Japanese battleship Iki

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ex-Russian battleship Imperator Nikolai I, which later became the Japanese battleship Iki
Career Japanese Navy Ensign
Builder: Galernii Island Shipyards, Saint Petersburg, Russia
Laid down: July 23 1886
Launched: June 1 1889
Commissioned: 1892 (Russia): June 6 1905 (Japan)
Fate: Scuttled October 3 1915
General Characteristics
Displacement: 8,440 tons (normal); 9,960 tons (max)
Length: 101.1 meters @ waterline
Beam: 20.4 meters
Draught: 7.6 meters
Propulsion: Two Shaft Reciprocating Vertical Triple Expansion (VTE) Engines; 20 boilers, 8,000 shp
Fuel: 1000 tons coal;
Range: 4,900 nm @ 10 knots
Speed: 16 knots
Complement: 611
Armament: *2 × 305 mm guns
  • 6 × 152 mm guns
  • 6 × 120 mm guns
  • 6 × 80 mm guns
Armor: belt 360 mm; deck 60mm; casemate 150 mm; turret 230-250mm

IJN Iki (壱岐) was one of eight Russian pre-dreadnought battleships captured by the Imperial Japanese Navy during the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905.

The Imperator Nikolai I, an Imperator Aleksandr II class battleship, was formerly the flagship of the Russian Baltic Fleet. After sailing around the world in an epic voyage to its destruction at the Battle of Tsushima on 28 May 1905, some the surviving ships of the Baltic Fleet were captured and commissioned into the Japanese Navy. The Imperator Nikolai I became the Iki, which took her name from the ancient Japanese island province of Iki, now a part of Nagasaki prefecture.

Already very obsolete by the time of the Russo-Japanese War, on 12 December 1905, the Iki was re-classified as a 1st class Coastal Defense Vessel. It was used as a gunnery training ship from 1905 - 1910 and was decommissioned on 01 May 1915. It was expended as a gunnery target and sunk by the Kongō and Hiei on 03 October 1915.

[edit] References

  • Gibbons, Tony: The Complete Encyclopedia of Battleships and Battlecruisers
  • Burt, R.A.: Japanese Battleships, 1897–1945


Imperial Japanese Navy
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