Scout-class cruiser
The Scout class was a pair of torpedo cruisers operated by the Royal Navy between 1885 and 1905. The ships, Scout and Fearless, were the some of the first of their kind with the Navy and were ordered to counteract similar French ships. While the ships were intended to serve with a fleet, they were too slow to do so and instead operated independently for the next two decades. Both ships were sold off by 1905, although the design served as the basis for further British cruisers.
Development and design
During the early 1880s, the Royal Navy worked to develop a new type of warship, known as the torpedo cruiser. Later designated as third-class cruisers, these vessels had the speed, size, and maneuverability to serve as a vanguard for ocean-going fleets of ironclads. In combat, doctrine called for the cruisers to sail ahead and engage enemy vessels, primarily torpedo boats, with their guns and torpedo tubes. The Scout class was one of the first iterations of the design, developed in 1883 as a scaled down protected cruiser with the speed and weaponry expected of a gun vessel or dispatch ship. The design was developed in response to the French Navy laying down the torpedo cruisers in 1882.The ships had a displacement of 1,580 tons, length between perpendiculars of, waterline length of, beam of, draught of, and a complement of 147. The ships were equipped with 450 tons of coal that fed four boilers and two-cylinder Hathorn Davey steam engines which turned two propellers. They were rated to produce and a top speed of, although Scout achieved during her engine trials. The ships were initially armed with four Mk III guns, eight quick fire guns, two five-barreled Nordenfelt organ guns, four torpedo carriages, and three torpedo tubes. Twenty torpedoes were carried in total, with one torpedo tube on the bow, one on the stern, and one underwater tube near the bow. The ships were rigged with three sails and a jib. The ships also featured a steel deck below the waterline, around the torpedo ports, and gunshields.
Before the ships had even been launched, the design served as the basis for the slightly larger, which featured a different arrangement of torpedo tubes, stronger ram, and a main armament of guns.