The ''Curlew''-class torpedo gunboat consisted of two "gun and torpedo vessels" operated by 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 ...

between 1886 and 1906. Designed to be a

torpedo cruiser A torpedo cruiser is a type of warship that is armed primarily with torpedoes. The major navies began building torpedo cruisers shortly after the invention of the locomotive Whitehead torpedo in the 1860s. The development of the torpedo gave ri ...

the size of a

gunvessel 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 ...

, the ships had a miserable career as the design was too slow and uneconomical for intended use. Regardless, the class served as the basis for further designs by the

due to their novel roles. Due to their unique design, the ships have also been referred to as sloops or gunvessels.

Development and design

During the early 1880s, the Royal Navy worked to develop a new type of warship, known as the

. Later designated as third-class cruisers, these vessels had the speed, size, and maneuverability to serve as a

vanguard The vanguard (sometimes abbreviated to van and also called the advance guard) is the leading part of an advancing military formation. It has a number of functions, including seeking out the enemy and securing ground in advance of the main force. ...

for ocean-going fleets of ironclads. In combat,

doctrine Doctrine (from , meaning 'teaching, instruction') is a codification (law), codification of beliefs or a body of teacher, teachings or instructions, taught principles or positions, as the essence of teachings in a given branch of knowledge or in a ...

called for the cruisers to sail ahead and engage enemy vessels, primarily

torpedo boat A torpedo boat is a relatively small and fast naval ship designed to carry torpedoes into battle. The first designs were steam-powered craft dedicated to ramming enemy ships with explosive spar torpedoes. Later evolutions launched variants of ...

s, with their guns and underwater

torpedo tube A torpedo tube is a cylindrical device for launching torpedoes. There are two main types of torpedo tube: underwater tubes fitted to submarines and some surface ships, and deck-mounted units (also referred to as torpedo launchers) installed aboa ...

s. After initial iterations of designs, the Navy was interested in making the design as small as possible, allowing the ships to be cheaper than the torpedo cruisers. After successes with the s and the smaller and s, plans were made to retain the combat capabilities of a cruiser on a ship the size of a gunvessel (gunboat). Named the ''Curlew'' class, the ships' primarily armament consisted of a breach loading rifle (BLR) and a single torpedo tube mounted at the bow, with two torpedo carriages mounted on the fore and aft to engage targets on either side of the ship. In addition, the ships were further fitted with three BLR mounts: one on the aft, and one on each side of the ship, along with seven machine guns to ward off torpedo boats. They displaced , were long between perpendiculars, had a beam of , a draught of , and manned by a crew of 46. Propelled by four

boiler A boiler is a closed vessel in which fluid (generally water) is heated. The fluid does not necessarily boil. The heated or vaporized fluid exits the boiler for use in various processes or heating applications, including water heating, centra ...

s feeding two propellers created and gave the vessels a maximum speed of . While the design resembled that of older gunvessels, these ships notably were made of steel and lacked sailing rigs. Due to the design blending the features of other types of ships, the ships have been referred to as sloops,

torpedo gunboat In the late 19th century, torpedo gunboats were a form of gunboat armed with torpedoes and designed for hunting and destroying smaller torpedo boats. By the end of the 1890s torpedo gunboats were superseded by their more successful contemporaries, ...

s, gunvessels, and "gun and torpedo vessels".

Service history

The two ships of the class, HMS ''Curlew'' and HMS ''Landrail'', were laid down in 1885 at Devonport Dockyard. However, upon entering service, they quickly proved redundant. The ships were intended to serve as fleet torpedo cruisers or operate independently as gunboats. In practice, they were too small and slow to function effectively with a fleet, while their complexity and cost made them unsuitable as standalone gunboats. Despite their failures, the design was later enlarged and modified to create the and third class cruisers. The concept behind the ''Curlew''s would later evolve into the torpedo gunboat and, eventually, the

destroyer In naval terminology, a destroyer is a fast, maneuverable, long-endurance warship intended to escort larger vessels in a fleet, convoy, or carrier battle group and defend them against a wide range of general threats. They were conceived i ...

Ships

References

{{reflist Sloops of the Royal Navy Victorian-era gunboats of the United Kingdom Ships built in Plymouth, Devon Gunboats of the Royal Navy Ship classes of the Royal Navy Torpedo gunboat classes