On completion, Terror immediately departed Belfast and joined the Dover Patrol on 8 August.Prince 2012, p. 36 In August and September she joined with other members of the patrol to bombard minor targets in occupied Belgium. However, the new monitor only fired a small number of shots, as it was felt wiser to conserve her guns for more important targets. On 24 September the ship made an attempt to bombard the port of Zeebrugge but this was soon aborted when the weather conditions prevented the accurate observation of the fall of shot and any subsequent correction of trajectory. Poor weather conditions continued for the rest of 1916 and the patrol made no further attempts that year to bombard the Belgian coast. During the winter of 1916 and 1917, Terror acted as a guard ship for merchant vessels anchored at The Downs, following a spate of attacks by German destroyers.Buxton 2008, c. 8.4
