Japanese battleship Suwo

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Career

Builder:	Baltic Works Saint Petersburg, Russia
Laid down:	August 1 1898
Launched:	May 24 1900
Commissioned:	July 31 1902 (Russia): October 1908 (Japan)
Fate:	Scrapped 1946
Struck:	1922
General Characteristics
Displacement:	13,500 tons
Length:	424 feet
Beam:	71.5 feet
Draught:	27.3 feet
Propulsion:	Three Shaft Reciprocating Vertical Triple Expansion (VTE) Engines; 30 Miyabara boilers, 14,500 shp
Range:	6000 nautical miles @ 10 knots
Speed:	16 knots
Complement:	732
Armament:	4 × 10 inch guns 10 × 6 inch guns 16 × 12 pdr guns 21 × 3 pdr guns 8 × 1.5 pdr guns 2 × torpedo tubes
Armor:	belt: 9 inch deck: 2.75 inch barbette: unknown casement: unknown conning tower: 10 inch

IJN Suwo (周防) was one of eight Russian pre-dreadnought battleships captured by the Imperial Japanese Navy during the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905. It was built as the Peresviet class battleship Pobieda, and was commissioned into the Imperial Russian Navy in 1903. It was one of Russia's first ships to mount quick-firing guns. It had a high forecastle and secondary guns mounted on two decks, and armor that stretched the entire length of the hull. It was designed with heavy main armament and high speed, but proved unsatisfactory in service.

The Pobieda was damaged first by gunfire off Port Arthur, then by a mine. She took 11 hits at the Battle of the Yellow Sea, and while back at Port Arthur for repairs she was repeatedly hit by Japanese shore batteries. On December 7, 1904, Japanese siege guns finally sank the vessel. Salvaged after the war in October 1905, she was refloated, repaired, and taken into service as the Suwo, taking her name from Suo Province, now part of Yamaguchi prefecture.

After reconstruction at Yokosuka with Japanese boilers and guns, the Suwo was re-designated as a 1stclass coast defense vessel in October 1908. She served in this role for many years, and received a refit in 1912. In WWI , during the Battle of Tsingtao from August 27, 1914, the Imperial Japanese Navy sent a squadron of ships under Vice-Admiral Sadakichi Kato, flying his flag in the Suwo, to blockade the coast of German-controlled Kiaochow. The British Royal Navy attached the China Station's pre-dreadnought HMS Triumph and the destroyer HMS Usk to the Japanese squadron, which consisted of mostly obsolete warships, and included the seaplane carrier Wakamiya, dreadnoughts Kawachi and Settsu, and the battlecruiser Kongō for this operation.

After the war, the Suwo was assigned to training for cadets and engineers. She became a gunnery training ship in 1917. In 1922, the Suwo was disarmed at Kure. During this process, on July 13, the old vessel capsized. The hull was righted and the turrets, machinery, and main armor removed, but oddly work stopped there. The hulk was towed to Mitsugojima, were it remained throughout the Pacific War as a storage hulk. In 1946, the hulk was towed back to Kure and broken up for scrap.