HMS Sultan was a broadside ironclad 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...

 of the Victorian era, who carried her main armament in a central box battery

Box battery

The box battery disposition of the main armament in a battleship was commonly used in ships built in the latter half of the nineteenth century; it was an interim disposition between full length broadside guns and turret-mounted artillery....

. She was named for Sultan Abdülâziz of the Ottoman Empire

Abdülâziz

Abdülaziz I or Abd Al-Aziz, His Imperial Majesty was the 32nd Sultan of the Ottoman Empire and reigned between 25 June 1861 and 30 May 1876...

, who was visiting England when she was laid down. Abdülâziz cultivated, good relations with the Second French Empire and the British. In 1867 he was the first Ottoman sultan to visit Western Europe; his trip included a visit to England, where he was made a Knight of the Garter by Queen Victoria and shown a Royal Navy Fleet Review, with Isma'il Pasha

Isma'il Pasha

Isma'il Pasha , known as Ismail the Magnificent , was the Khedive of Egypt and Sudan from 1863 to 1879, when he was removed at the behest of the United Kingdom...

 of Egypt.

Design

With the exception of some small warships designed only for harbour defence, every ironclad warship so far completed, starting from , had mounted their main armament in broadside batteries. Although the turret-armed ships and were building, it was decided by the Board of Admiralty that, pending results from these two experimental ships, Sultan would carry her artillery in a centrally-placed box battery.

The design of the ship was closely based on the design of . Unlike the battery of the earlier ship, that of Sultan was on two levels; the main deck guns provided broadside fire, with limited ahead fire from the foremost gun, while the upper deck guns provided additional broadside fire and also could fire astern, by traversing the after gun on a turntable.

The hull had one of the roundest amidships cross-section ever adopted at the time of her launch, and this and the low metacentric height

Metacentric height

The metacentric height is a measurement of the static stability of a floating body. It is calculated as the distance between the centre of gravity of a ship and its metacentre . A larger metacentric height implies greater stability against overturning...

 of only three feet made her a very steady gun platform. It was soon found, however, that she lacked adequate stability - in naval parlance she was "tender" - and some six hundred tons of extra ballast had to be inserted into her double bottom.

Service history

She was commissioned at Chatham for the Channel Fleet

Channel Fleet

The Channel Fleet was the Royal Navy formation of warships that defended the waters of the English Channel from 1690 to 1909.-History:The Channel Fleet dates back at least to 1690 when its role was to defend England against the French threat under the leadership of Edward Russell, 1st Earl of...

, in which she served until 1876. She was refitted, being reduced to barque rig, and posted to the Mediterranean under the command of His Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh. She was with Admiral Geoffrey Hornby at the Dardanelles in 1878.

She was then again refitted, and reduced to reserve until 1882, when she returned to the Mediterranean. At the bombardment of Alexandria (1882)

Bombardment of Alexandria (1882)

The Bombardment of Alexandria, in 1882, by the British Mediterranean Fleet took place on 11–13 July 1882. Admiral Sir Frederick Beauchamp Seymour was in command of a fleet of fifteen Royal Navy ironclad ships which sailed to Alexandria...

 she sustained casualties of two killed and eight wounded from a single hit on the battery. She was with the Particular Service Squadron during the Russian war scare of June to August, 1885, and was retained in the Mediterranean thereafter.

On 6 March 1889 she grounded on an uncharted rock in the Comino Channel between Malta

Malta

Malta , officially known as the Republic of Malta , is a Southern European country consisting of an archipelago situated in the centre of the Mediterranean, south of Sicily, east of Tunisia and north of Libya, with Gibraltar to the west and Alexandria to the east.Malta covers just over in...

 and Gozo

Gozo

Gozo is a small island of the Maltese archipelago in the Mediterranean Sea. The island is part of the Southern European country of Malta; after the island of Malta itself, it is the second-largest island in the archipelago...

, ripping her bottom open. She slowly flooded and in a gale on 14 March 1889 she slipped off the rock and sank. She was raised in August by the Italian firm of Baghino & Co for a fee of £50,000. On 27 August Sultan was brought into Malta.

After temporary repairs she was brought home to Portsmouth, undergoing modernisation and repair until 1896. She served in the reserve until 1906, when she was partially dismantled and became an artificers' training ship under the name of Fisgard IV; in 1931 she was further converted into a mechanical repair ship, regaining her original name of Sultan. During World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

she was a depot ship for minesweepers at Portsmouth, and was sold in 1947