Ajax class battleship

The "Ajax "class of battleships consisted of two ships, HMS|Ajax|1880|6 and HMS|Agamemnon|1879|6. They were ironclad ships serving in the Victorian Royal Navy, armed with turret-mounted main armament.

The Board of Admiralty have a historical tradition of attempting to follow a successful ship with a smaller and cheaper version of the same thing. This policy, based on financial considerations, has seldom if ever been successful. Just as HMS|Warrior|1860|6 was followed by HMS|Defence|1861|6, and as HMS|Queen Elizabeth|1913|6 was followed by HMS|Revenge|1915|6, so was HMS|Inflexible|1876|6 followed by "Ajax" and "Agamemnon".

These two ships were built to the same concept as "Inflexible" - a heavily armoured citadel carrying four heavy guns mounted 'en echelon' in turrets to achieve all-round fire, but were required to be of lighter draught, and to displace 3,000 tons less. It was therefore necessary to arm them with guns of 12.5 inch calibre, as against 16 inch in "Inflexible", and to accept a maximum speed of nearly two knots less. Also unlike the "Inflexible", these ships were dependent upon the integrity of their unarmoured ends to maintain buoyancy; should the ends have been damaged enough to become waterlogged, there ships would have sunk.

This class were the last ships in the Royal Navy to be armed with muzzle-loading rifles, and the first to carry any form of secondary armament. They were designed from the start not to carry any form of sailing rig.

References

*Oscar Parkes, "British Battleships" ISBN 0-85052-604-3
*Conway, "All the World's Fighting Ships" ISBN 0-85177-133-5