In terms of gun hitting power, Warrior carried 10 110lb guns and 26 68lb guns. These, along with the extraordinarily good seakeeping qualities of the design, and steady gun platform characteristics, assured superiority over any other ship in the world. Added to this, Warrior's unsurpassed speed of 17.5 knots at maximum provided great tactical advantage. Tempering these expedient characteristics was poor response to the helm. As a long ship with a small rudder, and inefficient steering gear, Warrior had a large turning circle of 760 yards at 12 knots, this obviously made ramming inadvisable and a somewhat haphazard affair.

The achilles heel in Warrior's design was the lack of an armoured belt at the stern, which would have offered protection to her steering gear. Such shortcomings meant that Warrior could not expose her stern to the enemy for fear of losing all control over the rudder.


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Warrior in Battle

Horizontal Trunk Steam Engine

A contemporary illustration of a 68lb gun crew

Of the two types of heavy gun carried by Warrior the 68 pounder was most numerous, with 26 on board. This gun was designed in 1846 by Colonel Dundas, weighing 6 tons on its elm gun carriage, 18 men were required to man the position and could achieve a rate of fire of one round every 55 seconds.

Although equipped with fitted sights, the trajectory was erratic. Due to the smooth bore nature of the gun effective range was limited to 2000 yards

Complementing the 68 lb guns were 10 110lb guns. These had been designed in 1855 by W Armstrong and weighed 4.1 tons. Again a gun crew of 18 men were required to discharge one round every 50 seconds.

Equipped with tangent elevated sights, and with a rifled bore, accuracy up to 4500 yards was expected, making it far more efficient than any smooth bore gun in use at the time.