text: The secondary battery was ten /40 caliber guns mounted in casemates, five on each side of the ship. Each is placed to avoid the flash from the main battery. These guns fired  armor-piercing shells at a muzzle velocity of  per second. These also were replaced with 5"/51s during the 1917 refit. Fourteen 6-pounder () antitorpedoboat guns are mounted in sponsons. Six one-pounder guns are mounted on deck, along with six  abovewater torpedo tubes. In 1898 Olympia also boasted two Gatling guns and an arsenal of revolvers and rifles.
  Armor
  Olympias conning tower is armored with  thick steel plates. The ship has a  thick armored deck that slopes on the sides; the slopes increase in thickness to  amidships and  at the ends. A  thick glacis protects the engine rooms. Her main battery turrets are protected by  of Harvey armor, while the barbettes upon which they rest have  nickel-steel armor. The 5-inch guns are protected by  gun shields.
  Service history
  Upon commissioning in February 1895 Olympia departed the Union Iron Works yard in San Francisco and steamed inland to the U.S. Navy's Mare Island Naval Shipyard at Vallejo, where outfitting was completed and Captain John J. Read was placed in command. In April, the ship steamed south to Santa Barbara to participate in a festival. The ship's crew also conducted landing drills in Sausalito and Santa Cruz that month. On April 20, the ship conducted its first gunnery practice, during which one of the ship's gunners, Coxswain John Johnson, was killed in an accident with one of the five-inch guns. The ship's last shakedown cruise took place on July 27. After returning to Mare Island, the ship was assigned to replace  as the flagship of the Asiatic Squadron.