HMS Rattlesnake (1886)

Rattlesnake lowering boats
History
United Kingdom
Name	Rattlesnake
Ordered	1885
Builder	Laird Brothers, Birkenhead
Yard number	537
Laid down	16 November 1885
Launched	11 September 1886
Commissioned	May 1887
Fate	Sold in 1910
General characteristics [1]
Class and type	Torpedo gunboat
Displacement	550 long tons (559 t)
Length	200 ft (61 m) pp
Beam	23 ft (7 m)
Depth of hold	10 ft 2 in (3.1 m)
Propulsion	2 screws; 2 triple-expansion steam engines
Speed	16+3⁄4 knots (31 km/h; 19 mph) (natural draught) 19+1⁄4 knots (36 km/h; 22 mph) (forced draught)
Range	2,800 nmi (5,200 km; 3,200 mi) at 10 knots (19 km/h; 12 mph)
Complement	66
Armament	1 × 4-inch/25pdr BL gun 6 × 3-pdr guns 4 × 14 in (356 mm) torpedoes
Armour	Deck (ship): 0.75 in (19 mm)

HMS Rattlesnake was a unique design of torpedo gunboat of the Royal Navy. A result of the Russian war scare of 1885, she was designed by Nathaniel Barnaby that year and built by Laird Brothers, of Birkenhead.^[2][1] Quickly made obsolete by the new torpedo boat destroyers, she became an experimental submarine target ship in 1906, and was sold in 1910.