 The German withdrawal allowed Slava , after repairs , to switch to her other task and support the army with gunfire . During one of these missions , as she was bombarding German positions near Tukums on 25 September 1915 , she was hit in the conning tower while at anchor , killing her captain and five others . McLaughlin attributes the hit to German field artillery , but Nekrasov quotes German accounts that attribute it to a 10 @-@ kilogram ( 22 lb ) bomb dropped by one of a pair of German seaplanes . Slava remained in position and resumed her bombardment . She continued to support the Army until the water in the Gulf of Riga threatened to freeze over at which time she retired to the port of Kuivastu to winter over . While still in port she was hit by three light bombs dropped by a seaplane on 12 April 1916 ; these did little material damage , but killed seven sailors . On 2 July she resumed her support of the army with a bombardment of advancing German troops despite sustaining one hit by an 8 @-@ inch ( 203 mm ) shell on her waterline armor that caused no damage . She repeated these missions a number of times in July and August . These annoyed the Germans enough that they attempted to sink Slava with a coordinated ambush by the submarine UB @-@ 31 and low @-@ flying torpedo bombers as she responded to a feint by German cruisers on 12 September , but all their torpedoes missed . This was the first attack by torpedo bombers against a moving battleship . 
