HMS Thunder Child "Star Vikings", shows the influence of the Jeff Wayne image of the ironclad, combined with a 19th-century image of the Martian war machine. Details also appear in the TNE products "Path of Tears" and "Reformation Coalition Equipment Guide". A novel by Nick Pope, concerning the UK's response to UFOs, is named "Operation: Thunder Child". There is an adaptation novel set in the Victorian UK of 1898. It is called, "The Last Days of Thunder Child" by C.A. Powell. HMS Thunder Child HMS "Thunder Child" is a fictional ironclad torpedo ram of the Royal Navy, destroyed by Martian fighting-machines in H.
HMS Thunder Child appearing as a typical pre-dreadnought battleship of the era. The real torpedo ram HMS "Polyphemus" was fast, heavily armoured for her size, and capable of operating in shallow coastal waters; her hull was low in the water with a raft-like superstructure mounting six 1-inch Nordenfelt guns, again very much unlike a pre-dreadnought battleship. In Wells' original novel the battle takes place off the mouth of the River Blackwater, Essex, where internally displaced persons from London are escaping the Martian offensive. Three Martian fighting-machines having approached the vessels from the seaward side, HMS "Thunder Child" signals to the main fleet and