page_title: Siege of Port Arthur
section_title: Destruction of the Russian Pacific Fleet
hierarchical_section_title: Siege of Port Arthur / The battles / Destruction of the Russian Pacific Fleet
caption_attribution_description: 日本語: 左：「パルラーダ」、右：「ポベーダ」English: Pallada(left) and Pobeda(right)
context_page_description: The Siege of Port Arthur, the deep-water port and Russian naval base at the tip of the Liaodong Peninsula in Manchuria, was the longest and most violent land battle of the Russo-Japanese War.
  Port Arthur had been widely regarded as one of the most strongly fortified positions in the world. However, during the First Sino-Japanese War, General Nogi Maresuke had taken the city from the forces of Qing China in only a few days. The ease of his victory during the previous conflict, and overconfidence by the Japanese General Staff in its ability to overcome improved Russian fortifications, led to a much longer campaign and far greater losses than expected.
  The Siege of Port Arthur saw the introduction of much technology used in subsequent wars of the 20th century including massive 28 cm howitzers capable of hurling 217-kilogram shells over 8 kilometers, as well as rapid-firing light howitzers, Maxim machine guns, bolt-action magazine rifles, barbed wire entanglements, electric fences, arc lamp, searchlights, tactical radio signalling, hand grenades, extensive trench warfare, and the use of modified naval mines as land weapons.
context_section_description: With a spotter on a phone line at the vantage point on 203 Meter Hill overlooking Port Arthur harbor, Nogi could now bombard the Russian fleet by heavy 11-inch (280 mm) Howitzers with 500-pound (~220 kg) armor-piercing shells. He started systematically sinking the Russian ships within range.
  On December 5, 1904, the battleship Poltava was sunk, followed by the battleship Retvizan on December 7, 1904, the battleships Pobeda and Peresvet and the cruisers Pallada and Bayan on December 9, 1904. The battleship Sevastopol, although hit 5 times by the Howitzer shells, managed to move out of range of the guns. Stung by the fact that the Russian Pacific Fleet had been sunk by the army and not by the Imperial Japanese Navy, and with a direct order from Tokyo that the Sevastopol was not to be allowed to escape, Admiral Togo sent in wave after wave of destroyers in six separate attacks on the sole remaining Russian battleship. After 3 weeks, the Sevastopol was still afloat, having survived 124 torpedoes fired at her while sinking two Japanese destroyers and damaging six other vessels. The Japanese had meanwhile lost the cruiser Takasago to a mine outside the harbor.
  On the night of January 2, 1905, after Port Arthur surrendered, Captain Nikolai Essen of the Sevastopol had the crippled battleship scuttled in 30 fathoms (55 m) of water by opening the sea cocks on one side, so that the ship would sink on its side and could not be raised and salvaged by the Japanese.  The other six ships were eventually raised and recommissioned into the Imperial Japanese Navy.
caption: Pallada and Pobeda
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