Spanish ironclad Numancia

The Spanish ironclad Numancia was an armored frigate bought from France during the 1860s for service with the Royal Spanish Navy (Armada Real). The name was derived from the Siege of Numantia, in which Roman expansion in the Iberian Peninsula was resisted. She was the first ironclad to circumnavigate the Earth. She saw service in the Chincha Islands War and Cantonal Revolution.

Design and description
Numancia was 95.6 m long at the waterline, had a beam of 17.3 m and a draft of 7.7 m. She displaced 7305 t and was fitted with a ram bow. Her crew consisted of 561 officers and enlisted men.

The ship was fitted with a pair of horizontal-return connecting-rod steam engines from her builder that drove one propeller shaft using steam provided by eight cylindrical boilers. The engines were rated at a total of 1,000 nominal horsepower or 3700 ihp and gave Numancia a speed of 12.7 kn The ironclad carried a maximum of 1100 t of coal that gave her a range of 3000 nmi at 10 kn. She was fitted with a three-masted ship rig with a sail area of 1800 - 1900 sqm.

The frigate's main battery initially consisted of forty 200 mm smoothbore guns mounted on the broadside, but her armament was changed around 1867 to with six 229 mm and three 200 mm Armstrong-Whitworth guns, and eight Trubia 160 mm guns, all of which were rifled muzzle-loading (RML) weapons. The 229 mm and 160 mm guns were situated on the gun deck while the 200 mm guns were positioned on the main deck. In 1883 Numancia was rearmed with eight Armstrong-Whitworth 254 mm RML guns and seven 200 mm RMLs. When the ship was refitted in France in 1896–1898, her armament was changed to six Hontoria 160 mm and eight Canet 140 mm (real caliber 138.6 mm) rifled breech-loading guns and a pair of 354 mm torpedo tubes. According to other sources, main artillery was 6.5 inch guns (French caliber 164.7 mm)

Numancia had a complete wrought iron waterline belt of 130 mm armor plates. Above the belt, the guns were protected by a 120 mm strake of armor that extended the length of the ship. The deck was unarmored.

Construction and career
In 1866 the ship was a core of Spanish escadre sent to Eastern Pacific participating in the Chincha Islands War, and shelling Valparaíso and Callao. On the way back she became the first ironclad to circumnavigate the Earth under the command of Juan Bautista Antequera y Bobadilla. For this, she earned the motto: "Enloricata navis que primo terram circuivit" ["First ironclad ship to sail around the world"]).

On 19 October 1873, during the Cantonal Revolution, Numancia collided with and sank the gunboat Fernando el Católico.

In November 1902 she was ordered to Ceuta to protect Spanish citizens in Morocco during unrest in that country.

On August 5, 1911 a mutiny occurred while in Tangiers. The mutineers were overpowered and put in irons after which the ship steamed for Cadiz. Once there 26 mutineers were tried by court martial and condemned to death. At 9 am on 8 August 1911 they were given communion and immediately executed.

While being towed to be scrapped in Bilbao she ran aground near Sesimbra, Portugal, during a gale on 17 December 1916 en route from Cadiz.