Description

HMS Warrior was the first iron-hulled, armour-plated warship, built for the Royal Navy in response to the first ironclad warship, the French La Gloire, launched a year earlier.

When completed in October ***1, Warrior was by far the largest, fastest, most heavily-armed and most heavily-armoured warship the world had ever seen. She was almost twice the size of La Gloire and thoroughly outclassed the French ship in speed, armour, and gunnery.

Warrior did not introduce any radical new technology, but for the first time combined steam engines, massive rifle-bored breech-loading guns, iron construction, iron armour, and propeller drive all in one ship, and built to unprecedented scale.

Her construction sparked off the intense competition between guns and armour that was to last for the next *5 years. This race caused her to quickly become obsolete, and she was withdrawn as a fighting unit in May of ***3. She is now a museum ship, open to the public in Portsmouth, England.