HMS Temeraire did not have exciting service, nor was it a modern vessel (although for the Royal Navy it was an experimental ship).

The battleship HMS Temeraire, launched in 1876, was the first British ship of this class to be armed partly in barbets and partly on the sides as in the older ships. It was also one of the last Royal Navy battleships to sail.

The keel of HMS Temeraire was laid on August 18, 1873 at the Chatham Shipyard. The launch took place on May 9, 1876, and the ship entered service on August 31, 1877. The battleship was an experimental unit from the beginning, designed to test the concept of placing weapons in barbets, not just on the sides. The ship was 87 meters long and had a displacement of 8677 tons. It was powered by two 7697 ihp steam engines, providing a top speed of 14.65 knots. Additionally, the ship had sails.

The armament consisted of 4 guns of the caliber of 280 mm in barbets on board, one on the bow and stern, and one on each side. The guns were placed in special barbets surrounded by 200 mm thick armor. In addition, they were equipped with a lowering and lifting mechanism, thanks to which the operator was fully hidden behind the barbet during loading. In addition, the armament of the battleship consisted of 4 guns of 254 mm on the sides in the central battery. Additionally, the ship had 4 rear-loading 20-pounder guns and two tipping torpedoes. In the course of operation, the weapons were modified and new ones were added, mainly in the form of lighter cannons for defense against torpedo boats.

The HMS Temeraire armor was 140-280 mm thick on the side belt, 200 mm on the barbets, 200 mm on the central battery, 130-200 mm on the bulkheads and 25-38 mm on the deck. The crew consisted of 580 officers and sailors.

The ship spent practically most of her service in the Mediterranean Sea, often as a flagship. In 1878, the ship was delegated to the Dardanelles region, where its crew was to observe the course of the Russo-Turkish war. In 1881, the battleship took part in the invasion of Cyprus, and in 1882 in the battles with Egypt in the region of Alexandria. In 1884, the aging ship, compared to the new battleships, was sent to reserve, but in the same year it was brought back into service.

In 1887 it was returned to the reserve. After being returned to service, HMS Temeraire participated in numerous training cruises and maneuvers during which the HMS Orion incident occurred. Both ships collided during the voyage, but the quick response of the battleship’s crew meant that the damage was minor and the ship did not sink.

In 1889, HMS Temeraire was one of the last British battleships in service to own and use sails. In 1891, the battleship went to the reserve, already being a completely outdated unit. There were plans to modernize it, but the costs were too high. In 1904, the ship changed its name to Indus II and in 1915 to Akbar. At that time, it was no longer used as a combat unit. Ultimately, the battleship was not scrapped until May 1921 in the Netherlands.

 At the time when it entered service, practically every new armored ship was distinguished by some novelties, which made many ships obsolete shortly after entering service. Despite this, the battleship survived in an unchanged configuration until the end of the 19th century.

As a curiosity, it is worth adding that HMS Temeraire was named after the French battleship Téméraire captured by the British in 1759. Subsequently, the name HMS Temeraire was given to the 98-gun battleship of the Neptune class, built in 1798. The vessel became famous mainly because of the depiction of its last voyage in the painting “The Fighting Temeraire” by JMW Turner from 1839. The image shows the battleship being towed by a steam tug to a scrap yard.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Temeraire_(1876)

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