HMS Polyphemus (1881)

For other ships with the same name, see HMS Polyphemus.

HMS Polyphemus
History
Royal Navy EnsignUnited Kingdom
BuilderChatham Dockyard
Laid down1878
Launched15 June 1881
FateSold for breaking up 7 July 1903[1]
General characteristics
Displacement2,640 tons
Length240 ft (73 m)
Beam37 ft (11 m)
Draught20 ft 6 in (6.25 m)
Speed17.8 knots maximum
Endurance"capable of making a passage in any weather from Plymouth to Gibraltar, or from Gibraltar to Malta at 10 knots without assistance"[2]
Complement80
Armament
Armourdeck 3 inches compound armour, hatch coamings 4 inches, conning tower 8 inches

The third HMS Polyphemus was a Royal Navy torpedo ram, serving from 1881 until 1903. A shallow-draft, fast, low-profile vessel, she was designed to penetrate enemy harbours at speed and sink anchored ships.[3] Designed by Nathaniel Barnaby primarily as a protected torpedo boat, the ram was provided very much as secondary armament.[2][4]

It has been suggested[5] that H. G. Wells’ fictional HMS Thunder Child from his novel The War of the Worlds may have been based on this ship, in part because he described Thunder Child as an ironclad torpedo ram, and Polyphemus was the only ship of this type which the Royal Navy possessed. However, Wells may have been using the term loosely, given that numerous European warships were described as either 'torpedo rams' or 'torpedo ram cruisers'; an example of the former being Tordenskjold and the latter including Giovanni Bausan. This explanation is more likely given that the fictional ship does not match the other particulars, such as number of funnels, size and weaponry, of HMS Polyphemus.

  1. ^ Colledge, J. J.; Warlow, Ben (2006) [1969]. Ships of the Royal Navy: The Complete Record of all Fighting Ships of the Royal Navy (Rev. ed.). London: Chatham Publishing. ISBN 978-1-86176-281-8.
  2. ^ a b John Beeler (2001). Birth of the Battleship, British capital ship design 1870–1881. pp. 151–152. ISBN 1-86176-167-8.
  3. ^ Richard Hill (2000). War at Sea in the Ironclad Age. Cassell and Co. p. 189. ISBN 0-304-35273-X.
  4. ^ David Lyon (1980). The Ship – Volume 8 – Steam, steel and torpedoes – The Warship of the 19th Century. Her Majesty’s Stationery Office. pp. 49–50. ISBN 0-11-290318-5.
  5. ^ Mike Bennighof (April 2008). "Great War of the Worlds at Sea". Avalanche Press. Retrieved 29 January 2009.