HMS Devastation

As originally conceived by Sir Edward Reed, the Devastation was a very clean design. After being rebuilt and late in life, the Devastation was overloaded with top hamper. The best feature of the original design was that the ship pioneered the more modern gun layout with two turrets with two heavy guns each that was standard until the early 20th Century. The most problematic feature was the low freeboard, although as a breastwork monitor, the Devastation was superior to the pure monitor which had such a low freeboard that at sea the deck would always be awash.

Another try at the CSS Virginia

This is another attempt at depicting, photographically, the CSS Virginia lying at anchor near Norfolk in early 1652.

The Spanish cruiser Cristobal Colon

Spain had purchased an Italian armoured cruiser of a very successful design to strengthen their cruiser force. The problem is that the Spanish authorities dissaproved of having the Italian 10in gun on their ship, so the Cristobal Colon was delivered without her main armament! The Cristobal Colon was driven ashore, a wreck, at Santiago Bay, in 1898, with wooden guns for the main armament. Ten ships of the class were built. Five of them were sold to foreign navies and the next three were used by the Italian navy. The last two ended up in the Japanese navy as the Nisshin and Kasuga.