Swiftsure-class ironclad

The Swiftsure class consisted of two central-battery ironclads built for the Royal Navy (RN) during the 1870s, HMS Swiftsure and HMS Triumph. They were specifically designed for service as flagships on the Pacific Station where coal was very expensive and they needed to minimise their use of coal by using their sails as often as possible. The sisters were completed in 1872–1873 and were briefly assigned to the Channel Fleet before being transferred to the Mediterranean Fleet where they spent most of the rest of the decade. They had a minor role in capturing a pair of rebel ships during the Spanish Cantonal Rebellion in 1873 and returning them to the central government. Swiftsure was one of the British ships that deterred the Russian Empire from attacking the Ottoman Empire's capital of Constantinople during the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–1878.

Triumph was the first of the sisters to serve as the Pacific Station flagship beginning in 1878 and they rotated the assignment between them at roughly three-year intervals until Swiftsure was relieved by a different ship in 1890. In between those times, they were usually refitted and spent several years in reserve. When the Pacific Fleet assignments ended in 1888–1890, the sisters spent some years as guardships, often as flagships of the local reserve forces. They were relegated to the reserves until 1901 when Swiftsure was hulked and converted into a storeship. She was renamed Orontes in 1904 and sold for scrap in 1908.

Unlike her sister, Triumph was assigned to serve as a depot ship in 1901 and was renamed Tenedos in 1904. She was converted into a mechanics training ship that same year and was renamed Indus IV in 1912. Two years later the ship was converted into a storeship and was renamed Algiers in 1915. The old ironclad was sold for scrap in 1921.