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was the second and last armored cruiser built for the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) in the late 1890s. As Japan lacked the industrial capacity to build such warships herself, the ship was built in Britain. She played minor roles in the Boxer Rebellion of 1900 and World War I, but was very active during the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–05 where she participated in the Battle of Port Arthur, the Battle off Ulsan, and the Battle of Tsushima. After the war she was sometimes used as a training ship for naval cadets. ''Tokiwa'' was converted into a minelayer in 1922–24. She was placed in reserve in 1927 after she was damaged by an accidental explosion of several mines. The ship was deployed to Northern China in 1932–33 after the Japanese invasion of Manchuria. After her refit in 1937, ''Tokiwa'' returned to active duty and was assigned to the 4th Fleet in 1939. During the Pacific War, she participated in the occupation of the Gilbert Islands and Rabaul and Kavieng in New Guinea. Damaged by American aircraft shortly afterwards, the ship was forced to return to Japan for repairs. ''Tokiwa'' laid minefields during 1944–45 until she was twice damaged by American mines in 1945. After repairs were completed, the ship was badly damaged by American aircraft and her crew was forced to beach her lest she sink shortly before the end of the war. ''Tokiwa'' was salvaged in 1947 and subsequently broken up for scrap. == Background and description== The 1896 Naval Expansion Plan was made after the First Sino-Japanese War and included four armored cruisers in addition to four more battleships, all of which had to be ordered from British shipyards as Japan lacked the capability to build them itself. Further consideration of the Russian building program caused the IJN to believe that the battleships ordered under the original plan would not be sufficient to counter the Imperial Russian Navy. Budgetary limitations prevented ordering more battleships and the IJN decided to expand the number of more affordable armored cruisers to be ordered from four to six ships. The revised plan is commonly known as the "Six-Six Fleet".〔Evans & Peattie, pp. 57–62〕 Unlike most of their contemporaries which were designed for commerce raiding or to defend colonies and trade routes, ''Tokiwa'' and her half-sisters were intended as fleet scouts and to be employed in the battleline.〔Milanovich, p. 72〕 The ship was long overall and between perpendiculars. She had a beam of and had an average draft of . ''Tokiwa'' displaced at normal load and at deep load. The ship had a metacentric height of .〔Milanovich, pp. 74, 80〕 Her crew consisted of 676 officers and enlisted men.〔Jentschura, Jung & Mickel, p. 72〕 ''Tokiwa'' had two 4-cylinder triple-expansion steam engines, each driving a single propeller shaft.〔Milanovich, p. 81〕 Steam for the engines was provided by a dozen cylindrical boilers and the engines were rated at a total of . The ship had a designed speed of and reached during her sea trials from . She carried up to of coal〔Brook 1999, p. 109〕 and could steam for at a speed of .〔 The main armament for all of the "Six-Six Fleet" armored cruisers was four eight-inch guns in twin-gun turrets fore and aft of the superstructure. The secondary armament consisted of 14 Elswick Ordnance Company "Pattern Z" quick-firing (QF), guns. Only four of these guns were not mounted in armored casemates on the main and upper decks and their mounts on the upper deck were protected by gun shields. ''Tokiwa'' was also equipped with a dozen QF 12-pounder 12-cwt guns〔"Cwt" is the abbreviation for hundredweight, 12 cwt referring to the weight of the gun.〕 and eight QF 2.5-pounder Yamauchi guns as close-range defense against torpedo boats. The ship was equipped with five torpedo tubes, one above water in the bow and four submerged tubes, two on each broadside.〔Milanovich, p. 78〕 All of the "Six-Six Fleet" armored cruisers used the same armor scheme with some minor differences, of which the most important was that the two ''Asama''-class ships used less tough Harvey armor. The waterline belt ran the full length of the ship and its thickness varied from amidships to at the bow and stern. It had a height of , of which was normally underwater. The upper strake of belt armor was thick and extended from the upper edge of the waterline belt to the main deck. It extended from the forward to the rear barbette. The ''Asama'' class had oblique 127 mm armored bulkheads that closed off the ends of the central armored citadel.〔Milanovich, pp. 80–81〕 The barbettes, gun turrets and the front of the casemates were all 152 millimeters thick while the sides and rear of the casemates were protected by of armor. The deck was also 51 millimeters thick and the armor protecting the conning tower was in thickness.〔Chesneau & Kolesnik, p. 224〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Japanese cruiser Tokiwa」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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