Gangut (
Russian:
Гангут) was both the
lead ship of the
Gangut-class dreadnoughts of the
Imperial Russian Navy built before
World War I and the last of her
class to be completed. She was named after the Russian victory over the
Swedish Navy in the
Battle of Gangut
in 1714. She was completed during the winter of 1914–15, but was not
ready for combat until mid-1915. Her role was to defend the mouth of the
Gulf of Finland
against the Germans, who never tried to enter, so she spent her time
training and providing cover for minelaying operations. Her crew joined
the general
mutiny of the
Baltic Fleet after the
February Revolution
and joined the Bolsheviks in 1918. She was laid up in 1918 for lack of
manpower and not recommissioned until 1925, by which time she had been
renamed
Oktyabrskaya Revolutsiya (
Russian:
Октябрьская революция:
October Revolution).
She was reconstructed between 1931 and 1934 with new
boilers, fire-control systems and greatly enlarged superstructures. During the
Winter War she bombarded
Finnish coastal artillery positions one time. Her
anti-aircraft armament was greatly reinforced in early 1941, just before
Operation Barbarossa. She provided gunfire support against the Germans during the
Siege of Leningrad
despite being bombed three times and under repair for a year. Retained
on active duty after the war she became a training ship in 1954 before
being struck off the Navy List in 1956 and slowly scrapped.
[source: Wikipedia]