Dreadnought Battleships: Gangut Class

[Brian James]

Lead Ship, Dreadnought Battleship Gangut pictured on completion at Admiralty Works Shipyards, St Petersburg in 1914.She was completed during the winter of 1914–1915, but was not ready for combat until mid-1915. Her role was to defend the mouth of the Gulf of Finland against the Germans, who never tried to enter, so she spent her time training and providing cover for minelaying operations. Her crew joined the general mutiny of the Baltic Fleet after the February Revolution and joined the Bolsheviks in 1918. She was laid up in 1918 for lack of manpower and not recommissioned until 1925, by which time she had been renamed Oktyabrskaya Revolutsiya (October Revolution)
She was reconstructed between 1931 and 1934 with new boilers, fire-control systems and greatly enlarged superstructures. During the 'Winter War' she bombarded Finnish Coastal artillery positions once. Her AA armament was greatly reinforced in early 1941, just before Operation Barbarossa. She provided gunfire support against the Germans during the Siege of Leningrad despite being bombed three times and under repair for a year. Retained on active duty after the war she became a Training Ship in 1954 before being struck off the Navy List in 1956 and slowly scrapped.

[designeraccd]

A well known and excellent clear photo of MARAT at Gdynia in 1934. She certainly looked much better than she did after Rudel's Stuka attack! DFO