HMS Scorpion (1863)

History
United Kingdom
Name	HMS Scorpion
Ordered	1862
Builder	John Laird Sons & Company, Birkenhead
Laid down	April 1862
Launched	4 July 1863
Completed	10 October 1865
Fate	Sunk as target 1901 Refloated 1902; sold for scrap Foundered 17 June 1903
General characteristics
Type	Ironclad turret ship
Displacement	2,751 long tons (2,795 t)
Length	224 ft 6 in (68.4 m) (p/p)
Beam	42 ft 4 in (12.9 m)
Draught	17 ft (5.2 m) (deep load)
Installed power	1,450 ihp (1,080 kW) 4 boilers
Propulsion	2 shaft, 2 direct-acting steam engines
Sail plan	Barque-rigged
Speed	10.5 knots (19.4 km/h; 12.1 mph)
Range	1,210 nmi (2,240 km; 1,390 mi) at 10 kn (19 km/h; 12 mph)
Complement	153
Armament	2 × twin 9-inch (229 mm) muzzle-loading rifles
Armour	Belt: 2–4.5 in (51–114 mm) Gun turrets: 5.5–10 in (140–254 mm)
Notes	sister ship: HMS Wivern

HMS Scorpion was an ironclad turret ship built by John Laird Sons & Company, at Birkenhead, England. She was one of two sister ships secretly ordered from the Laird shipyard in 1862 by the Confederate States of America.

Her true ownership was concealed by the fiction that she was being built as the Egyptian warship El Tousson. She was to have been named CSS North Carolina upon delivery to the Confederacy. Her sister was built under the false name El Monassir and was to have been renamed CSS Mississippi. In October 1863, a few months after their launch and before they could be completed, the UK Government seized the two ironclads.

In 1864 the Admiralty bought them and commissioned them into the Royal Navy: El Tousson as HMS Scorpion and El Monassir as HMS Wivern. Scorpion had a long Royal Navy career, until she was lost in the North Atlantic in 1903.