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The Almirante Cochrane class was a pair of two central battery ironclads, CHILEAN IRONCLAD Almirante Cochrane and CHILEAN IRONCLAD Blanco Encalada, ordered for the Chilean Navy in the 1870s. These ships were built in a British shipyard in accordance with Chilean requirements, conservatively designed but of proven efficiency. They were medium-sized ships, oceanic and described as armored frigates.

The sister ships would arrive in Chile in a period of high tension with neighboring countries, placing this country in an advantageous naval position. They were the first ironclads that it had and the center of their naval power during the first part of the second half of the 19th century. In the War of the Pacific (1879–1883) they had a relevant participation, granting Chile control of the sea. Later, they participated in the Chilean Civil War of 1891, where the Blanco Encalada was sunk by a torpedo, marking a milestone in naval history. Almirante Cochrane would continue in service for several more years until the first decades of the 20th century, but already relegated from his role as a capital ship and would finally be retired in 1933.

Background
The genesis of the two Almirante Cochrane class ships dates back to Chile's first attempts to acquire an iron cladding in the 1860s, during the government of President José Joaquín Pérez (1861–1871). In the early 1860s, the Chilean Navy only had a minuscule force of four steamships, while other sailing ships were alienated or lost in previous years. In this situation, on 15 December 1863, a law was approved authorizing the spending of $500,000 Chilean pesos for the acquisition of new naval equipment. The Chilean government looked for what to invest this money, considering the importance of the introduction and development of ironclads when looking for alternatives. Shortly after the approval of the law, a questionnaire was sent to the most expert people in Chile about shipbuilding so that they could decide which option to take. Although the responses of these experts were somewhat different, they all agreed on the advisability of acquire corvettes and ruling out ironclads, mainly for budgetary reasons. The government would finally choose this option, for the time being discarding any type of ironclads, including a proposal made in mid-1864 to build an ironclad in the country.

Given the tensions that year between Spain and Peru, the Chilean government approved in August a new budget law of $1,500,000 Chilean pesos for naval acquisitions. After several attempts to acquire new or used ships, the corvettes CHILEAN CORVETTE O'Higgins and CHILEAN CORVETTE Chacabuco began to be built in British shipyards. Chilean participation in the conflict between Spain and Peru, which led to the Chincha Islands War (1865–1866), forced this country to urgently acquire more warships, be they ironclads or steamers. The ironclad offers that were obtained were the Danish ship HDMS Danmark (1864) and the USS Dunderberg, both offered in 1865, but in both cases the purchase could not be made, the first for not being able to pay in cash and the second for the delay in obtaining of the money. After all, in 1866 Chilean agents operating abroad only managed to acquire four armed steamers in the United States and one corvette in the United Kingdom.

As the Spanish threat faded, Chile began to have tensions with Peru, which until then had been its ally. In 1868, the Peruvian government unsuccessfully opposed the agreement that Chile had reached with Spain to release the aforementioned corvettes that it had ordered in 1864. This opposition came at a time when Peru had gained a great naval advantage over Chile. This is because, unlike the latter country, Peru had acquired two ironclads during the war; the armored frigate PERUVIAN IRONCLAD Independencia and the turret ship Huáscar, and then two monitors of the Canonicus-class monitor in 1867. Faced with this situation, the Pérez government resumed efforts in 1868 to acquire ironclads, more precisely monitors, but without success. First, an attempt was made to hire a French builder who stated that he was not in a position to do so. Later in the United Kingdom, where the proposal of the Laird Brothers shipyard was chosen, but the hiring was never carried out, since the British government would retain the ship due to the indefinite war situation between Chile and Spain, which would be defined in 1871 with the signing of an armistice.

Finally, the Chilean Navy ended the 1860s without ironclads and would enter the next decade without such ships. But this situation would change with the government of President Federico Errázuriz Zañartu (1871–1876), shortly after taking office, dealing with the issue of ordering the construction of two ironclads.