amidships and presumably tapered proportionally along its length. Above the waterline belt was an upper strake of armour that was high and had a maximum thickness of . It was slightly shorter than the waterline belt and similarly reduced in thickness towards the ends of the ship. Forward it consisted of armour plates and aft. The armor of the main gun turrets and their supporting tubes was 250 millimetres thick with roofs thick. Below the upper armour deck the armour of the support tubes decreased to . The turrets of the secondary armament had sides with roofs. The sides of the conning tower were thick and it had a 63-millimetre roof. It had a communications tube that extended down to the upper armoured deck that was protected by 100-millimetre armour. The funnel uptakes were protected by of armour for the height of one deck above the upper armoured deck. Above the upper armour belt there was a deck that ran the full length of the ship that consisted of a armour plate laid on deck plating. At the top of the waterline belt was two layers of armour. It also extended the full length of the ship, but not the full width; it curved downward behind the belt and was connected to the lower edge of the belt by a 20-millimetre plate. It continued downward to the ship's inner bottom plates and formed a sort of torpedo bulkhead. This bulkhead was from the side of the ship and extended for a length of . It was backed with coal bunkers. Construction and service Construction began on Tsesarevich, named after the title of the heir to the Russian throne, on 18 May 1899 at the Forges et Chantiers de la Méditerranée shipyard in La Seyne-sur-Mer, France. The ship was laid down on 8 July 1899 and launched on 23 February 1901. Construction was supervised by Captain Ivan Grigorovich, who became the ship's first captain. Tsesarevich entered service in August 1903 and was assigned to the Far East. She arrived in Port Arthur on 2 December 1903. Upon completion, the Tsesarevich was the Russian Navy's best battleship at the beginning of the Russo-Japanese War. After the Japanese victory in the First Sino-Japanese War of 1894–1895, both Russia and Japan had ambitions to control Manchuria and Korea, resulting in tensions between the two nations. Japan had begun negotiations to reduce the tensions in