HNLMS Schorpioen

HNLMS Schorpioen

HNLMS Schorpioen is a sister ship of HNLMS Buffel. Built in the same year, 1868 in France, they were the core of the then renewed Royal Netherlands Navy, replacing the outdated wooden ships that combined sailing and steam propulsion and carried so called smooth-bore guns. These new ships were equipped with heavy rifled 23 cm guns, and a heavy armor. The hull had an armor plated belt of 15 cm (6 inches) and the gun turret, housing the two guns, had almost 30 cm (12 inches)of armor.

She came from the building yard with two tripod masts and able to employ about 600 m2 of sails, but she proved to be a difficult sailing ship and some years later the yards, masts and the sails were removed. As with the Buffel her huge steam engines gave her a max. speed of 13 knots (24 km/h). Her striking weapon was the pointed ram bow, slightly different than the Buffel's, but she never ever used this overestimated weapon.