Russian battleship Georgii Pobedonosets The Georgii Pobedonosets ( Saint George the Victorious ) was a battleship built for the Imperial Russian Navy , the fourth and final ship of the . She was , however , only a half - sister to the others as her armor scheme was different and she was built much later than the earlier ships . She participated in the pursuit of the mutinous battleship in June 1905 , but her crew mutinied themselves . However , loyal crew members regained control of the ship the next day and they ran her aground when " Potemkin " threatened to fire on her if she left Odessa harbor . She was relegated to second - line duties in 1908 . She fired on the during her bombardment of Sevastopol in 1914 , but spent most of the war serving as a headquarters ship in Sevastopol . She was captured by both sides during the Russian Civil War , but ended up being towed to Bizerte by the fleeing White Russians where she was eventually scrapped . Design and development . " Georgii Pobedonosets " was originally intended as a version of rearmed with three and four guns , but this changed when the decision was made to provide her with three twin 12 - inch turret s rather than the barbette s used by her sisters . The turrets were significantly heavier than the barbette mountings so the armour scheme was revised in compensation . However this revised design was still deemed overweight and rejected . The Naval Ministry held a competition for a replacement , but these were rejected by the Naval Technical Committee in turn . So a modified version of " Sinop " , with barbettes , was chosen again as the most readily available choice . The height of her armour was lowered to reduce the overweight condition of her half - sisters . Other changes were made while building , but they came early in the process and did not seriously delay her completion past her contractual date of 13 September 1893 . These changes included smaller mountings for her main guns that eliminated the sponsons needed in her sisters for the forward barbettes , the substitution of 35 - calibre guns for the older 30 - calibre guns and steel armor imported from Schnider et Cie of France replaced the compound armour used in her half - sisters . " Georgii Pobedonosets " was long at the waterline and long overall . She had a beam of and a draft of . She displaced at load , over more than her designed displacement of . She had two 3 - cylinder vertical triple expansion steam engines driving screw propellers in diameter . Sixteen cylindrical boilers provided steam to the engines . The engines and boilers were both imported from Maudslay and Sons of the United Kingdom and were overweight . 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 . Her main armament consisted of three pairs of Obukhov Model 1886 35 - calibre guns mounted in two twin barbette mounts side by side forward and one aft of the superstructure . They had a maximum elevation of 15° and could depress to −2° . 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 , fifty seconds , including training time . They fired a shell at a muzzle velocity of to a range of at maximum elevation . They also had a ' heavy ' shell available that weighed that was fired at a velocity of although the range is not available . The seven Model 1877 35 - calibre guns were mounted on broadside pivot mounts in hull embrasures , except for one gun mounted in the stern in the hull . The eight single - barrelled Hotchkiss gun s were mounted on the battery deck to defend the ship against torpedo boat s . Ten Hotchkiss guns were mounted in the fighting top . She carried seven above - water torpedo tube s , three tubes on each broadside and a tube in the stern . In contrast to her half - sisters the armour used on " Georgii Pobedonosets " was steel . The belt armor had a maximum thickness of which reduced , in steps , down to forward and down to aft . Its height was reduced by in comparison to the other ships of the class to to reduce weight . However this left only six inches of her belt above her load waterline as she was still overweight , a decrease of from her half - sisters . The deck armour was outside the citadel and reduced to over it . Service history . " Georgii Pobedonosets " was named after Saint George the Victorious . She was built by the Russian Steam Navigation Company ( RoPIT ) at Sevastopol . She was laid down on 5 May 1891 , launched in 9 March 1892 , and completed in 1893 , although her trials lasted until mid - 1895 . She spent her career in the Black Sea Fleet . She began her trials in September 1893 , but they were not completed until the middle of 1895 . In 1905 , " Georgii Pobedonosets " briefly joined the Potemkin mutiny . On 29 June 1905 , the ship was one of eight vessels ( three battleships , a cruiser and four torpedo boats ) sent to capture the in Odessa . The next day the fleet approached " Potemkin " , then suddenly retreated . She then followed them , deliberately goading the officers to order the sailors to fire on their comrades . The crew of the " Georgii Pobedonosets " refused : " We won ' t fire ! We won ' t man the guns ! We refuse to engage the Potemkin . " Her sailors cheered the rebel sailors ' bravery . Dorofey Koshuba , a member of the revolutionary sailors ' organisation " Tsentralka " , broke into the armoury , ordered Captain Ilya Guzevich to halt the ship , pushing him away when he refused . The ship halted , Guzevich pleaded with the sailors to go to Sevastopol , even offering to let the 70 revolutionaries onto " Potemkin " . Afanasi Matushenko , the leader of " Potemkin " s crew , arrived with several revolutionaries who made a speech that inspired the sailors to arrest the officers . This was enough to make his second - in - command , Lieutenant Grigorkov , blow his own brains out . Apart from this , the seizure was bloodless . The sailors elected a committee ( Koshuba and nine others ) , locked the officers in the stateroom and ripped off their epaulette s . The officers were put ashore in Odessa . It was decided that the petty officer s should be put ashore too the next day . Senior Boatswain A . O . Kuzmenko became captain . The next day , however , loyal crew members regained control of the ship and they ran her aground and surrendered to the authorities . In August 1905 , 75 mutineers were tried . Koshuba and two others were executed and 19 sailors got 185 years of hard labour . In 1907 , the Naval General Staff made a proposal for a radical reconstruction that was similar to the proposals to reconstruct and made before the Russo - Japanese War that involved cutting her down by one deck and replacing her armament with two twin - gun turrets equipped with 12 - inch 40 - calibre guns and the compound armor replaced by Krupp armor . This new proposal differed from the older one in that eight guns replaced the ten six - inch guns originally planned . This was rejected as she still would have lacked the speed to stay with the main fleet and the hull protection required to withstand high - explosive shell fire . She became a training ship in 1908 and her 6 - inch 35 - calibre guns were replaced by modern 6 - inch 45 - calibre guns . She was modified as a harbour guard ship in 1911 and her 12 - inch guns were removed . Six more six - inch guns were added for a total of fourteen . She fired three rounds , missing each time , at the German battlecruiser during her bombardment of Sevastopol on 29 October 1914 , but spent the bulk of World War I as a static headquarters ship in Sevastopol . After the Russian Revolution , she joined the Red Black Sea Fleet in December 1917 . She was captured by the Germans in 1918 in Sevastopol and was handed over to the Allies in December 1918 . The British sabotaged her engines on 25 April 1919 . She was captured by both sides in the Russian Civil War , but eventually became part of Wrangel ' s fleet and was towed to Bizerte in 1920 . She was sold for scrap between 1930 and 1936 .