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Japanese battleship Satsuma

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Image:IJN Satsuma.jpg Japanese battleship IJN Satsuma

Career

Image:Naval Ensign of Japan.svg

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. The name Satsuma comes from Satsuma Province, now a part of Kagoshima prefecture. She was largest battleship in the world at the time of her launch. She was also the first battleship to be built domestically in Japan, although many parts came from Great Britain. Her sister ship was the battleship Aki.

Following the lessons of the Russo-Japanese War (1904–1905) and the Battle of Tsushima (1905), in which same-caliber big guns turned to be the best solution to hit enemy warships from a distance (thus avoiding the threat of torpedoes, and coordinating fire with identical salvoes), the Satsuma was the first ship to be developed and laid down as an all-big gun battleship. 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").

Just like the 1908 USS South Carolina (BB-26), another all-big-gun ship designed before HMS Dreadnought (but only laid down in December 1906), the Satsuma lacked the other big advance in British ship technology — the move from triple expansion steam engines to steam turbines for propulsion.

The 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.

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