Japanese cruiser Azuma

Azuma at anchor, Portsmouth, 1900
Class overview
Operators	Imperial Japanese Navy
Preceded by	Yakumo
Succeeded by	Kasuga class
History
Name	Azuma
Namesake	Mount Azuma
Ordered	12 October 1897
Builder	Ateliers et Chantiers de la Loire, Saint-Nazaire, France
Laid down	1 February 1898
Launched	24 June 1899
Completed	28 July 1900
Reclassified	As 1st class coast-defense ship, 1 September 1921
Stricken	1941
Fate	Scrapped, 1946
General characteristics
Type	Armored cruiser
Displacement	9,278 t (9,131 long tons)
Length	137.9 m (452 ft 5 in) (o/a)
Beam	17.74 m (58 ft 2 in)
Draft	7.18 m (23 ft 7 in)
Installed power	18,000 ihp (13,000 kW) 24 Belleville boilers
Propulsion	2 Shafts 2 Vertical triple-expansion steam engines
Speed	21 knots (39 km/h; 24 mph)
Range	7,000 nmi (13,000 km; 8,100 mi) at 10 knots (19 km/h; 12 mph)
Complement	670
Armament	2 × twin 20.3 cm/45 Type 41 naval guns 12 × 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: 63 mm (2.5 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: 76 mm (3.0 in)

Azuma (吾妻) (sometimes transliterated (archaically) as Adzuma) was an armored cruiser (Sōkō jun'yōkan) built for the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) in the late 1890s. As Japan lacked the industrial capacity to build such warships itself, the ship was built in France. She participated in most of the naval battles of the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–05 and was lightly damaged during the Battle off Ulsan and the Battle of Tsushima. Azuma began the first of five training cruises in 1912 and saw no combat during World War I. She was never formally reclassified as a training ship although she exclusively served in that role from 1921 until she was disarmed and hulked in 1941. Azuma was badly damaged in an American carrier raid in 1945, and subsequently scrapped in 1946.