IJNS Mikasa

[Brian James]

Pre-Dreadnought Battleship IJNS Mikasa pictured in 1902.
She served as the flagship of Admiral Tōgō Heihachirō throughout the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905, including the Battle of Port Arthur on the second day of the war and the Battles of the Yellow Sea and Tsushima.
Built by Vickers at Barrow-in-Furness Shipyards in 1902.
The design of Mikasa was a modified version of the Formidable Class Battleships of the Royal Navy with two additional 6-inch guns.Mikasa had an overall length of 432 feet, a beam of 76 feet, and a normal draught of 27 feet 2 inches. She displaced 15,140 long tons (15,380 t) at normal load.Her crew numbered about 830 officers and enlisted men.
She was powered by two vertical triple-expansion steam engines, each driving one propeller, using steam generated by 25 Belleville boilers. The engines were rated at 15,000 indicated horsepower (11,000 kW), using forced draught, and designed to reach a top speed of 18 knots although Mikasa proved to be faster during her sea trials in December 1901. The ship reached a top speed of 18.45 knots (34.17 using 16,341 indicated horsepower (12,185 kW). She carried a maximum of 2,000 tonnes (2,000 long tons) of coal which allowed her to steam for 9,000 nautical miles;at a speed of 10 knots.
Mikasa's main battery consisted of the same four Elswick Ordnance Company 40-calibre twelve-inch guns used in all of the preceding Japanese Battleships. They were mounted in twin-gun barbettes fore and aft of the superstructure that had armoured hoods to protect the guns and were usually called gun turrets. The hydraulically powered mountings could be loaded at all angles of traverse while the guns were loaded at a fixed angle of +13.5°.They fired 850-pound projectiles at a muzzle velocity of 2,400 ft/s.
Her secondary armament consisted of fourteen 40-calibre 6-inch quick-firing guns mounted in casemates. Ten of these guns were positioned on the main deck and the other four guns were placed above them at the corners of the superstructure. They fired 100-pound shells at a muzzle velocity of 2,300 ft/s Protection against torpedo boat attacks was provided by twenty QF 12-pounder 12 cwt guns.The 12-pounders fired 3-inch, 12.5-pound projectiles at a muzzle velocity of 2,359 ft/s.Lighter guns consisted of eight 47-millimetre (1.9 in) three-pounder Hotchkiss guns and eight 47-millimetre 2.5-pounder Hotchkiss guns.The three-pounder gun fired 3.19-pound projectiles at a muzzle velocity of 1,927 ft/s while the 2.5-pounder fired 2.5-pound shells at a muzzle velocity of 1,420 ft/s.She was also equipped with four submerged 18-inch torpedo tubes, two on each broadside.
Her waterline armour belt of Mikasa consisted of Krupp cemented armour that had a maximum thickness of 9 inches over the middle of the ship. It was only 4 inches thick at the ends of the ship and was surmounted by a six-inch strake of armour that ran between the barbettes.The barbettes were 14 inches thick, but reduced to six inches at the level of the lower deck. The armour of the barbette hoods had a thickness of 8–10 inches The casemates protecting the secondary armament were 2–6 inches thick and the deck armour was 2–3 inches in thickness.The forward conning tower was protected by 14 inches of armour, but the aft conning tower only had four inches of armour.Mikasa, like all the other Japanese Battleships of the time, was fitted with four Barr & Stroud FA3 coincidence rangefinders that had an effective range of 8,300 yds. In addition the ships were also fitted with 24-power magnification telescopic gunsights.

[designeraccd]

Her launch and later..... DFO

[Brian James]

Pre-Dreadnought Battleship IJNS Mikasa seen at Vladivostok in 1908.

[designeraccd]

Here she is in dry dock.......... , and colorized: white hull and gray upper works?? DFO

[Brian James]

Pre-Dreadnought Battleship Mikasa pictured at Sasebo on March 8th 1908.

[Brian James]

Pre-Dreadnought Battleship Mikasa 1904 schematic.