An unprotected cruiser was a type of naval warship in use during the late Victorian or pre-dreadnought era (about 1880 to 1905). The name was meant to distinguish these ships from “protected cruisers” which had become accepted in the 1880s. A protected cruiser did not have side armor on its hull like a battleship or “armored cruiser” but had only a curved armored deck built inside the ship – like an internal turtle shell – which prevented enemy fire penetrating through the ship down into the most critical areas such as machinery, boilers, or ammunition storage. An unprotected cruiser of course lacked even this level of internal protection. The definitions had some gray areas because individual ships could be built with a protective deck that did not cover more than a small area of the ship