3-016-971 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The new iron-clad fleet: Her Majesty's sloop-of-war Enterprise, 1864. 'She is the smallest vessel plated with 4½-inch armour that has yet been set afloat. In his designs for this vessel the Chief Constructor of the Navy, Mr. Reed, has sought to avoid the necessity of extraordinary weights and dimensions by shortening the battery and confining it as nearly as possible to the centre of the ship. The timber framework which he has turned to such good account was originally intended to support an armament of seventeen 32-pounder guns; but, having converted the ship from an ordinary wooden sloop-of-war to an ironside, the number of guns had to be diminished by three fourths. Still, the actual sacrifice in the weight of metal to be thrown in a broadside is not very great, as the four guns are 110-pounders, and the difference is only that between 410 and 514...The complement of her crew will be one hundred, this again being a reduction from the number at first intended, which was 160'. From "Illustrated London News", 1864.