Sunday, September 14, 2008

A spycam view of the Italian cruiser Giuseppe Garibaldi





This is sort of a spycam view of the Italian armoured cruiser Giuseppe Garibaldi, which was well-regarded in its time. A large number of foreign sales were made of ships of this design. Two of the last were the Japanese cruisers Nisshin and Kasuga.

Monday, September 8, 2008

Look in Google Book Search for Brassey's The Naval Annual

At least the 1888 Brassey's Naval Annual can be downloaded from Google Book Search. If you are interested in the old ships from 1660 to 1905, this is a good book. As usual, the book is too hard to find. Google seems to delight in hiding full view books. I had to go deep into the search results to find this volume.

Sunday, September 7, 2008

Chinese coast defense ship Ping-Yuen




The 1894 Naval Annual classes the Chinese ship Ping-Yuen as a coast defense ship. The Ping-Yuen was only 2,850 tons (a nominal figure). The ship was 200ft x 40ft x 16ft in size and had two screws. The maximum speed was only 10.5 knots. The Ping-Yuen did have an 8in belt and 1-10.2in BLR, 2-6in BLR, and 8-QF guns. The Ping-Yuen was built in 1890. This picture shows the ship in Japanese service, after being taken in the Sino-Japanese War.