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Pugilist-class Monitor

Perceptum never took to monitors as eagerly as the Vinlanders (who had invented the ship type as a substitute for ocean-going battleships), at least not during the Imperial era. The Marina Imperiale (Imperial Navy) exercised a budget big enough to maintain an enormous trans-oceanic Battlefleet that could respond to crises and strategic threats anywhere in the world. Modern Perceptum, with its much reduced navy and economic base, didn’t have that luxury.

 

The Grande Marina (Grand Navy) operated a much smaller Battlefleet, and thus turned to the monitor as a cheap method of providing big guns to the defense of its colonial possessions. Those built in the 1880’s were ugly, flawed but powerfully armed gun platforms. Those, like the Pugilist class, that were built during and after the Great Re-Armament were armed with smaller, cruiser-sized guns but were better able to traverse treacherous and shallow waters. More importantly, they had larger secondary batteries and were maneuverable enough to tango with torpedo armed ships that would have easily sunk preceding classes of Perceptan monitors.

 

But unlike their predecessors, the Pugilists were largely incapable of traversing the open ocean safely, limiting them to riverine and coastal operations.

 

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Uploaded on November 26, 2018