« Changing feet ...... | Main | All things considered ...... »
May 27, 2006
Last of her kind ....
A strange little survivor from a bygone era is tucked away next to HMS Victory at Portsmouth. This is the 'monitor' gunboat M33, and she has survived because she was converted into a floating workshop in the 1920's and remained in use until quite recently. She is now being slowly restored to her original appearance as a small monitor carrying a pair of six-inch naval guns.
Under restoration, a nice bow view of HM Monitor M33 in dry-dock at Portsmouth. Her forward six-inch gun is fitted with a tompion and the curved gunshield betrays the age in which she was built.
A whole batch of these little monitors were built between 1914 and 1919 with M33 being the last to be laid down but not the last to be completed. The gun mounts came from old armoured cruisers which carried single mountings and which had shown themselves no match for more modern ships. As the old ships were scrapped, their guns were given to new ones. For some strange reason all of the Class were known as the M15 Class and carried numbers starting from M15 (very original!) and running to M33. For some reason the first batch was M15 to M28, then they had a hiatus on building more for around eight months, then batch two began and M29 to M33 were all built more or less simultaneously. They performed very useful service in shallow tidal and coastal waters in a number of different theatres, being able to support the army from an enemy's flank or in support of a landing party behind enemy lines.
Interestingly while the majority of these little Monitors were steam propelled, four were fitted with diesel engines, which were unreliable as they aged. By all accounts they gave pretty good service right up to the end of WW2.
Posted by The Gray Monk at May 27, 2006 08:27 PM
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://mt3.mu.nu/mt/mt-tb.cgi/4318