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). It was discarded in 1907. Design and construction. 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 "Esmeralda". "Sumatra" had the 8.2-inch gun forward and the 5.9-inch gun aft , both in shields, with sponsons on the sides for the two 4.7-inch guns. The Dutch Navy also built a larger protected cruiser with even heavier armament, launched in 1892, which had an 11-inch gun forward and was most comparable to the Japanese protected cruisers of the type. These ships represented a design philosophy in which navies that could not afford first-class battleships (including the Netherlands) mounted heavy weapons on coastal defense ships or moderately sized protected cruisers with the idea these ships would pose a threat to first-class opponents.