HDIMS Admiral Rzhanevsky
 HDIMS Admiral Rzhanevsky in Kamianets in 1910
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| History | |
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 Dulebian Empire
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| Name: | Admiral Rzhanevsky |
| Namesake: | Pavel Rzhanevsky |
| Ordered: | 1906 |
| Builder: | Royal Arsenal, Kamianets |
| Laid down: | 31 January 1908 |
| Launched: | 5 March 1909 |
| Commissioned: | 10 August 1909 |
| In service: | 1909-1914 |
| Homeport: |
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| Fate: | Scuttled in the port of Dongdao in 1916 and recommissioned in the Mascyllary Navy |
 Mascylla
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| Name: | Kaiser Melasiens |
| Namesake: | Lukas II |
| Acquired: | 31 August 1916 |
| Fate: | Handed over to Melasia home service in 1920 |
.png){kind=small} Melasia
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| Name: | Jurgenshafen |
| Namesake: | Jurgenshafen |
| Acquired: | 11 January 1920 |
| Decommissioned: | 25 May 1946 |
| Struck: | 17 June 1951 |
| Homeport: | Jurgenshafen |
| Motto: | Der Schild der Freiheit (Hesurian: The shield of freedom) |
| Nickname(s): | Die Alte Zuverlässige (Hesurian: The Old Reliable) |
| Fate: | Museum ship |
| Status: | On display in the Museum of the Melasian Navy, Jurgenshafen |
| General characteristics | |
| Class and type: | Admiral-class battleship |
| Displacement: | 20,000 t (19,684 long tons) standard |
| Length: | 158 m (518 ft 4 in) |
| Beam: | 27.9 m (91 ft 6 in) |
| Draught: | 8.7 m (28 ft 7 in) |
| Installed power: |
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| Propulsion: | 3 shafts; 4 Parsons steam turbines |
| Speed: | 20.4 knots (37.8 km/h; 23.5 mph) |
| Range: | 4,200 nmi (7,800 km; 4,800 mi) at 10 knots (19 km/h; 12 mph) |
| Complement: | 32 officers, 16 petty-officers, 993 men (1,087 max) |
| Armament: |
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| Armour: |
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HDIMS Admiral Rzhanevsky was the lead ship of the four Admiral-class battleships of the Dulebian Imperial Navy constructed prior to the Great War, and the second of the class to enter service, in August 1909. The ship was constructed in the Imperial Arsenal shipyard in Kamianets, the biggest shipyard of Dulebia at the time, and was stationed in the same port in the year prior to the Great War. She was named after Pavel Rzhanevsky, a renowned admiral who fought in the Karsk Sea War of 1860-1863. The ship was of a revolutionary design, featuring 12 30.5 cm (12 in) guns in four triple turrets, two superfiring forward and two superfiring aft: the Dulebian naval engineers were the first to implement the superfiring positioning of ship gun turrets, which allowed for an equal or superior broadside firepower to earlier dreadnought battleship designs, while allowing all the guns to remain stationed at the ship's centerline; in the same time, the ship was also the first to feature a layout of three guns per turret. Admiral Rzhanevsky was launched in early 1909 and commissioned later the same year.
The ship took part in early patrol duties in the White sea alongside the Cuthish Navy ships, and in the Endotheric Sea in 1910. The outbreak of the Great War saw her undergoing refits in the port of Kamianets, and she was assigned to the Dulebian High Seas fleet as flagship, taking part in the early bombardments of the Lavarian coastal cities in the first months of the war. She took part in the Battle of the Karsk Sea Gate, where she took only minor damage and played a vital role in the sinking of the Albish battleship XXX. She was later assigned to the Melasian Squadron as leadship, and set sail to Dulebian Melasia and later Dongdao, raiding commercial shipping and allied colonies and participating in the Battles of Caroline Sea, Tarokan Strait, the Battle of Cape Pavlovo and during the Siege of Dongdao, only to be scuttled in 1916 after the arrival of the united coalition of Mascylla, Lavaria and Albeinland.
The ship was refloated and repaired by Mascyllary specialists, and joined the Mascyllary Melasian colonial squadron, being stationed in Jurgenshafen. In 1920, the ship was handed over to Melasia, then a Mascyllary colony. She experienced a mutiny in 1921, on par with other ships of the colony, and later participated in the Melasian Revolution, on the side of the rebels. Admiral Rzhanevsky saw a major refit between 1925 and 1929, and became the flagship of the Melasian Navy. She participated in the Melasian Crisis, where she performed coastal bombardment duties and was later present during the Siege of Stoschmund. Despite being outdated and outclassed, she took part in the naval engagements in 1944, when the air superiority was overtaken by the Melasian Air Force. After the war, she was decomissioned, struck in 1951, and became a floating museum in Jurgenshafen in the following year, where she remains up to this day.
Background
The Cuthish Revolution of the late 18th century saw Dulebia gaining sea acces for the first time in its history. In the early and mid-19th century, Dulebia gained control over the Kingdom of Aldena, and established itself as a new dominant power in the Karsk sea. With rising colonial ambtions, and the will to take place among other Berean major powers, Dulebian officials found it necessary to increase their naval strength. The wars against Cuthland, Lavaria and the Gurkhanate in the course of the century had shown the importance of the naval superiority during conflicts. The Dulebian navy experienced a rapid expansion during the late century, and showed its potence during the Third Dulebo-Gurkhan War of 1899-1902.
The threat posed by the growing Dulebian navy was recognised by neighbouring Lavaria already after the defeat of the country in the Karsk Sea War of the 1860s, where the Dulebian navy, albeit being smaller in size, showed its superior descipline and managed to defeat the more numerous Lavarian forces in several battles. The result of the war was a prolongued naval race between the countries. The growing Dulebian industrial output made it harder for the Lavarian shipyards to outperform their rivals, and so a decision was made to try and construct new types of military ships, and thus the so-called all-big-gun ship of the line, also known as dreadnought, appeared in 1905. A ship of completely revolutionary design, the LN IDK rendered all previous ship designs obsolete. The Dulebian military managed to respond only in 1906 with the launch of HDIMS Imperator Aleksandr. The ship was crippled by numerous design flaws due to its rushed construction: its layout proved to be inefficient, the armament scheme was outmatched by the earlier Lavarian ship despite requiring bigger displacement due to the larger number of turrets. The first attempt of Dulebian universal battery design was very unsuccessful, leading to the Imperator Aleksandr being considered outdated already at the time of her launch. The time needed to switch the industry towards the construction of the new ship type, as well as the early failures of the Dulebian ship designs, left Dulebia in desperade need for a radical improvement in order to catch up their Lavarian rivals.
