The battleship arms race was in full flower well before HMS Dreadnought was laid down in 1905. Since the mid 1890s all naval powers that dreamed of greatness had been building battleships with ever greater frequency. In 1894-1895 Japan defeated Imperial China and became the new power in the Pacific. Imperial Russia had supported China in this war and with the elimination of China as a naval power, Russia chose to greatly expand its Pacific Squadron. To increase the tempo of new construction, the Russian Navy went on a buying spree for construction of warships in foreign yards. A number of cruisers were built in Germany, the Csarevitch was ordered from France and Cramp’s Shipyards of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania received an order to build a battleship for the Imperial Russian Navy, the Retvizan. 

The name, Retvizan, commemorates the victories of Captain R.V. Kroun against the Swedish Navy in 1789-90. While commanding the 24 gun Merkurey, Captain Kroun captured the 44-gun frigate, Venus, on April 29, 1789. Captain Kroun was then given command of the Venus and in 1790 captured the 64-gun ship of the line, Retvisan. The name remained in use in the Imperial Russian Navy. After completion, the battleship, Retvizan sailed for Kronstadt in the Baltic, where she was commissioned in 1902. She was immediately sent to join the 1^st Pacific Squadron in Port Arthur. 

VITAL STATISTICS LAID DOWN: July 17, 1899 LAUNCHED: October 10, 1900 COMPLETED: December 1901 SCRAPPED: 1923 DISPLACEMENT: 12,700 tons DIMENSIONS: Length- 382 ft 3 in (116 ½ m); Beam- 72 ft 2 in (22m); Draught- 25 ft (7.6m) ARMAMENT: four 12" 40 cal (2x2); twelve 6" 45 cal (12x1); twenty 3"; twenty 47mm; eight 37mm; four machine guns; two 2 ½ inch for landing party; two 18" underwater torpedo tubes. ARMOR: 9" belt (7 ½ feet wide x 250 feet long), casemates 5-6 inch; turrets and conning tower 10 inch; deck- upper 2 inch, splinter 3 inch. PERFORMANCE: Speed- Designed 18 knots; On Trials 18.8 knots; SHP- Designed 16,000; Actual 16,121; Machinery- two vertical triple expansion steam engines; 24 Niclausse boilers COMPLEMENT: 28 officers & 722 men

Retvizan was present at Port Arthur during the initial sneak attack by Japanese torpedo boats on the night of February 8/9, 1904 that started the Russo-Japanese War. She took one torpedo hit in this attack but then was docked and repaired. This damage and damage caused on March 10 from one hit by indirect fire the Japanese battleships on Port Arthur was repaired by June 20, 1904. On June 23 the 1^st Pacific Squadron sortied from Port Arthur with six battleships (Csarevitch, Retvizan, Pobieda, Peresvet, Poltava & Sevastopol), five cruisers (Bayan, Askold, Diana, Pallada & Novik) and ten torpedo boats. Admiral Togo’s fleet intercepted and action started at 3 PM when Novik broke up an attack by the Japanese destroyers. Togo’s battleline closed to around 14,500 yards. When the Japanese closed, the Russian squadron would change course away to keep the distance. This kept up until after 11 PM the Russian squadron arrived back at Port Arthur. Only Sevastopol was damaged, by striking a mine. 

At 8:30 AM on August 10, 1904 the Russian fleet again sortied from Port Arthur and was intercepted by Admiral Togo. This action became known as the Battle of the Yellow Sea. In command was Rear Admiral Vithoft in Csarevitch, second in command was Rear Admiral Prince Ukhtomsky in Persevet. As before the other four battleships (Retvizan, Pobieda, Sevastopol, & Poltava) were present. Also included were three cruisers (Novik, Pallada, Askold & Diana), a number of torpedo craft, minesweepers and the hospital ship, Mongolia. It took around two hours to sweep for mines and at 10:15 AM the minesweepers and some torpedo boats returned to Port Arthur. The 1^st Pacific Squadron then increased speed from 8 to 10 and then to 13 knots by noon. The fleets started exchanging fire at long range at 1 PM, when the Russians were 25-30 miles from Port Arthur. For hours the fleets steamed a generally eastward direction exchanging ineffectual fire, at the ranges of 8,000 to 11,000 yards. The second phase of the action started around 5:45 PM at 7,500 yards when both sides concentrated fire on the lead battleship in the other’s line (Mikasa & Csarevitch). 

REFERENCES ON RETVIZAN

RETVIZAN, Morskaya Kollektsia #4/1999 by S.A. Balakin This is the best single title on the Retvizan. The volume is 32 pages in length, plus covers. It contains 38 photographs, 18 line drawings, 3 color profiles, one color isometric, 2 maps and a front cover painting. The drawings include deck plans, interior profile, ships steam launch profile with sections, turret interior profile and plan, fittings detail and a two page centerfold plan and profile with 16 sections. Written in Russian, the graphics alone are more than worth the cost. Highly recommended!  SQUADRON BATTLESHIP RETVIZAN 1902-1904, by E.N. Shensnovich Published in 1999 in Saint Petersburg by Citadel, this title consists of 76 pages with 34 photos, a pull-out color profile, 4 pages of detailed ship statistics, and 16 movement charts for the 28 June sortie. Written entirely in Russian, the title clearly has the most extensive textual coverage of the ship but is of limited value to a modeler that does not read Russian.  WARSHIPS OF THE IMPERIAL RUSSIAN NAVY: VOLUME I BATTLESHIPS, by V.M.Tomitch This is the best title in English on the subject. Privately printed in 1968, the title may be hard to find. The tile covers every battleship of Imperial Russia from the 1855 135 gun steam ships of the line to the Petropavlovsk and Imperatritsa Maria dreadnoughts of World War I. Each class is covered in photos and 1:800 drawings in the 102 pages of the volume. Coverage of Retvizan consists of four pages with plan & profile drawings and five photographs. Highly recommended.  ENCYCLOPEDIA: SHIPS OF THE RUSSIAN IMPERIAL FLEET, 1892-1917 edited by A.E. Tarasa Published in 2000 in Minsk, Belarus, the volume consists of 336 pages and covers every Russian warship in the period. The chapter on battleships covers Peter Veliky (Peter the Great) of 1892 through the incomplete Borodino/Izmail battlecruisers laid down in 1913. The highlight of the title is the section containing 48 color plates of ships of the Imperial Fleet in 1893. These plates are on very high quality glossy paper and truly are beautifully reproduced. Coverage on Retvizan consists of one-half page of text with a profile drawing and one photograph. Written entirely in Russian.

The Russians scored the first two hits as at 5:56 a 12-inch shell hit the port side of one of the barbettes on Mikasa and jammed the turntable. At 6:12 PM a 12-inch shell hit Mikasa on the bridge. Half of the bridge personnel were injured, including the fleet chief of staff and the captain but not Admiral Togo. After this hit Admiral Togo went into the conning tower. Range kept decreasing. Around 6:15 PM the single most critical hit was scored by the Japanese, when a 12-inch shell hit the conning tower of Csarevitch, killing Admiral Vithoft, wounding the captain and jamming the steering gear of Csarevitch. This broke up the Russian line as to avoid collision, some battleships steered out of line. Range was now down to 3,500 yards. Apparently the Russian plan was to break out of Port Arthur and proceed to Vladivostok. Around 8 PM Admiral Ukhtomsky, now in command, displayed the signal "Follow Me".  

The bulk of the 1^st Pacific Squadron returned to Port Arthur independently. The Japanese did not pursue, probably because of the damage to the Mikasa, which had 111 casualties. Because of damage to Csarevitch, she could not withdraw with the rest of the squadron. Instead she steered south at 4 knots and made the neutral German port of Tsing-tau at 11 PM on August 11, where she was interned. Rear Admiral Reitzenstein, commanding the cruiser squadron in Askold, ordered his cruisers to continue the breakout. Novik reached Tsing-tau but left before being interned. Askold made it to Shanghai. Diana also escaped to internment at Saigon but Pallada returned to Port Arthur. 

RETVIZAN ADDITIONS The KomBrig Retvizan is a solid kit right from the box. However, it is missing certain items that are very important to the finished model. Although some later KomBrig releases of Russo-Japanese War subjects come with tertiary deck guns, the Retvizan does not. I strongly recommend adding some finer detail to the basics that you get in this kit. Both fore and aft superstructures have bridge supports. I used .01x.02 Evergreen strips to add these. Without these it will look as if the bridges are hanging in the air. There are no hull gun barrels. I used .02 plastic rod to add the casemate 6" guns and smaller plastic sprue to add the 3" casemate guns. The .02 rod was also used for the torpedo net booms. Mask and paint the waterline before adding booms. Because the booms were already in place, I had to hand paint the waterline and accordingly its not straight.  I also added sprue for the catwalk supports, jacks, gaffs, and rigging. Superstructure openings and ports were drilled with a pin vice and enlarged with a hobby knife. Photo-etch really brings the kit to life. I used photo-etch from Tom’s, GMM and WEM. However, one PE set clearly stands as the best single fret for this kit. The White Ensign Models PE fret for their Askold is a treasure trove of fittings for almost all Imperial Russian warship kits. Among some of the items that I used from this fret are aft superstructure circular platform, 3" casemate shutters, 47mm deck guns, 37mm bridge guns and spare anchor. However, there are not enough deck guns in this fret to completely outfit the Retvizan. I used GMM 20mm for some of the 47mm hidden in the rear superstructure and for those guns in the fighting tops, minus the shields. I also used GMM’s stainless steel two bar rail. I prefer stainless steel to brass, as it is more rugged and less susceptible to damage. Tom’s was used for vertical and inclined ladders. Also Cut from the fret frame were small platforms for the two inclined ladders leading from the forecastle to the bridge, platforms for the two inclined ladders leading from the quarter deck to the aft superstructure and two searchlight platforms on the aft superstructure.

Overall, the kit was fairly faithful to the plans in the references. There were some areas where the kit diverged from the plans and photos. The model does not have the fairing under the center 3" casemate position, the intake ducts for the superstructure face ventilators were of the wrong shape and the 01 deck was slightly wider than the hull, rather than the other way around. In addition the placement of the two search lights on the aft superstructure was incorrect. They are not mounted on the deck but on small platforms on the forward face of the aft superstructure. This was an easy correction. None of these items has enough significance to spoil the kit.  

I think that KomBrig provided the wrong mix of ventilator hoods. The kit provides ventilators in four different sizes but there are not enough of the smallest. The castings had minimal defects. Other than a few bumps that were easily removed by sanding, I saw no defects. The hull had no warp.