Battleship model kits: Petropavlovsk (New Masters), 1914, scale 1/700
Battleship Petropavlovsk was the third 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 Russian victory over the British and the French in the Siege of Petropavlovsk in 1854. Petropavlovsk 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 she was the only dreadnought available to the Bolsheviks for several years after the October Revolution. Petropavlovsk bombarded the rebellious garrison of Fort Krasnoye Gorka and supported Bolshevik light forces operating against British ships supporting the White Russians in the Gulf of Finland. Her crew joined the Kronstadt Rebellion of 1921 and she was renamed Marat after the rebellion was crushed.
Petropavlovsk was reconstructed from 1928 to 1931 and represented the Soviet Union at the Coronation Naval Review at Spithead in 1937. She bombarded a Finnish coastal artillery position during the Winter War once before the Gulf of Finland iced up. Her anti-aircraft armament was upgraded in early 1940. When the Germans invaded on 22 June 1941 she was in Kronstadt and provided gunfire support to Soviet troops as the Germans approached Leningrad in September. She had her bow blown off later that month and sank in shallow water after two hits by 1,000-kilogram (2,200 lb) bombs that detonated her forward magazine. She was refloated and became a stationary battery, providing gunfire support during the Siege of Leningrad. Plans were made to reconstruct her after the war, using the bow of her sister Frunze, but they were not accepted and were formally cancelled in 1948. She was renamed Volkhov, after the nearby river, in 1950 and served as a stationary training ship until stricken in 1953 and broken up afterwards.
