifled in Russia, but the rifling project was seriously delayed and the ship was completed with nine-inch smoothbores. These lacked the penetration power necessary to deal with ironclads and they were replaced by license-built smoothbore muzzle-loading Rodman guns in 1867–68. The Rodmans were replaced around 1876 with the originally intended nine-inch rifled guns.

All of the wrought-iron armor that was used in the ''Uragan''-class monitors was in plates, just as in the ''Passaic''-class ships. The side of the ship was entirely covered with three to five layers of armor plates, of which the three innermost plates extended below the waterline. The gun turret was protected by eleven layers of armor and the pilothouse above it had eight layers of armor. Curved plates six layers thick protected the base of the funnel up to a height of above the deck. Unlike their predecessors, the ''Uragan''s were built without deck armor to save weight, but ''Strelets'' was modified for the addition of armor plates after completion, but it is unknown if they were ever fitted. They were, however, manufactured and then placed in storage.

Construction and career

Construction of the ship began on 13 June 1863 by S. G. Kudriavtsev at the state-owned Galeryni Island Shipyard in Saint Petersburg. ''Strelets'', the Russian word for musketeer, was laid down on 1 December 1863 and she was launched on 2 June 1864. She entered service on 27 July 1865 and cost a total of 1,141,800 rubles, almost double her contract cost of 600,000 rubles. The ship was assigned to the Baltic Fleet upon completion and she, and all of her sister ships except , made a port visit to Stockholm, Sweden in July–August 1865 while under the command of General Admiral Grand Duke Konstantin Nikolayevich. She was present when the American warships and visited Kronstadt in July–August 1866.

Sometime after ''Strelets'' was completed, an armored ring, thick and tall, was fitted around the base of the turret to prevent splinters from jamming it. Later, an armored, outward-curving bulwark was fitted around the top of the turret to protect any crewmen there. Three sponsons were later added, probably during the 1870s, to the upper portion of the turret. Each sponson, one above the gun ports and one on each side of the turret, mounted a light gun, probably a Engstrem gun, for defense against torpedo boats. A fourth gun was mounted on a platform aft of the funnel when a hurricane deck was built between the funnel and the turret, also probably during the 1870s.

Little is known about the ship's career other than that she was laid up each winter when the Gulf of Finland froze. On 21 July 1875, the monitor ran aground and ''Strelets'' was sent to aid her the following day. While assisting with the rigging of a hawser between ''Admiral Chichagov'' and the armored frigate , it unexpectedly slid across ''Strelets''s deck, injuring the ship's executive officer and a bosun, who later died of his wounds. Coal and equipment from ''Admiral Chichagov'' was transferred to ''Strelets'' to lighten the former, but it was not enough to refloat her.

''Strelets'' was reclassified as a coast-defense ironclad on 13 February 1892 and turned over to the Port of Kronstadt for disposal on 6 July 1900, although she was not stricken until 17 August. The ship was converted into a floating workshop the next year and renamed ''Plavmasterskaia No. 1''. She remained in service through the end of 1955.McLaughlin 2012, pp. 109–10 ''Strelets'' was discovered intact at St. Petersburg, Russia in 2015.Warship Wednesday, June 21, 2017: The Tsar’s everlasting musketeer
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Strelets
Uragan-class monitors
1864 ships
Ships built at Admiralty Shipyard