Izmail was to be the lead ship of the namesake class of four battlecruisers (known as the Borodino class in Western sources) built for the Imperial Russian Navy. The class was originally envisioned as a fast armoured cruiser to engage the lead ship of an enemy’s battle line, with lessons learned from the disastrous defeat at the Battle of Tsushima in mind. However, delays in funding from the State Duma, along with the false rumour that the Germans were increasing the calibres of their battleship guns, led to a significant revision of the design into a full-sized capital ship using the Sevastopol-class battleship as a template.
Following the design phase, all four Izmail-class ships were laid down on 19 December 1912, though their construction was hindered by the lack of industrial capacity and the need to order some components from abroad. When the Great War broke out in 1914, construction of the ships crawled to a halt. Even after the unfinished hull of Izmail was launched on 22 June 1915 to free up the dock space, it became clear they would not be finished in time, with turrets not expected to be completed until 1919. After the October Revolution in 1917 and the subsequent outbreak of the Russian Civil War, work on all four ships stopped. At the end of the civil war in 1921, the Soviet government initially considered completing the Izmail and Borodino per original design, but would ultimately sell all the other hulls except Izmail to raise much-needed funds instead. As the Soviet industry recovered from the war, several proposals were made on what to do with the Izmail’s hull in 1925, with the most prominent one being a project to convert it into an aircraft carrier. However, due to political manoeuvring by the Red Army, all plans for the Izmail were cancelled. The hull of the Izmail would later be scrapped in 1931 at Leningrad.
The Izmail was introduced in Update "Dance of Dragons". Essentially an upsized version of the Sevastopol-class battleship, the Izmail features the same linear four triple turret configuration, but with significantly larger guns and hull. The Izmail is armed with twelve 14-inch (356 mm) guns, with the option of an extremely powerful HE shell and an AP shell with below average penetration but high filler. While not the fastest ship, the Izmail is noticeably more mobile than her predecessors, allowing her to evade incoming fire and torpedoes. However, because of her linear design, the Izmail shares the same vulnerability to fire damage, further exacerbated by the fact that her hull sits high above the waterline, resulting in the magazine and crew compartments being easier to hit.
