Chinese turret ship Dingyuan
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- For the Chinese Three Kingdoms warlord and bureaucrat, see Ding Yuan.
The Dingyuan (Traditional Chinese: 定遠; Simplified Chinese: 定远; pinyin: Dìngyǔan) was a Chinese battleship and the flagship of the Imperial Beiyang Fleet; her name was traditionally spelled Ting Yuen or Ting Yuan in older books. Her sister ship was the Zhenyuan.
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[edit] Design
The Dingyuan was an "armoured turret ship" design. It was recognized as one of the most advanced battleship of its time, as good as or better than any ship in the fleets of Great Britain and Germany when she was built. It measured 94.5 metres long (298ft, 5in) and 18.4 metres wide (60ft, 4in) and drew 5.94 metres (19 ft, 6 in) of water. It was protected by an armoured belt 30-centimetre (1ft) thick. Experts say the ship was resistant to any firepower available at the time.
The ship, 7670 tons when loaded, had 6,000 horsepower and a speed of 14.5 nautical miles per hour, and a range of around 4,500 nautical miles at 10 knots.
[edit] Armament
The main armament was four 305-mm calibre Krupp cannons in two barbettes one to the port and one to the starboard forward of amidships. These guns had a range of 7.8 kilometres, firing with a muzzle velocity of 500 metres per second. Another two 150-mm calibre Krupp cannons were installed in turrets at the exterme bow and stern. These had a range of 11,000 metres. The armament also included 6 37-mm guns and three above waterline torpedo tubes. The complete crew was around 363 officers and men.
Two torpedo boats were also carried on board, enlarging the Dingyuan's striking distance and battle effectiveness. To meet the demands on ship, 20 desalinators were installed which could serve 300 people fresh water daily.
[edit] History
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After negotiations with both British and German governments, the Qing Dynasty in 1881 handed the contract to build the advanced warship to Germany's Stettiner Maschinenbau AG Vulcan shipyard, at a cost of 1.7 million taels of silver (6.2 million German Goldmark). The hull was laid down on 31 March, 1881 and she was launched on 28 December, 1881 and sea trials commenced on 2 May 1883.
The delivery of the Dingyuan, sailed by a German crew, started in 1884, but was stopped following a request from the French who were in the middle of a conflict with China which culminated with the Sino-French War (1884-1885). The Dingyuan was a very powerful ship and vastly superior to any of the French ships of the French China Squadron, and should have been able to participate advantageously to the conflict, especially the Battle of Foochow [1].
In 1885 the Dingyuan was finally sailed to China, arriving the following year. Also in 1885, the Beiyang Fleet was founded in Weihai, and based at Liugongdao Island, marking the establishment of Qing Dynasty's first modern fleet.
By the middle of the 1890s, the waning Qing Dynasty lost its desire to keep ahead in the naval race, in contrast to the strengthening Japanese navy. Because of internal corruption, lack of funding and incompetence, by the time of the First Sino-Japanese War the Imperial Japanese Navy was able to outmaneuver the Beiyang Navy. Dingyuan served as Admiral Ding Ruchang's flagship at the Battle of the Yalu River on September 17, 1894. On February 5, 1895, the Dingyuan was seriously damaged after being hit by a Japanese torpedo and later cannon fire. Captain Liu Buchan ordered the ship scuttled.
[edit] Reconstruction
To commemorate this period of history, the Weihai Port Bureau and local Weigao Group invested 50 million yuan (US$6 million) to construct a replica Dingyuan. The replica's construction began on a scale of 1:1 on December 20, 2003. The duplicate Dingyuan is now a floating museum. Inside are records of Dingyuan, the Beiyang Fleet, the First Sino-Japanese War and life-at-sea exhibits.
[edit] See also
[edit] Notes
[edit] External links
[edit] References
- Wright, Richard N. J., The Chinese Steam Navy 1862-1945, Chatham Publishing, London, 2000, ISBN 1-86176-144-9
- Chesneau, Roger and Eugene M. Kolesnik (editors), All The World's Fighting Ships 1860-1905, Conway Maritime Press, 1979 reprinted 2002, ISBN 0-85177-133-5
