Russian battleship Peresvet Peresvet , ( ) , was the lead ship of the three pre - dreadnought battleship s built for the Imperial Russian Navy at the end of the nineteenth century . The ship was transferred to the Pacific Squadron upon completion and based at Port Arthur from 1903 . During the Russo - Japanese War of 1904 – 1905 , she participated in the Battles of Port Arthur and the Yellow Sea , and was seriously damaged during the latter engagement . " Peresvet " was scuttled during the Siege of Port Arthur , and was then salvaged afterwards by the Japanese and placed into service under the name . Rearmed and re - boilered by the Japanese , " Sagami " was reclassified by the Imperial Japanese Navy as a coastal defense ship in 1908 . She was sold in 1916 to the Russians after the start of World War I and sank off Port Said , Egypt , after striking mines laid by a German submarine at the beginning of 1917 . Design and description . The design of the " Peresvet " class was inspired by the British second - class battleships of the . The British ships were intended to defeat commerce - raiding armored cruiser s like the Russian ships and and the " Peresvet " class were designed to support their armored cruisers . This role placed a premium on high speed and long range at the expense of heavy armament and armor . " Peresvet " was long overall , had a beam of and a draft of . Designed to displace , she was almost overweight and displaced . Her crew consisted of 27 officers and 744 enlisted men . The ship was powered by three vertical triple - expansion steam engines using steam generated by 30 Belleville boiler s . The engines were rated at , using forced draught , and designed to reach a top speed of . " Peresvet " , however , reached a top speed of from during her sea trials in November 1899 . She carried a maximum of of coal which allowed her to steam for at a speed of . The ship ' s main battery consisted of four guns mounted in two twin - gun turret s , one forward and one aft of the superstructure . The secondary armament consisted of eleven Canet quick - firing ( QF ) gun s , mounted in casemate s on the sides of the hull and in the bow , underneath the forecastle . A number of smaller guns were carried for defense against torpedo boat s . These included twenty QF guns , twenty Hotchkiss gun s and eight guns . She was also armed with five torpedo tube s , three above water and two submerged . The ship carried 45 mines to be used to protect her anchorage . " Peresvet " s waterline armor belt consisted of Harvey armor and was thick . The Krupp cemented armor of her gun turrets had a maximum thickness of and her deck ranged from in thickness . Russian career . " Peresvet " , named after Alexander Peresvet , a monk who fought at the Battle of Kulikovo in 1380 , was laid down on 21 November 1895 by the Baltic Works in Saint Petersburg and launched on 19 May 1898 . She was not completed , however , until July 1901 at the cost of 10 , 540 , 000 rubles . The ship was sent to Port Arthur in October 1901 where she was assigned to the Pacific Squadron and became the flagship of the squadron ' s second - in - command , Rear Admiral Prince Pavel Ukhtomsky . " Peresvet " was not hit during the Battle of Port Arthur on 9 February 1904 , the second day of the Russo - Japanese War . While training outside of Port Arthur on 26 March , " Peresvet " accidentally collided with the battleship and sustained minor damage . On 15 April , the ship hit the armored cruiser once as the latter ship was bombarding Port Arthur . Some of the ship ' s guns were removed during the summer to reinforce the defenses of the port . " Peresvet " lost a total of three 6 - inch , two 75 - millimeter , two 47 - millimeter and four 37 - millimeter guns . She sailed with the rest of the Pacific Squadron on 23 June in an abortive attempt to reach Vladivostok . The fleet commander , Vice Admiral Wilgelm Vitgeft , ordered the squadron to return to Port Arthur when they encountered the Japanese fleet shortly before sunset as he did not wish to engage the numerically superior Japanese in a night battle . " Peresvet " received 39 hits that killed 13 men and wounded 69 during the Battle of the Yellow Sea on 10 August . A number of the hits were near the waterline and caused flooding ; compartments of the double bottom had to be flooded to restore some of her stability . The ship returned to Port Arthur after Vitgeft was killed and Ukhtomsky rallied most of the fleet . The new commander , Rear Admiral Robert N . Viren , decided to use the men and guns of the Pacific Squadron to reinforce the defenses of Port Arthur and even more guns were stripped from the Squadron ' s ships . This proved to be to little avail and Japanese troops were able to seize 203 Hill which overlooked the harbor on 5 December . This allowed the Imperial Japanese Army ' s siege guns to fire directly at the Russian ships and they hit " Peresvet " many times . The Russians , however , scuttled her in shallow water on 7 December 1904 . Japanese career . After the end of the war , she was refloated by Japanese engineers on 29 June 1905 , reconstructed and was taken into service as the " Sagami " , taking her name from the ancient Japanese province of Sagami , now a part of Kanagawa prefecture . The ship was thoroughly rebuilt at Yokosuka Naval Arsenal in 1905 – 08 with Miyabara water - tube boilers , new guns and torpedo tubes , and had her fighting tops removed . These changes reduced her displacement to and her draft to . Four 18 - inch torpedo tubes replaced her original torpedo armament and her gun armament was drastically revised . The ship now carried four Elswick Ordnance Company 40 - caliber Type 41 twelve - inch guns , ten 45 - caliber six - inch QF guns , sixteen QF 12 - pounder 12 cwt guns and 26 smaller guns . " Sagami " was re - designated as a first - class coastal defense ship in April 1908 . After the beginning of World War I , Japan and Russia became allies , and the ship was sold to Russia in March 1916 . She arrived in Vladivostok on 3 April 1916 , where she resumed her former name of " Peresvet " and was classified as an armored cruiser . The ship ran aground on 23 May 1916 and refloated in July , two months later . She was intended to serve with the Russian Arctic flotilla and paused en route in Port Said , Egypt , for machinery repairs at the beginning of 1917 . About north of the harbor , the ship struck two mines , one forward and the other abreast a boiler room , on 4 January 1917 that had been laid by the submarine and sank after catching fire with the loss of 167 lives .