Nisshin (日進), also transliterated as Nissin, was a Kasuga-class armored cruiser of the Imperial Japanese Navy, built in the first decade of the 20th century by Gio.

The ship played a limited role in World War I and was used to escort Allied convoys and search for German commerce raiders in the Indian Ocean and Australasia.

In 1918, Nisshin was deployed to the Mediterranean and then escorted the surrendered German submarines allocated to Japan from Britain after the war.

The first ship had been completed in 1895 and the class had enjoyed considerable export success, with the base design being gradually improved over the years.

The Japanese government quickly stepped in and purchased them due to increasing tensions with Russia despite the high price of ¥14,937,390 (£1,530,000) for the two sisters.

[4] Her main armament consisted of four 8 in (203 mm) Type 41 guns, in twin-gun turrets fore and aft of the superstructure.

[6] The ship's keel was laid down on 29 March 1902 with the temporary name of San Roca and she was launched on 9 February 1903 and renamed Mariano Moreno by the Argentinians.

[8] Nisshin and Kasuga reached Yokosuka on 16 February just as Japan initiated hostilities with its surprise attack on Port Arthur, and began working up with Japanese crews.

The sisters were assigned to reinforce the battleships of the 1st Division of the 1st Fleet under the overall command of Admiral Tōgō Heihachirō on 11 April.

In an effort to block the Russian ships in Port Arthur, Togo ordered a minefield laid at the mouth of the harbor on 12 April and Kasuga and Nisshin were tasked to show themselves "as a demonstration of our power".

[9] Tōgō successfully lured out a portion of the Russian Pacific Squadron, including Vice Admiral Stepan Makarov's flagship, the battleship Petropavlovsk.

[10] Emboldened by his success, Tōgō resumed long-range bombardment missions, making use of the long-range capabilities of Nisshin and Kasuga's guns to blindly bombard Port Arthur on 15 April from Pigeon Bay, on the southwest side of the Liaodong Peninsula, at a range of 9.5 kilometers (5.9 mi).

[17] They participated in the Battle of the Yellow Sea on 10 August, but only played a minor role as they were generally in the rear of the Japanese battleline.

At about 14:10, Nisshin opened fire on the Oslyabya, the lead ship in the second column of the Russian fleet at a range of 7,000 yards (6,400 m).

Between 14:57 and 15:05, the Japanese fleet reversed course to block the Russian northward movement, which put Nisshin as the first ship in the battle line.

In return she received the second largest number of hits after Tōgō's flagship, the battleship Mikasa, which was struck over 40 times.

[22] During the battle, the newly commissioned Ensign Isoroku Takano, later Commander-in-Chief of the Combined Fleet in World War II, was badly wounded and lost two fingers on his left hand.

[30] After the incursion of the German commerce raider SMS Wolf into the Indian Ocean in March 1917, the Admiralty requested that the Japanese government reinforce its ships already present, there and in Australian waters.

6, she was sunk as a target ship during live-fire exercises at the Kamegakubi Naval Proving Ground off Kure in the Inland Sea in 1936.