The Lathe Class Floating Battery Ironclad is one of the many ironclads that have been built for coastal offense and defense, and that has been popularized with many variants. It was built as a modern counterpart to the floating timber batteries of the 1780s, and has since been incorporated into many naval defense doctrines. It has 6 twelve-pounder guns mounted on each, amounting to around 12 cannons in total, a hefty amount of firepower for any ironclad during the 1860s. However, its tradeoff for that and heavy slanted iron armour is its speed, which is quite abysmal. Despite that, its use for basically purely coastal defense, bombarding the shore, and holding chokepoint straits, made speed not a heavy concern. There are currently around 27 of these in active service, most used as patrol vessels for helping defend port cities and straits.
inspired by the Lave Floating Battery Ironclad [French]
