High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Gromoboi (Russian: Громобой, meaning: "Thunderer") was an armoured cruiser of the Imperial Russian Navy built in the late 1890s. She was designed as a long-range commerce raider and served as such during the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–05. When the war broke out, she was based in Vladivostok and made several sorties in search of Japanese shipping in the conflict`s early months, without much success.