Cerberus class battleship

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Cerberus class battleships were a class of warship in the Royal Navy of the United Kingdom in the latter half of the 19th Century. They were designed by Sir Edward Reed in response to requests made by several Dominions and colonies for modern warships to be used for local harbour defence.

The class ultimately consisted of only two ships, the HMS Cerberus and the HMS Magdala, although the HMS Abyssinia, while rather smaller, was built to the same concept and may be thought of as a half-sister.

The size of the ships was limited by cost, consequent upon the limited budgets of the countries placing the orders. They were designed and built to be used as local defence ships, and it was not expected that they would ever need to be deployed far away from their bases. Their displacements were on the order of half that of contemporary ships being commissioned into the Royal Navy. It was therefore possible to design them without sails or rigging and dependent only upon their engines, with a resulting limitation in their effective range.

The absence of masts and rigging resulted in two meaningful benefits. The weight saved by requiring less sailing equipment, crew, and supplies allowed more weight to be worked into the ship's armour. This also meant it was possible to arm the ships with two gun turrets, one fore and one aft, which had wholly unobstructed fields of fire over the bow and stern and on wide arcs amidships.

The turrets were mounted on the upper deck and hence had a greater height above water and a correspondingly greater command than guns mounted on the broadside on the main deck. The turret armament provided an additional advantage of allowing the ships to have a low freeboard. This increased the steadiness of the ship and allowed the hull armour to be applied more thickly over a more limited height of exposed hull.

Although they were built to order for distant parts of the British Empire, and although none of them ever operated alongside any Royal Naval vessel in peace or in war, these ships were nonetheless always listed as part of the strength of the Royal Navy.