153 
THE WORLDS WARSHIPS. 
ber, 1872, and completed in December, 1878. She is 318 feet in 
length, 64 in beam, and 9000 tons displacement. 
The hull is of steel, the plating of iron. The armour is arranged in 
a water-line belt running right round the ship and extending well 
down over the point of the ram, which weighs 30 tons. It is 14 
inches thick amidships and nine inches fore and aft, and five feet both 
above and below the water. In the central part of the ship is an 
irregular octagonal battery, carried up from the main to the upper 
deck. The sides of the ship before and abaft this battery tumble 
home considerably. 1 This permits of a fore and aft fire from the 
protected guns within it. The sides and bulkheads of this central 
battery are 9'5 inches thick ; there are no doors to it—entrance having 
to be obtained from above. On this again are two heavy guns pro¬ 
tected by a thin screen of iron, over which they fire en barbette. The 
height of this gun platform is 20 feet from the water. She has also a 
pear-shaped barbette for a stern chaser quite aft, and a bow chaser 
under her bowsprit. This accounts for eight 27 cm guns. There is a 
secondary armament of six 14 cm guns on her upper deck. The engines 
have developed a speed of over 14 knots (twin screws), but have only 
a coal consumption of 2800 knots at 10-knot speed. 
In general appearance she is not unlike our Audacious class, Iron 
Duke, Invincible, etc. The central battery is very prominent, with a 
very large tall oblong funnel right between the two centre barbette 
towers. Her stern is sloping and rounded, with a stern walk. She 
has three fully rigged masts. The mainmast in her very centre just 
inside the battery, the foremast square rigged and well forward, the 
mizen nearer the mainmast than the stern. 
The Redoubtable was followed by two larger sisters, for though of 
the same length they have nearly 10,000 tons displacement. The con¬ 
struction is the same, the armour on the belt being increased in mean 
thickness though not in maximum. The Devastation is slightly the 
larger, and can steam 15 knots to the 14 of the Courbet. They are 
similarly armed with four 34 cm 48-ton B.L.R. guns in their battery. 
The rest of their armament is the same as that of their predecessor. 
At first they were fully rigged, but have now only military masts 
placed or cut down from the original ones, which are similarly placed 
to those of the Redoubtable. Each mast has two tops, the lower for 
four Hotchkiss, the upper pierced for musketry. There are two oblong 
funnels placed abreast in the Devastation, and four in the Courbet, 
but to ordinary eyes the latter would look more like two abreast, as 
the casing is carried so high up. 
I attach but the slightest importance to rig in distinguishing ships, 
as it can be so easily altered and disguised; it is, however, different 
with the position of the funnels and masts, which remain in the same 
places. 
The position of the funnels in these three ships is in the same trans¬ 
verse line, namely, the very centre of the battery. 
The Courbet was originally named the Foudroyant. 
1 “Tumbling home or falling home—the inclination of the top side from a perpendicular 
towards the centre or middle line of the ship.” 
