IroncladNut wrote:
Greetings,
I am looking for information on the Japanese predreadnought cruiser Matsushima. I stumbled upon a picture of this ship and as silly as it sounds, think it is the coolest looking ship to ever hit the water

. I have some info on the ship from my 1906 Jane's but I'm really looking for plans.
The ship was French built, but CAA doesn't have the plans online. Taubman has plans for one of her sister ships, but the other two ships of the class are completely reversed, only the Matsushima has a stern mounted 12.6" gun.
Anybody know of maybe a Japanese source for plans?
Thanks in advance.
The 1990 edition of the Journal "Warship" has a nice article on the Matsushima class vessels. I agree that they are an interesting class of warship. You'll find the Warship article to be about the best info in English available on this class. As for plans of Matsushima herself, I don't know. But the Warship article has a nice four view set for the Hashidate. Side and deck views along with two showing all the internal layout.
The ships saw some action at the Battle of the Yalu and Matsushima took two 30.5cm hits from Chen Yuen, one of which did some serious damage.
Bob B.