SU N DAY, 14 DECEMBER 2025
In contrast to the multifarious development of ironclads in preceding decades, the 1890s saw navies worldwide start to build battleships to a common design as dozens of ships essentially followed the design of the Royal Navy's Majestic class. [2] Built from steel, protected by compound, nickel steel or case-hardened steel armor, pre-dreadnought battleships were driven by coal-fired boilers powering compound reciprocating steam engines which turned underwater screws. These ships distinctively carried a main battery of very heavy guns upon the weather deck, in large rotating mounts either fully or partially armored over, and supported by one or more secondary batteries of lighter weapons on broadside. The similarity in appearance of battleships in the 1890s was underlined by the increasing number of ships being built. New naval powers such as Germany, Japan, the United States, and to a lesser extent Italy and Austria-Hungary, began to establish themselves with fleets of pre-dreadnoughts. Meanwhile, the battleship fleets of the United Kingdom, France, and Russia expanded to meet these new threats. The last decisive clash of pre-dreadnought fleets was between the Imperial Japanese Navy and the Imperial Russian Navy at the Battle of Tsushima on 27 May 1905. [3]
HMS Mars at anchor
N amesake
Mars, the Roman god of war
Builder
Laird Brothers, Birkenhead
Laid down
2 June 1894
Launched
30 March 1896
Completed
June 1897
Commissioned 8 June 1897 Decommissioned 7 July 1920 Fate
Sold for scrapping 9 May 1921
Class and type
Majestic -class pre-dreadnought battleship
Displacement
16,060 long tons (16,320 t)
Length
421 ft (128 m)
Beam
75 ft (23 m)
Draught 27 ft (8.2 m) Installed power 10,000 indicated horsepower (7,500 kW) 8 × cylindrical boilers Propulsion 2 × 3-cylinder vertical triple-expansion steam engines, twin screws Speed 16 kn (30 km/h; 18 mph) Complement 672 Armament
4 × BL 12 in (305 mm) guns 12 × QF 6 in (152 mm) guns 16 × 12 pounder (76 mm) guns 12 × 3 pounder (47 mm) quick-firing guns 5 × 18 in (457 mm) torpedo tubes
Armour
Belt armour: 9 in (229 mm) Deck: 2.5 to 4.5 in (64 to 114 mm)
Barbettes: 14 in (356 mm) Conning tower: 14 inches
The pre-dreadnought design reached maturity in 1895 with the Majestic class. [8] These ships were built and armoured entirely of steel, and their guns were now mounted in fully-enclosed rotating turrets. They also adopted 12-inch (305 mm) main guns, which, because of advances in gun construction and the use of cordite propellant, were lighter and more powerful than the previous guns of larger caliber. The Majestic's provided the model for battleship construction in the Royal Navy and many other navies for years to come. [9]
Maggie Marriott's nom de guerre
Maggie Marriott
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