A fact from HMS Spitfire (1782) appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 15 April 2009 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:
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Latest comment: 15 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion
Clearly Spitfire was re-purposed shortly after launch as a de facto sloop. Perhaps someone could substantiate this and include it in this article or in the Fireship article. A fireship with such a long, successful career (1782-91) is somewhat like a Kamikaze pilot with a long, successful career. I'd assume that this vessel was a "fireship" in the sense of being built quickly and cheaply, its intended use being as a floating bomb; it functioned as a sloop-of-war, though, for nine years before officially being refitted as such.
Jperrylsu (talk) 17:20, 15 April 2009 (UTC)Reply
In respect to ship classes and types, the terms 'fireship' and 'sloop' were interchangeable and indeed virtually synonymous for much of the 17th and 18th centuries. They were all built to serve as active warships until it was decided to expend them as fireships. But there was no re-purposing after launch, she functioned exactly as her builders intend her to. At times she was recommissioned as a sloop (1793), and later returned to being classed as a fireship (1807), to fulfil the changing needs of war. I think you're confusing a traditional view of what a fireship did (be set alight, drift into enemy ships), with the ship type. A fireship is not inherently a vessel launched with the intention to expend her. Spitfire's career was in fact quite representative of fireships, many of which saw years of distinguished service under the designation fireship, without ever needing to be set on fire, and were still around at the end of their careers to be sold out of the service or broken up. The analogy with Kamikaze pilots is therefore flawed. A successful fireship did not need to be a 'ship on fire', the Navy of the time saw no problem with arming and equipping a fireship to be an effective warship (those 12 pounders were not just for show), it was just a ship that could be so used if desired. There was little distinction in their mind between what a sloop did and what a fireship did on a day to day basis, the image we have today of fireships has lost that distinction, and we tend associate them solely with these 'suicide actions' where they would be destroyed. This is an anachronism however. Benea (talk) 18:39, 15 April 2009 (UTC)Reply
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