Technical Characteristics
Castilla was built at Cadiz, Spain. Her construction as an armored corvette with a central battery ironclad design began in 1869, with plans to give her 890 tons of armor and 500 mm (19.7 inches) of armor at the waterline. In 1870, her design was changed to that of an unprotected cruiser or wooden corvette, and, after political events delayed her construction, she finally was launched in this form in 1881 and completed in 1882. Her original conception as an armored ship and the change to an unarmored one during construction left her with an overly heavy wooden hull that was obsolescent by the time of her launch.
She had two funnels and was rigged as a barque. Her machinery was manufactured at the naval shipyard at Ferrol. The original main battery of Armstrong-built 8-inch (203-mm) guns was obsolescent when she was completed, and were quickly replaced with more modern Krupp-built guns, with the 5.9-inch guns mounted in sponsons. Designed for colonial service, she was never intended to fight the kind of heavily armed, armored, steel-hulled warships she would face in the Battle of Manila Bay.
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