Spanish cruiser Aragon

Aragon was an Aragon-class cruiser unprotected cruiser of the Spanish Navy in the late 19th century.

Technical characteristics
Aragon was built at the naval shipyard at Cartagena, Spain. Her construction as an armored corvette with a central battery ironclad design began on 2 May 1869, with plans to give her 890 tons of armor and 500 mm of armor at the waterline. Political events delayed her construction. In 1870, her design was changed to that of an unprotected cruiser or wooden corvette, and she finally was launched in this form on 31 July 1879 and completed in 1880 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.

Designed for colonial service, she had two funnels and was rigged as a barque. Her machinery was manufactured by the John Penn Company of Greenwich, United Kingdom. The original main battery of Armstrong-built 8 in guns was obsolescent when she was completed, and were quickly replaced with more modern Hontoria-built 6.4 in guns (a heavier main battery than that carried by her two sisters SPANISH CRUISER Castilla and SPANISH CRUISER Navarra), at least four of which were mounted in sponsons.

Operational history
In the 1890s, Aragon was assigned to the Cadiz Naval Group. She went out of service in the mid-1890s and became a floating hulk in 1896. Sources differ on her ultimate fate; either she was sold for scrap in 1900 or stricken c. 1905