ARA Nueve de Julio (1892)

Nueve de Julio was a protected cruiser of the Argentine Navy. Nueve de Julio was designed by Philip Watts and was one of a series of fast protected cruisers built by Armstrong (Elswick, England) for export. The ship was a second-class protected cruiser with quick-firing guns, in contrast to Argentina’s previous “Elswick” ship Veinticinco de Mayo which on a similar size hull mounted 8.2in main guns. Nueve de Julio was therefore similar to its predecessor Piemonte built for Italy, the first cruiser with an all-quick firing armament, and the following Elswick cruiser Yoshino built for Japan, which was the fastest ship in the First Sino-Japanese War and performed well in action. Nueve de Julio had a double bottom except in the boiler and engine rooms (where the hull was not deep enough) and the protective deck had a raised glacis over the engines. Originally the torpedo tubes would have been 14 in., the substitution of the larger type delayed construction. Argentina and its rival Chile purchased a series of cruisers in a local naval arms race from the 1890s to 1902, in which Armstrong of Elswick sold ships to both sides, and Brazil too. Fortunately, there was never a conflict (geography would have made it difficult for either side to sustain a naval campaign along the opposing coastline beyond the tip of South America, or for that matter launch a land war across the mountains) and the warships were eventually retired and scrapped (Nueve de Julio in 1930).