One of the most curious facts from the history of shipbuilding the United States of America is that their first armored cruiser in essence was neither domestic development or cruiser Sensitive the growth of major Latin American fleets, especially Brazilian, in the late 80-ies of the XIX century led to the rather bizarre situation the Most strong economically country in the world inferior (albeit formally) for naval power very backward and sparsely populated neighbors (even distant) Position of the American politicians seemed completely intolerant and in August, 1886 act of Congress approved the construction of two well-armoured and heavily armed warships One of them was an ordinary battleship “Texas” and the second is classified as armored cruiser “Maine”, the designation of ACR1 is (1 Armoured cruiser — armored cruiser No. 1) actually, it was a slightly modified Brazilian “Riachuelo”, built in England and was considered a good version of “battleship for the poor” (an Appropriate choice for one of the two richest countries in the world) A thick 12-inch armor belt of geroevskoe steel and 17-node speed 6680-ton ship is clearly testified to his “linear” mission Four desyatidyuymovy located in two diagonally decently armored 203 mm slabs of the towers resembled “big brother” But an auxiliary gauge has been very modest six 152/30 mm guns, but a half dozen small-caliber skorostrel.