I took a tour of the HMS Warrior last weekend. A ship built and launched just before the Civil War. The ship was not what I was expecting. The technology and attention to detail made this warship more advanced than anything produced by USN or CSN. First, I was shocked at the size, more than 2 to 3 times the size of the most advanced warships in our navies, 9,200 tons and 420 feet long! The armor was 4.5 inches, not that different from ours, but backed by three feet of English oak. It had the largest steam powered engine I have ever seen, and boilers and auxiliary boilers laid out like ships of the 1900s. It had a laundry with powered washing machines, a very large kitchen, crew exchange store, steam powered anchor hoist, powered propeller hoist to store the prop while under sail. The internal bulkheads were iron with water tight doors and compartments, and mechanical latching systems, features unheard of on vessels of this period. Armed with breech loading 110 pdr. Armstrong rifles, 68 pdr. smooth bores and a 700 man crew, each armed with Enfield carbine rifle and a Navy Colt pistol. The ship's average speed was 17 knots, faster than our war sloops by 4 or 5 knots. This vessal was a comfortable efficient warship, that would have dominated any warship of the 1860s and 1870s.