The cruiser Olympia

I have been looking for a photograph of the cruiser Olympia with gray paint over the prewar livery and decorations for the war in 1898. This picture seems to be the only thing that is readily available. The evidence for the picture being from 1898 is that the picture I have from 1899 shows the same tops, yards, masts, searchlights, and gun sponsons as the picture in gray paint. The Americans had hastily put a coat of gray paint on their ships before attacking the Spanish fleet in Manilla Bay.

The battleship Maine: the real proportions

I have seen many drawings of the battleship Maine, destroyed in 1898. They generally seem to be based on guesswork or else on extrapolations from photographs that show a perspective view. If you pop the large image, you should be able to scale off the exact proportions from this long-range photograph.

Phillip Watts' fast cruiser Piemonte

The Piemonte, designed by Phillip Watts, was a very early attempt at a very fast cruiser. Considering the date, 1888, he succeeded quite well, just by achieving a 21 knot speed. The Brassey's nominal data gave a displacement of 2500 tons, dimensions of 300ft x 38ft x 15ft. 12,000 IHP produced the required speed. The armament was fairly substantial: 6-6in QF, 6-4.7in QF, 10-57mm (6pdr) QF guns. There were apparently 3 torpedo launching devices.

Purchased steamers as warships

The Spanish-American War in 1898 was right at the edge where merchant steamers might be purchased for service as cruisers. One of the last examples where this occurred was the American cruiser Topeka.

The Topeka had been launched by Howaldt at Kiel in 1881. The ship had been built for Peru as the Diogenes, so perhaps the intent was to be a cruiser from the beginning. Peru did not take delivery and the Thames Iron Works acquired her. She sat idle until the Sino-Japanese War when the Japanese almost bought her. The deal did not go through, so she sat longer until the Americans bouth her for service in the war with Spain. Her original commander, Lieutenant Knapp, described her as a good seaboat. He felt very uncomfortable, though, in the newly purchased ship, as she was unarmed. The sponsons were plated in, probably as a preservation measure when the ship sat, laid up. She looked very much the "tramp steamer", as the New York Times reporter characterized her. She was very sad-looking and needed attention, including a new paint job.

The original American armament consisted of 8-4in/40, 2-57mm (6pdr), 4-47mm (3pdr), and 2-1pdr guns. The dimensions were something like 250ft x 35ft x 17ft-9in, so the ship was very cruiser-like in appearance, size, and armament. The ship was unarmoured, however. The maximum speed was 16 knots, but that was fairly compatible with the older and smaller American cruisers and gunboats. The nominal displacement was 2,372 tons.

The Topeka was only finally sold for scrap in 1930, after being periodically commissioned and decommissioned. Her latter career had been spent mostly as a training ship.

The Italian ram Affondatore (1665)

The Italian ram Affondatore fought in the Battle of Lissa in 1866. The Affondatore was an iron ram that could make only 12 knots. The belt and turret were armoured with only 5in of iron. The ship was eventually modernized, which is what the picture we have here depicts. The nominal dimensions were 290ft x 40ft x 20ft. The ship was armed with 2-28ton Armstrong rifles, 6-12in QF, 4-6pdr QF, and 4-3pdr QF guns by 1894.

The Japanese cruiser Yoshino

When she was launched in 1892, the Japanese cruiser Yoshino was on the cutting edge of warship design. the Yoshino was a 23 knot ship with a protected deck and quick-firing guns. She had 4-6in and 8-4.7in QF guns, along with 22-3pdr (47mm) QF guns of doubtful utility. The Yoshino nominally displaced 4150 tons and carried up to 1000 tons of coal. She was built by Armstrongs at the Elswick yard. She was built along the same lines as Philip Watt's latest designs. The Yoshino showed the superiority of the new type in the Sino-Japanese war, where belted cruisers with a few big guns were beaten decisively by the Japanese ships armed with numerous, but smaller, quick-firing guns.

The French ironclad battleship La Gloire

I was impressed that there was a photograph, apparently, of the French ironclad battleship La Gloire. As probably well know, La Gloire was the first ocean-going ironclad and was converted from a wooden screw ship of the line.