Japanese cruiser Takao (1888)
Takao at Yokosuka, October 1889
|
|
| History | |
|---|---|
 Empire of Japan
|
|
| Name: | Takao |
| Builder: | Yokosuka Naval Arsenal |
| Laid down: | 30 October 1886 |
| Launched: | 15 October 1888 |
| Completed: | 16 November 1889 |
| Struck: | 1 April 1911 |
| Fate: | Scrapped, 27 March 1912 |
| General characteristics | |
| Type: | Unprotected cruiser |
| Displacement: | 1,750 long tons (1,778 t) |
| Length: | 69.9 m (229.3 ft) |
| Beam: | 10.4 m (34.1 ft) |
| Draught: | 3.9 m (12.8 ft) |
| Installed power: | 2,330 ihp (1,740 kW) |
| Propulsion: | 2 shafts, 2 Horizontal compound steam engines, 5 boilers |
| Speed: | 15 knots (28 km/h; 17 mph) |
| Complement: | 220 |
| Armament: |
|
Takao (高雄?) was an unprotected cruiser of the Imperial Japanese Navy. The name Takao comes from the Mount Takao, near Kyoto. Takao was used by the Imperial Japanese Navy primarily as an aviso or dispatch boat, for scouting, reconnaissance and the conveying of important messages.
Takao was designed under the supervision of French military advisor Émile Bertin, and built in Japan by the Yokosuka Naval Arsenal, with many of its components imported from overseas. It was one of the first ships in Bertin’s project to introduce modern naval construction techniques to the Japanese, and a first step in the implementation of his Jeune Ecole naval strategy of using of small, heavily armed and lightly armored ships in naval warfare. Due to its small size Takao is sometimes classified as a corvette or gunboat.
Takao was a steel-ribbed and steel hulled vessel. It retained a full barque rigging with two masts for auxiliary sail propulsion in addition to her coal-fired double-expansion reciprocating steam engine with single smoke stack and twin screws. The design incorporated a number of firsts for Japan, including a double hull amidships for additional protection, and the first Japanese built torpedo launchers. It was also the second warship to be built in Japan (after the gunboat Akagi) with an iron-rib and steel hull construction. Takao was armed with four 152 mm (6.0 in) L/35 Krupp guns mounted in sponsons as its main battery and had one stern-mounted QF 4.7 inch Gun Mk I–IVs gun and one QF 6-pounder Hotchkiss gun as its secondary battery. In addition, the ship had two quadruple 1-inch Nordenfelt guns and carried two torpedoes, mounted on the deck.
...
Wikipedia