Retvizan () was a pre-dreadnought battleship built before the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905 for the Imperial Russian Navy. She was built by the American William Cramp & Sons because Russian shipyards were already at full capacity. Named after a Swedish ship of the line that was captured during the battle of Vyborg Bay in 1790 (, meaning both fairness and justice), Retvizan was briefly assigned to the Baltic Fleet, but was transferred to the Far East in 1902.
The ship was torpedoed during the Japanese surprise attack on Port Arthur during the night of 8/9 February 1904 and grounded in the harbour entrance when she attempted to take refuge inside, as her draft had significantly deepened from the amount of water she had taken aboard after the torpedo hit. She was refloated and repaired in time to join the rest of the 1st Pacific Squadron when they attempted to reach Vladivostok through the Japanese blockade on 10 August. The Japanese battle fleet engaged them again in the Battle of the Yellow Sea, forcing most of the Russian ships to return to Port Arthur after their squadron commander was killed and his flagship damaged. Retvizan was sunk by Japanese howitzers in December after the Japanese gained control of the heights around the harbour.
The Japanese raised and repaired Retvizan after Port Arthur surrendered in January 1905. She was commissioned into the Imperial Japanese Navy as in 1908. Based in Sasebo when Japan declared war on Germany in 1914, the ship was sent to reinforce the weak British squadron off British Columbia, but diverted to Hawaii after reports of a German gunboat there. Hizen was unsuccessfully sent to search for other German ships after the Americans interned the gunboat in November. After World War I she supported the Japanese intervention in the Russian Civil War and was disarmed in 1922 in accordance with the terms of the Washington Naval Treaty. The ship was sunk as a gunnery target in 1924.
Background
Tsar Nicholas II had desired a warm-water port on the Pacific since his accession to the throne in 1894. He achieved this ambition in March 1898 when Russia signed a 25-year lease for Port Arthur and the Liaotung Peninsula with China. Japan had previously forced China to sign over the port and its surrounding territory as part of the treaty that concluded the First Sino-Japanese War of 1894–95, but the Triple Intervention of France, Russia, and Germany forced them to return the port in exchange for a sizeable increase in the indemnity paid by the Chinese. Japan invested much of the indemnity money in expanding its fleet, while Russia began a major building programme ("For the Needs of the Far East") to defend its newly acquired port.
Russian shipyards were already at maximum capacity so the Naval Ministry decided to order ships from abroad. Charles Henry Cramp, the owner and son of the founder of William Cramp & Sons in Philadelphia, had a relationship with the Imperial Russian Navy dating back to the late 1870s when his firm built the auxiliary cruisers , , and . Cramp also repaired several Russian warships visiting America in 1893, and he cultivated the contacts he made in the Russian Navy throughout the 1890s. As such, he was ideally positioned to offer to build a battleship for the Russians in his shipyard when they began to look abroad.
Design and description
Preliminary design work on a battleship intended to equal the latest Japanese ships began in late 1897 and early 1898 by the Naval Technical Committee; the displacement was limited to for economic reasons. The basic design was that of the with its speed increased to using only two shafts and its steaming range increased to at . The Naval Ministry intended to conduct an international design competition with the ships being built abroad as the Baltic shipyards were at full capacity.
Cramp's contacts kept him informed of the Russians' intentions and he sailed to Saint Petersburg to offer his services and design expertise in March 1898. Initially Cramp offered American designs to the Russians, including an updated version of as it was a relatively close match for the Russian specification, but the Russians preferred their own designs. Both sides compromised and the final design was based on the . The new ship had four fewer guns, but twice the coal capacity for improved range and a longer, slightly narrower hull for more speed. The contract was signed on 23 April 1898 for a price of $4,360,000. The protected cruiser was ordered at the same time for $2,138,000.