Talk:HMS Achilles (1863)

When was she reduced to 3 masts? Drutt (talk) 06:05, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Launch date
A minor issue, to be sure, but Wheeler says the launch date was Dec 24, not the 23rd, and is a more nearly contemporaneous source than Conway or Parkes. Not being at all informed on the topic, though, there might be a difference between "launch date" and "float date" of which I'm unaware. (Wheeler, William A., and Charles G. Wheeler. Familiar Allusions A Handbook of Miscellaneous Information. Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin, and Company The Riverside Press, Cambridge, 1881. Print.) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Shelby Davis (talk • contribs) 18:02, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Note 1
Apparently the ironclad frigates were designed to be frigates in purpose, first and foremost, but were forced into service as battleships because they were so expensive?

This isn't right and I don't know what misreading is going on here. The attempts to build seagoing armoured warships at the end of the 1850s settled on the armoured frigate concept because the idea of building an armoured vessel with more than one full-length gundeck any useful height above w/l was immediately foreseen to present stability issues associated with topweight & centre of gravity. (Note that the French did indeed construct a pair of two-decker ironclads as part of their first programme, and recorded these ships as being adequate seaboats, but they were deemed inferior to the single-deckers in this regard and featured very low main gundecks - and were not repeated.)

These vessels were armed with the most powerful guns of the day and were intended very much to both withstand battleship fire (something which a traditional wooden 4th- or 5th-rate frigate would never attempt to undertake in its designed role) - especially in the context of shell-firing guns - and to destroy enemy ships of the line, which they could do as designed thanks to their huge resilience, which the armour was specifically included to impart.

The notion that these heavy, somewhat sluggishly-manoeuvring ships were intended as long-range independent trade protection and patrol vessels, or as repeating ships for the wooden line of battle is entirely at odds with the well-established history of the type. Which source said this of the type and what was the exact phrasing, please? 2A00:23C7:3119:AD01:6CEE:9B79:5D9A:6432 (talk) 21:12, 9 June 2023 (UTC)

Only 4-masted British Warship?
Our article states that "she was the only British warship ever to have four masts". I find that somewhat misleading - maybe the source uses "British" in contrast to "English" to refer to ships in use after the Act of Union 1707? Four masts were fairly standard for large galleons, and Henry Grace à Dieu, for example, certainly had four masts. Can someone with access to the source try to clarify this? --Stephan Schulz (talk) 12:36, 21 February 2024 (UTC)