HMS Achilles ( 1863 ) HMS " Achilles " was an armoured frigate built for the Royal Navy in the 1860s . Upon completion in 1864 she was assigned to the Channel Fleet . The ship was paid off in 1868 to refit and be re - armed . When she recommissioned in 1869 , she was assigned as the guard ship of the Fleet Reserve in the Portland District until 1874 . " Achilles " was refitted and re - armed again in 1874 and became the guard ship of the Liverpool District in 1875 . Two years later , she was rejoined the Channel Fleet before going to the Mediterranean in 1878 . The ship returned to the Channel Fleet in 1880 and served until she was paid off in 1885 . " Achilles " was recommissioned in 1901 as a depot ship at Malta under a succession of different names . She was transferred to Chatham in 1914 and was again renamed multiple times before she was sold for scrap in 1923 . " Achilles " had more changes of her rigging and armament than any other British warship , before or since . Design and description . " Achilles " was the third member of the 1861 Naval Programme and was designed as an improved version of the earlier armoured frigates with a complete waterline armour belt . The ship was long between perpendiculars , had a beam of and a draft of . She displaced and had a tonnage of 6 , 121 bm . The hull was subdivided by watertight transverse bulkheads into 106 compartments and had a double bottom . " Achilles " was designed with a high centre of gravity and was very stiff . So much so that the ship only rolled 10 degrees during one storm that ripped the main and mizen topgallant masts off and split her topsails . Because of her great length she was not very manoeuvrable . " Achilles " had a crew of 709 officers and enlisted men . Propulsion . The ship had a single two - cylinder trunk steam engine made by John Penn and Sons driving a single propeller . Ten rectangular boilers provided steam to the engine at a working pressure of . During her sea trials on 15 March 1865 , " Achilles " had a maximum speed of from . The ship carried of coal , enough to steam at . As built , " Achilles " was ship - rigged with four masts , called bow , fore , main and mizen from fore to aft , and she was the only British warship ever to have four masts . They carried a total of of sail area , excluding the stunsails , the greatest area ever spread in a British warship . Her performance was unsatisfactory when the wind was before the beam and her bowsprit and bowmast were removed in June 1865 in an attempt to correct this problem . However , now she had too much weather helm so the bowsprit was replaced and the foremast was moved forward in July 1866 . This reduced her sail area to . In 1877 " Achilles " was rerigged as a barque . Both of her funnels were retractable to reduce wind resistance while under sail alone . Armament . The intended armament of " Achilles " changed no less than five times before it was finally mounted . She received four rifled 110 - pounder breech - loading guns mounted on the upper deck , two of which served as chase gun s at the bow and stern , and 16 smoothbore , muzzle - loading 100 - pounder Somerset cannon , eight on each side on the main deck . The breech - loading guns were a new design from Armstrong and much was hoped for them . Firing tests carried out in September 1861 against an armoured target , however , proved that the 110 - pounder was inferior to the 68 - pounder smoothbore gun in armour penetration and repeated incidents of breech explosions during the Battles for Shimonoseki and the Bombardment of Kagoshima in 1863 – 64 caused the navy to withdraw the gun from service shortly afterwards . In 1865 , six 68 - pounder smoothbores were added , three on each side of the main deck , although she was not comprehensively rearmed until her 1868 refit . Detailed data for the Somerset cannon is not available , but the solid shot of the 68 - pounder gun weighed approximately while the gun itself weighed . The gun had a muzzle velocity of and had a range of at an elevation of 12° . The shell of the 110 - pounder Armstrong breech - loader weighed . It had a muzzle velocity of and , at an elevation of 11 . 25° , a maximum range of . The 110 - pounder gun weighed . All of the guns could fire both solid shot and explosive shells . " Achilles " was rearmed during her 1867 – 68 refit with 22 seven - inch and eight rifled muzzle - loading guns . The eight - inch guns and 18 seven - inch guns were mounted on the main deck and the remaining seven - inch guns replaced the 110 - pounders on the upper deck . The shell of the 15 - calibre eight - inch gun weighed while the gun itself weighed . It had a muzzle velocity of and was credited with the ability to penetrate of wrought iron armour at the muzzle . The 16 - calibre seven - inch gun weighed and fired a shell . It was credited with the ability to penetrate armour . In 1874 the ship was rearmed with 16 nine - inch rifled muzzle - loaders replacing the 4 eight - inch and 20 of the 22 seven - inch guns . Fourteen of the guns were mounted on the main deck and the other two replaced the seven - inch chase guns . The two remaining seven - inch guns stayed in their position on the quarterdeck . As the nine - inch guns were considerably bigger than their predecessors , the gun ports had to be widened to accommodate them . The shell of the 14 - calibre nine - inch gun weighed while the gun itself weighed . It had a muzzle velocity of and was rated with the ability to penetrate a of wrought iron armour at the muzzle . Armour . The ship had a wrought iron waterline armour belt that ran the full length of the ship . Amidships , it was thick for a length of and tapered to a thickness of to the ends of the ship . The armour extended below the waterline . The main deck was protected by a strake of armour , also 4 . 5 - inch thick and 212 feet long . To protect against raking fire the upper strake was closed off by 4 . 5 - inch transverse bulkheads at each end . Construction and service . " Achilles " , named after the Greek mythological hero , was ordered on 10 April 1861 from the Chatham Dockyard . She was the first iron - hulled warship to be built at a royal dockyard and her construction was delayed by the need to acquire the necessary machinery to handle iron and to train the workers to use it . The ship was laid down on 1 August 1861 in a drydock and was floated out rather than being launched on 23 December 1863 . " Achilles " was completed on 26 November 1864 at the cost of £469 , 572 . She served in the Channel Fleet until 1868 . After a refit and her first major re - armament , " Achilles " became the guardship at Portland until 1874 when she was again re - armed . Upon its completion in 1875 , the ship became guardship at Liverpool until 1877 when Captain William Hewett , VC , assumed command . In 1878 she was one of the ships in the Particular Service Squadron which Admiral Geoffrey Hornby took through the Dardanelles at the time of the Russian war scare in June – August 1878 during the Russo - Turkish War . " Achilles " accidentally collided with the flagship of the Mediterranean Fleet , , in October 1879 , but was only lightly damaged by " Alexandra " s propeller . The ship rejoined the Channel Fleet in 1880 and was paid off in 1885 . She lay derelict in the Hamoaze until April 1901 , when she was sent to Malta as a depot ship . To release her name for the new armoured cruiser , " Achilles " was renamed " Hibernia " in 1902 . She was renamed " Egmont " in March 1904 , and remained in Malta until 1914 . She was brought home to Chatham that year , and served there as a depot ship under the successive names of " Egremont " ( 19 June 1916 ) and " Pembroke " ( 6 June 1919 ) . The ship was sold for scrap on 26 January 1923 to the Granton Shipbreaking Co .