Right elevation, deck plan, and hull section as depicted in Brassey's Naval Annual of 1896.
The naval shipyard at Bilbao, Spain, built all three units of the Infanta Maria Teresa class. Originally, the Spanish Navy had planned to build sister ships of the battleshipPelayo, but a crisis with the German Empire in the Caroline Islands in 1885 caused Spain to divert money budgeted for the battleships to the Infanta Maria Teresa class instead.[1] The armored cruisers were considered more desirable than additional battleships at the time because their greater speed and steaming range made them better suited for responses to colonial crises.[1]
Infanta María Teresa and her two sister ships were versions inspired by the British armored cruisers of the Orlando class, with a larger size and more powerful artillery[2] and displacing 5,000 tons, with armor based on the same principle.
The two-funnelled Infanta Maria Teresa class was fast and well-armed, with 11-inch (279 mm) (Hontoria) guns mounted in barbettes on the center line fore and aft and a large secondary battery of 5.5-inch (140 mm) guns. However, their protection was poor. The armor belt was narrow and stretched for only two-thirds of the length of the hulls, the main guns had only lightly armored hoods, the 5.5-inch guns were mounted in the open on the upper deck, and the ships had a high, unprotected freeboard.[3] Their upper decks were planked-over beams without steel plating.[4] The ships also were heavily decorated and furnished with wood, which the Spanish failed to remove before combat and which would feed fires after enemy shell hits.
Ordered in 1889, launched on 8 July 1891, and completed in 1893,[7]Vizcaya was named for a Spanish province. She was visiting New York City at the time of the destruction of armored cruiser USS Maine in February 1898.[8] Ordered across the Atlantic to join Cervera in the Cape Verde Islands, she was sent along with her sisters to the Caribbean as part of Cervera's squadron, blockaded for 37 days in the harbor of Santiago de Cuba, and sunk in the Battle of Santiago de Cuba on 3 July 1898.
Almirante Oquendo
Almirante Oquendo sometime between 1893 and 1898.
Laid down in January 1889, launched in 1891, and completed in 1893,[9]Almirante Oquendo was in Havana, Cuba when war with the United States became likely in the spring of 1898. Ordered across the Atlantic to join Cervera in the Cape Verde Islands,[8] she was sent along with her sisters to the Caribbean as part of Cervera's squadron, blockaded for 37 days in the harbor of Santiago de Cuba, and sunk in the Battle of Santiago de Cuba on 3 July 1898.
^http://www.spanamwar.com/teresa.htm The Spanish–American War Centennial Web Site: Infanta Maria Teresa; and Conway's All The World's Fighting Ships 1860–1905, p. 382
^http://www.spanamwar.com/vizcaya.htm The Spanish–American War Centennial Web Site: Vizcaya; and Conway's All The World's Fighting Ships 1860–1905, p. 382
^The Spanish–American War Centennial Web Site: Almirante OquendoArchived 2013-12-31 at the Wayback Machine; and Conway's All The World's Fighting Ships 1860–1905, p. 382; the former reports the launch date as 10 April 1898, the latter as 4 October 1891, apparently because of transposition of the numerals representing the month and year, making it impossible to identify correct date.
References
Chesneau, Roger, and Eugene M. Kolesnik, Eds. Conway's All The World's Fighting Ships 1860–1905. New York, New York: Mayflower Books Inc., 1979. ISBN0-8317-0302-4.
