HMS Invincible (1869)

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HMS Invincible was an Audacious class ironclad battleship of the Royal Navy. She was built at the Napier shipyard and completed in 1870. Completed just ten years after HMS Warrior, she still carried sails as well as a steam engine.

  • Displacement: 6,106 tonnes
  • Length: 280 ft (86 m)
  • Beam: 54 ft (16.4 m)
  • Draught: 22 ft 7 in (7 m)
  • Complement: 450
  • Engines: Coal fired reciprocating steam engine, 6 boilers, 4830 horsepower (3.6 MW) indicated.
  • Rig - three masts originally but changed to two in 1871.
  • Speed: 13.5 knots (25 km/h) maximum
  • Armour: 8 feet (2.4 m) waterline belt 8 inches (203 mm) thick amidship reducing to 6 inches (152 mm) thick at ends of hull. Central battery protected by 6 inches (152 mm) armour. 8 to 10 inches (203 to 254 mm) teak backing.

The Audacious class was armed with ten 9 inch (229 mm) muzzle loading guns, supported by four 6 inch (152 mm) muzzle loaders. These were located in a broadside pattern over a 59 foot (18 m) two deck central battery amidships - this was the area of the ship least affected by its motion, and made them very stable gun platforms.

For the first year of her career she was a guardship at Hull, before being replaced by her sister Audacious. She was then transferred to the Mediterranean where she served for most of her career, until 1886. She was sent to Cadiz in 1873 to prevent ships seized by republicans during the civil war in Spain from leaving harbour. She was Admiral Seymour's temporary flagship at the bombardment of Alexandria in 1882 because his normal one HMS Alexandra had too great a draught to enter the inner harbour. She provided men for the naval brigade that was subsequently landed and she also provided men for Charles Beresford's naval brigade in the Sudan campaign of 1885.

She made a trip to China in 1886 to carry out a new crew for Audacious before becoming the guardship at Southampton until 1893. Her engines were removed in 1901 when she became a depot ship at Sheerness for a destroyer flotilla. She was renamed HMS Erebus in 1904, a name that she bore until 1906 when she was converted into a training ship at Portsmouth for engineering artificers and was renamed Fisgard II (her sister Audacious had been renamed Fisgard in 1904).

On 17 September 1914 she sank during a storm off Portland Bill with the loss of 21 of her crew of 64. She was being towed from Portsmouth to Scapa Flow where she was to act as a receiving ship for seamen newly mobilised as a result of the First World War. She now lies upside down with the bottom of the hull about 50 metres below sea level.

See HMS Invincible for other ships of this name.

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