I hope the warship wasn’t sent into battle while carrying that cargo.
As a general rule, you should avoid a major fight while carrying a heavy load.
The Armored Cruiser was not involved at the Battle of Tsushima but was caught by Japanese destroyers the next day.
Solid gold shells would be useful then. And maybe more accurate as the targets would try and catch the shells. Hah!
FTA: was sunken
Stupid writer.
They weren’t expecting anything like a real fight with the Japanese. The Russian fleet was sailing in line through a strait and was annihilated by a modern and well led Japanese Imperial Navy fleet that “crossed the T”. They may have been just over confident enough, and too suspicious of their own captains, to disperse the gold among several ships. Anyway, it’s conceivable.