Aviation Naval Warfare Land Systems Small Arms By Flag By Year By Tag

HMS Warrior

History of HMS Warrior

After 1815, the Royal Navy acted as the "police of the world", fighting pirates with the help of US Navy ships such as the Yorktown and trying to suppress the slave trade. Despite an alliance with the Russian Empire during the Crimean War (1853-1856), Britain and France no longer had such terms due to the growing naval competition between the two countries. The French Navy pioneered a new design, building the world's first ocean-going ironclad battleship, La Gloire. As soon as she lay down in April 1858, the British Navy realized that all their unarmored wooden warships were obsolete. So the British had no choice but to build their own ironclads.

The match took place as 2,000 British shipbuilders worked day and night at the Royal Navy counter for La Gloire in France - threatening to dominate the British naval power. On August 1, 1861, the Royal Navy's first ocean-going iron-hulled warship, the HMS Warrior, entered service, making it the largest and most powerful warship in the world.

By comparison, the French battleship La Gloire was half the size and underarmed. To the dismay of the French, now outdated is the famous La Gloire.

The HMS Warrior and her sister ship HMS Black Prince were the most powerful warships in the world at the time of construction due to their balance of armour and speed, the latter using a mix of steam and sail propulsion, capable of reaching 17. 5 verses. This quality made the class the fastest boat of its time. Interestingly, the British Admiralty classifies their ships according to the weapons they carry, so the HMS Warrior is classified as a third-rate frigate, although many consider her an Ironclad frigate.

A frigate typically carries a crew of 300, while the HSM Warrior carries around 700 officers - men and boys. 600 sailors lived on a long, stable battery divided into 34 mess halls, each of which accommodated 18 men in the space between the two guns. The cramped space has a tabletop that can sit on top of two guns, turning into a makeshift dining table during mealtimes. At night, the men hung in hammocks above the muzzles and the boys slept on the deck between the muzzles.

The officers had individual cabins, and the captain's cabin was of course beautifully furnished, reminiscent of Victorian sea salons. The dining table in the ward will be set with silver, crystal and fine bone china.

The bow and stern of the HMS Warrior are unprotected, but amidships she carries a 4.5" (114mm) iron strap supported by 18" long teak. The iron armor plates were bolted to the curved hull sides, forcing the blacksmith to bend and shape each 3-foot by 12-foot armor plate. The panels are placed in place by a "tongue and groove" method to fit snugly against the available surface area of ??the hull.

In total, about 202 armor plates needed to be placed on the ship, and the protection added about 960 tons of weight. All panels are mounted on 2 x 9" (230mm) thick teak boards stacked on top of each other.

The armor was then bolted into the hull with 18-inch shell-absorbing teak bolts for a total hull thickness of 2 feet.

HMS Warrior displayed a 26 x 68 lb (7 in, 178 mm) RML (Rifle Muzzle Loaded) main gun, 13 to port and 13 to starboard. The original design called for the installation of 40 of these guns, but this was reduced prior to service. The 68-pounder has an effective range of 2,700 m (3,000 yd), which is the range of a full 31 kg (68 lb) projectile in 15 seconds.

The 68-pound gun can fire a range of front-loading rounds: solid buckshot, solid iron ball, high-explosive grenade (a hollow iron ball filled with gunpowder that shatters the ball on impact), and grape round (a stack of in canvas bag). Sling shots filled with nails, scrap iron or lead wire are effectively used against enemy sailors or marines in close quarters rigging.

The molten iron bowl is filled with molten iron, which is used to make a fire on a wooden boat. A 10 x 7 inch Armstrong RBL gun was then added before being put into service. 2 x 20-pounders and a 12-pounder were also used. A 6-pounder brass cannon was reserved for naval firing training.

By 1871, the HMS Warrior was no longer the pride of the British fleet and her duties were reduced to Coast Guard and Reserve. In 1883, two of her three masts were found to be rotting, making repairs too costly for the aging ship. As a result, she was stripped of her mast and gun and then placed on standby.

Renamed Vernon III, she spent the next two decades providing steam and power to the Royal Navy's Torpedo Training School. The joint venture was abandoned in 1929 after the Royal Navy decided in 1924 that although there were no commercial buyers, the old fighters should be scrapped and sold. In 1942, she was converted into a shopkeeper's residence and oil slick wharf at Pembroke Docks in Wales, and changed her name to "Petroleum Fuel Hulk C77".

She held this role until 1979, helping fuel thousands of ships.

In 1968, the Duke of Edinburgh began to form a committee to restore the HMS Warrior, while the Maritime Trust was formed with a group to save the historic ship (and others like her). In 1979, the Maritime Trust finally took legal control of the ship and began raising funds to restore it to its original 1861 condition.

Warrior was towed over 800 miles to Hartlepool for restoration plans. Once there, she was temporarily cleaned and the concrete deck that once fell over the main deck was removed. Since then, about eight restorations have continued, replacing or restoring her key components. Her teak deck and rich woodwork - including the puppets - had to be rebuilt - essentially carved from available drawings and photographs of the original ship.

Upon completion in the late 1980s, HMS Warrior was given her new title Warrior (1860) and was moved to its permanent berth in Portsmouth on 16 June 1987. Today (2013), the Warrior serves as a museum ship open to the public.

The original HMS Warrior cost the Admiralty ?400,000 to build in 1861, compared to ?6-8 million for a relatively recent restoration.