Chinese cruiser Laiyuan
Lai Yuen
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| History | |
|---|---|
 Imperial China
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| Name: | Laiyuen |
| Builder: | Stettiner AG Vulcan, |
| Cost: | 865,000 silver tael |
| Laid down: | 1 January 1885 |
| Launched: | 25 March 1887 |
| Completed: | 1 January 1888 |
| Fate: | Sunk in combat; 5 February 1895 |
| General characteristics | |
| Type: | Armored cruiser |
| Displacement: | 2,900 t (2,900 long tons) |
| Length: | 82.4 m (270 ft 4 in) |
| Beam: | 11.99 m (39 ft 4 in) |
| Draft: | 5.11 m (16 ft 9 in) |
| Speed: | 16 kn (30 km/h; 18 mph) |
| Capacity: | 320 tons of coal |
| Complement: | 270 officers and men |
| Armament: | 2 × 210 mm (8.3 in) guns, 2 × 150 mm (5.9 in) guns, 4 × 457 mm (18.0 in) torpedo tubes, 8 × machine guns |
| Armour: | |
Laiyuan (Chinese: 來遠; pinyin: Laiyuan; Wade–Giles: Lai-Yuen) was an armored cruiser in the late Qing Dynasty Beiyang Fleet. Its sister ship was Jingyuan.
As part of his drive to create a modern navy following the Sino-French War, Viceroy Li Hongzhang turned to Vulcan shipyards in Stettin, Germany. Jingyuan and Laiyuan were called “gunboats” by their designers, but were referred to as “cruisers” by the Chinese. In terms of displacement were similar in class to the Japanese Matsushima class. However, in terms of weaponry, they mounted large calibre guns in the manner of a coastal defense monitor, and lacked the speed or a higher muzzle velocity main battery typical of ships designed per the tenets of the then-popular Jeune Ecole theory promoted by French naval architect Emile Bertin.
Laiyuan had a steel housing, divided into 66 waterproof compartments filled with cork, a single smokestack, and single mast. Her belt armor had a thickness of 5.5 to 9.5 inches (140 to 240 mm) but did not extend above the waterline or to the extremities of the hull, and was 8 inches (200 mm) at the conning tower and barbettes. Her deck armor had a thickness of 2.5 to 3 inches (64 to 76 mm) at the extremities. The prow was reinforced for ramming. The power plant was a double expansion reciprocating steam engine with four cylindrical boilers, driving two screws.
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