Ottoman ironclad Hifz-ur Rahman
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| History | |
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 Ottoman Empire
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| Name: | Hifz-ur Rahman |
| Namesake: | "Merciful Protector" |
| Ordered: | 1867 |
| Builder: | Forges et Chantiers de la Gironde |
| Laid down: | 1868 |
| Launched: | 1869 |
| Commissioned: | March 1870 |
| Decommissioned: | 1909 |
| Fate: | Sold for scrap, 11 November 1909 |
| General characteristics | |
| Class and type: | Lüft-ü Celil class |
| Displacement: | 2,540 t (2,500 long tons; 2,800 short tons) |
| Length: | 64.4 m (211 ft 3 in) (loa) |
| Beam: | 13.6 m (44 ft 7 in) |
| Draft: | 4.4 m (14 ft 5 in) |
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| Speed: | 12 knots (22 km/h; 14 mph) |
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Hifz-uz Rahman (Ottoman Turkish: Merciful Protector) was the second of two Lüft-ü Celil-class ironclads built for the Ottoman Navy in the late 1860s. Originally ordered by the Khedivate of Egypt, an autonomous vassal state of the Ottoman Empire, the central Ottoman government forced Egypt to surrender Hifz-ur Rahman while she was still under construction at the French Forges et Chantiers de la Gironde shipyard. The vessel was a turret ship, armed with two 225 mm (8.9 in) Armstrong guns and two 178 mm (7.0 in) Armstrong guns, both pairs in revolving gun turrets.
Hifz-ur Rahman saw action during the Russo-Turkish War in 1877–1878, where she operated on the Danube to try to prevent Russian forces from crossing the river. While defending the port of Sulina, she engaged Russian gunboats in an inconclusive action. She was laid up for twenty years, until the outbreak of the Greco-Turkish War in 1897, which highlighted the badly deteriorated state of the Ottoman fleet. A large-scale reconstruction program was put in place, and Hifz-ur Rahman was rebuilt in the Imperial Arsenal in the early 1890s. Nevertheless, she saw no further service of any significance, and she was sold for scrap in 1909.
Hifz-ur Rahman was 64.4 m (211 ft 3 in) long overall, with a beam of 13.6 m (44 ft 7 in) and a draft of 4.4 m (14 ft 5 in). The hull was constructed with iron, incorporated ram bow, and displaced 2,540 metric tons (2,500 long tons; 2,800 short tons) normally and 1,741 t (1,714 long tons; 1,919 short tons) BOM. She had a crew of 12 officers and 110 enlisted men.
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