Japanese cruiser Itsukushima
Itsukushima in 1904
|
|
| History | |
|---|---|
 Empire of Japan
|
|
| Name: | Itsukushima |
| Namesake: | Itsukushima Shrine |
| Ordered: | 1886 Fiscal Year |
| Builder: | Société Nouvelle des Forges et Chantiers de la Méditerranée, La Seyne-sur-Mer, France |
| Laid down: | 7 January 1888 |
| Launched: | 18 July 1889 |
| Completed: | 3 September 1891 |
| Struck: | 12 March 1926 |
| Fate: | Scrapped 1926 |
| General characteristics | |
| Class and type: | Matsushima-class cruiser |
| Displacement: | 4,278 long tons (4,347 t) |
| Length: | 91.81 m (301 ft 3 in) w/l |
| Beam: | 15.6 m (51 ft 2 in) |
| Draft: | 6.05 m (19 ft 10 in) |
| Propulsion: | 2-shaft reciprocating; 6 boilers; 5,400 hp (4,000 kW), 680 tons coal |
| Speed: | 16.5 knots (19.0 mph; 30.6 km/h) |
| Complement: | 360 |
| Armament: |
|
| Armor: |
|
Itsukushima (厳島?) was the lead ship in the Matsushima class of protected cruisers of the Imperial Japanese Navy. Like her sister ships, (Matsushima and Hashidate) the name Itsukushima comes from one of the traditional Three Views of Japan, in this case, the Itsukushima Shrine in Hiroshima prefecture on the Seto Inland Sea, home to a famous Shinto shrine dedicated to the goddess Benzaiten.
Forming the backbone of the Imperial Japanese Navy during the First Sino-Japanese War, the Matsushima-class cruisers were based on the principles of Jeune Ecole, as promoted by French military advisor and naval architect Louis-Émile Bertin. The Japanese government did not have the resources or budget to build a battleship navy to counter the various foreign powers active in Asia; instead, Japan adopted the radical theory of using smaller, faster warships, with light armor and small caliber long-range guns, coupled with a massive single 320 mm (12.6 in) Canet gun. The design eventually proved impractical, as the recoil from the huge cannon was too much for a vessel of such small displacement, and its reloading time was impractically long; however, the Matsushima-class cruisers served their purpose well against the poorly equipped and poorly led Imperial Chinese Beiyang Fleet.
...
Wikipedia