Golden Journal No. 59
Ships of the Armada
Part Two: Pragmatic Pursuits
by Mike Bennighof, Ph.D.
April 2025

Time and again, Portugal’s dreadnought dreams foundered on harsh financial realities. The kingdom sought a small coast-defense force; the republic lusted for a prestigious fleet to outshine that of former colony Brazil - never mind that the kingdom’s financial disasters had led to the republic’s creation.

The Portuguese Navy at times acknowledged this reality, and scaled down its dreams to plans including more affordable warships. That didn’t work out, either, but we have them all in Golden Journal No. 59: Portugal’s Armada. Let’s have a look at them.

The 1906 Battleships
Portugal had served as a straw buyer during the frenzied attempts of Russia and Japan to acquire warships in 1903 and 1904, and in 1906 both Vickers and Armstrong approached the kingdom with proposals to turn that mystery-shopper experience into an actual purchase.

Starting in February 1906, Vickers presented a series of designs, the ongoing modifications implying at least some interest from the Portuguese side. All of them featured the same hull, 375 feet long and displacing 9,200 tons. That made for a ship much smaller than a pre-dreadnought battleship or armored cruiser, but packing a great deal of firepower on her tiny form.

The initial offer (Vickers Design 187) carried four 12-inch guns in a pair of twin turrets, plus six 8-inch and six 4-inch guns. She had VTE triple-expansion engines putting out a measly 6,000 horsepower, projected to be good for 15 knots. This was a coast-defense ship, not a dreadnought. The variations in armament included a ship with two 12-inch and four 9.2-inch guns, and another with six 10-inch guns and no secondary or intermediate battery.

None of these apparently pleased the Portuguese, and both Vickers and Armstrong came back with fresh offers. Vickers Design 200 and Armstrong Design 401 had four 12-inch, four 9.2-inch and ten 4-inch guns, plus two torpedo tubes, slightly shorter and squatter on 10,100 tons. She was rated for 5,700 horsepower and 15 knots, with a coal capacity of just 500 tons pointing at a very short range. She did have battleship-scale armor, which is identical in each submission (indicating that this was very likely a Portuguese requirement).

Even this small ship proved beyond Portuguese financial means. This latter design is the ship included in Portugal’s Armada (two examples of her); she is not a very capable fighting ship.

The 1907 Coast-Defense Ships
Unable to afford even the greatly-reduced (and terribly unbalanced) 1906 coast-defense ships offered by Vickers and Armstrong, the Portuguese turned to a smaller, even cheaper alternative.

The new coast-defense ship would displace just 2,500 tons, the size of a small cruiser, and carry four six-inch guns in twin turrets fore and aft plus six 4-inch guns and two underwater torpedo tubes. As with their larger cousins, they would have a very slow speed (once again, 15 knots), relatively thick armor, considering their size, and a painfully slow speed. In other words, they would be floating targets.

The Portugal’s Armada set includes both projected ships. The assassination of Portugal’s king, Dom Carlos I, ended the 1907 naval program and sent this ship back to the drawing board where she belonged.

The 1911 Light Cruisers
Portugal’s admirals (the Navy had six of them, which was about six more than were needed) knew that their shiny new dreadnoughts would need supporting ships, and the 1911 program called for six light cruisers to accompany the three battleships.

Since the British were paying the tab (or at least extending a loan that even the Portuguese knew would become a trap), the admirals went for the most capable ship of the day, a modified version of the Royal Navy’s Town-class cruiser. The British had ordered three of them in their own 1911 Program, plus another three for the Royal Australian Navy, to an improved design with eight 6-inch guns and two underwater torpedo tubes. They displaced 5,400 tons and could make 25.5 knots, and featured a two-inch armored belt (an unusual feature for the time) which would be sufficient against the guns of German light cruisers and destroyers (German cruisers at this time carried a 105mm (4.1-inch) gun to maximize rate of fire over penetration power).

The Town class was also an expensive ship, and the Royal Navy would go to a smaller, less costly (and less capable) ship for future construction in the pursuit of greater numbers of ships over their individual fighting qualities. The Town class were the ships that fought alongside the battle cruisers at Jutland and Dogger Bank, and pursued SMS Goeben in the Mediterranean.

They would have given Portugal a very fine cruiser, but a price tag that caused the Royal Navy to balk would certainly be far too great for Portugal’s wallet. The Portugal’s Armada set includes two of them, named for great Portuguese sea victories, since it’s all in the realm of dreams and conjecture anyway.

The Modern Destroyers
The 1911 Portuguese shopping list (the same one they carried over to 1914) also included destroyers. This was somewhat unusual for the time, as most of the smaller powers that lusted for dreadnoughts ignored the vitally necessary but far less sexy supporting ships. To be fair, the Royal Navy did not commence large-scale destroyer building until the eve of war, either.

The only part of the naval program to actually see completion would be a handful of small destroyers. But the Portuguese at first looked at larger, much more capable boats and those are included in the Portugal’s Armada set.

The Pinguim class (it’s one of our alt.history tropes, that every navy include a destroyer named “Penguin”) is a big destroyer to meet Portuguese requirements. She’s a copy of the Almirante Lynch class built by the British shipbuilder Samuel White for Chile just before the Great War.

Pinguim comes in at 1,500 tons, with four 4-inch guns and six torpedo tubes (Almirante Lynch reversed these). Like Almirante Lynch, she burns coal; Portugal was not equipped to handle an oil-fired warship at this time and had a hard enough time providing coal (the Navy’s coal stocks, such as they were, had become a favorite target of the service’s endemic corruption and managed to disappear from the Navy’s bunkers).

The Portugal’s Armada set includes two multiple-ship pieces, which can represent up to six boats between them.

Portugal’s Armada comes with 23 die-cut and silky-smooth playing pieces (17 long ones and six square ones). We tell you all about the ships, the story of the Portuguese Navy, and then we have scenarios so you can play with them in Great War at Sea: Jutland 2e.

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Mike Bennighof is president of Avalanche Press and holds a doctorate in history from Emory University. A Fulbright Scholar and NASA Journalist in Space finalist, he has published a great many books, games and articles on historical subjects; people are saying that some of them are actually good. He lives in Birmingham, Alabama with his wife, three children, and new puppy. He misses his lizard-hunting Iron Dog, Leopold.

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