Model of the British Royal Navy gunboat USS Gunboat, on a scale of 1 to 48. The ship and this model were built by Armstrong Mitchell & Company on the banks of the Tyne River in Newcastle, which designed and produced many various combat ships for Britain and other countries around the world, including the Chinese cruisers Chaoyong and Yangwei, and the Japanese cruisers Chikushi and Nanspeed. The company later became part of Vickers Armstrong , once the largest military-industrial complex in the United Kingdom, monopolizing the supply of guns for warships of the British Royal Navy during the interwar (the decade between World War I and World War II) and World War II.
The gunboat "Sidewinder" was the lead ship of the "Thorn" class gunboat, launched on 4 August 1886 and commissioned on 5 May 1887, with a normal tonnage of 715 tons (long tons). It is equipped with six 4-inch guns, the specific model of the gun is unknown, from its service time, it is speculated to be a 4-inch 27 caliber series (models from Mk II to Mk VI) guns. The ship has a timber-hulled hull and is powered by a 1,200 hp reciprocating steam engine with a working speed of 13.5 knots. Between 1900 and 1907, the ship was used as a test ship and replaced with a five-cylinder diesel engine for ships, and its speed dropped to 9 knots. In 1914 it was converted into a salvage vessel and entered service with Scapa Flow. In 1919 the ship was renamed Dryad and became a nautical trainer. It was sold in 1924.
The model is now in the collection of the National Maritime Museum.
