RUSSIA'S BLAGS SEA FLEET.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVII, Issue 138, 4 November 1914, Page 5

RUSSIA'S BLAGS SEA FLEET.

COAST DEFENCES. The Russian Black Sea Fleet, so far a« is known, consists of the following kattleships:— Pre-Drcadnoughts: G. Pobjedonosctz, 10,000 tons, six 12-inch guns (old) and. seven 0-inch; Tri Sviatitcba, 12,480 tons, four 12-inch, eight 6-inch, four 4.7-inch; Rostislav, 8800 tons, four 10inch and eight 0-inch; Pantcleimon, 12,480 tons, four "12-ineh, sixteen 6ineli; lvanzlatorist and Efstaff, 12,480 tons, four 12-ineh, four 8-inch, and twelve 0-inch.

In addition, Russia has on the Block Sea ten armored cruisers, some small cruisers, about 25 destroyers, 18 torpedo boats, and 14 submarines.

Three Dreadnoughts, each to carry' twelve 12-incli guns, and two powerful cruisers are building. Sevastopol, the famous fortress town in the Crimean* Peninsula, is the headquarters of the, Hussian Black Sea Fleet. It is the site of a State dockyard, and lias been strongly fortified. Nikolaier (the site of semi-privato shipyards), • Kinburn, and Oohakov are other Black Sea ports which have received importantdefensive works f Keitch (commanding tl)g straits of the same name between tiic Black Sea and the Sea of Azov) and . Yenikale fiave been made vcrv strong, and Azov, Poti, and Batuin have been strengthened.

There is a flotilla also in the Caspian Sea, which ' ensures the communications of the Trans-Caspian railway between Baku and Krasnovodsk. It was announced in the London Times in June last that the approval by the Duma of the extraordinary credit of £10,000,000 for the construction of warships for the Black Sea Fleet, whicl\ was adopted in consequence of tha Turkish purchase of battleships, would be spent on one 27,000-ton Dreadnought,' two 7500-ton cruisers, eight torpedo- ■ boats, and six submarines, to be built at Nikolacff, and commissioned 'not later than the spring of 1917.