The ''Ajax ''class of

ironclad An ironclad is a steam engine, steam-propelled warship protected by Wrought iron, iron or steel iron armor, armor plates, constructed from 1859 to the early 1890s. The ironclad was developed as a result of the vulnerability of wooden warships ...

battleship A battleship is a large armored warship with a main battery consisting of large caliber guns. It dominated naval warfare in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The term ''battleship'' came into use in the late 1880s to describe a type of ...

s consisted of two ships, and , serving in the

Victorian era In the history of the United Kingdom and the British Empire, the Victorian era was the period of Queen Victoria's reign, from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. The era followed the Georgian period and preceded the Edwardia ...

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against F ...

. Their main armament was turret-mounted.

Design

These two ships were built to the same concept as ''Inflexible'' - a heavily armoured citadel carrying four heavy guns mounted 'en echelon' in turrets to achieve all-round fire - but were required to be of lighter draught, and to displace 3,000 tons less. It was therefore necessary to arm them with guns of 12.5 inch calibre, as against 16 inch in ''Inflexible'', and to accept a maximum speed of nearly two knots less. Also, unlike the ''Inflexible'', these ships were dependent upon the integrity of their unarmoured ends to maintain buoyancy; should the ends have been damaged enough to become waterlogged, the ships would have sunk. This class were the last ships in the

to be armed with

muzzle-loading rifles A muzzle-loading rifle is a muzzle-loaded small arm or artillery piece that has a rifled barrel rather than a smoothbore. The term "rifled muzzle loader" typically is used to describe a type of artillery piece, although it is technically accurate fo ...

, and the first to carry any form of secondary armament. They were designed from the start not to carry any form of sailing rig.

Ships

References

Bibliography

* Oscar Parkes, ''British Battleships'' * {{British ironclads Battleship classes Ajax-class battleship Ship classes of the Royal Navy Ajax-class battleship