The Ajax class of battleships consisted of two ships, and . They were ironclad ships serving in the Victorian Royal Navy

Royal Navy

The Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...

, armed with turret-mounted main armament.

The Board of Admiralty have a historical tradition of attempting to follow a successful ship with a smaller and cheaper version of the same thing. This policy, based on financial considerations, has seldom if ever been successful. Just as was followed by , and as was followed by , so was followed by Ajax and Agamemnon.

These two ships were built to the same concept as Inflexible - a heavily armoured citadel carrying four heavy guns mounted 'en echelon' in turrets to achieve all-round fire, but were required to be of lighter draught, and to displace 3,000 tons less. It was therefore necessary to arm them with guns of 12.5 inch calibre, as against 16 inch in Inflexible, and to accept a maximum speed of nearly two knots less. Also unlike the Inflexible, these ships were dependent upon the integrity of their unarmoured ends to maintain buoyancy; should the ends have been damaged enough to become waterlogged, their ships would have sunk.

This class were the last ships in the Royal Navy

Royal Navy

The Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...

 to be armed with muzzle-loading rifles

Muzzle-loading rifles

A muzzle-loading rifle is a gun in which the projectile and propelling charge is loaded through the muzzle , in contrast to a breech loading rifle, and "rifling" grooves cut on the inside of the barrel cause the projectile to spin rapidly in flight, giving it greater stability and hence range and...

, and the first to carry any form of secondary armament. They were designed from the start not to carry any form of sailing rig.