3-016-813 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Armour-clad frigate built in the Clyde for the Danish government, 1864. Ship built by Messrs J. and G. Thomson. 'Her length is 280 ft., her tonnage 3500 tons register, and her engines of 500-horse power. She is the first armour-clad vessel that has been launched with all her armour-plates on. Having been designed for use as a "ram," her bows are formed so as to project like a swan's breast about the water-line, where she would strike an enemy...Her frame is enormously strong...Internally the structure is fortified by the numerous iron partitions, and by the wrought-iron beams on which the decks are supported - the main and upper decks being themselves of iron. The armour-plates along the whole length of the ship are 4½in. thick, on a teak backing and inner iron skin...Both the bows and stem are so shaped that a shot would glance off without doing any damage. They are separated, however, by waterproof and shotproof partitions, from the middle part of the ship; so that, even if the bows and stem were destroyed, the fighting-deck would remain intact, and the crew, defended by these partitions, might remain at their guns...The armament will consist of twenty broadside guns on the main deck, and twenty on the upper deck'. From "Illustrated London News", 1864.