Seven ships of 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...

 have borne the name HMS Chameleon, or the archaic variants HMS Cameleon or HMS Camelion, after the Chameleon

Chameleon

Chameleons are a distinctive and highly specialized clade of lizards. They are distinguished by their parrot-like zygodactylous feet, their separately mobile and stereoscopic eyes, their very long, highly modified, and rapidly extrudable tongues, their swaying gait, the possession by many of a...

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was a 14-gun sloop

Sloop-of-war

In the 18th and most of the 19th centuries, a sloop-of-war was a warship with a single gun deck that carried up to eighteen guns. As the rating system covered all vessels with 20 guns and above, this meant that the term sloop-of-war actually encompassed all the unrated combat vessels including the...

 launched in 1777. She foundered in 1780. was a 16-gun brig-sloop, formerly the civilian ship Hawke. She was purchased in 1780 and sold in 1783. was a 16-gun brig-sloop launched in 1795 and broken up in 1811. was a 10-gun Cherokee class

Cherokee class brig-sloop

The Cherokee class was a 10-gun class of brig-sloops of the Royal Navy. Brig-sloops are sloops-of-war with two masts rather than the three masts of ship-sloops...

 brig-sloop launched in 1816 and sold in 1849. was a Camelion class

Camelion class sloop

The Camelion class was a class of screw-driven sloops of wood construction, designed by Isaac Watts and operated by the Royal Navy. Eight ships of the class were built from 1858 to 1866 with another eight cancelled...

 screw sloop

Screw sloop

A screw sloop is a propeller-driven sloop-of-war. In the 19th century, during the introduction of the steam engine, ships driven by propellers were differentiated from those driven by paddle-wheels by referring to the ship's screws...

 launched in 1860 and sold in 1883. was an Acorn class destroyer

Acorn class destroyer

The Acorn class was a class of twenty destroyers of the Royal Navy all built under the 1909-1910 Programme, and completed between 1910 and 1911...

 launched in 1910 and sold for scrapping in 1921. was an Algerine class

Algerine class minesweeper

The Algerine-class was a class of minesweepers of the Royal Navy and the Commonwealth. 110 ships of the class were launched between 1942 and 1944 and served in World War II....

 minesweeper

Minesweeper (ship)

A minesweeper is a small naval warship designed to counter the threat posed by naval mines. Minesweepers generally detect then neutralize mines in advance of other naval operations.-History:...

launched in 1944 and broken up in 1966.