Lewin of Greenwich Naval History & Forum

Castore Class Gunboat RM Polluce pictured undergoing 16 inch gunnery trials off Pozzuoli, Naples in 1889....They were a Class of two Rendel (Flatiron) Gunboats, designed and built by Sir W G Armstrong Mitchell & Co.'s Elswick Works in the late 1880s to a contract by the Italian War Ministry.Designed by Philip Watts and Herbert Rowell, and constructed in Elswick's Tyneside Shipyards in the UK, the two Gunboats were disassembled and shipped to Italy for reassembly in the Armstrong facility at Pozzuoli, proving to be the only ships constructed there after the Italian government cancelled the shipyard project. It is uncertain whether the vessels were designed as testbeds for heavy guns, or were intended from the outset as operational Gunboats. Polluce was launched in October 1888, and conducted her trials in 1889 at Pozzuoli. She was commissioned into the Italian Navy on July 18th 1891 along with her sister vessel, but retained her heavy 16 inch/32 calibre gun until 1899, when she was rearmed with a single 4.7 inch gun. She saw no action in her time serving the Regia Marina, and in 1911, she was stricken and discarded.