Spanish ironclad Vitoria


The Spanish ironclad Vitoria was an iron-hulled armored frigate purchased from England during the 1860s.

Design and description

Vitoria was long at the waterline, had a beam of and a draft of. She displaced. Her crew consisted of 561 officers and enlisted men.
The ship was fitted with a pair of John Penn and Sons trunk steam engines 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, and gave Vitoria a speed of The ironclad carried a maximum of of coal that gave her a range of at. She was fitted with a three-masted ship rig with a sail area of around.
The frigate's main battery was originally intended to consist of thirty smoothbore guns mounted on the broadside, but she was fitted with four and three 200 mm Armstrong-Whitworth rifled muzzle-loading guns, and fourteen Trubia smoothbore guns. The 229 mm and 160 mm guns were situated on the gun deck while the 200 mm guns were positioned on the main deck, one on each broadside, and another in the forecastle as the forward chase gun. By 1883, the Trubia guns had been replaced by four more 229 mm guns. When Vitoria was refitted in France in 1896–1898, her armament was changed to six Hontoria 160 mm and eight Canet rifled breech-loading guns and a pair of torpedo tubes.
Vitoria had a complete wrought iron waterline belt of 140 mm armor plates. Above the belt, the guns, except for the chase gun, were protected by of armor. The ends of the ship and the deck were unarmored.

Footnotes