CANET 15-CM. (6-IN.) JAPANESE COAST GUN.
4. Armour.
An armour-plate factory has been established at Kobé, but it is not yet in a position to turn out much except gun shields.
A characteristic of the Japanese has been their readiness to adopt new processes.
Thus the Fuji and Yashima were designed for compound armour, but the Harvey process coming in while the ships were building, it was at once adopted in preference to compound. So, too, in later ships the improved Harvey, “Harvey-Nickel,” was at once used, and in the Iwate and Idzumo belts were shortened a little and speed reduced, so that the Krupp process might be employed for the water-line plates.
In the Mikasa great expense was undertaken solely in order to apply Krupp cemented to curved surfaces instead of the non-cemented and less tough Krupp plates usually so employed. There is some doubt whether this experiment was successful; if Krupp cemented plates are “fiddled with” their special virtue departs. It is also stated, however, that the Mikasa’s plates were made on a special process somewhat analogous to the Krupp, but differing from it in certain details, and less liable to injury in bending.
5. Engines and Boilers.
The engines of Japanese warships are, save in the case of a few small vessels, of British manufacture, and the same as those of British ships.