A POWERFUL CRUISER FOR THE JAPANESE GOVERNMENT.

Evening Post, Volume XXIX, Issue 108, 30 May 1885, Page 2 (Supplement)

A POWERFUL CRUISER FOR THE JAPANESE GOVERNMENT.

The firm of Sir W. G. Armstrong, Mitchell, & Co. launched recently from their shipbuilding yard at Low Walker, on the Tyne, a magnificent cruiser war vessel for the Japanese Government. The Naniwa-Kan is the first of two powerfully-protected cruisers designed by Mr. W. H. White. These vessels are the swiftest and most heavily armed cruisers at present in existence. The two new cruisers may be described as enlarged Esmeraldas with substantial improvements in defence, structural arrangements, protective armaments, and speed rendered possible by the increase in size, in dimensions the new cruisers are almost identical with the Iris and Mercury, despatch vessels of the Royal Navy, and the Leander class of partially protected cruisers. The estimated speed of these Japanese cruisers is from 18 to 18| knots. Each vessel will have a complete armament of locomotive torpedoes ejected from four stations, two on each broadside situated at a small height above water. The new cruiser has a most powerful ram bow, formed of an immensely strong steel casting which projects ferward under water. Throughout the length, and covering the space occupied by machinery, boilers, magazines, and steering-gear, there is aya v strong protective deck, of steel. It is questioned whether any war vessel of the size and with the complicated fittings which are embodied in the design of the Naniwa-Kan has been built and so far fitted in so short a time (eleven months). In the Royal dockyards the first Mersey, ordered more than two years ago, is only just ready for launching. In all probability the Naniwa-Kan will be steaming off the Tyne and firing her guns within four or five months from the present time.