The ''Cerberus''-class breastwork monitor was a pair of

breastwork monitor A breastwork monitor was a modification of the monitor, a warship which was first built in the United States in 1861, designed by John Ericsson and distinguished by the first rotating gun turret, designed by Theodore Timby. The modified desi ...

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 ...

in the 1860s.

Design

Also referred to as "

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

" and "

turret ship Turret ships were a 19th-century type of warship, the earliest to have their guns mounted in a revolving gun turret, instead of a broadside arrangement. Background Before the development of large-calibre, long-range guns in the mid-19th century, ...

s", the ships of the ''Cerberus'' class were designed by Sir Edward Reed following requests by several dominions and colonies of the

British Empire The British Empire was composed of the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates, and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom and its predecessor states. It began with the overseas possessions and trading posts e ...

for warships to be used as

coastal defence 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 ...

s. The class consisted of two ships: , which was operated by the

colony of Victoria In modern parlance, a colony is a territory subject to a form of foreign rule. Though dominated by the foreign colonizers, colonies remain separate from the administration of the original country of the colonizers, the '' metropolitan state'' ...

, and , which spent her life operating in

Bombay Harbour Mumbai Harbour (also English language, English; Bombay Harbour or Front Bay, Marathi language, Marathi''Mumba'ī bandar''), is a natural deep-water harbour in the southern portion of the Ulhas River estuary. The narrower, northern part of the es ...

. The size of the ships was limited by cost. They were designed and built to be used as local defence ships, and it was not expected that they would ever need to be deployed far away from their bases. It was therefore possible to design them without sails or rigging and dependent only upon their engines, with a resulting limitation in their effective range. The absence of masts and rigging allowed more weight to be worked into the ship's armour. This also meant it was possible to arm the ships with two

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 ...

s, one fore and one aft, which had wholly unobstructed fields of fire over the bow and stern, and on wide arcs amidships. The turrets were mounted on the upper deck and hence had a greater height above water and a correspondingly greater command than guns mounted on the main deck. The turret armament provided an additional advantage of allowing the ships to have a low freeboard. This increased the steadiness of the ship and allowed the hull armour to be applied more thickly over a more limited height of exposed hull.

Construction

Ships

* HMVS ''Cerberus''- harbour defence vessel at Melbourne, Australia * – harbour defence vessel at Bombay, India

Citations

Bibliography

* * Brown, D.K., ''Warrior to Dreadnought, Warship Development 1860–1906'', * * * * * {{British ironclads Monitor classes

Design

Construction

Ships

See also

Citations

Bibliography