HMS Enterprise (1864)
The seventh HMS Enterprise of the Royal Navy was an armoured sloop launched in 1864 at Deptford Dockyard. Originally laid down as a wooden screw sloop of the Camelion class, she was redesigned by Edward Reed and completed as a [Central Artillery battery|battery ship|central battery ironclad]. The ship spent the bulk of her career assigned to the Mediterranean Fleet before returning to England in 1871 where she was paid off. Enterprise was sold for scrap in 1885.
Design and description
The ship had a length between perpendiculars of, a beam of, and a draught of at deep load. She displaced. Her crew consisted of 130 officers and men.Enterprises wooden hull was remodeled shortly after she was laid down; she was given a plough-shaped ram bow and a semi-circular stern. The ship had only two decks: the main deck, very close to the ship's waterline, and the upper deck which carried her armament, about above the waterline. She was the first ship of composite construction in the Royal Navy, with iron upperworks.
Propulsion
Enterprise had a Ravenhill, Salkeld & Co. direct-acting horizontal single-expansion 2-cylinder direct acting steam engine driving a single propeller. Steam was provided by a pair of tubular boilers. The engine produced which gave the ship a maximum speed around. Enterprise carried of coal. As built, her funnel was mounted in the middle of the battery for protection, which impaired the working of her guns until it was relocated forward of the battery in November 1864. She was barque-rigged with three masts and had a sail area of. Her best speed under sail and steam was.Armament
Enterprise was armed with two 100-pounder smoothbore, muzzle-loading Somerset cannon and two rifled [RBL 7 inch Armstrong Whitworth|Armstrong gun|110-pounder] breech-loading guns. The breech-loading guns were of a new design from Armstrong and much was hoped for them. Firing tests carried out in September 1861 against an armoured target, however, proved that the 110-pounder was inferior to the 68-pounder smoothbore gun in armour penetration, and repeated incidents of breech explosions during the Battles for Shimonoseki and the Bombardment of Kagoshima in 1863–64 caused the navy to withdraw the guns from service shortly afterwards.In an attempt to provide axial fire the sides of the hull at the upper deck level were cut away in front and behind the battery and covered by a bulwark. The bulwark hinged inwards and covered a gun port though which a gun could traverse and fire. While providing better coverage than the traditional broadside layout this still left a 120° arc forward and another aft on which no gun could bear.
The solid shot of the Somerset gun weighed approximately while the gun itself weighed. The gun had a velocity of at and had a range of. The shell of the 110-pounder Armstrong breech-loader weighed. It had a muzzle velocity of and, at an elevation of 11.25°, a maximum range of. The 110-pounder gun weighed. All of the guns could fire both solid shot and explosive shells. Both guns were mounted on wooden gun carriages with slides "which were difficult to traverse even on an even keel; in a seaway few captains would have run the risk of casting them loose."
Enterprise was rearmed during her 1868 refit with four rifled muzzle-loading guns. The 16-calibre 7-inch gun weighed and fired a shell. It was credited with the ability to penetrate armour.