Fly class gunboat
Encyclopedia
The Fly class river gunboat
River gunboat
A river gunboat is a type of gunboat adapted for river operations. River gunboats required shallow draft for river navigation. They would be armed with relatively small caliber cannons, or a mix of cannons and machine guns. If they carried more than one cannon, one might be a howitzer, for shore...
s (or Small China Gunboats ), collectively often referred to as the "Tigris gunboat flotilla", were a class of small but well-armed Royal Navy
Royal Navy
The Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...
vessels designed specifically to patrol the Tigris
Tigris
The Tigris River is the eastern member of the two great rivers that define Mesopotamia, the other being the Euphrates. The river flows south from the mountains of southeastern Turkey through Iraq.-Geography:...
river during the World War I Mesopotamian Campaign
Mesopotamian Campaign
The Mesopotamian campaign was a campaign in the Middle Eastern theatre of World War I fought between the Allies represented by the British Empire, mostly troops from the Indian Empire, and the Central Powers, mostly of the Ottoman Empire.- Background :...
.
Design
They were fitted with one triple expansion steam engine driving one propeller housed in a tunnel to facilitate a very shallow draught.Deployment
The vessels were built at Scotstoun, Glasgow in 1915 and 1916 and shipped out to AbadanAbadan
Abadan is a city in and the capital of Abadan County, Khuzestan Province, Iran. It lies on Abadan Island , from the Persian Gulf, near the Iraqi-Iran border. The civilian population of the city dropped to near zero during the eight-years Iran–Iraq War. In 1992, only 84,774 had returned to live...
in sections where they were assembled.
They served with the Royal Navy patrolling the Tigris River until being transferred to the Army during 1918. They were sold off beginning 1923.
The vessels
These vessels had the prefix HM Gunboat- Blackfly
- Butterfly
- Caddisfly
- Cranefly
- Dragonfly
- Firefly
- Gadfly
- Grayfly
- Greenfly
- Hoverfly
- Mayfly
- Sawfly
- Sedgefly
- Snakefly
- Stonefly
- Waterfly
Further Reading
- Wilfred Nunn, "Tigris gunboats : the forgotten war in Iraq 1914-1917", 1932. Reprinted 2007 by Chatham. ISBN 9781861763082