Saturday, February 6, 2010

The cruiser Powerful, revisited

If you search with Google Image Search, you will find that there are many photographs of the 1st Class Protected Cruiser Powerful online. Battleships and Cruisers has number of them on this page. There is also this Wikipedia page. There are some really nice pictures from Australia and New Zealand of the Powerful from about 1908, and possibly later. I did find this one of the Powerful at Sydney harbour in August of 1908. The Powerful and Terrible had the misfortune to be completed right before the armoured cruisers. The navy regarded the 1st Class Protected Cruisers as white elephants, as they wanted vertical side armour, not thick protective decks. Of course, The later Coumty Class ships had less protection than the Powerfuls did. The Powerfuls were armed according to the current thinking, circa 1895, with 2-9.2in and 16-6in guns in two-story casemates. They were completely reasonable ships for service overseas, even if they were deemed unsuitable for service with the main battlefleet.

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