Asar-i Şevket-class ironclad
Line-drawing of the Asar-i Şevket class
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| Class overview | |
|---|---|
| Operators: |
 Ottoman Empire |
| Preceded by: | Asar-i Tevfik |
| Succeeded by: | Lüft-ü Celil-class ironclad |
| Built: | 1867–1870 |
| In commission: | 1870–1929 |
| Completed: | 2 |
| Scrapped: | 2 |
| General characteristics | |
| Displacement: | 2,047 metric tons (2,015 long tons; 2,256 short tons) |
| Length: | 66.4 m (217 ft 10 in) (loa) |
| Beam: | 12.9 m (42 ft 4 in) |
| Draft: | 5 m (16 ft 5 in) |
| Installed power: |
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| Propulsion: | 1 horizontal compound engine |
| Speed: | 12 knots (22 km/h; 14 mph) |
| Complement: | 170 |
| Armament: |
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| Armor: | |
The Asar-i Şevket class of ironclad warships consisted of two vessels, Asar-i Şevket and Necm-i Şevket, built for the Ottoman Navy in the 1860s. The ships were constructed in France and were based on the design of the earlier ironclad Asar-i Tevfik. The two vessels, built as central battery ships, carried an armament of four 178 mm (7 in) Armstrong guns in a central casemate and one 229 mm (9 in) Armstrong gun in a revolving barbette atop the casemate.
Both ships served during the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–1878, where they operated against Russian forces in the Black Sea. They were primarily tasked with supporting Ottoman forces ashore in the Caucasus. After the war, both vessels were placed in reserve, and saw no further activity until 1897, when they were mobilized at the start of the Greco-Turkish War. Like the rest of the Ottoman fleet, both ships were in poor condition and were unable to be used offensively. Asar-i Şevket was decommissioned and sold for scrap in the 1900s but Necm-i Şevket lingered on in service, primarily as a barracks ship until 1929. During this period, she briefly saw action again during the First Balkan War, when she provided fire support to beleaguered Ottoman defenders protecting Constantinople from the Bulgarian Army. She was finally decommissioned in 1929 and sold to ship breakers.
In the early 1860s, the Eyalet of Egypt, a province of the Ottoman Empire, ordered several ironclad warships for its fleet as part of a rearmament program to again challenge the power of the central government—the last having been the Second Egyptian–Ottoman War twenty years earlier. These included the two Asar-i Şevket-class vessels, ordered in 1866. After lengthy negotiations, the crisis was resolved when the Egyptian ironclads, including Asar-i Şevket and Necm-i Şevket, were transferred to the central government on 29 August 1868, among other concessions made by Egypt.
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Wikipedia