Rosario-class gunboat

The Rosario class gunboats were two warships, Rosario and Parana, designed and built in England in 1907 to 1909 as armoured riverine gunboats for the Argentine Navy, to patrol the Parana and Uruguay rivers. Argentina ordered them from the British shipyard Armstrong, Mitchell and Co after relations with Brazil deteriorated and Brazil ordered riverine monitors for the border rivers. They had a shallow draught hull, a 4 inch Krupp cemented armour belt, a 1 inch armoured deck and an armoured conning tower, and were driven by two Vickers triple expansion steam engines fed by two Yarrow boilers. The main battery was two 152 millimetre howitzers and six 76 millimetre guns. They served from 1908 and 1909 until the early 1950s and were broken up in the 1960s.