ARA ''Almirante Brown'' was a central battery ironclad of the Argentine Navy built in the 1880s by

Samuda Brothers Samuda Brothers was an engineering and ship building firm at Cubitt Town on the Isle of Dogs in London, founded by Jacob and Joseph d'Aguilar Samuda. The site is now occupied by Samuda Estate. Samuda Brothers initially leased a premise ...

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

. ''Almirante Brown'' displaced and had a top speed of . The ship was protected by a belt of steel-faced armor and she carried a main battery of eight breech-loading guns. She was among the first major warships in the world to use steel armor, and remained the largest vessel in the Argentine fleet for over 15 years. ''Almirante Brown'' had a peaceful career in the fleet during the 1880s and 1890s. By the 1920s, she was reduced to a

coastal defense ship Coastal defence ships (sometimes called coastal battleships or coast defence ships) were warships built for the purpose of coastal defence, mostly during the period from 1860 to 1920. They were small, often cruiser-sized warships that sacrifi ...

, and remained in service until the early 1930s. She was stricken from the

naval register A Navy Directory, formerly the Navy List or Naval Register is an official list of naval officers, their ranks and seniority, the ships which they command or to which they are appointed, etc., that is published by the government or naval autho ...

in November 1932 and sold for scrapping.

Design

General characteristics and machinery

''Almirante Brown'' was long between perpendiculars, and had a beam of and a

draft Draft, The Draft, or Draught may refer to: Watercraft dimensions * Draft (hull), the distance from waterline to keel of a vessel * Draft (sail), degree of curvature in a sail * Air draft, distance from waterline to the highest point on a vesse ...

of . She displaced up to with a combat load. Her hull was steel-built, with a wood and

zinc Zinc is a chemical element with the symbol Zn and atomic number 30. Zinc is a slightly brittle metal at room temperature and has a shiny-greyish appearance when oxidation is removed. It is the first element in group 12 (IIB) of the periodi ...

sheathing. The hull included a double bottom and a

ram bow A ram was a weapon fitted to varied types of ships, dating back to antiquity. The weapon comprised an underwater prolongation of the bow of the ship to form an armoured beak, usually between 2 and 4 meters (6–12 ft) in length. This would be dri ...

.Gardiner, p. 401 She was fitted with two pole masts.Samuda, p. 174 The ship had a crew of 520 officers and men. Her propulsion system consisted of two

compound steam engine A compound steam engine unit is a type of steam engine where steam is expanded in two or more stages. A typical arrangement for a compound engine is that the steam is first expanded in a high-pressure ''(HP)'' cylinder, then having given up he ...

s that drove a pair of propellers. Steam for the engines was provided by eight coal-fired, cylindrical

water-tube boiler A high pressure watertube boiler (also spelled water-tube and water tube) is a type of boiler in which water circulates in tubes heated externally by the fire. Fuel is burned inside the furnace, creating hot gas which boils water in the steam-gen ...

s. The boilers were split into four separate, watertight boiler rooms, and both of the steam engines were in individual

engine room On a ship, the engine room (ER) is the compartment where the machinery for marine propulsion is located. To increase a vessel's safety and chances of surviving damage, the machinery necessary for the ship's operation may be segregated into var ...

s. The engines were rated at and produced a top speed of . ''Almirante Brown'' had the capacity to store up to of coal for the boilers. In addition to her steam engines, ''Almirante Brown'' was fitted with a sailing rig for auxiliary cruising. The sail plan had an area of .

Armament and armor

''Almirante Brown'' was equipped with a main battery of eight BLR

Armstrong gun An Armstrong gun was a uniquely designed type of rifled breech-loading field and heavy gun designed by Sir William Armstrong and manufactured in England beginning in 1855 by the Elswick Ordnance Company and the Royal Arsenal at Woolwich. Such g ...

s, all mounted individually in casemates. Six were in a central battery, and the other two were in the bow and stern. These breech-loading guns were a new development, which rendered ''Almirante Brown'' a significantly more powerful vessel than even those that had been completed a few years earlier. She also carried six guns, also in single mounts, all on the upper deck. Four were mounted forward, and two were located aft, on either side of the 8-inch stern-chaser. Close-range defense against small craft was provided by a pair of 9-pounder guns and a pair of 7-pounder guns. The ship was protected with

compound armor Compound armour was a type of armour used on warships in the 1880s, developed in response to the emergence of armor-piercing shells and the continual need for reliable protection with the increasing size in naval ordnance. Compound armour was a no ...

with a steel face manufactured by the German firm Siemens; the use of steel armor was a new development in naval technology, and permitted significant weight savings. The main armored belt was thick

amidships This glossary of nautical terms is an alphabetical listing of terms and expressions connected with ships, shipping, seamanship and navigation on water (mostly though not necessarily on the sea). Some remain current, while many date from the 17th ...

, and reduced to at the bow and stern. Below the main belt was a

strake On a vessel's hull, a strake is a longitudinal course of planking or plating which runs from the boat's stempost (at the bows) to the sternpost or transom (at the rear). The garboard strakes are the two immediately adjacent to the keel on ea ...

of armor that was thick amidships and on either end of the ship. The central battery was protected by 8 in of armor plate in the lower strake, and 6 in of armor in the upper strake. Atop the central battery, the armored deck was thick, while the deck fore and aft of the battery was thick. The conning tower also had 8 in thick sides.

Service history

In 1878, Argentina made inquiries in Britain to buy a new, ocean-going

capital ship The capital ships of a navy are its most important warships; they are generally the larger ships when compared to other warships in their respective fleet. A capital ship is generally a leading or a primary ship in a naval fleet. Strategic im ...

for its navy, which to that point, had consisted of only coastal and riverine forces, centered on the two small s. ''Almirante Brown'', the first large ironclad of the Argentine Navy, was ordered from the

shipyard of

. She was launched on 6 October 1880, and cost the Argentine government £270,000. On 14 June 1881, she conducted speed trials on the Maplin Mile, and achieved her designed speed of 14 knots at full power. Upon her delivery to Argentina, she was the largest vessel in the Argentine fleet, and remained so until the four ''Garibaldi''-class

armored cruiser The armored cruiser was a type of warship of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It was designed like other types of cruisers to operate as a long-range, independent warship, capable of defeating any ship apart from a battleship and fast eno ...

s were acquired in the late 1890s. ''Almirante Brown'' was present during the ceremonies for the opening of the south basin in the harbor of

Buenos Aires Buenos Aires ( or ; ), officially the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires ( es, link=no, Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires), is the capital and primate city of Argentina. The city is located on the western shore of the Río de la Plata, on South ...

on 28 January 1889. On 13 July 1892, the ship was thought to be lost in a storm that claimed the

torpedo boat A torpedo boat is a relatively small and fast naval ship designed to carry torpedoes into battle. The first designs were steam-powered craft dedicated to ramming enemy ships with explosive spar torpedoes. Later evolutions launched variants of ...

''Rosales''. The

protected cruiser Protected cruisers, a type of naval cruiser of the late-19th century, gained their description because an armoured deck offered protection for vital machine-spaces from fragments caused by shells exploding above them. Protected cruisers re ...

''Veinticinco de Mayo'' was also believed to have sunk in the storm, though both survived. In the following year, ''Almirante Brown'', along with most of the heavy units in the Argentine Navy, took part in putting down the naval defections in the revolution of 1893. In 1897, ''Almirante Brown'' went into dry dock at the La Seyne shipyard in

Toulon Toulon (, , ; oc, label= Provençal, Tolon , , ) is a city on the French Riviera and a large port on the Mediterranean coast, with a major naval base. Located in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region, and the Provence province, Toulon is th ...

for modernization. Her main battery guns were replaced with ten 50- caliber quick-firing

Canet gun The Canet guns were a series of weapon systems developed by the French engineer Gustave Canet (1846–1908), who worked as an engineer from 1872 to 1881 for the London Ordnance Works, then for Forges et Chantiers de la Méditerranée, and from ...

s; six replaced the guns in the central battery, and the other four were mounted in pairs in place of the bow and stern guns. In addition, the old 4.7-inch guns were replaced with new quick-firing models. Her crew was reduced to 380 officers and men. By the 1920s, ''Almirante Brown'' had been reduced to a coastal defense and training ship, having long since been rendered obsolete by the

dreadnought battleship The dreadnought (alternatively spelled dreadnaught) was the predominant type of battleship in the early 20th century. The first of the kind, the Royal Navy's , had such an impact when launched in 1906 that similar battleships built after her ...

s ''Moreno'' and ''Rivadavia''. On 17 December 1921, crewmen from ''Almirante Brown'' rowed ashore to defeat a group of about 250 brigands based in Mata Tapera. The ship remained in service until the early 1930s. On 17 November 1932, ''Almirante Brown'' was stricken from the

and subsequently discarded.Gardiner & Gray, p. 400

Footnotes

References

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External links

Battleship "Almirante Brown" – Histarmar website (Historia y Arqueología Marítima – Acorazado Almirante Brown – 1881)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Almirante Brown 1880 ships Battleships of the Argentine Navy Ships built in Cubitt Town Coastal defence ships