Four ships of the Royal Navy have borne the name HMS Mallard, after the species of duck, the Mallard:
The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by the English kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years War against the Kingdom of France. The modern Royal Navy traces its origins to the early 16th century; the oldest of the UK's armed services, it is known as the Senior Service.
The mallard is a dabbling duck that breeds throughout the temperate and subtropical Americas, Eurasia, and North Africa and has been introduced to New Zealand, Australia, Peru, Brazil, Uruguay, Argentina, Chile, Colombia, the Falkland Islands, and South Africa. This duck belongs to the subfamily Anatinae of the waterfowl family Anatidae. The male birds (drakes) have a glossy green head and are grey on their wings and belly, while the females have mainly brown-speckled plumage. Both sexes have an area of white-bordered black or iridescent blue feathers called a speculum on their wings; males especially tend to have blue speculum feathers. The mallard is 50–65 cm (20–26 in) long, of which the body makes up around two-thirds the length. The wingspan is 81–98 cm (32–39 in) and the bill is 4.4 to 6.1 cm long. It is often slightly heavier than most other dabbling ducks, weighing 0.72–1.58 kg (1.6–3.5 lb). Mallards live in wetlands, eat water plants and small animals, and are social animals preferring to congregate in groups or flocks of varying sizes. This species is the main ancestor of most breeds of domesticated ducks.
- HMS Mallard (1801) was a 12-gun gun-brig launched in 1801. The French captured her after she ran aground in 1804. The French Navy converted her to a gunboat in 1811, renamed her Favori in 1814, Mallard in 1815, and then Favori again later in 1815. She was struck at Brest in 1827, but was a service craft there on 17 September 1831.
- HMS Mallard (1875) was a Forester-class composite screw gunboat launched in 1875 and sold in 1889.
- HMS Mallard (1896) was a torpedo boat destroyer launched in 1896. She was reclassified as a D-class destroyer in 1913 and was sold in 1920.
- HMS Mallard (L42) was a Kingfisher-class sloop launched in 1936 and sold in 1947.
Brest is a city in the Finistère département in Brittany. Located in a sheltered position not far from the western tip of the peninsula, and the western extremity of metropolitan France, Brest is an important harbour and the second French military port after Toulon. The city is located on the western edge of continental Europe. With 142,722 inhabitants in a 2007 census, Brest is at the centre of Western Brittany's largest metropolitan area, ranking third behind only Nantes and Rennes in the whole of historic Brittany, and the 19th most populous city in France; moreover, Brest provides services to the one million inhabitants of Western Brittany. Although Brest is by far the largest city in Finistère, the préfecture of the department is the much smaller Quimper.
The Forester-class gunboat was a class of 4-gun composite gunboats built for the Royal Navy between 1874 and 1877. Although half had been sold by 1890, the rest survived into the 20th century as coal hulks, base vessels and other secondary uses. Foxhound survived as a hulk on the Blackwall Reach of the Thames until 1975, when she was broken up. They were built of composite construction, that is, with iron keel, stem and stern posts, and iron framing, but planked with wood.
A gunboat is a naval watercraft designed for the express purpose of carrying one or more guns to bombard coastal targets, as opposed to those military craft designed for naval warfare, or for ferrying troops or supplies.
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