Battleship model kits: Sevastopol (New Masters), 1914, scale 1/700
Battleship Sevastopol was the first ship completed of the Gangut-class battleships of the Imperial Russian Navy built before World War I. The Ganguts were the first class of Russian dreadnoughts. She was named after the Siege of Sevastopol during the Crimean War. Sevastopol 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 later that year. She was laid up in 1918 for lack of manpower, but her crew joined the Kronstadt Rebellion of 1921. She was renamed Parizhskaya Kommuna after the rebellion was crushed to commemorate the Paris Commune and to erase the ship"s "betrayal" of the Communist Party.
Sevastopol was recommissioned in 1925 and refitted in 1928 in preparation for her transfer to the Black Sea the following year. Parizhskaya Kommuna and the cruiser Profintern ran into a severe storm in the Bay of Biscay that severely damaged Parizhskaya Kommuna"s false bow. They had to put into Brest for repairs, but reached Sevastopol in January 1930. Parizhskaya Kommuna was comprehensively reconstructed in two stages during the 1930s that replaced her boilers, upgraded her guns, augmented her anti-aircraft armament, modernized her fire-control systems and gave her anti-torpedo bulges. During World War II she provided gunfire support during the Siege of Sevastopol and related operations until she was withdrawn from combat in April 1942 when the risk from German aerial attack became too great. She was retained on active duty after the war until she became a training ship in 1954. She was broken up in 1956–57.
