Purpose-built floating batteries that the Spanish built to attack Gibraltar during the siege of 1779-83. They were a special design for that operation and looked a lot like CSS Virginia (lately USS Merrimack)–a fully enclosed gundeck with sloping bulwarks. They were quite elaborate, with water reservoirs on the deck over the guns as a defense against fire ships and cork in the hold to provide reserve buoyancy. Unfortunately for the Spanish, they were more or less a complete failure. They were set on fire by red-hot shot that lodged in places that could not be reached by the firefighting crews.

The Spanish ‘Battering Ships’ were converted merchant ships names were Pastor 31, Paula Prima 31, Talla Piedra 31, Rosario 29, San Cristobal 28, Principe Carlos 15, Paula Segundo 13, San Juan 13, Santa Ana 11, Dolores 10. They were designed by the French engineer Monsieur d’Arcon, and were rushed into service before the water system was fully tested because Admiral Howe was coming with another supply fleet to Gibraltar. The books ‘The British Navy in Adversity’ by W.M James and the ‘French Navy and American Independence’, by J. Dull give an account of the battle.

There are pictures of the Gibraltar “battering ships” in T.H. McGuffie, The Siege of Gibraltar, 1779-1783 (London: B.T. Batsfore Ltd, 1965), one of the “British Battles Series.” “The defeat of the floating batteries during the night of 13-14 September, 1782, From an aquatint by C. Tomkins after F. Jukes and J. Clevely,” and “Sir Roger Curtis rescuing Spaniards from the burning battering-ships, From an engraving by J.F. Sherwin,” facing page 163. Unfortunately, the batteries are not depicted very clearly in either illustration. There is what appears to be a silhouette of one of the battering ships at the end of the chapter on page 167. This shows them rigged, the rigging being described briefly on page 154.