Russian Naval Architect N. Artseulov was sent to the U.S. to join Russian Naval Attachee Captain Stepan Stepanovich Lessovsky to help assess first-hand the advantages and disadvantages of American monitors.
On 11 March 1863, the Russian Admiralty approved a program to build ten monitors to the American monitor Passaic-class plans. The decision to use the American plans was based on lack of time, money and inexperience in building ironclads.
A larger monitor with two turrets, the Smerch, was also approved and launched in 1864.
In their first eight years of operation, three different kinds of artillery pieces were used. An order was placed with the Krupp ordnance factories in Germany for nine inch smoothbores which was used in the monitors at first. In 1864, artillery specialist Filemon N. Pestich returned from America with technology for the production of 15-inch Dahlgren guns of the type used on the American Passaic monitors and a factory was established to make them.
The first 15-inch Dahlgrens became available for the Uragan monitors in 1869. Unlike the American ships, the Uragan ones did not use a mixed armament of 15-inch and a smaller one. New 9-inch breech-loading rifled guns were placed on the ships beginning in 1973.
As the monitors were hulked in 1900, these guns were removed and later served in Peter the Great's Naval Fortress.
--Old B-Runner
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