HMS Resistance (1861)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Career

Laid down:	December 1859
Launched:	April 11, 1861
Commissioned:	July 2, 1862
Sold:	1898
Specification
Displacement:	6,070 tons
Length:	280 ft (85.3 m) pp, 302 ft (92 m) overall
Beam:	54 ft 2 inch (16.5 m)
Draught:	25 ft (7.6 m)
Propulsion:	Single-shaft Penn trunk engines; I.H.P 2.540
Speed under power:	10.75 knots
Sail:	Barque rig, sail area 24,500 sq. ft.
Speed under sail;	10.5 knots
Complement:	460
Armament:	six 7 inch breech-loaders, ten 68 pounders, two 32 pounders
Re-armed 1867:	Two 8 inch muzzle-loading rifes, fourteen 7 inch muzzle-loading rifles
Armour:	4.5 inch with 18 inch teak backing. 4.5 inch bulkheads

HMS Resistance was the second and last ship of the Defence Class to be commissioned.

She served in the Channel from 1862 to 1864, and was then posted to the Mediterranean, where she was the first British ironclad to see service. She paid off in Portsmouth in 1867 for a two-year refit and re-armament. From 1869 until 1873 she served as guardship in the Mersey, and was then re-commissioned into the Channel Fleet, where she served until 1877. She formed part of the Particular Service Squadron during the Russian war scare of 1878, reverting thereafter to Mersey guardship. Her active service finished in 1880 when she finally paid off and was partly stripped and dismantled at Devonport. In 1885 she was used as a target in the testing of torpedoes and gunfire. She survived this, to be sold for scrapping in 1898. She sank at Holyhead in 1899.