The four 12-inch guns of the main battery were mounted in two twin-gun turrets, one forward and one aft of the superstructure. Designed to fire one round every 90 seconds, the actual rate of fire was half as fast. Their secondary armament consisted of twelve Canet six-inch quick-firing (QF) guns. Eight of these were mounted in four twin-gun wing turrets and the remaining guns were positioned in unprotected embrasures on the sides of the hull amidships. Smaller guns were carried for defense against torpedo boats, including a dozen QF QF 3-pounder Hotchkiss Hotchkiss guns and twenty-eight Maxim QF guns. They were also armed with six torpedo tubes, four tubes above water and two submerged tubes, all mounted on the broadside. The ships carried 50 mines to be used to protect their anchorage.