was the lead ship of her class of two dreadnought battleships built for the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) in the 1910s. Completed in 1912, she often served as a flagship. Her only combat action during World War I was when she bombarded German fortifications in China during the Battle of Tsingtao in 1914. She sank in 1918 after an explosion in her ammunition magazine with the loss of over 600 officers and crewmen. Background The Kawachi class were Japan's first true dreadnoughts. They were ordered on 22 June 1907 under the 1907 Warship Supplement Program after the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905, although their construction was delayed by a severe depression. Their design was based on the semi-dreadnought with a uniform main battery. Design and description Kawachi had an overall length of , a beam of , and a normal draft of . She displaced at normal load and had a metacentric height of . Her crew numbered 999 officers and enlisted men as completed. The Kawachi-class ships were fitted with a pair of license-built Curtis steam turbine sets, each set driving one propeller, using steam from 16 Miyabara water-tube boilers. The turbines were rated at a total of for a design speed of . They carried enough coal and fuel oil to give them a range of at a speed of . The main armament of the Kawachi class consisted of four 50-caliber 12-inch 41st Year Type guns in two twin-gun turrets, one each fore and aft of the superstructure, and eight 45-caliber 12-inch 41st Year Type guns mounted in four twin-gun turrets, two on each side of the superstructure. Their secondary armament comprised ten 45-caliber 41st Year Type guns, mounted in casemates in the sides of the hull. Eight 40-caliber quick-firing (QF) 41st Year Type guns and a dozen 40-caliber QF 12-pounder 41st Year Type guns provided defense against torpedo boats. Four other 12-pounder guns were used as saluting guns. In addition, the battleships were fitted with five submerged torpedo tubes, two on each broadside and one in the stern. The waterline main belt of the Kawachi-class ships had a maximum thickness of 12 inches amidships and tapered to a thickness of at the ends of the ship. Above the belt, a 6-inch strake of armor protected the casemates. The barbettes for the main guns were thick. Eleven-inch armor plates protected the front and sides of the Kawachis' main-gun