Iconic Ships 11: HMS Warrior

In this episode Dr Sam Willis explores HMS Warrior, one of the most groundbreaking ships in the history of naval power. An iron-framed, iron-clad single-gundeck warship, launched in 1860 HMS Warrior defied categorisation and changed the way that seapower was both wielded and imagined. She was built in a period of intense rivalry between Britain and France when technology was advancing so rapidly that innovations existed alongside an entirely realistic fear that new inventions would undermine Britain’s existing naval supremacy. In this period steam would replace sail for propulsion; iron and then steel would replace wood for construction; exploding shells would replace solid iron shot for armament and they would be fired from rifled, breech loading guns that could fire further than could ever have been imagined. Warrior had more firepower than two standard wood ships of the line. Remarkably, Warrior still survives: she was decommissioned from active service in 1882, but survived being scrapped. In 1979 the ship was rescued for preservation having served as a fuelling pontoon in South Wales for 50 years. She can now be visited in all of her glory at the National Museum of the Royal Navy in Portsmouth: a most remarkable warship – a technological innovation in the business of war, but which never fired a single shot in anger: and the two were linked: warrior was so superior to any other warship at the time of its construction that its supremacy never had to be challenged in battle: she was the ultimate naval deterrent. To find out more, Sam speaks with Jeremy Michell, Senior Curator: Maritime Technologies at the National Maritime Museum in London.

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Iconic Ships 11: HMS Warrior

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