Japanese cruiser Suzuya (1904)

The Suzuya (鈴谷 通報艦) was a protected cruiser in the Imperial Japanese Navy, acquired as a prize of war during the Russo-Japanese War from the Imperial Russian Navy, where it was originally known as the RUSSIAN CRUISER Novik.

Background
The Novik was originally built for the Imperial Russian Navy as the Novik, by Schichau shipyards in Elbing near Danzig, Germany. It performed heroically in various engagements in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905, and was captured by the Japanese Navy after being scuttled at Sakhalin after the Battle of the Yellow Sea.

Service life
The Japanese navy had been impressed with the speed of the Novik, and despite the considerable damage inflicted upon the vessel by its combat with the JAPANESE CRUISER Tsushima and JAPANESE CRUISER Chitose (and the damage created by its own crew in scuttling the vessel), the wreck of the Novik was salvaged and repaired at the Yokosuka Naval Arsenal, and commissioned in the Imperial Japanese Navy as the Suzuya on 20 August 1906. Its new name came from the Suzuya River in Karafuto, near where the Novik was captured.

With its light armaments and armor, the Suzuya was re-classified by the IJN as a tsūhōkan, meaning dispatch boat or aviso. Indeed she served with the IJN primarily for high speed reconnaissance and as a dispatch vessel; however, due to its battle damage and fewer boilers, the repaired vessel could only attain a maximum speed of 19 kn, as opposed to 25 kn in its original configuration. Furthermore, the development of wireless communications quickly made such dispatch vessels obsolete. The Suzuya was re-classified as a 2nd class Coastal Defense Vessel on 28 August 1912, and was declared obsolete and scrapped on 1 April 1913.