Russian battleship Sinop The Russian battleship " Sinop " ( Russian : Синоп ) was a battleship built for the Imperial Russian Navy , being the third ship of the . She was named after the Russian victory at the Battle of Sinop in 1853 . The ship participated in the pursuit of the mutinous battleship in June 1905 and towed her back to Sevastopol from Constanța , Romania , where " Potemkin " had sought asylum . Several proposals were made for " Sinop " s reconstruction with modern guns and better quality armor during the 1900s , but both were cancelled . She was converted to a gunnery training ship in 1910 before she became a guardship at Sevastopol and had her guns removed in exchange for four single guns in turrets . " Sinop " was refitted in 1916 with torpedo bulge s to act as " mine - bumpers " for a proposed operation in the heavily mined Bosphorus . Both the Bolsheviks and the Whites captured her during the Russian Civil War after her engines were destroyed by the British in 1919 . She was scrapped by the Soviets beginning in 1922 . Design and development . " Sinop " was long at the waterline and long overall . She had a beam of and a draft of more than than designed . Her displacement was at load , over more than her designed displacement of . " Sinop " was the first large warship to use vertical triple expansion steam engines , having two 3 - cylinder engines imported from Napier & Son of the United Kingdom . Fourteen cylindrical boilers provided steam to the engines . The engines had a total designed output of , but they only produced on trials and gave a top speed of . At full load she carried of coal that provided her a range of at a speed of and at . She differed from her sisters mainly in the design of her gun mounts . " Sinop " had six Obukhov Model 1877 30 - caliber guns mounted in twin barbette mounts , two forward , side by side , and one aft . Each of the forward mounts could traverse 30° across the bow and 35° abaft the beam , or a total of 155° . The rear mount could traverse 202° . Their rate of fire was one round every four minutes , thirty - five seconds , including training time . Sixty rounds per gun were carried . The main guns were mounted very low , ( only ) above the main deck , and caused extensive damage to the deck when fired over the bow or stern . The seven Model 1877 35 - caliber guns were mounted on broadside pivot mounts in hull embrasures , except for one gun mounted in the stern in the hull . Six of the eight five - barreled revolving Hotchkiss gun s were mounted in small sponsons that projected from the hull with the aftermost pair mounted in hull embrasures to defend the ship against torpedo boat s . Four five - barreled revolving Hotchkiss guns were mounted in the fighting top . She carried seven above - water torpedo tube s , one tube forward on each side , able to bear on forward targets , two other tubes were mounted on each broadside fore and aft of the central citadel ; the seventh tube was in the stern . History . " Sinop " was named after the Russian victory in the Battle of Sinop in 1853 . She was built by the Russian Steam Navigation Company ( RoPIT ) at Sevastopol . She was laid down in late June 1883 , launched on 1 June 1887 , and completed in 1889 . " Sinop " began her trials in the middle of 1889 and she had a boiler accident the following year that killed eight and severely burned 10 more . Her machinery was upgraded between 1899 and May 1904 with 20 new Belleville water - tube boilers , but the ship suffered a boiler explosion in 1903 that left seven sailors badly burned . Plans for a radical reconstruction were made to be done while she was docked for replacement boilers . It involved cutting her down by one deck and replacing her armament with two twin - gun turrets equipped with 12 - inch 40 - caliber guns and ten 6 - inch 45 - caliber guns between the turrets in an armored citadel that used Krupp armor . However , this proved to be too expensive and was cancelled . " Sinop " participated in the pursuit of the mutinous battleship in June 1905 and towed her back to Sevastopol from Constanța , Romania . In 1907 the Naval General Staff made a proposal for a radical reconstruction that was similar to the proposals to reconstruct her and her sister made before the Russo - Japanese War . This involved cutting her down by one deck and replacing her armament with two twin - gun turrets equipped with 12 - inch 40 - caliber guns and her compound armor replaced by Krupp armor . This new proposal differed from the older one in that eight guns replaced the ten 6 - inch guns originally planned . This was also rejected as she still would have lacked the speed to stay with the main fleet and her armor was too obsolete to withstand modern high - explosive shell fire . She was converted to a gunnery training ship in 1910 and had four 6 - inch 45 - caliber guns installed on her upper deck . " Sinop " s 12 - inch guns were removed in 1912 and she received four single 50 - caliber guns in turrets that were also mounted on the upper deck . The ship ' s original 6 - inch 35 - caliber guns were replaced with 45 - caliber guns and two more were added in the Admiral ' s salon . Four more 47 - mm guns were also added as were four machine gun s . Her torpedo tubes were removed and " Sinop " also received a central fire control station . She spent World War I as a guardship at Sevastopol . " Sinop " was refitted in Nikolaev with torpedo bulge s to serve as ' mine - bumpers ' in 1916 to allow her to lead other ships into the mined waters of the Bosphorus , but the operation was later cancelled . She was captured by the Germans in April 1918 in Sevastopol and was handed over to the Allies in November 1918 . The British sabotaged her engines on 25 April 1919 as they abandoned the Whites to prevent any use by the advancing Bolsheviks . " Sinop " therefore remained at Sevastopol for the duration of the Russian Civil War , being captured by both sides as they occupied the city in turn , but was then abandoned by Wrangel ' s fleet when it evacuated the Crimea in 1920 . Although Russian archives say that " Sinop " was gradually scrapped from 1922 , an underwater expedition under the leadership of Robert Ballard found a wreck that has been tentatively identified as " Sinop " upside down off not far from Sevastopol . Notes . Footnotes Citations