French cruiser Milan

Milan was a late-19th-century unprotected cruiser in the French Navy. At the time of her completion, Milan was considered by several publications to be the fastest warship in the world. The warship was the first unprotected cruiser in French naval service, and Milan 's design influenced the construction of later unprotected cruisers.

History


Milan was laid down in Saint-Nazaire in 1882, and was commissioned into the French Navy in 1885 as the nation's first steel cruiser. She was designed to be a fast, well armed ship for her size. At one point, the navy considered using Milan as an unarmed scout on account of her high speed of 18.4 knots, though this idea was never implemented and Milan was armed with 2 four-inch guns, 13 smaller guns, and two torpedo tubes. The ship was also equipped with water-tube boilers which allowed Milan to accelerate and decelerate quickly. The position of the boilers were unusual for the time, they were placed fore and aft in the center of the ship, with a fire room on each side. With coal bunkers designed to feed into the engine room using gravity, the ship's design was intended to reduce the amount of labor needed to move the coal into the boilers. The boilers, developed by Paris company Belleville & Cos., achieved 4,000 horsepower during a six-hour speed test during her sea trials in early 1885. Consequently, The Mechanical Engineer dubbed the ship "the fastest war vessel afloat." These also had the side effect of saving room on the vessel while reducing the heat put off in these spaces.

As constructed, she was 303 ft at the waterline, 32 ft at the beam. She had an average draft of 12 ft, giving her a displacement of 1,560 t. Her hull was constructed of steel and she had twin screws. Her coal bunker had a capacity of 300 t, good for 100 hours at 17.5 knots.

Milan design was noted as being similar to two Japanese unprotected cruisers, Yaeyama (launched 1889) and Miyako (launched 1898).

The ship commenced her sea trials in early 1885 in Brest. She was ultimately stricken from the naval list in 1908.