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HMS Armada (1810)

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History
Royal Navy EnsignUK
NameHMS Armada
Ordered21 October 1806
BuilderBlackburn, Turnchapel
Laid downFebruary 1807
Launched23 March 1810
FateSold, 1863
General characteristics [1]
Class and typeVengeur-class ship of the line
Tons burthen1749 bm
Length176 ft (54 m) (gundeck)
Beam47 ft 6 in (14.48 m)
Depth of hold21 ft (6.4 m)
PropulsionSails
Sail planFull rigged ship
Armamentlist error: mixed text and list (help)
74 guns:
  • Gundeck: 28 × 32 pdrs
  • Upper gundeck: 28 × 18 pdrs
  • Quarterdeck: 4 × 12 pdrs, 10 × 32 pdr carronades
  • Forecastle: 2 × 12 pdrs, 2 × 32 pdr carronades
  • Poop deck: 6 × 18 pdr carronades

HMS Armada was a 74-gun Third Rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, launched on 23 March 1810 by Mrs Pridham, the wife of the Mayor of Plymouth, Mr Joseph Pridham.[1] After a relatively undistinguished career, Armada was sold out of the Navy in 1863 and broken up at Marshall's ship breaking yard in Plymouth.[1]

Armada was the first ship to carry that name. Her first captain was Adam Mackenzie.

Service

On November 22, 1810, Armada was in the company of the 74-gun HMS Northumberland when Northumberland captured the the 14-gun French privateer ketch La Glaneuse.

Blockade of Toulon, 1810-1814: Pellew's action, 5 November 1813, by Thomas Luny

On November 4, 1813 she arrived off Cap Sicié and on the 5th was involved in a skirmish with a French squadron off Toulon. Admiral Sir Edward Pellew's inshore squadron consisted of the 74-gun ships HMS Scipion, HMS Mulgrave, HMS Pembroke, and Armada, Captains Henry Heathcote, Thomas James Maling, James Brisbane, and Charles Grant. The 74-gun HMS Pompée, Captain Sir James Athol Wood joined them. These vessels opened fire on the French fleet consisting of 12 sail of the line, six frigates, and a schooner, which had sortied from Toulon on a training exercise. Pellew and his main body soon arrived to join the fray. Neither side accomplished much as the French rapidly returned to port. Armada had no casualties though one shot did hit her, and in all the British suffered 12 men wounded by enemy fire and one man killed and two wounded in an accident. The French suffered 17 wounded.

On February 12, 1814 Armada was a part of the fleet off Toulon that chased a French squadron into that port. Armada herself did not take part in any action.

On July 25, Armada, the 36-gun Fifth Rate frigate HMS Curaçoa, and 12 Sicilian gunboats bombarded the fortress at Savona, leading the French forces there to surrender to a mixed corps of British and Sicilian troops.

On 1 September Armada was escorting a convoy of ten sail to Gibraltar when, about 200 miles west of Ushant, the American sloop USS Wasp, operating out of L'Orient. Wasp made for the convoy and singled out the brig Mary, laden with iron and brass cannon and other military stores, which she quickly took as a prize, carrying off Mary{{'}]s crew as prisoners and burning her. Wasp then attempted to take another ship in the convoy, but Armada chased her off.

Fate

In 1815 Armada was out of commission at Plymouth. Armada was sold out of the Navy in 1863 and broken up at Marshall's ship breaking yard in Plymouth.

Notes

  1. ^ a b c Lavery, Ships of the Line, vol. 1, p. 188.

References

  • Colledge, J.J. Ships of the Royal Navy: The Complete Record of All Fighting Ships of the Royal Navy From the Fifteenth Century to the Present. Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 1987. ISBN 0-87021-652-X.
  • Lavery, Brian (2003) The Ship of the Line - Volume 1: The development of the battlefleet 1650-1850. Conway Maritime Press. ISBN 0-85177-252-8.
  • Winfield, Rif. British Warships in the Age of Sail, 1793-1817: Design, Construction, Careers and Fates. Seaforth Publishing, 2nd edition, 2008. ISBN 978-1-84415-717-4.