HNLMS Sumatra (1890)

The Dutch cruiser HNLMS Sumatra was a small protected cruiser with a heavy main gun. The ship was named after the island of Sumatra in the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia). The design resembled a smaller version of the Esmeralda concept (the 1883 protected cruiser built by Armstrong/Elswick shipyards for Chile) and is most similar in size to the Chinese protected cruiser Chi Yuan (1883) a ship built at about the same time as the Esmeralda. The Sumatra had the 8.2in. gun forward and the 5.9 in. gun aft, both in shields, with sponsons on the sides for the two 4.7in. guns. The Dutch Navy also built a larger protected cruiser with even heavier armament, the Koningen Wilhelmina der Nederlanden launched in 1892, which had an 11-in. gun forward and was most comparable to the Japanese protected cruisers of the Matsushima type. These ships represented a design philosophy in which navies that could not afford first class battleships (including the Netherlands) mounted heavy weapons on coast defense ships or moderately-sized protected cruisers with the idea these ships would pose a threat to first-class opponents.