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) (o/a)
Beam	20.48 m (67 ft 2 in)
Draft	7.43 m (24 ft 5 in)
Installed power	12 cylindrical boilers 18,000 ihp (13,000 kW)
Propulsion	2 shafts; 2 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 × 457 mm (18 in) torpedo tubes
Armor	Waterline belt: 89–178 mm (3.5–7.0 in) Deck: 51 mm (2 in) Gun Turret: 160 mm (6.3 in) Barbette: 152 mm (6 in) Casemate: 51–152 mm (2–6 in) Conning tower: 356 mm (14 in) Bulkhead: 127 mm (5 in)

Asama (淺間) was the lead ship of her class of armored cruisers (Sōkō jun'yōkan) 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 1946–1947.