RN Ironclads

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Brian James
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Re: RN Ironclads:

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Ironclad Turret Ship HMS Dreadnought pictured in 1885.
Construction was halted less than a year after it began at Royal Pembroke Dockyard in 1870 and she was redesigned to improve her stability and buoyancy. Upon completion in 1879, the ship was placed in reserve until she was commissioned in 1884 for service with the Mediterranean Fleet. Upon her return 10 years later, she became a Coast Guard Ship in Ireland for two years. She then became a Depot Ship in 1897 before she was reclassified as a Cecond-class Battleship in 1900. Dreadnought participated in the annual fleet manoeuvres for the next two years before she became a Training Ship in 1902. She was taken out of service three years later and sold for scrap in 1908.
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Brian James
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Re: RN Ironclads:

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The one of Class,Ironclad Battleship HMS Temeraire pictured with one of her four 25 ton,11 inch muzzle loading central mount 'disappearing' guns.Built at Chatham Dockyard in 1877,she was unique in that she carried her main armament partly in the traditional broadside battery, and partly in barbettes on the upper deck.
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Brian James
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Re: RN Ironclads:

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Admiral-Class Ironclad Battleships pictured underway c1899. The lead ship, Collingwood, mounted 12" guns, while the rest (Anson, Howe, Camperdown, Rodney) mounted 13.5" guns - except for HMS Benbow, with a pair of 16.25" guns.
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Brian James
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Re: RN Ironclads:

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Colossus Class Ironclad Battleship HMS Edinburgh pictured c1889.Built At Pembroke Dockyard in 1887 she was the first Battleship since HMS Warrior (1860) to carry breech loading main armament,(4 x BL 12 inch Mk IV guns mounted en echelon).
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designeraccd
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Re: RN Ironclads:

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Views of the CAMPERDOWN, including her bow after the infamous collision......... :)

specs (WIKI):

Class and type: Admiral-class battleship
Displacement: 10,600 long tons (10,800 t)
Length: 330 ft (100 m)
Beam: 68 ft 6 in (20.88 m)
Draught: 27 ft 3 in (8.31 m) maximum
Installed power:
7,500 ihp (5,600 kW) (normal)
11,500 ihp (8,600 kW) (forced draught)
Propulsion:
2 × Maudslay compound inverted steam engines
2 × screws
Speed: 17.1 kn (19.7 mph; 31.7 km/h) (forced draught)
Complement: 530
Armament:
4 × BL 13.5-inch (343 mm) guns
4 × BL 6-inch (152 mm) guns
12 × QF 6-pounder (57 mm) Nordenfelt guns
10 × 3-pounder quick-firing guns
5 × 14 inch above-water torpedo tubes
Armour:
Belt: 18 in (46 cm) (upper strake); 8 in (20 cm) (lower strake)
Bulkheads: 7–16 in (178–406 mm)
Barbettes: 10–11.5 in (25–29 cm)
Conning tower: 2–12 in (5.1–30.5 cm)
Battery Screens: 6 in (15 cm)
Deck: 2.5–3 in (6.4–7.6 cm) (upper); 2.5 in (6.4 cm) (lower)

DFO
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Brian James
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Re: RN Ironclads:

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Belleisle Class Ironclad HMS Orion pictured in the Graving Dock at Tanjong Pagar Dockyard,Singapore in 1890.She was designed by the Ottoman naval architect Ahmed Pasha and built by Samuda Bros Shipbuilding Yards at Cubitt Town, London in 1882 under contract for the Ottoman Empire. However, in 1878 she was purchased by the British Government whilst still under construction, in a reaction to the war between the Ottoman Empire and Russia. Her sister,HMS Belleisle, which was purchased at the same time in an essentially complete state, was modified so as to fit in, as far as possible, with contemporary design in the RN. Orion, being less advanced in construction at the time of her purchase, was ultimately completed along the same lines.
Her original design called for four 10-inch muzzle loading rifles in a centrally located box battery, but this plan was upgraded to four 12-inch 25 ton muzzle loading guns during her building. She, and Belleisle were the only British ships ever to mount 12-inch calibre artillery deployed to fire only on the broadside.She was sold for scrap in 1913.
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Brian James
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Re: RN Ironclads:

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A closeup of Lead Ship, Pre-Dreadnought Ironclad Battleship HMS Collingwood's BL 12 inch MK II Y turret guns c 1888.
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Brian James
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Re: RN Ironclads:

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Admiral Class Pre-Dreadnought Battleship HMS Benbow pictured c 1889...Benbow was laid down at Thames Iron Work's Blackwall Shipyard on November 1st 1882. She was launched by Catherine Gladstone, wife of former Prime Minister William Gladstone, on June 15th 1885 and was completed in June 1888....With the exception of her armament she was a repeat of HMS Anson and HMS Camperdown. The contract for her construction was awarded to Thames Ironworks, and stipulated delivery within three years. At the time of her construction and indeed for many years afterwards, the limiting factor in Battleship construction was the great length of time taken to manufacture heavy artillery, and it was recognised that the gun of 13.5 inch calibre, scheduled to be installed in the other ships of the Class, was and would remain in short supply. The Shipyard was therefore faced with the choice of either reverting to armament of 12 inches calibre, which was available but which was seen as inferior to guns mounted in contemporary foreign ships, or mounting the new Elswick BL 16.25-inch gun...Although contemporary guns of 12 inches calibre were perfectly able to destroy any ship afloat, the larger guns were chosen, and mounted singly in barbettes positioned at either end of the superstructure. With the exception of the 18 inch armament mounted in HMS Furious and in some Monitors, these were the largest calibre guns ever mounted in a ship of the Royal Navy. One of these pieces nevertheless weighed less than a pair of 13.5 inch guns, and the weight saved was used to increase the number of 6 inch guns in the broadside battery. The big guns were not a wholly satisfactory substitute for the armament in their sister-ships. They were slow to load, the rate of fire being only one round every four to five minutes; the chance of hitting the target, being a function of the number of guns in use, was reduced; there was a tendency for the muzzle to droop; and the barrel liner lasted only for some seventy-five rounds, when replacement was a difficult and time-consuming operation...She was commissioned on June 14th 1888 for the Mediterranean Fleet, with which she served until October 1891. She was then held in the Reserve until March 1894, with two short commissions to take part in manoeuvres. From 1894 until April 1904, she served as Guardship at Greenock. Captain Richard Penrose Humpage was in command from September 1899. HMS Benbow was in the Reserve Fleet off Keyham Dockyard Devonport. She took part in the fleet review held at Spithead on August 16th 1902 for the coronation of King Edward VII. She remained in the Reserve until sold to shipbreakers Thos W Ward in 1909.
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designeraccd
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Re: RN Ironclads:

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Sone info about the old ironclad from WIKI:

"Inflexible was launched 27 April 1876. Later that year the MP Edward Reed, formerly Director of Naval Construction, visited the Italian ships and subsequently questioned their stability if the unarmoured ends were flooded.

As Inflexible was of similar design, he raised grave concerns about it too. When he failed to persuade the Admiralty, in June 1877 he publicised his charges in The Times. An editorial in the same edition, 18 June, said "it is said that the unarmoured ends are, in fact, the corks on which she floats, that she cannot swim without them, and it would appear that if she lost one she would capsize".[4]

Further exchanges followed until in July, construction was halted on Inflexible (and two other smaller ships, HMS Ajax and HMS Agamemnon) whilst a hastily convened committee examined the design. In their report published in December 1877, they concluded that it would be hard for gunfire to completely flood the unarmoured but heavily compartmentalised and partially cork-filled ends. However, if this was managed then the ship would just be stable, capsizing at about 35 degrees heel.[4]

Work restarted on the ship in December 1877, and the ship was commissioned 5 July 1881, under Captain John Fisher, although she was not completed until 18 October. Her eventual cost was £812,000.

Main armament

To counter the perceived threat from the Italians, Inflexible was to be equipped with four of the largest guns available, weighing 60 tons each. In October 1874 it was decided to modify the design of Inflexible to use an even bigger gun which Armstrongs was producing, a 16-inch (406 mm) gun weighing 81 tons. The Italians responded by changing their design to take even larger 100-ton 17.7-inch (450 mm) Armstrongs guns.[4] As these could not be fitted to Inflexible, four examples were ordered by the British Government, two each for the coastal defences around Gibraltar and Malta respectively. Two of these guns still exist, at Fort Rinnella on Malta and at the Napier of Magdala Battery on Gibraltar.

The four 81-ton muzzle-loading rifles were mounted in two 33-foot-10-inch-diameter (10.31 m) turrets mounted en echelon, with the forward turret mounted on the port side of the ship and the after turret on the starboard side. The superstructure both fore and aft was very narrow to allow one gun in each turret to fire axially, i.e. directly forward or directly aft. In practice, as in previous ships, it was found that axial fire led to so much blast damage to the ship's superstructure that it was impractical. However, the en-echelon arrangement also meant that at least three guns could fire on bearings close to fore and aft. All four guns could be fired broadside.

The en-echelon configuration was retained for the two ships of the Colossus class, but subsequently abandoned in the Royal Navy in favour of centreline mounts at either end of the ship. The en-echelon configuration did not reappear in Royal Navy capital ships until HMS Neptune launched in 1909.

Each turret weighed 750 tons and was protected by an outer layer of 9 inches (230 mm) of compound armour, an inner layer of 7-inch-thick (180 mm) wrought iron, with a total of 18 inches (460 mm) of teak backing. The turrets were rotated hydraulically, taking around a minute to perform a complete rotation.

Inflexible's guns were muzzle loaded, and because of their length could not be reloaded from inside the turrets. Consequently reloading was done using hydraulic rams fitted outside the two turrets underneath an armoured glacis. To reload the guns, the turret was rotated to align the guns with the rams, and the guns depressed so that the rams could push the gunpowder charge and 1,684-pound shell into it. The rams had to be extended twice: First, to extinguish any burning material remaining inside the gun using a sponge and water jet fixed to the end of the ram, and then again after charge, shell and wadding had been placed on a loading tray in front of it to be driven into the gun. The shell had a copper disk at its base which engaged with rifled grooves cut into the barrel to spin the shell, rather than zinc studs used on earlier designs. Tests showed that the normal full charge of 450 pounds of brown prismatic gunpowder would produce a muzzle velocity of 1,590 feet per second (480 m/s), which could penetrate 23 inches (580 mm) of wrought iron armour at 1,000 yards (910 m). The muzzle loading took between 2.5 and four minutes.

On completion the ship was sent to join the Mediterranean squadron. She took part in the bombardment of Alexandria on 11 July 1882 during the Urabi Revolt, firing 88 shells and was struck herself twice; one 10-inch (254mm) shell killed the ship's carpenter, mortally wounded an officer directing the fire of a 20-pounder breech-loader, and injured a seaman. The blast from Inflexible's own 16-inch (406 mm) guns did considerable damage to upperworks and boats. She was at this point under command of Captain (later Admiral of the Fleet) John Arbuthnot Fisher.

She was refitted in Portsmouth in 1885, when the full sailing rig was removed. She was in the Fleet Reserve until 1890, except for brief service in the 1887 review and the manoeuvres of 1889 and 1890. She was re-commissioned for the Mediterranean Fleet from 1890 to 1893, serving thereafter as Portsmouth guard ship until 1897. From there she went to Fleet Reserve, and in April 1902 to Dockyard Reserve, until sold at Chatham in 1903 for scrap."

:) DFO
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Brian James
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Re: RN Ironclads:

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Lead Ship, Ironclad Battleship HMS Collingwood pictured c1900.
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