The ''Albacore''-class gunboat, also known as "Crimean gunboat", was a class of 98

gunboat A gunboat is a naval watercraft designed for the express purpose of carrying one or more guns to bombard coastal targets, as opposed to those military craft designed for naval warfare, or for ferrying troops or supplies. History Pre-steam ...

s built for the

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the naval warfare force of the United Kingdom. It is a component of His Majesty's Naval Service, and its officers hold their commissions from the King of the United Kingdom, King. Although warships were used by Kingdom ...

in 1855 and 1856 for use in the 1853-1856

Crimean War The Crimean War was fought between the Russian Empire and an alliance of the Ottoman Empire, the Second French Empire, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and the Kingdom of Sardinia (1720–1861), Kingdom of Sardinia-Piedmont fro ...

. The design of the class, by W. H. Walker, was approved on 18 April 1855. The first vessels were ordered the same day, and 48 were on order by July; a second batch, which included ''Surly'', were ordered in early October.

Design

The ''Albacore'' class was almost identical to the preceding , also designed by W.H. Walker. The ships were wooden-hulled, with both steam power and sails, and of shallow draught for coastal bombardment in the shallow waters of the

Baltic Baltic may refer to: Peoples and languages *Baltic languages, a subfamily of Indo-European languages, including Lithuanian, Latvian and extinct Old Prussian *Balts (or Baltic peoples), ethnic groups speaking the Baltic languages and/or originatin ...

and

Black Sea The Black Sea is a marginal sea, marginal Mediterranean sea (oceanography), mediterranean sea lying between Europe and Asia, east of the Balkans, south of the East European Plain, west of the Caucasus, and north of Anatolia. It is bound ...

s during the Crimean War. The ''Albacore''-class vessels measured in length at the

gundeck The term gun deck used to refer to a deck aboard a ship that was primarily used for the mounting of cannon to be fired in broadsides. The term is generally applied to decks enclosed under a roof; smaller and unrated vessels carried their guns ...

and at the keel. They were in

beam Beam may refer to: Streams of particles or energy *Light beam, or beam of light, a directional projection of light energy **Laser beam *Radio beam *Particle beam, a stream of charged or neutral particles **Charged particle beam, a spatially lo ...

, deep in the hold and had a draught of . Their displacement was 284 tons and they measured 232 tons

Builder's Old Measurement Builder's Old Measurement (BOM, bm, OM, and o.m.) is the method used in England from approximately 1650 to 1849 for calculating the cargo capacity of a ship. It is a volumetric measurement of cubic capacity. It estimated the tonnage of a ship b ...

. The ''Albacore''-class carried a crew of 36-40 men. One of the vessels of the class, HMS ''Surly'', cost £9,867, of which the hull accounted for £5,656 and machinery £3,298.

Propulsion

Half of the ships had two-cylinder horizontal single-expansion trunk steam engines, built by

John Penn and Sons John Penn and Sons was an English engineering company based in London, and mainly known for its marine steam engines. History Establishment In 1799, engineer and millwright John Penn (born in Taunton, Somerset, 1770; died 6 June 1843) started a ...

, with two boilers. The other half had two-cylinder horizontal single-expansion direct-acting steam engines, built by

Maudslay, Sons and Field Maudslay, Sons and Field was an engineering company based in Lambeth Lambeth () is a district in South London, England, which today also gives its name to the (much larger) London Borough of Lambeth. Lambeth itself was an ancient parish in ...

, with three boilers. Both versions provided 60

nominal horsepower Horsepower (hp) is a unit of measurement of power, or the rate at which work is done, usually in reference to the output of engines or motors. There are many different standards and types of horsepower. Two common definitions used today are th ...

through a single screw, sufficient for .

Armament

Ships of the class were armed with one 68-pounder (95 cwt) muzzle-loading smoothbore gun, one 32-pounder muzzle-loading smoothbore gun (originally two 68-pounders were planned but the forward gun was substituted by a 32-pounder) and two 24-pounder

howitzer The howitzer () is an artillery weapon that falls between a cannon (or field gun) and a mortar. It is capable of both low angle fire like a field gun and high angle fire like a mortar, given the distinction between low and high angle fire break ...

Ships

References

Bibliography

* * {{Albacore class gunboat (1855) Gunboat classes Albacore