Serious shortcomings were also inherent in the material part of the ship's artillery, even the newest armadillos. Despite the satisfactory design of the main caliber turrets, the artillery had a relatively low rate of fire due to a long time of opening and closing the locks of the guns of low speed of ammunition supply. The elevation angles of the guns were not sufficient for increased combat ranges. Nor were there any modern sights on the ships. New optical rangefinders with the increased base on the armadillos only had to be installed, and rangefinders have not yet had time to fully master them.
- At a low level was the combat training of the artillerymen who have entered into service of the ships which have not spent the necessary quantity of training artillery firing. They did not have time to work out the organization of centralized management of artillery firing of several battleships and squadron as a whole. Artillery gunners were not prepared for artillery fire at long range. The rules of artillery service did not contain instructions on the use of artillery at combat ranges over 20 km. All this sharply reduced the effectiveness of artillery fire.
In the course of the battle, there were shortcomings in the protection and design of the hull, which primarily affected the survivability of combat arms. Their failure paralyzed not only the management of individual battleships but also the squadrons as a whole. The fighting cabin of the flagship battleship "Prince Suvorov" actually ceased to exist as a control body after the first hit. Ship and artillery control devices failed. The same thing happened to the armadillo's armored cabin "Borodino". In the combat cabin of the armored carrier "Eagle" after hitting three 152-mm and two 203-mm shells only the steering wheel survived. The roof was the most unsuccessful element in the design of the new armadillos' felling. It had a mushroom-shaped shape and was raised above the armored cylinder, and its edges, hanging in the form of a visor over the vertical armor of the cabin, formed a gap of 305 mm, through which the fragments of shells easily penetrated the inside, hitting people and disabling the controls of the ship.
- The armoring of the base of the combat deck ended at the level of the upper deck, so the shells torn at the base of the bow bridge caused heavy damage. The passages from the combat cabin to the lower rooms, including the central post, were not armored.
The armor of the 305-mm turrets successfully withstood the hits of Japanese shells of the same caliber, but often the electric drives of the tower mechanisms failed as a result of the violation of the electrical connections' contacts and breakages of cables, the routes of which were not armored. The 152-mm turrets were less reliable. Armor slabs lagged behind the shirts. This pointed to the wrong system of armor fasteners. 50 mm of deck armor and 76.2 mm of casemate armor withstood the rupture of 305 mm of high-explosive shells, as well as the upper armor belt with the thickness of mm and armor of tower installations. However, the concussion caused the armor plate fasteners to be broken during the explosion. They were lagging behind the shirt, turning around their center of gravity and pressing into the board, pulled out of place. It was the failure of armor plates in the bow of the upper armor belt at repeated hits of shells in the same place that contributed to the death of the battleship "Oslyabya". Violations of fastenings and tears of armor plates of the upper armored belt, towers of 152-mm guns and a military cabin were observed on the armadillo "Eagle".
Most of the Borodino type ships had the checkered hull structure located below the waterline undamaged. Therefore, even with the completely broken unarmored side, the ships could stay afloat, if they were able to maintain the vertical position. However, on the majority of battleships, there was no special post and equipment with the help of which it was possible to carry out the struggle for vitality and quickly level the dangerous roll, filling with water the compartments of the opposite side. A serious drawback in the construction of the hull of the battleship type "Borodino" was the low location of mine artillery casemates, borrowed from the French project of the battleship "Caesarevich". This was revealed in the process of testing new battleships. Thus, in 1903, during the sea trials, the battleship "Emperor Alexander III" scooped up water through the open casemate gun ports of the central battery of 75-mm guns located at a height of 2.75 m from the waterline, when the roll-on circulation reached 15-17 °. Only the quick locking of the cars and rudder transfer to another side saved the new battleship from overturning and overturning.
- On May 7, 1904, the battleship "Eagle", being in completion at the wall of the Kronstadt port, with a strong drop in the water level in the Gulf sat down one side on the ground, leaning on the opposite side. Booking was not yet completed, and the ship began to receive water through the holes for armored bolts, increasing the roll. When the roll reached 15°, water rushed through the ports of casemate 75-mm guns. Only the landing of the ship with the whole hull on the ground saved the battleship from tipping over.
The great danger for the Russian battleship was represented by heat, as during the construction a considerable amount of combustible materials was used: wooden lining under the armored slabs, deck decks, furniture, finishing of cuttings, cabins-companies, residential estates of the officer staff, salons of the flagship and the commander, as well as thermal insulation of the boards and bulkheads. This contributed to the rapid spread of fires throughout the ship.
The disadvantages of the armadillos of the Borodino type were, to a greater or lesser extent, inherent in all the armadillos of that time, but were aggravated by their overload.