whereas most cruisers of the 1890s adopted a three-masted barque or barquentine rig combining a strong emphasis on fore-and-aft sails with a partial square rig, the "bramble" class differed by being designed as two-masted ships, and in 1911, the authoritative partnership of sir philip watts and john harper narbeth noted that they only used a "reduced" fore-and-aft sailplan. thus rigged, they somewhat resembled the much larger contemporary royal navy protected cruisers such as the "astrea" class and "eclipse" class, which had two "military masts", principally used for signal halyards, lookout positions and fighting tops, but designed to set auxiliary fore-and-aft sails in an emergency. on the other hand, hms "thistle" used some square sails, and there appears to be no what their designed sailplan was (an original brig or brigantine sailplan like the earlier hms "temeraire" cannot be ruled out).