Giuseppe Garibaldi-class cruiser

The Giuseppe Garibaldi class were a group of armoured cruisers built in Italy at the end of the nineteenth century. Ten ships were built for both the Regia Marina and for export.

Design and history
The design was a private venture by the Italian firm of Gio. Ansaldo & C., which was hoping to profit from the need for the world's navies to modernize towards heavily armoured steam warships.

Designed by Edoardo Masdea, the Garibaldi-class cruiser was a hybrid between a cruiser and a battleship. With a maximum speed of 20 kn the design was slightly slower than contemporary cruisers, but was both heavily armed and armoured, in a package with very low displacement and moderate dimensions.

The design was so popular that between 1894 and 1902 ten cruisers were purchased by four different countries; the first five by the Italian Navy, four by the Argentine Navy and one by the Spanish Navy. According to Brassey's Naval Annual, Spain was planning to acquire a second "Garibaldi"-class cruiser, to be named Pedro de Aragon. These plans were shelved after the Spanish-American War and the subsequent downsizing of the Spanish Armada.

Two of the Italian ships ordered in 1902 were sold to the Argentine Navy before completion as the Mitre and Roca; they were renamed as the Rivadavia and the Mariano Moreno. The Argentines in turn sold them to the Imperial Japanese Navy before final completion in 1904, and they were renamed the JAPANESE CRUISER Kasuga and JAPANESE CRUISER Nisshin

The class was unusual in that they did not have a uniform main armament. Some had single 10 in guns in gun turrets fore and aft; others (including the Kasuga) had a mixed armament of a single 10 in gun in one turret and another turret with twin 8 in guns. A third variation (including the Nisshin) was a uniform armament of four 8 in guns, twin gun turrets fore and aft. The Cristobal Colon was fitted with defective 10 inch guns which were removed before it was committed to combat. Therefore, it only went to battle with 10 smokeless powder Armstrong six inch guns mounted in the hull (5 on each side).

Ships
All ships were built by Ansaldo in Genoa, except ARA San Martin and ARA Belgrano which were subcontracted to Orlando of Livorno