The Brazilian monitor ''Ceará'' was the fifth ship of the river

monitor Monitor or monitor may refer to: Places * Monitor, Alberta * Monitor, Indiana, town in the United States * Monitor, Kentucky * Monitor, Oregon, unincorporated community in the United States * Monitor, Washington * Monitor, Logan County, West Vir ...

s built for the

Brazilian Navy ) , colors= Blue and white , colors_label= Colors , march= "Cisne Branco" ( en, "White Swan") (same name as training ship ''Cisne Branco'' , mascot= , equipment= 1 multipurpose aircraft carrier7 submarines6 frigates2 corvettes4 amphibious warf ...

during the Paraguayan War in the late 1860s. ''Ceará'' arrived in Paraguay in mid-1868 and provided fire support for the army for the rest of the war. The ship was assigned to the

Mato Grosso Mato Grosso ( – lit. "Thick Bush") is one of the states of Brazil, the third largest by area, located in the Central-West region. The state has 1.66% of the Brazilian population and is responsible for 1.9% of the Brazilian GDP. Neighboring ...

Flotilla after the war. ''Ceará'' was

scrapped Scrap consists of recyclable materials, usually metals, left over from product manufacturing and consumption, such as parts of vehicles, building supplies, and surplus materials. Unlike waste, scrap has monetary value, especially recovered me ...

in 1884.

Design and description

The ''Pará''-class monitors were designed to meet the need of the

for small, shallow-draft armoured ships capable of withstanding heavy fire. The monitor configuration was chosen as a turreted design did not have the same problems engaging enemy ships and fortifications as did the central battery ironclads already in Brazilian service. The

oblong An oblong is a non-square rectangle. Oblong may also refer to: Places * Oblong, Illinois, a village in the United States * Oblong Township, Crawford County, Illinois, United States * A strip of land on the New York-Connecticut border in the Unit ...

gun turret A gun turret (or simply turret) is a mounting platform from which weapons can be fired that affords protection, visibility and ability to turn and aim. A modern gun turret is generally a rotatable weapon mount that houses the crew or mechani ...

sat on a circular platform that had a central pivot. It was rotated by four men via a system of gears; 2.25 minutes were required for a full 360° rotation. A bronze ram was fitted to these ships as well. The hull was sheathed with Muntz metal to reduce

biofouling Biofouling or biological fouling is the accumulation of microorganisms, plants, algae, or small animals where it is not wanted on surfaces such as ship and submarine hulls, devices such as water inlets, pipework, grates, ponds, and rivers that ...

.Gratz, p. 153 The ships measured

long overall __NOTOC__ Length overall (LOA, o/a, o.a. or oa) is the maximum length of a vessel's hull measured parallel to the waterline. This length is important while docking the ship. It is the most commonly used way of expressing the size of a ship, and ...

, with a

beam Beam may refer to: Streams of particles or energy *Light beam, or beam of light, a directional projection of light energy **Laser beam *Particle beam, a stream of charged or neutral particles **Charged particle beam, a spatially localized grou ...

of . They had a draft between of and displaced . With only of freeboard they had to be towed between Rio de Janeiro and their area of operations. Their crew numbered 43 officers and men.Gratz, p. 154

Propulsion

The ''Pará''-class ships had two direct-acting

steam engines A steam engine is a heat engine that performs mechanical work using steam as its working fluid. The steam engine uses the force produced by steam pressure to push a piston back and forth inside a cylinder. This pushing force can be trans ...

, each driving a single propeller. Their engines were powered by two tubular

boiler A boiler is a closed vessel in which fluid (generally water) is heated. The fluid does not necessarily boil. The heated or vaporized fluid exits the boiler for use in various processes or heating applications, including water heating, central h ...

s at a working pressure of . The engines produced a total of which gave the monitors a maximum speed of in calm waters. The ships carried enough coal for one day's steaming.

Armament

''Ceará'' had a single 120-pounder Whitworth rifled muzzle loader (RML) in her gun turret. The gun had a maximum range of about . The shell of the 120-pounder gun weighed while the gun itself weighed . Most unusually the guns' Brazilian-designed iron

carriage A carriage is a private four-wheeled vehicle for people and is most commonly horse-drawn. Second-hand private carriages were common public transport, the equivalent of modern cars used as taxis. Carriage suspensions are by leather strapping an ...

was designed to pivot vertically at the muzzle; this was done to minimize the size of the

gunport A gunport is an opening in the side of the hull of a ship, above the waterline, which allows the muzzle of artillery pieces mounted on the gun deck to fire outside. The origin of this technology is not precisely known, but can be traced back to ...

through which splinters and shells could enter.

Armor

The hull of the ''Pará''-class ships was made from three layers of wood that alternated in orientation. It was thick and was capped with a layer of peroba hardwood. The ships had a complete

wrought iron Wrought iron is an iron alloy with a very low carbon content (less than 0.08%) in contrast to that of cast iron (2.1% to 4%). It is a semi-fused mass of iron with fibrous slag Inclusion (mineral), inclusions (up to 2% by weight), which give it a ...

waterline

belt Belt may refer to: Apparel * Belt (clothing), a leather or fabric band worn around the waist * Championship belt, a type of trophy used primarily in combat sports * Colored belts, such as a black belt or red belt, worn by martial arts practition ...

, high. It had a maximum thickness of 102 millimetres amidships, decreasing to and at the ship's ends. The curved deck was armored with of wrought iron. The gun turret was shaped like a

rectangle In Euclidean plane geometry, a rectangle is a quadrilateral with four right angles. It can also be defined as: an equiangular quadrilateral, since equiangular means that all of its angles are equal (360°/4 = 90°); or a parallelogram containi ...

with rounded corners. It was built much like the hull, but the front of the turret was protected by of armor, the sides by 102 millimetres and the rear by 76 millimetres. Its roof and the exposed portions of the platform it rested upon were protected by 12.7 millimetres of armor. The armored pilothouse was positioned ahead of the turret.

Service

''Ceará'' was laid down at the Arsenal de Marinha da Côrte in

Rio de Janeiro Rio de Janeiro ( , , ; literally 'River of January'), or simply Rio, is the capital of the state of the same name, Brazil's third-most populous state, and the second-most populous city in Brazil, after São Paulo. Listed by the GaWC as a b ...

on 8 December 1866, during the Paraguayan War, which saw

Argentina Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the second-largest country in South America after Brazil, th ...

and Brazil allied against

Paraguay Paraguay (; ), officially the Republic of Paraguay ( es, República del Paraguay, links=no; gn, Tavakuairetã Paraguái, links=si), is a landlocked country in South America. It is bordered by Argentina to the south and southwest, Brazil to th ...

. She was launched on 22 March 1868 and commissioned the following month. The monitor arrived in Paraguay in May 1868. On 31 August she bombarded enemy positions on the

Tebicuary River The Tebicuary River (Spanish: Río Tebicuary), a tributary of Paraguay River is a river in Paraguay. Located in the southwestern part of that country, it flows eastwards discharging to Paraguay River about 45 km south of Formosa and 30 k ...

to provide cover for advancing troops. The ship destroyed Paraguayan defenses on the

Manduvirá River The Manduvirá River (Spanish, Río Manduvirá) is a river of Paraguay. It is a tributary of the Paraguay River. See also *List of rivers of Paraguay This is a list of rivers in Paraguay. By drainage basin This list is arranged by drainage basi ...

on 18 April 1869.Gratz, p. 157 ''Ceará'', together with her

sister ship A sister ship is a ship of the same class or of virtually identical design to another ship. Such vessels share a nearly identical hull and superstructure layout, similar size, and roughly comparable features and equipment. They often share a ...

s and , broke through the Paraguayan defenses at Guaraio on 29 April and drove off the defenders.Donato, p. 300 After the war she was assigned to the Mato Grosso Flotilla and was scrapped in 1884.

Footnotes

References

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Ceara Ships built in Brazil 1868 ships Pará-class monitors