HMS'' Magdala'' was a
breastwork monitor of the
Royal Navy, built specifically to serve as a
coastal defence ship for the harbour of
Bombay (now
Mumbai) in the late 1860s. She was ordered by the
India Office
The India Office was a British government department established in London in 1858 to oversee the administration, through a Viceroy and other officials, of the Provinces of India. These territories comprised most of the modern-day nations of I ...
for the
Bombay Marine. The original specifications were thought to be too expensive and a cheaper design was ordered. While limited to harbour defence duties, the breastwork monitors were described by Admiral
George Alexander Ballard as being like "full-armoured knights riding on donkeys, easy to avoid but bad to close with." Aside from gunnery practice ''Magdala'' remained in Bombay Harbour for her entire career. The ship was sold for
scrap
Scrap consists of Recycling, recyclable materials, usually metals, left over from product manufacturing and consumption, such as parts of vehicles, building supplies, and surplus materials. Unlike waste, scrap Waste valorization, has monetary ...
in 1903.
Design and description
In July 1866 the India Office asked for two floating batteries to defend Bombay and the
Controller of the Navy,
Vice Admiral Spencer Robinson recommended that
monitors be used. He recommended a design with armour
belt and protecting the gun turret, armed with the largest possible guns, which would cost £220,000. The India Office thought that this was too expensive and ordered a repeat of instead for only £132,400.
[Parkes, p. 167]
The ships had a
length between perpendiculars of , a
beam
Beam may refer to:
Streams of particles or energy
*Light beam, or beam of light, a directional projection of light energy
**Laser beam
*Particle beam, a stream of charged or neutral particles
**Charged particle beam, a spatially localized grou ...
of , and a
draught of at
deep load. They displaced . Their crew consisted of 155 officers and men.
[
]
Propulsion
''Magdala'' had two horizontal direct-acting steam engines, made by Ravenhill, each driving a single propeller.[ The ship's boilers had a working pressure of . The engines produced a total of on 21 October 1870 during the ship's sea trials which gave her a maximum speed of . ''Magdala'' carried of coal, enough to steam at .][Silverstone, p. 165]
Armament
The ''Cerberus''-class ships mounted a pair of 10-inch
A phonograph record (also known as a gramophone record, especially in British English), or simply a record, is an analog sound storage medium in the form of a flat disc with an inscribed, modulated spiral groove. The groove usually starts near ...
rifled muzzle-loading guns in each hand-worked turret. The shell of the gun weighed while the gun itself weighed . The gun had a muzzle velocity
Muzzle velocity is the speed of a projectile (bullet, pellet, slug, ball/shots or shell) with respect to the muzzle at the moment it leaves the end of a gun's barrel (i.e. the muzzle). Firearm muzzle velocities range from approximately to i ...
of and was credited with the ability to penetrate a nominal of wrought iron armour at . The guns could fire both solid shot and explosive shells. ''Magdala'' was rearmed in 1892 with four breech-loading
A breechloader is a firearm in which the user loads the ammunition (cartridge or shell) via the rear (breech) end of its barrel, as opposed to a muzzleloader, which loads ammunition via the front ( muzzle).
Modern firearms are generally breech ...
BL 8-inch guns.[Gardiner, p. 21]
Armour
The ''Cerberus''-class ships had a complete wrought iron waterline belt that was thick amidships and thinned to at the ends. The superstructure and conning tower
A conning tower is a raised platform on a ship or submarine, often armored, from which an officer in charge can conn the vessel, controlling movements of the ship by giving orders to those responsible for the ship's engine, rudder, lines, and gro ...
were fully armoured, the reason it was called a breastwork, with of wrought iron. The gun turrets had on their faces and on the sides and rear. All of the vertical armour was backed by of teak. The decks were thick, backed by of teak.
Service
HMS ''Magdala'' was laid down on 6 October 1868 by the Thames Ironworks in Leamouth, London. She was launched on 2 March 1870 and completed in November 1870. For her delivery voyage to India, ''Magdala'' was fitted with three temporary masts and made the trip under sail in the middle of winter without escort, as both her builders and the Royal Navy, considered her sufficiently seaworthy as to make the trip safely. Her life thereafter was wholly spent in Bombay Harbour, with occasional short trips to sea for firing practice. She was sold for scrap in January 1903.[Silverstone, p. 249]
Notes
References
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External links
Magdala & Abyssinia Slideshow
{{DEFAULTSORT:Magdala (1870)
Cerberus-class monitors
Ships built in Leamouth
1870 ships
Victorian-era monitors of the United Kingdom