aft. Instead, the after gun was a BL gun protected by a gun shield. The original plan was for main armament fore and aft, and the eventual layout, which followed that of the preceding ironclad battleship , was a compromise that meant the ship could only fire her main armament sideways or forward. It was found that if the guns were fired directly forward, the recoil buckled the deck. The gun barrels were found to be so heavy that they drooped when installed on their mountings, and could fire only 75 rounds before barrel wear became excessive. Her main armour extended only along some of her total length varying from thick. By comparison, the French battleship Amiral Baudin, constructed at a similar time, had armour along her whole length. However, the British design produced a faster ship with greater range and larger guns. Captains and fleet commanders Victoria was first commissioned in March 1890 by Captain J. E. Stokes, who took the ship to the Mediterranean. This crew then swapped ships with the crew of Camperdown, so that Captain J. C. Burnell now took command. The ship was now flagship of the Mediterranean squadron commanded by Vice-Admiral Sir Anthony Hoskins. In 1891, Sir George Tryon succeeded as fleet commander and Captain Maurice Bourke became the new flag captain onboard Victoria. 1892 grounding On 29 January 1892, Victoria ran aground at Snipe Point near Platea on the Greek coast. Platea had been selected as a convenient friendly port for British ships to use as a base for exercises with torpedoes and mines, and each ship of the Mediterranean Fleet would go there in turn during the winter. Torpedoes would be launched from fast moving ships in real battle conditions, but it was desirable to practice this in relatively shallow waters so that the torpedoes could be recovered afterwards (they were supposed to float once their motors stopped but sometimes sank). Captain Bourke had appreciated the potential difficulties of operating his ship in shallow waters, and had ordered a crew to set out a buoy offshore at the place where the water shoaled to . But the crew missed the shallowest point, and Victoria grounded on the rocky shoal at and stuck fast. The fore end of the ship ended up higher out of the water than would be normal as momentum drove it up onto the shoal. The ship's bottom was