HMS Shannon(1875): 19th Century Cruisers p4

The Royal Navy's first armoured cruiser combined ambitious mid-Victorian ideas in a deeply unsuccessful design.

Shannon's belt stayed above water, but its unusual placement protected none of her gun positions.

The Pacific Station held no replacement ten-inch ammunition for Shannon, preventing routine practice with her largest guns after deployment.

Shannon was meant to charge bow-on behind ten-inch guns, ram her opponent, and electrically fire a nine-inch broadside while passing.

Shannon combined responses to Russian and French armoured ships with commerce-raiding and commerce-protection duties.

A full ship rig insisted upon by Captain Arthur Hood proved excessive and was reduced to a barque rig after service trials.

Shannon missed her thirteen-knot target, doubled her coal capacity, and retained a lifting propeller to improve performance under sail.

Shannon began with two ten-inch and seven nine-inch muzzle-loaders before receiving an incomplete breech-loader refit and four torpedo tubes.

Shannon concentrated iron and teak around a forward citadel, with a submerged armoured deck and coal stores intended to limit bow flooding.

Shannon's bow-heavy protection appears to have been an iron-hulled attempt to survive the head-on line-breaking tactics associated with Trafalgar.

Although intended as a foreign-station ironclad and cruiser, Shannon's roughly twelve-knot maximum undermined her ability to perform cruiser missions.

Weight and machinery defects delayed Shannon, interrupted her China Station dispatch, and limited her eventual Pacific deployment to 1879-1881.

After refit Shannon became tender to the older HMS Warrior and ranked near the bottom of the reserve mobilization during the Panjdeh crisis.

Shannon cost roughly £304,000-£306,000 with armament, but Britain's industrial capacity allowed later cruiser designs to improve beyond this costly experiment.

The closing prompt asks how an 1880s naval power should acknowledge, employ, or quietly dispose of a warship that has proved a complete failure.