The fleet response to Potemkin exposed mixed loyalties

The Black Sea Fleet sent battleships to force Potemkin's surrender or sink her, but the encounter never became a straightforward loyalist action. Vice Admiral Krieger declined to open fire and appears to have understood that destroying a battleship and making martyrs of its crew would worsen the crisis. One captain tried to ram Potemkin and detonate his own magazines, only to be restrained by his crew. Another battleship briefly joined the mutiny before loyal sailors regained control. Good captains, poor officers, and divided crews coexisted across the fleet, so formal orders worked only where officers still held the crew's trust.