RN Screw Sloops

[Brian James]

Satellite Class Composite Screw Sloop HMS Royalist pictured at Queens Wharf, Wellington NZ, c1888.

[Brian James]

Satellite Class Composite Screw Sloop HMS Royalist pictured in the Brisbane River c1888...Her main armament consisted of 8 x 6 inch 81 cwt Mk II guns.

[Brian James]

Lead Ship, Composite Screw Sloop HMS Fantome pictured at Halifax c1873.

[Brian James]

P Class Patrol Boat HMS P.31 pictured on the stocks under construction at John Readhead & Sons, Shipyard at South Shields on the Tyne in 1916...The P class, nominally described as 'Patrol Boats', were in effect a Class of British Coastal Sloops. Twenty-four ships to this design were ordered in May 1915 (numbered P.11 to P.34) and another thirty between February and June 1916 (numbered P.35 to P.64) under the Emergency War Programme for the RN in the First World War, although ten of the latter group were in December 1916 altered on the stocks before launch for use as decoy Q-Ships and were renumbered as PC-Class Sloops. None were named initially, although in 1925 P.38 was given the name Spey. These vessels were designed to replace Destroyers in coastal operations, they had twin screws, a very low freeboard, ram bows of hardened steel, a sharply cutaway funnel and a small turning circle. Clearly seen as the linear descendants of the late 19th century steam Torpedo Boats and Coastal Destroyers, many were fitted with the 14-inch torpedo tubes removed from old Torpedo Boats.

[Brian James]

Bramble Class Composite Screw Gunboat HMS Rattler pictured on launch day at Sir W.G. Armstrong ,Mitchell Co Ltd Shipyards at Elswick, Newcastle-upon-Tyne on August 4th 1886.

[Brian James]

Protected Cruiser USS Philadelphia and Satellite Class Composite Screw Sloop HMS Royalist pictured bombarding Apia during the Second Samoan Civil War, 1899...Bussard Class Unprotected Cruiser SMS Falke is at left...During the conflict, the US and UK supported Malietoa Tanumafili I. Germany backed a second faction led by Mata'afa Iosefo. Tanumafili more or less won with extensive British and American support. However, Samoa was then divided between the US and Germany as American Samoa and Western Samoa.

[Brian James]

Alert Class Sloop HMS Torch pictured off Rawene, NZ during the 'Dog Tax War' in 1898...The Dog Tax War was a confrontation in 1898 between the Crown and a group of Northern Māori, led by Hone Riiwi Toia, opposed to the enforcement of a 'dog tax'. It has been described by some authors as the last gasp of the 19th-century wars between the Māori and Pākehā settlers. It was, however, a bloodless "war", with only a few shots being fired. Hōne Heke Ngāpua, MHR for Northern Māori, was responsible for de-escalating the confrontation. In the 1890s the Hokianga County Council imposed a tax of 2/6d (half a crown) on each dog in the district. Many people, particularly in the South Hokianga, refused to pay—including Hone Riiwi Toia. The gradual encroachment on Māori autonomy, including the introduction of colonial laws instigated an armed protest, the response to which became known as the Dog Tax War.