HMS Neptune (1874)

HMS Neptune as she originally appeared.
History
United Kingdom
Name:	HMS Neptune
Namesake:	Neptune
Builder:	J & W Dudgeon, Cubitt Town, London
Cost:	£600,000
Laid down:	1873
Launched:	10 September 1874
Completed:	3 September 1881
Acquired:	February–March 1878
Commissioned:	28 March 1883
Fate:	Sold for scrap 15 September 1903
General characteristics
Type:	Ironclad turret ship
Displacement:	8,964 long tons (9,108 t)
Length:	300 ft (91.4 m) (p/p)
Beam:	63 ft (19.2 m)
Draught:	25 ft (7.6 m)
Installed power:	8,832 ihp (6,586 kW)
Propulsion:	1 shaft, 1 2-cylinder Trunk steam engine, 8 rectangular boilers
Sail plan:	Barque-rigged
Speed:	14 knots (26 km/h; 16 mph)
Range:	1,480 nmi (2,740 km; 1,700 mi) at 10 kn (19 km/h; 12 mph)
Complement:	541
Armament:	4 × 12.5-inch (317 mm) rifled muzzle-loading guns 2 × 9-inch (229 mm) rifled muzzle-loading guns 6 × 20-pounder breech-loading guns 2 × 14 in (360 mm) torpedo launchers
Armour:	Belt: 9–12 in (229–305 mm) Decks: 1–3 in (25–76 mm) Citadel: 10 in (254 mm) Gun turrets: 11–13 in (279–330 mm) Conning tower: 6–8 in (152–203 mm) Bulkheads: 8 in (203 mm)

HMS Neptune was an ironclad turret ship originally designed and built in Britain for Brazil, but acquired for the Royal Navy in 1878. Modifications to suit the Royal Navy took three years to complete and the ship did not begin her first commission until 1883 with the Channel Fleet. She was transferred to the Mediterranean Fleet in 1885, but refitted in Portsmouth in 1886–87. Neptune then became the coastguard ship for the 1st Class Reserve at Holyhead until 1893 when she was placed in in Portsmouth. While she was being towed to the breakers in 1903, Neptune unintentionally rammed HMS Victory, then serving as a training hulk for the Naval Signal School, collided with HMS Hero, and narrowly missed several other ships. She was scrapped in Germany in 1904.

HMS Neptune was designed by Sir Edward Reed for the Brazilian Navy in 1872 as a masted version of HMS Devastation, a larger, sea-going version of the Cerberus-class breastwork monitors, and was given the provisional name Independencia. Adding masts, however, meant adding a forecastle at the bow and a poop deck at the stern to provide the space required for the masts and rigging. These blocked the firing arcs of the gun turrets so that they were deprived of the axial fire which was the original design's greatest virtue. The ship resembled, instead, an enlarged version of HMS Monarch.