armoured ship Thursday on Sunday

this Thursday we have the Imperial Armoured Cruiser General Admiral the first armoured cruiser in all the world's navys. she was named after General Admiral Theodore Apaksin a 17th-18th century Russian Nobleman who was a friend of the Tsar Peter the Great as well as the creator of the Black Sea Fleet. the General Admiral was the name ship of a two ship class{the other being Gerzog Edinburgski}. she was 285' 10" in length and displaced 5,112t. powered by a single vertical compound steam engine of 4,772ihp she was able to make 12.3kts. flank speed. General Admiral was a sailing ship as well since the early steam vessels

had a somewhat limited range on the coal eating engines of the time. thus the ship was equipped with a retractable funnel as well as a hoisting screw to prevent drag when under sail. she was armed quite heavily with 6-8"naval rifles, 2-6"naval rifles and 2-3.4" as well plus one 15" torpedo tube. her armour consisted of a 6" belt of wrought iron as well as 6" of iron around her central battery of guns plus a 1/2" armoured deck. General Admiral served her whole life in the Baltic Sea. she had an Imperial Suite in case the Tsar or his wife wished to come aboard or go somewhere. an active unit of the fleet she became a training ship in 1906 and was converted to a minelayer in 1909 and renamed Narova as which she served in WW1. after the war she was renamed 25 October by the commies and used as a floating machine shop/repair unit until 1944. alas she was scrapped, probably in 1949. you might have thought they would make a museum ship of the world's first armoured cruiser. the first picture is a picture of the General Admiral in which we can see how the guns were arranged and how the whole ship might have looked out of water. you will notice that in this first picture the ship has only one funnel and in the rest she has two. in 1892 the ship was overhauled and the addition of two boilers and another funnel was approved. she also at this time received a fixed screw instead of the original one which could be hoisted out of the water. second picture now with two funnels is of General Admiral under way on steam. next is a picture of her under sail and last she is anchored offshore somewhere in the Baltic.