HMS Polyphemus (1881) HMS Polyphemus (1881) The third HMS "Polyphemus" was a Royal Navy torpedo ram, serving from 1881 until 1903. A shallow-draft, fast, low-profile vessel, she was designed to penetrate enemy harbours at speed and sink anchored ships. Designed by Nathaniel Barnaby primarily as a protected torpedo boat, the ram was provided very much as secondary armament. It has been suggested that H. G. Wells’ fictional HMS "Thunder Child" from his novel "The War of the Worlds" may have been based on this ship, in part because he described "Thunder Child" as an ironclad torpedo ram, and "Polyphemus" was the only ship
HMS Thunder Child my brother's perception, like a water-logged ship. This was the ram "Thunder Child"." A few paragraphs later, it is said that "It was the torpedo ram, "Thunder Child", steaming headlong, coming to the rescue of the threatened shipping". In Jeff Wayne's musical adaptation, the ship is described as an ironclad but not specifically a ram or a torpedo ram; the album cover art illustration of "Thunder Child" is of a pre-dreadnought battleship such as the "Canopus"-class in combat with a Martian tripod. The ship is also depicted in art in the "Classics Illustrated" comic book adaptation of the novel, also