The ''Britomart''-class gunboat was a class of sixteen
gunboat
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.
History Pre-steam ...
s built for 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 ...
in 1859–1867.
Design
The ''Britomart'' class was an improved version of the designed by W.H. Walker, and as such comes under the generic group "Crimean gunboats" although this class was ordered and built long after the end of the
Crimean War
The Crimean War, , was fought from October 1853 to February 1856 between Russia and an ultimately victorious alliance of the Ottoman Empire, France, the United Kingdom and Piedmont-Sardinia.
Geopolitical causes of the war included the de ...
. These were the last Royal Navy gunboats to have wooden hulls: subsequent gunboats were of composite construction, with wooden planking over iron frames.
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Propulsion
The class were fitted with a single-cylinder single-expansion reciprocating steam engine. The single screw could be hoisted to give improved performance under sail.[
]
Sail plan
The ships were provided with a three-masted barquentine
A barquentine or schooner barque (alternatively "barkentine" or "schooner bark") is a sailing vessel with three or more masts; with a square rigged foremast and fore-and-aft rigged main, mizzen and any other masts.
Modern barquentine sailing r ...
rig, that is, with square sails on the foremast and fore-and-aft sails on the main and mizzen masts.[
]
Armament
Early ships of the class were armed with two 68-pounder smooth bore muzzle loading cannon (as had been planned, but not implemented, for the ''Dapper'' class); but the ''Heron'' was fitted with two 112-pounder Armstrong gun
An Armstrong gun was a uniquely designed type of Rifled breech-loader, rifled breech-loading field and heavy gun designed by William George Armstrong, 1st Baron Armstrong, Sir William Armstrong and manufactured in England beginning in 1855 by the ...
s. Later ships had two 64-pounder rifled muzzle-loading guns.[
]
Ships
Citations
References
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{{Britomart-class gunboat
Gunboat classes
Britomart
Gunboats of the Royal Navy