HMS Invincible off Plymouth in 1870.
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History | |
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United Kingdom | |
Name: | HMS Invincible |
Builder: | Robert Napier and Sons |
Laid down: | 28 June 1867 |
Launched: | 29 May 1869 |
Commissioned: | 1 October 1870 |
Renamed: | HMS Erebus in 1904 Fisgard II in 1906 |
Reclassified: |
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Fate: | Sank, 17 September 1914 |
General characteristics | |
Class and type: | Audacious-class ironclad battleship |
Displacement: | 6,106 long tons (6,204 t) |
Length: | 280 ft (85 m) |
Beam: | 54 ft (16 m) |
Draught: | 22 ft 7 in (6.88 m) |
Installed power: | 4,021 ihp (2,998 kW) |
Propulsion: |
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Speed: |
Steam: 13.5 kn (15.5 mph; 25.0 km/h) Sail: 10 kn (12 mph; 19 km/h) |
Complement: | 450 |
Armament: |
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Armour: |
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Notes: | Armour is backed by 10 in (25 cm) of teak. |
Steam: 13.5 kn (15.5 mph; 25.0 km/h)
HMS Invincible was a Royal Navy Audacious-class ironclad battleship. She was built at the Napier shipyard and completed in 1870. Completed just 10 years after HMS Warrior, she still carried sails as well as a steam engine.
The Audacious class was armed with ten 9 in (230 mm) muzzle-loading guns, supported by four 6 in (0.15 m) muzzle loaders. These were located in a broadside pattern over a 59 ft (18 m) two-deck battery amidships—this was the area of the ship least affected by its motion, and made for a very stable gun platform.
For the first year of her career, she was a guardship at Hull, before being replaced by her sister HMS Audacious. She was then transferred to the Mediterranean, where she served until 1886. She was sent to Cadiz in 1873 to prevent ships seized by republicans during the civil war in Spain from leaving harbour. She rejoined the Mediterranean Fleet in 1878 under the command of Captain Lindsay Brine, but her poor state of seamanship attracted the ire of the commander-in-chief, Geoffrey Hornby. In early 1879 Invincible blundered badly, putting two ships at hazard, and Brine was court-martialled. Though acquitted, Brine was relieved by Captain Edmund Fremantle. She was Admiral Seymour's temporary flagship at the 1882 bombardment of Alexandria because his normal one, HMS Alexandra, drew too much to enter the inner harbour. She provided men for the naval brigade that was subsequently landed and she also provided men for Charles Beresford's naval brigade in the Sudan campaign of 1885.