"Tsesarevich"s main armament consisted of two pairs of 40-calibre 12-inch guns mounted in electrically powered twin-gun turrets, one forward and one aft of the superstructure. The guns and their mountings were Russian-built, but the turrets themselves were made in France. The guns could be loaded at all angles of elevation and the turrets could traverse 270°. Trials revealed that the ammunition hoists tended to jam when the ship was rolling; the shipyard shipped new hoists to Port Arthur because the Russians wanted the ship in the Far East as soon as possible and they were installed in January 1904. The ship carried 70 rounds per gun. The guns fired one shell every 90–132 seconds. They fired a shell at a muzzle velocity of to a range of at an elevation of 15°.