The Imperatritsa Mariya was the lead ship of her class of dreadnoughts built for the Imperial Russian Navy. The Imperatritsa Mariya-class was based on the Gangut-class dreadnought with some changes such as lower top speed and more armour. The sixteen secondary 120 mm guns found on Gangut-class were replaced by twenty 130 mm guns and the maximum elevation of guns was increased by 10 degrees compared to Gangut. Imperatritsa Mariya was laid down on 30th October 1911 and commissioned on 10th June 1915. She served as part of the Black Sea Fleet where she conducted escort missions of pre-dreadnought battleships bombarding Ottoman coast. On numerous occasions during October 1915, she engaged Ottoman light cruiser Midilli, causing nothing other than splinter damage to her. The rest of her short career was uneventful until 20th October 1916, when she sunk after magazine explosion while at anchor at Sevastopol. The crew managed to flood the forward magazines, preventing catastrophic explosion of all the other magazines. As the ship capsized, 228 crewmen were lost. She was raised in 1918, but her poor condition and chaos after the Russian Revolution caused her to further deteriorate. The hull was scrapped in 1926. Two of her gun turrets were salvaged and used as a coastal battery during the Siege of Sevastopol in WWII.
The Imperatritsa Mariya was introduced in Update "New Power". The Mariya is very similar to the Poltava, as the latter was also a development of the Gangut-class. The Mariya features more armour compared to Poltava, with turrets being up to 250 mm thick and barbettes up to 250 mm instead of 150 mm thick armour found on Poltava. Due to the added weight of the armour, the Mariya also has lower top speed by 3 km/h. The ship is armed with four triple 305 mm guns distributed by the length of the ship. The guns fire either HE, APHEBC, or SAP shells. The SAP shells are one of the best in their class with 55.2 kg TNTeq and up to 223 mm penetration on 10 km range, allowing for destroying or heavily damaging heavy cruisers or even lighter armoured battleships with a single salvo.
