armored ship Thursday on Saturday

this week we have the Russian/Japanese armoured cruiser Bayan/Aso. built by the French in la Seyne the Bayan was name ship of a class of ultimately 4 ships. the ship was 449'9" in length and displaced 7,775t. she was powered by two 4cyl. vertical triple expansion steam engines of 16,500hp which drove her at a top speed of 21kts. her main battery was two 8" naval rifles in turrets and eight 6" rifles in casemates. secondary was sixteen 11pdr. and eight 3pdr. rifles plus two 15" torpedo tubes. her main armour belt was of Harveyized steel from 21/2"-71/2" thick with 6" on the turrets and a 11/2" armoured deck. Bayan commissioned into the Imperial Russian Navy in 1903. she was then sent to the Asian Cruiser Squadron in the Far East. she was the most powerful Russian cruiser in the Far East. unfortunately Bayan was sunk at Port Arthur in 1904 during the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-05. after the Russian surrender in 1905 Bayan was raised by the Japanese Navy and repaired after which she was commissioned into the Imperial Japanese Fleet as Aso a 2nd class cruiser. she served on China Patrol and took several lengthy training cruises to Australia and the USA between 1908-11. Aso served in WW1 as protection for merchant shipping. in 1920 she was converted to a minelayer and also did coastal patrol duties as well as transporting troops. she served as a relief vessel in 1923 after the Great Kanto Earthquake. Aso was removed from the active list in 1931 and sunk as a target vessel in 1932. she served much longer than her 3 remaining sisters in the Russian Navy one of which the Pallada was sunk in WW1. the other two ships the Admiral Makarov and the Bayan II after valiant service in WW1 were scrapped around 1922. our first picture is of Bayan shortly after commissioning in the Imperial Russian Navy. second we see Bayan working up to high speed with much smoke involved. coal fired ships put out huge volumes of smoke under such circumstances. in the third picture we see Bayan taking a direct hit from a Japanese Army 11" gun overlooking Port Arthur. it took several of these to sink her. fourth is IJN Aso after commissioning in the Imperial Japanese Navy. and last we have Aso after conversion to a minelayer. notice the forward 8" rifle has now been replaced by a 6" gun behind an armoured shield instead of a turret. the same was done to the other 8"gun mount aft.