Displacement 4278 tons.
Material of hull Steel.
Length 295 ft.
Beam 50½ ft.
Draught (maximum) 21¼ ft.
Armament One 12.8-in. Canet.
Eleven 4.7-in. Q.F. Elswick
of 32 cals.
Five 6-pdr. Q.F.
Eleven 3-pdr. Q.F.
Six machine guns.
Six torpedo tubes (bow,
stern, and four on the broadsides).
Horse-power (natural draught) 3400.
Trial speed (natural draught) 15.7 knots.
Horse-power (forced draught) 5400.
Trial speed (forced draught) 16.5 knots.
Screws Two.
Engines Triple expansion.
Boilers Six cylindrical.[16]
Furnaces 18.
Coal supply 400 tons.
Complement 360.
[16] Now Belleville.
[Illustration: TORPEDO GUNBOAT TSCHICHIMA—LOST BY CAPSIZING IN THE
INLAND SEA.]
For protection there is a steel deck 1½ ins. thick on the slopes. With
this is associated a cellulose belt and coal protection. The total
protection, so far as penetration is concerned, is not, however, more
than equivalent to what a 6-in. belt of old iron armour would afford,
and it would keep out nothing above a 4.7-in. shot, and that only at
long ranges. Over the engine hatches is a patch of thick steel armour.
The heavy gun barbette is a strip of 12-in. Creusot steel, with a 4-in.
steel shield over the breech of the gun. There is an armoured hoist
that affords some support, but, speaking generally, the gun is more or
less at the mercy of shell bursting underneath it.
The Hashidate was built from the same designs at Yokosuka, and is
practically identical with the Itsukushima, save that the battery guns
aft are in small unarmoured sponsons, and obtain thereby a slightly
greater angle of fire. She is further distinguished by a red band; the
Itsukushima, being the first of the class, has, of course, a black band.
Grave doubts were soon entertained as to the seaworthiness of these
two ships, and the Matsushima being a little more behindhand than the
others, her design was altered. She carries the big gun aft, which
makes her a better sea boat. The battery is shifted forward in the
main deck. In place of the single 4.7-in. that her companions carry in
the stern, the raised fok’s’le of the Matsushima contains two of these
pieces, firing through recessed port.
Her small quickfiring armament is also different, there being sixteen
3-pounders.
All three ships have a single tripod mast abaft the funnel, with a
couple of tops on it. Each now carries three signal yards.
The Itsukushima was launched on July 11, 1889, and commissioned in
Japan in 1891. The Matsushima, launched on January 22, 1890, went out
in 1892. The Hashidate was not launched till March 24, 1891, but early
in 1893 she was in commission.
It had been hoped that these ships would attain speeds of 17.5 knots;
none of them, however, ever reached it.
[Illustration: [_Official photo._ HASHIDATE.]
[Illustration: MATSUSHIMA.]