Japanese cruiser Asama

A colorized photo of Asama at anchor, Plymouth, 1902
History
Empire of Japan
Name:	Asama
Namesake:	Mount Asama
Awarded:	6 July 1897
Builder:	Armstrong Whitworth, United Kingdom
Laid down:	20 October 1896
Launched:	21 March 1898
Completed:	18 March 1899
Decommissioned:	30 November 1945
Reclassified:	As 1st class coast-defense ship, 1 September 1921 As training ship, July 1942
Fate:	Scrapped, 1947
General characteristics
Class and type:	Asama-class armored cruiser
Displacement:	9,710 t (9,560 long tons)
Length:	134.72 m (442 ft 0 in) (o/a)
Beam:	20.48 m (67 ft 2 in)
Draft:	7.43 m (24 ft 5 in)
Installed power:	18,000 ihp (13,000 kW) 12 Cylindrical boilerss
Propulsion:	2 Shafts 2 Vertical triple-expansion steam engines
Speed:	21 knots (39 km/h; 24 mph)
Range:	10,000 nmi (19,000 km; 12,000 mi) at 10 knots (19 km/h; 12 mph)
Complement:	676
Armament:	2 × twin 20.3 cm/45 Type 41 naval guns 14 × single QF 6 inch /40 naval guns 12 × single QF 12 pounder 12 cwt naval guns 8 × single QF 3 pounder Hotchkiss guns 5 × single 457 mm (18.0 in) torpedo tubes
Armor:	Waterline belt: 89–178 mm (3.5–7.0 in) Deck: 51 mm (2.0 in) Gun Turret: 160 mm (6.3 in) Barbette: 152 mm (6.0 in) Casemate: 51–152 mm (2.0–6.0 in) Conning tower: 356 mm (14.0 in) Bulkhead: 127 mm (5.0 in)

Asama (浅間^?) was the lead ship of her class of armored cruisers built for the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) in the late 1890s. As Japan lacked the industrial capacity to build such warships herself, the ship was built in Britain. She served in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–05 during which she participated in the Battle of Chemulpo Bay and the Battle of the Yellow Sea without damage, although her luck did not hold out during the Battle of Tsushima. Early in World War I, Asama unsuccessfully searched for German commerce raiders until she was severely damaged when she ran aground off the Mexican coast in early 1915. Repairs took over two years to complete and she was mainly used as a training ship for the rest of her career. The ship made a total of 12 training cruises before she was crippled after running aground again in 1935. Asama then became a stationary training ship until she was broken up in 1946–47.

The 1896 Naval Expansion Plan was made after the First Sino-Japanese War and included four armored cruisers in addition to four more battleships, all of which had to be ordered from British shipyards as Japan lacked the capability to build them itself. Further consideration of the Russian building program caused the IJN to believe that the battleships ordered under the original plan would not be sufficient to counter the Imperial Russian Navy. Budgetary limitations prevented ordering more battleships and the IJN decided to expand the number of more affordable armored cruisers to be ordered from four to six ships. The revised plan is commonly known as the "Six-Six Fleet". Unlike most of their contemporaries which were designed for commerce raiding or to defend colonies and trade routes, Asama and her half-sisters were intended as fleet scouts and to be employed in the battleline.