page_title: Japanese battleship Haruna
section_title: Design and construction
hierarchical_section_title: Japanese battleship Haruna / Design and construction
caption_attribution_description: 日本語: 1913年（大正2年）12月14日、戦艦榛名進水式
context_page_description: Haruna was a warship of the Imperial Japanese Navy during World War I and World War II. Designed by the British naval engineer George Thurston and named after Mount Haruna, she was the fourth and last battlecruiser of the Kongō class, amongst the most heavily armed ships in any navy when built. Laid down in 1912 at the Kawasaki Shipyards in Kobe, Haruna was formally commissioned in 1915 on the same day as her sister ship, Kirishima. Haruna patrolled off the Chinese coast during World War I. During gunnery drills in 1920, an explosion destroyed one of her guns, damaged the gun turret, and killed seven men.
  During her career, Haruna underwent two major reconstructions. Beginning in 1926, the Imperial Japanese Navy rebuilt her as a battleship, strengthening her armor and improving her speed and power capabilities. In 1933, her superstructure was completely rebuilt, her speed was increased, and she was equipped with launch catapults for floatplanes. Now fast enough to accompany Japan's growing carrier fleet, Haruna was reclassified as a fast battleship.
context_section_description: Haruna was the fourth and last of the Imperial Japanese Navy's Kongō-class battlecruisers, a line of capital ships designed by the British naval engineer George Thurston. The class was ordered in 1910 in the Japanese Emergency Naval Expansion Bill after the commissioning of HMS Invincible in 1908. The four battlecruisers of the Kongo-class were designed to match the naval capabilities of the other major powers at the time; they have been called the battlecruiser versions of the British (formerly Turkish) battleship HMS Erin. Their heavy armament and armor protection (which contributed 23.3 percent of their displacement) were greatly superior to those of any other Japanese capital ship afloat at the time.
  The keel of Haruna was laid down at Kobe by Kawasaki on 16 March 1912, with most of the parts used in her construction manufactured in Japan. Due to a shortage of available slipways, Haruna and her sister ship Kirishima were the first two capital ships of the Imperial Japanese Navy to be built in private shipyards. Launched on 14 December 1913, Haruna's fitting-out began in early 1914. She was completed on 19 April 1915.
caption: Launch of Haruna, December 14, 1913
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