HMS Rattlesnake was a unique design of torpedo gunboat

Torpedo gunboat

In late 19th-century naval terminology, torpedo gunboats or, in north European usage, torpedo cruisers, were a form of gunboat armed with torpedoes and designed for hunting and destroying smaller torpedo boats...

 of the Royal Navy

Royal Navy

The Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...

A result of the Russian war scare of 1885, she was designed by Nathaniel Barnaby

Nathaniel Barnaby

Sir Nathaniel Barnaby, KCB was Chief Constructor of the Royal Navy from 1872 to 1885....

 that year and built by Laird Brothers

Cammell Laird

Cammell Laird, one of the most famous names in British shipbuilding during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, came about following the merger of Laird, Son & Co. of Birkenhead and Johnson Cammell & Co. of Sheffield at the turn of the twentieth century.- Founding of the business :The Company...

, of Birkenhead

Birkenhead

Birkenhead is a town within the Metropolitan Borough of Wirral in Merseyside, England. It is on the Wirral Peninsula, along the west bank of the River Mersey, opposite the city of Liverpool...

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Launched on 11 September 1886, her hull cost £21,425, with another £14,000 spent on her machinery. She was the first vessel in the Royal Navy to have triple expansion engines. Rattlesnake became an experimental submarine target ship in 1906, and was sold in 1910.