HMS Polyphemus (1881)
The third HMS Polyphemus was a Royal Navy torpedo ram, serving from 1881 until 1903. A shallow-draft, fast, low-profile vessel, she was designed to penetrate enemy harbours at speed and sink anchored ships. Designed by Nathaniel Barnaby primarily as a protected torpedo boat, the ram was provided very much as secondary armament.
HMS Polyphemus | |
| History | |
|---|---|
| United Kingdom | |
| Builder | Chatham Dockyard |
| Laid down | 1878 |
| Launched | 15 June 1881 |
| Fate | Sold for breaking up 7 July 1903 |
| General characteristics | |
| Displacement | 2,640 tons |
| Length | 240 ft (73 m) |
| Beam | 37 ft (11 m) |
| Draught | 20 ft 6 in (6.25 m) |
| Speed | 17.8 knots maximum |
| Endurance | "capable of making a passage in any weather from Plymouth to Gibraltar, or from Gibraltar to Malta at 10 knots without assistance" |
| Complement | 80 |
| Armament |
|
| Armour | deck 3 inches compound armour, hatch coamings 4 inches, conning tower 8 inches |
It has been suggested that H. G. Wells’ fictional HMS Thunder Child from his novel The War of the Worlds may have been based on this ship, in part because he described Thunder Child as an ironclad torpedo ram, and Polyphemus was the only ship of this type which the Royal Navy possessed. However, Wells may have been using the term loosely, given that numerous European warships were described as either 'torpedo rams' or 'torpedo ram cruisers'; an example of the former being Tordenskjold and the latter including Giovanni Bausan. This explanation is more likely given that the fictional ship does not match the other particulars, such as number of funnels, size and weaponry, of HMS Polyphemus.