page_title: Bayan-class cruiser
section_title: Service
hierarchical_section_title: Bayan-class cruiser / Service
caption_attribution_description: English: Imperial Russian armoured cruisers Bayan (II), Admiral Makarov and Pallada, 1912-1914. Русский: Броненосные крейсера Баян (II), Адмирал Макаров и Паллада, 1912-1914 годы.
context_page_description: The Bayan class was a group of four armored cruisers built for the Imperial Russian Navy around the beginning of the 20th century. Two of the ships were built in France, as Russian shipyards had no spare capacity. The lead ship, Bayan, was built several years earlier than the later three. The ship participated in several of the early naval battles of the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–05, and provided naval gunfire support for the Imperial Russian Army until she struck a mine. Bayan was trapped in harbor during the subsequent Siege of Port Arthur, and was sunk by Japanese artillery. She was salvaged and put into service with the Imperial Japanese Navy with the name of Aso. She mostly served as a training ship before she was converted into a minelayer in 1920. The ship was sunk as a target in 1932.
  Her three sisters were all assigned to the Baltic Fleet. Pallada was the first ship lost by the Russians during World War I when she was sunk by a German submarine in October 1914. The two surviving ships were modified to lay mines, and participated in the Battle of Åland Islands in 1915 and the German invasion of the Estonian islands in 1917.
context_section_description: Bayan was assigned to the First Pacific Squadron after completion, and based at Port Arthur from the end of 1903. She suffered minor damage during the Battle of Port Arthur at the beginning of the Russo-Japanese War and participated in the action of 13 April 1904, when Vice Admiral Tōgō Heihachirō successfully lured out a portion of the Pacific Squadron, including Vice Admiral Stepan Makarov's flagship, the battleship Petropavlovsk. When Makarov spotted the five Japanese battleships, he turned back for Port Arthur, and Petropavlovsk struck a minefield and quickly sank after a mine detonated one of her magazines. After bombarding Imperial Japanese Army positions on 27 July, Bayan struck a mine and was under repair for the next month or so. She was subsequently trapped in Port Arthur and sunk at her mooring by Japanese howitzer shells on 8 December.
  The ship was refloated by Japanese engineers the following year; repairs, re-boilering, and the replacement of her armament with Japanese weapons took until 1908 to complete. Renamed Aso in Japanese service, she initially served as a training ship before she was converted into a minelayer in 1920. Aso was decommissioned on 1 April 1930 and renamed Hai Kan No. 4. She was sunk as a target on 4 August 1932 by two submarine torpedoes.
  All three of the later ships were assigned to the Baltic Fleet upon completion, although Admiral Makarov was detached to the Mediterranean several times before the start of World War I in 1914. During the first month of the war, Pallada captured codebooks from the German cruiser Magdeburg that had run aground. She was torpedoed by the German submarine SM U-26 on 11 October 1914 and was lost with all hands. Her wreck was discovered in 2000.
  The surviving sisters were modified to lay mines shortly after the war began. They laid mines themselves during the war and provided cover for other ships laying minefields. Admiral Makarov and Bayan fought several inconclusive battles with German ships during the war, including the Battle of Åland Islands in mid–1915, and they also defended Moon Sound during the German invasion of the Estonian islands in late 1917, where Bayan was badly damaged. Their 75 mm guns were removed in 1916–17 and replaced by one 8-inch and four 6-inch guns. A pair of anti-aircraft guns were also added. Admiral Makarov was in Helsingfors when Finland declared independence in March 1918, and was forced to evacuate even though the Gulf of Finland was still frozen over. She reached Kronstadt after what became known as the "Ice Voyage". The sisters were decommissioned in 1918 and sold for scrap in 1922.
caption: The three surviving ships at anchor, circa 1913
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