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The lead ship of the Royal Navy's latest generation of ironclads, the Thunder's Child was anchored in the Tamis when the invasion began, and with her boilers already lit, was able to raise steam pressure and get underway quickly as Goblin forces rampaged through the city and began moving against the royal docks. Moving as close to the shore as she dared, the Thunder's Child joined a squadron of sail powered ships in providing heavy gunfire support to beleaguered forces along the riverfront and covering the evacuation south across Lundein Bridge until two of the goblins' terrible war machines set upon her. These adamantine encased constructs seemed to be immune to the Thunder's Child's broadside batteries, and she struggled to bring the heavier 360 pounder rifles mounted forward to bear, but at the same time, the goblin war machines struggled to fight back, forced to wade into the shallows along the river's edge. The Thunder's Child's sail powered compatriots, lacking the heavy guns necessary to engage the Goblin Tripods and subject to wind and tide, were forced to withdraw down river after suffering heavy damage, and the Thunder's Child alone was hard pressed to defend Lundein Bridge and fend off the enemy's Tripods.
The Thunder's Child's captain saw his chance to swing the battle in their favor when one of the Goblin constructs stumbled into deeper water, leaving itself almost completely submerged. On the captain's order' the Thunder's Child's rudder was thrown over to starboard and the ship's boilers were pushed to their limit as the ironclad accelerated towards the stricken tripod. While blasts from the second Tripod's heat rays punched through the Thunder's Child's armor deep into the bowls of the ship, the Goblins failed to prevent the ironclad from successfully ramming their struggling compatriot. What the guns of the Royal navy's finest ironclad had failed to accomplish after half an hour of fire, shear mass achieved instead, and the Goblin tripod was destroyed in the collision, though not before a catastrophic boiler explosion ripped through the Thunder's Child's hull. The ironclad would quickly roll onto her side and come to rest in the shallows almost on top of her victim.
Though the battle of Lundein Bridge was ultimately a defeat for the United Kingdom, which forced Royal Artillery batteries on the south bank of the Tamis to destroy the bridge to prevent the Goblin hordes from crossing, the destruction of one of the seemingly indestructible Martian war machines boosted the spirits of Britannia's defenders, and the name Thunder's Child was a rallying cry for the entire kingdom as the conflict continued.
Thunder's Child class Ironclad Ram
Type: Large Naval Support
Mass: 8500 tons (template C)
Equipment Slots: 120
Structure (tech A, armored): 3468 tons
Engine (tech A, steam): 2448 tons
Movement: 2/3
Fuel(2000 kilometer range): 1469 tons
Armor(tech A, Bar 3): 31 tons, 514 points
fwd: 114/35
fwd sides: 100/35
aft sides: 70/35
aft: 60/35
Minimum Crew: 79 crew, 13 officers
Full Complement: 199 crew, 33 officers
Equipment:
2 Field Kitchens, 6 tons
Quarters for 20 additional officers, 100 tons
Bunk Space for 120 additional crew, 12 tons
40 maritime lifeboats, 40 tons
Cargo Hold: 583 tons
Weapons:
3 Heavy Rifles (2 fwd, 1 aft) 16 tons, 6 slots
150 rounds of ammunition, 25 tons
40 light rifles (10 fl/fr/al/ar) 120 tons, 40 slots
3600 rounds of ammunition, 200 tons
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