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 with a ram or torpedoes, or both, intended for use where it was possible to approach an enemy ship without being sunk; for example, at night or in poor visibility, or where the enemy ship was stationary or disabled, or lacked support by nearby ships. As late as 1896, the United States commissioned a ship whose only effective weapon was a ram: the harbour-defence ram USS "Katahdin". The Royal Navy's only example was HMS "Polyphemus", which entered service in 1882. Its primary armament was torpedoes, with four side-firing tubes and one forward-firing tube in the centre of the bow-mounted ram,