HMS Thunderchild!
Posted: Tue Jun 30, 2020 6:30 pm
In Wells' original novel the battle takes place off the mouth
of the River Blackwater, Essex, where Brits from London are
escaping the Martian offensive. Three Martian fighting-machines
having approached the vessels from the seaward side, HMS Thunder-
child signals to the main fleet and steams at full speed towards
the Martians without firing. The Martians, whom the narrator
suggests are unfamiliar with large warships, at first use only
a gas attack, which fails, and thereafter using their Heat-Ray,
inflicting a great amount of damage upon Thunderchild, which
brings down a fighting machine with its guns even as it succumbs
to Heat-Ray. The flaming wreckage of the torpedo-ram crashes
into a second fighting-machine, destroying it, and when the
black smoke and super heated steam banks dissipate, both the
Thunderchild and the third fighting-machine are gone.
68979 The attack by Thunderchild occupies the Martians long enough
for three Royal Navy ironclads of the main Channel Fleet to arrive.
The fate of the third Martian fighting machine is not revealed by
Wells, but the battle did enable the civilian shipping to escape.
As depicted in the book, Thunderchild is the only human artifact
competing with the Martian fighting-machines on anything like equal
terms.
68980 For April Fools Day 2020, amateur naval historian and YouTube
commentator Drachinifel (see here)...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQBund8uLmo
....produced a speculative history for the HMS Thunderchild,
offering what he saw as a plausible design and history for the
ship and her development based on Wells' description. Based on
the fact that the ship was described to be both larger and faster
than the Polyphemus or the similar USS Katahdin, he surmised that
the Thunderchild was most likely a modified version of the Victoria
or Trafalgar-class battleships that the Royal Navy would have
fielded during the late 1890s.
68981 "COME ON, THUNDERCHILD!"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBTcaIweIQk
of the River Blackwater, Essex, where Brits from London are
escaping the Martian offensive. Three Martian fighting-machines
having approached the vessels from the seaward side, HMS Thunder-
child signals to the main fleet and steams at full speed towards
the Martians without firing. The Martians, whom the narrator
suggests are unfamiliar with large warships, at first use only
a gas attack, which fails, and thereafter using their Heat-Ray,
inflicting a great amount of damage upon Thunderchild, which
brings down a fighting machine with its guns even as it succumbs
to Heat-Ray. The flaming wreckage of the torpedo-ram crashes
into a second fighting-machine, destroying it, and when the
black smoke and super heated steam banks dissipate, both the
Thunderchild and the third fighting-machine are gone.
68979 The attack by Thunderchild occupies the Martians long enough
for three Royal Navy ironclads of the main Channel Fleet to arrive.
The fate of the third Martian fighting machine is not revealed by
Wells, but the battle did enable the civilian shipping to escape.
As depicted in the book, Thunderchild is the only human artifact
competing with the Martian fighting-machines on anything like equal
terms.
68980 For April Fools Day 2020, amateur naval historian and YouTube
commentator Drachinifel (see here)...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQBund8uLmo
....produced a speculative history for the HMS Thunderchild,
offering what he saw as a plausible design and history for the
ship and her development based on Wells' description. Based on
the fact that the ship was described to be both larger and faster
than the Polyphemus or the similar USS Katahdin, he surmised that
the Thunderchild was most likely a modified version of the Victoria
or Trafalgar-class battleships that the Royal Navy would have
fielded during the late 1890s.
68981 "COME ON, THUNDERCHILD!"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBTcaIweIQk