The Ships of Brawling Battleships Steel: Japan Battleship Kawachi

Laid down on April 1, 1909, launched on October 15, 1910 and commissioned on March 31, 1912, Kawachi carried a main armament of twelve 12 inch main guns mounted two per turret; one centerline forward, one centerline aft and one wing turret on each side that could fire forward and to its side and one wing turret on each side that could fire aft and to its side. These main guns were very unusual in that the centerline 12 inch guns were longer (L/50) than the ones in the wing turrets (L/45). Although the different calibers were used for budgetary considerations, this reduced topside weight a bit and helped avoid the common Japanese design problem of top-heaviness. However, as in pre-dreadnoughts, the dual calibers produced serious problems with proper gunnery control as the shells from the different length guns had different trajectories. Prior to this class, Japan had built two pre-dreadnoughts and bought the rest overseas; Japan had been very successful using all these ships during the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–Mikasa, Admiral Heihachiro Togo’s (1847–1934) British-built pre-dreadnought battleship flagship at the Battle of Tsushima in 1904 is still preserved at Yokosaka. The Kawachi was name ship of a two-ship battleship class. The class was propelled by coal-fired turbine engines and they were the first Japanese dreadnoughts. The name "Kawachi" comes from the name of a Japanese province. After an uneventful career, on July 12, 1918, the Kawachi suffered an internal magazine explosion in Tokuyama Bay and was destroyed with the loss of over 500 men. Her sister ship Settsu survived as a radio-controlled target ship until bombed in Kure Harbor in July 1945. Damaged and beached, she was scrapped in 1947.

See other early battleships: Dreadought, South Carolina, Vanguard