torpedo gunboat
英[tɔ:ˈpi:dəʊ ˈɡʌnbəut]美[tɔrˈpido ˈɡʌnˌbot]
In late 19th-century naval terminology, torpedo gunboats or, in north European usage, torpedo cruisers, were a form of gunboat armed with torpedoes and designed for hunting and destroying smaller torpedo boats. By the end of the 1890s torpedo gunboats were superseded by their more successful contemporaries, the torpedo boat destroyers.