Seven ships of the

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 ...

have borne the name HMS ''Chameleon'', or the archaic variants HMS ''Cameleon'' or HMS ''Camelion'', after the

Chameleon Chameleons or chamaeleons (family Chamaeleonidae) are a distinctive and highly specialized clade of Old World lizards with 202 species described as of June 2015. The members of this family are best known for their distinct range of colors, bein ...

: * was a 14-gun

sloop A sloop is a sailboat with a single mast typically having only one headsail in front of the mast and one mainsail aft of (behind) the mast. Such an arrangement is called a fore-and-aft rig, and can be rigged as a Bermuda rig with triangular sa ...

launched in 1777. She foundered in 1780. * was a 16-gun brig-sloop, formerly the civilian ship ''Hawke''. She was purchased in 1780 and sold in 1783. * was an 18-gun brig-sloop launched in 1795, laid up in 1805, and broken up in 1811. * was a 10-gun launched in 1816 and sold in 1849. * was a screw sloop launched in 1860 and sold in 1883. * was an launched in 1910 and sold for scrapping in 1921. * was an launched in 1944 and broken up in 1966.

Sources

References

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Cameleon, Hms Royal Navy ship names