Featured Article Summary #119

The Fuji class was a two-ship group of pre-dreadnought battleships built for the Imperial Japanese Navy in the mid-1890s. Japan built them in the United Kingdom because it lacked the factories and industrial capacity to construct such ships at home, and the design was based on contemporary Royal Navy battleships. Both ships took part in the Russo-Japanese War, including actions around Port Arthur and later battles such as the Yellow Sea and Tsushima. Yashima was damaged by a mine and later capsized while being towed, while Fuji saw relatively light damage at Tsushima. In 1910 Fuji was reclassified as a coast defense ship and then used as a training ship. She was converted into a barracks ship and eventually scrapped in 1948. In the late 1800s, Japan’s navy planned to rely on cheap torpedo boats and commerce raiding, but the arrival of powerful German ironclads in China threatened Japan’s interests in Korea. Japan concluded it needed similarly strong, heavily armoured ships, and ordered two new battleships from the UK because it lacked the technology to build them itself. Raising money for the project was difficult, but Emperor Meiji stepped in to help fund the ships and called for officials to cut their pay, after which the measure passed; construction was later sped up by the First Sino-Japanese War. The Fuji-class battleships were based on Britain’s Royal Sovereign class, but were about 2,000 LT smaller. They were faster and used better Harvey armour, and their guns—though lighter and smaller—were similar to those on later Majestic-class ships, protected by armoured gun turrets. The two ships were almost the same design, with Yashima mainly differing by having less deadwood and a balanced rudder, making it slightly quicker and easier to turn but with a weaker stern that needed extra care in drydock. They measured about 412 ft long with a beam around 73.5 ft and a draught near 26.5 ft, displacing roughly 12,230–12,533 LT. Each ship had a double bottom and 181 watertight compartments, carried about 650 crew, and Yashima additionally served as a flagship with space for an admiral and staff. The Fuji-class battleships were driven by two vertical triple-expansion steam engines, powered by ten boilers, turning two 5.18 m propellers. The engines produced 13,500 ihp and were designed for 18.25 kn, but during sea trials the ships reached about 18.66–19.46 kn, with the engine and boiler spaces separated by watertight bulkheads and centreline funnels. They carried up to 1,620 tons of coal, giving a range of 4,000 nautical miles at 10 kn, and had three electric dynamos generating 32 kW each. The Fuji-class battleships were armed with four hydraulically operated 12-inch Type 41 guns in armoured twin barbettes, two at the front and two at the back. Each gun turret could fire across a 240° arc, and the guns fired 850 lb shells with a range of about 15,000 m. They also carried ten 6-inch quick-firing guns, smaller 47 mm anti–torpedo boat guns, and five 18-inch torpedo tubes. In 1901, the ships replaced 16 of their 47 mm guns with QF 12-pounder 12 cwt guns, increasing the crew from 652 to 741.