Japanese cruiser Takao (1888)

Takao (高雄) was an unprotected cruiser of the Imperial Japanese Navy. The name Takao comes from the Mount Takao, near Kyoto. Takao was used by the Imperial Japanese Navy primarily as an aviso or dispatch boat, for scouting, reconnaissance and the conveying of important messages.

Background
Takao was designed under the supervision of French military advisor Emile Bertin, and built in Japan by the Yokosuka Naval Arsenal, with many of its components imported from overseas. It was one of the first ships in Bertin’s project to introduce modern naval construction techniques to the Japanese, and a first step in the implementation of his Jeune Ecole naval strategy of using of small, heavily armed and lightly armored ships in naval warfare. Due to its small size Takao is sometimes classified as a corvette or gunboat.

Design
Takao was a steel-ribbed and steel hulled vessel. It retained a full barque rigging with two masts for auxiliary sail propulsion in addition to her steam engine with single smoke stack. Takao was armed with four 152 mm L/35 Krupp guns as its main battery and had one QF 4.7 inch Gun Mk I–IVs gun and one QF 6 pounder Hotchkiss gun as its secondary battery. In addition, she had two 1-in Nordenfelt guns and carried two torpedoes, mounted on the deck.

Service record
Takao was active in the First Sino-Japanese War, protecting troop transports to Korea, and covering the landing of Japanese forces at Port Arthur. It was subsequently involved in patrols of the Yellow Sea and was present at the Battle of Weihaiwei.

Takao was assigned to assist in escorting transports supporting Japanese naval landing forces which occupied the port city of Tianjin in northern China during the Boxer Rebellion, as part of the Japanese contribution to the Eight-Nation Alliance, and subsequently patrolled the coasts off Amoy and Shanghai.

Considered obsolete by the time of the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905, Takao was assigned to rear guard patrols of Chemulpo harbor and Tsushima Strait, but was present with the rest of the Japanese fleet at the final decisive Battle of Tsushima.

The advent of wireless communication made the use of dispatch vessels obsolete, and Takao was removed from the navy list on 1 April 1911 and was sold for scrap on 27 March 1912.