Japanese battleship Satsuma

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Japanese battleship IJN Satsuma

Career

Designed:

1904 Fiscal Year

Laid down:

15 May 1905

Launched:

15 November 1906

Completed:

25 March 1910

Fate:

Sunk as target, 7 September 1924

General Characteristics

Displacement:

19,372 tons (standard),
19,700 (fully loaded)

Length:

146.91 meters (overall)

Beam:

25.4 meters

Draught:

8.38 meters

Propulsion:

Triple VTE expansion engines; 20 Miyabara boilers; 17,300 HP

Speed:

18.25 knots (33.8 km/h)

Fuel:

2860 tons coal; 377 tons oil

Complement:

887

Armament:

• 4 × 305 mm guns
• 12 × 254 mm guns
• 12 × 120 mm guns
• 8 × 80 mm guns
• 5 × 450 mm torpedo tubes

Armor:

• belt:	100–230 mm
• barbette:	180–240 mm
• turret:	180–200 mm
• conning tower:	150 mm
• deck:	50 mm

Satsuma (薩摩, Satsuma^?) was a dreadnought type battleship of the Imperial Japanese Navy , designed and built in Japan by the Yokosuka Naval Yards. She was the first ship in the world to be designed and laid down as an all-big-gun battleship, although gun shortages caused HMS Dreadnought to be the first one to be completed. She was also the largest battleship in the world at the time of her launch. She was also the first battleship to be built in Japan, although many parts were sourced from Great Britain including, crucially, her main armament, which was to have been made on Tyneside by Armstrong. She was manufactured in the Kure (Hiroshima) arsenal, Japan. The name Satsuma comes from Satsuma Province, now a part of Kagoshima prefecture. Her sister ship was the battleship Aki.

The Russo-Japanese War (1904–1905) and the Battle of Tsushima (1905) showed that uniform-caliber big guns were the best way to hit enemy warships at a distance large enough to avoid the threat of torpedoes, and to coordinate fire with identical salvoes. However, the first all-big-gun ship to be completed was the British HMS Dreadnought:

“

"Laid down before Dreadnought and intended to carry 12-inch [305 mm] guns, she should have been completed as the world's first all-big-gun battleship. However there were not enough Armstrong 1904 pattern 12-inch guns available, and 10-inch [254 mm] guns had to be substituted for all but four of the weapons. Thus, it was that future all-big gun battleships were to be called "dreadnoughts", and not "satsumas"." (Jane's "Battleships of the 20th century").

”

Both Satsuma and the all-big-gun 1908 USS South Carolina (BB-26), also designed before HMS Dreadnought, lacked the other big advance in British ship technology — the move from triple expansion steam engines to steam turbines for propulsion.

Satsuma participated in World War I, patrolling the sea lanes south of Japan, in the South China Sea and the Yellow Sea, and assisting in the occupation of the former German Caroline Islands, and in the Battle of Tsingtao.

Satsuma was scrapped to comply with the provisions of the 1922 Washington Treaty, and was used as a target, being sunk by gunfire 30 nautical miles (55 km) northeast of Miyakejima from the Kongō and Hyūga on 7 September 1924.