Heh Colin
Here is some more useless information for you about HMS Inflexible
Her first Captain was one J.A.Fisher, later to become the First Lord of the Admiralty, and the driving force behind the development of the Dreadnought, and the Battle Cruiser concept.
She was laid down 24 Feb 1874 in Portsmouth Dockyard, and completed in December of 1880, a long time, even for that age.
She had 24" armour around the citadel, the thickest of any capital ship built in a British yard. 22" bulkheads. She was 320' pp 344' oa with a beam of 75' on a displacement of 10,822 tons (load) 11,760 (Deep) She had a top speed of 15.4 knots, and a radius of action of 4,140 nautical miles @ 10 knots with a coal capacity of 1,300 tons max
She took part in the bombardment of Alexandria in 1882, where it seems she inflicted as much damage upon herself as the enemy, for the blast effect from her guns, apart from smashing many of her own boats, caused much structural damage. Her slow rated of fire - one broadside every two minutes, meant she was not a very effective ship in terms of naval combat, and she turned out to be a dead end, developmentally speaking. Very interesting ship, none the less.
As well as the two submerged torpedo tubes in the bow, she had the facility to launch torpedoes from a scoop at the bow, which was lowered, and then down which the torpedo would be launched; and then a system near the stern, where by means of an arrangement of tall sheers, the torpedo could be thrown (or launched from the side of the ship)...good luck trying to find any info on that peculiar set-up Colin.
Reference R A Burt "British Battleships 1889 - 1904"
