Russian cruiser Rossia

Rossia
Class overview
Name	Rossia
Operators	Russian Navy
Preceded by	Rurik
Succeeded by	Gromoboi
Built	1893–1896
In commission	1896–1922
Planned	1
Completed	1
Scrapped	1
History
Russian Empire
Name	Rossiya (Russian: Россия)
Namesake	Russia
Operator	Imperial Russian Navy
Builder	Baltic Works, Saint Petersburg
Laid down	October 1893[Note 1]
Launched	30 April 1896
Commissioned	Late 1896
Fate	Sold for scrap, 1 July 1922
General characteristics (as built)
Type	Armored cruiser
Displacement	12,195 long tons (12,391 t)
Length	485 ft (147.8 m)
Beam	66.6 ft (20.3 m)
Draught	26.2 ft (8.0 m)
Installed power	32 Belleville water-tube boilers 14,500 ihp (10,800 kW) + 2,500 ihp (1,864 kW)
Propulsion	3 shafts, 2 triple-expansion steam engines + 1 TE cruising engine
Speed	19 knots (35 km/h; 22 mph)
Range	7,740 nmi (14,330 km; 8,910 mi) at 10 knots (19 km/h; 12 mph)
Complement	839 officers and crewmen
Armament	4 × single 8 in (203 mm) guns 16 × single 6 in (152 mm) guns 12 × single 75 mm (3.0 in) guns 20 × single 47 mm (1.9 in) guns 18 × single 37 mm (1.5 in) guns 5 × 15 in (381 mm) torpedo tubes
Armor	Harvey armor Belt: 5–8 in (127–203 mm) Deck: 2–3 in (51–76 mm) Conning tower: 12 in (305 mm)

Rossia (Russian: Россия) was an armored cruiser of the Imperial Russian Navy built in the 1890s. She was designed as a long-range commerce raider and served as such during the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–05. She was based in Vladivostok when the war broke out and made a number of sorties in search of Japanese shipping in the early months of the war without much success.

Rossia, along with the other armored cruisers of the Vladivostok Cruiser Squadron, attempted to rendezvous in the Strait of Tsushima with the main portion of the Pacific Fleet sailing from Port Arthur in August 1904, but were delayed and had to return to port without them. They encountered a Japanese squadron of four armored cruisers between them and their base shortly after they turned around. The Japanese sank the oldest Russian ship, Rurik, and damaged Rossia and Gromoboi during the Battle off Ulsan, but both Russian ships were repaired within two months.

After the end of the war Rossia returned to Kronstadt where she underwent a three-year refit that strengthened her armament. She was fitted with mine rails in 1914 and laid one minefield during World War I that damaged two German light cruisers. She was reconstructed beginning in late 1915 to further strengthen her armament, but played no part during the rest of the war as her crew became involved in revolutionary activities in 1917. She was taken over by the Bolsheviks in late 1917, but was put into reserve in 1918 and sold for scrap in 1922.
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