The first HMS Wivern was an ironclad turret ship built at Birkenhead, England. She was one of two sister ships secretly ordered from the John Laird Sons & Company shipyard in 1862 by the Confederate States of America.
An ironclad is a steam-propelled warship protected by iron or steel armor plates, constructed from 1859 to the early 1890s. The ironclad was developed as a result of the vulnerability of wooden warships to explosive or incendiary shells. The first ironclad battleship, Gloire, was launched by the French Navy in November 1859 – narrowly pre-empting the British Royal Navy, though Britain built the first completely iron-hulled warships.
HMS Captain was a major warship built for the Royal Navy as a semi-private venture, following a dispute between the designer and the Admiralty. With wrought-iron armour, steam propulsion, and the main battery mounted in rotating armoured turrets, the ship was, at first appearance, quite innovative and formidable. However, poor design and design changes resulted in a vessel that was overweight and ultimately unstable. In terms of seaworthiness she was reported as closely comparable to the higher freeboard turret-ship HMS Monarch, but her reduced freeboard added a sense of "sluggishness". The Captain capsized in heavy seas, only five months after being commissioned, with the loss of nearly 500 lives.
HMS Anson was a King George V-class battleship of the Royal Navy, named after Admiral George Anson. She was built by Swan Hunter and Wigham Richardson Shipyard on the River Tyne and launched on 24 February 1940, being completed on 22 June 1942. Her completion was delayed to allow the fitting of fire-control radar and additional anti-aircraft weapons. She was originally to have been named Jellicoe, but was renamed Anson in February 1940.
HMS Audacious was the fourth and last King George V-class dreadnought battleship built for the Royal Navy in the early 1910s. After completion in 1913, she spent her brief career assigned to the Home and Grand Fleets. The ship was sunk by a German naval mine off the northern coast of County Donegal, Ireland, early during the First World War. Audacious slowly flooded, allowing all of her crew to be rescued and finally sank after the British were unable to tow her to shore. However, a petty officer on a nearby cruiser was killed by shrapnel when Audacious subsequently exploded. Even though American tourists aboard one of the rescuing ships photographed and filmed the sinking battleship, the Admiralty embargoed news of her loss in Britain to prevent the Germans from taking advantage of the weakened Grand Fleet. She is the largest warship ever sunk by naval mines.
HMS Invincible was a Royal Navy Audacious-class ironclad battleship. She was built at the Napier shipyard and completed in 1870. Completed just 10 years after HMS Warrior, she still carried sails as well as a steam engine.
The eighth HMS Vanguard of the British Royal Navy was an Audacious-class central battery ironclad battleship, by Edward Reed launched in 1870. In 1875, the ship was sunk during a summer cruise in a collision in fog with the ironclad HMS Iron Duke. None of the crew were lost, but the commanding officer of the ship never commanded another vessel in his career. The wreck lies near the Kish lightship off the coast of Ireland and is protected under the Irish National Monument Act.
Turret ships were a 19th-century type of warship, the earliest to have their guns mounted in a revolving gun turret, instead of a broadside arrangement.
HMS Audacious was the lead ship of the Audacious-class ironclads built for the Royal Navy in the late 1860s. They were designed as second-class ironclads suitable for use on foreign stations and the ship spent the bulk of her career on the China Station. She was decommissioned in 1894 and hulked in 1902 for use as a training ship. The ship was towed to Scapa Flow after the beginning of the First World War to be used as a receiving ship and then to Rosyth after the war ended. Audacious was sold for scrap in 1929.
HMS Caledonia was a broadside ironclad of the Prince Consort class. Originally laid down as a two-decker steam ship of the line of the Bulwark class, Caledonia was converted on the building stocks into an armoured frigate.
HMS Research was a small ironclad warship, converted from a wooden-hulled sloop and intended as an experimental platform in which to try out new concepts in armament and in armour. She was launched in 1863, laid up in 1878 and sold for breaking in 1884, having displayed serious limitations as a warship.
HMS Prince Albert was designed and built as a shallow-draught coast-defence ship, and was the first British warship designed to carry her main armament in turrets. The ship was named after Prince Albert, the late husband of Queen Victoria. At her wish, Prince Albert remained on the "active" list until 1899, a total of 33 years, by which time she had long ceased to be of any military value.
HMSZealous was one of the three ships forming the second group of wooden steam battleships selected in 1860 for conversion to ironclads. This was done in response to the perceived threat to Britain offered by the large French ironclad building programme. The ship was ordered to the West Coast of Canada after she was completed to represent British interests in the Eastern Pacific Ocean. Zealous became the flagship for the Pacific Station for six years until she was relieved in 1872. She was refitted upon her arrival and subsequently became the guard ship at Southampton until she was paid off in 1875. The ship was in reserve until she was sold for scrap in 1886.
HMS Monarch was the first seagoing British warship to carry her guns in turrets, and the first British warship to carry guns of 12-inch (300 mm) calibre.
HMS Sultan was a broadside ironclad of the Royal Navy of the Victorian era, who carried her main armament in a central box battery. She was named for Sultan Abdulaziz of the Ottoman Empire, who was visiting England when she was laid down. Abdulaziz cultivated good relations with the Second French Empire and the British. In 1867 he was the first Ottoman sultan to visit Western Europe; his trip included a visit to England, where he was made a Knight of the Garter by Queen Victoria and shown a Royal Navy Fleet Review, with Isma'il Pasha of Egypt.
The Swiftsure class battleships of the late Victorian era were broadside ironclads designed and built specifically for service as Flagships on the Pacific station.
HMS Alexandra was a central battery ironclad of the Victorian Royal Navy, whose seagoing career was from 1877 to 1900. She spent much of her career as a flagship, and took part in operations to deter the Russian Empire's aggression against the Ottoman Empire in 1878 and the bombardment of Alexandria in 1882. She was affectionately known by her crew as Old Alex.
HMS Temeraire was an ironclad battleship of the Victorian Royal Navy which was unique in that she carried her main armament partly in the traditional broadside battery, and partly in barbettes on the upper deck.
The Bulwark class were the final class of wooden line-of-battle ships laid down for the Royal Navy. They were laid down after HMS Warrior. In March 1861 their construction was suspended, and seven were later converted to iron-clads. HMS Bulwark and HMS Robust were kept on the stocks almost complete, in case of need, until they were scrapped in 1873 and 1872.
