Nogi Maresuke
Returning to Port Arthur on 11 August, the Russian squadron found the city still under siege by the Japanese Third Army led by Baron Nogi Maresuke. "Poltava" was hit on 18 August by four shells, fired by a battery, that wounded six men. The new squadron commander, Rear Admiral Robert N. Viren, believed in reinforcing the landward defenses of the port and continued to strip guns, and sailors to man them, from his ships. By September "Poltava" had lost a total of three 6-inch, four 47 mm and twenty-six 37 mm guns. That same month, she began bombarding Japanese positions; through November she fired one hundred ten 12-inch shells and an unknown number of 6-inch shells.