 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 <unk> 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 . 
