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Title: Warships and their story
Author: Richard A. Fletcher
Release date: January 29, 2024 [eBook #72817]
Language: English
Original publication: London: Cassell and company, ltd, 1911
Credits: Alan, Peter Becker and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WARSHIPS AND THEIR STORY ***
[Illustration: A COMING TYPE OF BATTLESHIP. An interpretation of the
funnel-less ship with internal combustion engines as suggested by Mr.
J. McKechnie, M.I.N.A.]
WARSHIPS AND THEIR STORY
_Uniform with this Volume_
[Illustration]
STEAMSHIPS
AND
THEIR STORY
_By E. Keble Chatterton_
[Illustration]
_CASSELL & CO., LTD., LONDON, E.C._
WARSHIPS
AND THEIR STORY
By
R. A. FLETCHER
Author of “Steam-Ships and Their Story”
WITH COLOURED FRONTISPIECE BY CHARLES DIXON, R.I.
AND 80 FULL-PAGE PLATES
CASSELL AND COMPANY, LTD.
London, New York, Toronto and Melbourne
1911
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
PREFACE
To the people of a seafaring nation the story of the growth of the
warship, from the primitive craft of our savage ancestors to the
marvellous fighting machines of the present day, should prove of
endless fascination. In this book I have sought to indicate somewhat
of the lines upon which the development of the world’s warships has
taken place. The amount of information available concerning warships is
virtually inexhaustible, whether the ships are regarded structurally
and comparisons are made of the forms of the hulls, the strains
they may withstand, the speed of which they may permit, and their
modes of propulsion; or whether, sociologically, as evidences of the
stages of the progress of civilisation of the different peoples; or
simply as aids to an appreciation of naval combat, of deeds afloat of
individual and national heroism, of the rise and decline of maritime
powers, and finally as implements in that tremendous struggle, which
has made England what she is, for maritime supremacy. I have not
written this book from any one of these aspects, but to describe in
popular, not technical, language the more important types of warships
favoured at different times in different parts of the world, to show,
where possible, where type has succeeded type, and the main lines of
divergence and development.
Reversing the usual practice of treating the warships as incidental
to the naval battles, I have preferred to treat the naval battles as
incidental to the warships. For that reason I have attempted no word
pictures of the onset of contending fleets, no more or less imaginary
accounts of famous engagements, no descriptions of weird manœuvres and
impossible strategy. Even under the restrictions I have been compelled
to observe, the abundance of material to be dealt with is so vast that
I feel I have done no more than skim the surface, as it were, and have
by no means collected all the cream. The task of deciding what to
insert and what to omit has been no light one. Much that my readers and
critics may think ought to have been included has, perforce, had to be
left out, and the necessity of keeping the book within the limits of
its present dimensions must be my excuse for the sins of omission of
which I shall no doubt be found guilty.
So uneven, or erratic, has been the progress of warship construction,
that in some of the world’s harbours, riding the waters almost
side by side, one may see dug-outs and “Dreadnoughts,” sampans and
submarines, canoes and cruisers, barges and battleships, the vessels
of peace--though in times past they were not always vessels of
peace--resting securely under the protection of the grim and terrible
modern warships.
Every care has been taken to obtain accuracy, but I do not guarantee
the absolute correctness of every detail given, for the simple reason
that the authorities consulted are not themselves always in agreement,
and this applies equally to the warships of the past as to those of the
present time.
Every care, also, has been observed to give credit to other writers
for the assistance derived from their books, and in this connection
I would specially mention the “Encyclopædia Britannica,” Mr. Cecil
Torr’s “Ancient Ships,” Sir W. Laird Clowes’ “History of the British
Navy,” Mr. H. W. Wilson’s “Ironclads in Action,” “The Warships of
Europe” by Chief Engineer J. W. King, U.S.A., “The New American
Navy” by John D. Long, ex-Secretary of the Navy, U.S.A., “Maori Art”
by A. Hamilton, “The New Zealanders” by George F. Angas, “History
of Steam Navigation” by John Kennedy, “The Story of the Submarine”
by Colonel C. Field, “Ancient and Modern Ships” by Sir George C. V.
Holmes, “Submarines and Submersibles” by E. C. Given, M.Inst.C.E.,
“Canoes of the Solomon Islands” by C. M. Woodford, F.R.G.S., “Naval
Architecture” by J. Fincham, “Rise and Progress of the Royal Navy” by
Chas. Derrick, “Transactions of the Institution of Naval Architects,”
Appleton’s Cyclopædia of American Biography, “History of the Marine
Architecture of All Nations” by J. Charnock, “Our Ironclad Ships” by
Sir E. J. Reed, “Cyclopedia of Antiquities” by Rev. F. D. Fosbroke,
M.A., and the “Naval,” “Navy League,” and “Fleet” Annuals. A great deal
of information has also been derived from the columns of _Engineering_,
the _Engineer_, the _Times_, _Illustrated London News_, _Marine
Engineer_, _Scientific American_, and other papers, to all of which I
express my deep indebtedness. If it should be found that I have not
acknowledged every item derived from these sources, I trust that this
general admission will cover my shortcomings in this respect.
I have also to thank personally the Chief Librarian of the Colonial
Office for assistance in dealing with some of the canoes; various
officials of the British Museum for valuable suggestions they were
kind enough to offer; Mr. A. J. Dudgeon, M.Inst.N.A. and M.I.M.E., for
his kindness in again lending me his scrap-books; Mr. James A. Smith,
M.Inst.N.A., for revising a portion of the proofs; the Secretaries of
the Institution of Naval Architects and of the Institute of Marine
Engineers for again placing the libraries of those organisations at
my disposal; the Secretary of the Navy at Washington for illustrations
of vessels which achieved fame at the time of the American Civil
War; the Commissioners in this country of the Imperial Japanese Navy
for pictures of the early Japanese warships; the Hon. J. G. Jenkins,
formerly Agent-General in London for South Australia, for New Guinea
illustrations; Mr. Harry J. Palmer, of Paterson, N.J., for information
and assistance in regard to American ships; and many shipbuilders, both
in this country and abroad, for supplying details and illustrations of
the vessels they have constructed. I have also to thank Lord Dundonald
for his courtesy in lending me a picture of the _Rising Star_, probably
the first steam war vessel to be built in this country, which his
ancestor, the famous Admiral Cochrane, commanded in the service of
Chili.
On other pages will be found a list of the illustrations and the
sources whence they have been derived or the names of the gentlemen who
have been kind enough to supply them.
R. A. FLETCHER.
CONTENTS
PAGE
INTRODUCTION XV
CHAPTER
1. FROM ANCIENT EGYPT TO THE INTRODUCTION OF
ARTILLERY 1
2. WAR CRAFT OF THE FAR WEST, CENTRAL AFRICA,
THE FAR SOUTH, THE PACIFIC AND THE FAR
EAST 21
3. THE INTRODUCTION OF ARTILLERY AND THE DEVELOPMENT
OF WARSHIPS TO THE APPLICATION OF
STEAM FOR NAVIGATION 39
4. STEAM AND WARSHIPS 78
5. IRON SHIPS OF WAR. FROM THE INTRODUCTION OF
IRON ARMOUR TO BROADSIDE AND TURRET
SHIPS 105
6. IRON SHIPS OF WAR (_continued_) 144
7. ARMOURED SHIPS IN ACTION 197
8. BATTLESHIPS AND CRUISERS 241
9. GUNS, PROJECTILES, AND ARMOUR 265
10. WARSHIPS OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 285
INDEX 333
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
A Coming Type of Battleship (_Colour_) _Frontispiece_
Greek Bireme _Facing page_ 6
Greek War Galleys ” ” 6
An Ancient Bireme from Basius ” ” 10
One of the Ancient Liburni or Galleys ” ” 10
Roman Galley ” ” 10
Viking Ship found at Gokstad ” ” 14
Fleet Attacking a Fortified Town ” ” 18
Galley of the Knights of Malta ” ” 20
Mediterranean Galley ” ” 20
War Canoes of Indians of the North-West ” ” 22
A “Dug-Out” Canoe of New Guinea ” ” 24
New Guinea Canoes ” ” 24
Stern-posts of Maori War Canoe ” ” 26
A Maori War Canoe ” ” 26
A Lakatoi nearly completed ” ” 28
A Lakatoi under Sail ” ” 28
Canoe from Shortland Island ” ” 30
Diagram of Shortland Island Canoe ” ” 30
War Canoe (Teste Island, New Guinea) ” ” 30
Head-Hunting Canoe from Ysabel ” ” 32
Head-Hunting Canoe from Ysabel: Detail of Bow ” ” 32
The Famous old Chinese Junk _Whang Ho_ ” ” 34
Malay Pirate Proa ” ” 34
Pictures of War Galleys and a Protected Galley,
_Kikkosen_ ” ” 36
The _Ataka Maru_ ” ” 36
Sixteenth Century French Ships ” ” 40
A Mediterranean War Galley ” ” 42
Ship of War, 1486-1520 ” ” 42
Embarkation of Henry VIII on the _Great Harry_ ” ” 46
Breech-loading Gun recovered from the wreck of
the _Mary Rose_ ” ” 50
The _Ark Royal_ ” ” 52
The _Sovereign of the Seas_ ” ” 54
The _Prince Royal_ ” ” 54
Line of Battleship, 1650 ” ” 58
The _Dreadnought_, 1748 ” ” 60
The _Juno_, 1757 ” ” 60
The _Cornwallis_, 1812 ” ” 64
Guns of the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries ” ” 72
Ancient Double Gun ” ” 72
Carronade of Six Diameters ” ” 74
Carronade ” ” 74
Carronade and its Carriage ” ” 74
The _Rising Star_ ” ” 86
The Trial of Screw _v._ Paddle--H.M. Sloops _Rattler_
and _Alert_ towing Stern to Stern ” ” 98
Sectional Model of Russian Man-of-War, 1854 ” ” 106
H.M.S. _Centaur_, _Bulldog_ and _Imperieuse_ engaged
with six Russian Gunboats off Cronstadt, 1855 ” ” 106
H.M.S. _Warrior_ ” ” 110
The _Terror_ ” ” 110
H.M.S. _Black Prince_ ” ” 122
The _Bangor_ ” ” 122
The _Merrimac_ before Conversion ” ” 126
The _Merrimac_ as Converted into an Ironclad ” ” 126
The _Monitor-Merrimac_ duel ” ” 130
The _Monitor_ and _Albemarle_ ” ” 134
Federal Gunboat _St. Louis_ ” ” 134
Capture of New Orleans: Attack on Fort Phillip ” ” 142
The _Prince Albert_ as Converted to a Turret Ship ” ” 146
H.M.S. _Minotaur_ ” ” 146
The Foundering of the _Affondatore_ in the Harbour
of Ancona ” ” 152
The Wreck of the _Captain_ ” ” 152
H.M.S. _Devastation_ ” ” 162
The Old _Dreadnought_ ” ” 170
The Big Guns of the Old _Dreadnought_ ” ” 170
H.M.S. _Inflexible_ ” ” 176
Russian Circular Monitor _Novgorod_ ” ” 186
The French Iron-plated Ship _Magenta_ ” ” 186
Duel between the _Vesta_ and the _Assar-I-Tewfik_ ” ” 214
Russian Torpedo Boats on the Danube in the Russo-Turkish
War ” ” 214
U.S. Ram _Katahdin_ ” ” 222
The U.S. Dynamite-Gun Boat _Vesuvius_ ” ” 224
The _Maine_ entering Havana Harbour ” ” 224
The Spanish Battleship _Pelayo_ ” ” 230
U.S. Battleship _Texas_ ” ” 232
U.S. Battleship _Iowa_ ” ” 232
The Russian Battleship _Tsarevitch_ after the Fight
off Port Arthur ” ” 236
Effects of Japanese Shells on the _Gromoboi_ ” ” 236
The Japanese Battleship _Asahi_ ” ” 240
The Russian Battleship _Navarin_ ” ” 240
H.M.S. _Victoria_, Firing 110-ton Gun ” ” 244
H.M.S. _Victoria_, Showing 110-ton Guns ” ” 244
H.M.S. _Majestic_ ” ” 248
H.M.S. _King Edward VII_ ” ” 250
H.M.S. _Lord Nelson_ ” ” 250
The German Dreadnought Cruiser _Von der Tann_ ” ” 254
Russian Cruiser _Rurik_ ” ” 258
Russian Cruiser _Rossia_ ” ” 258
H.M. Cruiser _Indomitable_ ” ” 260
H.M.S. _Liverpool_ ” ” 260
French Cruiser _Ernest Renan_ ” ” 262
French Cruiser _Danton_ ” ” 262
4-inch Breech-loading 40-Calibre Gun and Mounting
for Torpedo Boat Destroyers ” ” 266
12½-pounder Quick-firing 50-Calibre Gun and
Mounting ” ” 266
Heavy Gun unmounted ” ” 270
6-inch Breech-loading 50-Calibre Gun completed
and with Mounting ” ” 270
Projectiles and Charges used in the British Navy ” ” 274
12-inch Breech Mechanism (Closed and Open) ” ” 278
Interior of a Barbette showing 12-inch Gun, H.M.S.
_Cæsar_ ” ” 278
The 12-inch Guns of H.M.S _Neptune_ ” ” 282
A Torpedo, discharged from a Destroyer, travelling by
its own Engines towards an Armoured Battleship ” ” 286
The Holland Submarine ” ” 290
The Goubet Submarine ” ” 290
British Submarine A.13 ” ” 296
The British Submarine C.22 ” ” 296
Submarine D.1 with Wireless Telegraph Mast ” ” 298
Launch of U.S. Submarine _Narwhal_ ” ” 298
French Submarine “X” ” ” 298
The _Transporter_ ” ” 300
U.S. Gunboat _Paducah_ ” ” 300
First Torpedo Boat Built for the Norwegian Government ” ” 302
H.M. Torpedo Boat _Lightning_ ” ” 302
H.M. Torpedo Boat No. 79, Built in 1886 ” ” 302
H.M.S. _Vulcan_ ” ” 302
High Speed Sea-going Torpedo Boat Propelled by
Internal Combustion Engines ” ” 304
U.S. Destroyer _Lawrence_ ” ” 304
Stern View of H.M.S. _Sylvia_ ” ” 306
H.M.S. Torpedo Boat Destroyer _Swift_ ” ” 308
H.M.S. _Wear_ ” ” 308
H.M.S. Torpedo Boat Destroyer _Tartar_ ” ” 310
H.M. Torpedo Boat Destroyer _Maori_ ” ” 310
U.S. Scout _Salem_ ” ” 312
U.S.S. _Maine_ ” ” 312
H.M.S. _Dreadnought_ ” ” 314
H.M.S. _Neptune_ ” ” 318
H.M. Super-Dreadnought _Colossus_ ” ” 318
The Brazilian Battleship _Minas Geraes_ ” ” 322
U.S.S. _North Dakota_ ” ” 324
INTRODUCTION
When or where the first warship was built is unknown, so also is
the campaign in which it was employed. A war with naval usages of
any sort cannot have been fought until the aggressor had some means
of transporting the spoil across the water. From the raft to the
fire-hollowed canoe was but a step, and having accomplished so much,
the ingenuity of the naval architects of the period found scope in
making improvements, gropingly, slowly, but none the less surely. The
development of ships used for warlike purposes, as well as of ships
designed as implements for fighting, forms a most attractive branch of
study in its relation to the evolution of empires, no less than that
of civilisation. Nor is the interest any the less if the attention be
confined simply to the consideration of the development of the ships as
ships of war.
In this book I am endeavouring to describe, clearly and briefly, the
main features of the progress in warship building among the different
peoples of the world, from the earliest recorded times onward. The
greater attention is paid to modern warships, and the story of their
development is narrated with an avoidance of abstruse technicalities,
so that any reader of average intelligence and education may be able
to obtain a clear understanding of the steps by which that wonderful
creation, the modern navy, and especially the British Navy, has come
into being.
Whether my readers belong to the bluest of the “blue water” school;
whether they advocate two British keels to one possessed by any
possible combination of foreign powers as the irreducible minimum below
which the British fleet shall not go; whether they take a more moderate
view, founded, as they believe, on the power of the nation to pay for
its fleet, and the ability of other nations to pay for their fleets, in
which case the ability of some other nations to borrow money to have
their best vessels built in British yards must not be lost sight of;
or whether my readers belong to the other extreme and believe that any
and every British fleet is too powerful and that the time is coming
when the Imperial cheek shall be turned to the envious smiter: whatever
be their political and social faiths, the fact remains that the fleet
in being is the sole guarantee of this nation’s safety, and that the
payments for the several warships and the personnel of the Navy are
but so many premiums for insuring the defence of the country and the
maintenance of the inviolate integrity of these islands. Whether the
money has always been spent to the best advantage is a point upon which
experts differ, and is outside my intention to consider. But I hope to
show something of the types of vessels provided, and, incidentally, to
indicate how engineering skill and profound science have been devoted
to the evolution of the modern ship of war.
* * * * *
The earliest known employment of a warship dates back, according to the
present computations of Egyptologists, some six thousand years B.C.;
but discoveries yet to be made may cause that estimate to be revised,
for the more the scientific investigation of ancient Egypt is pursued,
the greater is the tendency to date events more remotely still. All
that is known of this ship is that it existed, and that it saw service
as escort to a trading expedition on the Nile.
The first naval engagement of which we have any definite knowledge was
fought near the mouth of the Nile about 1000 B.C. The ships held only a
few men each and were propelled by rowers, and so little dependence was
placed on their sails that the latter were furled to be out of the way
during the actual fighting.
For hundreds of years oars were the chief means of propulsion, the
sails only being availed of when the wind was very favourable. To
increase the speed of the vessels, bank after bank of oars was added
until ships carrying as many as eighteen banks are averred to have been
constructed--though the evidence of the correctness of the statement is
a long way from being conclusive--and one historian even goes to the
length of asserting that a ship having forty banks of oars was built,
but this may be disbelieved. For the most part, ships having two,
three, or four banks were preferred for war purposes, because of their
handiness.
Greater ships were afterwards built and improvements made in the shape
and size of the sails and spars used, and the number of masts was
increased.
* * * * *
Meanwhile in the Far North a seafaring nation was proving its worth.
The wild men of the wilder North, the Danes, the Scandinavian
Vikings--turbulent, adventurous and fierce, to whom fear was a word
unknown--animated by the virile yet mystic mythology of the North, and
inspired by the love of conquest and travel, now began to play their
part in the world’s naval history. The Vikings produced the “long
ship,” the “serpent,” daring in conception, marvellous in construction,
possessing wonderful qualities as a sea-boat, fast under sail or oar,
and of a beauty of outline and shape hardly to be excelled even now.
Such were the vessels in which the Danes invaded England, and by
building vessels as good as those of the Danes, and some rather better,
King Alfred repulsed the invaders and implanted in the English that
“habit of the sea” they have never lost. But the lesson of the Norsemen
was destined to lie dormant for many a long year. Although the Romans
had introduced the “long ship” for war purposes--so-called because
it was longer in proportion to its beam than the merchant ships--the
Mediterranean shipbuilders preferred as a whole to retain the heavy
hull, and the form they believed best suited to their needs upon the
tideless sea. Slave power was cheap, and was to be had for the trouble
of capturing, and for many centuries oar-driven galleys were preferred
over any vessel dependent upon sails only, and were to be found in the
Mediterranean as late as the beginning of the nineteenth century.
As ships of greater size were provided in the Middle Ages, huge
erections in the shape of castles were added at the bow and stern:
great, unwieldy craft which contemporary historians likened to floating
islands. The Venetian and Genoese republics elevated the art of
constructing oared galleasses to its highest, and ere long Spain took
the lead in producing warships with dimensions and power of armament
which made her the chief maritime power of the world.
* * * * *
In England, owing to alternate periods of stimulation and neglect
by the authorities, the progress of shipbuilding was spasmodic. The
roughness of the waters round our coasts, and along the Atlantic
coasts of France, the Low Countries and North Western Europe, caused
greater dependence to be placed in small vessels having good sea-going
qualities and using sail whenever possible. The _Great Harry_ was begun
in the reign of Henry VII. and finished in the reign of his uxorious
successor, and is interesting as indicating that shipbuilders in
England were even then able to turn out a sea-going vessel superior
to anything afloat. Henry VIII. established royal shipbuilding yards
at Woolwich and Deptford, and thus founded the modern navy, but few
warships for the King’s service were built there in his time, and
during his reign and for many a long year after it was the custom
to hire merchant vessels and arm them--if they were not already
armed to protect themselves against pirates--to augment the national
fleet. Religious, no less than national, rivalry contributed, albeit
unconsciously, to the development of the efficacy of the warship as
a fighting unit. The enmity between Britain and Spain culminated,
in Elizabeth’s reign, after a series of daring attacks by reckless
Englishmen upon the Spanish fleet in preparation for the great attack
upon England, in the dispatch of the Armada. Hawkins and one or two
others foresaw that the advantage would lie with the fleet which could
be most effectively manœuvred. The disparity between the Armada and
the British fleet was not so great as many writers have represented,
either in the size or number of the vessels; but the British vessels on
the average were smaller, faster, and better handled; in other words,
efficiency told against sheer weight of numbers. This was the last
great sea-fight on the ocean in which oared ships took part; they were
no match for their smaller and more speedy sailing antagonists.
Structurally, most of the vessels of this time, the larger especially,
were disfigured by high sterncastles, but early in the seventeenth
century this encumbrance and many others had disappeared. Thence to
the nineteenth century the development of warships was marked mainly
by continual increases in their size, improving their form of hull
and, consequently, their speed and buoyancy; augmenting their sail
area and perfecting the square-rigged system; and adding to the number
of gun decks and the number of guns carried; until the grand wooden
three-deckers swept the seas in all their ponderous pride and majesty.
Ships of the line of various ratings played their part, and were ably
seconded by frigates, brigs, cutters, sloops and bomb-ketches. All
these were in vogue less than a century ago, and though not forgotten,
are looked upon as historical and romantic and interesting curiosities.
* * * * *
In the weapons, no less than in the ships, the changes have been
marvellous. For many centuries after ships were adopted for war, the
fighting was done by soldiers carried aboard them. The human machines,
the rowers, had to attend exclusively to their oars, for on them the
safety or success of the fighting men depended. The main idea was to
get to close quarters and fight hand to hand with javelin or sword,
spear or battleaxe; bows and arrows were used when possible, and
missiles hurled by hand were not despised. The ram, in various forms,
affixed to the bows in such a manner as to strike the enemy’s ship
below or above the water-line, or both, was used with fearful effect in
many a stubbornly fought engagement.
The introduction of artillery in the fourteenth century marked the
beginning of the first great revolution in naval warfare, and the
changes in the projectiles have been no less extraordinary than those
in the guns.
* * * * *
The next great revolution was the introduction of the steam-engine. Its
adoption in the British Navy in 1832 marked the beginning of the end of
the sailing warship. Her last grim battle against inexorable fate was
fought with the same doggedness which had distinguished her in many an
encounter with her nation’s enemies; but the superiority of steam over
sail was recognised. Temporising measures, a patched-up peace, as it
were, lasted for a few years while the steam engine was employed as an
auxiliary. Sail power, however, had reached its apotheosis so far as
warships were concerned. Engineers, animated by practical common sense
and ignoring romantic associations, improved their engines, so that the
steam power was no longer the assistant of sail, but its associate,
and was quick in attaining the position of chief partner and showing
that sails could be dispensed with altogether. The Crimean War sounded
the knell of the wooden battleship as well as of the paddle-wheel war
steamer. The former gave place to the iron-clad vessel, and the latter
was supplanted by the screw-propelled ship. The power of artillery
had shared in the application of scientific knowledge and benefited
accordingly. The great battle between the maker of armour plates and
the maker of guns and projectiles had begun. Iron, the conqueror of
wood, had but a short reign. Where iron was used a few years ago, steel
is now invariably employed. The thoroughness of the victory is shown by
the fact that in the whole of the British Isles not one iron vessel,
large or small, was built in 1909 for war or commerce.
* * * * *
The years 1905 and 1906 saw two of the most important steps forward in
the history of warships, for they included the adoption of the turbine
principle of warship propulsion and the “Dreadnought” principle of
armament. The progress of the last fifty years, culminating in the
_Dreadnoughts_, has been wonderful; already designs of vessels intended
to relegate them to second place are under consideration.
Type after type of battleship, cruiser, scout, gunboat, destroyer and
torpedo-boat has followed in rapid succession of late years, and
submarines have become an accomplished fact. He would be a foolish man
who would prophesy that the end is in sight.
There is nothing more marvellous in the world’s history than the
tremendous development in marine engineering, in warship construction,
in explosives, in armament, and in projectiles that has taken place in
the latter half of the nineteenth century, and especially in the last
twenty-five years.
WARSHIPS AND THEIR STORY
CHAPTER I
FROM ANCIENT EGYPT TO THE INTRODUCTION OF ARTILLERY
When did man first entrust himself afloat for purposes of war? and what
was the type of vessel he employed? are questions which take us back
almost to the earliest stages of historical human progress, concerning
which all the knowledge of the antiquaries is but conjectural, a stage
so remote that scientists have not yet determined how many thousands of
years ago it existed. The earliest vessels thus employed must have been
transports, and nothing else; but if employed as aids to aggression
when the kings of the earth took counsel together and, impelled by
avarice or a desire to assist in one another’s turbulent love affairs,
or, for their own safety, convinced of the necessity of finding an
outlet for the energies of their restless subjects, invaded the
territories of their neighbours, the ships, whatever their nature, will
have been of a size sufficient to receive any spoil or any prisoners
worth the trouble of carrying back again.
So far, however, as research has disclosed in those parts of the Near
East where civilisation was cradled, there is no indication that man
fought afloat--boat against boat, or fleet against fleet--until after
a comparatively high stage of civilisation had been attained and
shipbuilding had made enormous advances.
Evelyn remarks: “Concerning men of war, fleets, and armadas for
battel, that Minos was reported to be the author, which shows that
manner of desperate combat on the waters to be neer as antient as men
themselves, since the deluge.” Minos, he adds, disputed the empire of
the seas with Neptune, but “these particulars may be uncertain.”[1]
Among the legendary expeditions, those of Ulysses and Jason are the
best known. Possibly they took place, but the adventurers never did
or saw half the wonders narrated of them. Herodotus, describing the
type of ship attributed to Ulysses by Homer, states that such ships
were made of acacia, of “planks about two cubits in length,” joined
together like bricks, and built in the following manner: “They fasten
the planks round stout and long ties: when they have thus built the
hulls they lay benches across them. They make no use of ribs, but caulk
the seams inside with byblus. They make only one rudder, and that is
driven through the keel. They use a mast of acacia and sails of byblus.
These vessels are unable to sail up the stream, but are towed from the
shore.”[2] Book II. of the _Iliad_ mentions, in the famous catalogue,
hollow ships, well-benched ships, swift ships, and dark ships, and that
Ulysses had twelve red ships, but Homer, being a poet and a landsman,
did not describe their differences.
Recent excavations and discoveries in Egypt have revealed the existence
of boats of considerable size, so remote in history that their period
is only guessed at, though they are estimated to date from about 5000
to 6000 years B.C. If the interpretation of the designs on the pottery
recording these old ships be correct, they were propelled by over a
hundred oars or paddles, were steered by three paddles at the stern,
and had two cabins amidships. They were, moreover, very high out of
the water at the ends, having very long, overhanging bows and counters,
and were shallow and flat-bottomed.
Even at this period the art of shipbuilding was in a comparatively
advanced stage; vessels such as those depicted would be quite as
capable of use in war for carrying warriors or stores, or both, as in
commerce for conveying merchandise. Egypt has many historical secrets
yet to reveal, and, judging by the constant reassignment of dates
in all matters connected with Ancient Egypt which exploration has
entailed, it is not too much to expect that the dates quoted, assigned
approximately by Egyptologists, may be revised and events placed more
remotely still.
Another hieroglyph, discovered in a tomb, ascribed to the year 4800
B.C., shows enormous progress in shipbuilding and also in the art of
representing a ship pictorially.
During the Sixth Dynasty, a certain Un’e, who was a person of note
under three kings, sent, while the second, Pepi I., was on the throne,
an expedition to the quarries of Syene or Assouan, to fetch stone for
his master’s pyramid.
Another expedition, on behalf of Pepi’s successor, merits attention,
as the fact is emphasised on the inscription on the tomb as most
remarkable, and as never having occurred before “under any king
whatever,” that Un’e had to employ twelve ships for freight and but one
warship.[3] The flotilla consisted of “six broad vessels, three tow
boats, three rafts, and one ship manned with warriors.”[4]
The Egyptians evidently had experience of some sort of fighting afloat,
for there has been discovered at Gebel Abu Faida a tomb with a painting
showing a boat with a triangular mast, and a stem extending forward
below the surface of the water and presumably intended to be used to
damage an enemy’s boat by ramming it.[5]
The first sea-fight of which a pictorial representation is known to
exist was fought off Migdol, at the mouth of the Nile, in the time of
Rameses III., first king of the Twentieth Dynasty, which began about
1180 B.C., and lasted to about 1050 B.C. Egypt was invaded from the
East by “warships and foot soldiers,” and the Egyptian monarch mustered
a fleet and attacked them.
[Illustration: ANCIENT EGYPTIAN WARSHIP.]
“The ships on both sides,” says the historian[6]--“we can recognise
the Egyptian by the lion heads in the bows--have reefed their sails
in order not to interfere with the men who are fighting; the bracket
at the mast head has been removed to make room for the slinger. The
Egyptians understood how to pull round the ships of the enemy with
their grappling irons, so as to bring them to close quarters; in
fighting also they have the better of their opponents, for they all
carry bows, whilst the barbarians with their short swords can only
fight in a hand-to-hand medley. This battle is almost the only naval
engagement in Egyptian history, for though in the wars with the Hyksos
we certainly hear of fighting on the water, yet in the latter case
the Nile was the scene of action.... The ships had their individual
names, such as _Battle Animal_, or _Glorious in Memphis_. The _Ship of
Pharaoh_ was also called _Beloved of Amon_.”
A remarkable difference between the ships of the Egyptians and those
of the Asiatics is that the latter had no rowers, if the bas-relief is
accurate. Possibly the Asiatics, Phoenicians probably, had discovered
how to manage the sails of their warships and dispense with rowers.
The example set by the Asiatic fleet does not seem to have been
followed, for as the need of greater ships became manifest the
problem of their propulsion was met by placing one bank or tier of
oarsmen above another. Then, as now, the propelling power was vital
to the efficiency of the ship, and means had to be devised for the
preservation, or at least protection, of the oarsmen. The single-banked
ships had planks placed round the gunwales, forming a parodus, or
gangway, which served also to guard the rowers from missiles. Later,
the upper tier was in an open superstructure, and still later, planks
were carried which could be adjusted for the protection of the oarsmen
when necessary.
The ram, employed by the Egyptians--who seem to have retained for their
sea-going craft the long, overhanging stem and stern so suitable to
their river vessels--was a metal head, which added a finishing touch to
the projecting bows, and was high above the sea level. At the time of
the battle of Migdol, and possibly also of the sea-fights in the reign
of the preceding Rameses, who is known to have conducted a naval war,
though of this campaign no illustrations have yet been discovered, the
captain of the warship was placed in a sort of crow’s nest on top of
the double or ⋀-shaped mast.
Then comes a long gap in the history of Egyptian shipping. The
Phœnicians became the leading maritime people of the world, but the
little that is known of them is derived, not from discoveries in
their own cities of Tyre and Sidon, but from the records preserved at
Nineveh. Sennacherib’s conquest of Phœnicia was commemorated by mural
tablets, on which are the only known records of Phœnician war galleys.
The Phœnicians are stated to have invented biremes, or vessels carrying
two banks of oars on each side. Perhaps for lightness, and in order
to reduce the top weight as much as possible, these galleys had the
upper bank of oarsmen unprotected. The prow, differing from that of
the earlier Egyptian ships, curved forward at a point slightly above
the water line, and continued to do so under the water, thus forming a
formidable snout or ram which could inflict considerable damage to the
most vulnerable parts. The beaks were generally carved to represent
the head of some animal. The vessels also had a parodus placed outside
the vessel and extending the whole length of the sides above the oars.
The contrivance was probably copied from the Egyptians, who introduced
it to enable the warriors to fight at close quarters when drawing
alongside an enemy, or to run to either end of the ship as occasion
might require without impeding, or being impeded by, the rowers.
[Illustration: GREEK BIREME. _From a Vase in the British Museum, found
at Vulci._]
[Illustration: GREEK WAR GALLEYS. _From a Vase in the British Museum
found at Vulci._]
_Cancelli_, or shields of basket work, were placed along the sides
of the ships at such a height that the heads of those on board are
just visible. The _cancelli_ bore a striking resemblance to the
circular basket-work boats still to be found on the upper Euphrates;
this supports the supposition that the _cancelli_ may have been used
for other purposes, particularly if they were made comparatively
watertight, as the function of a shield was not only to protect a
warrior in battle, but to help to keep him dry when on shipboard by
being disposed along the sides to prevent the spray from entering the
ships. A forecastle was constructed upon these ships, and upon each
forecastle a look-out man was stationed; and when these structures came
to be built of larger dimensions they served to accommodate a number
of fighting men who, from their superior position, could throw their
missiles with greater effect. The forecastle had the further advantage
of serving as a stronghold in the event of an attempt being made to
capture the ship by boarding it.
Following the Phœnicians, the Greeks are thought to have begun to build
their own warships about 700 B.C., perhaps earlier, but it was about
that time that the first three-banked warship was launched at Corinth.
The three-banked ships were for many years the largest in existence.
During the fourth century B.C. shipbuilding was practised extensively,
four-banked ships being built at Chalcedon, five-banked at Salamis,
and six-banked ships at Syracuse. Ships of ten banks, according to
Pliny, were ordered by Alexander the Great, and about 300 B.C. ships
having twelve banks are said to have been built for Ptolemy, and
fifteen-banked ships for Demetrios, for a battle near Cyprus.
Ptolemy Philopater, who ruled in Egypt from 222 to 204 B.C., is alleged
to have had a forty-banked ship of a length of 280 cubits or, reckoning
the cubit at 18 inches, of 420 feet, and a beam of 57 feet.
While increasing the size and number of oars, it would, nevertheless,
be impossible to augment to any appreciable extent the speed at which
these ships could be rowed, and the more unwieldy would they become,
and the more difficult would it be to keep steering way upon them.
Again, the assertions of the historians are so contradictory that it is
a thankless task to attempt to reconcile all their stories, especially
as they depended much upon hearsay for their information. For that
reason, therefore, a great deal that has been recorded as to the early
ships and their numerous banks of oars is not to be accepted without
careful inquiry and verification.
It has never been established beyond question what is meant by banks
of oars, or whether the Greek text has been interpreted correctly
when it is taken to express forty superimposed banks of oars. From
constructional reasons it may be assumed that a ship having forty
superimposed banks of oars never existed, and it is very doubtful
whether ships having more than a fourth of that number of banks passed
beyond the imaginations of their inventors. In any case they were
soon dispensed with, and in course of time it was found that the best
results were obtained with galleys having two or three banks of oars.
It is not definitely known how the rowers were disposed in the ships of
anything over seven or eight banks. If any vessels had forty banks of
oars, the upper rows must have been of an absolutely unwieldy length.
Assuming the oars to have been weighted with lead so that the inborne
and outborne portions were equally balanced, they must nevertheless
have been exceedingly difficult to row even by a number of men, and
it was impossible for any rowers to have moved these great oars at
the same speed as the men at the lower banks moved their lighter
and shorter ones. That some such difficulty was experienced, even
in biremes and triremes, is shown by the arrangement of the oars,
whereby all in a bank were not of equal length, but were graded so
that those nearer the ends of the banks were longer in order that all
the blades might enter the water in a straight line. Each row above
must have had its own line in the water a little farther away from
the side of the ship than the row beneath it, or the blades would
have interfered with each other and the rowers thrown into hopeless
confusion. The tremendous amount of lead that would have to be carried
to counterbalance the outborne portions of several hundred oars would
add materially to the dead weight to be propelled, and, much of it
being placed high above the water, the stability of the vessel would be
lessened.
The Athenians used leather or skin aprons or covers over the oar holes
to prevent the water entering, the oar passing through a hole in the
leather, and the apron was bound to the oar in such a way as to be
watertight. This contrivance was widely adopted later. The oar ports
were constructed between the ribs, but the oars instead of being rowed
against the ribs were pulled against thongs fastened to the next rib,
thus minimising the strain upon the ship’s structure and preventing the
oars being lost overboard. One man one oar was apparently the general
rule at that time.
In his most painstaking study of “Ancient Ships” Mr. Cecil Torr has
gone very closely into the subject of the oar equipment of the galleys.
An Athenian three-banked ship would carry two hundred oars, of which
thirty were worked from the upper decking, sixty-two on the upper bank,
and fifty-four to each of the lower. The earliest two-banked ships had
eighteen rowers. An Athenian four-banked ship might carry two hundred
and sixty-six oars. The Roman and Carthaginian five-banked ships in use
about 256 B.C. had three hundred rowers besides the combatants. The
statement is made by an early historian that in 280 B.C. the Heraclean
fleet on the Black Sea included an eight-banked ship with a hundred
rowers on each file, or one thousand six hundred rowers in all. As
usually the fighting men carried exceeded the rowers in number, the
ship must have had close upon three thousand five hundred men aboard.
Warships of all the early Eastern nations were strengthened by cables
passed longitudinally round them in order to keep the timbers in place
and prevent them from being started under the strain occasioned by
the shock of ramming. Egyptian ships of about 1200 B.C. had cables
stretched from stem to stern and passing over the top of the mast
and other posts, but this contrivance was to prevent the vessel from
drooping at the ends, a weakness known as “hogging.” The shock to
the ramming vessel was scarcely less severe than that to the vessel
receiving the blow. To take up the strain and add to the power of
the blow the bows were strengthened by means of waling pieces which
supported the ram proper. The Greek ships were built with the keel,
the stempost, and the lower pair of waling pieces converging to hold
the ram, while higher up the stem was a smaller ram which in its turn
was buttressed by another pair of waling planks. The catheads, or
beams projecting from the bows on either side by which the anchors
were raised, were so placed on a level with the gangway and gunwale
that they would sweep the upper works of an enemy’s ship and smash its
gangway and hurl into the sea or the hold all the fighting men upon it.
Ships of more than three banks are believed to have carried another
ram level with the catheads, and to have had a ram for every pair of
additional waling beams. The ram heads were generally of bronze and
weighed 170 lb. or more.
[Illustration: “AN ANCIENT BIREME, FROM BASIUS, HAVING ONE TIER OF OARS
ONLY.”]
[Illustration: “ONE OF THE ANCIENT LIBURNI, OR GALLEYS, HAVING A SINGLE
TIER OF OARS, ACCORDING TO BASIUS.”]
[Illustration: AN ANCIENT TRIREME, ACCORDING TO BASIUS. _From
Charnock’s “History of the Marine Architecture of all Nations.”_]
The later rams varied considerably in shape. The triple ram was
sometimes made with the teeth pointing slightly downward, while others
had an upward tilt. The lowest ram often extended farther forward
than those above, the idea being that it would inflict severe injury
about or below the water line, and that the upper rams, besides causing
damage, would push the stricken vessel off the lower ram and let her
sink without the assailant being dragged down by the head with her.
The build of the ships rendered it necessary that an engagement should
be fought on a calm sea, and daylight was preferred in order that the
combatants could see what they were doing. As the fleets approached
one another the commanders of the different vessels decided upon
their individual opponents. Much skilful manœuvring ensued to ram the
enemy or avoid a blow. The slaves strained at the oars while their
taskmasters ran between the files of rowers and, with unmerciful blows
from heavy sticks and whips, stimulated them to still greater exertions
if possible.
Poor slaves, mostly prisoners of war, their prospects were gloomy in
the extreme! If their ship were rammed some of them were sure to be
injured, and if she sank they went down with her, fastened to their
places and having no chance of escape. If the oars were disabled in the
collision between the ships the rowers were bound to receive violent
blows from the inboard end of the oars, or to be cruelly pierced by
splinters of wreckage. Showers of missiles from the opposing ship fell
upon the helpless wretches. In later years, when the terrible Greek
fire was added to the means of attack and defence, it contributed
the prospect of being burnt alive to the other horrors of their
situation. Victory meant no rejoicings for them. The wounded were of
little account and could be dispensed with when slaves were to be
had for the capturing, and it was easy to put them overboard to die
the more quickly. Those who survived the battle unhurt or not too
severely injured to recover rapidly, were retained. If their ship were
vanquished they might look forward to greater cruelties as a punishment
for their share of the defeat. If they belonged to the victors, they
had only more battles, the torturing whips of their drivers, and
insufficient food as their portion in life. Death came as a welcome
relief to the slaves of victor and vanquished; in it lay their only
hope of peace.
When the Roman navy was at its best the ships were painted a colour
which matched the waves, and the hulls were made as watertight as
possible with tar. Occasionally in the later Roman ships layers of
tarred cloth were placed outside the outer planking, and the hull was
then lead-sheathed. Bronze nails and wooden pegs were used in fastening
the timbers together, and some ships were so built that they could be
taken to pieces and transported overland if necessary. Ships of three,
four and five banks were even conveyed from the Mediterranean to the
Euphrates.
The facility with which the Liburnians handled the two-banked ships
in their Adriatic campaign induced the Romans to adopt these vessels
as models for their own two-banked ships, and in course of time they
adopted the name of _liburna_ for all war-vessels of from one to five
banks.
If some of the historians may be believed, anything that could be
piled upon the ancient ship and did not capsize it was permissible.
One is said to have had a tower at the stern and another at the prow.
Another bore “a large tower of masonry with a great gate. Here appear
some vases, probably filled with combustibles.” Another _libernus_ has
a mast or yard, suspended perpendicularly by the side of the forward
tower, and having at each end a crossbeam. Yet another _libernus_,
besides carrying a protector for the helm at the stern, is said to
have had six round towers; the largest, of embattled masonry, was
at the prow, two others, also of masonry, surmounted by domes, and
connected by a bridge, were near the stern, and the other three were
nearer the fore part of the ship, were roofed, and two of them had
windows.
Shipping in the Mediterranean extended with extraordinary rapidity
in the recovery after the stagnation caused by the fall of the
Roman Empire and the relapse into semi-barbarism which followed the
successful invasion of Italy by the wild tribesmen of the North. The
advent and rise of the Moslem power caused a series of struggles in
which every state was in a more or less constant condition of warfare
against its neighbour, and the Crusades served but to add fuel to the
fire of internecine and religious conflict. Some immense ships are
stated to have been employed up to and at the fall of Constantinople.
The early centuries of the Christian era saw the evolution of a
flat, shallow vessel, fitted with one or two masts carrying sails,
from which the lateen rig developed, equipped with a long ram above
the water line, with two or at most three banks of oars. It appears
from illustrations that some of these boats carried a superstructure
extending beyond the beam on either side. War vessels of this type
became common throughout the length and breadth of the Mediterranean,
and remained in use long after the introduction of firearms.
Before the discovery of Greek fire, flaring missiles of some kind
had been devised. Frontinus mentions fire-ships, or hulls carrying
combustibles and allowed to drift with wind and tide upon the enemy’s
ships: stinkpots, to nauseate the enemy, though how the others escaped
the smells except by keeping to windward does not appear; and Evelyn
adds, “Nay, snake pots, and false colours.” The Greek fire, however,
was the most terrible of the weapons employed at that time. By some
means by which a fair amount of power was exerted, the liquid was
squirted--or vomited, to use one historian’s phrase--through copper
pipes upon an enemy’s ship, and as the liquid had the peculiar property
of igniting upon exposure to the air and was inextinguishable by water,
it was a most formidable engine of destruction. Small vases filled
with the liquid and sealed airtight were used as hand grenades and
flung at opposing ships and, breaking, set them on fire. Heavy arrows
carrying balls of flax soaked in the liquid were used both in land and
sea warfare, as also were hand-flung javelins similarly equipped, and
the flights of these masses of inextinguishable flames must have been
equally demoralising to the combatants against whom they were directed
and destructive to the ships and inflammable buildings upon which they
fell. This composition is thought to have been invented in the seventh
century; the first occasion on which it was employed on an extensive
scale was in the great battle between the fleets of Constantine and the
Saracens, when the latter, through its agency, lost practically their
whole fleet and thirty thousand men killed. After that both sides used
Greek fire whenever possible.
Up to the introduction of gunpowder and artillery the methods of
fighting varied but little. The sea-fights of the Crusades were
conducted on the lines which had been recognised as the best for a
couple of thousand years or more, viz., ram the enemy and board him.
Greek fire added this rule: Burn him also if you can.
The countries along the northern and southern shores of the
Mediterranean had attained a high degree of civilisation when the
inhabitants of Western Europe and the British Islands were still more
or less savage. What may be regarded as circumstantial evidence in
support of the contention that the Phœnicians voyaged to Cornwall and
Ireland is the similarity which exists in shape between the wicker
shields, such as the Phœnicians are known to have used, and the wicker
coracles which the Britons employed at the time of the invasion by
Julius Cæsar. There must have been considerable intercourse between
the Phœnicians and the dwellers in the valley of the Euphrates before
the latter conquered the former; but whether the dwellers in Nineveh,
or those by the sea, invented wicker boats, or whether both derived
their knowledge of wicker boats from other sources, are points of no
immediate importance. But what is of interest is that the British
wicker coracles were covered with hides to make them watertight, that
they had keels and gunwales, and that they were small enough to be used
as shields if necessary, their dimensions being rather over 4 feet in
length, with a breadth of about 3 feet, and a depth of a trifle over
12 inches. They were big enough to carry one man of average size.
There are on the Euphrates to this day boats or rafts of proportionate
dimensions, up to a maximum length of 40 or 50 feet over all, which
are constructed with a light framework of wicker and timber, over
which skins are stretched to keep them watertight. These boats, when
laden, drift down the river with the current, and, on reaching their
destination, their cargo and skins are sold and the framework is made
up into a package and returned upon the back of an ass to the port of
departure. These cargo boats have been humorously referred to at a
meeting of the Institute of Marine Engineers as of “one ass-power.”
So far as Britain is concerned, the shipping of each coast seems to
have developed under the influence of the foreign shipping with which
it mostly came in contact. The east coast was largely concerned with
the Danes, and the south coast with its neighbours across the Channel.
The Danes and Vikings developed a type of vessel peculiarly their own.
The best specimen yet brought to light is that known as the Gokstad
ship.
[Illustration: AN ANGLO-SAXON SHIP OF ABOUT THE NINTH CENTURY. (_From
Strutt._)]
The Viking ships must have walked the waters almost with the grace of
motion of a modern yacht, and when the great square sail was hoisted,
bearing the escutcheon of some dread sea-rover, they must have been
fascinating emblems of human skill and power no less than of the
noblest and the basest passions of mankind.
The large rowing and sailing galleys of the Mediterranean were
fine-weather ships, it being the custom to suspend merchant voyages,
naval expeditions, and piracy in that sea during the winter months.
Obviously, such vessels were wholly unsuited to the Atlantic coasts
of Western Europe. The western coasts of Spain, France and Portugal
produced a ship, short and broad, and strong enough to be beached even
when a moderate sea was running. This model was seemingly copied
by the English of the south coast, and vessels of this type, built in
the eighth century, were planked and carried high, erect stemposts and
sternposts. The vessels were single-masted and fitted with a yard and
square sail, and the steering was effected by a large oar at the stern.
They were not unlike the Viking ships in some respects, but they were
of less average length and broader in proportion, having bluffer bows,
a less fine entry, and a long flat floor extending farther aft than did
that of the northern ships. Some also had a ram.
[Illustration: VIKING SHIP FOUND AT GOKSTAD, SOUTH NORWAY. _Photograph:
O. Vaering, Christiania._]
What may be regarded as the first great national step in British
shipbuilding was inaugurated in the latter part of the ninth century,
when King Alfred saw that in order to beat the Danes he must meet
them with ships superior in size and strength to their own. His war
galleys were virtually double the size of those of the invaders, and
in some instances almost double their length. The Gokstad ship, by
no means one of the largest of its type, had sixteen oars a side. If
Alfred’s boats had thirty oars or more a side, as is stated, and were
double-banked--that is, two men to each oar--like those of his foes,
the fighting strength of the individual ships of his navy must have
been very great.
By the eleventh century the Norsemen had taken to painting their
vessels externally, besides making them larger and giving them decks.
The stempost and sternpost were more ornately decorated, gilded
copper being the material used for this purpose. Svend Forkbeard’s
own ship, the _Great Dragon_, is said to have been in the form of
this legendary beast, but what the historian most likely meant is
that the stern decoration or the design on the sail may have shown a
fantastic representation of the fearsome animal; the Vikings were too
good seamen to have built the ship in any form likely to be inferior
to the shape they had learned to appreciate so highly. The _Long
Serpent_, which appeared in that century, is said to have been 117
feet in length, and decked, and to have carried six hundred men. This
is the first war vessel in the Western seas known to have been decked
throughout,[7] and in which cabin accommodation was provided for the
principal fighting men. Beneath the deck the hull was divided into five
cabins or compartments; the foremost was the _lokit_, in which, in a
royal vessel, the king’s standard bearers were quartered; next, the
_sax_ or storeroom; then the _kraproom_, where sails and tackle were
kept; the _foreroom_, containing the arms chest, and forming the living
room of the warriors; and astern of all was the _lofting_, or great
cabin, devoted to the commander. For the comfort of the rank and file
of the fighting men at night in port an awning was spread, supported
by a ridge pole on pillars. At other times they would seem to have had
to put up with sleeping on deck and making the best of it; they would
certainly be no worse off than in the old days of the open ships, and
being somewhat higher above the water would be less exposed to the
spray. At the end of the twelfth century King Sverre Sigurdsson had
some merchant ships cut across amidships and lengthened, and then used
them as war ships.
[Illustration: FLEET ATTACKING A FORTIFIED TOWN. _MS. Harl. 326._]
William the Conqueror’s fleet in the eleventh century is estimated at
anything between six hundred and ninety-six vessels and three thousand;
a manuscript in the Bodleian Library gives the number as one thousand.
Most of the vessels were small, if the illustrations on the Bayeux
tapestry are to be accepted. The type of ship is no doubt represented
with a fair amount of accuracy, but in certain other respects the
efforts of the weavers of the tapestry are only less grotesque than
the so-called ships which appear on some of the medals of the ports,
but which nevertheless have been accepted as correct representations
of the ships of the times, whereas they should be regarded as
indicating approximately the type of vessel then in vogue. With the
exception that a few ships were built of rather greater dimensions--the
largest in the invading fleet can hardly have been more than 80 tons
burthen--shipbuilding shows but little development on the Atlantic
coast until after the introduction of artillery.
[Illustration: WARSHIPS OF THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY. (_After Harleian
MS.--1319. fol. 18._)]
A battle between a Cinque Ports fleet under Hubert de Burgh and a
French fleet under Eustace is chiefly remarkable by reason of the
English manœuvring to secure the windward position, this being the
first occasion on which this manœuvre is recorded, and the attack
on the French rear ended in a signal English victory. The fame of
the English archers was great, and they added to their laurels by
playing no small part in the battle. From their positions in the
tops and on the forecastles they kept up a steady flight of arrows
upon the French. The arrows carried flasks of unslaked lime which
broke on striking the French ships, and the lime dust, borne on the
wind, entered the eyes of the enemy and blinded them, the defeat of
the French following. The ships of that period were provided with
platforms, elevated on wooden pillars, at the bow and stern. The
erections were the forerunners of the immense structures which were
added in later years and did so much to render ships unstable.
A Venetian ship constructed for Louis IX. of France in 1298, and named
the _Roccafortis_, was 70 feet long on the keel and 110 feet over all,
with a width at prow and poop of 40 feet. She is stated to have had two
decks and a fighting castle at each end. Possibly the weight of the
_bellatorium_, as the castle was called, may have necessitated such an
extraordinary beam near the bows and stern, but she could never have
been built with such dimensions to be other than a floating fortress.
In the Mediterranean, however, great activity prevailed. The Crusades
gave a tremendous impetus to the shipping of the Middle Sea. Christians
and Saracens vied with each other in the production of ships of war.
The larger “busses” sent to the Levant in the fleet of Richard Cœur de
Lion carried, according to Richard of Devizes, a captain and fifteen
seamen, and forty knights with their horses, forty footmen, fourteen
servants, and twelve months’ provision for all. Some vessels are said
to have carried double this complement and cargo. A Saracen ship, of
which little is known, was encountered off the Syrian coast, of so
great a size that it could not be subdued until the Christian galleys
charged in line abreast and smashed in her side so that she went down
with nearly all of her one thousand five hundred men.
[Illustration: A GALLEY OF THE KNIGHTS OF MALTA. _From the Model in the
Victoria and Albert Museum._]
[Illustration: MEDITERRANEAN GALLEY. _From a Model in the Museum of the
Royal United Service Institution._]
CHAPTER II
WAR CRAFT OF THE FAR WEST, CENTRAL AFRICA, THE FAR SOUTH, THE PACIFIC,
AND THE FAR EAST
Notwithstanding the enormous strides made in ship construction, it is
still possible to find in active use vessels but little removed from
the earliest types known. It is, of course, in the “Mysterious East,”
where anything that served its purpose very well centuries ago seems to
have been expected to retain its efficiency for ever, that one finds
those survivals from bygone ages. The earliest vessels known were
hollowed logs, or dug-outs; such are in use still. Planks were stitched
or lashed on above the bulwarks to raise the freeboard and keep out
the sea; the same contrivance is applied to this day. A few strips of
bamboo or other light material tied together formed rafts; their exact
counterparts are in existence in many parts of the world. It was found
possible to sail them by means of a sail of matting attached to a yard
which was supported by a stout mast destitute of stays or standing
rigging; a centre-board or drop keel which could be lowered through the
middle of the raft into the water prevented leeway, and steering was
effected by means of a pole with a blade attached, usually tied on,
this long paddle being sometimes used near the middle of the after end
of the raft and sometimes at either of the after corners, the necessary
leverage being obtained by the provision of a stump for the purpose.
The origin of such rafts is lost in antiquity, yet they continue to be
found in active service.
The bark canoes which the Indians of North America employed on the
great rivers and lakes when white men first went there are unchanged in
their method of construction, and though in places where civilisation
and the mechanical arts have assumed sway the old canoes have given way
to the products of the modern boat-builders’ skill, yet in the farther
North-West the Indian canoe ripples the summer surface of the lakes
and streams as it did centuries ago. The real Indian canoes were made
by building the frame, and then placing upon it a carefully prepared
strip of birch bark sufficiently large to cover the entire frame in
one piece; it was lashed to the frame and then stitched at the ends to
form the bow and stern. The larger canoes were sometimes stiffened by
having two or three pieces of wood lashed thwartwise. The canoes were
propelled by means of paddles, and the Indians sat or knelt on the
bottom of the boat. Many of these canoes weighed as little as 60 lb.
and some even less. Their chief use was in the migrations of the tribes
between their summer and winter quarters, and very picturesque they
must have appeared to the early settlers as a flotilla glided past;
that is, if an Indian could ever be regarded by an early settler as
anything but “pizen.” But these canoes served equally well to convey
the painted and feathered braves to battle; and anyone who has seen the
Indians in their canoes can well imagine how in days now happily past,
it is hoped for ever, a fleet of these boats, filled with cruel and
relentless men, passed swiftly and silently over the waters at night,
their paddles so skilfully wielded that the blades entered and left
the water with never a splash to break the solemn stillness. Then the
Indian canoe was no longer an emblem of joyous happiness, made only
for the sparkling waters and clear nights and days of that foretaste
of Paradise, the Indian summer, fit craft for the romantic passing
of Hiawatha to “the kingdom of Ponemah”; but an evil thing, as swift
and silent and terrible as the bloodthirsty men it bore to victory or
destruction.
[Illustration: WAR CANOES OF INDIANS OF THE NORTH-WEST. _From a
Photograph of a Painting, supplied by the Curator of the Chicago
Museum._]
The skin canoe or kayak of the Eskimo holds only one person, though
its length may be anything from 7 or 8 feet to 25 feet. It is simply a
light frame, running to a fine point at either end, never more than a
few inches in depth, and with a breadth determined by the breadth of
the man who is to use it. It is entirely skin-covered, except for a
small hole in the deck, just abaft of amidships, in which the solitary
occupant sits. The Eskimo are very clever in the management of their
light craft--it weighs but a few pounds, and for its size is probably
the lightest sea-going vessel in the world--and employ it chiefly in
hunting, even at some distance from land.
The bark canoes of the Australian blacks were very primitive affairs;
they have almost disappeared, sharing the fate of the rapidly dwindling
aborigines. It may be doubted if a trace of one of these canoes
could now be found from one end of the Murray River to the other.
Since the blacks saw how easily the white man knocked together a few
planks and made a flat-bottomed, straight-sided boat, they ceased to
labour at bark canoes, but instead obtained a few boards, usually
by pilfering, “borrowed” or begged a few nails, and with a stone
for a hammer have done likewise, patching the very leaky seams with
anything that came handy, were it scrap of tin, leather, raw hide, or
well-greased fragment of a dirty, torn, old blanket, and making up
for deficiencies by incessant bailing. Never again on the southern
Australian rivers will the bark canoe convey the braves to the scene of
the tribal conflict, or ferry in the dying glow of the setting sun the
skeleton-painted men to the edge of the grim, dark forest on the other
shore to attend a great corroboree, whether of war, rejoicing, or grief.
Nor have the African negroes made much progress beyond the dug-out
stage of war canoe construction. The Moors and Arabs long since proved
themselves excellent seamen and shipbuilders, designing boats suitable
to their needs, and are in quite another category. The negroes of
the Cross River district in Southern Nigeria may be taken as typical
of the African canoe makers. They usually chose a mahogany or awosa
tree, and, having felled it, burnt it hollow where it fell. It was
then dragged on rollers to the waterside and finished with whatever
tools were available, matchets, knives and axes being used since the
white man’s introduction of those implements. Occasionally a canoe is
“smoked” or hardened by being exposed to the hot smoke of a fire built
round it. Some of the war canoes are as much as 60 feet in length, and
are wide enough to allow the men to sit two abreast. The larger ones
have a steering platform on a level with the gunwale or raised a foot
or two above it, and a smaller platform is placed at the bow, where a
flagstaff may also be fixed. When there are no thwarts or seats the
crew sit on the bottom of the canoe or on the gunwale, according to the
size of the vessel. Both bow and stern overhang. The paddles are made
of hardwood in one piece, 3 to 4 feet in length, and are pointed.
It is to the East Indies and the Pacific that we must turn to find the
most wonderful examples of the war canoe. They may be divided into
two classes: those with outriggers--this section including double
canoes--and those without.
[Illustration: A “DUG-OUT” CANOE OF NEW GUINEA.]
[Illustration: NEW GUINEA CANOES WITH OUTRIGGERS. _From Photographs
supplied by the Hon. J. E. Jenkins._]
Many of the canoes lacked stability, even in calm waters, and the risk
of capsizing was greater in waters liable to sudden storms or exposed
to the ocean swell. To meet this difficulty and at the same time permit
of the continued use of the shallow harbours of their coasts, the
Malays are supposed to have invented the outrigger, and this conjecture
is based on the fact that wherever the Malay influence is traceable
there some form of the outrigger or double canoe is to be found also.
The primitive hollowed log generally constitutes the hull of the canoes
of the Pacific Islanders. The rest is mainly a matter of ornamentation.
With but few exceptions, the islanders seem to have believed that
the higher and more imposing and ornamental they could make the
stems or sterns of their vessels, the more dreadful in war were they
likely to be. Many of these elevations are beautifully carved; other
canoes are merely grotesque, and not a few have no artistic feature
whatever to redeem them from absolute hideousness. As a means of
terrifying an enemy by presenting such things to his astonished gaze
they would doubtless be effective, had it not been that the enemy
would retaliate by presenting something equally ugly, with the result
that the moral effect which each party sought to exercise upon the
other would be neutralised. Some of the islanders are said to have
decorated the prows of their vessels with the skulls of opponents
killed in previous expeditions; while others contented themselves with
locks of human hair, similarly derived, as naval adornments. With the
exception of bows, arrows and spears, all their weapons were designed
for fighting at close quarters. It must have been a labour of love,
as well as a feeling of pride in the appearance of the fearfully
shaped and murderous clubs, which led them to carve their weapons as
carefully as they did, to render them so deadly, and to adorn them
with mother-of-pearl and sharks’ teeth. Not a few of the paddles were
given serrated edges in order that they could be the more effectively
employed as war clubs if necessary.
There are not many native war canoes now left in the South Seas. None
of the islanders, except the head-hunters, habitually kept canoes for
war purposes, though at times one would be designed and built for some
special expedition. The last of the great Samoan war canoes has almost
rotted to pieces on the shore. It is doubtful if it has ever been used
in a warlike expedition. It was between 60 and 70 feet in length, and
18 to 20 feet beam over all. It consisted of two large single canoes,
placed parallel a few feet apart, and joined by a plank deck which ran
across the greater part of the vessels. Amidships was a house-like
erection, used as a shelter. It was propelled by oars, but also carried
a mast and sails. It could easily carry a hundred men.
The great canoe to hold three hundred men is but a memory; all that is
left of it is its steering paddle, 40 feet in length, which adorns the
wall in the Ethnographical section of the British Museum.
[Illustration: STEM-PIECE, MAORI WAR CANOE.]
[Illustration: STERN-POSTS OF MAORI WAR CANOES. _From Examples in the
Dominion Museum, Wellington, New Zealand._]
[Illustration: A MAORI WAR CANOE. _From Angas’s “New Zealand.”_]
The canoes of that mysterious people, the Maori of New Zealand, well
repay attention in greater detail than is possible in this book. The
origin of the people themselves is unknown, though, if their traditions
are to be accepted, they migrated a few hundred years ago from certain
of the islands in the Central Pacific, partly conquered and partly
absorbed the people whom they found there already, and have remained
ever since. There has been more than one such expedition. There are
affinities between the Maori and the Hawaians. Did the Maori come
originally from Hawaii, or is there some connection between them and
the ancient Egyptians, as is held to be indicated by certain points
of resemblance in their carvings and mural decorations? In what sort
of canoes did they cross the ocean, and how did they find their way?
Unfortunately, the old chiefs who held the traditions have all died,
and it is only owing to the painstaking researches of a few
scholars who recognised the need and value of preserving what could
still be learnt, that anything at all is known of the history of
this strange people. Their legends tell us that some of their canoes
were of great size; some could carry fires or places for cooking the
food, and others were double canoes. One of the latter is said to
have had a platform connecting the two hulls, and bearing a house; it
was a three-masted vessel. All the New Zealand canoes had names of
symbolical or historical interest. One of them was called _Marutuahi_,
which, translated literally, means a slaying or devouring fire.[8] The
dimensions of the historical or legendary canoes are not known. The
straight, tall kauri pines of the North Island enabled large canoes to
be built; one is said to have been 110 feet in length, and many of the
later canoes were 60 to 80 feet long, and held a hundred to a hundred
and fifty men. These boats had long, overhanging bows ornamented with a
figurehead and two carved boards extending some little distance along
either bow. Between these boards and resting on the stem the carved
figurehead was placed and was often adorned with tufts of feathers. A
mast set rather far forward and raking aft supported a triangular mat
sail, the foot of which extended along the boom one and a half times
to twice the length of its height, and enabled the canoe to sail very
near the wind. The stays of the mast and the sheets of the sail were
of plaited flax. The drawbacks to these canoes were that having no
keels they made great leeway, and that their length made them awkward
to manage whenever they were caught in anything like a rough sea; they
could not meet the seas end on, but lay in the trough of the waves, and
were so well handled that disasters were few. In rough weather they
were covered with flax mats over a portion of their length to prevent
the seas breaking inboard.
The long pine hull was of great strength, but to render it more
seaworthy topsides were lashed along the sides of the hull from end
to end of the vessel with braids of flax fibres,[9] and the seams and
holes were caulked with a species of down. As a precaution against
leakage and to strengthen the joint, a long, thin batten was lashed
over the outside of the joint.
The decorations of the Maori canoes are wonderful. The spiral pattern
often seen in their carvings is taken from the unfolding of the frond
of a fern, and has been supposed to symbolise the unfolding of life or
the attainment of a planned enterprise. The greatest care and the most
artistic efforts were lavished upon the carvings of the prow and stern
boards. These boards were very large and always removable. The log
from which the stern-board was fashioned was generally about 15 inches
in diameter and 6 to 15 feet in length, and in its complete state
was covered with conventional and elaborate patterns. The figurehead
log was about 6 feet in length and 4 feet wide, and 2 to 4 feet in
thickness. Both were of hardwood and coloured red with kokowai or
ochre. If the figureheads represented the dead chiefs who had joined
the immortals in the Maori heaven, they must have lost in the other
world what little beauty was left to them in this world after being
tattooed. Not a few of the figures are extraordinarily grotesque, and
the weird effect of the red ochre is heightened by the introduction of
bright shiny eyes made of the inner shell of the haliotis. Many also
show the tattoo marks which were supposed to add to Maori beauty, and
most bore bunches of feathers of the kaka and albatross, and on gala
days were further adorned with an elaborate and gaudy feather wig.
The thin batten, already alluded to, covering the join of the topside
and hull, was always stained black. Gannet feathers were inserted to
cover the lashings and contrasted vividly with the black batten and
the reddened canoe. The sides of many canoes also were painted in wavy
lines of red, white and black, as though in imitation of the wave
motion. Streamers of pigeon tail feathers hung from the top of the
stern-board to the water; even the sail point on the boom bore its tuft
and streamers of feathers.
[Illustration: A LAKATOI NEARLY COMPLETED.]
[Illustration: A LAKATOI UNDER SAIL. _From Photographs supplied by the
Hon. J. E. Jenkins._]
The dug-out, as the type common to all the Pacific islands, usually
has the outrigger attached; it can only be used in still waters. Very
frequently it is duplicated to form a double canoe, or even three may
be used abreast and covered, together with the intervening spaces,
with a deck upon which a deck house is erected. As the deck extends a
considerable distance beyond the sides the amount of deck space thus
obtained is very great, as can well be imagined if the hull be formed
of three canoes each 50 or 60 feet long, and the deck extends 3 or 4
feet on either side and is nearly square. If canoes with outriggers
were employed as double canoes they were placed with the outriggers
lashed together.
The accompanying illustrations of a New Guinea boat or “lakatoi” show
how these vessels are arranged. They each carry two short pole masts
which support immense spars of bamboo or other light material to which
sails of palm leaves are attached. These sails are so constructed that
they can be hauled up or down their spars as required. They have been
described as suggesting when under full sail gigantic lobsters holding
up their claws in distress. The houses upon them are formed of rattan
and palm leaves. An idea of their dimensions may be formed by comparing
in the illustrations the vessels themselves and the men and women upon
them.
Not the least amazing features of these boats are that long sea voyages
were undertaken in them, and that in spite of their size not a nail was
used in their construction, the whole thing being tied firmly together
with coco-nut or other fibre.
The Fijian canoe was very similar to that just described. The Tahitian
“pahi” is frequently 80 feet in length, of the raft-boat type, and
bears a distinct likeness to the “balsa” of Ancient Peru, and has some
of the features of the catamarans of the Chatham Islands, and “has a
closer likeness still to a Chinese junk, with its high latticed stern
work.”[10] These pahi were broad in the beam, neatly planked over
inside, and were fitted with a bulkhead or inner casing, and had the
usual elevated carved stern, sometimes consisting of one post and
sometimes of two. These vessels were capable of covering 120 miles a
day without much difficulty if the wind suited. The Pacific Islanders,
says the same authority, “in the early days of Polynesian enterprise
(about 1400 A.D. and earlier) would make voyages of over a thousand
miles at a time, taking the sun as their compass by day and the moon
and stars by night, adapting the time of their sailings to the shifting
of the Trade wind ... veering from north-east to south-west in its
appointed season.”
[Illustration: CANOE FROM SHORTLAND ISLAND.]
[Illustration: DIAGRAM OF SHORTLAND ISLAND CANOE. _a_, =The keel.= _c_,
=The timbers.= _d_, =The small, solid, wedge-shaped timber in bow, with
ornament.= _By permission of C. M. Woodford, Esq.. F.R.G.S., and the
Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland._]
[Illustration: WAR CANOE, TESTE ISLAND, NEW GUINEA. _From Photograph
supplied by the Hon. J. E. Jenkins._]
Unquestionably the most remarkable canoes to be found in the Pacific
were those made in the Solomon Islands. Though destitute of metal
tools, the islanders yet managed to design them with mathematical
accuracy, to construct them to scale and in accordance with the
designs, and to put them together with skill and precision. Such
canoes were made by the Solomon Islanders as long ago as the sixteenth
century, for de Mendaña, who visited the islands in 1568, has left
a description of them. The canoes, he says, were constructed of
planks, well made and light, and were crescent-shaped and capable
of holding about thirty persons. Later explorers have recorded that
the hull was formed of a dug-out, and that topsides were added. This
type of canoe appears to be peculiar to the Melanesian inhabitants
of the British Solomons.[11] For neatness and accuracy the Shortland
Island canoes come first, but “for beauty of line and exterior
decorations the large tomako or head-hunting canoe of the New Georgia
group unquestionably excels.” The built canoes were cut with the aid
only of stone implements, but now the natives use the plane iron,
fitting it into the handle formerly used for the stone implement. In
many canoes a central ridge is left along each plank to strengthen
it, and a projecting boss is left at the places where the planks and
timbers join. The timbers, or ribs, etc., are either naturally grown
or shaped from the solid. The planks are properly seasoned in the
building sheds, and when the canoe is being put together the various
parts are accurately fitted and tied with strips of fibre through the
holes in the bosses. The seams are caulked with a vegetable putty
made from scraped nut kernel, which hardens in a few days. The canoes
consist of garboard strakes, second, third, fourth, fifth, and gunwale
strakes, stem and stern pieces, and the timbers or ribs. The last fine
specimen of the head-hunting canoe of the New Georgia group was 44 feet
over all, 4 feet 8 inches beam, and 2 feet 4 inches deep. The height
of the bow, in addition, was 9 feet 7 inches, and that of the stern
10 feet 9 inches. All the Solomon Islands canoes are ornamented with
shells. A white-painted arm on the side of the vessel has a sinister
interpretation. It indicates that heads have been taken; if the arm
points to the bows the victims were males; and if to the stern the
collection taken up was of female heads. Both stem and stern-boards
had human faces carved upon them, the idea being that the faces kept
a good look-out in every direction. This was, no doubt, a pleasing
fiction or a superstition; the natives placed more reliance upon their
keenness of hearing and vision than upon the vigilance of the wooden
faces to detect the approach of an enemy.
The Malay influence has been shown not only in the building of
outrigger canoes, but in the popularity of piracy among the natives
of the East Indies. Probably the Malays have been pirates ever since
there has been commerce in those waters upon which to prey. It is
certain that the earliest European vessels to wander into the distant
Orient found the industry established, active, and prosperous. Steam
navigation, improved firearms, and the electric telegraph have done
much to curb the propensities of these merciless marauders, and the
influence of noble men like Rajah Brooke of Sarawak has been of equal
value. But they found it a hard lesson to learn that commerce must be
respected and commercial vessels let alone; it was gradually accepted
as inevitable that piratical exploits would be followed by the visit
of a European gunboat which would blow every Malay proa and pirate
to pieces at the first opportunity. This idiosyncrasy of the Western
world had to be observed, but the pirate does not take kindly to the
uninterrupted ways of peace, and whenever he can he indulges in his
hereditary calling, though his victims may be only small native trading
boats and junks.
[Illustration: HEAD-HUNTING CANOE FROM YSABEL. _By permission of C. M.
Woodford, Esq., F.R.G.S., and the Royal Anthropological Institute of
Great Britain and Ireland._]
[Illustration: HEAD-HUNTING CANOE FROM YSABEL (DETAIL OF BOW).
_By permission of C. M. Woodford, Esq., F.R.G.S., and the Royal
Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland._]
The Malay dug-outs intended for piracy or war were broader than those
intended for other purposes. A writer in 1848[12] described them as
built of timber in the lower part, with the upper part of rattan,
bamboo, and dried palm leaves, this lighter part being added to
prevent the sea washing in over the low sides. “Outside the bends,” he
continues, “about a foot from the water line, runs a strong gallery
in which the rowers sit cross-legged.” Apparently the gallery was on
or outside the gunwale, an arrangement which would help to steady the
long, narrow hull. Then, as now, a cabin was placed in the after part
for the accommodation of the chief in command of the boat, but an
interesting feature of the proa he describes was an unrailed flat roof
extending from the cabin roof almost the length of the ship and serving
a double purpose of providing a fighting deck for the warriors and
affording shelter for the crew. The weapons were the kris and spear,
which “to be used with effect require elbow room.” As the Malays were
energetic fighters, they were seldom long in obtaining all the elbow
room necessary. A brass gun in the prow, under the flying deck, was the
only firearm.
The modern Malay proa is a more ambitious affair. It is built to be
light, fast under sail or oar, and very shallow in hull. The last was
very necessary in vessels which usually sought safety by fleeing into
waters too shallow to permit of serious pursuit. A convenient length
was 64 feet, or 72 feet over all; the breadth would be 14 feet and
the depth only 4 feet 6 inches. Some were longer and broader, but
the Malays were usually careful to increase the draft as little as
possible. The accompanying photograph is of a model of a proa having
these dimensions, and recently added to the South Kensington Museum.
The boat is a combination of Chinese and Malayan design. It will be
noticed that the vessel has very fine lines forward, almost identical
with those of the Arab dhows of the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf, a
sharp run aft and shallow floors, and should be very fast. Instead of
the fighting deck overhead, already described, she has a deck extending
the whole length and breadth of the vessel and slightly below the
level of the gunwale, an arrangement which would enable a large number
of men to lie concealed behind the bulwarks and ready for instant
attack. The deck has two covered hatchways. The roof of the cabin at
the stern provides a platform for working the rudder and the guns,
there being one brass muzzle-loader on each quarter. The projecting
platforms or galleries at the bow and stern provide additional deck
space and would facilitate the boarding of a prize. The boat has two
pole masts, one set very far forward and the other rather forward of
amidships, neither having stays. The sails of all vessels of this
class were made of strips of palm leaves, except when the pirates
appropriated the sails of captured ships, as they are said to have
done at times, and altered them to suit their own vessels. The Chinese
type of dropping rudder, which could be raised or lowered by means
of a windlass, was a common feature in these Malay proas, the use of
the steering paddle being chiefly confined to the smaller craft. The
vessel represented is armed with one smoothbore gun carried on the bow
platform, and two similar weapons carried aft; she also had six gingals
or heavy muskets mounted on swivels, and there was a plentiful supply
of arms for hand-to-hand fighting.
A very similar boat to the proa, but more heavily and substantially
constructed, was that specially favoured by the Dyaks in their
head-hunting expeditions. It was long and narrow, and could carry sixty
to eighty men. The Borneo Dyaks adopted the flying deck as a fighting
platform,[13] but carried the fantastically decorated stern-board to
an extravagant height, which must have interfered seriously with the
stability of the vessel. These stern-boards are said to have been
intended as shields for the occupants of the boats, who turned them
end-on to the enemy and were protected by the boards from the hostile
arrows and spears.
[Illustration: THE FAMOUS OLD CHINESE JUNK, “WHANG HO.” _Photograph
supplied by “Shipping Illustrated.”_]
[Illustration: MALAY PIRATE PROA. _From the Model in the Victoria and
Albert Museum. By permission of R. Walters, Esq., Ware Priory, Herts._]
The Chinese seem to have attained to a certain degree of civilisation
many centuries ago, and then to have gone to sleep. The dwellers along
her coasts were traders and, when opportunity offered, pirates, but
as China maintained a policy of splendid isolation both under her
old dynasties and after her Manchu conquerors assumed control of her
destinies, she had little need of a navy and no interest to serve in
encouraging a fighting marine. China used guns in land warfare as early
as the eighth century A.D., yet in the eighteenth century she had
war junks carrying, not artillery, but soldiers armed with bows and
arrows, while the sides of the vessels bore leather shields painted
to look like tiger heads, to scare the enemy. Some of her junks were
propelled by means of a couple of paddle wheels on each side worked by
manual power. The Chinese war junks differed from the trading junks in
the greater strength of their construction and in the number of guns
carried. Some had guns approximating to 68-pounders, and it was not
unusual to find a junk with twenty-one guns of varying dimensions.
Each was the same cumbersome, slow-moving craft. These vessels were
sometimes over 1,000 tons burthen. One of these junks, the _Key-ing_,
which visited London in 1848, sailed across the Atlantic from Boston
to St. Aubin’s Bay in the remarkably good time of twenty-one days,
a performance comparing favourably with that of many of the western
sailing ships; generally she sailed “like the wind,” that is to say,
“where it listeth,” and was as likely to arrive at one port as another.
Another famous junk in her time was the _Whang-Ho_, but whether the
junk of that name which started on an exhibition tour of the world two
or three years ago was the original or was a copy, as is alleged, is
a point which is in dispute. She left San Francisco for New York and
London, intending to make the voyage by way of Cape Horn, and soon
showed that her intended port was about the last place where she might
be expected. Instead of New York, she fetched up at Tahiti, where the
crew went ashore and stayed. She sailed with a new crew for the stormy
waters of Cape Horn, and was thought to have gone to the bottom until
she turned up in Torres Straits, and nearly got into trouble through
being suspected of smuggling, or carrying contraband. After being
nearly wrecked off Java, she entered Batavia River, and sailed again
some weeks later, but her condition became so bad that she had to be
abandoned. Her captain wrote in his log-book, in October, 1909: “She
will not hold together much longer.... The beams are not fastened to
the hull of the vessel, but lie loose in her.... It is certain she has
never been a man-of-war, but has been specially built for exhibition
purposes in the most careless fashion.” A few days later she was left
to her fate.
[Illustration: JAPANESE WAR GALLEYS AND A PROTECTED GALLEY ‘KIKKOSEN,’
15th CENTURY. _Photograph by special permission of the Japanese
Imperial Naval Commissioners._]
[Illustration: PICTURE OF THE ATAKA MARU POSSESSED BY TOKUGAWA SHOGUN
THE “ATAKA MARU.” _Photograph by special permission of the Japanese
Imperial Naval Commissioners._]
The Japanese, who pursued a policy of isolation until they were
forced to admit Western influences, were as conservative in their
shipping as in everything else. Their trading junks were all built
to pattern, externally and internally, decreed by the authorities,
and no deviation from it was permitted. In their warships, however,
a greater variety of design was allowed. As early as the fifteenth
century they had sea-going ships carrying cannon, a weapon derived at
some time, perhaps, in the unrevealed past, from the Chinese after
the latter conferred upon the Japanese the Chinese system of writing,
a religious system, and other evidences of Celestial superiority.
There were several types of these war galleys, some of which are here
illustrated. The vessels shown were generally very strongly built
with a displacement of about 200 tons. They were propelled by over one
hundred and fifty oars, and their gun positions had bulwarks about
4 feet high, protected by thick wooden shields. A smaller type of
vessel, also in use at that time, may be called a protected galley.
They were very small vessels, displacing only about 25 tons each. They
were nearly flat-bottomed, but had a top covering, or hood, made of
metal sheets, which extended from side to side and almost from end to
end, like a turtle back. Their guns were mounted inside the cover and
fired through small ports cut through the sides of the vessel itself.
These boats were two-ended; that is, of similar shape at either end,
so that they could travel either end foremost, and they had a curious
tunnel constructed along their bottoms in which a peculiarly shaped
paddle-wheel was revolved by manual power for the propulsion of each
vessel. The Japanese warships increased in size and ornamentation until
the _Ataka Maru_ was built. She is of more than ordinary interest, as
she was the last and the largest of the old native warships built for
the Japanese Government before the adoption of Western methods. She was
180 feet long by 63 feet beam and 22 feet depth, and was propelled by
one hundred and thirty oars. Her armament consisted of five heavy guns
and a number of smaller weapons, and her vital parts were protected by
copper sheathing. The Japanese, as already stated, probably obtained
their knowledge of explosives and firearms from the Chinese, and a few
years ago repaid the obligation by giving the Chinese most instructive
lessons in the superiority of modern methods and weapons.
One of the oldest vessels, and at the same time one possessing
characteristics supposed to be essentially modern, is the Arab dhow.
It is as old as the days of Alexander the Great in its chief features,
and in the fineness of the lines of its hull, its seaworthiness, and
its general handiness is not unlike the Viking ships, and is equal to
anything of similar size that the average modern builder could produce
with the same materials. They are employed in gun-running, smuggling,
and the slave trade, when, more legitimate cargoes are lacking or not
sufficiently remunerative.
The Siamese were among the Eastern nations who took kindly to the sea,
and were able to use their warships to some effect. Thus, about two
hundred and fifty years ago, when a European power, depending upon
its superior strength, took forcible possession of the island of Junk
Seylon, the King of Siam of that day ordered the “immediate building of
six warships, each carrying ten guns with pattaroes, and well manned
and fitted with small arms.” These vessels were built in one month,
and this emergency mobilisation and the fighting orders were all to be
obeyed under penalty of death and forfeiting of estates, the latter
penalty being added no doubt to prevent the expectant heirs of a
warrior depriving his majesty of the latter’s services.
CHAPTER III
THE INTRODUCTION OF ARTILLERY, AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF WARSHIPS TO THE
APPLICATION OF STEAM FOR NAVIGATION
Sails having proved their superiority over oars as a means of
propulsion, and sailing ships with seaworthy qualities being fairly
numerous, the world was ready for a great revolution in naval warfare.
The warriors also were about equally divided in the matter of
attack and defence in hand-to-hand encounter. When man first became
dissatisfied with his own strength for hurling weapons at his foes
he set to work to devise a means of overcoming this difficulty. His
earliest weapon for this purpose was most likely the sling. Bows and
arrows held their own in land and sea warfare for many centuries.
Various forms of catapults were introduced by the Romans and others,
and remained in use for some hundreds of years for hurling heavy stones
into the partly decked ships of their opponents to sink them. The
mysterious liquid known as Greek fire, the use of which has already
been explained, was, in the method of its employment, a form of
artillery. It was to the naval warfare of those days what the explosive
shell is to modern warfare.
The Moors are credited with having introduced firearms into Western
Europe at the siege of Saragossa in 1118 A.D., when they had artillery
of some sort; and they are stated to have used the agency of fire to
throw stones and darts in their defence of Niebla at a later date.
The nature and origin of the firearms and fire machine have not been
ascertained definitely. Did the Moors derive their knowledge from
the East? They had Eastern connections. Mortars were used in China in
the eighth century, which fired large stone balls, and by the twelfth
century the Chinese had “wall pieces” or siege guns. They employed
explosives in war before the Christian era. These events were certainly
long before Western Europe discovered how to make gunpowder.
Cannon, as the term is now understood, was introduced about 1330.
Edward III. is credited with having possessed cannon in 1338, but
historians differ as to whether he employed cannon of any kind at the
battle of Sluys, in 1340, or in any of his later naval engagements.
Arrows and stones were the chief missiles; the English relied on their
famous cross-bows, and the French upon machines for hurling stones. The
latter sent several English ships to the bottom.
The battle of La Rochelle, in 1372, when a combined Spanish and French
force defeated the English, is probably the first naval battle in which
cannon were used, as some of the Spanish vessels are said to have
carried a few. Artillery was certainly used at sea shortly after the
middle of the fourteenth century by the Mediterranean countries. The
Venetians found it effective against the Genoese in 1377, and its use
became very rapidly general from the Levant to Spain.
[Illustration: SIXTEENTH-CENTURY FRENCH SHIPS. _From an Old Print._]
The earliest guns were simply tubes, not cast, but built of strips of
iron or wood held together by rings. They were breech-loaders, the
charge being placed in a loosely-fitting chamber. How the chamber was
secured and the gun fired are still undecided. The guns were usually
innocent of trunnions and were fastened lengthwise upon wooden beams
which could be propped up to give them the desired elevation. It has
been recorded that in one of the earliest siege operations at which
this primitive artillery was employed, both sides were so interested
in the operation of firing that they ceased exchanging missiles
and defiance, and even stopped their personal combats, until after
the discharge, when, being much relieved that the stone bullet had
inflicted no damage on the assailed castle wall and had wounded no one,
they resumed hostilities in the old-fashioned way. In those days one
discharge per gun per diem was regarded as sufficient. It was customary
to load the piece overnight and fire it in the morning, from which it
may be surmised that its moral effects were greater than the material
destruction caused. Artillery would have to be in a more advanced
stage to justify its use at sea, for no vessels could afford to carry
guns which could only be used so infrequently. Nevertheless, the moral
effects of gunfire were so evident, especially when weapons were made
more powerful and able to inflict serious material damage, that the
adoption of the new arm for naval war could not be long delayed, and
the time soon arrived when both national and private vessels of any
size carried one gun or more. By the middle of the fifteenth century
guns on board ship had become common.
The illustration of the model[14] of a ship of the period 1486-1520
gives a very good idea of what the warships of that time were like.
Although the vessel carried guns, the bow and arrow were still relied
upon. The archer’s panier on the mast had given place to the deep
circular top. Castles, however, were provided fore and aft for the
archers, and were useful alike for affording them protection and
accommodation and a place of vantage whence to discharge their arrows.
The vessel is of the same type as the Spanish caravel of the early
sixteenth century. From this it may be inferred that the Spaniards went
to the north for the designs of their hulls, but preferred to retain
the rig with which they were most familiar, the Spaniards depending
largely on lateen yards and sails, whereas the model is square-rigged
but without the top-sails she ought to carry.
A feature of the sea-going Atlantic vessels of this time was
their great beam in proportion to their length. They also had an
extraordinary amount of “tumble home,” or sloping of the sides above
the water line towards each other. Ships of the type represented by
the model were much in advance of those upon which artillery was first
carried.
Galleys were the first to be equipped with guns, the weapons being upon
the upper deck and fired above the bulwarks. Some galleys, particularly
in the Mediterranean, carried only one gun forward, a bow chaser. The
desire to carry more guns and to fire them over the sides led to the
raising of the sides of the vessel; and in order to avoid the strain
to the ship’s structure when the guns were fired, the weak point
apparently being the connection between the sides and beams, the sides
were given an inclination inboard, or tumble home, the connecting beams
being thus shortened. The practice was carried to such an absurd extent
that the beam of a Venetian galleon--as such vessels now began to be
called--at the deck might be only half that of the vessel at the water
line. The narrower deck space left less room on which to place the
stern castle, which instead of being an addition became a structural
part of the ship, provided with three and sometimes four decks, all
carrying cannon.
[Illustration: A MEDITERRANEAN WAR GALLEY. _From an Old Print._]
[Illustration: SHIP OF WAR, 1486-1520. _From a Model in the Museum of
the Royal United Service Institution._]
On the Atlantic coasts the problem of cannon was solved in its own
way. Guns were placed broadside and fired over the bulwark. But the
disadvantages of this method were so obvious, especially when an enemy
returned the fire, that portholes in the bulwarks were devised through
which the guns could be discharged. A French shipbuilder at Brest,
named Decharges, is said to have been the inventor of portholes,
and also to have designed some other improvements. His portholes,
however, were so small that the muzzles of the guns could only just
protrude. It was impossible to give them any traverse, that is, to
train or aim them.
The general adoption of artillery led to numerous modifications in the
shape of the ships; they were built of greater dimensions, were more
fully masted and rigged, and could show a considerable press of sail.
It was also considered advisable that ships should be built especially
for war purposes, the French taking the lead after the battle of La
Rochelle.
If Henry V.’s warlike enterprises proved harmful to the development
of English commerce, there is no denying that shipbuilding made some
progress in his reign, though very little is known of the details of
the construction of the vessels. From lists of the ships employed in
his expeditions, it appears that his fleets included “Great Ships,”
the largest of which was the _Jesus_ of 1,000 tons, the others being
the _Holigost_, 760 tons; _Trinity Royal_, 540 tons, and _Christopher
Spayne_, 600 tons; there were also “cogs,” which were rather smaller;
carracks, which were probably foreign built and were prizes of war, the
construction of these vessels not having been then begun in England;
ships, barges, and ballingers, the last being barges. The last three
classes were no doubt impressed merchant vessels, ranging from 500
tons in the case of the ships to 80 tons in the ballingers. In regard
to the “Great Ships,” it is reported[15] that Henry, observing the
superiority of the Castilian and Genoese ships, caused some very large
vessels, called “dromons,” to be built at Southampton, “such as were
never seen in the world before,” says an old writer erroneously, “three
of which had the names of the _Trinity_, _Grace de Dieu_, and _Holy
Ghost_.” Although called dromons it does not follow that they were
similar to the dromons in earlier or contemporary use in the eastern
Mediterranean. The name was given to the latter because of their size
and speed, and it is very likely that Henry V.’s vessels were so named
for similar reasons. Long galleys, called ramberges, were also used
about this time, and the English are said to have become very expert in
their management.
Most of the large English armed ships of the middle of the fifteenth
century were Spanish or Genoese built. A ship was then in existence
carrying four guns on the broadside, fired apparently through ports in
the bulwarks. She was fitted with four masts and a bowsprit, and had
a high forecastle similar to that provided in Italian ships of that
period, but seemingly more a part of the structure of the ship than
was that of the latter. The mainsail bears the arms of the Earl of
Warwick.[16]
A remarkable ship in the history of naval building was the _Great
Harry_, sometimes confounded with the _Henry Grace de Dieu_. The _Great
Harry_ was commenced for Henry VII., and is regarded by many as the
first ship of the British Royal Navy. No doubt the fact that Henry
lived for many years in Brittany, which was then remarkable for its
maritime activity, gave him a greater interest in shipping than most of
his predecessors on the throne professed.
It was a proud day for England, had he but known it, when, in the
year 1488, he ordered the _Great Harry_, for she marked the first
serious attempt of an English sovereign to render the state not wholly
dependent upon the merchants and the ports whenever he decided upon
an expedition abroad, by providing a vessel which should be at the
disposal of the state whenever required. For the first time in the
history of England, for the building of a national ship, the axes
swung as the trees were felled, and the blows resounded through the
forests; the forges roared for the formation of the iron bolts and
nails, and the hammers on the anvils rang as they beat them into shape;
the tools of the carpenters hissed as they fashioned the knees and ribs
and beams and planks; the looms whereon the sailcloth was woven hummed
in the industrial chorus; for this was the first ship of England a
nation, the first sign that Britannia was really awaking at last to the
fulfilment of her maritime destiny. He did not live to see this vessel
completed, and she was finished in Henry VIII.’s reign. Henry VII. also
ordered the _Regent_ and the _Sovereign_. The _Great Harry_ is said to
have been the first two-decked vessel built in England, and the only
ship with three masts in the whole squadron. She was accidentally burnt
at Woolwich in 1553.[17]
The _Regent_ was about 1,000 tons, and carried two hundred and
twenty-five small guns, called serpentines. She had four masts and
a bowsprit, and was launched at Rotherhithe. She was not of English
design, but, like a few before her and many since, was modelled after
a French vessel. The _Sovereign_, a somewhat smaller ship, carried one
hundred and forty-one serpentines. The year 1512 saw the end of the
_Regent_. She was the flagship of the English in a notable battle, and
was opposed by the great French ship, _Marie de la Cordeliere_, which
was provided at the expense of Anne of Brittany, then Queen of France.
This ship is stated to have carried one thousand two hundred fighting
men, exclusive of mariners; at this time there were nine hundred on
board, according to Derrick, who probably bases his statement on the
report that she foundered with all hands numbering nine hundred.
An English description of the engagement states that, “All things
being ... in order, the Englishmen approached towards the Frenchmen,
which came fiercely forward ... and when they were in sight they shot
ordnance so terribly that all the sea coast sounded of it.” One of the
English ships “bowged,” or rammed, the _Cordeliere_, and when at last
the _Cordeliere_ was boarded, “a varlet gunner, being desperate, put
fire in the gunpowder.”[18] The French writer, Guerin, also quoted
by the same authority, in his version, says: “In the midst of this
general French attack there was to be noted above all others a large
and beautiful carrack, decorated superbly and as daintily as a queen.
She of herself had already sunk almost as many hostile vessels as all
the rest of the fleet, and now found herself surrounded by twelve of
the principal English ships.... From the top of a hostile vessel there
was flung into her a mass of fireworks. Then, sighting the _Regent_,
she, like a floating volcano, bore down, a huge incendiary torch, upon
her, pitilessly grappled her, and wound her in her own flaming robe.
The powder magazine of the _Regent_ blew up, and with it the hostile
ship ... while the _Cordeliere_, satisfied, and still proud amid the
disaster, and a whirl of fire and smoke, vanished beneath the waves.”
The English version, if less vivid, is also less imaginative.
[Illustration: EMBARKATION OF HENRY VIII. ON THE “GREAT HARRY.” _From
the Painting by Volpe at Hampton Court Palace. Photograph by W. M.
Spooner & Co._]
To replace the _Regent_, and to emulate Francis I. of France, who had
built a ship called the _Caracon_ (afterwards burnt at Havre), carrying
one hundred guns, Henry ordered the _Henry Grace de Dieu_, of the same
tonnage, 1,000 tons, but carrying one hundred and twenty-two guns.
It is disputed whether she was built at Erith, as usually stated, or
whether she was launched at Deptford and completed at Erith. Her launch
took place in 1515. Historians differ as to what became of this vessel.
One version is that she rolled incessantly and steered badly, and,
having been built rather for magnificence than use, only made one
voyage and was disarmed at Bristol and suffered to decay. If this be
so, it affords an explanation of the discrepancies in the illustrations
of the _Henry Grace de Dieu_, as it is permissible to suppose that
another vessel bearing that name was constructed to take its place and
that the newcomer afterwards became known as the _Edward_. The _Henry
Grace de Dieu_ was sometimes called the _Great Harry_, but must not be
confused with Henry VII.’s ship bearing that name. The _Henry Grace
de Dieu_ was renamed the _Edward_ after the accession of the next
monarch. She had four pole masts; the foremast was placed almost over
the stem, an arrangement which must have made her pitch deeply and
recover slowly; the mainmast was at the break of the after deckhouse or
sterncastle; the mizen or third mast was midway between the mainmast
and the stern, and the fourth, or second mizen, was at the extreme
stern, as far aft as it was possible to place it. Her forecastle
overhung her bows by 12 feet or so, an arrangement which must have made
her very uncomfortable in anything like a sea. She is asserted to have
been the first four-masted vessel. There was also a fifth mast, if it
may so be called, which slanted forward like an immense bowsprit. The
first, second, and third masts had two round tops each, and the fourth
mast one top, these being for the archers. Her sails and pennants were
of damasked cloth of gold. Her armament comprised twenty-one heavy
brass guns, and numerous smaller pieces of various types; but when she
passed into the possession of Edward VI. she had nineteen brass guns
and one hundred and one of iron.
[Illustration: GREAT SHIP OF HENRY VIII. (_From a drawing by Holbein._)]
As already stated, the great majority of the ships built for mercantile
purposes were intended to be able to give a good account of themselves
if they should be assailed by a hostile vessel, a contingency which
was not at all unlikely in the days when ships roved the seas under
the protection of letters of marque and made “mistakes” as to the
nationality of the prize when the prospective booty might be held
to justify the error. Before the nations took to building vessels
especially for war every merchant was liable to have his traders
requisitioned for war purposes, and even up to the end of the
nineteenth century the inclusion of armed merchantmen in national
forces was not uncommon. Letters of marque were permits granted to ship
owners whose vessels had been despoiled by the subjects of another
nation to recoup themselves at the cost of any vessels belonging to
that nation which they could capture, and to continue to do so until
the losses were made good. Naturally they found this profitable, much
more so indeed than ordinary trading, and did not hesitate to set
a low value upon all captures when casting about to find an excuse
for another expedition. Piracy, too, was rife, and as at sea every
shipmaster was a law unto himself unless there was someone at hand to
enforce a change of views, the shipmaster or merchant turned pirate
usually nourished exceedingly until captured red-handed, when his
shrift was like to be a short one.
As an instance of the license to which this liberty was extended,
may be mentioned the Barton family who, in the fifteenth century,
had granted to them letters of marque to prey upon the Portuguese
in retaliation for the murder of John Barton, who was captured and
beheaded by Portuguese. His sons conducted the enterprise with such
thoroughness that they were able to pay their Scottish Royal master so
well that they were never interfered with by him, and when he entrusted
them with the task of reducing the Flemish pirates who levied toll on
Scottish commerce, they sent him a few barrels filled with pickled
human heads to show that they were not idle. The fame of this Scottish
family became world wide, for they had now a powerful fleet and traded
and fought and captured where they would, so that the reputation of
the Scottish navy was great. One of the ships of the Barton family,
the _Lion_, was second in size and armament only to the _Great Harry_
itself. The death of Sir Andrew Barton is commemorated in a well-known
ballad.
When vessels with two and more decks were constructed, the lower
ports were cut so near the water that when the vessel heeled, or even
a moderate sea was running, the guns could not be worked. The ports
of the _Mary Rose_, which was the next largest ship to the _Regent_,
at one time, and had a tonnage variously stated at 500 and 660 tons,
though afterwards surpassed by the _Sovereign_, 800 tons, _Gabriel
Royal_, 650 tons, and _Katherine Forteless_, or _Fortileza_, were
but 16 inches above the water. She was lost, in 1545, through the
water entering her lower ports when going about off Spithead, and her
commander and six hundred men went down with her; the _Great Harry_ had
a narrow escape from a similar disaster at the same time.
A report on the Royal Navy in 1552 makes interesting reading. The
fleet was overhauled, and twenty-four “ships and pinnaces are in good
case to serve, so that they may be grounded and caulked once a year to
keep them tight.” This is endorsed, “To be so ordered, By the King’s
Command.” Other seven ships were ordered to be “docked and new dubbed,
to search their treenails and iron work.” The _Mrs. Grand_, a name
which no longer adorns the “Navy List,” a vessel carrying a crew of
two hundred and fifty men, and having one brass gun and twenty-two
iron guns, lying at Deptford, was recommended to be “dry-docked--not
thought worthy of new making”; so she was ordered “To lie still, or
to take that which is profitable of her for other Ships.” Six others
were stated in the report--a document seemingly the work of a naval
reform party--to be “not worth keeping,” but they were ordered “To be
preserved, as they may with little charge.”
Queen Elizabeth, whose patriotism and naval enthusiasm were about
equally in evidence, was careful of her men and ships, raised the pay
of her officers and seamen, and took steps generally to have the navy
and the naval resources strengthened and conserved. She seems to have
had twenty-nine vessels in 1565. She also encouraged merchants to build
large vessels, which could be converted into warships as occasion
required. The exigencies of trading over sea, however, were such that
many of the vessels required little to be done to them in the way of
conversion. Vessels were also rated at from 50 to 100 tons more than
they measured.
[Illustration: BREECH-LOADING GUN RECOVERED FROM THE WRECK OF THE “MARY
ROSE.” _In the Museum of the Royal United Service Institution. A spare
chamber is shown in the front._]
“The Queen’s Highness,” a contemporary historian writes,[19] “hath at
this present already made and furnished, to the number of One Hundred
and Twenty Great Ships, which lie for the most part in Gillingham Road.
Beside these, her Grace hath other in hand also; she hath likewise
three notable Galleys, the _Speedwell_, the _Tryeright_, and the _Black
Galley_, with the sight whereof, and the rest of the Navy-Royal, it is
incredible to say how marvellously her Grace is delighted. I add, to
the end that all men should understand somewhat of the _great masses
of treasure_ daily employed upon our Navy, how there are few merchant
ships of the first and second sort, that being apparelled and made
ready to sail, are not worth one thousand pounds, or three thousand
ducats at the least, if they should presently be sold. What then shall
we think of the Navy-Royal, of which some one vessel is worth two of
the other, as the shipwright has often told me.”
Queen Elizabeth had, in 1578, twenty-four ships ranging from the
_Triumph_, of 1,000 tons, built in 1561, to the _George_, of under 60
tons.
When the Spanish Armada arrived in the Channel in 1588, the British
fleet, which numbered one hundred and ninety-seven vessels, included
thirty-four belonging to the state. The remainder were ships of
various kinds and sizes, mostly small, hired by the state or provided
by private owners, and fitted out hastily for war purposes by their
owners or the ports. The Cinque Ports, it should be remembered, which
furnished a considerable number, were obliged by Henry VIII., in
return for certain privileges, to supply him with fifty-seven ships,
each containing twenty-one men and a boy, for fifteen days once a year
at the ports’ expense, and it often happened that the ports had to
find a greater number of vessels. After the fifteen days they received
state pay. A similar arrangement held good at the time of the Armada.
The largest ships in the English force are sometimes stated to have
carried fifty-five or sixty guns, and one may have carried sixty-eight
guns. The armament of the _Triumph_, which was the heaviest armed
English vessel, comprised four cannon, three demi-cannon, seventeen
culverins, eight demi-culverins, six sakers, and four small pieces. The
_Elizabeth Jones_, of 900 tons, built in 1559, carried fifty-six guns,
and the _Ark Royal_, Lord Howard’s flagship, launched in 1587, had
fifty-eight guns and a crew of four hundred and thirty men, her tonnage
being 800. The principal royal ships and the number of guns they
carried were, as far as can be ascertained accurately: _Ark Royal_,
fifty-five guns; _Lion_, thirty-eight; _Triumph_, forty-two; _Victory_,
forty-two; _Bonaventure_, thirty-four; _Dreadnought_, thirty-two;
_Nonpareil_, thirty-eight; _Rainbow_, forty; _Vanguard_, forty; _Mary
Rose_, thirty-six; _Antelope_, thirty; and _Swiftsure_, forty-two. The
Spanish ships were rather floating fortresses packed with soldiers, and
desiring to come to close quarters so that the fight should be of the
hand-to-hand description to which they were accustomed. The English
ships were smaller, and though more numerous, of little more than half
the total tonnage of the Armada, and were, on the whole, more lightly
armed. Still, a large number of the English vessels carried what were
long, heavy guns for those days, and they used them at short range
when they assumed a windward position and attacked the Spanish rear,
inflicting great damage and throwing the enemy into confusion. This
defeat definitely established the cannon as the principal weapon for
warfare afloat, and inaugurated a new era in the history of the world’s
fighting navies.
[Illustration: THE “ARK ROYAL,” THE ENGLISH ADMIRAL’S FLAGSHIP. _From a
Contemporary Print._]
Of the merchant ships engaged, the largest were the _Leicester_,
sometimes called the _Galleon Leicester_, and the _Merchant Royal_,
each of 400 tons. The great galleys and galleasses of the Armada
were not the largest ships afloat by a great deal, for they were far
exceeded in size by many contemporary merchantmen in the Mediterranean.
The Queen’s ships were sometimes employed upon peaceful and
ambassadorial errands. The voyage of the _Ascension_ to Constantinople
shows a definite attempt to spread English prestige in distant seas
by means of English trade openings, instead of by the diplomacy of
the day, a prominent feature of which was the discovery of means and
opportunities of raiding a state having much portable riches and not
sufficient power to protect them.
The _Ascension_, in which Queen Elizabeth sent her second present
to the Sultan of Turkey, left London in March, 1593, and arrived
in August, 1594. She was “a good shippe very well appointed, of
two hundred and three score tunnes (whereof was master one William
Broadbanke, a provident and skilfull man in his faculties).” Some days
after the arrival when the wind suited, “our shippe set out in their
best manner with flagges, streamers, and pendants of divers coloured
silke, with all the mariners, together with most of the Ambassador’s
men, having the winde faire, and came within two cables’ length of this
his moskyta,[20] where (hee to his great content beholding the shippe
in such bravery) they discharged first volies of small shot, and then
all the great ordinance twise over, there being seven and twentie or
eight and twentie pieces in the shippe.”[21]
The early part of the seventeenth century, when James I. was king,
saw a remarkable advance in shipbuilding, thanks to Phineas Pett,
who dropped the somewhat haphazard rule-of-thumb methods of ship
construction and introduced a more or less scientific system of
measurement and estimate of weights. In 1610, the _Prince_, or _Prince
Royal_, of 1,400 tons, and mounting sixty-four guns, was launched. She
is described as “Double-built,” which has been supposed to mean that
she had an outer and inner skin and an additional number of beams, etc.
This may afford a partial explanation of the fact that though seven
hundred and seventy-five loads of timber were estimated to be necessary
for her construction, one thousand six hundred and twenty-seven loads
were used. Also, as the ship only lasted fifteen years, a possible
further explanation of the discrepancy may be found in the suggestion
that much of the timber supplied and included in the larger amount was
unfit for use. The _Prince Royal_ was “most sumptuously adorned, within
and without, with all manner of curious carving, painting and rich
gilding, being in all respects the greatest and goodliest ship that
was ever built in England.” In 1624 this ship had two cannon-petro,
six demi-cannon, twelve culverins, eighteen demi-culverins, thirteen
sakers, and four port-pieces.
[Illustration: THE “SOVEREIGN OF THE SEAS.” _From the Model in the
Royal Naval College Museum, Greenwich._]
[Illustration: THE “PRINCE ROYAL.” Designed by Phineas Pett. _By
permission of the Elder Brethren of Trinity House._]
Good sea fighters as the English had proved themselves to be, they
yet were behind the Dutch and French as naval architects. Sir Walter
Raleigh, an outspoken critic of the King’s ships and of English
merchant vessels, comparing the latter with those of the Dutch,
nevertheless admitted that some progress had been made in English
shipping. “In my own time,” he writes, “the shape of our English
ships hath been greatly bettered. It is not long since the striking
of the topmast hath been devised. Together with the chain pump, we
have lately added the Bonnet and Drabler.... To the courses we have
devised studding sails, top-gallant sails, spritsails and topsails. The
weighing of anchors by the capstan is also new. We have fallen into
consideration of the length of cables, and by it we resist the malice
of the greatest winds that can blow. We have also raised our second
decks.” The last improvement was one of the most important, for the
space between the decks was cramped, and the lower deck was not much
above the water level. The raising of the decks gave the ships more
freeboard and increased their seaworthiness, rendered the lower tier
of guns more effective by enabling them to be used with less danger
from water entering the ports, and gave the men working the guns on the
lower tier more head room.
A list of the ships of King Charles, dated 1633, is of more than usual
interest, says Derrick, “this being the earliest list of the Navy I
have met with, wherein any part of the ships’ principal dimensions are
inserted.... This is the first list in which any nice regard seems
to have been paid to the tonnage of the Ships. Previous to 1663, the
tonnage of almost every Ship seems to have been rather estimated than
calculated, being inserted in even numbers.”
A natural development of the _Prince Royal_ was the _Sovereign of the
Seas_. These two vessels may be regarded as marking the first and
second stages in the final period of transition from the old style of
warship to the wooden walls. She was a remarkable vessel in national as
well as naval history, for she played not a small part in the agitation
over the question of ship-money, which had such a tremendous influence
on the nation’s development.
“This famous vessel,” Heywood states in his publication addressed to
the King, “was built at Woolwich in 1637. She was in length by the
keel 128 feet or thereabout, within some few inches; her main breadth
48 feet; in length, from the fore end of the beak-head to the after
end of the stern, _a prora ad puppim_, 232 feet; and in height, from
the bottom of her keel to the top of her lanthorn, 76 feet; bore five
lanthorns, the biggest of which would hold ten persons upright; had
three flush decks, a forecastle, half-deck, quarter deck, and round
house. Her lower tier had thirty ports for cannon and demi-cannon,
middle tier thirty for culverines and demi-culverines, third tier
twenty-six for other ordnance, forecastle twelve, and two half-decks
have thirteen or fourteen ports more within board, for murdering
pieces, besides ten pieces of chace-ordnance forward and ten right
aft, and many loop-holes in the cabin for musquet-shot. She had eleven
anchors, one of 4,400 pounds weight. She was of the burthen of 1,637
tons.... She hath two galleries besides, and all of most curious carved
work, and all the sides of the ship carved with trophies of artillery
and types of honour, as well belonging to sea as land, with symbols
appertaining to navigation; also their two sacred majesties’ badges of
honour; arms with several angels holding their letters in compartments,
all which works are gilded over and no other colour but gold or black.
One tree, or oak, made four of the principal beams, which was 44 feet,
of strong serviceable timber, in length, 3 feet diameter at the top and
10 feet at the stub or bottom.
“Upon the stem head a Cupid, or Child bridling a Lion; upon the
bulkhead, right forward, stand six statues, in sundry postures; these
figures represent Concilium, Cura, Conamen, Vis, Virtus, Victoria.
Upon the hamers of the water are four figures, Jupiter, Mars, Neptune,
Eolus; on the stern, Victory, in the midst of a frontispiece; upon the
beak-head sitteth King Edgar on horseback, trampling on seven kings.”
The _Sovereign of the Seas_ was the largest vessel yet built in
England, and though she was intended as much for show as use, she
became, when she was reduced a deck and a lot of this ornamental
flummery was removed, one of the best fighting ships in the navy, and
was in nearly all the chief engagements in the war with Holland, and
proved herself a very serious opponent, as the navy records show.
It was about this time that ships were first rated or classified
according to their size and efficiency as fighting units. About this
time also, a new type of vessel, the frigate, was introduced into the
navy. The frigate is not a British invention, but, so far as this
country is concerned, was copied from the French by Peter Pett, son
of Phineas Pett, who saw one in the Thames. He built, in 1649, the
_Constant Warwick_ to the order of the Earl of Warwick, who intended
her for a privateer, but sold her.
According to Pepys, the Dutch and French, in 1663 and 1664, built
two-decked ships with sixty to seventy guns, and lower decks four feet
above the water. The English frigates were narrower and sharper, and
their lower gun ports were little more than three feet above the sea.
It was therefore decided that the English ships should have their gun
ports about four and a half feet from the water. The French and Dutch
three-deckers were usually about 44 feet in the beam, as compared with
the 41 feet of some of the English third rates, and the _Henry_, built
in 1656, and the _Katherine_, in 1674, to mention only two of many,
were useless until they were girdled, and after 1673 the three-decked
second raters were ordered to be 45 feet in the beam.
In the seventeenth century the _Royal Louis_ was built at Toulon,
carrying 48-pounders on its lower deck, 24-pounders on the middle deck,
and 12-pounders on the upper deck. The French, indeed, were taking
the lead in naval construction at this period, and their superiority
was recognised by the English who captured and imitated them whenever
possible. Thus the _Leviathan_, built at Chatham, was a copy of the
_Courageux_ of seventy-four guns, and the _Invincible_, captured by
Lord Anson during the Seven Years War, served as model for many more.
During a French visit to Spithead in 1673, the _Superbe_, seventy-four
guns, attracted special attention. She was 40 feet broad and had her
lowest tier of guns higher from the water than the English frigates.
Accordingly the _Harwich_ was built by Sir Henry Deane as a copy, and
gave such satisfaction that she was adopted as a pattern for second and
third rates. Besides the six rates of fighting ships, other classes
were included in the navy list, these being, in Charles II.’s reign,
thirteen sloops, one dogger, three fireships, one galley, two ketches,
five smacks, fourteen yachts, four hoys, and eight hulks.
The dimensions determined upon in 1677 for ships of one hundred, ninety
and seventy guns were sometimes exceeded; and in 1691 another set of
dimensions, for ships of sixty and eighty guns, was established. In the
following year an appropriation for “bomb vessels” was sanctioned; and
about 1694, a revival of the fireships was tried. These vessels were
called internals, possibly on account of their contents, which included
“loaded pistols, carcasses (filled with grenadoes), chain shot, etc.,
and all manner of combustibles.” Their revival, or invention in this
form, is attributed to an engineer named Meesters, who directed the
operations against Dunkirk, without achieving any success with them.
[Illustration: LINE OF BATTLESHIP, 1650. _From a Model in the Museum of
the Royal United Service Institution._]
Prior to the battle of La Hogue, in 1692, five advice boats appear in
the navy list for the first time; they carried from forty to fifty men
each and were deputed to acquire information of the enemy’s movements
at Brest.
Complaints were made in 1744-5 that the British vessels compared
unfavourably with those of other nations in scantlings, seaworthiness,
and armament. This induced the adoption of another set of rules,
and the ships built according to them proved to be good sea boats,
carrying their guns well, and standing up stiffly under sail, but they
had the objection of being too full in the after part of their under
body, which retarded their speed somewhat. After ten years’ trial this
establishment was modified, the faults complained of were remedied, and
the ships were increased in size, and from this time onward fifty-gun
ships were seldom classed as ships of the line of battle. There has
been some misconception in regard to the frigates of the period, as
many small vessels carrying eighteen guns, or less, were so called, but
were afterwards included among the sloops.
The real frigate was a vessel constructed to cruise in all weathers,
and able to show a good turn of speed; she had an armament which was
fairly heavy for her size, and it was carried on one deck, with the
exception of a few guns which might be disposed about the poop or
forecastle. For over two hundred years vessels of this type were held
in the highest esteem, until, indeed, they were superseded, in common
with all other sailing warships, when steam was adopted. The career of
the steam frigate was brought to an early close by the adoption of the
ironclad.
The frigate itself underwent considerable development during its
two centuries’ career. The earlier frigates carried twenty-four or
twenty-eight 9-pounders, and a crew of about one hundred and sixty
men; these vessels were about 500 tons burthen, or a little more, with
a gundeck length of 113 feet and a length of 93 feet on the keel.
Their rig marked a curious transition stage from the Mediterranean
influence to that of the modern square rig, as, although they carried
square sails on the fore and main masts, lateens were still carried
on the mizen. The frigate of thirty-two 12-pounders appeared shortly
afterwards, the first of this size being the _Adventure_, launched in
1741; and six years later the _Pallas_ and _Brilliant_, thirty-six-gun
frigates, were added to the navy; but, while admittedly excellent
fighting cruisers, they were inferior to the French thirty-six-gun
frigates built about that time.[22] The frigates played a most
important part in the world’s naval history of the latter part of the
eighteenth century and the early years of the nineteenth century.
[Illustration: THE “DREADNOUGHT,” 1748. _From a Model in the Museum of
the Royal United Service Institution._]
[Illustration: THE “JUNO,” 1757. _From the Model in the Victoria and
Albert Museum._]
Tougher antagonists than the French frigates, however, were the seven
frigates the Americans built when matters became strained between
the United States and this country; they were the _United States_,
_Constitution_, _President_, _Constellation_, _Congress_, _Chesapeake_,
and _Essex_. The first-named was the largest, with a tonnage of 1,576,
and the smallest the _Essex_, 860 tons. The American navy consisted
only of about a dozen vessels altogether on which reliance could be
placed, but these were among the best of their kind afloat; there were
a few others of little or no fighting value. The frigates carried
batteries of carronades supplemented by long guns, 12-pounders. It
was the custom to give the American ships more guns than they rated.
Thus the forty-four-gun frigate had thirty long 24-pounders on the
main deck, two long bow chasers on the forecastle, and twenty or
twenty-two 32-pounder carronades, as in the _Constitution_, while the
carronades of the _President_ and _United States_ were 42-pounders.
The armament of the _Constellation_, _Congress_, and _Chesapeake_ was
twenty-eight long 18-pounders on the main deck, two similar guns on
the forecastle, and eighteen 32-pounder carronades. The “ship-sloops,”
of which the greater part of the rest of the American naval force
consisted, carried 32-pounder carronades, and long 12-pounders for bow
chasers. The “brig-sloops” were equipped with carronades. The Americans
claim to have been the first to employ the heavy frigate effectively,
notwithstanding that the cannon balls their guns fired were of less
weight in some instances than the projectiles discharged from the
corresponding weapons in the British or French navies, and the shot
would also appear to have been really lighter than they were supposed
to be by as much as two to ten per cent. These frigates were remarkable
for the series of duels they fought with British warships, winning six
in succession, by superior seamanship and better sailing qualities, to
some extent, but mostly by superior gunnery, until the final duel was
won by the _Shannon_ in her memorable encounter with the _Chesapeake_.
The series of American victories was inaugurated by the _Constitution_,
otherwise “Old Ironsides,” the British victim being the _Guerrière_.
In considering the development of the warships of other types, it is
necessary to go back a few years. The British dockyards were unequal to
the demands upon them for the wars of the latter part of the eighteenth
century, and a greater number of warships than ever before was built by
contract at privately owned yards.
It is interesting to note that one firm of shipbuilders which built
ships for the navy in those days and even a century earlier, on Thames
side, is still in existence, and in spite of limited liability company
laws and the introduction of new partners, is still known as Green’s
yard, at Blackwall, and is still managed by bearers of the name.
Twenty-six sail of the line and eighty-two smaller vessels were
launched from private yards during the war ending in 1762, and
twenty-four sail of the line and twelve smaller ships were launched
at the King’s yards between the declaration of war in 1756 and the
proclamation of peace seven years later. This is of importance as
showing the resources of the country even at that time in warship
building, and the assistance the government was glad to receive from
the private builders at times of emergency.
During this war it was decided that no more eighty-gun three-deckers
or seventy-gun or sixty-gun ships should be built. In place of the
first-named, ships of seventy-four and sixty-four guns were ordained,
and fifty-gun ships with a roundhouse were ordered to replace the
latter. The first seventy-fours and sixty-fours were too small for the
weight of the guns they had to carry, and their successors of that
class were larger. No eighty-gun ship with three decks was built after
1757, and no seventy-gun ship after 1759. The _Cæsar_ was the first
English eighty-gun ship with two decks; she was built in 1793.
Towards the end of 1778 many of the second rates were given eight
additional guns on the quarter deck, which virtually raised them to
ninety-eight-gun ships. An important constructional improvement in 1783
was the adoption of copper fastenings in all classes of ships below the
water-line; iron bolts had been found to corrode under the influence of
the salt water.
Ships continued to increase in size and power of armament. The _Ville
de Paris_, of one hundred and ten guns and 2,332 tons, and her sister
ship, the _Hibernia_, ordered in 1790, were the first of their class.
Before the latter was finished she was lengthened and her tonnage
raised to 2,508 tons. Another new class, introduced about that time,
comprised three ships of 776 tons each, carrying thirty-two guns, the
main deck armament consisting of 18-pounders; they did so well that
several others were added.
About 1783 a greater length in proportion to beam was adopted, which
made the ships faster sailers and better sea-boats, and several vessels
of the higher classes were altered, and many others had their bottoms
specially thickened to withstand stranding. The 42-pounder guns of the
largest ships were found difficult to handle and of less rapidity of
fire than the 32-pounders, and were removed from the main deck battery
of the _Royal Sovereign_ and other ships in favour of the 32-pounders.
The _Commerce de Marseilles_, of 120 guns, was one of the French
vessels which accompanied under compulsion the combined English and
Spanish squadron from Toulon in 1793. She was considered to be the
largest ship in the world. Her gun-deck was 208 feet 4 inches in
length, and her keel for tonnage 172 feet 0⅛ inch. Her depth of hold
was 25 feet 0½ inch, and her extreme breadth 54 feet 9½ inches, her
tonnage being 2,747 tons. She was not a very valuable acquisition,
however, for her timbers were in such a state that she was not worth
repairing; she was accordingly taken to pieces in 1802. Probably, like
many more vessels built in those strenuous times, she was constructed
of unseasoned timber, or had a quantity of immature or soft wood put
into her in order that she might be got ready for war as quickly
as possible, for warships were wanted in such a hurry that it was
more necessary that they should be available for use at the earliest
opportunity than that they should be expected to last for very long.
Both the British and French fleets had a number of these “green” ships.
If the French could have a vessel of such gun power and dimensions
there was no reason why the English should not, so the _Caledonia_,
of 2,602 tons, was ordered in 1794, and was to be the largest and
most powerful yet built in England. Her main deck guns were to be
32-pounders, because of the greater ease with which they could be
handled. On her lower deck she had thirty-two of these guns, on the
middle deck thirty-four 24-pounders, on the main deck thirty-four
18-pounders, on the quarter deck sixteen 12-pounders, and on the
forecastle four 12-pounders. Her officers and crew numbered eight
hundred and seventy-five. Her length was 205 feet, breadth 54 feet 6
inches, and depth of hold 23 feet 1 inch. She was the favourite ship
of Lord Exmouth. At first she had a square stern, but when the rounded
sterns were shown to be better in every way she was altered to the new
mode, and her armament was revised. She afterwards became the hospital
ship at Greenwich under the name of the _Dreadnought_. The model of
her at South Kensington shows that her rigging was probably unique.
Her royal masts were fidded, that is, built above the topgallant masts
instead of forming one long pole with them, as is the custom, and there
were also peculiarities in the arrangement of some of her running
rigging. This ship was launched at Devonport in 1808.
[Illustration: THE “CORNWALLIS,” 1812. _From a Model in the Museum of
the Royal United Service Institution._]
The defeat of the Danes at Copenhagen, the battle of the Nile, the
“glorious first of June,” the battle of Trafalgar, the duels of the
American War, and the battle of Navarino, united to give a splendid
termination to the career of the wooden warship as a fighting unit.
That of Trafalgar was the last in which great fleets of the best
“wooden walls” that human skill could devise opposed each other in
manœuvre and counter-manœuvre. That of Navarino, fought in a bay,
almost in a dead calm, with the ships hardly moving and some even at
anchor, was the last conflict in the world’s history in which the
wooden battleships of the East and the West lay alongside each other
and blazed away with every available weapon at a range so close at
times that they could not possibly miss.
Constructionally, wooden battleships had about attained the limit
of size. Already they revealed unmistakable signs of longitudinal
weakness, and it had been a problem, which the builders up to that time
had been unable to solve, how to stiffen the hulls so that they would
withstand the hogging and sagging strains. It was not until Sir Robert
Seppings introduced his system of ship construction that the difficulty
was overcome, but the increase in the deadweight of the ship was great.
Still, had it not been for his system it would have been impossible to
construct some of the later vessels which left the ways before steam
was introduced and iron was adopted for ship construction. Very few
vessels were built larger than those which fought in Trafalgar Bay,
though several were designed. The improvements made were rather in the
form of the underbody in order to increase the speed and sea-going
qualities of the ships. One of the largest old-style battleships ever
proposed was the _Duke of Kent_, which was to have been a four-decker
carrying one hundred and seventy guns, and having a tonnage of 3,700.
She was to have been given a length of 221 feet 6 inches on the
gun-deck, an extreme breadth of 64 feet, and a depth of hold of 26
feet. On the lower deck she was to have had thirty-six 32-pounders, and
a similar complement on the lower middle deck; thirty-six 24-pounders
on the middle deck; thirty-eight 18-pounders on the upper deck; ten
12-pounders and six 32-pounder carronades on the quarter-deck; and
four 12-pounders and four 32-pounder carronades on the forecastle.
Though she never progressed beyond the paper stage, these particulars
are interesting as showing what the naval architects of a hundred years
ago were prepared to design.
The _Queen_ of one hundred and ten guns, the first three-decker
launched after Queen Victoria’s accession, the _Vernon_ of fifty
guns, and _Pique_ of forty guns, and others of various classes were
designed by Sir W. Symonds, who, during his fifteen years’ surveyorship
to the Admiralty, was responsible for no fewer than one hundred and
eighty vessels. The finer lines he gave them increased their speed,
and they were broader, loftier, and roomier between decks than their
predecessors, and were better ships all round. They may be regarded as
embodying the highest degree of excellence to which the sailing wooden
warship attained.
Reference has been made to the guns used on shipboard at various times,
and to the establishment of dimensions or rates to be observed in
building the ships employed in the British Navy. The guns about to be
described were used in all navies; the establishments referred to are
peculiar to the British Navy, though the vessels themselves differed
but little from those belonging to other nations. It must also be
remembered that though the names of the guns were retained through
century after century, very little is known of the earliest weapons,
and that their names came to be applied to guns which had little in
common.
The establishments, as they were called, were adopted to secure
uniformity in types, and it is well to bear these details in mind, or
at least to refer to them, in studying the history of the achievements
of the British Navy in order that an approximately correct idea may be
obtained of the ships and weapons used by and against Great Britain
which have had so great an influence on the world’s history.
The principal establishments were ordered in 1677, 1691, 1706, 1719,
and 1745, and certain proposals were also made in 1733 and 1741, which
were not of quite so far-reaching a character as the others. The
establishment of 1745 was not adhered to for many years, and there
has been no cut-and-dried establishment since, the requirements of
modern warfare and the inventiveness of all nations having militated
against adherence to a rigid standard. Ships of one hundred guns were
in length on the gun-deck in 1677, 165 feet; in 1719, 174 feet; in
1745, 178 feet; their extreme breadth was 46 feet in 1677, and 51 feet
in 1745, and the burthen increased from 1,550 tons in the first-named
year, to 2,000 in the last. The ships of ninety guns had lengths on
the gun-deck of 158 feet, 164 feet, and 170 feet in the three years
respectively; their extreme breadth was 44 feet, 47 feet 2 inches, and
48 feet 6 inches, and their tonnage 1,307, 1,569, and 1,730 tons. The
three-deckers of eighty guns first appear in the 1691 establishment;
they were 156 feet on the gun-deck, 158 feet in 1719, and 165 feet in
1745; their extreme breadths at the three dates were 41 feet, 44 feet 6
inches, and 47 feet, and their burthens 1,100, 1,350, and 1,585 tons.
Seventy-gun ships increased from 150 feet in length in 1677, to 160
feet in 1745, their breadth from 39 feet 8 inches to 45 feet, and their
burthens from 1,013 tons to 1,414 tons. Ships of sixty guns were 144
feet in length in 1691, and 150 feet in 1745, with respective breadths
of 37 feet 6 inches, and 42 feet 8 inches, and tonnages of 900 and
1,191 tons. Fifty-gun ships appear in the ratings of 1706 with a length
of 130 feet, and in 1745 of 144 feet; then-respective breadths being
38 feet and 41 feet, and tonnages 704 and 1,052 tons. In the same year
also, 40-gun ships are recorded with a length of 118 feet, an extreme
breadth of 32 feet, and a tonnage of 531 tons; these dimensions had
risen in 1745 to 133 feet, 37 feet 6 inches, and 814 tons. Ships of
twenty guns were rated in 1719 with a length of 106 feet, breadth 28
feet 4 inches, and tonnage 374; increased by 1745 to 113 feet, 32 feet,
and 508 tons.
In regard to their complements, a 100-gun ship in 1677 carried seven
hundred and eighty men; in 1733, eight hundred and fifty; and in 1805,
eight hundred and thirty-seven men. Ships of ninety and ninety-eight
guns had, in 1677, six hundred and sixty men; in 1706, six hundred and
eighty men; in 1733, seven hundred and fifty men; and in 1805, seven
hundred and thirty-eight men. An 80-gun ship carried in 1692, four
hundred and ninety men; in 1706, five hundred and twenty; in 1733, six
hundred; in 1745, six hundred and fifty; and in 1805, seven hundred and
nineteen men. A 74-gun large class ship had in 1762, six hundred and
fifty men; and in 1805, ten less; a 74-gun common class ship had, in
1745, six hundred men; in 1762, six hundred and fifty men; in 1783, six
hundred; and in 1805, five hundred and ninety men. A 70-gun ship had
in 1677, four hundred and sixty men; in 1706, four hundred and forty;
in 1733, four hundred and eighty; and in 1745, five hundred and twenty
men. A 64-gun ship in 1745 had four hundred and seventy men; in 1762,
five hundred; and in 1805, four hundred and ninety-one men. A 60-gun
ship had in 1692, three hundred and fifty-five men; in 1706, three
hundred and sixty-five men; in 1733, four hundred; and in 1745, four
hundred and twenty. A 50-gun ship had in 1706, two hundred and eighty
men; in 1733, three hundred; in 1745, three hundred and fifty; and in
1805, three hundred and forty-three. A 44-gun ship carried in 1733, two
hundred and fifty men; in 1745, two hundred and eighty; in 1783, three
hundred men; and in 1805, two hundred and ninety-four men.
Very little indeed is known of the earliest types of firearms carried
afloat. The crudeness of the methods of manufacture, and the absence
of any standard for pattern or size, left the makers free to produce
whatever weapons they fancied. The _Christopher of the Tower_, in June,
1338, is said to have had three iron cannon with five iron chambers.
The guns were breechloaders, and the chambers contained the charge and
perhaps the projectile. She also had a hand-gun, which, though fired
from the shoulder, had the barrel supported by a rest standing on the
deck, after the manner of the hand-guns in use ashore. The _Mary of the
Tower_ was equipped with an iron cannon provided with two chambers,
and a brass gun with one chamber. None of the weapons yet discovered
show how the chambers were fastened in the guns of this period. It is
known that they fitted loosely and that the chambers could be fired, if
necessary, without the guns.
The early naval guns were called “crakys of war.”[23] They included
cannon-paviors, or guns which threw round stone shot, and appropriately
named murtherers, which were smaller weapons and were loaded with
anything that could be fired out again.
An inventory of the _Great Barke_ as “vyeuwyd” in the twenty-third year
of King Henry VIII., is preserved in the Cotton Library at the British
Museum. The following are extracts:--
“Hereafter followeth the ordinances pertayning to the sayde shype,
item, in primis, two brazyn pecys called kannon pecys on stockyes which
wayith The one 9 c. 3 q. 11 lb., the other 10 c. 1 q. 17 lb., whole
weight 20 c. 28 lb.: Item 2 payer of shod wheeles nyeu: item two ladyng
ladells.
“Starboard side. Item oon port pece of yeron cast with 2 chambers: item
a port pece of yeron, with one chamber. Item a spruyche slyng with one
chamber.
“Larboard side. Item oon port pece with 2 chambers: Item another port
pece, with oon chamber, whyche chamber was not made for the sayd pece.
“In the forecastell. Item a small slyng with 2 chambers. Item another
pece of yeron with two chambers, the oon broken.”
Even in Queen Elizabeth’s day much of the artillery had to be imported
from Germany. It was not until about 1531 that iron guns were first
cast in England, and brass guns were cast three or four years later.
Guns were made of greater weight and bore when it was discovered how
to cast them instead of building them, and muzzle-loaders gradually
superseded the old breechloaders. The change, however, was slow, and
was probably retarded by the reluctance of those ship owners who
had breechloaders to discard them while they could yet be fired, a
reluctance which no doubt extended, owing to the paucity of weapons, to
the rulers of the various states.
The guns of the sixteenth century were extraordinarily varied.
The largest was the cannon-royal of rather more than 8½ inches
diameter,[24] 8 feet 6 inches in length, and weighing about 8,000 lb.;
its charge of powder was about 30 lb., and its shot weighed 74 lb.
The cannon was 8 inches diameter, weighed about 6,000 lb., and with a
charge of 27 lb. threw a shot of 60 to 63 lb. The cannon-serpentine
was of 7 inches diameter, weighed 5,500 lb., and with a charge of 25
lb. threw a shot of 42 lb. The bastard-cannon was of about the same
length as the cannon-serpentine, but a lighter weapon, and though the
charge of powder was 5 lb. less, the weight of the shot was the same.
The demi-cannon varied from a little under 6½ inches diameter to 6¾
inches, and was about 11 feet in length and weighed about 4,000 lb.,
and with a charge of 18 lb., threw a projectile weighing from 31 to 33½
lb. The bore of the cannon-pedro, or petro, was 6 inches, its weight
about 3,800 lb., its shot, usually of stone, whence its name, from 24
to 26 lb. The diameter of the culverin was from 5¼ inches to 5½ inches,
its length was close upon 11 feet, its weight 4,840 lb., it received
a 12 lb. charge, and fired an 18 lb. shot. The basilisk was slightly
shorter and lighter, and its 14 lb. shot required 9 lb. of powder. The
diameter of the demi-culverin was 4 inches, its weight 3,400 lb., its
charge was 6 lb., and its shot 8 to 9½ lb. The culverin-bastard seems
to have been of half an inch larger bore, about 8½ feet long, but to
have been 400 lb. lighter than the demi-culverin, and to have fired
an 11 lb. shot with a charge of 5¾ lb. The saker, or sacar, was a far
smaller weapon, being less than 3¾ inches diameter, under 7 feet in
length, and weighing about 1,400 lb.; its charge was 4 lb., and its
shot 4 to 6 lb. The minion, slightly smaller in all respects, threw a 3
lb. to 4 lb. shot. The falcon was of 2½ inches diameter, 6 feet long,
weighed 680 lb., and fired a 2 lb. shot with a charge of a little over
1 lb. of powder. The falconet was a smaller edition of the falcon. The
serpentine was of 1½ inches diameter, weighed 400 lb., and fired a
½-lb. shot; and the rabinet, or robinet, was an even lighter weapon.
For loading, canvas or paper cartridges were used, but an iron ladle
for the powder was preferred. The following list of commands in the
gun-drill contrasts oddly with what would pass in the turret of, say, a
modern super-Dreadnought:--
“Search your piece; sponge your piece; fill your ladle; put in your
powder; empty your ladle; put up your powder; thrust home your wad;
regard your shot; put home your shot gently; thrust home your last wad
with three strokes; gauge your piece.”
Some curious guns were invented when the ordnance industry was in its
infancy. The Scots in a southern raid in 1640 used guns of leather at
their passage of the Tyne--which says more for the strength of the
leather than of the powder. A composite affair called the “kalter” gun,
introduced in the time of Gustavus Adolphus, of Sweden, is described:--
“A thin cylinder of beaten copper screwed into a brass breech, whose
chamber was strengthened by four bands of iron, the tube itself being
covered with layers of mastic, over which cords were laid firmly round
its whole length and equalised by a layer of plaster, a coating of
leather, boiled and varnished completing the piece.”[25]
Another peculiar weapon was a twin gun, in shape something like a
stumpy tuning-fork, with parallel barrels and one touch-hole; another
was a gun which could be fired at either end, the cavity in which the
chambers were placed being in the middle. It must have been an awkward
piece to handle. Hand grenades, used sometimes preparatory to boarding,
were introduced in 1689 during William III.’s reorganisation of the
artillery.
Even when the ships were provided with guns, opinion was by no means
unanimous as to the extent to which the weapons should be employed, or
the range at which they would be most effective. The method in vogue
on the Atlantic was to shoot as soon as it was thought the enemy could
be seriously damaged. A gentleman named Gibson, who reported on the
condition of the British Navy in 1585-1603, is quoted by Charnock as
saying:--
“Be sure it is your enemy before you shoot, and that you are in halfe
gunnshott of your ennemy before you shoot. It is direct cowardice to
shoot at greater distance, unless he is running away. British gunns
being for the most part shorter, are made to carry a bigger shot than
a French gun of like weight, therefore the French gunns reach further,
and those of Britain make a bigger hole. By this the French have the
advantage to fight at a distance, and we yard-arm to yard-arm. The
like advantage we have of them in shipping (although they are broader
and carry a better saile) our sides are thicker and the better able
to resist their shott. By this they are more subject to bee sunk by
gunnshott than wee are.”
[Illustration: GUNS OF THE FIFTEENTH AND SIXTEENTH CENTURIES. _In the
Tower of London._]
[Illustration: ANCIENT DOUBLE GUN. _In the Museum of the Royal United
Service Institution._]
The Mediterranean custom was different. The Marquis of Villafranca,
whose advice was sought by Don John of Austria, thought there should
not be more than two discharges before the galleys close, that the
arquebussiers should not fire the second time until the blood of the
man hit should splash back in their faces, and that the noise of the
discharge should coincide with the ramming of the hostile vessel. But
all the guns employed in the Mediterranean sea-fights were not of this
order. In the tremendous struggle between the Cross and the Crescent
much heavier artillery was used. One siege gun is said to have thrown
a shot of 160 lb. During this struggle the Knights of Malta, after
the capture of St. Elmo by the Turks, when the latter dishonoured the
bodies of the slain knights, retaliated by beheading their Turkish
prisoners and firing the heads back into the camp of the besieging
Turks. The Knights combined unswerving fidelity to their principles and
their masters, when they acknowledged any, with the utmost bravery,
ferocity, and cruelty. There was little to choose between the leaders
on either side, but the palm must be given to the Mohammedan leaders
for their fertility of resource in extricating themselves from
apparently hopeless situations. The chief of these were the brothers
Barbaroussa, one of whom made himself King of Algiers, and they and
others of the band were the greatest of the Barbary pirates, dreaded
from one end of the Mediterranean to the other. The elder Barbaroussa
and his worthy successor, Dragut Reis, became the chief admirals of the
Turkish forces, the latter being killed in that terrible struggle at
Malta in which St. Elmo fell, a fate which was only averted from the
whole fortress by the remarkable genius of the greatest commander the
knights ever possessed. By way of commemorating the services of the
brothers Barbaroussa, the present Turkish government has named after
them the two second-hand German warships it recently bought.
In the latter part of the seventeenth century the cannon were
probably 42-pounders, the demi-cannon 32-pounders, and the culverins
18-pounders. Before an effort was made to systematise the armament
of ships, hardly any two vessels carried the same number of guns. It
was proposed in 1677 that a first-rate should carry twenty-six cannon
with eight men to each; twenty-eight culverins, with five men to each;
twenty-eight sakers on the upper deck, four on the forecastle, and
twelve on the quarter deck, with three men to each saker; and two
3-pounders with two men each. A second-rate should carry twenty-six
demi-cannon, with six men to each; twenty-six culverins; twenty-six
sakers on the upper deck and ten on the quarter deck; and two
3-pounders, with the same number of men to the guns as a first-rate. A
third-rater should carry twenty-six demi-cannon, twenty-six 12-pounders
with four men to each; four forecastle and ten quarter deck sakers, and
four 3-pounders. The remainder of the complements was to consist of
two hundred and ninety-six men, two hundred and sixty-two men, and
one hundred and sixty-two men for the three rates respectively, giving
grand totals of seven hundred and eighty men, six hundred and sixty
men, and four hundred and seventy men.
[Illustration: THE CARRONADE AND ITS CARRIAGE. _From Drawings supplied
by the Carron Co._]
About the beginning of the seventeenth century the practice was
introduced and has been retained ever since--with the exception of the
later guns, which are indicated by their weight or the diameter of
their calibre--of describing the guns by the weight of their shot.
A remarkable advance in the science of gun-making was shown when the
carronade was introduced by the Carron Company. Briefly, this weapon
may be described as a short heavy gun, carrying a heavy shot, and using
a moderate charge of powder. It was a wonderfully destructive weapon
at short range, and as a broadside gun held its own well into the
middle of the nineteenth century. A favourite carronade was that of six
diameters, one of which is here illustrated; that is, the length of the
bore was six times the diameter of the calibre at the gun’s mouth.
These guns were made in two or three patterns. One was the familiar
swivel, another had the trunnions below the gun centre so that the
gun rested upon them, and the third and most common was that with the
trunnions at the sides. The carriages, too, were exceedingly ingenious,
being devised to permit of meeting the recoil as well as adding to the
facility of handling the weapon, and the sighting arrangements did not
leave the gunner much opportunity of going wrong provided he obeyed the
instructions.
It was customary to fire a round, solid iron shot from these guns.
On one occasion a very different missile was employed. An armed
merchantman was overtaken by a privateer, and being short of cannon
balls, the cargo was broached. The first missile hit the side of the
privateer and smashed. The second hit a mast, dented it, and flew to
pieces. Another missile smashed itself and a privateersman’s head
at the same time, and the enemy then hauled off, wondering what new
projectile had now been discovered. The merchant ship had defended
itself with round Dutch cheeses--a testimony alike to the ingenuity of
her commander and the strength of the missiles.
The East India Company had several vessels built in the Far East, and
great was the outcry at the proposal that Indian-built ships should
be included in the British Navy. However, the success which attended
the armed ships of the Company, such, for instance as the _Grappler_,
launched at Bombay, in 1804, was responsible for the launch of a
“beautiful frigate” at Bombay, called _The Pitt_, the first ever built
in India for His Majesty’s service.[26] A picture of her is in the
Guildhall Museum, London.
The merchant vessels of the East in the seventeenth century were
usually built of teak and well armed, and if they were not particularly
fast sailers--some were particularly slow--they were usually able to
withstand the shot of all but the heaviest guns which the pirates and
privateers carried who infested those seas. Some of the greatest French
naval heroes were men who were dreaded from one side of the Indian
ocean to the other.
One of the vessels constructed in those days and still afloat is the
sailing ship _Success_, which, after an eventful career, was one of the
“floating hells” in which convicts were imprisoned near Melbourne for
some years, then became a coal hulk, was somehow saved from destruction
when her equally evil companion ships were ordered to be broken up,
was turned into an exhibition ship showing her as a prison ship, was
scuttled in Sydney harbour, raised again, and has since toured the
world. She saw active service about a hundred years ago, and still
bears on her tough sides the marks of the enemy’s cannon balls. She is
probably the last of her type afloat. The East Indiamen and the West
Indiamen of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries invariably carried
guns, and needed them.
It is strange to think how recently the policing or safety of the seas
has been secured, for the Liverpool newspapers contained, even in times
of peace, advertisements that vessels would sail with the convoy, and
that such and such a warship would act as escort.
Even along the British coasts the Carron Company armed its schooners,
and offered special inducements to those passengers who were willing
and able to assist the crew to repel a possible attack.
CHAPTER IV
STEAM AND WARSHIPS
The use of the steam engine as a propellant had been established in
the mercantile marine long before the British Admiralty led the way in
the adoption of the steamship as an engine of war. There were several
reasons why the decision to take the important step was not reached
earlier. In the first place there was a repugnance, amounting with many
persons to an unconquerable aversion, against the use of the steamship
for any purposes whatever. Steamships were regarded as unsightly with
their splashing paddle-wheels and their high funnels belching forth
smoke, and as the steam mercantile marine had been by no means free
from boiler explosions and had lost many vessels through fires caused
by sparks or cinders from the furnaces, or the overheating of wood work
near the flues, it was argued that the introduction of so many fresh
dangers into the country’s fighting ships would only add to the perils
of the sea, which were already serious and numerous enough.
The navy possessed many fine wooden ships which could be handled
extremely smartly under sail and presented a magnificent contrast and
beautiful picture compared with the smoky steamer. The latter, it
was graciously admitted, might have its uses in towing the sailing
warships, but that anything further should be advocated was too
subversive of all that had gone before; too revolutionary, indeed, to
merit a moment’s consideration.
It was in vain that the advocates of the adoption of steam propulsion
urged that the steamship could carry guns, that she would be
independent of wind and tide, and that she could choose her own
position. These strategical advantages were simply derided. What, it
was asked in reply, could a small steamship armed with such guns as
she could carry, do against a battleship; or, for that matter, what
could any number of armed steamships do? When it was pointed out that
an armed steamship could engage with every advantage an enemy’s ship of
the same size, the retort was that a battleship would never be far off.
Strange though these objections seem to us in the light of subsequent
events, it must be recollected that marine steam engines in those days
were bulky for their power and weak for their weight, and consumed an
enormous amount of coal for the energy developed, and that there was no
room to spare in the fighting ships of the period; also, that the steam
engine was not far removed from the experimental stage. For the first
twenty-five years of the nineteenth century the Admiralty had every
excuse for the maintenance of its conservative attitude.
In America, also, the objections to steam war vessels were as acute as
in this country. One United States secretary of the navy declared that
he would never consent to see the beautiful sailing warships displaced
by hideous and smoky steamers, but the advocates of the new method of
ship propulsion were not of his opinion, and so worried the worthy
man that in despair he wrote to a sympathetic friend, “I am steamed
to death.” Another and earlier American administrator was so opposed
to warships of any kind, or at least to spending much money on their
construction, that he conceived the brilliant idea of having some small
gunboats built which could be taken overland from port to port and
launched afresh, when necessary, to oppose the British warships. It is
a pity he could not have derived some inspiration from the invention
of Oliver Evans, an American, who in 1804-5 designed a dredger which
bore the terrible name of _Orakier Amphibolos_; it had a steam engine
of some sort, and propelled itself on wheels from the shed where it was
built, to the Schuylkill, a distance of a mile and a half, and being
fitted with a paddle wheel in the stern, navigated the river to its
junction with the Delaware.[27]
France, like England, was disposed at first to look upon the steam
engine as useless for naval purposes, and until well towards the middle
of the nineteenth century she was a long way behind England in the
application of steam power to the navy. Many of the smaller nations,
however, having but a few insignificant sailing ships for war, were not
trammelled, as were England and France, by the possession of a large
fleet of wooden sailing vessels of types which had helped to build up
the national renown, nor had they to contend against the energy of a
powerful section of the community which, conscious of what had been
accomplished with the sailing warships, despised anything else and
hated innovations. The smaller nations were the better able, therefore,
to experiment with warships of the new type than were the great
maritime powers, and one or two of them ordered small steamers carrying
a few small guns. These were mostly converted merchant steamers, it not
being until after England and France had definitely adopted steamers
that the other nations ventured to possess steamships specially built
for purposes of war.
But when steam navigation had become an accomplished fact and
steam-propelled vessels were able to undertake ocean voyages, there
was the less excuse for the absolute rejection of steam-driven ships
for war purposes. The objections raised, and they were certainly
serious, were that the paddle-boxes were large and increased the size
of the target at which the enemy could aim, that one or other of the
paddle-wheels could easily be disabled by a hostile shot, in which case
the steamer would be almost helpless, and would be entirely so if both
wheels were disabled; that the engines and boilers, being partly above
the water-line, were peculiarly vulnerable, and that the only vessels
of a size capable of being propelled by paddle engines were too small
to be of much fighting value.
Long before steam engines were adopted in any form in the navy,
numerous experiments had been made in the mechanical propulsion of
warships, and some extraordinary methods were brought forward. The
remarkable feature of nearly all these experiments is that they would
propel a vessel; but the inventors could not be taught, except by the
bitter lesson of experimental failure, that an appliance which might
attain a certain measure of success with a small boat or a model might
be incapable of developing sufficient power to propel a larger vessel.
Several inventors, both in this country and America, tried what they
could do with oscillating paddles at the stern. Manual power was tried
on the frigate _Doncaster_ at Gibraltar, in 1802, to drive a “perpetual
sculling machine,” invented by a man named Shorter, and a speed of
something under two miles an hour in still water was obtained.
Certain of the early experiments in America had an important influence
upon the development of the steam warship, though the proof of that
influence did not become evident for many years.
Colonel John Stevens, who had a small, screw-propelled steamboat
on the Hudson, in 1804, and a twin-screw steamer in the following
year, designed, in 1813, an iron-clad ship which fully embodied
the _Monitor_ type, and was the first ironclad ever worked out for
construction. It was Stevens who sent the first steamer on a sea
voyage; his vessel, the _Phœnix_, being shut out of the waters of New
York by the monopoly which Fulton and his friends had secured, went
round to the Delaware by sea in June, 1809, experiencing a gale on the
way, which compelled her to seek shelter in Barnegat Inlet.
Of Fulton’s early experiments and failures in the matter of submarines
and torpedoes it is unnecessary to speak. In 1814, some years after his
return to the United States from Europe, where he had been impartially
offering his services to the French and then the British, he submitted
to the American coast and harbour defence committee plans for a steam
warship which was to carry a large number of guns.
The boat was launched in October of that year and given the pedantic
name of _Demologos_, which was simplified to _Fulton the First_. The
war ended before the vessel could be tested, and she became a receiving
ship. Her machinery was arranged to drive a large paddle-wheel, placed
amidships and working in a tunnel in the hull. She was to carry twenty
guns, not forty-four as sometimes stated, and furnaces for red-hot
shot, and was to travel at a rate of four miles an hour. Besides her
deck armament it was proposed that she should have two submarine guns
suspended from each bow, which were to send a hundred-pound ball into
an enemy’s hull ten or twelve feet below the water-line. Her machinery
was intended to pump a tremendous column of water upon the enemy’s
decks and through the latter’s portholes. Her gun-deck was completely
covered over so that no hostile shot could reach it from above. Her
wooden walls were five feet in thickness, and capable of withstanding
the heaviest shot of the day. The dimensions of this remarkable
craft were: length, 156 feet; beam, 56 feet; and depth, 20 feet; but
her draught, loaded, was only 10 feet. The water-wheel, the position
of which is indicated in the centre of the accompanying plan of the
gun-deck, was 16 feet in diameter, and had blades or buckets measuring
14 feet with a dip of 4 feet. The cylinder of the engine measured 48
inches, and the stroke was of 5 feet. The boiler was 22 feet long by
12 feet beam, and 8 feet deep. The gross tonnage of the vessel is set
down at 2,475 tons. The ship was two-masted, and could steam either end
foremost. She was built at Brown’s yard at New York, in four months
after her keel was laid, and given her machinery and guns at Fulton’s
works on the North River.
Another vessel, destined like the _Demologos_ never to see active
service, but which, nevertheless, was the first iron-clad steamer
actually built, was the ship designed, in 1841, by Edwin A. Stevens, a
son of John Stevens, at the time that hostilities were feared between
England and the United States.
Mr. J. Elfreth Watkins, in an address before the Philosophical Society
of Washington, in 1892, said:--“As thick armour plate could not be
made at that date, he devised the method of armour plating in laminæ,
or plates laid over each other and riveted. He then made a series of
experiments to determine the thickness of plating required to resist
the different sizes of balls then in use. From these experiments, which
were made at Bordentown, N.J., in the summer of 1841, he made the
deduction that a target of iron 4½ inches thick would resist a 64 lb.
shot, at that time the heaviest ball used in our navy.”
This standard of thickness was afterwards adopted by European naval
architects for warship iron armour.
A committee of naval and military officers was appointed which made
numerous tests, and as a result Congress entered into a contract with
Stevens for the construction of “a war steamer, shot and shell proof,
to be built principally of iron,” and making an appropriation for the
purpose.
Up to this time there had been but little change in the power of guns
since the time of Nelson, but Commodore R. F. Stockton’s successful
construction in England of a wrought-iron gun throwing a round shot
able to pierce a target 4½ inches thick, induced Robert Stevens, who
was associated with Edwin A. Stevens, to alter the plans and increase
the thickness of the armour so as to fulfil his contract to build a
ship that should be “shot and shell proof.”
The production of still more powerful guns, both in America and Europe,
caused more alterations and delay. It is of interest to note the
dimensions of this vessel in order to see to what an extent Stevens
anticipated the designs of some later engineers. When Robert Stevens
died, in 1856, the ship was then 410 feet long, 45 feet inside the
armour shell, with two feet of freeboard, and with a square, immovable
turret enclosing depressible guns. She had her engines and boilers,
and it would not have taken long to complete her; but for some reason,
which need not be gone into here, except that the vessel was too far
in advance of the officials at Washington, who were wedded to wood and
sail, she was never launched, and was ultimately sold in 1881 for old
material. Besides being armoured and turreted, she had a powerful ram
of the “axe-head” pattern.
[Illustration: THE STEVENS BATTERY.]
A writer in the _Cosmopolitan Magazine_ for May, 1898, says:--“That the
Stevens battery would have been irresistible as a ram and invulnerable
as a fort is easy to be seen; but the Stevenses were condemned in this
case by official obstruction to undeserved failure.... During these
years, though constantly undergoing alteration and reconstruction,
she was at all times in a condition which would have admitted of her
rapid completion had an emergency arisen, on the plans which were for
the moment being carried out, and these plans were always so far in
advance of general naval construction that if so finished she would
have been a match for a fleet of the best vessels of the world at the
same time. Thus, while the naval armament of the world was light, her
original armour of 4½ inches would have rendered her invulnerable to
the shot of an enemy, while her shell guns would have meant certain
destruction to any vessel not provided, like herself, with an armour
capable of keeping out such shells. As the size and penetrating power
of cannon shot were increased, so was the provision for heavier
armour made in the Stevens battery, and her own guns were at the same
time enlarged in the successive designs.” This refers to the period
immediately prior to the American Civil War.
Another Stevens invention was that of the air-tight fire room, by Edwin
A. Stevens, in 1842, whereby forced draught was rendered effective.
Colonel John Stevens, in 1812, designed a steam-rotated circular fort
for the defence of New York Harbour, and a year or two later, his son,
Edwin Stevens, under the guidance of his father, was experimenting with
a 6-pounder bronze cannon against some iron plating. The elongated
shell, with which the name of Stevens is always associated, was
invented by Robert L. Stevens during the war between England and
America in 1813-4. The shell could be fired from ordinary cannon.
[Illustration: THE “RISING STAR.” _From a Painting in the possession of
the Earl of Dundonald._]
“Having perfected this invention, he sold the secret to the United
States after making experiments to prove their destructiveness, so
decisive as to leave no doubt of the efficacy of such projectiles.
One of these experiments was made at Governor’s Island in the presence
of officers of the army, when a target of white oak, four feet thick
and bolted through and through with numerous iron fastenings, was
completely destroyed by a shell weighing 200 lb., and containing 13
lb. of best Battle powder. This solid mass of wood and iron was torn
asunder; the opening made being large enough, as the certificate of the
officer commanding, Col. House, stated, for a man and horse to enter.
These shells are free from the danger accompanying ordinary shells,
for they are hermetically sealed and suffer no deterioration from
time.”[28] Some of them, indeed, were fired experimentally twenty-five
years after they had been made and were found to be as effective as
similar shells fired soon after they were loaded.
It cannot be said that the British Admiralty was not forewarned. Even
at the time of Fulton’s experiments, Lord Stanhope, who was interested
in the subject, wrote to Wilberforce that “when ships of any size may
be navigated so as to go without wind and even directly against both
wind and waves ... it will shortly render all the navies of the world
(I mean military navies) no better than lumber.” He pointed out that
ships independent of wind and weather were superior to sailing ships,
and that “the boasted superiority of the British navy is no more.” A
new navy was necessary, and the French and other nations for the same
reason would have one. His lordship proved himself a true prophet so
far as the other nations were concerned, for the British Admiralty was
about the last to adopt steam-driven battleships; but as to the rest of
his prophecy, Trafalgar had not then been fought.
When steam navigation came, it came to stay.
But though the Admiralty hesitated, others did not. Probably the first
steam-driven ship of war which ever went to sea, though not the first
mechanically propelled war vessel--the Far East, as we have seen,
ante-dating us in this matter by a couple of centuries--was the _Rising
Star_. She was certainly the first to traverse the waters of the
Atlantic from north to south, and the first steam warship to round Cape
Horn and pass into the Pacific.
The _Rising Star_ was a remarkable ship in many ways. She was built at
Rotherhithe for the tenth Earl of Dundonald when, as Lord Cochrane,
he was engaged by the Chilian Government to create and take command
of the Chilian navy, and stipulated that a steamship should be built
as the best means of neutralising the difference between the Chilian
and Spanish naval forces. The _Rising Star_ was really taken out by
Major the Hon. William Cochrane. Owing to various vexatious delays
in construction, she did not reach completion in time to permit of
her arrival in time to participate in the war, the energetic Admiral
Cochrane having, in the meantime, disposed of the Spanish fleet with
his customary thoroughness. The ship was begun at Kier’s yard in 1820,
and arrived at Valparaiso in April, 1822. How she was propelled is a
matter of conjecture. At one stage of her career she had paddles of
some sort, and also paddle-wheels, but when she finally left England a
different system altogether appears to have been adopted, which seems
to have been an application of the jet method, by which the ship is
propelled by forcing out of streams of water through apertures in the
hull below the water level.
The _Rising Star_ is shown in a contemporary engraving of her to have
been a full-rigged ship, without royals, and carrying, besides the
ordinary square sails of her rig, peculiarly shaped square-headed
staysails between the masts.
This vessel has been referred to in several books as the _Rising Sun_;
it is as well that the error be corrected and her right name given. The
statement that the _Rising Sun_ went to Chili for Lord Cochrane in 1818
is erroneous, though often made both in this country and in America.
The Admiralty thought so little of steam engines at first that it did
not trouble to record the names of its early steamers in the navy list.
Owing to the representations of Marc Isambard Brunel, the Admiralty
consented to try steam, and experimented with two small paddle-boats,
the _Monkey_, built at Rotherhithe in 1821, and the _Comet_, built at
Deptford in 1822, which were acquired to be used as tugs or despatch
boats. The former was a vessel of 210 tons, and had engines of 80
nominal h.p.[29] by Messrs. Boulton and Watt. The two cylinders were
each about 35½ inches diameter, with a stroke of 3 feet 6 inches,
and, working at 26½ revolutions per minute, gave a mean piston speed
of 185 feet per minute. It will be interesting and instructive to
contrast these figures with those of the latest engines in warships,
which will be found in another chapter. The _Active_ and _Lightning_
followed in 1822 and 1823 respectively, their names appearing together
with a few others for the first time in the official navy list for
March, 1828.[30] None of these steamers, however, could be classed as
war vessels. From this year to 1840 seventy other steam vessels were
added to the navy. All the early steamers were built in private yards,
and the contractors had even to provide the engine-room staffs, which
were taken over together with the steamers. By 1832, the Admiralty
bestirred itself and built its first steamer, the _Salamander_, but
until 1840 none was over 1,000 tons, and all were of wood, propelled
by paddle engines, and such guns as some of them carried were small
and ineffective. With the increase of the size of the vessels came
a more than corresponding increase in the power of the engines. The
_Rhadamanthus_, for instance, built in 1832, had engines capable of
being worked up to 400 indicated h.p., though they were of 200 h.p.
nominal. The safety valves carried a load of 4 lb. to the square inch,
and the total weight of the machinery was 275 tons. In 1839, five
wooden steamers were built for the Admiralty, and two of them, the
_Hecla_ and _Hecate_, of 817 tons, and 250 h.p. each, were sent to
Scott’s, at Greenock, to be engined, and were the first naval vessels
to have their machinery fitted on board in Scotland.
But when men like Brunel, Scott Russell, and Laird of Birkenhead, were
loudly advocating the adoption of steam-propelled war vessels, and
the steamers were proving their superiority over the sailing ships in
every respect, the Admiralty was compelled to pay attention. These men
also urged the adoption of iron in place of wood for shipbuilding.
The idea was ridiculed. It was in vain that it was pointed out that,
though a piece of iron would sink and a piece of wood of the same size
would float, the true test of buoyancy lay in the total weight of the
material used in the construction of a hull, and that a hull of given
external dimensions and built of iron would be more buoyant than a hull
of the same dimensions and built of wood, and that the difference in
favour of iron amounted to as much as 20 to 35 per cent.
The mere fact that iron steamers were already in existence had little
influence with the Admiralty. The first of these was the _Aaron Manby_,
built at Horsely in 1821, for Captain (afterwards Sir) Charles Napier
and the gentleman after whom she was named. Others were doing service
in Ireland. In 1832, Messrs. McGregor, Laird and Co. had the _Elburkah_
constructed for employment on the Niger; she was 70 feet long, by 18
feet beam, and 6 feet 6 inches depth. Two years later Mr. Laird built
at Birkenhead the _Garry Owen_, a little vessel only 125 feet long and
fitted with two engines of a total of 90 nominal h.p. She went ashore
during a gale on her maiden voyage, having as companions in misfortune
several wooden vessels, and was the only one to be refloated, being
little the worse for her misadventure. This proved the strength of an
iron-built ship beyond doubt, and iron coasting steamers after this
became comparatively numerous.
The first iron warship, a frigate, was proposed by Laird in 1836,
and built at his yard at Birkenhead in 1842; it was offered during
construction to the Admiralty, which would have none of it, so it was
sold to the Mexican Government, which christened it the _Guadeloupe_.
This vessel was 175 feet in length, by 30 feet 1 inch beam, and had a
depth of hold of 16 feet.
The East India Company appreciated the value of iron steamers suitable
for war purposes, and placed an order with Laird in 1839. One of those,
the _Nemesis_, built under this order, went to India via the Cape, and
took part in the China operations in 1840-2. She was struck several
times by cannon balls and holed. Her commander, Captain Hull, reported
in his evidence before the Royal Commission, in 1848, on the naval
estimates, that the holes were made clean and without splinters, thus
disposing of the theory that iron when struck by a shot would splinter
worse than wood. Her armament consisted of two 32-pounder pivot guns
so mounted as to give her a wide range of fire, and as she drew but
five feet of water she may be regarded as the first of the shallow
river-gunboats which have done such excellent service in so many parts
of the world.
Meanwhile Francis Pettit Smith in this country had adapted the screw
propeller to steam navigation, and after one or two experimental boats
had been successful, the _Archimedes_, fitted with a screw propeller of
his design, made her memorable journey from port to port of the British
Islands in 1838. The _Novelty_, a slightly larger vessel, of 117 feet
in length, was launched the next year, both coming from the yard of Mr.
Wimshurst, at Blackwall.
About this time Ericsson brought out his screw propeller, and having
equipped a small steamer with it, towed the Admiralty barge a
considerable distance upon the Thames with the Lords of the Admiralty
on board, besides making other experiments, all of which were not
without a fair measure of success. The navy officials were not
convinced, however, that the application of the power at the stern was
of practicable value for warships. So Ericsson went to America, and
devoted his remarkable inventive genius to the welfare of his adopted
country. Had he remained in England, and had his inventions been taken
up by the Government, the history of the ’sixties might have been very
different, for it was he who designed the _Monitor_, the small turret
ship which prevented the Confederates from obtaining the command of the
sea in the American Civil War.
In 1841, he accepted an order from the United States Government to
furnish the designs for a screw warship, the _Princeton_, this being
the first vessel which had the machinery wholly below the water-line
and out of reach of an enemy’s shot. This vessel is claimed by
Americans to have “dictated the reconstruction of the navies of the
world.”[31] Several mechanical novelties and contrivances strange to
warships, and for the most part owing the form in which they were
introduced into this vessel to the fertile brain of the inventor,
made their appearance in the _Princeton_. She had a direct-acting,
semi-cylindrical steam engine of great compactness and simplicity,
independent centrifugal blowers for ventilating the machinery
compartment and assisting the combustion in the furnaces, so as to
avoid the exposure during an engagement of the smoke stack which, as a
greater measure of safety, was made on the telescopic principle. The
12-inch wrought-iron gun, with which the vessel was armed, was the
first of its kind, and was at that time the largest and most powerful
weapon afloat. He designed the wrought-iron gun carriages, and provided
them with contrivances for dispensing with breeching and taking up the
recoil. There were also an optical instrument to enable the commanding
officer by mere inspection accurately to ascertain the distance of the
object to be aimed at.
The Admiralty relented towards iron for shipbuilding in 1840, when
it had the paddle-steamer _Dover_ built at Birkenhead, and three
small iron gunboats followed from the same establishment before the
end of the year. The demonstration afforded by the _Garry Owen_ has
been alluded to. The _Great Britain_, that magnificent pioneer of the
iron screw steamship, launched at Bristol, in December, 1844, ran on
the rocks at Dundrum Bay on the coast of Ireland, in 1846, and was
successfully refloated after being ashore for nearly eleven months,
during which she withstood several severe gales. After this it was no
longer possible either to ignore the superiority of iron over wood for
constructional purposes, or to doubt the immense strength with which an
iron ship could be built.
The enterprise and daring of Brunel in designing this ship without any
data to go upon stamp this vessel as an evidence of his extraordinary
genius. She was in a sense the forerunner of the _Great Eastern_,
for she demonstrated what could be done with iron; and the _Great
Eastern_, constructed on the longitudinal system, though a commercial
failure, proved the advantages of that system for vessels of such
remarkable length, as to a large extent her design solved the problem
of overcoming the sagging and hogging strains and showed the Admiralty
what could be achieved in contending with this difficulty. This success
helped in no slight degree to the introduction of the iron-clad citadel
system some years later.
The success of the _Archimedes_ and the _Great Britain_ demonstrated
the power of the screw, and in the latter that iron must be the
material for future ship construction, whether in the navy or the
mercantile marine. The Government clung to wood for all its fighting
ships as long as it could, but it decided to try the screw propeller,
without, however, abandoning the paddle-wheel, and many fine vessels
were launched.
Before this, Messrs. Ditchburn and Mare built at Blackwall, in 1842,
and Messrs. J. and G. Rennie engined, a small iron steamer of 164 tons
builders’ measurement, and 98 tons displacement, called the _Mermaid_.
She was a screw steamer, and was fitted with George Rennie’s conoidal
propeller; this was a three-bladed screw propeller with the blades
arranged to resemble a cone with its widest part at the boss of the
propeller shaft and tapering towards the tips of the blades. The
engine, having two vertical cylinders of 40 inches diameter each, and
32 inches stroke, and with a pressure of 8 lb. in the boiler, indicated
216 h.p. A spur gearing transmitted the power to the screw shaft,
giving it 153 revolutions per minute and driving the vessel at its
trial, in May, 1843, at a little above 10½ knots, or over 12 miles;
as the Admiralty had promised to take over the vessel if she attained
a speed of 12 miles, she was accordingly purchased and under the
name of H.M.S. _Dwarf_ has the honour of being the first iron screw
steamer the British Government possessed. The _Dwarf_ was largely used
afterwards for experimenting with various kinds of screw propellers.
With the exception of the bombardment of Acre, in 1840, there was a
long interval during which the world’s navies were not called upon
for any serious engagements, and the development of warship building
which took place during that period was the result rather of scientific
research than of actual fighting experience, and there was consequently
no need, while the nations were recovering from the wars of the
eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, for any remarkable advances
to be made. For the first fifty years of the nineteenth century the
warships were much as they were in Nelson’s time, except that some of
them were fitted with mechanical means of propulsion.
The battle at Acre was the first in which war steamers took part, four
paddle-wheel boats, the _Gorgon_, _Vesuvius_, _Stromboli_ and _Phœnix_,
being included in the British force. They were not of a size to do much
fighting, the bulk of which devolved upon the big sailing warships, the
duty of the steamers being rather to wait upon the three-deckers in the
capacity of armed tugs. The engagement had little, if any, influence
upon the admiralties of Europe in deciding them as to the position
steam navigation should take in the fighting marine. These steamers
were not the first to fire a shot in war. That honour, if honour it
be, is attributed to the Canadian-built _Royal William_, which crossed
the Atlantic partly under sail and partly under steam in 1833, and it
is on this performance that the Canadians claim to have sent the first
steamer eastward across the Atlantic. While she was lying at London
she attracted the attention of the Spanish authorities by reason of
her speed, and after satisfying themselves that they could depend upon
her to steam in a calm and even against the wind, they purchased her,
with the consent of the Portuguese, to whom she was chartered, renamed
her the _Ysabel Segunda_, gave her six guns, and used her against the
Carlist revolutionaries. She was wrecked not long afterwards.
In order to test the advantages of the paddle-engine in a fighting
ship, the wooden 46-gun frigate _Penelope_, which was built for a
sailer, was cut in two in 1843, and lengthened to enable her to
accommodate the engines and 600 tons of coal. She and about thirty or
forty sister ships had been constructed on the model of the French
_Hebe_ class of frigates, but as they were now hopelessly outclassed
by the heavier frigates introduced by other nations, this experiment
was about the best use to which she could have been put. The sudden
transformation of this out of date and none too powerful frigate into a
vessel capable of holding her own against any vessel afloat created a
tremendous sensation both in British and Continental nautical circles,
and paddle-driven frigates of various sorts and sizes were introduced
in the course of a few years in most of the European navies. When
lengthened she was faster under sail than before, and her steam power
made her independent of the wind and would have enabled her to choose
her own position had she been called upon to participate in a naval
engagement. Her new armament consisted of two large 10-inch pivot guns
of 84 cwt. each, eight 68-pounders able to fire both shot and shell,
and fourteen 32-pounders, “making a total of twenty-four guns of this
immense calibre.”[32] Her steam engines, of 625 h.p. nominal and 700
indicated, were described as of greater power than any previously
placed afloat in the navy or the mercantile marine. The cylinders were
of 92 inches with a length of stroke of nearly 7 feet; the engines
were of the direct acting type, such as were supplied to many other
vessels of the time, and the paddles could be disconnected. Hall’s
patent tubular condensers were fitted, and her four tubular boilers
each had five fireplaces. One peculiar feature was that the main mast
was stepped between two of the boilers. The _Penelope_ carried a crew
of three hundred officers and men, and could accommodate a thousand
soldiers with provisions and water for a voyage to the Cape. Inasmuch
as her tonnage was only 1,780 tons, she must have been uncomfortably
crowded, especially if the soldiers’ wives and families accompanied
them.
Some frigates were built to be paddle-propelled, one being the
_Terrible_, twenty-one guns, which had engines of 800 h.p. The
_Valorous_, the last of the type, was withdrawn in 1883.
Probably the most luxurious paddle-propelled steam frigate ever
launched was the _Faid Gihaad_, whose sumptuous fittings were intended
to gratify the taste for comfort, no less than the extravagant
whims, of the then Pasha of Egypt. She carried on the upper deck two
84-pounder pivot guns and twelve 32-pounder broadside guns, and on the
main deck fourteen guns of the latter type. Yet she was described as a
yacht--of 2,200 tons. She was built by Mare and Co., of Blackwall, in
1852.
One drawback urged against all paddle-wheeled war vessels was that the
deck space was seriously encroached upon, and that the paddle-boxes
restricted the range of the guns. To get over this difficulty the
sponsons were carried further forward and aft, before and abaft the
paddle-boxes respectively, the deck-houses, which usually encumbered
the sponsons, were removed, and the bulwarks were carried along the
outer edge of the sponsons, thereby giving greater deck space; and
as each sponson under this arrangement carried a gun, a vessel thus
fitted had four more guns than was previously possible. Two of the guns
had a range extending from abeam to right ahead, and two from abeam to
right astern.
One vessel thus equipped in accordance with Scott Russell’s patent was
the _Dantzig_, built by Robinson and Russell, at Millwall, for the
Prussian navy. She was of 1,280 tons, with a deck length of 230 feet,
and a draught of 15 feet; her paddle-wheels were of 24 feet 4 inches
diameter. Her dimensions, no less than the arrangement of her armament,
attracted widespread attention. She distinguished herself against the
Riffs in 1856.
The Admiralty ordered, in 1843, its first screw steamer, the _Rattler_,
a sloop of war of 1,078 tons displacement. She had engines of 437
indicated h.p., and of the type known as Maudslay’s Siamese, spur
gearing increasing the revolutions of the screw to four times those of
the crank. These engines derived their curious name because of their
double cylinders, the arrangement having been patented some years
before by Messrs. Maudslay and Field, to enable a long cylinder to be
fitted in a paddle ship where the height is limited.
When there was so much difference of opinion among those passing as
experts as to the respective merits of the paddle-wheel steamer and the
steamer driven by a screw propeller, the Admiralty decided to settle
the controversy by pitting representative vessels against each other
and noting the result.
Accordingly the _Rattler_ was selected to champion the screw, and the
_Alecto_ the paddle-wheel.
[Illustration: THE TRIAL OF SCREW _v._ PADDLE--H.M. SLOOPS “RATTLER”
AND “ALECTO” TOWING STERN AND STERN.]
The _Alecto_ was a paddle sloop, driven by direct acting engines,
but otherwise was a very similar vessel to her screw rival. The two
vessels were fastened stern to stern, and ordered to steam ahead. The
screw steamer won the novel tug of war, the _Alecto_ being towed stern
foremost. This remarkable encounter took place in the North Sea, on
April 3rd, 1845, in calm weather. A more important tug of war was that
on June 20th, 1849, when the screw corvette _Niger_ was pitted against
the paddle sloop _Basilisk_ in the Channel, and again the screw boat
was victorious.
The _Trident_ was the first iron steamship of war ordered by the
Admiralty, and the first ever built. She was launched from Messrs.
Ditchburn and Mare’s yard, at Blackwall, in December, 1845, and
in the shape of her hull followed the lines of a sailing ship of
the same size. Her length over all was 200 feet, and between the
perpendiculars 180 feet; her beam was 31 feet 6 inches, and over the
paddle-boxes 52 feet 6 inches, and her burthen was 900 tons. She had
engines of 330 h.p., with oscillating cylinders and tubular boilers,
so that altogether she was an important vessel in the constructional
development of the British navy. She was very strongly put together,
as her ribs were double, each rib being composed of two angle irons,
4 inches by 3½ inches by ½ inch thick, riveted together, and in one
entire length from the gunwale to the keel she having a total of two
hundred and seventy pairs of these double ribs. The iron skin was ¾
inch thick at the keel, and diminished to ½ inch at the gunwale. She
was to carry two long swivel guns of 10-inch bore, one fore and one
aft, to fire in line of keel, and four 32-pounder guns to fire on the
broadside.
In 1846 the _Birkenhead_ was built at Laird’s yard to the order of
the Admiralty as the first of a series of steam frigates, and was one
of the largest iron steamers belonging to the Government. Her length
between perpendiculars was 210 feet, breadth of hull 37½ feet, breadth
over paddle-boxes 60½ feet, depth of hold 23 feet, and her tonnage
1,400 tons (carpenter’s measurement). She was followed, in 1849, by
the _Simoom_, launched by Napier, at Glasgow, and by the _Megæra_,
by Fairbairn, at Millwall, all being classed and armed as steam
frigates. The _Birkenhead_ was to carry a 96-pounder pivot gun aft,
and a similar weapon forward, and four 68-pounders on the broadside,
and it was pointed out that her round stern would add to the range of
fire of the “Long Tom” aft. However, the Admiralty had serious doubts
of the efficacy of these vessels, and having made some experiments
with an iron ship called the _Ruby_, found that the 32-pounder gun at
short range could perforate the side of the iron ship, and that the
projectile carried its “cloud of langrage” with great velocity into the
interior of the ship, so that men could not stand against it. These
experiments resulted in the _Simoom_, _Birkenhead_, and ten smaller
vessels being condemned as warships. Some of them were transformed into
transports, and the Admiralty returned to its beloved wooden walls once
more. The loss of the transport _Birkenhead_ shortly afterwards is one
of the most tragic and heroic episodes in the whole history of the
British army. The Admiralty caused other tests to be made with sixteen
wrought iron plates superposed, having a total thickness of 6 inches,
but these also were perforated by the projectiles of the 32-pounder at
400 yards range.[33] The result was that the adoption of iron for the
main structure of a ship was delayed until the discovery was made of
the rolling of armour plates, in the time of the Crimean War, but it
was not until 1859 that the Admiralty may be said to have definitely
adopted rolled armour plates.
In the year 1849 Scott, Sinclair and Co. launched, at Greenock, the
first steam frigate built on the Clyde for the British navy, and thus
inaugurated that association between the Admiralty and the Clyde
iron-ship builders which has been maintained uninterruptedly from that
day to this, to the marked advantage of both. The _Greenock_, for the
vessel was named after the port, was 213 feet in length of keel and
fore-rake, by 37 feet 4 inches beam, and was of 1,413 tons Admiralty
measurement, and had engines of 565 h.p. Her machinery compartment
measured 72 feet in length and contained the whole of the machinery,
consisting of four rectangular boilers, fitted with brass tubes,
and two steam engines, lying flat on the bottom, the whole being so
arranged that all parts were several feet lower than the surface of the
water. The screw, which weighed 7 tons, and was 14 feet in diameter,
could be detached and lifted from the water.
“The funnel also,” says the _Illustrated London News_ of May 12,
1849, in describing the vessel, “is to have some peculiar mode by
which its hideous and crater-like physiognomy can be made at once to
disappear, and leave the ship devoid at once of this unsightly feature,
and of those cumbrous excrescences, paddle-boxes, giving her all the
appearance and symmetry of a perfect sailing-ship.”
She carried ten 32-pounder muzzle-loading guns. Her machinery is of
special interest as it embodied one of the earliest attempts to drive
a screw propeller by gearing. For this purpose it had four sets of
massive spur wheels and pinions, in the ratio of 2.35 to 1, so that 42
revolutions of the engines per minute gave 98.7 revolutions per minute
to the propeller shaft.
The engines installed in steamers, whether for war or commerce, were of
the side-lever type, until they were superseded by the direct-acting
type. The former was peculiarly suitable to the paddle-wheel, and in
one form or another is in use to the present day. In America, the
practice has been to place the beam or lever above the crank, but on
this side of the Atlantic the beam was placed below the crank. So
far as warships were concerned, this method had the advantage that a
great part of the machinery could be placed low down in the vessel.
But the very fact that a vessel was propelled by paddle-wheels made
it impossible to place the whole of the engine below the water level;
it is evident that the greater the diameter of the side-wheels the
greater must be the distance between the surface and the crank or shaft
upon which the wheels are fastened for rotation. As increased power
was required, it became necessary to add to the size and weight of
the engines, which in this respect soon reached the profitable limit
of their employment. Engineers were not long in foreseeing the extent
of the difficulty, and, in seeking means to provide a smaller engine
without loss of power, discovered a method of eliminating the lever
and causing the engines to act direct upon the crank shaft. One very
ingenious method by which the desired result was accomplished was that
associated with the name of Mr. Penn, who introduced the oscillating
cylinder in 1836. In these engines the connecting rod is done away
with altogether, the piston rod works directly on the crank pin, and
the cylinder is carried on trunnions which permit of the necessary
oscillation, and are themselves made hollow in order that the steam
may be admitted to and exhausted from the cylinders through them. The
first Admiralty vessel in which they were fitted was the yacht _Black
Eagle_. Another method by which great economy in space was effected was
the double cylinder engine invented by Messrs. Maudslay. It consisted
of two cylinders of equal size placed side by side, but with a space
between them into which the foot of a =T=-shaped cross-head passed, the
foot of the =T= head being connected by a connecting rod with the crank
pin.
With the side-lever engines the difficulty of driving the paddle-wheels
at the required speed was overcome by the introduction of the gearing
wheel, and this contrivance was applied also to the engines for driving
the screw propeller. As the piston speed was increased it became
possible to connect the crank shaft direct to the screw shafting.
The engines used for driving paddle-wheels were either inclined or
vertical, but after the introduction of the screw propeller for
warships, the engines were built of the horizontal type and this method
remained in vogue for about thirty years. The difficulty of working
in the confined space was met by Mr. Penn with the trunk engine,
with which he achieved a still greater success. His equipment of the
warships _Arrogant_ and _Encounter_ with trunk engines in 1847 so
satisfied the Admiralty that engine power for driving screws could
be placed so far below the water-line as practically to be safe from
an enemy’s shot, that altogether he applied them to no fewer than
two hundred and thirty vessels, from a gunboat requiring 20 h.p. to
such ships as the _Sultan_, 8,629 h.p., and the _Neptune_, 8,800 h.p.
This invention, curiously enough, helped in the retention of the
sailing power, by leaving the decks unencumbered by engine houses and
paddle-boxes, so that when the engines were not in use the vessels
could be kept under sail only, to gladden the hearts of the adherents
of the old school. It also hastened the abolition of sail, for it
showed that the machinery could be placed below the water-line, and
when armoured sides and protecting decks were introduced sails were
dispensed with altogether.
The trunk engine remained a favourite model until it became impossible
to keep the trunks in a steam-tight condition owing to the adoption
of high-pressure steam. The use of a geared wheel for multiplying the
number of the revolutions of the screw shaft was continued until the
crank shaft could be connected direct to the screw shafting. Up to
about 1860 horizontal engines were the rule in warships, and though
not particularly economical in the matter of fuel, they were a great
improvement on the type which had been so useful for paddle engines.
Surface condensation became general about 1860, and made possible the
introduction of compound engines and cylindrical boilers. The old
flat-sided boilers were retained when surface condensation was first
introduced, but additional stays were added to enable them to stand the
increased steam pressure which had by now advanced from 4 lb. to the
square inch, at which it was deemed effective in the early days of the
steamship, to 30 to 35 lb. to the square inch.
The warship of the “perfect sailing ship type,” with the engines
as little conspicuous as possible, remained in favour until the
experiences of the British and French fleets in the Crimea and the
Baltic compelled the abandonment of all the theories and practices
which had been nursed for years; while the innovations which were made
at the time of the American Civil War brought about the introduction
of types of vessels which were about as unlike the historical wooden
walls, the growth of centuries, as anything could well be.
Some years ago, when visiting the Brooklyn Navy Yard, the writer was
discussing with the officers in charge there the effects of the war
between the Northern and Southern States, and the expedients tried by
the two sides, upon warship construction, irrespective of generally
accepted theories and the opinions of the experts.
“Happy is the nation that has no precedents,” was the sententious
comment of an American officer.
CHAPTER V
IRON SHIPS OF WAR; FROM THE INTRODUCTION OF IRON ARMOUR TO BROADSIDE
AND TURRET SHIPS
When the Crimean War broke out, Great Britain and France shared the
naval leadership of the world. Nearly all the other nations had
warships of one kind or another, but the finest specimens were to
be found in the fleets of those two powers. They included the _Duke
of Wellington_, fitted with screw engines of 700 h.p. and carrying
one hundred and thirty-one guns; the _Agamemnon_, of 600 h.p. and
ninety-one guns; and the frigate _Shannon_, of 600 h.p. and fifty-one
guns, to mention three of the best examples of their classes.
Russia had some powerful vessels, including a few steam warships, but
her naval resources were not equal to those of either of the allies.
The French and English naval reviews in 1853 and 1854 were instructive
as showing the improvements which had been effected in the preceding
fifteen or twenty years. The screw propeller was so advantageous a
method of propulsion that the conversion of sailing vessels into
steamers went on apace in all the navies of Europe, and the United
States, which usually did not at that time trouble about European
naval developments, caught the infection and not only built steam
frigates, but transformed some of its smaller vessels also to augment
the steam warships it had already found necessary for its operations
in the Mexican Gulf, the West Indies, and elsewhere. The frigate
was a favourite type of ship with the Americans, and whether in the
sailing days or after the adoption of steam for warships, the American
frigates were equal to those to be found anywhere.
The naval force which went to the Crimea was largely steam-driven. The
Battle of Sinope, in November, 1853, in which the Russians annihilated
a Turkish fleet, proved alike the superiority of a steam war fleet
over a sailing fleet, and, incidentally, the range and power of the
Russian guns. The Russian squadron was more powerful in every way,
but its great superiority lay in its heavy artillery; all the Russian
ships of the line carried smooth-bore guns which could fire shells,
and the shells, exploding, set fire to and demolished the Turks in a
few minutes. This demonstration of the effectiveness of the Muscovite
weapons showed the allies for what they ought to be prepared when
the expected war broke out; but the Russians knew that in fighting
capacity their fleets were no match for the British and French fleets,
so their vessels were kept under the protection of the Russian forts,
and for the most part destroyed a few at a time as the war went on.
The Russians are not to be blamed for shirking a naval battle, for
the British and French were the greatest naval forces in the world,
splendidly equipped and ready for the fray; whereas the Russians do not
take kindly to naval warfare--as events half a century later showed.
Many of the Russian ships were hastily equipped; it was currently
reported in this country that some of them were engined with converted
railway locomotives. All the Russian ships, however, were not of this
type. Some were built on the Thames, among the number being the paddle
frigate _Vladimir_, which gave a good account of herself in more
than one engagement. She was a wooden vessel, and at the time of her
construction in 1848, was considered to display a remarkable amount of
symmetry of form, and to be of very considerable magnitude. Her length
between perpendiculars was 200 feet, and her burthen 1,200 tons. She
carried two 10-inch pivot guns, and four 8-inch guns mounted on sliding
carriages.
[Illustration: H.M.S. “CENTAUR,” “BULLDOG” AND “IMPERIEUSE” ENGAGED
WITH SIX RUSSIAN GUNBOATS OFF CRONSTADT, 1855.]
[Illustration: SECTIONAL MODEL OF RUSSIAN MAN-OF-WAR, 1854, IN THE
MUSEUM OF THE ROYAL UNITED SERVICE INSTITUTION.]
The paddle frigate _Retribution_, a typical specimen of her class,
launched at Chatham in 1844, was selected to proceed to Sebastopol in
1854 to demand the release of the engineers taken prisoners at the
Battle of Sinope, who were in the service of the Porte. She was of
about 1,641 tons and had engines on Maudslay’s Siamese pattern of 400
h.p., and carried a crew of three hundred men. Her armament consisted
of twenty-eight guns of a “very persuasive size”--their persuasiveness
was fully demonstrated in the subsequent proceedings in the Crimea.
The naval operations before Sebastopol and Cronstadt proved by no means
satisfactory to the attacking vessels. The latter were not weak as
fighting ships, for they constituted the most powerful line-of-battle
ships ever constructed up to that period, and nearly all of them were
screw-propelled. The principal guns in the Russian forts were heavier
than any carried afloat by the allies, and not only fired a heavier
and more penetrating shot, but shell also--this being the first war in
which modern explosive shells were used--and had an effective range far
in excess of that of the ships’ guns.
The great three-deckers which assailed the fortifications of Sebastopol
and Cronstadt were prevented by the shallowness of the water from
getting near enough to inflict serious damage irrespective of what
they might themselves sustain, a course which was certainly urged, if
channels could be found, especially by some strategists who, being
at home, would not be exposed to the danger, and ignored the fact
that the ships, if stranded, could be shelled at leisure. In the
fleets’ attack upon Sebastopol the sailing warships were provided with
attendant steamers lashed alongside to render them assistance when
their positions had to be changed. But the range at which, for the most
part, the allies’ warships had to operate rendered them comparatively
ineffective, and when Kinburn, like Cronstadt, proved a tougher
nut to crack--a characteristic it shared with many of the Russian
defences--than the allies expected, the English and French could do
nothing but blockade the places and adopt other means of reducing the
fortresses than by bombarding them from their big wooden battleships.
Two fresh problems had thus been created for solution. The first and
most pressing was to provide the type of ship best fitted to cope with
the Russian batteries. Hitherto, engagements between fortresses and
battleships had been fairly equal because the guns employed by one side
would be much the same as those of the other, while the ships had the
further advantages of being able to shift their positions as suited
them best, and to concentrate the fire of their broadsides wherever
necessary. The majority of shore and battery engagements ended in
victories for the ships.
The second problem was how to carry more powerful guns afloat, and how
to strengthen the sides of the hulls supporting them so as to offer
adequate resistance to the projectiles of equally heavy guns carried by
hostile ships or discharged from the enemy’s forts. The first problem
was found to be comparatively easy, notwithstanding that the solution
when proposed was declared by many to be impossible. It had, moreover,
an important influence upon the attempted solution of the second
problem. The latter was even thought to be no more difficult than the
other, but the effort to grapple with it marked the beginning of the
great struggle between guns and armour, and the introduction of the
question of long range as against short range fighting, the end whereof
is not yet.
Some little time before the war, the Emperor of the French expressed
the opinion that armoured vessels of the types the Americans had
devised, notably Stevens’s and Ericsson’s ships, were more suitable
for purposes of war than the large two-deckers and three-deckers. He
was confirmed in this opinion by the experiences of the big ships in
the attack upon Fort Constantine, and though the opposition to his
views was great, and it was pointed out that the forts must ultimately
be starved into surrendering, he maintained that this would take too
long and that the forts must be attacked by other means. His Majesty
himself, who had devoted considerable attention to the subject,
was largely responsible for the design of the five armoured French
gunboats which were destined to bring about the abandonment of the
great three-deckers and initiate as remarkable a revolution in warship
construction as the introduction of steam was causing in naval tactics.
These floating batteries--a term borrowed from the Americans--were the
_Lave_, _Tonnante_, _Congreve_, _Foudroyant_ and _Dévastation_. Their
dimensions were similar: 1,400 tons displacement, 164 feet in length,
42 feet 6 inches beam, and drawing only 8 feet of water. They were
built with massive wooden frames, to which were attached oaken sides
8 inches in thickness, and outside this was iron plating 4⅜ inches
thick. The _Tonnante_, launched at Brest in March, 1855, was the first
afloat--the first iron-clad citadel ship built in Europe. After the
Emperor had decided on the plans and the vessels were in course of
construction, Ericsson communicated with his Majesty on the subject.
He was not aware that the Emperor had already determined on the plans
of the ironclads, or he would scarcely have gone to the trouble of
writing, for his experience of European governments was not such as
to lead him to think that they would admit he was able to teach them
anything. He is variously said to have offered to design a turret
ship for the Emperor, and to have presented to the Emperor plans of a
partially submerged armoured vessel with guns in a revolving shot-proof
cupola placed centrally on the deck. In either case, however, he was
too late. Whether he would have been called upon, had the Emperor’s
gunboats been unsuccessful, is a point upon which there has been much
conjecture.
In designing these vessels, the Emperor had in mind that they should be
cheaper and more easily and rapidly built than ships of the line, that
they should draw little water, that they should be capable of being
served by a small crew, and that they should be covered with an armour
against which hollow shot fired from Paixhan guns “should be broken
like glass,” according to the _Moniteur_. Experiments made at Vincennes
revealed the required strength and thickness of the defensive iron
plates. The external protection was to be able to defy alike shell,
solid or hollow shot, cold or red-hot shot. The Imperial designer even
chose the name of the type to indicate that these vessels were not to
be considered as built to pursue an enemy, but were siege batteries,
capable of attacking with energy and persistence fortifications
heretofore regarded as unassailable by sea.
The results of the preliminary artillery trials were communicated to
the British, and trials made in England confirmed those of the French.
The British authorities, being convinced that iron-clad vessels were
necessary for the reduction of the Russian forts, followed the example
of the French and ordered several. These vessels were required both
in the Baltic and before Sebastopol. One of these floating batteries,
intended for the attack on the Cronstadt forts, was the _Terror_.
Beauty was one characteristic she did not possess. She was equally
bluff at the bows and stern, and could move either end foremost
to facilitate her manœuvring in an engagement. She was built,
armour-plated, and launched in about three months; this rapidity of
construction, as it was then considered, was due to Palmer’s invention,
whereby plates were rolled instead of being forged.
[Illustration: H.M.S. “WARRIOR.” _Photograph by permission of the
Thames Ironworks, Shipbuilding and Engineering Co., Ltd._]
[Illustration: THE “TERROR.” _By permission of Palmer’s Shipbuilding
and Ironworks, Ltd._]
The English-built _Glatton_ and _Trusty_ differed from the other
floating batteries constructed at this time, as they were pierced
for sixteen guns, as against twelve for the others. As innovations
they were unmercifully criticised. Their portholes, measuring 3 feet
4 inches by 4 feet 10 inches, were considered much too large. They
were rigged as three-masted schooners, of all rigs in the world, with
two square sails on the foremast. “Why such things as these should be
completely equipped and rigged, we cannot, for the life of us, divine.
The Admiralty is decidedly masting mad.”[34]
They were 172 feet 9 inches between perpendiculars, 43 feet 8 inches
extreme breadth, with 14 feet 7 inches depth of hold, and 7 feet
9 inches draught, and they were of 1,469 tons. The two decks were
of oak 9 inches thick, resting on beams 10½ inches square, which
were placed 21 inches apart from centre to centre, the beams being
supported amidships by stanchions hinged so that they could be hung
up out of the way in action. The frames, iron plates, and planking
were altogether 2 feet thick on the sides. The engines were of 150
h.p., of the non-condensing type, and with four tubular, cylindrical,
flat-ended boilers with two furnaces each, the pressure being 60 lb.
to the inch above that of the atmosphere. Owing to their slow speed,
for they could only make three knots, it was decided to give them two
additional or wing screws. These batteries, according to those who had
to handle them, would “neither sail, steam, stay, nor steer,” and might
be depended upon to affect the men’s health injuriously. Jury rudders
had to be rigged up to get them along. All these floating batteries,
whether French or English, were equally slow, and equally bad sea-boats.
The gunboats of the _Trusty_ class were wooden-built and armoured; the
_Erebus_ class, launched in 1854-56, were iron-built.
The floating batteries were regarded with hope by those who were
prepared to believe that the ironclad system would prove effective,
and with undisguised contempt by the majority. What, it was asked,
could these little unwieldy vessels do when the great line-of-battle
ships were not equal to the task of reducing the fortifications?
Still, as the Emperor had ordered them, it was but right that the
experiment should be made. So when, in October, 1855, the great attack
was begun, the three floating batteries which had arrived, steamed
slowly into position, and came to anchor between 700 and 800 yards of
the Kinburn forts. A correspondent who visited the _Dévastation_ after
the bombardment, “left her with the conviction that, in the attack
of maritime fortresses, a new era had commenced.... The bulwarks had
been removed from the deck, to lessen the mark, and the funnels of the
steam engine alone projected. The captain conned the ship standing on
the companion, and giving directions to the helmsman below; and when
the vessel came to an anchor he remained below. Twelve embrasures were
opened, and the effect as witnessed from the village was terrific,
whilst that of the enemy’s guns upon her was very slight indeed. She
had three men killed and six or seven wounded through shots entering
the portholes, one shell bursting inside. Not a shot from the enemy
damaged the _Dévastation_ in the slightest degree. She was hulled
sixty or seventy times, the balls each time bounding from her sides
harmless into the water, leaving their marks, it is true, in the shape
of dents, in some cases an inch and a half deep, but inflicting no
real damage on plates of iron four inches in thickness. This, the first
experiment, proved that at a distance of 800 yards, 32- and 18-pounders
are harmless against the sides of a floating battery, and the trial
has been made first by the French, the arrival of the _Meteor_ and
_Glatton_ being delayed.” When they did arrive the work for which they
were intended had been accomplished. The _Dévastation_ and her two
sisters had platforms on stanchions near the water’s edge; upon each
platform were fifty French riflemen who made excellent practice upon
the Russian gunners.
The Prussian Government ordered from Messrs. Robinson and Russell, in
1851, two paddle-wheel gunboats called _Nix_ and _Salamander_. They
were double-ended and could go either end foremost, and though they
could take enough coal to carry them two thousand miles, they only drew
7 feet. Their load displacement was 468 tons, and their oscillating
cylinder condensing engines gave them, together with their sails, a
speed of a little over 11½ knots. The British Government exchanged the
36-gun frigate _Thetis_ for them, and having renamed them _Recruit_ and
_Weser_, sent them to the war.
They were the only vessels of their class in the British navy. The
former was employed in the operations in the Sea of Azoff, and both
were held to combine the three essential features of light draught,
ability to carry heavy armament, and to possess the highest known rate
of speed, so as to give them the power of choosing their own time
and place of attack. The _Recruit_ mounted four 68-pounders on her
stanchions and bombarded the Russian positions at Taganrog at 1,400
yards, in company with a French steamer, the _Mouette_.
Among the numerous types of boats, recognised as belonging to the
navy or improvised for some special circumstance, few acquired during
the campaign in the Baltic greater renown than the mortar-boats, the
gunboats, and the ships’ boats with their rocket apparatus. In the
Baltic, as in the Black Sea, the need was felt of small, shallow,
powerful ships which could engage the enemy’s batteries at short range,
and similar batteries to those sent to the Crimea were forwarded to the
Baltic also. The same difficulty of shallow water was experienced by
the forces in the Sea of Azoff. So there was improvised by the officers
and crew of the _Stromboli_ a remarkable raft of twenty-nine casks
placed in six rows and cradled in a framework of heavy spars, a portion
of the upper part being planked over. The gun tackles were fastened to
a spar lashed over the front of the planking, and the train tackle was
similarly fixed aft. She was named the _Lady Nancy_. Her construction
took twelve hours, and she carried a long 32-pounder, weighing over 2
tons, 100 rounds of ammunition, a heavy hawser, and a crew of eighteen.
She gave a good account of herself at the Battle of Taganrog.
A fleet of screw gunboats, numbering nearly a hundred, and having
engines of 60 h.p. each, was added to Britain’s naval strength during
the war. These vessels were armed with 68- and 32-pounder pivot guns
and 24-pounder brass howitzers. “The possession of this force,”
according to a contemporary writer, “cannot be too highly estimated.
No line-of-battle ship could be safe at 1,000 yards range, and, owing
to their light draught of water (four and six feet), they could force
their passage through the most shallow of the enemy’s creeks; besides
which their 68-pound shells would tell at 4,000 yards upon a ship
or arsenal.” Another hundred of these were all but completed, and
the whole force was to take part in the great review at Spithead in
1856. “There will also,” said the chronicler, “be a new description
of screw-gun despatch vessels, equally elegant and powerful. These
beautiful specimens of British naval architecture have been built in
the Government and private yards; they will average a speed of 16 knots
an hour, and will mount five of the heaviest pivot guns. In addition
to these there will be one hundred iron and wood mortar-vessels of the
most powerful build, each armed with a 18-inch mortar, weighing five
tons, besides half a dozen mortar-frigates (old 42’s converted). To sum
up, then, England is prepared with:--Line-of-battle ships, 42; heavy
frigates, 56; corvettes, 123; gunboats, 220; mortar-vessels, 100; troop
frigates, 10; transports, 340. And nearly the whole of this gigantic
force is composed of screw or paddle-box ships, besides an immense
reserve. Well may Russia be desirous of coming to terms.”
After the feverish activity of the war came a period of comparative
inaction. The whole political atmosphere of the world, however, was
too heavily charged--too electric, as it were, to permit of hopes of
lasting peace. In the United States of America the tension between
the northern and southern states was already becoming acute, while
in Europe the prevailing attitude of the powers towards one another
was that of frigid politeness, which at any moment might thaw into
hostilities. So there was no lack of incentive to continue the
development of the fighting marine. The principal reasons why more was
not done at this time were that naval architects and administrators
were at the parting of the ways. Some urged that the types with which
they were familiar should be adhered to, and that though armoured
vessels were useful in the war against Russia, where peculiar
conditions had to be met, it did not follow that such vessels would
be of use in another war; and it was pointed out that they would
be of no value whatever in a naval engagement on account of their
unseaworthiness, or rather clumsiness, and the difficulty of handling
them. Others, more far-seeing, urged that iron-clad vessels were
bound to come sooner or later, and sooner rather than later, since it
had been demonstrated that such were not only possible but, so far as
they had been used in the war, effective, and that they showed that
vessels of less size, armour-plated and carrying a few heavy guns,
would be more than a match for any wooden line-of-battle ship afloat.
It was contended that the gunboats which silenced the Kinburn forts
would be able to give a good account of themselves against the best
three-deckers in the allied fleets. But the Admiralty, still convinced
of the excellence of the type which had done so well in the past,
retained that type and went on building wooden ships, as for that
matter did all the admiralties of the world.
In 1858, there was designed the last and the finest line-of-battle
ship constructed of wood for the British navy. She was launched at
Portsmouth in 1859, and commissioned in 1864, and under the name of the
_Victoria_ served as flagship in the Mediterranean, and was removed
from active service three years later. She was a screw steamer, with
horizontal return-connecting-rod engines by Maudslay, indicating 4,000
h.p., and with the boilers giving 22 lb. pressure she could steam at 12
miles an hour. She carried, on her upper deck, twenty-two 32-pounders
and one 68-pounder; on her main deck thirty-four 32-pounders, on her
middle deck thirty-two guns of the same size, and on her lower deck
thirty-two 8-inch guns. A comparison of her armament and that of the
next _Victoria_ shows the remarkable change made in the course of a
few years in naval artillery, no less than in the arrangement of the
weapons on ship board.
But whatever may have been the conservative official view, the lessons
of the armour-clads in the Crimean War were not thrown away, and many
naval designers were attempting to solve the problem of the best
means of applying those lessons to the altered conditions of modern
naval warfare. Guns were invented, more powerful than any wooden ship
could hope to withstand, and it was admitted to be impossible to place
as many of them on a ship as of the ordinary weapons. The turret and
the broadside systems had already been suggested, and both had their
enthusiastic advocates.
The report presented by a Royal Commission appointed in 1858 to
consider the relative strength of the British and French navies, first
compared the state of the navies of the two powers before the Crimean
War with that prevailing afterwards. In 1850 the line-of-battle ships
of both countries were sailers, as were nearly all the frigates. The
steam fleet of England at the time of the Crimean War was superior to
that of France, which at one time had only one screw line-of-battle
ship, the _Austerlitz_, available for the Baltic; but after the war the
French lost little time in converting several of their sailing ships
into steamships.
A return accompanying this report shows that although the British had
five steam line-of-battle ships for every four possessed by France,
including those completed or still under construction, the French had
forty-six steam frigates to thirty-four possessed by this country. The
report contained one significant item, viz., that four iron-plated
ships were being built by France, and these, “appearing so ominously,
had completely changed the situation.”[35]
The French naval architect, Dupuy de Lôme, was responsible for this
innovation, and the four vessels were a testimony to his genius. The
first of the quartette to be launched was the _Gloire_. Originally
designed as a 90-gun battleship, she took the water as a 60-gun
armoured frigate. She was of 5,650 tons displacement, and her three
sisters were slightly smaller. Her armour was of iron, 4½ to 4¾ inches
thick. She was not, as is sometimes asserted, armoured all over, but
was plated her whole length along the water-line and for some little
distance above it, and her central battery was also protected by a belt
extending above the water-line belt. The engines worked up to about
4,200 h.p. indicated.
Iron armour over a wooden frame suggested a compromise in the matter
of construction with which the Admiralty did not at all agree. It,
therefore, decided on building an iron ship in reply to the _Gloire_,
and the _Warrior_ was the first seagoing ironclad. In her external
appearance there was nothing to distinguish her from the average wooden
steam frigate of the time, except her extraordinary length. She was a
three-masted square-rigged ship, with a graceful overhanging cutwater,
her dimensions being as follows: length, 380 feet, and 420 feet over
all; draught, 25½ feet; depth from spar deck to keel, 41 feet 6 inches.
Her engines of 1,250 h.p. nominal gave her a speed of nearly 14½ knots.
She carried twenty-eight 7-inch muzzle-loading rifle guns, two other
rifle guns, and two 20-pounder breech-loading rifle guns. She was built
at what is now the Thames Ironworks, then the no less celebrated yard
of Messrs. Ditchburn and Mare.
In describing the vessel, the builders say: “It may be of interest to
note here that the _Warrior’s_ armour plates were all fitted at edges
and butts with tongues and grooves, the tongues being formed solid out
of the plate 1¼ inch wide and ½ inch deep, the grooves being formed
slightly larger to facilitate entering. This plan, which was very
costly, and was suggested by the curving out of the plates tested at
Shoeburyness after being struck by the shot, was not repeated in later
vessels, in view of the great difficulty in replacing damaged plates.
It is not generally known that the _Warrior_, though a sea-going
warship, had a ram bow, the greatest projection being at about the
water-line, the head knee or cutwater being brought on independently
after the ram was completed, to maintain the then usual appearance of
the frigates of the English navy.”[36]
Besides the side armour, the fore and after ends of the main deck
carrying the battery were protected by armoured bulkheads. The great
length of the vessel rendered it impossible to armour her entirely, as
had she been armoured from end to end the protection afforded to the
vital parts of the ship would have been insufficient to withstand the
heaviest artillery of the time. Therefore, some 85 feet at either end
were left unprotected, and the weight of armour thus saved was added to
that covering the central portions of the ship, so that she would be
enabled to withstand the worst fire an enemy could bring to bear upon
her. It was contended that were her unarmoured ends to be shot away or
riddled and rendered useless, her armoured portion would remain afloat,
an invulnerable citadel. The belt of armour on the broadside was 22
feet deep, and was backed by 18 inches of teak.
In every respect, save, perhaps, that of manœuvring, she was an
improvement upon her French rival. Her ports were about 8 feet 6 inches
from the water as compared with 5 feet 8 inches in the _Gloire_, those
of the latter, though comparing favourably with the distance which
prevailed in the earlier ships of the line, both sail and steam, being
considered much too near the water to permit of her main deck guns
being fought except in fine weather. Her gun carriages, too, were a
great improvement upon anything of the kind that had been fitted in an
English ship. A system of pivoting the carriages under the trunnions
of the guns was applied, so that the guns could be trained through
portholes only 2 feet wide, or half the size of those fitted in other
ships, and as the sides of the ports were plated with 7-inch iron, an
additional measure of protection was afforded the crew. Her tonnage was
6,177 tons, builder’s measurement, but her total weight with stores and
guns was about 9,000 tons.
The _Warrior_ was a combination of the longitudinal system of ship
construction designed by Scott Russell, and the ordinary method of
transverse framing, the plans being prepared by the Admiralty. The
sixth longitudinal was used to rest the backing and armour upon. The
unprotected ends of the vessel were built on the transverse system,
and were given a number of watertight compartments. An important
feature in the construction was that the transverse plates between the
longitudinals were solid but had three holes cut in them to lighten
them, and it was in dealing with these plates that some of the earliest
improvements were made in following ships. As a further means of giving
strength, a vertical watertight longitudinal bulkhead extended from the
third longitudinal on each side up to the main deck, to which it was
rigidly secured, thus forming an exceedingly strong wing passage and
box girder, which was further strengthened by transverse bulkheads. She
had not a complete double bottom. Externally, she was fitted with two
bilge keels to prevent rolling.
The _Black Prince_, which followed the _Warrior_, was 380 feet in
length, and exceeded the length of the _Gloire_ by 130 feet; her beam
was 58 feet 4 inches, and her displacement 9,210 tons. She also was
a full-rigged ship, and had an overhanging or schooner bow, the ram
being thought unnecessary, as ramming was no longer looked upon as an
important feature of naval tactics.
“These were the last, however, in which the essentials of pictorial
beauty were held of paramount importance.”[37]
The attitude of the Admiralty in regard to steam had hitherto been that
in many respects it must be auxiliary to sail. The _Black Prince’s_
armour, though only 4½ inches thick, was considered to offer an
adequate resistance to the 68-pounder gun’s projectile, and this,
too, after the experience gained in the Crimean War; besides which no
allowance whatever was made for the probability that more powerful
guns, firing heavier projectiles than any yet known, would shortly be
in existence, especially as they were already being designed. Although
called an ironclad, the _Black Prince_ would be better described as
“armour-patched,” for only 213 feet on each side was armour-protected.
The rest of the hull, including even the steering gear, was as
unarmoured and unprotected as that of any sailer of a century before.
The ends of the armoured belts, however, were united by iron plated
bulkheads, so that the armoured portion of the ship formed a central
or box battery. In order to add to the safety of the ship, in case of
its penetration by a hostile shot, a number of watertight compartments
was built into her, thereby ensuring a certain amount of buoyancy. This
vessel, like the _Warrior_, was “unhandy,” to use a sailor’s phrase,
as were all her class, their length making them difficult to steer, on
account of the amount of room required in which to turn. Indeed, they
were so awkward that in manœuvres it was necessary to keep them four
cables’ lengths apart instead of the two cables’ lengths customary with
other vessels. The _Black Prince_ carried four 9-ton guns and twenty
6½-ton guns, all muzzle-loaders. These ships were unquestionably most
impressive from the spectacular point of view, and, compared with
the wooden ships they superseded, their fighting value was great.
They were practically the forerunners of the class represented by the
three iron sisters, _Agincourt_, _Minotaur_, and _Northumberland_.
The last named, a ship-rigged, armoured, first-class cruiser, was
begun in 1865, by the Millwall Ironworks and Shipbuilding Company,
and completed in 1868, the designs being prepared by the Admiralty.
At first it was proposed that she should have only three masts, and
as many as fifty-eight guns, but during the process of construction,
it was decided to increase the number of masts to five and to reduce
the number of guns to twenty-eight more powerful than those originally
intended. Her design, and that of her sisters, represented a curious
adherence to a belief in the necessity of sail, tempered by a desire
to a compromise in the matter of more modern artillery. When launched,
she had four 12-ton muzzle-loading rifle guns and twenty-two 9-ton
8-inch muzzle-loading rifles on the main deck, while on her upper
deck were two 6.5-ton 7-inch breech-loading rifle guns. Her armour
was 5½ inches thick, with 9 inches of teak backing, and was extended
throughout her entire length with the double purpose of protecting the
ends and steering gear, and of allowing her fore and after guns to be
fired from behind armour. This, of course, meant a greater weight to be
carried, and it could only be done, if speed were not to be sacrificed,
by increasing the length of the vessel. So far as manœuvring was
concerned, these ships were much worse than their predecessors.
[Illustration: H.M.S. “BLACK PRINCE.” _Photograph by Symonds & Co.,
Portsmouth._]
[Illustration: THE “BANGOR,” FIRST IRON SEA-GOING PROPELLER STEAMER IN
THE UNITED STATES. _From a Print in the possession of, and reproduced
by permission of, the Harlan & Hollingsworth Corporation, U.S.A._]
Their engines were on Penn’s trunk system, with two cylinders of 112
inches diameter, and a stroke of 52 inches. Each had ten boilers with
four furnaces per boiler, the total grate area being 956 square feet,
and the steam was supplied up to a pressure of 25 lb. per square inch.
These ships each carried a four-bladed Mangin propeller of 24 feet
diameter, which was adjustable so that the pitch could be altered
from 22½ feet to 28½ feet. The _Northumberland_ was the first war
vessel on which Macfarlane Gray’s steam steering gear, originally
invented for the _Great Eastern_, was installed. These three vessels
were 400 feet 3 inches in length, and had a beam of a fraction over 59
feet, and drew 27 feet 3 inches, with a displacement of about 10,786
tons.
Before referring to the historic American ships of the third quarter of
the last century, some attention may be given to a remarkable vessel
which passed into the possession of the United States Government.
The steamer _Bangor_ was built by the firm of Betts, Harlan and
Hollingsworth (now the Harlan and Hollingsworth Corporation), in
1843-4, for the Bangor Steam Navigation Company, of Maine, and was
the first iron sea-going propeller steamer constructed in the United
States. The hull was formed of bar iron ribs or frames secured by
numerous wrought-iron clamps, and her plating was put on in the lapped
or “clinker” style, instead of the modern inside and outside method of
arranging the sheets.
The _Bangor_ measured 231 tons burthen; her length over all was about
131 feet; length between perpendiculars, 120 feet; beam moulded, 23
feet; and depth of hold from base line amidships, 9 feet. She had three
wooden masts, with bowsprit and jib-boom, and was schooner-rigged,
carrying a suit of eight sails. Passengers were carried aft in a
commodious deck-house fitted up in a style of elegance unusual in those
days, and considered particularly handsome by her owners and builders.
There were but two deck-houses upon the vessel at the time she was
built, the third or forward house, as shown in the illustration, having
been added afterwards.
Her machinery consisted of independent twin-screw propeller engines,
having cylinders 22 inches in diameter by 24 inches stroke of piston.
The propeller wheels were of the Loper type and 8½ feet in diameter.
Her boiler was placed in the hold and was of iron, 20 feet in length,
of the type known as the “drop flue” boiler. On her trial trip she
averaged 10.61 miles per hour at one time. The first five miles were
run with low steam, making forty-four revolutions. The pressure of
steam was under 46 lb. to the square inch during the whole trip.
Afterwards with full steam the speed per hour was 14.07 miles. From
this, however, there should be deducted 2½ miles for tide, giving
an actual speed of 11.57 miles per hour. On the second trip of the
_Bangor_ from Boston, she caught fire, and was beached upon the New
England coast, near Nantucket, in order to save the crew and freight.
She was afterward adjudged a wreck, the insurance settlement was
effected, and she was towed to a New England shipyard (probably
at Bath, Me.), where she was repaired and rebuilt. She afterwards
continued to run on the same line until she was, in 1846, purchased by
the United States Government, and re-named the _Scourge_ at the time of
the outbreak of the Mexican War. During her employ as a war vessel she
was equipped with three guns. After two years of war service, she was,
on October 7th, 1848, finally sold by the Government to John F. Jeter,
of Lafayette, Louisiana. From the date of this transfer no trace of
her can be found. It is possible that she may have been either lost by
fire or storm, or have been dismantled and altered for other than her
natural purposes.
A visit was paid to England in October, 1856, on her trial cruise, by
a ship which was destined to have considerable influence in the not
distant future upon warship construction, and to help to revolutionise
completely all the hitherto accepted theories. This was the famous
_Merrimac_--the first of six steam frigates the United States had
constructed. She was considered by her designers to be a match for any
vessel afloat on the European side of the Atlantic, and as a specimen
of the American fondness for fast and heavily armed frigates, a type
of vessel in which they excelled, she left nothing to be desired.
Naturally, she attracted a great deal of attention.
The _Merrimac_--she came to England under that name, and not as the
_Virginia_, as sometimes stated--was 300 feet over all, and 250 feet on
the keel, and 260 feet on the load water-line, and was 51 feet 4 inches
beam, and drew 28 feet of water. She was of 3,987 tons measurement, and
4,500 tons displacement. Her engines were of 600 h.p. and presented
several peculiarities. The cylinders were of 72 inches diameter, with a
stroke of three feet, and there were two rods to each piston. Her screw
propeller was on Griffith’s system, and had means of varying the pitch.
Normally the screw had a pitch of 26 feet 2 inches; its diameter was
17 feet 4 inches. She had four of Martin’s vertical tubular boilers.
The frame of the ship was of live oak, crossed internally with two sets
of diagonal iron plates, inclined in opposite directions, and similar
plates on the outside strengthened her bow and stern. Her model, or
shape, is said to have been of considerable beauty, while her internal
arrangements for the comfort and accommodation of the officers and
crew were of a high order. She could spread 56,629 feet of canvas, and
nautical men here were of opinion that she could easily have borne
heavier masts and spars and so have spread more canvas still. However,
the weight of her armament had to be considered, and this may have been
one reason why she was not more heavily equipped aloft. She was pierced
for sixty guns, but on account of the weight and size and effectiveness
of those she had, the number on board was only forty. Nevertheless,
she was claimed to be, and with good reason, as powerful as anything
Europe could show. Two large pivot guns, of 10 inches calibre, and
each weighing nearly 5½ tons, were on the upper deck, together with
fourteen 8-inch guns, weighing more than three tons each; while on
the gun-deck were twenty-four 9-inch guns, each weighing close upon
4½ tons. All these guns were strong enough to fire solid shot, but
they were intended to take hollow shot or shell, a custom to which the
Americans attached considerable importance. The guns were built on the
Dahlgren system, which gave them throughout their length a thickness
proportionate to the pressure caused by the explosion of an ordinary
service charge of powder. The adaptation of these guns to the Paixhan
system of shell-firing was another novelty she presented. As solid
shot were more destructive against fortifications and heavy works than
the shells or hollow shot--uncharged shells that is--the naval experts
of Europe did not look favourably upon explosive shells, preferring
to consider them more suitable for large swivel guns, such as were
sometimes mounted on the sponsons of paddle boats. The _Merrimac_ had
not a solid shot on board. Her guns were of unusual thickness at the
breech and thinner than the European guns in that part called the
chase, which lies between the trunnions and the muzzle. Their mounting,
also, presented some peculiarities. There was no hinder truck, the
force of the recoil being taken up by the friction of the carriage
against the deck, but the gun recoiled sufficiently on discharge to
permit of reloading; while, instead of the hinder truck, a contrivance
attached to the end of a handspike was thrust under the gun carriage.
There were, in addition, a number of smaller guns.
[Illustration: THE “MERRIMAC” BEFORE CONVERSION.]
[Illustration: THE “MERRIMAC” AS CONVERTED INTO AN IRONCLAD. _From
Photographs supplied by the U.S. Navy Department._]
The next that was heard of the _Merrimac_ was that when the Federals
found it necessary to burn certain stores and ships which could not
be removed beyond reach of the Confederates after the American
War began, she was one of those set on fire and then sunk. The
Confederates, being short of ships--indeed, they seem to have
been short of everything except enthusiasm and a belief in their
cause--raised her to see what could be done with her. All her upper
works had been destroyed, and her hull somewhat damaged, but she was
held to be sound enough to be worth fitting out afresh. Accordingly,
to meet Commander Brooke’s design, she was cut down to the water-line,
and given a superstructure in the shape of an ugly, squat rectangular
deck-house with sloping sides, and was referred to afterwards by her
northern opponents as a floating barn. The over-all deck length of
this casemate was about 170 feet. Its sloping walls were framed of
pine twenty inches thick, upon which oak planking four inches thick
was laid, and outside this two sets of iron plates, formed by rolling
out railway rails, were laid, the first horizontally and the outermost
vertically. Both sets of plates were fastened on by bolts 1⅜ inches
thick, passing through to the back of the timber. The sides sloped
considerably, according to some writers 35 degrees, while others put
the inclination at 45 degrees. The intention was that any shot striking
her should only inflict a glancing blow and ricochet harmlessly. For
the same reason the ends of the casemate were given a similar angle,
but instead of being straight like the sides, were semi-circular, or
almost so. The top of the structure was covered by an iron grating,
which served the double purpose of permitting the ventilation of the
interior and keeping out missiles. This grating measured about 20 feet
by 120 feet. Her armament consisted of two 7-inch rifle guns mounted
on pivots so that they could be fired through any of the ports in the
sides of the casemate, a 6-inch rifled gun on either broadside, and
three 9-inch smooth-bore Dahlgren guns. Altogether she had fourteen
gunports. To add to her effectiveness, an iron ram was affixed to the
bow. Her stern lay very little above the water, but the highest point
of the bow was about two feet above the sea. Her conning tower, a cone
three feet high and protected by four inches of armour, was placed
beyond the forward end of the casemate. Her funnel was unprotected.
Though supposed to be renamed the _Virginia_, she never lost her old
name of _Merrimac_.
Against the wooden ships in Hampton Roads she was invulnerable. Even at
point-blank range their broadsides did not suffice to stop her. This
was her trial trip, and her engines, patched up after their experiences
in the fire and at the bottom of the harbour, could only get her along
at about four miles an hour, and her crew had never been afloat in
her before. Nevertheless her commander, Franklin Buchanan, combined
the trial trip with active service, and attacked the northern ships
with a determination which carried consternation to the North. The
wooden _Cumberland_ was blown up and the _Congress_ sunk, the latter as
the result of an application of the ram, which, however, injured the
ramming vessel so much that the future effectiveness of her ram was
greatly reduced. Buchanan was so badly wounded in this engagement that
he was unable to command the _Merrimac_ in her duel the next day with
the _Monitor_.
The _Monitor_, designed by Ericsson, was built under very arbitrary
conditions. When it became known that the _Merrimac_ was under
construction, President Lincoln advertised for something to meet her
on equal terms, and Ericsson tendered. He pointed out that the armour
plates of the _Gloire_ or _Warrior_ would be useless against the heavy
12-inch wrought-iron gun he had brought out in 1840, in connection
with Colonel Robert Stockton, and as he pledged himself that he could
complete in a hundred days a steam vessel carrying two of such guns
placed in a turret which should be armour-plated and proof against
the heaviest guns the Confederates could place in the _Merrimac_,
his tender was accepted. Ericsson was hampered in his work by the
interference of the government officials, hardly any of whom understood
his plans, but all of whom thought themselves competent to improve upon
them. Considering the limitations under which his undertaking had to be
accomplished, the _Monitor_ was a remarkable vessel in every respect.
He had to draw out his plans to scale, have all the parts designed,
see that everything was made as he designed it, and supervise the
construction of the ship and engines, and the whole of this work had to
be done within a stated time. The adventure, for such it unquestionably
was, was hailed throughout the length and breadth of America as the
work of a madman. Like all innovations destined to play an important
part in the world’s history, it was greeted with derision and abuse.
There were a few people on both sides of the Atlantic who recognised
the importance of the change in naval construction which Ericsson’s
ship inaugurated. These were they who had profited by the lessons of
the armoured gunboats or floating batteries employed by the French
and English in the Crimean War. They saw that if small but powerfully
armed ships could effectively attack powerful shore batteries, and
by reason of their shape could never receive a direct blow but only
glancing shots, a vessel carrying a circular fort which also could not
receive a direct blow must be superior to any vessel afloat, especially
if its fort or turret were so heavily armoured as to be proof against
the heaviest ordnance to whose fire it should be subjected. Moreover,
if the hull were made to offer the least possible mark to an enemy,
the difficulty of striking the vessel to sink it would be greatly
increased. The form of the vessel was such that if it were used as a
ram the weight behind the ram would be in a horizontal plane with
the ram at the point of contact, and greater injury would thereby be
inflicted upon the side of an opposing vessel than were there a greater
amount of weight above the horizontal plane.
These considerations were ably supported by Admiral Porter, of the
United States Navy, who was well aware of the value of such a means
of attack even if the propelling engines could not give the ship a
speed of more than four or five miles an hour. The gallant admiral
himself was the butt of no slight amount of ridicule by his emphatic
declaration that the _Monitor_ “is the strongest floating vessel in the
world and can whip anything afloat.” The vessel was built of iron, and
can best be described as a shallow, oblong box, with sloping sides,
having upon it a pointed, flat, shallow box or raft with a stumpy,
circular tower or turret amidships. This box or upper part projected a
considerable distance all round above the lower part, and especially
so at the stern; and had not the whole vessel been very strongly
constructed, the fearful blows which the under-part of the projection
received from the sea as it rose and fell on the waves on its passage
from New York to Hampton Roads would have driven the two parts asunder.
[Illustration: THE “MONITOR”-“MERRIMAC” DUEL. _From a Photograph of a
Contemporary Drawing supplied by the U.S. Navy Department._]
Up to the last Ericsson was bothered by the government officials.
Had he been left to himself the ship would not have had such a
narrow escape from going to the bottom. They interfered with the
turret-bearings, with the result that when the sea washed over the low
deck, the water poured into the hold from all round the turret and put
out the fires in the engine room, when the fumes drove the engineers
out of their quarters and nearly poisoned everybody in the turret
through which all the outgoing ventilation had to be made. However,
the tugs got the vessel safely into smoother water, the furnace was
set going again, and the pumps were restarted, and by the time Hampton
Roads was reached the vessel was labouring along as best it could under
its own steam and with the aid of a couple of tugs. The narrow escape
the _Monitor_ had from foundering on this voyage served to stimulate
the chorus of disapproval, and there were not wanting many on the
northern side as well as on that of the south to predict the failure of
“Ericsson’s folly.”
Ericsson had confidence in his ship. He had never forgiven the British
Admiralty for its rejection of the screw propeller, nor for ignoring
his suggestions in regard to the _Princeton_, and one reason why he
chose the name of the _Monitor_, as he told the writer and others more
than once, was that it should be a perpetual reminder to the British
Admiralty of the chance it had lost.
In the turret were two 11-inch Dahlgren smooth-bores which fired
solid iron shots weighing 135 to 136 lb. each with charges of 15 lb.
of powder, and were even more powerful than his own gun. Solid iron
stoppers closed the ports when the guns were run in. The deck had
five projections besides the turret. Right forward was a small square
pilot-house measuring four feet, and constructed of bars of iron nine
inches thick, and provided with a flat iron roof two inches thick. In
the sides of the pilot-house were narrow slits as sight holes. The
other projections were two small chimneys six feet high, removable
before an engagement, and two intake ventilators.
Neither side on the morrow shirked the coming duel. From the outset
the _Monitor_ was the better prepared. Her guns fired solid shot; the
_Merrimac_ had only shell and grape, neither of which was calculated
to do much harm to the _Monitor’s_ turret, whereas the blow of the
_Monitor’s_ shot upon the sloping sides of the _Merrimac’s_ battery was
bound to be delivered with terrific force, even though the blows were
slanting. For another thing, the southern vessel was built of wood and
had already suffered severely in the hard contest at short range with
the battleships the previous afternoon; her engines were shaky, and her
steering gear worked worse than before; and the experiences of some of
her crew, coupled with the wounding of her commander, had not been such
as to leave their confidence unshaken. The _Merrimac_ was now commanded
by Commodore Tatnall, the hero of the episode in the Anglo-American
attack some years before upon the Chinese forts at Peiho, when he
justified the participation of the Americans by the famous remark
that “blood is thicker than water.” Tatnall proved himself a worthy
successor to Buchanan.
When the _Merrimac_ sallied forth the next morning intending to
complete the destruction of the northern warships, she found the
_Monitor_ waiting for her. Notwithstanding the inferiority of his
ammunition, Tatnall never hesitated for a moment. The firing between
the two ships was mostly at short range, and by the time the battle was
over both vessels had had enough of it. Neither side admitted defeat,
but neither side had succeeded in destroying the other. The _Monitor_
was struck twenty-two times, and in return she fired forty-one shots.
Precisely how many of these were effective on the southern ship is
not known, but including the fight of the previous day, she was found
afterwards to have no fewer than ninety-seven indentations on her
armour. Her layers of plating were shattered, and the heavy wooden
backing was splintered, but not one of the heavy shots of the _Monitor_
succeeded in penetrating the _Merrimac_. The backing only splintered
where the heavy shot had struck direct blows. Nine of the Confederate
shells struck the turret, and the pilot-house was struck twice, and the
other projections and the deck also showed marks of the enemy’s fire.
The result of the battle was that the _Monitor_ was able to resume
hostilities and the _Merrimac_ was so badly crippled that she could not
do so.
The steering gear and anchor of the _Monitor_ were protected by the
overhanging deck, and were out of reach of the _Merrimac’s_ fire. This
arrangement was repeated with modifications in most of the northern
monitors afterwards built, and greatly puzzled the Confederates until
they discovered the method by which the vessels could be anchored or
lift anchor without anyone appearing on deck.
It should be remembered that the _Merrimac_ had to contend not only
against the _Monitor_, but also against the gunboats of the northern
fleet, which fired upon her whenever they had a chance.
The subsequent fate of these two typical ironclads is interesting. The
_Monitor_ was sent to sea in weather she could never hope to contend
against, and went to the bottom. When the fortunes of war drove the
Confederates away from the positions they had occupied at Hampton
Roads, the _Merrimac_ was scuttled by her commander to prevent her
falling into the hands of the Federals. Both sides went on building
ironclads of the types they had introduced. The Federals rapidly
acquired a fleet of monitors, because they were convinced of the
superiority of that type of vessel, and had almost unlimited resources.
The South built a few more broadside ironclads because it had no option
in the matter. It was a case of taking wooden steamers and plating them
as best it could with rolled-out railway metals, boiler plates, and, in
fact, anything metallic that could be bolted on.
The _Atlanta_, formerly the English steamer _Fingal_, was cut down
much as the _Merrimac_ had been, and given a heavy wooden casemate
plated with iron. The two monitors, _Nahant_ and _Weehawken_, were
waiting for her, and when she set out from Savannah to look for them,
they followed. So also did some steamers carrying a large number
of Southerners who went to see their ship defeat the monitors. The
_Atlanta_ fired one shot at the _Weehawken_ and missed, and the monitor
returned the compliment by steaming to within 800 yards and firing her
heavy 15-inch gun. The projectile smashed the _Atlanta’s_ armour and
wooden backing, and the flying splinters wounded sixteen of the crew.
She returned the fire two or three times without hitting once, but the
_Weehawken’s_ second shot smashed the pilot-house and the third started
the casemate from the deck. The _Atlanta_ surrendered in fifteen
minutes after the firing of the first shot. Her subsequent employment
was as a guardship in the northern fleet. The _Nahant_ did not fire.
The _Albemarle_, another Confederate ram of the _Merrimac_ type, had
a short but exciting career. She carried only two 100-pounder rifled
guns, pivoted to fire end-on or on the broadside. Her first exploit
was to ram the northern gunboat _Southfield_, in the Albemarle Sound;
her ram entered about 10 feet, and the _Southfield_ began to sink so
rapidly that, before she rolled off the _Albemarle’s_ ram, she nearly
took the latter down with her. The _Albemarle_ afterwards fought a
pitched battle with four northern paddle-wheel gunboats, and although
she was rammed and damaged, she held her own. Her destruction may be
said to have heralded the introduction of the torpedo boat, and for
this reason is referred to in a subsequent chapter.
[Illustration: THE “MONITOR” AND “ALBEMARLE” _From a Painting by
Müller._]
[Illustration: FEDERAL GUNBOAT “ST. LOUIS.” _From Photographs supplied
by the U.S. Navy Department._]
Another most notable example in these improvised ironclads was the ram
_Tennessee_, which was designed and commanded by Commodore Tatnall.
This vessel played a conspicuous part in the defence of Mobile
against the Federal fleet under Admiral Farragut, in August, 1864.
The _Tennessee_ was admirably designed for the purpose intended,
which was that of an ironclad, heavily armed, and able to ram; but
unfortunately for her, she could not be got completely ready in time,
nor was it possible to give her the armoured protection or the weighty
artillery which had been contemplated at first; nevertheless, her
commander fought her well, and that she came absolutely to grief was
due to hasty construction and lack of material to put into her, rather
than to any fault in the design of the ship itself. Her battle with the
Union fleet shows with what grim determination the ship was fought.
“There was a brush with the ironclad ram,” says an American writer,
“but it was not serious, and the fleet came to anchor three miles up
the bay. Farragut was planning to attack the ram as soon as it should
be dark enough to prevent the garrison seeing which was friend and
which foe; but the ram anticipated him and steamed direct for the
flagship (the _Hartford_) in the midst of the fleet. The Admiral at
once gave orders for every ship to attack her, not only with shot but
by ramming, and a desperate contest ensued. The ram had the advantage
in that she was sure of striking an enemy with every blow, while the
fleet had to avoid running and firing into one another. Their shot had
no effect on the sloping iron sides of the monster, and when the wooden
vessels rammed her they only splintered their own bows and only heeled
her over. But the monitors, with their enormous guns, shot away her
smoke-stack and steering apparatus, and jammed her shutters, while one
15-inch shell actually penetrated her armour.”[38]
This heavy cannonade proved too much for her. With her armour battered,
her machinery damaged, her commander badly wounded, her steering gear
disabled, she lay helpless at the mercy of her foes and surrendered.
Another type of ironclad which the Confederates employed was known
as the _David_, because though small it was hoped it would deal as
effectively with the big northern warships as its Hebrew namesake had
dealt with Goliath of old. The parallel, however, ceases with the name.
The first American _David_ was tried at Charleston, in October, 1863.
She was cigar-shaped, 54 feet long, and 6 feet in diameter, and carried
a small steam engine to drive a small screw propeller. Her one weapon
was a spar torpedo, and when she had exploded it she was expected to
go to the bottom with such of her crew as did not happen to be able to
save themselves.
Many brave deeds have been done in war by combatants and non-combatants
alike, but the cool courage of the pilot or steersman of the first
_David_ will take some beating. Her initial attack was directed against
the ironclad ship _Ironsides_, named in commemoration of the “Old
Ironsides,” and whether failure or success attended the attempted
destruction of the ship, those on the _David_ knew they were engaged
in a forlorn hope. Only the funnel and pilot-house of the little
vessel were discernible above the sea level, and even they were not
very conspicuous. The _David_ was hailed, and replied with a volley of
musketry, and an instant later a torpedo exploded against the sides of
the warship. It lifted her and shook her, but inflicted no material
damage worth speaking of, but the moral effect was considerable, as the
Federals knew the Confederates had now devised a new means of attacking
them. At the moment of the explosion the four or five men composing the
crew of the _David_ jumped overboard, as it was thought she would be
swamped by the backwash of the explosion. She did not sink, however,
and the pilot held on to her for his life, for he was the only man on
board who could not swim. The engineer swam to her, and together they
took her back to Charleston.
On the Mississippi and the other American rivers both sides improvised
as gunboats anything that had an engine in it and a platform upon which
a gun could be carried. Small tug-boats were given turtle-back armour,
too thin to be of use, whence some of them got the name of tin-clads
in contradistinction to the ironclads; big side-wheel steamers were
protected with anything that could be utilised for the purpose, from
logs to bags of ashes, and ordinary river cargo steamers and barges
were also found very adaptable. It may, indeed, be doubted if in any
war there has been such an assemblage of opposing warships improvised
from the most unpromising materials as in the American Civil War. The
majority of them were not of great use as combatants, notwithstanding
that their crews usually handled them with reckless bravery, and
after the passage of the Mississippi mouth had been forced and the
northern warships were able to ascend the river, the fighting value of
these makeshifts became almost a negative quantity. In the absence of
superior force, however, there was no telling what they might attempt,
for their crews were as reckless as they were daring.
When the Civil War began, Edwin Stevens offered the Federal Government,
at his own expense, a small vessel called the _Naugatuck_. This was a
twin-screw vessel, which could be immersed two feet below her load-line
and raised again in eight minutes by pumping out the water admitted
into the tanks. The solitary gun was mounted on a revolving carriage,
and the recoil taken by rubber disc springs. It was loaded, directed
and fired from below the deck, the loading being accomplished by
bringing the depressed gun opposite a hole in the deck, provided for
the purpose.[39] She carried a Parrott gun, a 100-pounder, and was one
of the fleet that attacked the _Merrimac_. Her twin screws enabled her
to turn from end to end in seventy-five seconds. She did good service
on the James River, until her gun burst; her crew, thanks to her
protecting deck, escaping injury. This vessel is chiefly of interest
because of the method of placing and loading the gun.
[Illustration: THE _NAUGATUCK_.]
[Illustration: THE GUN-CARRIAGE OF THE _NAUGATUCK_.]
Ericsson’s inventive genius was responsible in 1861, before the war
broke out, for a vessel of 3,033 tons, which he named the _Dictator_,
but she was not launched until 1863, the builders being the Delamater
Iron Works. She was an iron-framed vessel, and had a wooden skin 3½
feet thick. The iron protecting her sides was 11 inches thick, 5 inches
of which were solid bars measuring 3 inches by 5 inches, and the
other portion was built up in single 1-inch plates. Her ram, a heavy
structure of oak and iron, projected 22 feet beyond the bow. On deck
she carried a single turret with an inside diameter of 24 feet. The
walls of the turret were protected by 15 inches of iron plates, each 1
inch in thickness, and weighed 500 tons. Her engine was of Ericsson’s
vibrating lever type with two cylinders 100 inches in diameter, and
indicating 5,000 h.p. The screw was 21 feet 6 inches in diameter,
with a pitch of 34 feet, and was cast in one piece, its weight being
17⅖ tons. The _Dictator’s_ armament was two smooth-bore 15-inch guns,
known as Ericsson guns, which were of the same type as he introduced
into America on behalf of Col. Stockton, and with a charge of 80 lb. of
powder, threw a round shot weighing 460 lb. The ship was 320 feet long,
50 feet broad, and drew 22 feet of water.
In the subsequent monitors the conning tower was placed above the
turret as in the case of the _Passaic_. Monitors were built later
with two turrets, and a flying deck connected them. They were of much
greater dimensions than the single turret ships, and carried twice the
number of guns, and being considerably heavier and faster and more
extensively armoured, were exceedingly capable fighting machines.
But the wooden warships were not destined to pass away without making a
gallant struggle well worthy of the traditions of centuries. The last
great battles in which they engaged were at New Orleans and Mobile,
and well they acquitted themselves. Stranded, rammed, and almost set
on fire, as they were time after time, they yet carried on an unequal
contest until they achieved splendid victories at these places. Not
even torpedoes, as mines were then called, daunted Admiral Farragut,
who, at Mobile, when a ship that was leading hesitated and nearly threw
the whole line into disorder, inquired, “What is the matter?”
“Torpedoes,” was the answer.
“Damn the torpedoes,” roared Farragut from his usual place in the
rigging, to which he was accustomed to mount in order to see over the
smoke. Whereupon his ship, the _Hartford_, assumed the lead.
On the Atlantic coast the South endeavoured to maintain its unequal
contest by means of blockade runners and privateers. Foremost among
these were the _Shenandoah_, which has the distinction of being the
only ship to carry the Confederate flag round the world; the _Sumter_,
a small commerce destroyer, commanded by Captain Raphael Semmes,
who afterwards had the _Alabama_; and the last-named herself. The
_Sumter_ was described by Captain Semmes as a “stone which had been
rejected of the builders,” and he says that he endeavoured to work
it into the building which the Confederates were then rearing. “The
vessel was reported to him as a small propeller steamer of 500 tons
burden, sea-going, with a low-pressure engine, sound, and capable of
being so strengthened as to be enabled to carry an ordinary battery
of four or five guns. Her speed was reported to be between nine and
ten knots, but unfortunately, said the Board, she carried but five
days’ fuel, and has no accommodation for the crew of a ship of war.
She was, accordingly, condemned. When I finished reading the report,
I turned to the Secretary and said, ‘Give me that ship; I think I can
make her answer the purpose.’ My request was at once acceded to; the
Secretary telegraphed to the Board to receive the ship, and the clerks
of the Department were set at work to hunt up the necessary officers to
accompany me, and make out the proper orders. And this is the way in
which the Confederate States’ steamer _Sumter_, which was to have the
honour of being the first ship of war to throw the new Confederate flag
to the breeze, was commissioned.”
He got her into shape somehow, and she began her adventurous career
by running the blockade in a most daring fashion at Pass a l’Outre,
in spite of the presence of the _Brooklyn_, which was faster and more
heavily armed. She beat the northern ship simply because she could sail
nearer to the wind. After six months’ experience of this ship, he says
that “in her best days the _Sumter_ had been very inefficient, being
always anchored, as it were, in the deep sea, by her propeller whenever
she was out of coal. A fast ship propelled entirely by sail power would
have been better.” She captured seventeen ships, consistently dodged
five or six northern ships, and at last had to be laid up at Gibraltar.
She afterwards sailed as the _Gibraltar_ under the English flag as a
merchant vessel, and made one successful voyage as a blockade runner
to Charleston, South Carolina, and went to the bottom of the North Sea
soon afterwards.
The _Sumter’s_ battery consisted of an 8-inch shell gun pivoted
amidships and four 32-pounders of 13 cwt. each for broadside firing.
The slide and circle for the pivot gun were constructed of railway
iron. She captured seven prizes in two days, and escorted six of them
into the harbour of Cienfuegos at once.
The _Alabama_ was built at Birkenhead under a contract with the
Confederate States, and was paid for out of the Confederate treasury.
“The _Alabama_ had been built in perfect good faith by the Lairds. When
she was contracted for, no question had been raised as to the right of
a neutral to build and sell to a belligerent such a ship.”[40] Be that
as it may, the settlement of the _Alabama_ claims proved an expensive
item for Great Britain. She was responsible for the destruction of no
fewer than sixty-seven American ships, and such was the terror she
inspired that the armed frigate _Kearsarge_ was sent to hunt her down
and exterminate her. Soon after embarking on her privateering, the
_Alabama_ fought and sank the _Hatteras_ in the only engagement she was
concerned in until she met her fate at the guns of the _Kearsarge_.
There was not much to choose between the ships in size, but in all
other respects the advantage lay with the northern ship, which had
further strengthened her sides with a concealed belt of chain cables.
“As for the ships,” writes Captain Semmes in “Service Afloat,”
“though the enemy was superior to me, both in size, staunchness of
construction, and armament, they were of force so nearly equal,
that I cannot be charged with rashness in having offered battle.
The _Kearsarge_ mounted seven guns--two 11-inch Dahlgrens, four
32-pounders, and a rifled 28-pounder. The _Alabama_ mounted eight--one
8-inch, one rifled 100-pounder, and six 32-pounders. Though the
_Alabama_ carried one gun more than her antagonist, it is seen that the
battery of the latter enabled her to throw more metal at a broadside,
there being a difference of three inches in the bore of the shell-guns
of the two ships. Still the disparity was not so great but that I
might hope to beat my enemy in a fair fight. But he did not show me a
fair fight, for, as it afterwards turned out, his ship was iron-clad.
It was the same thing as if two men were to go out to fight a duel
and one of them, unknown to the other, were to put a shirt of mail
under his outer garment.... By Captain Winslow’s own account, the
_Kearsarge_ was struck twenty-eight times; but his ship being armoured,
of course, my shot and shell, except in so far as fragments of the
latter may have damaged his spars and rigging, fell harmless into the
sea. The _Alabama_ was not mortally wounded until after the _Kearsarge_
had been firing at her an hour and ten minutes. In the meantime, in
spite of the armour of the _Kearsarge_, I had mortally wounded that
ship in the first thirty minutes of the engagement. I say ‘mortally
wounded her,’ because the wound would have proved fatal but for the
defect of my ammunition. I lodged a rifled percussion shell near her
sternpost--where there were no chains--which failed to explode because
of the defect of the cap. If the cap had performed its duty and
exploded the shell, I should have been called upon to save Captain
Winslow’s crew from drowning, instead of him being called upon to save
mine. On so slight an incident--the defect of a percussion cap--did the
battle hinge. The enemy was proud of this shell. It was the only trophy
they had ever got from the _Alabama_. We fought her until she would no
longer swim, and then we gave her to the waves.”
[Illustration: CAPTURE OF NEW ORLEANS--ATTACK ON FORT PHILIP. _From a
Contemporary Steel Engraving, showing improvised warships employed._]
The _Shenandoah_ was the name given by the Confederates to the
Glasgow-built auxiliary steamer _Sea-Horse_, which was the only ship
to carry the southern flag from Dixie’s Land to the Cape, thence to
Australia, and up to the North Pacific. She found her chief prey among
the American whalers.
CHAPTER VI
IRON SHIPS OF WAR--_continued_
The Admiralties, naval architects, and a great many other people
throughout the world were troubled for several years through trying to
reconcile all the divergent and often contradictory claims put forward
as to what should constitute a fighting ship. Those who troubled most
were those who knew least of the subject. The naval architects, having
to make the necessary calculations, were not without some knowledge of
the limitations of the materials at their disposal; and the Admiralties
left matters to the experts, whether employed by Governments or in
private shipbuilding establishments, confident that those who were best
acquainted with such a technical subject would be most likely to set
forth something possible of attainment and destined to show certain
definite results. And this has been the attitude of all Governments
towards all inventors, whether their inventions were of practical
utility or were merely the outcome of seeing visions and dreaming
dreams. This does not imply, however, acceptance of the official theory
that Government experts know everything.
Many people, after the American war, went turret-mad, and became
possessed of the idea that this country should own a numerous fleet
of monitors, so numerous, indeed, that every port all round the
British coasts should have two or three of such vessels in order
that an enemy’s fleet, usually conjectured by the turret enthusiasts
to consist of large two or three-decked battleships, should be met
by a succession of monitors each manned by a fresh crew and full
of ammunition, and reduced to submission if possible, or sunk, or
scattered as was the Spanish Armada, an historical allusion which these
good people found very useful as adding a picturesque touch. Nor were
the enthusiasts of other countries behind those of Great Britain in
their advocacy of their pet theories. Naval economists, who yet wished
to swim with the current of naval enthusiasm, did not hesitate to point
out the economy of construction to be effected by a fleet of monitors
or of small vessels carrying turrets. Some contended that no guns were
too heavy to be sent afloat, so that they should smash any armour by
the weight of their projectiles; and ingenious were the calculations to
demonstrate how easy it would be for a heavy gun, such as was used for
land fortifications, to be sent to demolish a hostile vessel whatever
her dimensions and armament. Others clamoured for the heaviest possible
armour, even if only moderately powerful artillery should be installed,
coupled with great ramming power. That every part of the ship should
be so heavily armoured as to be invulnerable was another contention
which found much favour, its adherents forgetting that too much armour
would sink the vessel; but its opponents rejected it in favour of
the concentration of the armour over the vital parts of the ships,
and leaving the ends unprotected or nearly so. Other claims were for
high speed, great coal capacity, large sail power, lofty freeboards,
seaworthiness, steadiness of gun platform, small size, shallow draught,
and comparative invisibility to an enemy’s gunners.[41]
As it was manifestly impossible to build ships which should meet the
requirements of all the nation’s advisers and be suitable to be sent
to perform all kinds of duties anywhere, armoured ships began to be
constructed of special types according to the work expected of them.
The first division was into battleships, armoured cruisers, and coast
defence ships.
As the result of Captain Coles’s advocacy of the turret system,
which he began in 1861, the Admiralty, when converting a number of
old and new wooden ships into ironclads, had one of them, the _Royal
Sovereign_, cut down, covered with armour, and given four armoured
revolving turrets placed on the upper deck in the middle line of the
ship. She marked the conversion of the Admiralty to the new order of
things which steam power and iron armour in combination had rendered
possible. One step in the process of conversion was that sail power was
no longer considered necessary in fighting vessels, another was that
the combatant part of every ship intended for heavy fighting should be
afforded as much protection as possible, and a third step was that the
guns should be few in number, of considerable power, and so disposed
as to have the widest possible range. This ship could fire all her
guns on either broadside, and also had a direct fire ahead and astern.
She started her career as a 131-gun line-of-battle ship, but after her
alterations she carried five 12-ton muzzle-loading guns, of which two
were in the foremost turret and one each in the others. She was also
the first of the converted vessels to be given a steel protective deck,
in her case two inches thick, but it was not curved so as to place the
edges below the water-line, and it consequently would not have afforded
any protection to the vessel had a shot penetrated the armour at the
water-line. Her low freeboard would have rendered her difficult to
hit, and she would have been able to approach an enemy and deliver a
telling fire at comparatively short range without running undue risk of
receiving much damage in return.
[Illustration: THE “PRINCE ALBERT” (SISTER SHIP TO THE “ROYAL
SOVEREIGN”) AS CONVERTED TO A TURRET SHIP. _From the Model in the Royal
Naval College, Greenwich._]
[Illustration: H.M.S. “MINOTAUR.” _Photograph by Symonds & Co.,
Portsmouth._]
The dimensions of the first British turret ship compare curiously with
those turret ships which followed her in rapid succession, both in
the British and other navies. She was 240 feet 7 inches in length, with
an extreme beam of 62 feet and a draught aft of 24 feet 11 inches.
Even after the launch of the _Warrior_ the Admiralty ordered a few
wooden ships, but in 1866 decided upon the adoption of iron warships.
One of the last and certainly one of the best to look at of the wooden
armour-plated ships was the steam frigate _Lord Clyde_, but as a sailer
she had many defects, of which slowness was not the least. In her case
the armour extended to the ends of the ship, and nowhere was it less
than 4½ inches in thickness, while at the water-line the armour plates
were 5½ inches thick. The sides of the entire battery deck from stem
to stern, and from 3 feet below to 3 feet above the ports, were plated
with 6-inch armour, of which one thickness of 1½ inches was bolted to
the ship’s frame, and the other, of 4½ inches, was placed upon the
outside of the planking. The armour went 6 feet below the water-line
amidships, and for the sake of lightness was only 4½ feet deep at the
ends. The gun ports were 8 feet 9 inches above the water-line, or 2
feet 6 inches higher than those of _La Gloire_. She was the first
vessel in the British Navy to carry an armour-plated bow battery on
the main deck. This armour plating also was carried upwards to protect
an upper-deck bow battery mounted under the ship’s forecastle. This
arrangement enabled her to fire four guns ahead, while exposing to
the enemy’s fire only the curved surface of her bow armour. She also
had a distance of 15 feet between each gun port on her main deck. Her
engines of 1,000 h.p. nominal, and 6,000 indicated, drove a two-bladed
Griffith’s adjustable propeller 28 feet in diameter.
From 1860 to 1866 ten broadside ironclads were added to the navy,
the last and the largest being the _Northumberland_ of 10,780 tons.
All these vessels, except the _Hector_ and _Minotaur_, carried
muzzle-loaders, but these two had breechloaders of the early Armstrong
screw type, which were soon superseded by more powerful weapons. The
_Minotaur_ carried fifty guns, the _Northumberland_ twenty-six.
Then followed the abandonment of the broadside and the confinement of
the heavy armament of an ironclad to a central battery protected by
thick iron side armour and armoured bulkheads, the only other portion
of the ship to be thus protected being that near the water-line. The
first of these in the British Navy was the _Bellerophon_, launched in
1865; she was of 7,550 tons displacement, and her engines, of 6,520
h.p. indicated, drove one screw and gave her a speed of fourteen
knots. Her thickest armour was 6 inches, and her heaviest gun a 12-ton
muzzle-loader. Altogether she carried fourteen guns, including one in a
small armoured citadel in the bows.
Great though the advantages were of the screw propeller, it was
admitted that it was not without many drawbacks. The single screw took
up a lot of room, weakened to some extent the structure of the stern,
and if anything happened to the engines or propeller the ship was
helpless and had to depend entirely upon whatever sail power she might
possess. To overcome this difficulty Messrs. J. and W. Dudgeon were
the first to build, from the designs of Mr. John Dudgeon, a twin-screw
ocean-going steamship. Twin and triple screws had been used before, but
were driven by the one engine.
Before this, however, Messrs. Dudgeon experimented with a small
iron vessel, of 400 tons, called the _Flora_, which was given two
independent engines and screws. The propellers were placed under the
counter, and proved the advantage of this position over that of the
practice, where two screws were used, of placing one before, and the
other behind the rudder. The advantage of placing the screw either
in a space cut in the deadwood, or, in the case of twin propellers,
under the counter, was much greater than the method at one time adopted
of placing the screw behind the rudder. Under the newer method the
steering power of the rudder was not impaired; but under the older
method, when the screw shaft was carried beyond the rudder, a slit
known as a “shark’s mouth” had to be made in the rudder so that the
upper and lower portions would be able to pass the screw shaft. The
practice of equipping the vessels with wells or recesses into which the
screw could be lifted was found to possess but slight advantages for
warships, and was ere long abandoned. The best that could be said for
it was that when a ship was travelling under sail only, the screw could
be lifted from the water and the strain upon the wooden stern caused by
dragging the screw, whether of the fixed or folded patterns, through
the water, or running loose, was avoided altogether.
The _Hebe_ was the third vessel on this principle built and engined
by Messrs. Dudgeon, and the advantages of the twin-screw system over
the single screw were again strikingly manifested during a series of
manœuvres. The _Hebe_ was an iron vessel of 470 tons, and 165 feet
long. The screws were three-bladed, 7 feet 6 inches in diameter, and
had a pitch of 15 feet, and were worked by two separate and independent
engines each having two cylinders 26 inches in diameter, with a 21-inch
stroke of piston, and being collectively of 120 nominal h.p. The tests
showed that the vessel with both screws working ahead could made a
complete circle in four minutes or less, and in still shorter time with
only one screw working and the helm thrown over, or with the two screws
working in opposite directions.
The tests were severe, but they proved more effectively than any tests
before had done the great superiority of the independent acting twin
screw over the single screw; and the results in far greater manœuvring
power, speed, and reliability were so satisfactory that the Admiralty
was most favourably impressed. The Messrs. Dudgeon, in 1863, built the
steamship _Far East_, and her launch and trial trip took place in the
presence of the representatives of the Admiralty. She was fitted with
twin screws which had a diameter of 8 feet 2 inches, and a pitch of
16 feet. The shafts of the screws were carried through a wrought-iron
tube bolted to a false iron bulkhead clear of the ship’s frame. The
Admiralty not long afterwards adopted twin-screw propellers. The
advantages of the twin screw were that were one to be disabled, the
other could propel the ship without trouble, and that as an aid to
steering, one screw could be sent astern and the other worked ahead, so
as to turn the vessel in little more than her own length.
The _Penelope_, launched in 1867, was the first twin-screw ocean-going
ironclad belonging to the Navy, and she was, moreover, the first
government owned warship in which each screw had its own engine,
as compared to the two screws geared to one engine in the floating
batteries of the Crimean days. She was of 4,470 tons displacement, and
her engines of 4,700 indicated h.p. gave her a speed of between twelve
and thirteen knots. Each of her twin screws was fitted to a distinct
stern with separate deadwood and rudder, an arrangement which neither
added to the steering capabilities of the ship nor increased its
structural strength at the stern. The _Penelope_ had recessed ports to
allow of increased training of the guns.
Captain Coles, to whom, notwithstanding the sad fate which overtook
the _Captain_, this country is somewhat indebted for his consistent
advocacy of the adoption of the turret on sea-going ships, urged upon
the Admiralty the superiority of the turret over the broadside system.
His contrivance differed from that of Ericsson in the important
particular that Ericsson’s turret was supported on a pivot which rested
upon bearings at the bottom of the ship, whereas Captain Coles’s turret
rested upon bearings supported in a specially constructed room resting
upon the beams of the deck, which, in turn, were strongly supported
from below. In regard to the thickness of armour there was little
to choose between the two. Captain Coles brought his design before
the notice of the United Service Institution in 1860, and although
it attracted a great deal of attention among naval constructors
and manufacturers of naval artillery, only one nation was then of
sufficient courage to order an experimental ship. That nation was
Denmark, and it is to that country that the honour must be given of
having the first ship in which the broadside system of gun-fire was
entirely abandoned and the turret system installed instead. This vessel
was the _Rolf Krake_, an iron double-turreted monitor with lowering
bulwarks. She was engaged in the war against Prussia, in 1864, when she
took part in a fierce duel with the Prussian batteries at Eckernsünde.
The batteries fired 24-pounder rifled Krupp guns, and though the
ironclad was struck about one hundred and fifty times, her armour was
sufficient to withstand the shot, and she certainly inflicted a great
deal more damage than she received.
Numerous experiments were made in France and in this country with the
object of determining the special characteristics of a vessel which
should meet the rapidly altering condition of affairs caused by the
increase of the power of the guns and the development of the torpedo
from the stationary mine, which was so terrifying in the American
War, to the torpedo which could attack a vessel at anchor, or even
be directed at one moving slowly. The requirements were a moderate
displacement, increased protection, and ability to carry heavier guns
capable of fore and aft fire as well as over the broadside. The problem
was not an easy one by any means. The cellular double bottom system was
extended as a precaution against torpedoes; the number of guns and the
extent of the armour were lessened, but the thickness of the armour was
increased in order to protect the vital parts and the guns from the
fire of the newer and more powerful ordnance, while to compensate for
the increased weight in the middle third of the ship, the beam was made
greater in proportion to the length.
[Illustration: FOUNDERING OF THE “AFFONDATORE” IN THE HARBOUR OF
ANCONA. _Reproduced by permission of the “Illustrated London News.”_]
[Illustration: WRECK OF THE “CAPTAIN.” _From a Contemporary Wood
Engraving._]
Matters were in this experimental stage when the first engagement
was fought between European fleets, each of which included sea-going
ironclads. The battle of Lissa, in 1866, was no less remarkable for the
crushing defeat which the Austrians inflicted on the Italians than for
the fact that that defeat was against all that the naval experts had
considered to be the natural order of things. The Italian fleet was
more numerous than the Austrian; it had more ironclads, its armament
was greater, it had a greater number of wooden warships of various
sorts and sizes; but as a powerful offset to all these advantages
it had an amount of muddle and disorganisation truly appalling. The
Italian fondness for big ships and big guns was as much in evidence
in the fleet of 1866 as in the immense armoured ships _Duilio_ and
_Dandolo_, which that country built a few years later, and to which
a more extended reference is made on another page. Its principal
ships in the attack on Lissa and the subsequent engagement with the
Austrian fleet were the _Re d’Italia_ and the _Re di Portogallo_--two
American-built vessels of 5,700 tons, old measurement. They were plated
with armour 7 inches thick. They were designed to carry, the former two
150-pounders, and thirty 6-inch guns and four smooth-bore guns; and the
latter two 300-pounders, and twenty-six 6-inch guns. These ships were
poorly constructed, and the design was so faulty that the rudders
were left without protection and open to destruction by ramming or
gun-fire--a weakness of which the Austrians took full advantage. There
was also a turret ram called the _Affondatore_, 4,070 tons, built at
Millwall, and armed with two 300-pounder Armstrong guns in two turrets,
which was supposed to epitomise all the lessons of the American War.
Her ram projected 26 feet, and what with this and her big guns and her
thick armour, the Italians expected her to do wonders. As sea-boats the
three were about equally bad. There were also two French-built small
rams, _Terribile_ and _Formidabile_, of 2,700 tons. The French at that
time favoured comparatively small ships with large rams for coast and
harbour defence, giving them iron plating 4½ inches thick, and 6-inch
rifled guns as their principal weapons. Of the broadside ironclads
there were four, of about 4,700 tons each, and belted from stem to
stern at the water-line. There were, besides, two armoured gunboats
which carried two 150-pounder Armstrongs and some smaller guns. The
Italian fleet also had a number of steam-engined wooden vessels. The
Austrian fleet had six very indifferent ironclads, slow, none too well
armed, smooth-bores of no great size predominating, and a few other
vessels, mostly of wood, of little fighting value, but capable of
holding in check the Italian wooden ships for a time at all events. The
Austrian ships were the _Drache_, _Kaiser Maximilian_, _Prinz Eugen_,
and _Salamander_, whose tonnage ranged from 3,400 to 3,800, each
carrying 4½-inch armour of home manufacture; the steam line-of-battle
ship _Kaiser_, four steam frigates, and some smaller boats. These were
practically ready for sea when hostilities were commenced. The two
unfinished ironclads _Habsburg_ and _Ferdinand Maximilian_ were got
ready in an improvised fashion and given smooth-bore guns; and the _Don
Juan_, another vessel in a state of even greater unpreparedness, had
the deficiencies in her armour made good with heavy wooden beams. The
Italians had two hundred and seventy-six rifled cannon to one hundred
and twenty-one on the Austrian ships.
The Austrian Admiral, Tegethoff, was a man who left nothing to chance.
He knew what he had to do, and he had that genius for command which
enables a man to do his best with the materials at his disposal. Great
though he knew the discrepancy to be between his own fleet and that
of the Italians, it is a remarkable testimony to his organising power
that he was able at the first glimpse he had of the Italian fleet to
understand the extraordinary lack of cohesion that characterised it
from first to last, and to prepare to meet it with every expectation of
victory. He placed his fleet in wedge formation with the intention of
breaking the enemy’s line of ironclads with his own ironclads, so as to
avoid subjecting his weaker vessels to the fire of the heavier Italian
vessels, as might have been done had he attacked the Italian line
near or beyond its centre. He also intended to ram the Italian ships
whenever he had a chance, but though the chances later were numerous,
the ram proved a less effective weapon than had been expected. The
duty of the Austrian smaller vessels was to rake with their guns the
Italian ships after the heavier Austrian ships should have thrown them
into confusion, for owing to the longer range of the Italian guns and
the heavier weight of their projectiles, the Italians had a superiority
at long-range fighting which the Austrian commander was by no means
disposed to allow them to turn to their advantage.
The ships on both sides were slow, those of the Austrians being worse
even than those of the Italians. This may to some extent explain
the comparative ineffectiveness of the ram, the blow being of not
sufficient force to inflict much harm. The Austrian ships were to “ram
everything grey,” the Italian fleet having been painted a conspicuous
light grey which made them easily distinguishable; whereas the Austrian
ships were black, but their funnels were differently painted, so that
any one of them could be identified in a moment. The shock when the
_Ferdinand Maximilian_ rammed the _Re d’Italia_ was not very violent,
but, possibly on account of the weakness of construction of the hull,
the ram did its work. A gaping wound was formed in its side through
which the water rushed, and the great ship, after giving a couple of
rolls, like some ocean leviathan in agony, heeled heavily over and
went down, the first sea-going ironclad to be lost in this manner. The
Austrians were appalled for the moment at the result of the experiment,
for such, indeed, it was. Disablement had been expected, but that such
a powerful ship should be sent under the waves in a few moments by a
single blow was a result that had not been anticipated. The Austrian
ship rammed three Italian vessels, but this was the only one of her
victims to succumb. The _Re di Portogallo_ received a similar attention
from the _Kaiser_, but the blow, though delivered with all the force
of which the ship was capable, did herself as much harm as the other,
for she lost her bowsprit and foremast, and left her figurehead in
the gap formed in the side where it was wrenched off by the blow. The
_Kaiser_ had previously passed three of the Italian ships, but thanks
to her armour the few shots which struck her caused no damage. The
_Re di Portogallo_ was little the worse for the ramming, and when it
had the Austrian ship at its mercy a moment later, lost, by delay and
incompetence, the opportunity to pour in a broadside.
The _Kaiser_ was not built to be used to ram heavy vessels, or else her
designers had underestimated the resistance she would have to encounter
in striking another ship, the iron plates forming her bows being
carried rather forward so that she had really a blunt projecting nose
under water. Curiously enough, the only damage she sustained was a few
plates started from the bows under the water-line.
As to the results of the fighting, the armour fully justified its use.
The Austrian ships were struck several times by the heavy Italian shot
and shells, but not once did the Italian projectiles penetrate both the
armour and the backing, while for the most part the injuries caused
by them were insignificant. The Italians lost two ironclads, and a
third, the _Affondatore_, went down a few days afterwards as the result
of the knocking about the Austrians gave her. But the injuries which
caused the loss of these three Italian vessels were received below the
water-line. Their armour was badly battered, but the ships themselves
were little the worse. The 4-inch armour of one of the Italian ships
was penetrated, but the backing prevented the shot going farther. The
Austrians did not lose one ship, and on their armoured ships they had
only three men killed, while on the wooden ships they lost thirty-eight
killed and one hundred and thirty-eight wounded. The Italian losses are
unknown, as a number of men were drowned when the two ironclads went
under.
Even after the Italians were defeated they were still as strong
as their opponents, but dared not attack them; while the Austrian
commander deemed discretion the better part of rashness, and,
contenting himself with having compelled the Italians to retire from
Lissa, was confident that they would not attempt to attack him after
the losses they had sustained, which had rendered them even more
hopelessly disorganised than before the battle, if that were possible.
The Italians, in spite of the vainglorious boasting in which they
were pleased to indulge, were in no mood for another sea-fight. They
were short now of ammunition, and their sailors were completely
disheartened. Some of the commanders and all the crews showed
extraordinary bravery in maintaining the fight when the circumstances,
though not the odds, were against them, but the other commanders were
remarkable for incompetence and some of them for cowardice, for they
had no plan of action, one at least fled as soon as the shooting began,
and one or two others were careful to keep out of harm’s way. The main
lessons drawn from this engagement were that armour was indispensable
in protecting a ship from the effects of hostile shot, and that the gun
must remain the chief weapon of naval warfare. The advantage given to a
numerically weaker side by superiority in organisation and efficiency
had been too often demonstrated in previous engagements in the world’s
history to render attractive a repetition of the lesson, but it is
to be feared that the need of such lessons at frequent intervals has
not yet passed. It also showed that big ships and gigantic guns are
not of much account if the men who are to use them are untrained, and
that no matter how heavy the guns and far-reaching their range they
are of little use if the gunners miss nearly every time. The Austrian
concentration of fire upon a given spot, even though the firing were
only maintained by comparatively small guns, told its own tale. Ramming
only sent one ship down as the immediate result of the blow, but the
moral effect of the fear of being rammed was very great, as no crew,
seeing an enemy making straight for their ship, could foresee the
result. In any case, the damage was sure to be considerable. Yet the
Italian Admiral, when he had two splendid opportunities of ramming
his opponents with his most powerful vessel, the _Affondatore_,
deliberately turned his ship aside and shrank from delivering the
blows. The battle was noteworthy for its demonstration of the
importance of accurate gunnery; nearly all the Italian projectiles
passed over the Austrian ships, and the Italian gunners were heedless
whether they fired when their vessels were on the upward or the
downward roll. The trained Austrian gunners fired to hit.
Such lessons as the battle of Lissa was regarded as having presented
were accepted, more or less, in the ironclads constructed in the five
years immediately subsequent to that engagement.
The _Hercules_, begun in 1866, launched in 1868, and completed in 1869,
was intended to combine the best features of the _Black Prince_ and
_Minotaur_. She was built entirely of iron, was 325 feet long between
perpendiculars, 55 feet beam, and drew 34 feet 6 inches. The ram, a
solid forging, weighed 5 tons, the armour plate was 8 to 9 inches
thick, and weighed 1,145 tons; the weight of the bolts, nuts, and
washers used in securing the armour plates was 73 tons, and there were
also 91 tons of armour plates for the bulkheads, and 4 tons of bolts to
secure them. The bulwarks were of wood, but below them were two iron
strakes 6 inches thick, next a strake of 8-inch armour covering the
lower portion of the main deck or central box battery, then two strakes
of 6-inch plates, and then a belt of armour with a maximum thickness
of 9 inches extending the length of the ship and amply protecting her
some distance above and below the water-line; under this was another
strake of 6-inch plates resting on the double skin of the hull itself.
The 9-inch plates were backed by 10 inches of teak, inside which was
an iron skin 1½ inches thick supported by vertical frames 10 inches
deep and 2 feet apart, further stiffened by other beams. From the
lower deck downwards the wing passages were strengthened with 18 to 20
inches of teak, and backed by a ¾-inch iron skin, which was also most
substantially supported. The rest of the armour was backed by 10 or 12
inches of teak fastened to an iron skin 1½ inches thick, with a similar
strengthening of vertical and longitudinal frames. She carried eight
10-inch 18-ton guns, four on either broadside, the two foremost and the
two hindmost training through embrasures at the ends of the thwartship
bulkheads and through recesses in the iron-clad sides. These four
guns were established on what was known as Captain Scott’s turn-table
and racers. Two 12½-ton guns were in protected batteries on the same
deck, one at the bow and the other at the stern; three portholes were
provided for each of these guns, so that it could be fired either
in line of keel or on either side as necessary. Their weight made
her pitch deeply and recover slowly, thereby impeding her speed and
lessening the value of her gun-fire. She also carried some 6½-ton guns
on her upper deck. Special attention was paid to the protection of
the rudder head and steering apparatus, events at the battle of Lissa
having showed the imperative necessity of doing so. It was contended
on behalf of the _Hercules_ that her armour could not be penetrated by
the guns of any ship afloat. The 18-ton guns were the heaviest ever
worked in an ocean-going vessel up to that time, and were only 1½ tons
lighter than the famous 15-inch Rodman guns, which were the heaviest
that the American monitors had managed to work with success. Although
the immense guns of the _Hercules_ were muzzle-loaders, and discharged
400 lb. shots, it was found possible to fire the gun a second time in 1
minute 15 seconds after it had been fired once, but naturally this rate
of firing could not be kept up for long owing to the overheating of the
gun.
In the same year the _Monarch_, a full-rigged, double-turreted,
ocean-going ship, was launched, with a displacement of 8,320 tons.
Her turrets had 10-inch armour, while that of her belt and bulkheads
was 7 inches. Her engines were of 7,840 indicated h.p., and she had
a speed of about fourteen knots. The _Monarch_ was intended to have
all the advantages of a turreted vessel combined with the freeboard
of a sea-going ship. Her armament included four 25-ton 10-inch
muzzle-loading guns, and some lighter weapons under her raised poop
and forecastle, she being the first of the turreted vessels to have
a secondary armament. The raised poop and forecastle were added to
increase her seaworthiness, but though they accomplished this they only
did so at the expense of her direct fire ahead and astern from her
turret guns.
The adherents of the low freeboard sea-going turreted ship, as
advocated by Captain Coles, pinned their faith to the _Captain_, which
was launched at Birkenhead in 1869, and was of 6,950 tons register.
Probably no warship’s designs were ever more bitterly criticised
and condemned by one party and upheld by another than those of the
_Captain_. This ship had several features to recommend her, and
several others which more than counterbalanced the conditions she was
supposed to embody. The believers in the _Captain_ argued that she
represented what a sea-going turret ship should be, being powerfully
armed, of good speed, well armoured, powerfully engined, and able to
use extensive sail power if necessary. That she possessed all these
qualities is unquestionable. Her engines of 900 h.p. nominal gave her
a speed of thirteen knots. Her heaviest gun was the 25-ton 12-inch
muzzle-loader. Her freeboard as designed was 8 feet 6 inches, but when
she was in sea-going trim it was found that her actual freeboard was
6 feet 8 inches, through some error in the calculations, and this,
added to the fact that she carried a large spread of canvas, caused
many misgivings as to her stability. In two cruises in the Channel
she gave every satisfaction, and it was contended that she really
had solved the problem of a low freeboard ship carrying canvas and
turrets, and able to go to sea. Her third cruise, in company with the
Channel fleet, marked the end of her career and of all the theories she
was supposed to represent with such conspicuous success, for during a
squall at night she rolled over and went to the bottom, taking nearly
all on board with her, among the lost being Captain Coles. The exact
circumstances of the disaster were never established; all that is known
is that with her low freeboard and small margin of stability she rolled
beyond the point at which recovery was possible.
As a reply to the _Monarch_ the _Captain_ was a failure, and the high
freeboard turret ship was a success. Whether the _Captain_ would have
done better under steam alone it is impossible to say; perhaps she
would, though she was under shortened sail at the time of the disaster.
Some professed to believe that the hull would have been stable had
it carried only one mast for signalling purposes, and suggested that
another vessel should be constructed to take her place, but the
experiment was never made. The _Captain_ was too heavy for her size,
and therefore lacked buoyancy; her weight was too much distributed, and
she had not the power to throw off quickly the water she took on board,
but “lay down under it,” to use a seaman’s expression.
Some six months before the _Captain_ was lost a ship was launched
which introduced another and most successful type, yet she was rather
an improvement on certain earlier vessels than an entirely modern
conception. This was the _Devastation_, and she was at once recognised
as the most powerful ship of war in the world. The _Glatton_, a single
turret ship, launched in 1869, may in some respects be regarded as the
forerunner of the _Devastation_. The _Glatton_ was a low freeboard
coast-defence monitor, modified to suit the conditions prevailing on
the English side of the Channel; but the _Devastation_, while still
being of comparatively low freeboard, was a sea-going ship, mastless,
so far as sails were concerned, and double turreted.
The _Devastation_ was the historical reply of the British naval
constructors to the much-vaunted American monitors, and also the
Admiralty’s reply to the _Captain_. She was so unlike anything else
afloat, that the writers of those days had difficulty in finding
anything to which they could compare her. One describes her as like
an “impregnable piece of Vauban fortification with bastions mounted
upon a fighting coal mine.” As a mastless turret ship or fighting
machine, she possessed powers of offence, defence, and manœuvring
greater than those of any other ship in the world. This ship, which
was built at Portsmouth, and the _Thunderer_, built at Pembroke, were
the pioneers of this class of vessel, and were the first to embody in
their construction the most perfect examples of the turret principle
as at that time understood, applied to a sea-going ship.[42] They were
superior to any others built or building as fighting machines, and in
their coal-carrying capacity. They were of 4,406 tons burden under the
old system of measurement. They were given 12 inches of rolled armour
plating on a teak backing built into an immensely strong framing, 18
inches in thickness, which was further backed with an iron skin 1½
inches thick. There was not only the increased thickness of the armour,
but also its quality to be taken into consideration in comparing these
vessels with the _Warrior_ and _Minotaur_, for the resistance offered
by the rolled armour of the new ships increased very nearly as the
square of the thickness, so that the sides of the _Devastation_ and the
_Thunderer_ were, all things considered, about seven times as strong as
those of the _Warrior_. The thickest armour carried in the French navy
was that of the peculiar rams of the “_Taureau_” or “_Bélier_” type,
mentioned on another page, viz. 8¼ inches, while that of the American
monitors was 6 inches of plating on a system of armour stringers. The
two English ships by reason of their higher freeboard were better
sea-boats than any monitors built on the American principle could ever
hope to be. The American turrets leaked badly whenever it was necessary
to place their weight on the spindles to enable them to revolve, and
their low sides allowed almost every other wave to wash over their
decks. The turrets of the _Devastation_ and _Thunderer_ were worked on
Captain Coles’s system of rollers fixed at the circumference of the
base of the turret and centring at the central cylindrical spindle, but
their base rested upon the upper deck within the breastwork.
In measurements these vessels were considerably smaller than the
_Warrior_ or _Minotaur_ classes. The _Warrior’s_ 4½-inch hammered
plates would have offered little more resistance than so much glass
to the heavy blows which the _Devastation’s_ guns could inflict, nor
would the _Minotaur’s_ rolled plates have had much more defensive
effect. Even when the _Devastation_ was built, it was contended that
the _Hercules_ armour was practically impenetrable to the heaviest
of British guns afloat yet, and that of the _Devastation_ was three
inches thicker still. One reason why this vessel was so strongly
constructed was that she was built on an improvement of the bracketed
frame system first introduced by the Admiralty in the _Bellerophon_.
These improvements enabled a lighter framework to be constructed
without reducing the strength, and the weight thus saved was put into
the defensive armour. The _Devastation’s_ upper deck when the ship was
in sea-going order was about 4½ feet above water, except at the bows,
where a sunk forecastle raised the height to 9 feet, and increased
her capacities for going head to sea. The turret ports were 13 feet
above the water, so that the guns were carried higher than those of any
broadside-armed ironclad afloat. Those of the _Hercules_, for instance,
were 11 feet above the water.
As at first designed, the _Devastation_ would have had a less
freeboard than the _Captain_, but after that disaster the plans of the
_Devastation_ were altered considerably, and the Admiralty committee
decided that it would be safer and wiser to increase the freeboard
amidships. This was done with iron plates raised to a level with the
walls of the armoured breastwork, the freeboard for about half the
ship’s length being as much as 12 feet.
The turrets were placed one at each end of this breastwork, with the
funnels, ventilators, and so on, between them. The breastwork deck,
as it was called, was strongly plated as compared with the main-deck
plating of all existing ironclads, and the protective plating of the
upper deck was from two to three inches thick. Above the turrets was
the usual hurricane deck. She carried two 30-ton guns in each turret,
the guns being of an Armstrong type improved upon at Woolwich, and
throwing projectiles weighing 600 lb., and of the Palliser pointed
type. Her two turrets gave her an absolutely all-round fire, a
consummation which was impossible with any vessel depending at all upon
sails. Her engines, which constituted her sole motive power, were the
largest which had yet been applied to working twin screws and were each
of 800 h.p. nominal, and gave her a speed of twelve and a half knots.
[Illustration: H.M.S. “DEVASTATION.” _Photograph by Symonds & Co.
Portsmouth._]
She was 285 feet in length between perpendiculars, with an inside beam
amidships of 58 feet, and an extreme beam of 62 feet 3 inches, with an
average draught of 26 feet. The depth from the midship portion of
the covering-in deck to the top of the keel was 18 feet. The double
bottom contained the water-tanks, and above these were a series of
watertight compartments containing the engines and so on, and above
these again were another series of watertight compartments used as
coal bunkers and lockers, and another series, formed of watertight
bulkheads, enclosed the officers’ accommodation. They were said to be
as strongly constructed as the strong room of a bank.
The _Devastation_ was probably the first ship in which a built-up keel
of steel was introduced. The plates of steel were ⅝-inch in thickness,
and the depth of the keel was 4 feet 6 inches, and it was strengthened
by an angle-iron 1 inch thick. The stem was a solid forging, the
upper deck part being 9 inches thick, and the lower part which formed
the ram was 36 inches thick. This immense prow was strengthened by
longitudinal iron frames. The stern-post was also forged solid, and
was 26 feet in length and weighed 15 tons, and measured 12 inches deep
by 8 inches thick. Steel plates riveted vertically over the transverse
frames and running longitudinally and crossed by vertical fixed iron
plating formed the double bottom. The interior of the hull was divided
both longitudinally and transversely into a great number of watertight
compartments. The two magazines, one near each end of the ship, were
protected from a dropping fire by a bulkhead covered with 5-inch armour
plating, and above the magazines again was a strongly constructed deck
4 feet 6 inches below the load water-line. The armoured belt was 9 feet
6 inches broad amidships, but tapered off gradually towards the ends.
The armour-plating was 18 inches thick amidships, and gradually reduced
to 9 inches towards the extremities. The breastworks or armoured walls
built up from the upper deck near the forecastle, and extending to a
wall behind the after turret, were 7 feet high, 74 feet long, and had
an interior breadth of 50 feet. Their armour-plating varied from 10
to 12 inches, with the usual backing of wood and iron frames, and an
inner iron skin. The deck was 2 inches of iron covered with 4 inches
of oak. The turrets, which stood at either end of the breastwork, were
31 feet 3 inches in exterior diameter, and 24 feet 1 inch interior
diameter; they were built up as follows: Outside, 9 inches of iron
plating, then 9 inches of Italian oak set in iron frames, then 6 inches
of iron plating, then 6 inches of Italian oak set in iron frames, then
two thicknesses of iron plating each ¾-inch thick, to form the inner
skin, then iron frames 10 inches in depth, and finally a series of rope
mantlets, or nets, to protect the men working the guns from injury
through fragments of rivets or bolts being driven in by a shot striking
the outside of the turret in battle.
The military mast was introduced in the sea-going turret ships
like the _Devastation_, and a few years later all such masts were
given fighting-tops or platforms upon which machine guns or small
quick-firing guns were mounted, or were equipped with search-lights.
These masts were of steel and hollow, and in some ships the tops
could be reached by ratlines and shrouds in the old-fashioned way,
and in others by means of internal or external ladders affixed to the
masts themselves. Conning-towers were introduced later, but to meet
the wishes of naval officers alternative places of control are also
provided in all large ships, for use in case the conning-tower should
be made the target for the concentration of the fire of a hostile ship.
The experiments with the _Glatton’s_ turret proved the unsuitability
of turret armour being made with horizontal joints, as there is always
the chance that a projectile may strike the actual line of joining,
where the resistance would be less than at any other part. The plates
for the _Devastation_ turrets were, therefore, rolled sufficiently
broad to cover the faces of the turrets from the breastwork deck to
the upper edge, and only vertical joints were exposed to fire. The
forward end of the ship was raised to form what was called a sunk
forecastle. This considerably added to the freeboard forward and to
the buoyancy at that end of the ship, and this was further augmented
by the armour belt being reduced as much as possible so as to avoid
unnecessary weight. Some critics of this design maintained that the end
was too weak, and that the advantage it was sought to gain in sea-going
qualities would not materialise; but when the vessel afterwards went
to sea and was tested in all sorts of weather, and against heavy seas,
in broadside seas, and in following seas, and in seas running a few
points off the bow, or on the quarter, she proved herself an admirable
sea-boat. An account of the sea trials in which she was accompanied
by the _Agincourt_ and _Sultan_ includes a description written by a
“scientific observer,” who was on board the _Devastation_. Her sea
trials took place during the summer of 1873. The _Sultan_ was one of
the more modern ironclads carrying a two-deck battery on a protected
water-line, and the _Agincourt_ was a five-masted ship reminiscent of
the steam frigate days.
The scientific observer states:--
“For purposes of comparison in pitching and lifting, etc., the
_Sultan_ had the height of the _Devastation’s_ upper deck at side
painted on her in a broad white stripe, so that the behaviour of
the two ships might be quickly appreciated apart from the records
of instruments. The lowness of the extremities of the _Devastation_
gives a great deal of interest to the pitching and lifting (really
the longitudinal rolling) of the vessel. Two trials were made, one on
the 9th and the other on the 15th of September. On the first of these
occasions, she was accompanied by the _Sultan_ only, and on the second
she was accompanied by the _Agincourt_ only. The seas met with on the
9th of September were lumpy and irregular, the wind having shifted
somewhat suddenly during the previous night. Having got well out to
sea, about forty miles off land, the wind was found to be blowing
rather north of west with a force of a moderate gale, its speed
varying from forty to forty-five miles per hour; and the largest of
the waves were found to vary from 300 to 350 feet in length from crest
to crest, occasionally reaching 400 feet--the greatest heights from
hollow to crest being 15 and 16 feet. Going head to sea, at from six
to seven knots, both vessels pitched considerably; the _Devastation_,
however, had the best of it, pitching through smaller angles than
the _Sultan_. The latter vessel was remarkably lively; at one moment
she was to be seen with her fore-foot completely out of water, and
the next with her bow dipped down to so great an extent that it was
difficult to see from the flying deck of the _Devastation_--although
the ships were pretty close together--whether the sea did not really
break inboard; and this notwithstanding that the bow of the _Sultan_
rises forward some 30 feet above the surface of the water. On the
other hand, the forecastle deck of the _Devastation_ was repeatedly
swept by the seas, to each of which she rose with surprising
readiness; indeed, it invariably happened that the seas broke upon her
during the upward journey of the bow, and there is no doubt it is to
this fact that her moderate pitching was mainly due, as the weight of
the water on the forecastle-deck during the short period it remained
there acted as a retarding force, preventing the bow from lifting
as high as it otherwise would, and this, of course, limited the
succeeding pitch, and so on. The maximum angle pitched through on this
occasion, i.e. the angle between the extreme elevation and depression
of the bow, was 7½ degrees. Each vessel behaved extremely well when
placed broadside on to the sea, rolling very little. The trial of the
ship on the 15th of September, in company with the _Agincourt_, was
by far the most severe of any. Early in the morning the vessel got
under weigh and steamed out to sea, accompanied by the _Agincourt_.
The wind was blowing with considerable force from the north-west,
while the sea was at times very regular, long, and undulating; just
the sort to test the rolling propensities of a ship, but scarcely
long enough to be most effective in doing so, either in the case of
the _Devastation_ or _Agincourt_. The largest waves ranged from 400
to 650 feet long, and from 20 to 26 feet high. The ships were tried
in almost every position with regard to the direction of the sea, and
at various speeds, the result in point of comparison being extremely
interesting, and, so far as the _Devastation_ was concerned, very
satisfactory. With the sea dead ahead, and proceeding at about seven
knots, the _Devastation_ pitched rather more than the _Agincourt_,
although the great length of the latter compared with that of the
former caused her bow to rise and fall through a much greater height,
giving her the appearance of pitching through a greater angle. The
usual angles pitched through by the _Devastation_, measuring the
whole arc from out to out, were from 5 degrees to 8 degrees; the
maximum angle pitched through was, however, 11¾ degrees. The scene
from the fore end of the frying deck when the vessel was thus going
head to sea was very imposing. There was repeatedly a rush of water
over the forecastle, the various fittings, riding-bitts, capstan,
anchors, etc., churning it up into a beautiful cataract of foam; while
occasionally a wall of water would appear to rise up in front of the
vessel and, dashing on board in the most threatening style, as though
it would carry all before it, rushed aft against the fore turret with
great violence, and, after throwing a cloud of heavy spray off the
turret into the air, dividing into two, pass overboard on either side.
All the hatchways leading below from the upper deck were closed; it
was not, however, thought necessary to close the doors in the sides of
the trunks leading from the main hatchways to the flying deck, most of
the men on deck preferring to remain here under the overhang of the
flying deck. It was quite the exception for the water coming over the
bow to get much abaft the fore turret; but this, however, occurred
occasionally. The foremost turret makes a most perfect breakwater; it
receives with impunity the force of the water, which, after spending
itself against it, glances off overboard, leaving two-thirds of the
deck seldom wetted. There was one sea which came on board, while thus
proceeding head to sea, which was much heavier than any other; it rose
in front of the vessel some 10 or 12 feet above the forecastle, and
broke on the deck with great force, for the moment completely swamping
the fore end of the vessel. A mass of broken water swept up over the
top of the fore turret, and heavy volumes of spray extended the whole
length of the flying deck, some small portion of it even finding its
way down the funnel-hatchway--which had been left uncovered--into the
fore stokehole. It should be borne in mind that the angles pitched
through, given above, do not measure the inclination of the ship
to the surface of the water, but only her inclination to the true
vertical. Pitching and lifting are produced by the vessel endeavouring
to follow the slope of the waves, or, roughly speaking, to keep her
displacement the same as in still water, both as to volume and to
longitudinal distribution.
“As to the depressing effect of the water on the bow, a layer of
water one foot deep over the entire forecastle exerts a pressure of
65 tons; this will produce a change of trim of 11 inches, together
with an increase in the mean draught of 1¾ inches; i.e. the draught
of water forward will be increased by 7¼ inches, while that aft will
be diminished by 3¾ inches. A layer 2 feet deep will have double this
effect; one 3 feet thick will have treble this effect; and so on up
to a considerable angle. This follows from the fact that the front
slope of the longitudinal curve of stability, up to a considerable
angle, is very nearly straight. Hence the effect, even of a large
body of water passing over the forecastle, tending to make the vessel
dive down head foremost, is small, and of no importance. It modifies,
however, the transverse stability. When proceeding head to sea there
was no appreciable rolling motion. With the wind and sea on the bow
she pitched considerably less than when going head to sea, but rolled
through 5 degrees or 6 degrees. With the wind and sea abeam, lying
passively in the trough of the waves, the maximum angle rolled through
was 14 degrees from port to starboard, 6½ degrees to windward, and
7½ degrees to leeward, and this without perceptible pitching. When,
however, proceeding at about seven and a half knots, with the wind
and sea on her quarter, she rolled through 27½ degrees from port to
starboard, 13 degrees off the perpendicular to windward, and 14½
degrees off the perpendicular to leeward, besides also pitching
through some 4 or 5 degrees. This is by far the greatest angle she
has ever rolled through. It is the apparent period of the waves,
i.e. their period relatively to the ship, which operates in making a
vessel roll. The motions of the vessel, both as to pitching and
lifting and to rolling, were extremely easy. She, indeed, claims to
have behaved better than her companion, the _Agincourt_. Certainly,
her rolling motion was somewhat slower, and she rolled less deeply;
when the _Agincourt_ was rolling 17 degrees from port to starboard,
the _Devastation_ was only rolling 14 degrees. As to pitching, the
_Devastation_ may fairly claim to have had the advantage, for, as we
have seen, although the _Agincourt_ pitched rather less, her bow moved
vertically through a greater distance, so much so that while going
head to sea at seven knots she shipped a sea over her high forecastle,
showing that she could not be driven under the circumstances at a much
higher speed with at least anything like comfort.”[43]
[Illustration: THE OLD “DREADNOUGHT.” _Photograph by E. Sankey,
Barrow._]
[Illustration: THE BIG GUNS OF THE OLD “DREADNOUGHT.” _Photograph by E.
Sankey, Barrow._]
The _Thunderer_, a sister ship in some respects to the _Devastation_,
and the _Fury_, afterwards called the _Dreadnought_, followed, but each
one included improvements and modifications suggested by the experience
gained with the _Devastation_. Hydraulic machinery was installed for
working the 38-ton guns of the Woolwich rifle pattern, but in the
_Thunderer_ the two 35-tons were worked by hand. Their guns were by
no means generally approved, many artillerists being of opinion that
Whitworth hexagonal guns would have been better.
The important feature in the _Thunderer_, and one which contributed
very materially to her safety, was the introduction of a longitudinal
watertight bulkhead between the two sets of engines and boilers,
so that if one set should be disabled from any cause, the vessel
would still have the other set to depend upon. The _Dreadnought_ was
engined on the compound system, which gave her a better speed on a
proportionately less coal consumption.
It is an old saying that the speed of a fleet is that of its slowest
ship. When the situation was further complicated by the varying sailing
powers of the ships the difficulty of the admiral in command to keep
his fleet together must sometimes have been very great. Admiral
Yelverton, for instance, when in command of a Channel squadron, in
1866, consisting of the _Caledonian_, _Lord Clyde_, _Bellerophon_,
_Achilles_, _Hector_, _Pallas_, _Ocean_, _Wyvern_, _Research_, and
_Helicon_, reported that he “took every opportunity of trying them to
their utmost, always placing them in positions as to wind and sea most
likely to test their capabilities as sea-boats, without much regard to
the safety of their spars or the risk of shipping far more water than
under ordinary circumstances ships of war would be exposed to....
“The _Pallas_ and _Research_ were the only two ships that could not
keep company with the squadron. The _Pallas_ appeared to plunge
heavily, and carried away her jib-boom, but took her place in the
squadron on the following morning. The _Research_, from her very small
steam power, was out of sight at sunset, and put into Plymouth to fill
up with coal. On the 23rd we reached the prescribed rendezvous ... when
steaming ceased for a while, and the trials of sailing began.” The
ships varied as much under sail as they did under steam.
The _Wyvern_, which was not a good sea-boat, and her sister ship,
the _Scorpion_, were built for the Confederate States, in 1864, at
Birkenhead, and were bought by the British Admiralty. They were 220
feet by 42 feet, and of 1,827 tons, and had engines of 350 nominal h.p.
Each had two turrets containing two 300-pounders. They had ram bows,
and, except on the poop and forecastle, the bulwarks could be let down
when the ships were cleared for action.
The _Pallas_, an armour-plated six-gun ship, and the _Research_ were
given recessed ports, in order to increase their firing range, but
the ports were constructed angularly and did not allow the guns to
be sufficiently depressed to hit a small boat close at hand; thus
the weapons would have been no defence against a torpedo-boat attack,
if the latter got to close quarters. This fault was remedied in the
Venezuelan transport and cruiser _Bolivar_, in which the recessed ports
were fitted under the personal superintendence of their inventor,
Captain Symonds, and were slanted outside the gun ports so that they
would allow of a gun being depressed to strike a small boat lying
nearly alongside, while their wall was curved instead of flat as in the
British ships mentioned. Her sister ship, so far as dimensions were
concerned, the _Mary_, was devoted to the more peaceful requirements
of the cattle-trade between London and Gothenburg. The _Bolivar_ was
a twin-screw vessel, and it is curious to note that even then, when
this method of propulsion had proved its superiority, it was gravely
stated concerning her trials that “To keep time in all weathers and in
all seasons nothing is superior to the paddle, but in long voyages,
especially where sails are occasionally used, the screw may be employed
with advantage.”[44]
Several vessels followed in rapid succession after the turret ships,
and an upper deck battery was added in the _Sultan_, a vessel which
otherwise much resembled the _Hercules_, and then followed a class to
which the _Iron Duke_ and _Vanguard_ belonged. The conditions imposed
in the construction of this class were that they should draw 22 feet 6
inches of water, that they should carry armour not less than 8 inches
thick at the water-line and 6 inches elsewhere except at the bow and
stern, that they should have a speed of thirteen and a half knots, and
that their guns should be capable of firing in any direction. This
class was named after the _Audacious_, and proved fairly successful.
The principal event which distinguished the class was the accidental
ramming of the _Vanguard_ by the _Iron Duke_, in September, 1875, off
the coast of Ireland. They were all broadside ships, and the type was
brought much nearer to perfection in the _Alexandra_, which was then
the largest masted ironclad that had ever been designed; and though
she was a central battery ship, four of her twelve guns could fire
right ahead, and two right astern, and four to six guns could fire one
either broadside. She carried two Woolwich rifled muzzle-loading guns
of 25 tons each, and ten 18-ton guns. The two big guns were placed in
the upper deck battery forward. As a further protection, besides her
armour, the main deck battery between decks was divided in two by an
armoured bulkhead. She was the first cruising armoured broadside ship
in the British Navy to have engines on the compound system, and her
twin screws were each driven by an independent set of engines with an
aggregate indicated h.p. of 8,000. Her speed at her official trials was
about fifteen knots.
Yet another type of turret ship was the _Temeraire_, launched in
1876, which marked a noteworthy combination of the central battery
and barbettes or turrets. Her upper-deck armament was in two fixed
turrets open at the top and pear-shaped instead of circular, and
placed, one near the stern and the other near the bow. These stood
about 6 feet above the deck, and measured about 33 feet by 21½ feet.
They were placed with their length in the direction of the ship, and
the rounded end of each pear, if it may so be called, was towards the
nearer extremity of the vessel. Inside each of these batteries was a
turn-table, hydraulically worked, on which was mounted a 25-ton gun
borne on a carriage after the Moncrieff principle. This permitted of
the gun being loaded in the turret and raised above it to be fired. The
recoil caused it to sink into the turret to be reloaded. An armoured
tube or hoist communicated with the ammunition chambers below, and the
gun always had to be brought back into the same position for reloading.
It will thus be seen that the guns were fired as barbette guns and
loaded as turret guns, and many were the discussions as to the category
in which they ought to be placed. The armour of the fore turret was 10
inches thick, and that of the rear turret 8 inches. On the main deck
was a divided battery. The front portion had two 25-ton guns firing
through ports at the corners, which were provided with oblique armoured
bulkheads, and the guns were pivoted at the muzzle to allow of a fire
from right ahead to abeam. The other portion of the battery was given
four 18-ton guns to be fired on the broadside. She was preferred as a
fighting ship by many to the _Alexandra_, which preceded her, in which
the main armament was carried in a central battery. The _Temeraire_ was
heavily armoured down to below the ram, to protect her from an attempt
to rake her bows when pitching, for it will be evident to anyone that
when the fore part of a vessel is on the crest of a wave the bows are
greatly exposed, sometimes nearly to the foot of the stem, and would be
peculiarly vulnerable to hostile shot. The last central battery ship
for the British Navy was the _Superb_. She was built to the order of
the Turkish Government, but was acquired by this country. She carried
sixteen 10-inch muzzle-loading rifle guns and six 4-inch breechloaders.
She was a sister ship to the Turkish armour-clad _Mesoudiye_.
Though not launched until 1876 and completed in 1881, the _Inflexible_
was described by her designer, in 1874, at a meeting of the Institution
of Naval Architects as follows:--
“Imagine a floating castle, 110 feet long and 75 feet wide, rising
10 feet out of water, and having above that again two round turrets,
planted diagonally at its opposite corners. Imagine this castle and
its turrets to be heavily plated with armour, and that each turret
has two guns of about 80 tons each. Conceive these guns to be capable
of firing, all four together, at an enemy ahead, astern, or on either
beam, and in pairs towards every point of the compass. Attached to
this rectangular armoured castle, but completely submerged, every
part being 6 to 7 feet under water, there is a hull of ordinary form
with a powerful ram bow, with twin screws and a submerged rudder
and helm. This compound structure is the fighting part of the ship.
Seaworthiness, speed, and shapeliness would be wanting in such a
structure if it had no addition to it; there is, therefore, an
unarmoured structure lying above the submerged ship and connected with
it both before and abaft the armoured castle, and as this structure
rises 20 feet out of water from stem to stern without depriving
the guns of that command of the horizon already described, and as
it moreover renders a flying deck unnecessary, it gets over the
objections which have been raised against the low freeboard and other
features in the _Devastation_, _Thunderer_, and _Dreadnought_. These
structures furnish also most luxurious accommodation for officers
and seamen. The step in advance has, therefore, been from 14 inches
of armour to 24 inches; from 35-ton guns to 80 tons; from two guns
ahead to four guns ahead; and from a height of 10 feet for working
the anchors to 20 feet. And this is done without an increase in cost,
and with a reduction of nearly 3 feet in draught of water. My belief
is that in the _Inflexible_ we have reached the extreme limit in
thickness of armour for sea-going vessels.”
Seeing that the _Inflexible_ had armour two feet thick, the belief of
her designer that the limit had been reached was justifiable. She was
the only one of her class built for this country, though Italy, as will
be seen, tried to copy and even to improve upon her. Her displacement
was 11,800 tons, and her engines of 6,500 indicated h.p. were designed
to give her a speed of twelve and a half knots, though on occasion
she attained nearly fifteen knots. Her length was 320 feet, beam 75
feet, and draught 26 feet 4 inches. Her armament consisted of four
16-inch muzzle-loading rifled guns in her turrets and eight 4-inch
breechloaders, besides twenty-one anti-torpedo boat guns and four
torpedo tubes. The weight of a single discharge was 6,800 lb., which
was not exceeded until 1906, though the energy in foot tons in that
interval was increased several times over. She was, moreover, the first
vessel in which the turrets were placed _en echelon_, i.e. diagonally,
instead of one behind the other on the centre line.
[Illustration: H.M.S. “INFLEXIBLE,” 1880. _Photograph by Symonds & Co.,
Portsmouth._]
The affection of the Italians for immense ships and guns to match was
demonstrated even more remarkably by those which were built after
the battle of Lissa than by those which took part in that memorable
and disastrous engagement. Probably the two finest specimens were of
the mastless turret type, the sister ships _Duilio_ and _Dandolo_,
which were designed to surpass any other fighting ship in existence,
no matter what her nationality, and especially to show that Italian
naval architects and constructors could surpass the _Inflexible_, on
which Britain so justly prided herself. The _Duilio_ was built at
Castellamare, and the _Dandolo_ at Spezzia. Their turrets were on much
the same plan as those of the _Inflexible_, and quite a dispute arose
between Italian and British naval architects as to whom the credit
should be given of having first designed this type of ship.
The _Duilio_ was of 10,650 tons displacement; her length between
perpendiculars was 339 feet 7 inches, her extreme breadth 64 feet 7
inches, and her mean draught was 25 feet 11 inches. The height of her
main deck above water was 11 feet, and that of her battery 15 feet 9
inches. The hulls of both these ships were built of iron and steel.
Each had a double bottom extending for 230 feet of her length, and
the numerous watertight compartments into which the double bottoms
were subdivided were so arranged that any one or more of them could be
filled with water or emptied as might be found necessary.
The central armoured citadel protecting the machinery and boilers and
the magazines, besides part of the machinery for working the turrets
and the guns, was no less than 58 feet in breadth, and extended to
within a fraction of 6 feet below the load water-line, and was 107 feet
in length. Above the citadel was a second central armoured compartment
protecting the turret bases and a part of the machinery for loading
and working the guns; and above this compartment were the turrets
themselves. The turrets of the _Duilio_ were not placed amidships,
but the experiment was tried for the first time on an Italian ship
of setting them at opposite corners of the central citadel, so that
one should command the stern and the other the bows, and that each
should be able to fire ahead or astern, or on the broadside, without
interfering in any way with the other. The decks before and abaft the
citadel were 4 feet 9 inches below the water-level, and were protected
by horizontal armour. Extensive experiments were conducted at Spezzia
with a 100-ton gun, and guns of 10- and 11-inch calibre, on different
types of targets. As first designed these ships were to carry two
60-ton guns in each turret, but when the British Admiralty announced
that the _Inflexible_ would have guns of 81 tons, the Italians equipped
these two warships with 100-ton guns manufactured at the Elswick
works. The armour at the water-line was 22 inches thick on the central
portion, and that of the turrets was 18 inches, further strengthened
by heavy teak backing. Each ship had a heavy projecting ram, and also
had an apparatus for discharging Whitehead torpedoes. Although these
ships were described as Italian-built and were certainly put together
in Italy, it is interesting to note that the _Duilio_ had trunk engines
by Messrs. John Penn and Sons, that practically all the iron and steel
put into the vessel’s frames, etc., were made in France, that the
armour-plates came from Cammell’s establishment at Sheffield, and that
the guns were made at Elswick. Only the heavy forgings for the ship
were made in Italy. The _Dandolo_, although described as a sister ship,
differed in many particulars from the _Duilio_. The _Dandolo_ had
engines of Maudslay’s inverted vertical compound type, a pair of which
was given to each of her screw propellers, and she had eight boilers,
heated with thirty-four furnaces, and working at a pressure of 60 lb.
per square inch. These great ships were out of date soon after being
completed, as the discovery of the means of making steel cheaply, and
the much greater strength and lightness of the homogeneous metal, as it
was called, rendered it possible for ships and guns to be built of much
greater power than ever before. Indeed, so great was the progress in
these two departments that in a very few years these vessels would no
longer have been invulnerable, but would have been relegated, as being
slow and unwieldy, to harbour or coast defence work, and thence to the
scrap-heap.
One remarkable ship on the turret system was the _Peter the Great_,
belonging to Russia, which was very like the British turret ship
_Devastation_, and carried four 12-inch guns in her two turrets. She
had no ram. Russia also possessed the _Minin_, which carried turrets
on Captain Coles’s system and had a very low freeboard, but after the
loss of the _Captain_, the _Minin’s_ turrets were removed, and she was
given a central battery, 98 feet in length and rising 10 feet above
the water-line. The guns were mounted _en barbette_ and were placed on
turntables. Russia also had two three-turret ships carrying six 25-ton
rifled guns, and two double-turret ships each carrying four 35-ton
guns, besides a considerable number of single turret ships and some
smaller two-turreted vessels. These were mostly monitors copied from
Ericsson’s plan, and were similar to those which he designed for the
war in America. Most of these turrets were on Captain Coles’s system.
The turret system was developed to such an extent by Admiral Popoff
that he gave his name to the type of ships he designed. They were
immense circular floating fortresses intended only to operate in
shallow and comparatively smooth water. Their sea-going qualities
were conspicuous by their absence, which is not to be wondered at
when their shape is taken into consideration. Although described as
circular it would be more correct to say that they were circular only
at the water-line, for on one side to form a stern a projection was
constructed to facilitate steering, and at the opposite side a bow was
built on. These ships carried on the central part of the upper deck a
circular breastwork 7 feet high, in which were two 12-inch 40-ton guns,
two quick-firers on each side of the superstructure, and six smaller
guns, mounted _en barbette_ 13 feet 3 inches above the water-line, on
fixed slides. When it was necessary to train or change the direction
of the guns, the whole ship had to be turned. In the citadel was the
accommodation for the officers and crew. The extreme diameter of the
vessel was 121 feet, the length over all, including the stern and bow,
was about 150 feet, and her total displacement was 3,553 tons. She
drew only 13 feet. The ship was built of iron, and had a double bottom
sheathed with wood and copper. She was, of course, flat-bottomed. A
peculiar feature of her construction was that she had a dozen external
box girders or keels, each about 12 inches square, carried parallel to
the intended axis of the vessel. There were eight radial frames and
two rings of web frames, the vessel being divided into twenty-four
compartments. These two vessels, the _Admiral Popoff_ and _Novgorod_,
were alike in most particulars, except that the latter was the smaller
of the two. The height of the armour on each vessel was 1 foot 6
inches above the water-line, while below the water-line it was 4 feet
6 inches; they each had six screw propellers driven by three sets of
engines. Their average speed was about six and a half knots. Although
Admiral Popoff is usually given the credit of the invention of this
type of vessel, Mr. John Elder, the Glasgow shipbuilder, designed and
patented a circular floating battery in 1867. He proposed that the
circular ship should carry twenty-six guns in a lower battery and ten
in a central one, and that the sharp edge of the circumference should
be used as a ram. According to his design his vessel would have had a
diameter of 144 feet, a freeboard of 6 feet, and a draught of 9 feet.
The great ironclads described and their armament represent what may be
regarded as the apotheosis of the iron turret ship and the heavy iron
gun. Before passing on to the great change introduced by the adoption
of steel in shipbuilding and gun manufacture it may be as well to note
something of what has been accomplished in the production of warships
of other types and modifications of types, and how some of them
acquitted themselves in actual conflict.
One drawback to all the heavy British ironclads of this period was that
so much weight and space were taken up by the armour and its backing,
that comparatively little space was left for bunker accommodation.
Obviously the very heavily armoured ships could not travel for long
at high speed under steam without exhausting their coal supply. In
order to obtain speed and allow space for the engines of the necessary
dimensions, together with adequate coal supplies, the amount of
armour carried had to be reduced, and in July in the summer of 1869
the first of a new class of armoured frigates, the _Inconstant_, was
launched for the Navy. She was constructed of iron sheathed with three
thicknesses of wood and coppered. She was the first vessel which had
a stern post and rudder frame made of brass. She carried sixteen guns,
viz. ten 9-inch muzzle-loading guns on the main deck, and six 7-inch
muzzle-loading rifles on the upper deck; her engines, of 1,000 h.p.
nominal, gave her a speed of about sixteen knots, at which she was
faster than any other warship in the world. She was unusually narrow
for her length, in order to add to her speed, her length being 337 feet
4 inches, and her beam 50 feet 3½ inches. At one time on her trials she
made nearly eighteen and a half knots.
A series of coast-defence monitors was decided upon in deference to
public clamour, and the first of these, the _Glatton_, was begun in
1868, and finished in the latter part of 1870. She was intended to be
for coast-defence purposes only, and not an ocean-going ship in any
sense of the term. Consequently her coal capacity was small, and she
was very heavily armoured. She had but one turret, and this was so
disposed that as the vessel had no masts the turret could be turned
to give the guns a range of fire all round except for a small section
astern, only about 20 degrees being thus uncovered. Although her
design was admittedly founded upon the American monitor type, several
important improvements were introduced. The American monitors had shown
on several occasions that a heavy shot striking near the base of the
turret was liable to cause the turret to jam or become unworkable. To
render this impossible in the case of the _Glatton_ she was equipped
with a heavy breastwork built outside the base of the turret, in such
a position that the lower part of the turret was absolutely protected
and consequently could not be disabled, while if a shot were to strike
the upper part of the turret it would do little damage. The _Glatton_
had a freeboard of only 3 feet; the hull was plated with iron 12 inches
thick above the water-line, and 10 inches thick below it, and behind
this was a teak backing 20 inches thick, and behind this again two
thicknesses each of 1 inch of iron forming an inner skin, while the
frames to which this was attached were no less than 10 inches deep, and
were only 2 feet apart. Altogether the sides of this vessel were 3 feet
8 inches in thickness. The turret contained two 25-ton guns; its armour
was 14 inches thick in the most exposed parts, and 12 inches thick
elsewhere. And besides this it had a wood backing of 15 inches, and an
iron inner skin ⅝-inch thick. It was 30 feet in diameter, and similar
to the turrets of the _Captain_ and _Monarch_. The breastwork rose 6½
feet on each side of the vessel from the upper deck, and was plated
with 12 inches of iron, with a 15-inch backing of teak. The upper deck
had a sheathing of 3 inches of iron. The total length of the vessel was
245 feet, its breadth 54 feet, and it drew 19 feet of water. It was
of 2,700 tons burden, and the engines were of 500 h.p. nominal. Its
bunkers were designed to carry 250 tons of coal, but its ballast tanks
were so designed that if necessary they could take another 250 tons of
coal. With such dimensions and such a weight of armour to carry, she
was, of course, a slow vessel, but in regard to her fighting power it
was estimated that she would give a good account of herself against
even such a vessel as the _Monarch_.
Powerful though the _Glatton’s_ turret appeared, the experimental
turret on the same pattern fired upon at Portland by the 21-ton gun of
the _Hotspur_ suffered somewhat badly. The shot struck the turret at
the horizontal joint of the upper and lower plates, forcing the upper
plate and the lower plate apart and damaging the turret generally.
A series of breastwork monitors was added to the Navy in the late
’sixties. Besides the _Magdala_, _Cerberus_ and _Abyssinia_ for
colonial coast and harbour defence, the Admiralty ordered four
similar but larger vessels for home defence, much to the general
surprise. For some unfathomable reason the _Cerberus_ and _Magdala_
were barque-rigged. False bows and sterns were added to them to enable
them to make the voyages to their respective destinations. They carried
two 18-ton guns in each of their turrets. On her outward voyage the
_Cerberus_ earned a reputation for rolling which she never lost. The
first reports of her voyage as far as Gibraltar described it as being
successful and prosperous, but when her commander’s report was received
it showed that the voyage was successful in the sense that the ship
succeeded in getting that far, but prosperous it never was. She had
dirty weather in crossing the Bay of Biscay, and for twelve hours
rolled so heavily that it was thought she would not get through it.
It is said she rolled 40 degrees each way, which is far more than the
_Captain_ rolled, and she pitched so heavily that sometimes the whole
fore part of the ship as far as the foremast would be lost sight of,
and the decks be quite under water. She was very slow under steam, the
utmost speed that could be got out of her being six knots. The crew
detested her so thoroughly that they deserted whenever they found the
opportunity, three of them had to be punished and sent to prison by
way of example by the time Malta was reached, and six volunteered to
go to prison rather than continue the voyage. However, she arrived at
Melbourne at last, and lay year in and year out at her moorings in
Hobson’s Bay except for such short intervals when she went down the
bay for firing practice. One of the war scares which arise from time
to time came near to conferring on the _Cerberus_ a celebrity of a
unique character. Irresponsible and irrepressible politicians of a sort
find colonial life offers them more scope for the display of their
exuberance, and as the scare revived the question whether the defences
of Melbourne at Queenscliffe were sufficiently strong, a politician of
this variety proposed that the _Cerberus_ should be sent out to sea and
then endeavour to steam back past the batteries, which should fire upon
her, in order to test both her armour and the strength of the defences.
Strange to say, this suggestion actually met with some support,
notwithstanding the chorus of ridicule and protests with which it was
received, but the common-sense of the community vetoed the proposition.
At the time of their construction these three vessels were the most
powerful warships of their size to be found anywhere, and were among
the ugliest.
In the early ’seventies there were added to the British Navy, and less
numerously to other navies, several vessels of composite construction.
That is to say, that all her framing was of iron and the outside and
deck planking was of wood. Most of these vessels were sloops or light
cruisers, and though they were useless for defensive purposes against
armoured ships, their offensive powers were very great for vessels of
their size, as they were generally given four of the heaviest guns
it was possible for them to carry. Under steam they were fast, but
as their bunker capacity was not large they had to depend on their
sails when possible. One of these vessels, which may be regarded as a
specimen of her class, the _Albatross_, was 160 feet in length between
perpendiculars, of 894 tons displacement, and carried two 4½-ton 7-inch
muzzle-loading rifled guns, two 64-pounder guns, and the usual number
of smaller weapons for boat and land service.
One small corvette, the _Druid_, had an innovation which must have
brought tears to the eyes of sailors of the old school who loved the
ship’s figure-head, and were never tired of keeping it clean and
brightly painted. The necessity of end-on fire and bow chasers was
admitted, and some unsentimental reformer actually had her figure-head
constructed so as to open in two parts like a folding door to permit of
the space being used as a porthole for a heavy bow gun.
The steam engine as a means of propulsion was not to be allowed to
remain unchallenged, but the only attempt at rivalry to merit serious
consideration was that associated with the _Waterwitch_, in 1866,
and Mr. Ruthven’s system of hydraulic propulsion. Although the first
patent was taken out in 1839 and another followed in 1849, and a small
boat fitted with the Ruthven machinery was placed on the Thames and
a working model was shown at the Exhibition of 1851, engineers did
not take kindly to it. The objections, apparently insuperable, were
that the water had to overcome the resistance of a very large rubbing
surface, and that the perforated bottom of the ship was liable to
be choked in shallow water, and it was also contended that the cost
of increasing the power beyond a certain rate was prohibitive. The
advantages of the system, and they were undeniable, were that the
ship could be propelled either end foremost, or turned, or brought
to a stop and restarted without stopping or reversing the engines. A
vessel was built, partly at the expense of the Prussian Government, and
fitted with engines of this type, and was said some years afterwards
to be still running on the Oder. In 1863, Mr. Murray, Chief Engineer
of Portsmouth Dockyard, reported, on the application by Mr. Ruthven,
of Greenock, for an extension of his father’s patent, that he saw no
reason why the speed attained with the Ruthven propeller should not
equal that obtained with the paddle or screw, and that he had been on
official duty for the Admiralty to Belgium to inspect and report upon a
vessel built by the Cockerill firm and called the _Seraing_, which was
equipped with the Ruthven propeller. He recommended the Admiralty to
give the principle serious attention.
[Illustration: RUSSIAN CIRCULAR MONITOR “NOVGOROD.” _From a
Contemporary Wood Engraving._]
[Illustration: THE FRENCH IRON-PLATED SHIP “MAGENTA.” _From “The
Illustrated Times.”_]
In consequence of this report the Admiralty ordered the _Waterwitch_
to be built for the trial of the Ruthven propeller. In order to check
the vessel by a comparison with one fitted with the ordinary screw,
the trials of the armour-plated twin-screw gun-vessel _Viper_ were
selected. The _Waterwitch_ was of iron, 778 tons measurement, 162
feet in length by 32 feet beam, and 13 feet 9 inches depth; she was
rather broad in proportion to her length, and had a rudder at both
ends. Her armour plating was of the usual 4½ inches in thickness at
the water-line and on her broadside, and she had athwartship armoured
bulkheads across her upper deck with gunports in them, through which
it was proposed to fight guns on the line of keel. The main interest
of the vessel centred in her machinery. Her first trials on the Thames
were so satisfactory that a more extended series at Stokes Bay was
determined upon, the two sets of trials lasting about a year. A portion
of her bottom was made flat and without external keel. From what may be
regarded as a semi-official and certainly expert report of the ship and
the Stokes Bay trials, the following description of the vessel may be
quoted:--
“In the fore part of this flat surface, in a space about 12 feet
square, are one hundred and forty-four perforations 12 inches each in
length, and cut laterally through the bottom plates of the vessel,
the plate being bent inwards on each side of the cuts to a central
depth of about 3 inches. Through these perforations the water on which
the vessel is floating finds admission to an oblong iron box, fixed
longitudinally and parallel with the vessel’s keelson, closed when
the vessel is not under steam by four sluice valves, each having an
opening of 2 feet 10½ inches by 1 foot 11½ inches. With the vessel
under steam these valves are open, and give further admission to
the water to the watertight cast-iron casing, in which is fixed,
on a vertical axis, the turbine. This wheel is 14 feet 4 inches in
diameter at the bottom plate, and 14 feet at the top. It has twelve
blades, and these, with the top and bottom plates, are made of
boiler plate about ⅜-inch thick, vertical at the periphery and with
the lower edge gradually twisted from near the circumference towards
the centre in the direction of its motion. From the cast-iron casing
which encloses the wheel, branch off laterally copper pipes, which
convey the water from the wheel, or centrifugal pump as it might not
inaptly be called, to the discharge pipes and ejection nozzles on the
outside of the ship. By this arrangement, therefore, the water which
enters through the perforated bottom of the ship passes by way of the
sluice valves into the wheel casing, and thence, by the action of the
wheel, through the copper conducting pipes and out into the sea again
from the nozzles at the end of the discharge pipes on the outside of
the ship. The wheel is driven by three cylinders fixed round it at
equidistance, each of the connecting rods being coupled on the one
crank; one eccentric gives motion to each of the slide valves for the
three cylinders. The cylinders are each 38½ inches in diameter, with a
stroke of 3 feet 6 inches.”
There was little to choose between the performances of the _Waterwitch_
and her screw rivals, the _Vixen_ and _Viper_, tried at the same
time, and it was admitted that with certain modifications in the
existing machinery of the first-named and the ejection nozzles, a much
greater speed would no doubt be possible. It was also stated that
with a suitably designed screw propeller a greater speed could have
been obtained with the same power. Be that as it may, the experiment
does not seem to have been repeated on so large a scale, and the
improvements made in the steam engine soon outclassed completely the
hydraulic propeller.
In Europe there was a disposition to disregard the power of the
American ships, but when public opinion in this country and in Europe
turned in their favour it went to the other extreme, and turreted
ships with low freeboards were advocated irrespective of the totally
different conditions prevailing on this side of the Atlantic. It was
claimed that no turreted ship with a low freeboard could possibly be
a good sea-boat, or undertake an ocean voyage. The double-turreted
monitor _Miantonomoh_, built at New York, in 1865, proved the contrary
in the latter detail, when in 1866 she crossed the Atlantic under her
own steam, in company with two other monitors, and visited some English
and European ports. She was never tried in any engagement, but was
considered by her designers to be superior to any vessel of the kind
constructed for war both as a sea-going ship and for fighting purposes.
Her armament made up in weight what it lacked in number. Each of her
turrets contained two Dahlgren guns throwing projectiles weighing 480
lb., and she also had a 12 lb. howitzer. The turrets were 18 feet in
diameter, and were protected by armour 11 inches thick. She did not,
however, prove a good sea-boat, which is not to be wondered at when
her low freeboard is remembered, and though she made the voyage in the
summer months when the Atlantic is usually fairly calm, she proved
very wet. However, her advent was quite sufficient to demonstrate to
the European powers that she could make the voyage, and her novel
appearance gave the impression that her fighting value was tremendous.
When the American War was over the United States Government had no
further need of a number of its vessels, and disposed of some of them,
France buying two of the most powerful, and one or two other European
powers were also purchasers.
Among the vessels France acquired was the _Dunderberg_, which was
renamed _Rochambeau_ by her new owners. It consisted of a long iron
fortress mounted with guns to fire on the broadside and also ahead and
astern. The hull, also of iron, was but little above the water, and
the decks were iron-plated. The central portion had armour 7 inches
thick with a heavy wooden backing, and the decks fore and aft of the
fortress were plated 8½ inches thick. Her two engines, developing
5,000 h.p., gave her at a pinch a speed of between eleven and twelve
knots, but when she crossed the ocean she made the voyage under her
own steam at between eight and nine knots. The after part, containing
the screw propeller and steering gear, was also shot-proof. She had
an immense beak or ram. Her total length was 378 feet, her breadth 73
feet, and her depth 81 feet, and she drew 22 feet of water.
As purchased by the French she had an armament of five 15-inch Rodman
guns, and twelve 11-inch Dahlgrens. Another vessel, the _Onondaga_, was
also purchased from America by the French, and both were altered at
Cherbourg to meet French views.
When the French decided to adopt ironclad ships carrying a very few
guns of great power, they did not hesitate to make some extraordinary
experiments. One of their vessels, built in 1866, was the _Taureau_.
It was like nothing that had been afloat before or has been launched
since. Viewed from the stern, it resembled a sphere with a deck-house,
a couple of masts, and a chimney. Much the same aspect was presented
by a front view, except that before the deck-house was a small turret
in which was one large gun. The turret was carried very far forward
and could be revolved so that the gun had almost an all-round fire,
the only limitation being the funnel and deck erections. The bow was
extended enormously from the deck level to some distance below the
water, and projected no less than 40 feet under the surface. The
turret was not built on the deck, but descended to the bottom of the
hold, and was protected by nearly 5 inches of armour, and a similar
thickness was placed over the bows. The sides were plated 3 feet above
the water-line, this belt extending to the stern. The engines were of
250 h.p. The _Taureau_ was about 48 feet maximum width, and 197 feet
in length without the ram. The idea underlying the construction of
this unwieldy ship was that she should be able to deliver a heavy shot
at close range to an enemy’s ship, and follow this up by ramming it,
thereby completing its destruction; while her convex bows and circular
turret would present no plane surface to the enemy, so that any shot
which might strike it could only give a glancing blow and bound away
harmlessly.
In 1862 another remarkable vessel called the _Magenta_ was added to
the French fleet. She was iron-plated and carried eighty guns on two
decks, and in addition had a raised forecastle with ports on either
bow, through which guns could be fired. She also had an immense blunt
ram which projected like a cone upon the bows of the vessel and
extended from the forecastle almost to the fore-foot. She presented
an attempt to combine some of the features of the _Monitor_ with the
broadside ironclad, one American invention copied being the provision
of a shot-proof tower just abaft the funnel for the accommodation and
shelter of the officers during an engagement. She was barquentine
rigged, and under sail and steam could get up a speed of about eight or
nine knots.
The _Marengo_, another wooden ship which was plated with 8-inch iron
armour, was designed to carry twelve guns. She had a central battery
extending to the upper deck, and above this at each corner of the
battery was an open armour-plated turret. The turrets each carried
a large pivot gun, mounted _en barbette_, this being one of the
first vessels France possessed in which it was sought to combine the
advantages of the turret system with those of the barbette. These guns
could fire in line of keel, and there were also four heavy guns on each
broadside. She was 280 feet long by 57 feet 6 inches beam, and 28 feet
draught, and was intended to have a speed of twelve knots. Her rudder
was on the balanced principle. The rigging was brought down inside the
bulwarks, something after the fashion of some modern sailing ships, so
as to present a clean side outside. All the French ships were broad for
their length.
The first large armour-plated ship to enter the Pacific was the Spanish
screw steam frigate _Numancia_, constructed at La Seyne by the Société
des Forges et Chantiers de la Méditerranée. She was 317 feet in length
by 57 feet 2 inches beam, and depth 37 feet, and her draught of water
was 27 feet 6 inches, with a displacement of 7,303 tons, according to
English measurement. She was built of iron throughout, and had 5 inches
of armour-plate backed with 16 inches of teak from end to end of the
ship, and from no less than 7 feet 9 inches below the water-line up to
the level of the upper deck. Her armament was forty 68-pounders. She
was built in less than two years, a piece of unusually quick work for a
French yard, and was launched in 1864.
In 1868 the Dutch Government received from English builders two single
turret ironclad monitors, intended for harbour defence, which were
stated to be the first of the low freeboard type completed in this
country, and carrying turrets on Captain Coles’s system. These vessels,
the _Krokodil_ and _Heiligerlee_, were about 180 feet in length, with
a beam of 44 feet, and a depth of 11 feet 6 inches. From the gunwale
to 8 feet below the water-line they had iron armour-plates of a total
thickness of 5½ inches, tapering off to 4½ inches at the extreme ends.
This armour rested against a teak backing 10 inches in thickness,
behind which was an inner skin of 1-inch iron, and inside this again
was a series of longitudinal iron girders. For their size they were
exceedingly strongly constructed, but as they were designed to be able
to meet any hostile vessel which might approach any of the harbours
of the shallow Dutch coast where they might be stationed, the reason
for such substantial construction is apparent. The turret armour
was 11 inches thick at the gunports, and 8 inches thick elsewhere.
The armament consisted of two 12½-ton rifled guns firing a 300 lb.
projectile, which could be discharged from within four degrees of aft
on either side to direct ahead. The turrets could be revolved by steam
or hand power as desired. The twin-screw engines were of 140 h.p.
nominal.
Another vessel of considerable interest, designed and built for the
Dutch Government by Napier, was the turret gunboat _De Tygre_, which
inaugurated a type which found much favour in Holland. This vessel,
of 187 feet in length, 44 feet breadth, and moulded depth 11 feet
6 inches, and of 1,613 tons, builder’s measurement, was built in
compartments and with watertight doors, and was like most of the
turret ships of the monitor variety, as she had a double bottom which
could be filled with water to sink her to her fighting level. Thus
only about 2 feet of her topsides would be exposed to the enemy. As
an improvement upon her came another vessel from the same builders,
which was described as “of a build which has long seemed to us as one
of those most likely to become employed for the ‘ship of the future,’
not because she is a ram, but because she is essentially a sea-going
turret ship.” She was “the _De Tygre_ over again, with the following
exceptions: She has about 3 feet less beam, a rather greater draught
of water, and light topsides are raised over the armour-plating and
the deck, with which it terminates to the level of another deck; the
vessel is thus in appearance an ordinary sea-going ship of war, for she
is pierced for a few light guns on the lower deck; but her fighting
strength consists in her turret, which is similar to that of the _De
Tygre_, except that the ports are at a higher elevation. This vessel
is, therefore, a cruiser, unarmoured, higher than a level of 2 feet
from the water; but practically for a fight at close quarters she is a
monitor exposing only a turret and a low topside as parts vulnerable to
shot.”[45]
The Greek armour-clad _King George_, of 1,774 tons, built at
Blackwall by the Thames Ironworks, was remarkable for the smallness
of her dimensions in proportion to the strength and extent of her
armour-plating. This was 6 inches thick, and had a 10-inch backing, and
extended from the gunwale to 8 feet below the water-line, and from end
to end of the vessel. She was 200 feet in length, and with engines of
2,105 h.p. indicated attained a speed of nearly fourteen knots on her
trials. She was also notable for the peculiar arrangement of a central
hexagonal box-battery on the Mackrow system for two 21-centimètre
breech-loading Krupp guns (300-pounders), with the portholes so
designed that the guns could be fired on both sides forward in line
of keel, and nearly so aft; on the actual broadside the guns could be
fired direct and parallel at the same time, or made to converge their
fire at 70 yards distance from the ship’s side, the racers being so
placed that the guns pivoted from the muzzle and could each be trained
over on the broadside, through an angle of 93 degrees, the front gun in
this way pointing three degrees abaft.
In 1864 Germany made a start with its modern navy by ordering from
Messrs. Samuda the cupola ship _Arminius_. One or two others were
added, and then, in 1867, the powerful armour-cased screw frigate
_Kron Prinz_ was launched from the same yards. She was of 286 feet
in length, and of 3,404 tons, builder’s measurement, with engines of
1,800 nominal h.p. Her armour-plating extended entirely round the
vessel from 6 feet below the water-line up to the main deck. The
armour was 5 inches thick except near the ends where it was reduced
to 4½ inches, and arrangements were made for the protection of the
rudder and steering apparatus, as well as of the whole of the lower
deck. The armour extended 14 feet upwards about 120 feet along each
side, so as to protect the amidship battery, which was also protected
by cross bulkheads. She was fitted with a considerable number of
watertight compartments, a double bottom, and steel plating over the
deck beams. She carried fourteen steel breech-loading guns of 7 tons
each in her battery, a pivot gun on the deck at the bow protected by an
armour-plated shield, and a pivot gun aft. Her iron lower masts served
to ventilate the interior, and her lower yards were of steel; her speed
was estimated at thirteen knots.
Apparently so well satisfied were the Prussians with this product of
a British yard, that when the opportunity offered two years later to
acquire one of the most powerful warships yet designed, they took
advantage of it. There had been laid down at Blackwall for the Ottoman
Government, a vessel designed by Mr. Reed, Chief Constructor to the
British Navy, but Turkey, either seeing a profit in the transaction
or being short of cash--deficiencies not being unknown in the history
of Ottoman finance--permitted her, when about half finished, to be
acquired by the Prussian Government. She was 365 feet in length, or 30
feet longer than the _Hercules_, with a beam of 60 feet, and a mean
draught of 26 feet of water, with a burden of 6,000 tons. Her engines,
by Maudslay, were of 1,150 h.p. nominal, and 7,000 effective. She was
constructed on the longitudinal system, and within both frames and ribs
was another iron skin an inch thick, making her a double ship, the
inner one being 4½ feet from the other. The armour was 8 inches thick
amidships, and tapering downwards to a thickness of 7 inches to 7
feet below the water-line. It also tapered towards the bow and stern,
diminishing from 8 inches to 6 inches. Under the counter or bows, where
it was considered almost impossible a shot could strike, the armour was
only 4 inches thick. But elsewhere there was never less than 6 inches
of armour, besides the 10-inch teak backing and double iron skin. Aft
of the bowsprit and forward of the stern were two heavy bulkheads,
each of 6 inches of armour and 18 inches of teak, which were continued
from the lower deck, through the main deck, and up to 7 feet above the
spar deck, where they were curved to form shields, each pierced with
four portholes for cannon and loop-holed for musketry. Within these
shields were four Krupp’s steel breech-loading 400-pounders, which
could be fired forward or aft, or as broadside guns; and there were
also twenty-three similar guns between decks. She was at that time the
heaviest vessel which had been docked in the Thames.
Her new possessors evidently thought very highly of her, or they
desired to pay her builders a compliment, for the German Government
selected her to represent the German Navy at the Jubilee Review in
1887.
CHAPTER VII
ARMOURED SHIPS IN ACTION
When, in 1865, Spain deemed it necessary to give a lesson to her
daughter Peru, whose victorious insurgents held views as to the
non-payment of an indemnity, of which the mother country did not
approve, she found that another of her offspring, Chili, sympathised
with her sister, and it became necessary in Spain’s opinion to extend
the lesson to both States. The best warship she could supply for the
purpose was the _Numancia_. This was a formidable vessel built for
the Spanish Government in the ’sixties, at the time that relations
were likely to be strained to breaking point between Spain and the
two South American States. She was accompanied by some unarmoured
vessels carrying about two hundred and fifty guns altogether, nearly
all of which were old smooth-bores, the others being rifled guns of
no great power. The Chilians had the _Esmeralda_, a small vessel
having a complement of one hundred and twenty-three officers and
men, and carrying eighteen smooth-bores of which the heaviest were
32-pounders. With this vessel they retaliated upon the Spaniards for
their preliminary blockade of the Chilian ports by capturing, in
November, 1865, the gunboat _Covadonga_, a somewhat similar boat to
the _Esmeralda_, with two 68-pounders as her chief weapons. As usual,
the Chilians shot well and the Spaniards shot badly, and the issue of
the engagement was not long in doubt. The Spanish fleet distinguished
itself by a cowardly bombardment of Valparaiso in 1866, notwithstanding
its defenceless condition, when, in spite of their wretched shooting,
the Spaniards caused a great deal of damage, principally owing to the
_Numancia’s_ guns. Valparaiso did not reply.
The Spanish fleet next tried Callao, which was fortified and gave
the Spaniards more to think about than they cared for. The principal
guns in the batteries were four Armstrong rifles, 300-pounders, which
were in turrets faced with 10-inch armour, and five rifles of the
Blakely pattern, firing 450 lb. shot. There were also several smaller
smooth-bore guns. A small vessel of the monitor type, the _Victoria_,
with one 64-pounder, and the monitor _Manco Capac_, with railway
iron armour and two 68-pounders, constituted the Peruvian fleet. The
_Numancia_, at 1,500 yards range, led her consorts to the attack, but
in about half an hour the _Ville de Madrid_ was placed _hors de combat_
with a shot in her steam-pipe. The next disaster to the Spaniards
was when the _Berenguela_ had a hole blown in her side by a Blakely
shell, so that she could do no more fighting. Then two more Spanish
ships had to retire, as they had fired away all their ammunition. The
_Numancia_ was hit repeatedly, but her armour saved her from serious
damage. The smaller projectiles did her no harm at all, but one of the
shells from an Armstrong gun went through her plating and was prevented
by the backing from going farther. Both sides lost heavily, but
notwithstanding the amount of ammunition expended the damage was not
very extensive. This time the honours were distinctly with the shore
batteries, and the Spaniards sailed for home.
That the advantage given by the possession of powerful warships may
be entirely neutralised was demonstrated by the Brazilians in their
conflict with Paraguay, in 1865. The Paraguayans fought with the energy
of despair. They were between the devil and the deep sea, for they
knew that if they did not conquer their enemy, their commander would
reward them with tortures from which death would give them a welcome
release. In these circumstances the Paraguayans displayed extraordinary
daring with a by no means adequate fleet for resisting the Brazilians,
who were allied with Uruguay and the Argentine republic, as the
outcome of the Paraguayan president, Francisco Lopez’s, energetic, if
unconventional, methods. During this war the _Cabral_ and _Colombo_
were added to the Brazilian fleet from Thames builders. They were
each 160 feet long and drew 9 feet 9 inches when loaded, and with two
pairs of direct-acting horizontal engines of 200 h.p., each driving
a screw propeller, so that they were twin-screw boats, they could
attain a speed of ten and a half knots. They were really oblong iron
forts, supported on rafts. There was no central battery, but each
vessel carried six guns forward, two being disposed in the front of the
citadel and two on either side of the fore part. A similar battery was
placed at the other end. The armour-plates were 4½ inches in thickness,
and the deck before and abaft the battery gradually sloped all round
to the water-line, and being covered with 2½-inch armour-plating,
prevented a shot from penetrating into the ship. The arrangement of
the guns enabled these vessels to be fought either end on, or on the
broadside. Each was armed with twelve 70-pounder Whitworth guns. Two
other powerful vessels were also built for Brazil at Birkenhead. One
of the oddest naval encounters on record was fought in March, 1866,
between a powerful Brazilian fleet and a Paraguayan vessel. The
Brazilians had three of these ironclads, a single-turreted monitor,
and several wooden ships. The Paraguayans opposed this armada with a
barge mounting an 8-inch smooth-bore gun. The firing was fast, furious,
and inaccurate. The smooth-bore made good practice. The Brazilians hit
everything in range for some time except the one-gun barge. By dint of
perseverance they struck it eventually and sunk it.[46] This glorious
naval exploit was followed by another piece of daring, in which the
Brazilian fleet engaged in a more or less uninterrupted encounter for
three weeks with a fort mounting one gun; the fleet won.
The last quarter of the nineteenth century saw not a little warlike
activity in one part of the world and another in which the navies
of the contestant powers were conspicuous. The naval engagements in
the Russo-Turkish War were mainly remarkable for the regularity with
which the Turkish warships were blown up by the Russians, the daring
of Russian officers in making attack after attack, and the apparent
disinclination of the Turkish officers to take adequate means to
protect their vessels. Had the Turks been as vigilant as the Russians,
the latter would hardly have scored so many brilliant successes.
The South American Republics, too, were indulging in one of those
periodical bursts of unrest and pugnacity which seem inseparable from
South American States in their relations with each other, or in the
administration of their internal affairs, and when carefully fomented
may lead plotting politicians on to become dictators and the victims
of assassinations--unless they are fortunate enough to retire to Paris
with the spoils and live in luxury and die naturally.
One of these revivals of political ferment brought the _Huascar_ into
prominence, and made her for some years the most famous fighting ship
in the world. The interest taken everywhere in the doings of this
ship was extraordinary. She was launched in 1865 at Birkenhead, from
that yard which has sent so many ships to sea to make history, and if
local associations have their influence over ships, and sailors say
they have, the records of the _Huascar_ show that she was not false
to tradition. Built to the order of the Peruvian Government, she was
a turret ship of 1,800 tons displacement and eleven knots speed, and
carried a belt of armour on the water-line of from 4½ inches thick at
the centre portion to 2½ inches at the ends. Her one turret, which
was placed rather forward of amidships, was built on Captain Coles’s
design, and given 5½-inch iron plates. In it she carried two 10-inch
12½-ton Armstrong muzzle-loaders; and on her decks were two 40-pounders
and one 12-pounder, all three being muzzle-loaders and unprotected.
Her lower foremast was on the tripod system, but this was afterwards
discarded and she was given an ordinary mast. She had a main- and
mizen-mast also, and all three carried topmasts and square sails; when
her masts were altered a military top of iron plates was built upon the
cap of the mainmast.
She had a most exciting career. Her crew mutinied and put to sea in
her, and took to freebooting quite in the spirit of the old days of
the Spanish Main and the South Eastern Pacific. She was declared a
pirate. At the end of May, 1877, the British cruisers _Shah_ and
_Amethyst_, which had been ordered to look for her, discovered her
off Ilo. These were both light unarmoured cruisers, the latter being
much the smaller of the two, and depended largely upon their speed to
render attack upon them more difficult, or to avoid it altogether, or
to assume the offensive at a time best suited to themselves. Their guns
were more modern and powerful than those of the _Huascar_, and also
more numerous, so that in gun power the cruisers were superior to the
ironclad.
This engagement is noteworthy for the reason that in it the first
automobile torpedo ever employed in war was discharged by the _Shah_
against the _Huascar_, and failed to reach its mark. The _Shah_ bore
the brunt of the engagement with the _Huascar_. The latter almost
ignored the _Amethyst_, whose small guns did no more harm to her
sides than a mosquito would do to an elephant, but helped to make the
mutineer’s deck guns useless, and the ironclad reserved her attention
for her more formidable antagonist. Whenever the firing became
unpleasantly severe, as it frequently did, the _Huascar_ steamed in
front of Ilo, and the _Shah_ then hesitated to fire lest her shells
should miss the _Huascar_ and hit the town, notwithstanding that the
_Huascar_ then fired at the _Shah_. But the _Huascar’s_ aim was faulty,
partly because of the poor shooting powers of her gunners, and partly
because the _Shah_ kept rapidly on the move and so presented no steady
mark to the Peruvian gunners. The _Huascar_ tried to ram her, but the
_Shah’s_ speed enabled her to avoid the blow without difficulty, and
give a telling shot at short range in return. Altogether the ironclad
was hit nearly seventy times, but though she was badly dented, only one
shell passed through her 3-inch armour to a sufficient extent to cause
any injury to the interior of the vessel or to her crew. The hulls of
the British ships were not struck once, though their rigging suffered
a little trifling damage. They hoped to capture the _Huascar_ on the
morrow, but by daylight she was out of sight, and during the morning
was surrendered by her commander to the Peruvian Government ships.
But her fighting days were by no means over. This battle was held by
the experts in naval matters to demonstrate the value of armour and
the weakness of the ordinary 9-inch muzzle-loader, and also the prime
necessity of accurate shooting. The English gunnery was bad and that of
the Peruvians was execrable.
When Chili and Peru indulged in a war in 1879-81, the latter
country owned the _Huascar_ and the _Independencia_. The latter
was an armoured vessel of 3,500 tons, built in England in 1865, and
occasionally confused with the other _Independencia_ built on the
Thames a few years later for another South American State, but which
passed into the possession of the British Government. The Peruvian
_Independencia_ carried two 150-pounders, twelve 72-pounders, and
four 30-pounders, all muzzle-loading rifled guns, and for this war
her fighting power was strengthened by the addition of a 9-ton gun
and a 150-pounder. The _Huascar_ had been reboilered since her fight
with the _Shah_ and the _Amethyst_. The Peruvian navy was a fairly
formidable fighting fleet, but what it displayed in this respect was
more than neutralised by the inefficiency of its personnel who, however
brave individually they may have been, sadly lacked order and control.
The Chilians included in their fleet two modern powerful ironclads,
the _Blanco Encalada_ and the _Almirante Cochrane_, both of which
were built in England in 1874-5. Each was of about 3,500 tons, and
designed on the central box battery plan, and as will be seen from the
accompanying particulars of the _Almirante Cochrane_, both vessels were
exceedingly formidable fighting ships. The _Blanco Encalada_ also had
two Nordenfeldts and the _Almirante Cochrane_ one.
The _Almirante Cochrane_ was 210 feet in length on the water-line,
with a breadth of 45 feet 9 inches, and a depth of hold of 21 feet 8
inches; and in fighting trim she drew 18 feet 8 inches of water forward
and a foot more aft. Her whole length in the neighbourhood of the
water-line was protected by a stout belt of armour and teak backing 8
feet wide, with the armour-plates 9 inches thick at the water-line and
the teak backing 10 inches. The battery was amidships, and was armed
with six 12½-ton Armstrong guns. The whole of the armour and backing
was fastened to a double thickness of skin plating by bolts similar
to those used in the British Navy. She was the first ironclad built at
Hull.
With the three guns on each side she was able to fire over all the
points of the compass, this advantage being attained by placing each
of the fore and aft guns at the corners of the battery, and recessing
the side of the ship so as to enable the foremost guns to fire right
forward and in a line with the keel, and in like manner the after guns
to fire right aft. The batteries being octagonal, the corner guns could
be brought into the broadside position and command any single angle
between that and the line of keel. The midship guns on each side were
made to fire on the broadside, and also to support the fire of the
forward guns up to within 20 degrees of the line of keel.
It is unnecessary to describe the naval manœuvres preparatory to the
meeting of the hostile vessels, or to deal with the causes of the war.
The _Huascar_ very nearly blew herself up instead of her antagonist,
the _Abtao_, off Antofagasta. She fired a Lay torpedo at her, but the
missile turned and headed straight at the _Huascar_, whose turbulent
career would most likely have been ended there and then had not one of
her lieutenants dived overboard at the torpedo and diverted it so that
it missed the warship by a few inches.
As soon as the Chilians heard that the Peruvian fleet had come south,
the former left the historic _Esmeralda_ and another wooden ship, the
_Covadonga_, which was equally slow, behind at Iquique, and went to
look for the Peruvian ships. The latter slipped past in the darkness
and sent the _Huascar_ and the _Independencia_ to smash up the two
wooden ships left behind to blockade Iquique. The _Huascar_ attacked
the _Esmeralda_ and the _Independencia_ endeavoured to account for the
_Covadonga_. Thus, two modern powerful ironclads were opposed to two
old wooden ships indifferently armed and painfully slow. On the face
of the paper statistics the battle should have lasted four minutes;
as it was, it lasted four hours. As soon as the Peruvians on shore
saw that the _Esmeralda_ and the _Covadonga_ were to be attacked by
the two Peruvian ironclads they opened fire on the blockading ships
and compelled the _Esmeralda_ to seek a less favourable position. The
_Huascar_, seeing this was a suitable moment, tried to disable her
with the ram, but inflicted very little injury. Before this a shell
from the _Huascar’s_ turret gun pierced the _Esmeralda’s_ engine room,
killing all the engineers and disabling the engines so that for a time
the wooden ship was helpless. But the Chilians patched up the engines
and got them going again. This one shot from the _Huascar_ was probably
due to good luck rather than good shooting, for although she hit once
with her turret gun she missed thirty-nine times. The _Esmeralda_, on
the contrary, hit the _Huascar_ repeatedly, but her smaller projectiles
were harmless against the iron armour, and inflicted no damage to the
hull, but the careful firing of the Chilians rendered it very difficult
for the _Huascar’s_ crew to expose themselves in any degree on deck for
working the other guns. The _Huascar_ again rammed the _Esmeralda_,
this time on the starboard bow, and the Chilians with extraordinary
bravery attempted to carry the ironclad by boarding it, but in the
confusion the order to board was not understood, and the attempt
consequently failed. Again the _Huascar_ rammed, now making a great
gaping wound in the side of her feeble opponent, through which the
water rushed and caused her to founder in a few minutes. She went down
with her colours flying, all her wounded on board, and nearly all the
rest of her crew.
The other duel, between the _Independencia_ and the _Covadonga_, was
of a very different nature. The Chilian boat had an English pilot
on board and determined to effect by strategy what she could not
accomplish by force. She went away along the coast, keeping in the
shallower waters, pursued by the _Independencia_. The _Covadonga_ at
last found herself near the reefs, touched a rock and stopped, but did
not remain fast. The _Independencia_, which was only 200 or 300 yards
behind, thought that this was a grand opportunity to ram her, and
not knowing the reason of the _Covadonga’s_ sudden stoppage, headed
straight for her. Instead of striking the _Covadonga_, she ran on the
reef with all her force, and remained hard and fast. The smaller wooden
boat then steamed into a favourable position astern of the ironclad
where the latter could not bring her great guns to bear, and at short
range poured shell after shell into her stern until it was soon blazing
fiercely. During the pursuit of the _Covadonga_ the two vessels had
exchanged several shots. As usual, the Peruvian gunners, who were
untrained, missed nearly every time, and the Chilian gunners, who shot
carefully, seldom failed to do damage. This ended the career of the
_Independencia_. The _Covadonga_ was sunk by Peruvian torpedoes in
September, 1880, off Chancay.
The _Huascar’s_ next exploit was in 1879, when she fought the
_Almirante Cochrane_ and the _Blanco Encalada_. The _Huascar_ opened
fire at 3,000 yards range but inflicted no injury. The _Cochrane_
steamed in and replied at 700 yards with a broadside which made
the ironclad shiver from stem to stern, for every shot struck. The
_Huascar_ was no match for either of these vessels and certainly not
for them both, but she fought on with a grim determination which has
made this engagement one of the most memorable on record, and has
caused more than one historian to compare it to the famous fight of Sir
Richard Grenville’s little _Revenge_, when that intrepid adventurer
tackled a Spanish fleet numbering fifty-three vessels, and did not
surrender until he himself and nearly all his crew were wounded, and
most of the others killed, and his ship was like to sink under him.
The punishment the _Huascar_ received in this engagement was
extraordinary. No fewer than twenty-seven of the heaviest projectiles
fired by her opponents struck her, thirteen of the blows being severe.
Two of the large shells went through her turret armour and exploded.
Three others struck her conning tower. Her ’tween decks was turned
into a shambles, and almost wrecked by the explosion of five heavy
shells. Three times was she hit severely in the stern. The battle was
fought at close range and the force of the blows inflicted must have
been tremendous. Under the rain of shot and shell the wonder is that
the _Huascar_ remained afloat. Had the Chilian shooting been better
it is doubtful if she could have survived. The _Almirante Cochrane_
fired forty-five 9-inch Palliser shells, and twelve 20-pounder shells,
besides a great number of smaller projectiles; and the _Blanco
Encalada_ delivered thirty-one heavy shells. The _Huascar_ fired about
forty shells, but could do little damage to her formidable antagonists.
The _Cochrane_ was hit three times, but did not sustain much injury,
and the _Blanco Encalada_ escaped practically unhurt. After her
surrender, the _Huascar_ was patched up by the Chilians, and when she
was fit to go to sea again and look for more fighting she flew the
Chilian flag. Under her new owners she captured a small gunboat and
participated in the blockade of Callao. She was on the effective list
of the Chilian navy up to a year or two ago, and is now passing to the
scrap-heap by slow and dignified stages.
In the fighting off Valparaiso in April, 1891, during the Chilian
Revolution, the _Blanco Encalada_ stopped a tug called the _Mary
Florence_ and a torpedo boat from leaving the harbour, and the two
latter, which were Government vessels, were so hotly fired upon that
they were glad to return. A heavy shot from the _Blanco Encalada_
struck the _Mary Florence_ and blew her out of the water, killing the
seventeen men who constituted her crew. The torpedo boat held on, but
the other insurgent vessel, the _O’Higgins_, knocked her into pieces
with a well-directed broadside, and her crew shared the fate of that of
the _Mary Florence_. The _Blanco Encalada_ and _O’Higgins_ then turned
their attention to the forts, and a lively battle followed. Although
it was dark some good shooting seems to have been made, for the forts
at last had the range of the _O’Higgins_, and a heavy shell struck one
of the guns on her quarter-deck. The explosion shook her from end to
end, and when the smoke cleared away it was found that her deck was
almost torn to pieces and the gun itself was lying on the other side of
the deck, while nine of the gun’s crew of twelve were either killed or
blown into the water and drowned. The _O’Higgins_ was immediately taken
out of range, but the _Blanco Encalada_ kept up the fight for a time
without being any the worse and then retired to look after her consort.
After they had gone, the rebel man-of-war _Esmeralda_, which must not
be confounded with the wooden vessel of that name, opened fire on the
town while the inhabitants for and against the Government were having a
pitched battle in the streets. The Government forces got the worst of
the fight, and the _Esmeralda_ took in a supply of coal and provisions,
and steamed away to join other insurgent vessels.
This _Esmeralda_ was designed and built by Armstrong, at Newcastle,
in 1884, for the Chilian Government, and is of more than ordinary
interest, as she was the first example of the modern protected cruiser
class. She was framed on the ordinary transverse system, and had three
decks; the upper, or gun deck, was 11 feet above water, the main deck
about 5 feet, and the lower, or arched protective deck, which was of
1-inch steel and extended from stem to stern, was at the middle 1 foot
below water-level, and at the side 5 feet. It protected the engines,
boilers, magazines, and all the vital parts. Minute sub-divisions of
the hold space below the protective deck and of the space between it
and the main deck were effected by means of transverse and longitudinal
bulkheads and of horizontal flats or platforms; cork was also packed
in the cellular spaces to ensure sufficient buoyancy and trim in case
the water-line region should be riddled. Her twin screws were driven
by two independent sets of 2-stage expansion engines, developing
6,500 h.p., which gave her a speed of 18.25 knots. She had four
double-ended boilers, 13 feet diameter and 18½ feet long, working at
90 lb. pressure, each with six furnaces supplied with forced draught.
Her bunker capacity was 600 tons, sufficient for eight thousand knots
at a speed of eight knots, or six thousand knots at ten knots. Her
armament was two 25-ton 10-inch breechloading rifle guns, protected
by steel screens, and having a training arc of 120 degrees on either
side of the keel; six 4-ton 6-inch breechloading rifle guns; two
6-pounder quick-firers, and a number of machine guns, as well as three
torpedo tubes. Her two military masts had a Gardner gun in each. Her
displacement was 3,000 tons, her length 270 feet, her breadth 42 feet,
and her draught of water 18.5 feet.
On the morning of May 23rd, before daylight, the search-light of the
Government torpedo gunboat _Almirante Condell_ revealed in the distance
the presence of the _Blanco Encalada_. The torpedo gunboat had the
_Almirante Lynch_ as companion, and the pair lost no time in attacking
the ironclad, which was at anchor with banked fires, as part of her
machinery was ashore undergoing repairs. The _Condell_ opened the
ball with her torpedo, which missed, and followed it with discharges
from her Hotchkiss gun. The _Lynch_ also brought her Hotchkiss gun
into play, and as both vessels were firing end-on, they presented a
very small target to the ironclad, upon which, however, they could
make little impression. The _Blanco Encalada_ answered the fire,
but ineffectively. The torpedo boats, attacking her from different
sides, discharged five more torpedoes, which missed, and though the
ironclad was firing carefully, the steel armour of the smaller vessels
turned aside her shot and shell. At last a shell from the ironclad
dropped on the _Condell_, doing a great deal of damage. The _Lynch’s_
Hotchkiss gun played havoc with everything and everybody on the _Blanco
Encalada’s_ deck and above it.
“The officers of the _Lynch_ now determined to make a supreme effort.
Her flag was run up to the peak, and her Hotchkiss gun became silent.
She worked round until she was bow on to the starboard side of the
_Encalada_, and then there was a swish from the tube of the _Lynch’s_
ram. The _Encalada_ got her search-lights on the approaching missile,
as she had on the other four, her gunners poured a leaden rain on
to it for the purpose of sinking it. This, time, however, the aim
of the torpedo was true, and the storm of shot from the _Encalada_
failed to destroy it. The steel torpedo net also failed to avert the
messenger of destruction, so sudden and unexpected was the attack.
The torpedo struck the _Encalada_ just abaft the foremast, and a
deafening explosion followed. A huge hole yawned in her starboard
side, extending below the water-line, and the ironclad quickly filled.
Terror reigned on board the doomed ironclad, and the men scrambled
into the boats hanging upon the rear davits, which were the only
ones which had not been destroyed by the fire of the guns. Both the
_Condell_ and the _Lynch_ now opened fire from the Hotchkiss guns,
and scores of men were killed while attempting to escape. Many of
the sailors sprang into the water, only to meet death by drowning,
or being eaten by sharks, with which the bay abounds. The ironclad
quickly settled and, with a sudden lurch, went down in less than three
minutes, with her officers and crew. Out of two hundred men, only
twelve escaped.”[47]
The naval proceedings in the Franco-Prussian War in 1870-1 remind
one somewhat of Sir Richard Strachan and the Earl of Chatham, each
of whom, according to the well-known verse, had his sword drawn and
waited for the other. In the Franco-Prussian conflict, however, there
was a hostile meeting at sea, although on a small scale. The only
naval action in this war was that between the French gunboat _Bouvet_,
carrying one 16-centimètre gun and four 12-centimètre guns, with a
complement of eighty-five officers and men, and the German gunboat
_Meteor_, with one 15-centimètre gun and two 12-centimètre guns, and
having sixty-four officers and sailors. They met at Havana, and left
the harbour for the open sea at the prescribed interval. When outside
territorial limits they exchanged cannonades for two hours at 1,200
yards range, with little harm to either. Then the Frenchman decided to
ram, but the _Meteor_ moved and only received a glancing blow which did
little damage to her hull but brought down her main- and mizen-masts.
The _Bouvet_ was going to ram again, when the _Meteor_ gave her a solid
shot in her boiler. There was no further fighting, for the Spanish ship
which had steamed out from Havana to prevent a violation of neutrality,
informed them that they were now in Spanish waters and that the
engagement must stop.
The Turkish fleet at the beginning of the war with Russia in 1876-7
was superior to that of Russia in every respect save efficiency.
The Russian Black Sea fleet, owing to diplomatic restrictions, was
of very little use. The only effective naval work performed by the
Russians in this war was with torpedo boats brought overland by rail
from the Baltic, which were supported by merchant steamers acquired
for the purpose. The Turks had some splendid vessels which should
have given a good account of themselves, and had they performed the
duties expected of them and of which they were quite capable, and
had they been properly handled, the history of that war would have
been very different. When the Turks lost command of the sea they also
lost the war. One of their finest vessels was the _Messoudiye_, a
sister ship to the British _Superb_, which had also been built for
the Turkish Government, but was bought by England. Both were of 9,100
tons displacement, and had engines giving them a speed of thirteen
and a half knots on 1,200 h.p. They had 12-inch armour with a 10-inch
backing, and carried sixteen 10-inch guns. The Turks also had four
vessels of over 6,000 tons displacement, the _Azazieh_, _Mahmoudieh_,
_Orkanieh_, and _Osmanieh_; the _Assar-i-Tewfik_, of 4,000 tons, each
having fifteen 6½-ton guns and one 12-ton gun; and several smaller
vessels. These were all broadside or central battery ships. There were
also a couple of monitors with turrets, and some armoured gunboats,
among which were the _Avni-Illah_, of 2,314 tons displacement, a
more powerful version of the Greek _King George_. Some of the ships
had officers trained in the English Navy, and there were also a few
English officers serving with the Turkish fleet. The vessels on which
these officers were engaged were managed as warships should be, but
those which were left to the tender mercies of the Turkish officers
were sadly neglected, and discipline on board was conspicuous by its
absence. This was one reason why the Russians were successful so
frequently in their surprise attacks. Then, when they were disagreeably
aroused to the presence of the enemy the Turks usually distinguished
themselves by shooting very wildly and widely, and before they knew
what they were about the Russians had dashed in and torpedoed the
Turkish ship. In spite of the preponderance of Turkish ships, they
only came to close quarters once with a Russian ship, and that was a
converted merchantman. It is probably a good thing for the Turks that
the Russian naval force was so weak, for had it been stronger the
Russians would not have hesitated to attack the Turks, and when the
attack was over there would probably have been a repetition of the
story of the Battle of Sinope and the destruction of the Ottoman fleet
which preceded the Crimean War. The ships under English officers would
have given a good account of themselves, especially with such men as
Hobart Pacha in command; as it was, the English did their best, but
their efforts were negatived by the incompetence and indifference of
their Turkish colleagues.
The Turkish warships on the Danube began the roll of Ottoman naval
disasters in this war, the first to be lost being the _Lutfi Djelil_,
launched at Bordeaux in 1868. She was engaged with a Russian battery at
Braila, during the attack on the Turkish squadron, and the engagement
was proceeding fiercely when a shell struck the vessel and blew her up.
As torpedoes and mines were also being employed by the Russians her
destruction has sometimes been ascribed to one of these.
The Russians seem to have had very little difficulty in approaching the
Turkish ships, owing to the neglectful way in which the sentries kept
a look-out, and their daring was certainly rewarded by a remarkable
series of successes in which the luck was unquestionably on their side.
Thus at the attack on the _Seifi_ the latter’s turret guns missed fire
three times, and the Russians got so near that they blew a hole in her
by pushing a Whitehead torpedo under her stern, and exploded another
near her bows in order to hasten her disappearance beneath the waters
of the Black Sea. Possibly one reason why the Turks generally missed
the Russian torpedo boats when they aimed at them was that there were
no quick-firers, as the term is now understood, and that the Turks had
nothing between the clumsy and heavy 40-pounders and the Gatlings,
and had no guns to meet the torpedo attacks, even when they did sight
the approaching torpedo boats. Another reason why they failed to
prevent the attacks by gun-fire was the great difficulty of training
heavy guns upon small fast-moving boats no bigger than steam launches
upon the dark and inclement nights which were usually chosen for the
enterprises. Again, the slow-firing guns of those days had to be
laboriously reloaded afresh and aim had to be taken again, and by that
time the attacking boat might be out of range or have discharged its
dangerous and destructive missile.
The one ship-and-ship encounter of the war took place between the
converted merchant steamer _Vesta_ and the Turkish _Assar-i-Chevket_.
The latter gave chase and steadily overhauled the other until those
on the _Vesta_ began to expect that another few minutes would see her
career brought to an end by the warship overtaking and ramming her.
Both ships had been making good shooting, especially the Turk, but at
the last minute a heavy shot from the _Vesta_ struck the warship’s
conning tower a hard blow, and the warship gave up the chase.
[Illustration: DUEL BETWEEN THE “VESTA” AND “ASSAR-I-CHEVKET.” _From a
Contemporary Wood Engraving._]
[Illustration: RUSSIAN TORPEDO BOATS ON THE DANUBE IN THE RUSSO-TURKISH
WAR.]
Many of the British ironclads, the development of which has been traced
in earlier pages, participated in the bombardment of Alexandria,
in July, 1882. The Egyptian fortifications mounted a great variety
of guns, intended, it was unkindly suggested at that time, to meet
on equal terms all kinds of floating craft from ships’ gigs to
battleships. The forts were provided with a number of heavy Armstrong
and Krupp guns of great calibre and immense power. These included
five 10-inch 18-ton guns, eighteen 9-inch, and fourteen 8-inch guns,
all of which were rifled. The majority of the guns in the forts
were indifferently mounted, to a large extent through carelessness
in the work, and some of the latest pattern had been so recently
delivered that there was no time, as time is reckoned in the East
where a few months seldom matter, to mount them at all. No doubt they
had been intended to supersede the old, small, smooth-bore guns of
which the forts had enough and to spare, there being no fewer than two
hundred and eleven of them, but as this work had not been done the
Egyptian gunners had to make shift as best they could with the guns in
position. There were also thirty-eight mortars. Of course, under the
circumstances many of their projectiles failed to reach the British
vessels at which they were aimed. The Egyptian gunners also served
their weapons very badly, and even when the British ships were within
short range of the heavier guns, nearly every shot missed its mark. The
forts appeared from the outside to be much better constructed than they
really were, and their magazines, though extensive, were by no means
the safe places they should have been for the storage of ammunition and
projectiles, and in this probably lies the explanation of the blowing
up of some of the forts. The heavier Egyptian guns were fired through
embrasures, their gunners being thus afforded a considerable measure of
protection; but most, if not all, of the smooth-bores were fired over
parapets, so that they were more exposed to the fire of the ships.
The disparity in gun power between the fleet and the forts was so great
that the view was confidently expressed in England that if hostilities
should ensue the forts would be reduced in anything from half an
hour to a couple of hours. Yet for eleven hours the Egyptian gunners
maintained the unequal combat. Had their skill been equal to their
determination, Alexandria had not fallen so easily and with so little
damage to the British ships.
The ironclads were the _Inflexible_, firing a broadside of 6,880 lb.
from her four 81-ton guns; the _Temeraire_, 8,540 tons, four 25-ton and
four 18-ton guns; the _Superb_, 9,100 tons, with four 25-ton guns, and
a weight of broadside of 3,280 lb.; the _Alexandra_, 9,490 tons, two
25-ton and ten 18-ton guns; the _Monarch_, 8,230 tons, four 25-ton and
two 6½-ton guns; the _Invincible_, 6,010 tons, ten 12-ton guns; and
the _Penelope_, 4,394 tons, ten 12-ton guns. All these vessels carried
a number of smaller guns as well. The gunboats were the _Beacon_,
_Bittern_, _Cygnet_, _Condor_, and _Decoy_, and there was also a small
despatch boat.
The _Monarch_, _Temeraire_ and _Penelope_ attacked Fort Meks and
Fort Marsa-el-Kanit on the mainland; and the _Superb_, _Sultan_ and
_Alexandra_ opposed the Lighthouse and Pharos forts. The _Inflexible_
co-operated with either squadron as required. The Marabout batteries
at the entrance to the harbour were left to the five gunboats. These
were each armed with a 4½-ton 7-inch rifled Woolwich gun and two
64-pounders, all muzzle-loading. The Marabout forts were protected by
two 18-ton guns, two 12-ton guns, twenty 32-pounders, and five mortars.
This fort had been constructed in such a manner that the guns could not
be trained to fire below a certain angle, and consequently any vessel
which could get within this angle would be comparatively safe from the
fire of the forts, and with the superior training of its guns could
shell the forts at short range with terrible effect.
Lord Charles Beresford, the commander of the _Condor_, saw this, and
determined to make the effort. With magnificent daring and consummately
skilful handling of his small vessel, he managed to get her through the
zone of fire without receiving a shot in return, thanks to the erratic
firing of the Egyptian gunners. Having got under the angle of fire the
_Condor_ began to use her guns with terrible effect.
A certain gun in the Marabout fort was annoying the attacking flotilla
very seriously, and in spite of the efforts of the assailants they
could not suppress its fire entirely. One man at this gun proved that
he was an excellent marksman and sent several shells dangerously close
to the ships.
The story goes that this particularly obnoxious Egyptian gunner was
noticed by Lord Charles Beresford, who ordered his own best gunner to
knock over the Egyptian gun. This was no sooner ordered than done, but
the Egyptians worked hard and mounted the gun again, and once more the
Egyptian gunner was seen to be in charge of the piece.
“Hit that gunner,” Lord Charles commanded.
“Yes, sir. Where shall I hit him?” the gunner asked.
“Hit him in the eye,” was the reply of the future admiral.
“Which eye, sir?” asked the gunner. But before the commander could
indicate any preference as to the particular Egyptian optic which
should be hit with an explosive shell, the gunner had fired, and the
shot took off the man’s head.
The _Condor_ maintained her duel with the forts for an hour and was not
hit seriously once. Almost single-handed she silenced the great guns of
the Marabout fort, and afterwards aided the _Bittern_ and _Cygnet_ to
suppress the other guns. Little wonder was it that when she afterwards
passed the _Invincible_ she was rewarded with the splendid compliment,
“Well done, _Condor_.” The crews of the large warships cheered her
as she passed them, and her own crew returned the compliment, not
forgetting cheers for their popular commander and groans for Arabi
Pacha.
Meanwhile the _Inflexible_, with her terrible 81-ton guns, was
steadily if slowly firing at the Meks and Lighthouse forts. The guns of
one turret sent shell after shell into one of the forts and those of
the other turret were directed upon the other fort. The heavy rumbling
of her immense shells contrasted curiously with the scream of the
lighter shells of the smaller guns. Her enormous projectiles, weighing
about 1,700 lb. each, fired with terrible precision, blew the face of
Fort Ada to pieces, and aided in reducing the Lighthouse fort.
The bombardment was a repetition of the old story of fixed shore
fortifications being assailed by a mobile and powerful fleet. As usual
the fleet could manœuvre to its own best advantage for shelling an
enemy and upsetting his aim. The fleet itself, however, did not escape
entirely without injury. A shell entered the captain’s cabin of the
_Alexandra_ and burst, doing considerable damage to the contents of the
apartment, but singularly little injury to the ship. The _Alexandra’s_
armour was pierced several times, but none of the projectiles succeeded
in getting through the backing, and a portion of her smokestack was
shot away. Altogether she was struck twenty-five times. Most of the
other attacking vessels also bore marks of the engagement, but in
no instance was the injury inflicted serious. Much of the damage
was sustained aloft, thus showing that the Egyptian gunners had for
the most part aimed too high. Some of their shells, also, failed to
explode, and on the whole the firing from the forts was badly directed.
The British had five men killed and twenty-eight wounded. The losses
of the Egyptians were never known accurately, but must have been very
great, for the British shells which did not hit the forts found their
billets in the town behind and, exploding, added to the terror and
death-roll among the natives who had not already fled.
A correspondent who visited the forts immediately after the bombardment
wrote:--
“One is amazed at the destruction accomplished which was not visible
from the sea, and at the bravery of the Arab gunners in remaining
at their posts so long. The number and variety of their guns are
surprising and the stock of projectiles and ammunition is immense. If
they had had more men and been well commanded, the fleet would have
had a very warm reception. In one fort we counted several 18-ton guns,
19-inch Armstrongs. In another four 9-inch and one 10-inch Armstrong;
in another two 15-inch smooth-bores ... besides 40-pounder Armstrongs
and any number of old 32-pounders.... One small battery gave the ships
a great deal of trouble ... it was effectually silenced at last, every
gun being knocked off the trainings. At Bab el Meks some Armstrongs
were knocked down, others were hit up with muzzles in the air, and
embedded in one gun we found shots from a Gatling.”[48]
The present United States navy may be said to date from 1883. After the
close of the rebellion the American Government had no further need of
the majority of the war vessels built or improvised for that struggle,
and having sold some, neglected nearly all the remainder. America and
Spain almost came to blows over what was known as the Virginius affair,
and the great republic prepared to do its best on “the mobilisation in
southern waters of a fleet which consisted in great part of antiquated
and rotting ships.”[49] The United States also sadly missed the
possession of an efficient navy when serious differences arose with a
powerful European state over the right interpretation and application
of the Monroe Doctrine to the Panama Canal and the control thereof.
Both these events, supported by the Ten Years War in Cuba and the
unconcealed American sympathy for the Cubans, prepared the country for
the acceptance of the dictum that a more modern navy was necessary, and
this was emphasised when it was announced during the administration of
President Rutherford B. Hayes that the navy of any European power was
superior to that of the United States, and that even Chili, with the
_Almirante Cochrane_ and the _Huascar_, would be able to bombard San
Francisco and that the United States Government had not the means to
prevent them.
In order to appreciate the enormous progress which the United States
have made as a naval power in the past thirty years one must turn
to the American Navy List for 1879, and compare it with the present
equipment in the matter of ships and personnel, which places the
United States in the position of being the second naval power of the
world--second, indeed, only to Great Britain, and with resources
for the production of warships of the latest design and the highest
fighting capacity scarcely if at all inferior to those of the United
Kingdom itself. In 1879 there--
“Were five steam vessels classed as first-rates, which had been built
twenty-five years before and were then obsolete and practically
useless as men-of-war; twenty-seven second-rates, of which three lay
on the stocks, rotten and worthless, seven were in ordinary unfit
for repair, and only nine were actually in condition for sea duty;
twenty-nine third-rate steam vessels, of which fifteen only were
available for naval purposes; six fourth-rate steam vessels, none of
which was of account as a warship; twenty-two sailing vessels, but
five of which could even navigate the sea; twenty-four ironclads,
fourteen of which were ready for effective service; and two torpedo
vessels, one of which was described as rather heavy for a torpedo
vessel, not working so handily as is desirable for that purpose, and
the other, known as the _Alarm_, was in the experimental stage.... In
the entire navy there was not a single high-power, long-range rifled
gun.”
Of the bravery of the American sailors of whatever rank there has never
been any question, but the methods of selecting them seem to have been
as peculiar as the British methods of corruption in the old days,
when it was possible for an infant in arms to be on the pay roll of a
British ship when he had never so much as seen the sea, to say nothing
of never having been on board the vessel of which he was nominally a
midshipman.
The following racy account,[50] which illustrates the American system
of the past better than any lengthy description could do, of the
examination of Midshipman Joseph Tatnall, a relative of the famous
American officer of “Blood is thicker than water” fame, will be read
with interest in this connection:--
Commodore: Mr. Tatnall, what would be your course, supposing you were
off a lee shore, the wind blowing a gale, both anchors and your rudder
gone, all your canvas carried away, and your ship scudding rapidly
towards the breakers?
Tatnall: I cannot conceive, sir, that such a combination of disasters
could possibly befall a ship in one voyage.
Commodore: Tut, tut, young gentleman; we must have your opinion
supposing such a case to have actually occurred.
Tatnall: Well, sir--sails all carried away, do you say, sir?
Commodore: Aye, all--every rag.
Tatnall: Anchor gone, too, sir?
Commodore: Aye; not an uncommon case.
Tatnall: No rudder, either?
Commodore: Aye, rudder unshipped. (Tatnall drops his head despondently
in deep thought.) Come, sir, come; bear a hand about it! What would
you do?
Tatnall (at last and desperate): Well, I’d let the infernal tub go to
the devil, where she ought to go.
Commodore (joyously): Right, sir; perfectly right! That will do, sir.
The clerk will note that Mr. Tatnall has passed.
A naval advisory board was appointed which, in 1881, recommended that
thirty-eight armoured cruisers should be built, of which eighteen
should be of steel and twenty of wood, besides several other vessels.
An influential minority of the board objected to steel lest it should
be imported instead of being manufactured in the United States. But
in 1882 a House of Representatives committee decided upon steel, not
only as the best but as the only proper material for the construction
of war vessels. The committee, cautious but determined, recommended
the building of two 15-knot cruisers, four 14-knot cruisers, and one
steel ram. The advisory board desired five rams, but one was tried
as an experiment. This was the _Katahdin_, and she was a failure and
the experiment was never repeated. Congress in 1883 decided on two
cruisers, not six, of which one should be between 5,000 and 6,000 tons
displacement and have the highest attainable speed, and the other
of between 4,000 and 4,300 tons displacement; and both were to have
full sail power and full steam power. But as no money was voted the
ships did not appear. Another naval advisory board recommended the
construction of a 4,000-ton vessel and three of about 2,500 tons, all
of steel, and a smaller iron despatch boat. Congress in March, 1883,
adopted the programme, eliminating only one of the smaller cruisers,
and this time voted an appropriation.
[Illustration: U.S. RAM “KATAHDIN.”]
The _Chicago_ was the largest of these vessels; the other three were
the _Boston_, _Atlanta_ and _Dolphin_. They were built of American
materials, and were the first vessels of the modern American
navy. The _Chicago_, besides being a twin-screw vessel, had engines
which recalled the type installed in the famous Stevens battery. The
advocates of the old order adopted with alacrity the role of Job’s
comforters, and predicted with as much cheerfulness as the role would
allow, the absolute failure of the new vessels. The _Chicago’s_
designed displacement was 4,500 tons, her engines, gave her a sea-speed
of fourteen knots, and she was armed with four 8-inch, eight 6-inch,
and two 5-inch breech-loading rifled guns. The _Atlanta_ and _Boston_,
each of 3,000 tons displacement and speed of thirteen knots, carried
two 8-inch and six 6-inch guns. The _Dolphin_, of 1,500 tons and
fifteen knots, the despatch boat, was given one 6-inch gun. All four
vessels had secondary batteries of smaller guns. The three cruisers at
their trials attained sixteen knots or over.
Europe, which had treated the American fleets with derision, began to
take a tolerant and amused interest in American naval construction when
it became known that the new navy had been decided upon. The European
powers only mustered eight 16-knot vessels among them, and when three
American ships of that speed appeared, Europe became profoundly
interested. These ships and the _Yorktown_, built later, constituted
the White Squadron which visited Europe about 1891, and showed the Old
World what the New World could do.
The _Charleston_, the designs for which were purchased abroad, was
provided with machinery and boilers supposed to embody the best
features of the boilers and machinery of various foreign cruisers, but
they had to be altered considerably before she was considered to meet
American requirements. She was the first vessel of the new navy to
be employed on a warlike service. The supposed filibustering steamer
_Itata_, at the time of the Chilian insurrection in 1891, escaped from
the custody of the U.S. marshal at San Diego, and the _Charleston_ was
successful in the mission of overtaking her, which she did at Iquique,
after steaming 6,000 miles. The _Charleston_ was wrecked off Luzon in
1900.
In 1886 the United States made another extraordinary advance by
authorising the construction of the second-class battleship _Texas_,
the armoured cruiser _Maine_, the protected cruiser _Baltimore_, the
dynamite cruiser _Vesuvius_, and the torpedo boat _Cushing_. The
_Texas_ and the _Maine_ were the first modern armoured cruising ships
constructed in the United States. They were decided upon as the result
of the knocking to pieces in half an hour of China’s wooden fleet by
the French in the Min River, in August, 1884.
The _Cushing_, besides being the first American steel torpedo boat, was
the first American warship driven by quadruple expansion engines. She
was named to commemorate the officer who commanded the launch which
rammed and broke a protecting boom, and blew up the _Albemarle_ in the
Civil War. The _Vesuvius_ should be included rather in the category
of freaks or comparative failures, for though her three pneumatic
dynamite guns of 10½-inch calibre, designed by Lieut. Zalinski, could
each hurl shells containing 200 lb. of dynamite or other high explosive
at least a mile, they were soon outclassed by other artillery. These
projectiles were thrown by compressed air, and not by explosions of
dynamite. The _Vesuvius_ was employed at the blockade of Santiago de
Cuba in 1898, where she frightened the Spaniards with her dynamite
shells, but did very little actual damage. Her three pneumatic guns
projected abreast through the forward part of the deck, some distance
aft of the bow, and sloped at an angle of about 45 degrees. The breech
of each gun was in the hold, and the supports of the weapons were so
connected with the ship itself as to be practically built into it.
The guns were therefore fixtures; their elevation was unalterable and
when it was desired to discharge them to right or left or to alter
the range the whole position of the ship had to be moved. The _Texas_
and _Baltimore_ were also built on designs purchased abroad. With the
exception of three vessels acquired just before the war with Spain, all
the American ships are entirely the products of American naval science.
The first triple-screw warships were the _Columbia_--a very handsome
ship, sometimes called the _Gem of the Ocean_--and her sister, the
_Minneapolis_. Up to the attack upon the Spaniards in Cuba, the United
States had retained a number of monitors, but the experiences of 1898
convinced the naval department that vessels of that class were out of
date and unsuitable for modern warfare.
[Illustration: THE U.S. DYNAMITE-GUN BOAT “VESUVIUS.”]
[Illustration: THE “MAINE” ENTERING HAVANA HARBOUR.]
Although the American vessels were built in the United States the
compound armour for the turrets had to be imported at first, and it
was not for some years that American-made armour was available for
the navy. Four battleships were launched in the early ’nineties, and
with the _Texas_ comprised the American battleship force in the war
with Spain in 1898. The Americans showed their inventiveness in the
matter of their warships, and not being content always to follow the
lead of other nations, and being convinced that they could not make
more or greater mistakes than some European naval architects had
perpetrated, produced some remarkable vessels. They were the first to
try the superposed turrets, or one turret placed on top of another.
The _Kearsarge_ and _Kentucky_ were thus equipped, but the experiment
did not give the results anticipated, and was not repeated. But the
Americans had shown that the guns of one turret could fire over
another turret, and some of the latest and most powerful ships of the
super-Dreadnought types have their turrets arranged so that this may
be done.
The _Maine_, really an armoured cruiser, but described as a
second-class battleship, was sent to Havana for political reasons in
January, 1898, and was blown up at her moorings on the evening of the
15th of the following month, two hundred and sixty-six lives being
lost. The explosion was attributed to the Spaniards, but this has been
questioned, as an examination of the wreck, completed in the summer of
1911, was stated to have revealed that the cause of the disaster was
the explosion of the vessel’s magazines, but a later examination is
said to have shown that the explosion was external. War between the two
countries was now regarded as inevitable, and both made preparations
for the struggle, Spain in that lazy and incompetent fashion which
assured her defeat in advance, and the United States with as much
thoroughness and care as the time allowed. The resources of the latter
country were far superior to those of her opponent, but Spain by no
means made the best of what she had. The American naval preparations
were well conceived and as well carried out. The most notable exploit
in this work was the remarkable voyage of the battleship _Oregon_ from
Bremerton, Washington, to San Francisco, and thence at her utmost
speed round Cape Horn to Key West. It was the first time any steam
warship had essayed such a feat, and that an American ship should
have accomplished it was a feather in the American cap. Two or three
foreign-built warships were acquired, but the European powers were
friendly to Spain rather than to the United States in the war, and the
latter acquired ninety-seven merchant steamers to act as auxiliaries
to its fighting fleet, and distributed among them no fewer than five
hundred and seventy-six guns in order that they might take part in the
fighting if circumstances required.
In the Pacific the American preparations were no less extensive than
in the Atlantic. The first of the great naval battles of the war was
that of Manila Bay. Admiral Dewey’s flagship was the protected cruiser
_Olympia_, 5,800 tons displacement, launched at San Francisco in 1892,
and having four 8-inch and ten 5-inch quick-firers, fourteen 6-pounders
and ten smaller guns. With her were the protected cruisers _Baltimore_
4,600 tons; _Raleigh_, 3,217 tons; _Boston_, 3,000 tons; all heavily
armed for their size, and a couple of gunboats.
The Spanish naval force consisted of the steel cruiser _Reina
Cristina_, 3,520 tons, built at Ferrol in 1886, and carrying six
6·2-inch Hontoria guns, two 2·7 inch, and three 2·2 inch quick-firers,
and ten smaller guns; a wooden cruiser, the _Castilla_, 3,342 tons,
built at Cadiz in 1881, and armed with four 5·9 inch Krupps, and
sixteen quick-firers of various sizes; two steel gunboats of English
build and 1,045 tons, and some smaller Spanish-built gunboats and
a number of torpedo boats. The shore fortifications had also been
strengthened by the addition of a few heavy guns.
Though there was not a great deal of difference between the Spanish
and American fleets at Manila, according to a comparative statement
issued by the American navy department, the difference was on the side
of the Americans, but with the land forces as well the advantage on
paper lay with the Spaniards. The only instructions to Admiral Dewey
were to “capture or destroy” the Spanish fleet. This, as it happened,
was not a difficult task, for the Spanish vessels were in a deplorable
condition of inefficiency, and the best that the Spanish admiral could
do was to get his ships under the protection of the forts and keep
them there. Not finding the Spanish ships at Subig Bay, the Americans
entered Manila Bay to look for them, heedless of the mines supposed to
be strewn about the channel, but choosing a dark night illumined only
by the flashes of lightning from the thunder clouds, as though the
very elements were desirous of taking part in the coming struggle and
were flashing their signals preparatory to the discharge of the sky’s
artillery. The American ships showed no light other than that at the
stern of each vessel but the last, to enable that behind to follow in
line. The defenders sighted them and opened fire, but the ships never
paused, firing upon the batteries as they passed. The Spanish admiral,
who, conscious of the condition of his ships, knew that his command
was doomed before ever a shot had been fired, estimated his available
tonnage at 10,111 as against the American 21,410 tons; his h.p. at
11,200, as against 49,290; his guns at seventy-six, as against the
American one hundred and sixty-three; but he had a slight superiority
in the number of men.
After day broke the Spaniards opened the battle, the batteries of
Cavité and Manila starting the firing and being supported by the
Spanish vessels. The _Concord_ sent two shells at the Manila battery
by way of reply, but the rest of the ships steadily steamed towards
the Spanish ships, and it was not until the _Olympia_ was within 5,600
yards of the ships that Dewey gave permission for the Americans to fire.
“You may fire when you’re ready, Gridley,” Admiral Dewey said in his
imperturbable way. A second later, and one of the _Olympia’s_ forward
guns had answered the Spanish challenge.
The American ships passed parallel to the Spaniards, and one after
another concentrated its fire upon the _Reina Cristina_, the best ship
the enemy possessed, and only fired upon the others when the cruiser
was out of range. The Spanish admiral essayed to attack the Americans
by advancing against them with his one good fighting ship, thinking
that possibly at closer quarters he might be able to meet his opponents
with a better chance of inflicting damage. For bravery and audacity the
feat ranks high in the annals of naval combats. But the chance he hoped
for was never allowed him. A shell penetrated the _Reina Cristina_
near the bows and, exploding, set her on fire. Almost at the same time
a heavy projectile crashed into her stern and an 8-inch shell entered
the hole thus made and exploded, setting her on fire at that end also,
and damaging her engines. She retreated under as heavy a fire as a
modern warship could withstand and yet keep afloat. Of her crew of four
hundred and ninety-three men, but one hundred and sixty, of whom ninety
were wounded, answered to the roll call after the battle.
Three times the Americans passed up and down before the Spanish ships,
gradually decreasing the range to 2,600 yards. Ship after ship was
disabled. Some took refuge behind the Cavité arsenal and were sunk
by the Spaniards rather than be allowed to fall into the Americans’
possession. One little iron gunboat, the _Don Antonio de Ulloa_, whose
commander disregarded the Spanish admiral’s orders to sink his ship,
with sublime audacity prepared to offer battle to the whole American
fleet. The _Baltimore_, _Olympia_ and _Raleigh_ opened fire upon her.
The odds were too great. She fought bravely for a few minutes, but the
guns of the assailing cruisers riddled her sides, and her crew left
as she listed and sank with her colours flying. The American ships
made short work of the shore batteries. The Americans in the battle
of Manila Bay had seven men wounded, while the injury to the vessels
was trivial. The Spaniards lost ten ships and had three hundred and
eighty-one men killed and the wounded numbered hundreds more.
Determined to make no mistakes, the Americans took the Spanish fleet
in the Atlantic at its strength on paper, ignoring the rumours of
its neglect and inefficiency, and prepared to meet it accordingly.
Spain possessed five armoured cruisers and a battleship, which were
admitted by the Americans to be equal to America’s six best ships, a
few other vessels, and some torpedo boat destroyers. The real state of
the Spanish ships is best revealed by Admiral Cervera himself. In one
letter he wrote:--
“The _Colon_ has not received her big guns; the _Carlos V._ has not
been delivered, and her 10-cm. artillery is not yet mounted; the
_Pelayo_ is not ready for want of finishing her redoubt, and, I
believe, her secondary battery; the _Victoria_ has no artillery, and of
the _Numancia_ we had better not speak.”[51]
In another letter he complained of the absence of plans and of the
supplies he had asked for not being forthcoming. “The _Colon_ has not
yet her big guns, and I asked for the bad ones if there were no others.
The 14-cm. ammunition, with the exception of about three hundred shots,
is bad. The defective guns of the _Vizcaya_ and _Oquendo_ have not been
changed. The cartridge cases of the _Colon_ cannot be recharged. We
have not a single Bustamente torpedo.... The repairs of the servomotors
of the _Infanta Maria Teresa_ and the _Vizcaya_ were only made after
they had left Spain.” And after his defeat at Santiago, when asked
where were certain large guns which should have been on his ships, he
answered that he supposed they were in the pockets of certain officials
in Spain.
[Illustration: SPANISH BATTLESHIP “PELAYO.” _Photograph by Marius Bar,
Toulon._]
On May 19th, the Spanish fleet entered Santiago, after having crawled
across the Atlantic to Curaçao, much to the relief of the Americans,
who wondered where the fleet was and feared lest it should attack
New York or some other wealthy Atlantic port. Once the fleet was
inside, a strict blockade was maintained to see that it did not get out
unnoticed. But the venture had to be made sooner or later.
“The fleet under my command offers the news, as a 4th of July present,
of the destruction of the whole of Admiral Cervera’s fleet. Not one
escaped.”
This was the message Admiral Sampson despatched on July 3rd to the
Secretary of the Navy at Washington.
The situation had become a question of days when the Spanish fleet
should find itself exposed to the fire of the American forces ashore.
While his ships, in spite of their condition, were yet able to offer
fight, Admiral Cervera decided on making a desperate sortie, or attempt
to escape. It was the forlornest of forlorn hopes at best, for he had
nowhere to flee to with any hope of reaching a place of safety, and
turn which way he would, the American ships, well cared for, within
easy reach of their base, with almost unlimited supplies, and eager for
battle, were waiting for him. The Admiral, in the _Cristobal Colon_,
led the way seaward through the narrow entrance to Santiago Bay, and
fled down the coast. The other ships followed as best they could. The
Americans sought to ram the Spaniards, but could not do so because of
the latter’s superior speed. The fleeing admiral’s ship did succeed
in getting away for the time being. The other ships as they appeared
were fiercely assailed by the American ships. The Spaniards fought with
that gallantry and reckless bravery which have been a prized Spanish
tradition for centuries, but their shooting was so indifferent that
few of the American ships were hit, some were not touched at all, and
only one Spanish shell got home effectively on an American ship. The
Americans, on their part, fired to hit, and hit they did. The armour
of the Spanish ships proved its value, and rang under the blows like
anvils under the strokes of mighty hammers, and the ships shivered and
heeled under the force of the impact.
The engagement began about half-past nine in the morning; by two
o’clock in the afternoon the last ship, the _Cristobal Colon_, was
run ashore sixty miles down the coast, and Admiral Cervera himself
was a prisoner. In the interval the _Infanta Maria Teresa_, the
_Oquendo_, and the _Vizcaya_ were forced ashore and burnt, blown up,
or surrendered, within twenty miles of Santiago. The _Furor_ and
_Pluton_ were destroyed within four miles of the port. Cervera’s ship
was about two knots faster than the American ships which first assailed
it, but it could not hope to escape the other American vessels lying
off the coast, nor did it. In respect to fighting power, weight of
metal, armour protection, and condition for fighting, the Spanish
ships were hopelessly overmatched; and the Spanish guns, whatever
may have been their value on paper, were as inferior as the Spanish
gunnery. One knows not whether to wonder more at the state of mind of
an administration which could send so ill-equipped and neglected a
fleet to the seat of war, or at the extraordinary bravery of the crews
who went in a patriotic cause to what was little else than certain
death. The indifferent shooting which the Spaniards displayed in the
Santiago affair, from first to last, prompted Captain (afterwards
Admiral) Robley D. Evans, otherwise “Fighting Bob,” to declare that
they “couldn’t hit a d----d thing but the ocean” when they missed his
ship with unfailing regularity.
[Illustration: U.S. BATTLESHIP “TEXAS.”]
[Illustration: U.S. BATTLESHIP “IOWA.”]
When the _Cristobal Colon_ appeared, the _Indiana_ headed close in
shore to get within short range. The Spaniard fired her 11-inch
Hontoria gun and missed. The American ship replied with her 13-inch
guns, and then discharged every weapon she could bring to bear upon her
ill-fated antagonist, one shell exploding on the Spanish cruiser’s
deck. The _Iowa_ and _Texas_ took up the attack upon the _Cristobal
Colon_; the _Indiana_ joined with the _Brooklyn_ and _Texas_ in
smashing the _Oquendo_, which stranded on fire. The _Vizcaya_ next
appeared to run the gauntlet, with two destroyers close behind her.
The destroyers tried to torpedo the _Indiana_, but the American ship’s
secondary battery soon accounted for them, one drifting ashore and
blowing up. The _Vizcaya_ was set on fire by the American shells, but
was fought until she was no longer tenable before she was surrendered.
The _Eulate_ was also surrendered. The _Cristobal Colon_ raced with the
_Brooklyn_ and _Oregon_ for 3,000 yards, until she struck the rocks
bow-on and remained fast.
The destruction in such short spaces of time of the Spanish fleets in
the Pacific and then in the Atlantic, with such little injury to the
American side, demonstrated most unmistakably the importance and power
of the new American navy. A few years later the famous cruise round
the world was undertaken by an American fleet, and enabled the powers
of the Old World to inspect some of the ships, and others of later
date, which wrought such havoc. Yet such has been the progress of naval
construction that not one of the ships which made the cruise is now
included in the first rank of the American fighting line.
After the Japanese had decided to adopt war vessels of the Western
types, they ordered a number of vessels of various kinds from builders
in the United Kingdom. Their first ironclad frigate was the _Foo-So_,
launched from the slip in Messrs. Samuda’s yard at Poplar, from which
the _Thunderbolt_, the first ironclad ever built for the British Navy,
took the water. Another coincidence was that both the _Thunderbolt_
and the _Foo-So_ were launched with every armour-plate upon them.
The _Foo-So_ had as her main deck battery, which was protected by
armour 8 inches thick, four Krupp’s long 23-cm. breech-loading guns,
each weighing 15¼ tons. On the upper deck were placed two long 17-cm.
Krupp guns of 5½ tons each, but these were unprotected. The main deck
battery projecting beyond the sides, permitted of a greater training
to the guns. She carried a powerful ram, and her bowsprit, as was the
custom with all vessels at that time fitted with a ram and bowsprit,
was made so that it could be hauled inboard when a ramming attack was
to be made. The ship was belted on the water-line with 9-inch armour
and the vital parts were equally well protected. She was of 3,700 tons
displacement, and fitted with trunk engines of 3,500 h.p. which, with
a steam pressure of 60 lb., were calculated to give her a speed of
fourteen knots; her coal capacity was expected to enable her to cover
4,500 miles at moderate speed. The first warship on Western lines which
the Japanese built was a little barque-rigged vessel, the _Seika_,
launched in 1875, a model of which is now (1911) in the Museum at the
Royal Naval College at Greenwich.
The naval engagements in the Chino-Japanese war were not remarkable for
much in the way of fighting, but chiefly for a pronounced objection
by the Chinese officers as a whole to anything of the sort. A few of
them, Admiral Ting among the number, did their best, but they were so
hindered by their colleagues’ incompetence and cowardice that they
never had a chance of success. Guns that had been neglected, and shells
from which the powder had been extracted and its place filled with
charcoal, are not the best weapons for warfare, and when to these are
added coal that was not much use and ships that were not in fighting
condition, it will be seen that the victory of the well-organised
Japanese was a foregone conclusion. One or two of the Chinese ships
offered the best resistance they could, but it was a hopeless
resistance from the start. The Battle of the Yalu was won by the
Japanese before a shot was fired. The few survivors of the Yalu fell
victims at Wei-Hai-Wei. The training which a cavalry officer received
in the Chinese army was not such as to fit him to command a fleet
at sea, even of Chinese ships, but the former cavalryman who became
commander of the Chinese fleet tried his utmost; his personal bravery
was unquestioned, and he had preferred death to dishonour when he was
found lifeless in the cabin of his beaten ship with a revolver by his
side and a bullet through his brain.
Disciplinarian he was not. It is recorded that like most Chinamen he
was an inveterate gambler, and that on one occasion when the fleet,
as usual, was doing nothing, he found the time heavy on his hands,
and when a visitor went on board the sentries were engaged in fan-tan
in a secluded corner of the deck, the officers who should have been
on duty were similarly engaged elsewhere, and the admiral himself was
acting banker in that charming game with one or two other officers, and
the sentry, who should have been on duty at the door of the admiral’s
cabin, joining whole-heartedly in the gamble.
Of China’s principal battleships, two fine vessels of 7,400 tons
displacement, one the _Chen-Yuen_, surrendered at Wei-Hai-Wei, and
having been repaired, was taken to Japan and added to the navy of her
captors, and the other was sunk by a Whitehead torpedo during a night
attack by torpedo boats at Wei-Hai-Wei. Similar fates befell a couple
of armoured cruisers, and of the six smaller cruisers which completed
China’s fleet at the Battle of the Yalu, five were sunk or wrecked, and
one surrendered. One was raised and added to the Japanese navy. Some of
the ships of which China was despoiled distinguished themselves in the
Japanese attack upon the Russians at the Battle of Tsushima.
The Battle of Tsushima, which ended Russia’s naval pretensions in
the war between that country and Japan a few years ago, is the only
one in which modern ships and guns have been employed on both sides
in anything approximating to equal terms. After the Russian squadron
already in the Far East had suffered so severely at Port Arthur and
the few vessels at Vladivostok deemed it advisable to stay there,
Russia collected as many sea-going war vessels of all shapes and sizes
as she could muster, and sent them out in two detachments from Europe
in the hope that they would reach Vladivostok, Japan permitting. The
voyage was exciting enough at the start when, through a bad attack of
nerves, the Russians opened fire upon and damaged one or two British
trawlers in the North Sea under the delusion that they were Japanese
torpedo boats advancing to attack them. Loud was the outcry in Great
Britain and great was the clamour that the British fleet should make
short work of the Russian ships before they did any more damage. But
the Government saved its powder and money and put its trust in the
Japanese, confident that the Mikado’s ships would do all that was
necessary if the imaginative Russians ever got that far. The Russian
ships were very slow, the best speed of which the fleet was capable
was nine knots, and as the Russians themselves estimated the Japanese
speed at sixteen knots, and this estimate was endorsed by the naval
experts, it was taken for granted that the Russian fleet was going out
to certain disaster.
[Illustration: THE RUSSIAN BATTLESHIP “TSAREVITCH” AFTER THE FIGHT OFF
PORT ARTHUR, AUGUST 10, 1905.]
[Illustration: EFFECTS OF JAPANESE SHELLS ON THE “GROMOBOI.”]
The progress of this heterogeneous fleet was a matter of some months,
but at last it approached the Japanese coast, off which the ships
of the Mikado’s fleet were waiting. The Japanese vessels, being of
superior speed, were able to choose their own position for the
attack. No innovations in the way of tactics were attempted. When the
Japanese were ready they attacked, and they selected a moment for doing
so when the slow-moving Russian ships were attempting to carry out an
order of their admiral and were, in consequence of the order being
incompletely executed, unable to offer a resistance to the suddenness
of the attack. This very suddenness, indeed, threw them into greater
disorder, and rendered them the more easily assailable by their
relentless antagonists.
The Russian ships, too, were so overloaded with stores and coal
that the upper edges of their heavy armour-plates were well below
the water-line and, therefore, in so far as the hull protection was
concerned, they were armoured cruisers and not battleships. The cabins,
passages, etc., were so filled with coal that the sanitary arrangements
for the men were blocked in some of the ships since leaving Leghorn,
and the decks were in consequence in an indescribable condition.[52]
The Russian ships are said to have rolled very heavily owing to their
having so much coal on board, and to the circumstance that their bunker
coals were used before their extra supplies carried on their decks were
consumed. However, the Russians fought their ships with the utmost
bravery and determination, but the superior training of the Japanese
sailors and their better gunnery told its tale, and in less than a
couple of hours the Russian fleet was hopelessly defeated.
Admiral Togo, according to Lieut.-Commander W. S. Simms, must have gone
into action with two principal objects clearly defined in his mind. One
was to fight at the maximum range at which actual experience of battle
practice had shown him that he could hit effectively, viz. about 6,000
yards, and at which he knew the Russian fire would not be dangerous;
and the other was to manœuvre so as to maintain as exactly as possible
that range upon the head of the enemy’s column. If he had not been able
to accomplish these two objects, says the American authority, he might
still have won the battle because of the Russian inferiority in many
other respects, but the Japanese fleet would certainly have suffered
more. If the Russians had been able by superior speed to run into
1,800 yards range, the battle range of their choice, they would have
made a large percentage of hits, and those hits would have been very
effective, especially from their modern ships of French design, the
_Suvaroff_, _Alexander III._, _Borodino_, and _Orel_.
The Japanese at first scored three hits to every one they received,
and as the battle progressed and their men became more used to their
work their hits averaged four to every one the Russians could manage
to inflict on them. The accuracy of shooting at a greater distance
than was formerly thought possible in an engagement showed the
necessity of cultivating this branch of naval gunnery, and its value
was demonstrated when the Japanese were able to concentrate the rapid
fire of their best battleships upon the leading vessels of the Russian
columns at such a range that the Russian fire was ineffective and wide
of its intended mark.
Most of the Japanese big guns had lengths equal to thirty-five or forty
times their calibres, and had already seen a great deal of hard work.
This to a great extent may account for the Japanese not having hit
oftener. The Japanese shooting in the later naval stages of the war, as
compared with that in the naval attack on Port Arthur when the Russian
squadron already in Far Eastern waters was crushed, is said to have
shown a slight falling off.
The value of superior speed, of accurate long range firing, and of
protective armour is the principal lesson of the Battle of Tsushima.
The one gives choice of position and all its attendant advantages;
the second enables an enemy to be partially crippled so that he can
be attacked by torpedo boats and sunk or rendered helpless, or can
be overtaken and assailed by a fast cruiser if an attempt be made to
escape. The battle also demonstrated the value of uniformity in speed
of the principal ships, or ships of the line, for the Japanese admiral,
knowing that his six battleships had each a speed of about twenty
knots, knew exactly the positions he could expect each one to maintain.
He had also a number of first and second-class armoured cruisers, and
his scouts were reinforced by some of the best vessels in the Japanese
mercantile marine.
The actual fighting resulted in the _Osliabya_ being driven out of
the fighting line in less than thirty minutes after the battle began,
and in about an hour after the first shot, the gun-fire to which she
had been subjected had set her on fire and caused her to founder. The
_Kniaz Suvaroff_ was obliged to leave the fighting line about forty
minutes after the battle commenced, both these ships being rendered
ineffective before the Russians had travelled five miles. Becoming
isolated from her consorts, the _Suvaroff_ was severely pounded. One of
her masts and her two funnels were shot away, and a couple of torpedo
boats attacked her and injured her below the water-line, so that she
soon had a heavy list, but her watertight bulkheads kept her afloat for
a time. Two Japanese destroyers then took charge of her and torpedoed
her three times, inflicting such injuries that she soon went down.
Shortly before this the _Borodino_ received a shell in her magazine,
which blew up and sent her to the bottom. The _Orel_ surrendered after
the battle, and presented an excellent object lesson of the service her
armour had rendered her, for her partially protected and unprotected
parts were wrecked by the Japanese gun-fire, but not one of the shells
had penetrated her heavy armour, though it bore ample evidence of the
severity of the ordeal through which she had passed.
Enough has been written to show that the range at which naval
engagements have been fought since steel took the place of iron for
guns and armour has steadily increased. The old practice of getting
close to an enemy and blazing away as fast as the guns could be loaded,
in the hope of smothering his fire and a certainty of hitting something
sometimes, has become as extinct as the dodo. Guns are too powerful for
anything of the sort to be attempted now, and the object at present is
to hit at the longest range at which the guns are considered really
effective.
The _Dreadnought_ is the logical outcome.
[Illustration: THE JAPANESE BATTLESHIP “ASAHI.”]
[Illustration: THE RUSSIAN BATTLESHIP “NAVARIN.”]
CHAPTER VIII
BATTLESHIPS AND CRUISERS
There was no sudden change from iron to steel in the building of
warships. Steel at first was very expensive, and by no means the
perfect article that we know at the present day, besides which
the supply was very restricted, and the Admiralty by using it in
conjunction with iron was able to ascertain the extent to which it
might ultimately be adopted. Thus, in one ship, steel was tried for the
keel, in another for the protective deck, in another for facing armour,
in another for the frames, and so on. The two screw propeller shafts
of the _Inflexible_, for instance, were made of Whitworth compressed
steel. They were 288 feet in length and weighed 63 tons. Had they been
of wrought iron they would have weighed 97 tons.
One of the earliest steel warships ever built, and certainly one of
the smallest, was the Dutch gunboat _Handig Vlug_, launched on the
Thames in 1864. Commenting on this little gunboat, the _Times_ said:
“The general term ‘gunboat’ conveys to our minds the image of a vessel
built of ‘sappy timbers’ and rotten planking, carrying two heavy shell
guns on their low unprotected upper deck, fitted with 60 h.p. (nominal)
engines, and averaging no more than eight knots under the most
favourable circumstances, a class of vessel that has figured for almost
fabulous sums in our annual navy estimates for ‘repairs,’ etc., but,
nevertheless, a class of craft that has left imperishable marks of its
usefulness and power in many parts of the world, and more especially
on the rivers and seaboard of India and China.”
A comparison between the gunboats of the British Navy, as revealed by
the foregoing quotation, and the type introduced by the _Handig Vlug_
is striking. She was stated to be the first vessel of any class, built
on this side of the Atlantic, to carry her armour on the deflective
principle instead of offering vertical resistance to the impact of
shot. She was constructed entirely of steel, her plates below the
water-line being only ¼ inch thick, but above the water-line they were
⅜ inch thick, and the dome or cupola in which her battery was placed
was composed of plates of similar thickness. This cupola occupied 60
feet in the centre of the vessel with a grated top for ventilation,
and above this was a small pilot-house, resembling the usual American
design, about 5 feet high. The cupola had three gunports at either
end, permitting the guns to be trained ahead and astern, and on the
bows or quarters. It also had a number of holes for rifle fire, which
could be covered with brass slides when not in use. She was intended
to be sufficiently fast under steam to be able to outstrip a battery
operating on land in a country with so many watercourses as Holland,
or to be rifle-proof if sent to Javanese waters. She was to carry two
12-pounder rifle shell guns and fifty riflemen. The length of this
“hornet,” as she was called, was 100 feet between perpendiculars,
her beam was 17 feet, and her depth 6 feet 6 inches, and she drew
only 3 feet of water; her tonnage was 138 tons. In rough weather this
little low ship made a speed of ten knots on her trial trip, and
being a twin-screw vessel--the engines and ship were built by the
Dudgeons--she was put through some tests in the presence of Admiralty
representatives, and made a complete circle in two minutes forty-seven
seconds, and another in three minutes, while in going ahead at full
speed the course of the vessel was reversed by the altered action
of the screws in one minute. The tests were held to “prove the worth
of the double or twin-screw principle for purposes of warfare, as it
has been proved before for some time for purposes of commerce, for
handiness of any vessel under steam power is equally valuable for both
purposes, whether in avoiding the shoals of a tortuous shallow river or
in flanking the shore battery of an enemy.”[53]
As steel is much stronger in proportion to its weight than iron, it
followed that the adoption of steel for building warships meant a great
saving in the weight of the hull. The weight thus gained could be
utilised in three ways: by increasing the extent of the armour carried,
by increasing the weight of the guns carried, or by a combination of
the two. As steel was still further improved it became possible to
increase the size of the vessels, the power and weight of the engines
and boilers--in which the power increased to a far greater proportion
than the weight--the speed of the ships, the strength and extent of the
armour carried, and the effectiveness of the guns. It permitted also of
a destructive secondary armament.
We have seen how from the old broadside ships of the _Northumberland_
type came the central battery ships like the _Hercules_, the last
of these being the _Superb_. Their armament also underwent a
modernising process as time went on, and many of these old ships,
from the _Warrior_ onwards, were equipped with both quick-firing and
anti-torpedo-boat guns, and were retained long after their fighting
capacity had become a very doubtful quality, and their surrender to the
tender mercies of the shipbreaker became imperative.
Meanwhile from the converted _Royal Sovereign_ there descended a
series of turret ships, some, like the _Cerberus_, _Devastation_ and
_Dreadnought_, having two turrets on the centre line of the ship;
others, like the _Rupert_ and _Conqueror_, having one turret only;
others, like the _Monarch_, having two turrets in the centre, and yet
others having their turrets _en echelon_ or placed diagonally, as in
the _Inflexible_. The _Colossus_ was an improved _Inflexible_, but of
steel, and practically marked the end of the heavily armoured vessels
of this type. From the double turrets and the central battery ships we
have the combination of the two in the _Temeraire_.
The _Colossus_ and the _Edinburgh_, which were begun in 1882 and
completed in 1886, may be said to have inaugurated a new era in the
building of the world’s battleships. They were the first battleships
to be built wholly of steel for the British Navy, and were asserted to
be more powerful as fighting ships than any other ships in existence.
This was due not only to the material of which they were constructed,
but also to the fact that they were given breech-loading guns, Great
Britain being the last of the great Powers to dispense with the
old-fashioned muzzle-loader. These ships were of much the same type as
the _Ajax_ and _Inflexible_, but their citadels were of greater length;
they were of fourteen knots speed.
The _Nile_, launched in 1888, had a complete belt, and was the last
low freeboard turret ship. She was preceded by what were known as
the soft-ended barbette ships, because their ends were comparatively
unprotected, the weight being concentrated amidships in order, among
other objects, to increase the sea-going qualities of the vessels; the
first of these was the _Collingwood_, begun in 1882 and launched in
1886, the principal armament being carried in barbettes.
[Illustration: H.M.S. “VICTORIA” FIRING 111-TON GUN. _Photograph by Sir
W. G. Armstrong, Whitworth & Co., Ltd._]
[Illustration: H.M.S. “VICTORIA,” SHOWING 111-TON GUNS AND TURRET.
_Photograph by Sir W. G. Armstrong, Whitworth & Co., Ltd._]
The _Collingwood_ has been regarded as the pioneer vessel of the
modern battleship, for it certainly was the first in which the real
advantages of steel were displayed. On her was introduced the
system of mounting four heavy guns in pairs on the middle line of the
ship, not in turrets as in her predecessors carrying a few big guns,
but in barbettes or fixed gun positions protected by heavy armour.
The barbettes and turrets have been so modified in later ships that
sometimes one term and sometimes the other is used by experts to denote
the same design. The method of mounting the guns, as illustrated in
the _Collingwood_, remained in vogue in the British Navy until it was
supplemented by the _Dreadnoughts_. The _Collingwood’s_ side armour was
18 inches in thickness; the armour of her bulkheads was 16 inches, that
of the conning tower 12 inches, and that of her barbettes, in which her
four 12-inch 45-ton guns were mounted, was 11½ inches. She also carried
six 6-inch guns and several smaller guns. Her displacement was very
little more than that of the _Colossus_, but she was two knots faster.
Other vessels, described as sisters to the _Collingwood_, followed, but
they were all rather larger, among them being the _Camperdown_, which
had the misfortune to sink the _Victoria_ during naval manœuvres in
1893 in the Mediterranean, when Admiral Sir George Tryon and nearly all
the crew of his flagship went down with the vessel.
The _Victoria_ was a steel-armoured first-class single-turreted
battleship, and was built at Newcastle-on-Tyne in 1887. Her armour was
from 18 to 16 inches thick, and there was a protective deck 3 inches
thick. She had two sets of three-stage expansion engines, and steam
was generated in eight steel boilers with four furnaces each, which
were fired from four independent stokeholds. She was one of the three
ships to be armed with 111-ton guns, of which she had two in a turret
forward. One 29-ton gun was mounted aft to fire over the stern, and she
also had twelve 6-inch, twelve 6-pounder quick-firers, twelve 3-pounder
quick-firers, eight machine guns, and four torpedo tubes, two of which
were submerged. Her displacement was 10,470 tons, length 340 feet,
breadth 70 feet, and depth 27 feet 3 inches. The rapidity with which
she heeled over and sank was supposed to be partly due to the weight of
these enormous guns.
Great things were expected from the type represented by the _Benbow_,
launched in 1885, and completed three years later, which, next to the
_Inflexible_ which cost nearly £800,000, was the most expensive ship
Britain had then built, and cost the country close upon £775,000. She
was very heavily armed, as she carried two 16.25 inch and ten 6-inch
guns, all breech-loaders, and was the first vessel to be given five
torpedo tubes. This vessel may be said to have inaugurated the big gun
era, notwithstanding that she came under the category of soft-ended
ships. The last British single-turret ship was the _Sans Pareil_,
launched in 1887, and completed two years later, and in many respects
a sister ship to the unfortunate _Victoria_. These three vessels did
not give the satisfaction anticipated, and though various alterations
were made in the _Victoria_ no great improvement was effected, and the
results were not considered such as to justify the construction of any
more like them. The _Benbow’s_ big guns were in barbettes, and those of
the _Sans Pareil_ were in a turret.
The _Nile_ and _Trafalgar_, which were begun in 1886, were of 11,940
tons displacement, and were the largest ships up to then built for the
Navy. Their heaviest guns, instead of being in barbettes, were placed
in turrets. These vessels were exceedingly heavily armoured, having
a belt of steel no less than 20 inches thick, and above this was an
armoured redoubt, or citadel, protected by compound armour 18 inches in
thickness for 141 feet along each side, the redoubt having parabolic
ends of the same thickness of armour, enclosing the turret bases.
Armour of equal thickness was placed on the turrets. The secondary
armament, consisting of 4.7 inch quick-firing guns, was contained in an
octagonal battery with steel sides 3 to 5 inches thick, placed between
the turrets. These ships were 345 feet in length by 73 feet beam, and
about 28 feet mean draught.
The _Royal Sovereign_, launched in 1891 and completed the following
year, introduced what is known as the high freeboard barbette type,
and in 1893 there was completed the _Hood_, the last of the British
turret ships. The _Royal Sovereign_ was noteworthy for several reasons.
A record for rapid building was established in her, for she was laid
down in September, 1889, and was launched as early as February, 1891,
a quicker piece of work for a vessel of her dimensions and the weight
of material handled than had ever been accomplished. One novelty
about her armament was that she carried as many as eight Maxims. In
her also the “big four” were 13½-inch breech-loaders, as against the
12-inch guns placed in her predecessors; these were mounted in pairs
in barbettes. She also had ten 6-inch quick-firers, six of which were
behind shields and four in casemates; and sixteen 6-pounders, twelve
3-pounders, and three torpedo tubes completed her weapons of offence.
For the protection of the ship a belt of compound armour, 18 inches
thick, extended along the water-line a sufficient distance to protect
the bases of the barbettes. Across the ship at the top of the belt was
a protective steel deck 8 inches thick, and this deck was continued at
the level of the bottom of the belt to the extreme ends of the ship.
Above the thick belt on the sides and protecting the ship as high as
the main deck and from the fore to the after barbette was a belt of
steel armour 4 inches thick, and above this, on the main deck, were the
casemates enclosing the 6-inch quick-firers. Altogether eight of these
vessels were built, the _Hood_ being the only one of them to be given
turrets instead of barbettes.
Artillerists, however, were not to be beaten, and so far as steel
armour and compound armour were concerned, the gun appeared once more
to be obtaining the advantage. The Harvey process of strengthening the
resisting powers of steel came to the rescue of the armour-plate. The
_Renown_, which has been called a “half-way house” between the _Royal
Sovereign_ and the _Centurion_, was the first warship in the British
Navy to be given Harveyised steel armour, of which both her armoured
belt and her armoured bulkheads were constructed. Whereas in the _Royal
Sovereign_ the thickest armour was 18 inches, that of the _Renown_ was
10 inches, and yet the latter was declared to be the better protected.
The extraordinary reduction in weight thus secured made possible the
advent of the _Majestic_ and _Magnificent_. These two vessels and the
others of their class were as far in advance of the _Royal Sovereign_
as the heavy ironclads were in front of the iron-plated ships. The
side armour of the _Majestic_ and _Magnificent_ of Harveyised steel
was carried to twice the height that was possible with the _Royal
Sovereign_, and though it was only 9 inches thick it offered a
resistance to penetration by hostile projectiles at least equal to that
of the massive sides of the _Royal Sovereign_, and was far stronger
than the ponderous iron masses piled upon the sides of the great turret
ships of a few years earlier.
[Illustration: H.M.S. “MAJESTIC.” _Photograph by West & Sons,
Southsea._]
With the _Magnificent_, launched in 1894 and completed the following
year, came the barbette ships with a high displacement. She, and the
others of her class, carried four 12-inch guns and twelve 6-inch
quick-firers, and thirty-eight anti-torpedo-boat guns, a number which
had not been equalled by any other vessel except the _Royal Sovereign_,
and five torpedo tubes, as against seven which had been installed
in that vessel and her sisters. The _Magnificent_ had a displacement
of 14,900 tons and engines of 12,000 indicated h.p., a designed speed
of seventeen and a half knots which she exceeded, a coal capacity of
2,200 tons, a belt of 9 inches of steel armour, and from 10 to 14
inches of steel for the protection of the main guns. The _Majestic_
was another of the sisterhood, though there were certain differences
of detail, no two vessels being precisely alike. She was 390 feet
between perpendiculars and, including the overhang of the stern and the
ram of 15 feet, about 430 feet in length. Her beam was 75 feet. Thus
she was longer than the _Royal Sovereign_ but of the same beam, which
made her a faster ship, her speed on her trial having reached 17.8
knots, although her engines indicated about 1,000 less h.p. than the
battleships of the programme of 1889.
All the ships of this class were remarkable for their appearance, which
certainly justified such names as _Magnificent_ and _Majestic_. The
great height of the superstructure fore and aft gave the idea of a good
deal of top hamper, which however was quite as great in the _Royal
Sovereign_. The upper deck 6-inch quick-firers of that vessel were
only protected by ordinary shields, but the new ships had closed-in
casemates at each corner of the battery and double plating above. The
bridges and deck-houses of the _Majestic_ were set back to avoid the
“blast” of the great guns, and the forward conning-tower stood clear
of the bridge and had an uninterrupted view all round. In regard to
the bridges she differed considerably from many of her predecessors
carrying heavy armament, as the “blast” from the big guns would have
rendered a position on the bridge far from safe, especially when they
were fired abeam. In these vessels the four 12-inch 46-ton wire guns
were placed two in each barbette; the breech and body of each gun was
protected by a steel hood with a maximum thickness of 10 inches. Their
6-inch guns were in casemates. The 12-inch guns were very powerful
for their weight, and comparing them with some of their most notable
predecessors, it was found that their energy nearly equalled that
of the 67-ton gun and their perforating power exceeded that of the
110½-ton gun.
The _Majestic_ and her sister ships were at the time they were added
to the Navy the most powerful warships afloat. The smaller guns were
unprotected, this being one of the objections urged against their
design. They were provided rather for repelling attacks by torpedo
boats, for which purpose they would no doubt have been very effective
if they were not disabled by an enemy’s gun-fire first.
The _Canopus_ class, of slightly larger displacement but less draught
and more lightly armoured, was a lighter version of the _Magnificent_,
and but very little faster. The next year, 1898, saw the launching
of the _Formidable_, which carried the same powerful armament as the
last two, but was considered to have it better protected, as her belt
consisted of 9 inches of steel and her main guns were protected by
steel armour 12 inches thick. The displacement and horse-power of the
engines were greater, but there was little improvement in the matter
of speed. This was remedied in the _Duncan_ and her class. She was
405 feet in length and 75 feet 6 inches beam, being 5 feet longer and
6 inches wider than the _Formidable_, and of about the same draught,
but her engines were of 18,000 h.p. indicated, giving her an estimated
speed of nineteen knots and an actual speed of over twenty knots on
occasion. These two classes of vessels attracted more than usual public
attention because of their cost, as although the cost of warships had
been steadily increasing, the _Formidables_ and the _Duncans_ were
the first in which the cost per ship exceeded a million sterling. A
somewhat smaller vessel followed in the _Triumph_, launched in 1903,
which attained a speed of nearly twenty-one knots, and in which also
the complete belt was revived. Her principal guns were four 10-inch
and fourteen 7.5-inch quick-firers, and she had also twenty-four
anti-torpedo-boat guns and two torpedo tubes.
[Illustration: H.M.S. “KING EDWARD VII.” _Photograph by the Carbonora
Co., Liverpool._]
[Illustration: H.M.S. “LORD NELSON.” _Photograph by Stephen Cribb,
Southsea._]
The increasing power and range of naval guns rendered it necessary that
better protection and more destructive weapons should be given to the
ships, and accordingly there was introduced in 1903, and completed in
1905, the _King Edward VII._, and eight of this class were built. Their
displacement was 16,350 tons, and in this respect they were the largest
ships yet built for the Navy, but though they were shorter than the
_Triumph_, they were of 2 feet greater draught. Their armour belt was
of 9 inches of steel, and their main guns were protected by 8 to 12
inches. These ships carried four 12-inch, four 9.2-inch, and ten 6-inch
quick-firers, and thirty anti-torpedo-boat guns. They cost not far
short of a million and a half sterling each. Their engines of 18,000
h.p. gave them a speed of about nineteen knots. In 1906, there was
launched the _Lord Nelson_, carrying fewer guns but better protected.
Her armament comprised four 12-inch and four 9.2-inch, besides
twenty-nine smaller guns and five torpedo tubes, and the armour both of
her belt and for her main guns was of steel 12 inches in thickness.
The _King Edward VII._ and _Lord Nelson_ were the finest examples
of the types of battleships carrying four big guns and a powerful
secondary armament. Both classes were provided with four 12-inch
guns, but the _Lord Nelson_ and the _Agamemnon_ marked an advance
from the principle which had endured so long towards the principle of
the all-big-gun one-calibre ship as exemplified in the _Dreadnought_.
They were not, however, ships carrying all big guns of one calibre,
for instead of a secondary armament like that of the _King Edward_,
they carried ten 9.2-inch guns and twenty-four smaller weapons. The
_Lord Nelson_ and _Agamemnon_ were about 410 feet in length by 79
feet 6 inches beam, and on a draught of 27 feet had a displacement of
16,500 tons. They were 15 feet shorter than the _King Edward_ class
and 18 inches broader. Many naval men preferred the _Agamemnon_ to
the _Dreadnought_, when the latter appeared in 1906, on account of
the greater rapidity of fire of the former; but against this it was
contended that her hitting power at long range was less. Upon her
trials the _Agamemnon’s_ engines developed 17,285 h.p. indicated,
and gave her a speed of eighteen and three-quarter knots, both power
and speed being in excess of the estimates. Her high freeboard was a
notable feature; her forward guns were 27 feet and her after pair 22
feet above the water-line, while in a superstructure above them were
the smaller guns some 34 feet above the water-line, where they were
admirably placed for dealing with any attempt at a torpedo attack.
The _Agamemnon_ was built by the Beardmore firm, at Dalmuir, and
launched in June, 1906, and the _Lord Nelson_ left the slips at
Palmer’s establishment at Jarrow in the following September. It was
contended that their 12-inch guns were half as powerful again as any
of similar calibre mounted previous to 1906. Of their 9.2-inch guns,
eight were in what are called twin barbettes, and the other two in
single barbettes between the others. There are also a few 12-pounders
and a greater number of 3-pounders, thirty-five in all, most of which
are in a somewhat exposed position. These ships have each a complete
belt extending along the water-line from stem to stern, 12 inches
thick amidships, and tapering to 6 inches at the bow and 4 inches aft,
while the sides above the belt and between the barbettes have 8-inch
armour raised to the level of the upper deck; diagonal bulkheads, also
of 8-inch armour, enclose the citadel at either end. Yet that 8-inch
armour was declared by Mr. Beardmore, when the ship was launched, to be
more than equal in its power of resisting projectiles to the 12-inch
armour of only four years earlier.
In considering the development of the modern warship attention
naturally turns to the battleship, but it should be remembered that
other vessels of scarcely less importance help to constitute the modern
navy, the most notable being the cruisers of various classes, the
destroyers and torpedo boats, and submarines.
Broadly speaking, the cruiser of the present day is to the modern
fleet what the frigate was to the line-of-battle ship in the days
of the three-deckers. That is to say, she has to be the eyes of the
fleet, able to show a good turn of speed, and capable of taking care
of herself if need be. There the resemblance ends. The duties of the
modern cruiser are multifarious. She has to be no less a commerce
protector than a commerce destroyer, and while at one end of the scale
she may be little more than a glorified gunboat, she may at the other
end have to be able to take her place in the line of battle and help
her more powerful sisters. Whatever her duties, speed is regarded as of
great importance.
The _Iris_, in 1878, attained a speed of eighteen and a half knots, but
more than seventeen years elapsed before this speed was equalled by any
of the cruisers. Her sister ship, the _Mercury_, covered nearly 18.9
knots, or close upon twenty-two miles an hour. In 1895 the cruisers
_Amphion_ and _Arethusa_ proved themselves able to exceed their
designed speed of seventeen and a half knots, and thence onwards the
increase in speed has been continuous, until we have the _Invincible_
in the British Navy capable of exceeding twenty-nine knots under
service conditions and in only moderately fine weather, and the _Von
der Tann_, in the German navy, possessing a speed of twenty-eight
knots under the most favourable conditions of weather and lightness
of stores. At one time the German ship was asserted to be the fastest
large cruiser afloat, but her supremacy, if it ever existed, in this
respect was very short-lived.
The _Phæton_ was one of the last class of cruisers to be given square
sails. Her canvas certainly proved useful to her, for her machinery
broke down during her commissioning trials preparatory to the naval
review at Spithead in 1897, and had it not been for her sails she
would have been totally disabled. The incident was seized upon by
those who still favoured the older methods which had done duty for
so many hundreds of years, as an argument for the retention of sail
power for the ships of the Royal Navy, and the modernists replied that
such incidents were few and far between, and with the improvements in
mechanism which science was continually making would become virtually
impossible.
Naval experts do not always agree as to the differences between a
battleship and a cruiser. There are vessels in either category which
could not possibly be placed in the other; but on the other hand there
are some vessels that may be classed as either one or the other, and
the types of the fast battleship and the armoured cruiser have been
approaching each other in late years in so many respects, that some
cruisers are fit to take their place in the line of battle against
all but the heaviest battleships, and the natural result has been the
appearance of the latest type of warship suitable for either duty, and
known as the cruiser-battleship.
[Illustration: THE GERMAN DREADNOUGHT CRUISER “VON DER TANN.”
_Photograph by Stephen Cribb, Southsea._]
The Japanese, in their encounter with the Russian fleet, utilised
cruisers against the Russian ships of the line, but whether they
would have been able to do so had the Russian battleships been in
as good condition as were those of their Oriental opponents is a
point upon which opinions differ. The cruisers, like the latest
_Invincibles_, have been given the armament of a battleship, but they
have been less heavily protected in order to allow them superior
speed; everything, should they have to take part in a naval battle,
will therefore depend upon their antagonists and the exigencies of the
engagement as to the duties they will have to perform.
Every nation has its own classification of warships, and the varieties
of modern warships are so numerous, and the estimates of their
effectiveness so much at variance, that it is little wonder the
descriptions assigned to the vessels do not agree. Thus the American
_Maine_, sunk at Havana, was described with equal accuracy as a cruiser
and as a second-class battleship. But the nations have, for the most
part, adopted the British classification of cruisers, though they
have not failed to modify it to suit their own views. First come the
unprotected cruisers, then the protected cruisers of the first, second,
or third class; then the armoured cruisers; and of recent years the
battle-cruiser, or heavy cruiser, capable of taking her place in the
line with battleships. The unprotected cruisers have no side armour
or other protection worth mentioning, and are mostly used for police
duties, such as guarding fisheries, etc. They are lightly built and
armed, and of relatively good speed for their size, and the duties they
have to perform usually constitute the chief matter for consideration
in the design of the several vessels. The protected cruisers have
strong steel decks to protect their engines, etc., besides a great
number of watertight compartments, and are classified according to
their size, armament and speed, and the work for which they are
intended.
Although the Admiralty adopted iron ships, it did not finally abandon
its old wooden ships until 1874--or a year after that in which the
first steel vessel was built for the Navy--in which year the British
Navy was enriched by the addition of the wooden corvettes _Sapphire_
and _Diamond_. Iron screw-driven cruisers or corvettes were the
successors of the smaller fast wooden vessels, and a number of fast
unarmoured ships of various types were built. One of them, the
_Bacchante_, had the honour of being selected for the cruise round the
world of the present King, when he and his brother, the late Prince
Albert Victor, joined the Navy as midshipmen.
The Americans claim that these types of vessels were introduced by
the _Wampanoag_, which was designed at the time of the American Civil
War to chase Confederate commerce destroyers. The extraordinary
reports published in the sensation-loving American papers, and duly
copied and accepted as true by the British papers, as to the speed
and capabilities of this vessel and others of her class, in 1866,
induced the British Government to decide on something similar, and, if
possible, superior, and the _Inconstant_ was the result. She was 333
feet in length by 50 feet beam, and had a displacement of 5,782 tons
on a draught of 23 feet. She was built of iron sheathed with wood and
coppered, this arrangement enabling a light hull to be constructed
which should take the strain of the machinery without being subject
to the same “working” as a wooden ship would have had to endure on
account of the greater elasticity of the material. The wood sheathing
protected the iron, and also enabled the bottom to be covered with
copper, or “yellow metal” as the composition was called which was
generally used for the purpose, in order to prevent barnacles, weeds,
and other marine growths from accumulating upon the submerged portion
of the hull and retarding the speed. Considering that barnacles and
weeds will grow thus to a length of several inches, the extent to which
the speed of a vessel will be hindered may be imagined. All unsheathed
vessels, whether of wood or iron, were peculiarly liable to these
growths, which are particularly luxuriant in tropical waters, and
might have their speed reduced even as much as from ten knots to six
knots. The difficulty was to enable an iron ship to carry a skin of
copper or yellow metal, the latter being mostly used in the mercantile
marine, and the former for ships of war, private owners with their own
money to spend being usually more economical than governments with
the taxpayers’ money behind them, and not hampered by the problems of
making the ships pay commercially. The _Inconstant_ was launched in
November, 1868, and was followed in 1873 by the _Shah_, whose famous
encounter with the _Huascar_ was alluded to in the previous chapter.
In 1879 the _Comus_ class, usually called the “C” class, as their
names began with that letter, and the _Leander_ class were introduced,
constructed partly of steel and partly of iron, their hulls being
given a sheathing of wood. Their engines and boilers were given a
protective steel deck over them 1½ inches thick, but otherwise they
had little enough in the way of protection. The most famous of the
former class was the _Calliope_, which, in March, 1889, made such a
magnificently successful struggle against a hurricane, and fought her
way from Samoa Harbour in the teeth of one of the most severe storms
experienced in the Pacific. The consummate seamanship and cool daring
displayed by Captain Kane in that struggle, lasting for hours, when six
American and German gunboats in the harbour were wrecked, have made
his feat memorable in the annals not only of the British Navy, but in
the heroic records of the seamanship of all ages. It is no detraction
from the merits of Captain Kane’s exploit to say that credit is due
also to the members of his crew, whatever their station--and not least
to the unknown hero who was at the wheel in that battle between man’s
science and Nature’s force. All shared in the glory of the feat; from
Captain Kane and his officers to the engineering staff who kept a
set of unreliable engines going at a pressure they were never built
to withstand, and to the half-naked coal-trimmers in the bunkers and
firemen in the stokehold, who stuck to their work in the semi-darkness,
knowing full well that in the case of failure on anyone else’s part, or
breakdown in the engines, they were doomed to die like rats in a trap.
The incident directed attention to the splendid sea-going capacities of
these vessels, and for many years afterwards the “lines” of the smaller
cruisers bore a strong resemblance to those of the _Calliope_ and her
sisters.
It was not, however, until 1883 that the first protected cruiser
appeared. This was not built for the British Navy, but for a South
American State, and under the name of the _Esmeralda_ came from the
slips at Elswick. She had a complete protective deck, and not simply a
protecting deck over her vital parts, engines capable of giving her a
high speed, and a powerful armament. She was the pioneer vessel of her
class. The British naval authorities, however, preferred the armoured
cruisers, and led the way in 1881 with the _Imperieuse_ and _Warspite_,
but soon abandoned this type and adopted the protected cruiser. These
two vessels were each of 8,000 tons displacement, 315 feet in length,
and had a partial belt of 10-inch armour along 140 feet on each side,
transverse bulkheads 9 inches thick at each end of the belt, and a
protective deck 1½ inches thick. They carried four 9.2-inch guns in
separate barbettes, one forward, one aft, and one on either side,
besides ten 6-inch guns, twenty-six smaller and machine guns, and
six torpedo tubes. Their hulls, which were of steel, were sheathed with
wood and coppered.
[Illustration: RUSSIAN CRUISER “RURIK.” _By permission of Messrs.
Vickers, Ltd._]
[Illustration: RUSSIAN CRUISER “ROSSIA.” _Photograph by Stephen Cribb,
Southsea._]
Other nations, notably France and Russia, adhered to the armoured
type, the former producing the _Dupuy de Lôme_, and the latter the
_Rossia_ and _Rurik_. Both these vessels were built at St. Petersburg
in 1896 and 1894 respectively, and must be distinguished from the
present Russian cruisers bearing these names. The _Rossia_ was terribly
knocked about in the war with Japan, but has survived it, thanks to
her armour. She appeared at the Diamond Jubilee Review in 1897 at
Spithead. The _Rossia_ and the present _Rurik_, the latter launched
at Barrow in 1906, attracted attention on account of their speed,
the former attaining twenty and a quarter knots and the more modern
boat nearly twenty-one and a half knots. Both were heavily armed, the
latter especially so, being the only Russian cruiser to carry four
10-inch guns. She has, besides, eight 8-inch guns, twenty 4.7-inch
quick-firers, eighteen smaller quick-firers, and two torpedo tubes,
and when she left the builders was one of the most formidable cruisers
afloat. Accurate long-range shooting being indispensable, the _Rurik_
is also fitted with a range-finding tower.
The new _Esmeralda_, built in 1895 for the Chilian Government by the
Tyneside firm who built her earlier namesake, had not a little to do
with the introduction of side armour on British cruisers, thanks to the
improvement of the Harvey and Krupp processes of strengthening steel.
The _Powerful_, launched at Barrow in 1895, and the _Terrible_,
launched at Glasgow the same year, were the largest protected cruisers
afloat at that time, and will long be remembered by the public for the
excellent service their crews rendered during the Boer War, and among
naval architects and marine engineers and shipbuilders by reason of the
bitter controversy that arose over their installation of forty-eight
Belleville water-tube boilers, they being the first cruisers in the
British Navy in which these were carried.
As a contrast to these two was the armoured cruiser _Drake_, begun
in 1899 and completed in 1902, and at that time the largest of her
class anywhere. Though called a cruiser, she was a more formidable
fighting-machine than the _Barfleur_, _Renown_ or _Canopus_. With a
displacement of 14,100 tons, and a length of 500 feet, and an equipment
of Belleville boilers and engines developing 30,000 h.p., she and her
sister ships could reach a speed of over twenty-four knots, and were
faster than any other large vessels in the British Navy. She was belted
on her sides with Krupp steel from one barbette to the other, and from
6 feet below the water-line to the level of the upper deck, and there
was lighter armour above this. She had also two protective decks, the
lower being 2 to 3 inches in thickness. Her two 9.2-inch breech-loading
guns were in barbettes, and she was given sixteen 6-inch, fourteen
3-inch, and three smaller guns, which, like the last two classes, were
quick-firers, and two machine guns.
The increase in gun power rendered necessary an addition to the
protection of the vessels, and the _Devonshire_ class of cruisers,
which appeared early in the present century, were given 6 inches of
armour instead of 4 inches. The ships of this class were tried for
experimental purposes with four different types of water-tube boilers
in combination with cylindrical boilers. These fast armoured cruisers
were designed to replace the old protected cruisers, which were no
longer equal to modern requirements, speed being now recognised as of
very great importance.
[Illustration: H.M.S. “INDOMITABLE.” _Photograph by West & Son,
Southsea._]
[Illustration: H.M.S. “LIVERPOOL.” _Photograph by E. Sankey, Barrow._]
It is not only in the larger ships, however, that examples of such
extraordinary development are to be found. Progress is shown by the
smaller vessels in no less degree. The continually changing conditions
of commerce have necessitated as many changes in the construction and
armament of vessels whose duty it would be in time of war to protect
commerce at sea, or maintain order in estuaries and rivers.
The _Dartford_, belonging to the “town” class of cruiser, may be
regarded as one of the best existing specimens of the modern smaller
cruiser. She is of 5,250 tons displacement, as compared with 4,800 tons
in the _Liverpool_, one of the earliest of her class, the addition
being largely required to carry an increase in her fighting power, as
her armament includes eight 6-inch quick-firers, all well protected,
and several smaller guns, as compared with two 6-inch guns and ten
4-inch guns in her preceding sisters. The machinery is of the same type
and power as that installed in the earlier “town” cruisers, and in
view of the high efficiency of the _Liverpool’s_ engines at her speed
trials, the _Dartford_ was expected to attain a speed of twenty-six
knots. Besides her coal-bunkers at the sides, the _Dartford_ has an
armoured deck of nickel steel, with sloping sides extending well
below the water-line. Her turbine machinery of 22,000 shaft h.p. is
contained in three separate engine-rooms, and there are three separate
boiler-rooms for her twelve water-tube boilers. Oil fuel is carried in
her double bottom. She has two masts fitted with wireless telegraphy
apparatus, and on the foremast is a platform from which the gun-fire
can be electrically directed.
Some cruisers are distinctly lighter versions of battleships. As
developments of the swift battleship of the _Magnificent_ and _Duncan_
types came the armoured cruisers _Cressy_, in 1899, _Drake_, in 1902,
and the belted cruisers _Black Prince_, in 1904, and _Minotaur_, in
1906, whence there developed the cruiser-battleship _Inflexible_ in
1907.
The _Dreadnought_ cruisers as much surpass the preceding types of
cruisers as the _Dreadnought_ battleships surpassed the _Majestics_,
etc. For that matter, _Dreadnought_ cruisers, like the _Princess
Royal_, as well as the _Queen Mary_ now being built, “could steam
round a fleet of pre-_Dreadnought_ ships and fire when it suited them,
keeping beyond the range which would enable the old battleship guns to
penetrate the armour of the modern cruiser.”[54]
The last of the _Dreadnought_ cruisers launched to the time of writing,
the _Princess Royal_, is the largest warship ever built by a private
firm in England for the British Government, although she is stated to
be exceeded by the battleship _Rio de Janeiro_, under construction at
Newcastle for the Brazilian Government, which is asserted to have a
displacement of 32,000 tons.
The _Princess Royal_ is a cruiser copy of the battleship _Conqueror_,
launched the same day. The principal differences between the two
vessels are that the cruiser has a pair less of the 13.5-inch guns, and
also has her side armour 2 inches less in thickness, in order that she
may steam thirty knots or more in place of the battleship’s twenty-one.
Her beam is the same as that of the _Conqueror_, but in order to give
her speed she is 700 feet over all as against the battleship’s 545
feet. In fighting power the _Conqueror_ is superior to the _Princess
Royal_, the latter having only eight big guns. An idea of the enormous
power required to drive these ships at the necessary speed, and
especially of the increase in power as between the two vessels, is
shown by the fact that turbine engines of 27,000 h.p. will give the
battleship a speed of twenty-one knots, but the thirty knots of the
cruiser require engines developing 70,000 h.p., or 27,000 more than the
_Indefatigable_, which has done twenty-nine knots. The vessel is to
be completed for sea by March, 1912.
[Illustration: FRENCH CRUISER “ERNEST RENAN.” _Photograph supplied by
Société Anonyme des Chantiers et Ateliers de Saint Nazaire._]
[Illustration: FRENCH CRUISER “DANTON.” _Photograph by Stephen Cribb,
Southsea._]
It will have been seen from the dimensions quoted of the various
cruisers mentioned that they are longer in proportion to their beam
than the battleships, the additional length being necessary to give
them greater speed. There was launched at Elswick in 1895, for the
Argentine Government, the protected cruiser _Buenos Ayres_, which was
very narrow for her length. Though 424 feet over all, she was only 47
feet 2 inches in beam, by 22 feet in depth. Her displacement was 4,500
tons. Her normal speed was twenty-three knots, and under forced draught
twenty-four knots. Like all the warships built on the Tyne for South
American States, she was heavily armed. One of the most heavily armed
ships of her size early in the present century was the Japanese cruiser
_Tsushima_, launched in 1902, but she has been surpassed by the later
vessels of the Japanese navy in speed, coal capacity and armament, the
latest, which are not yet completed, though only classed as protected
cruisers of 4,035 tons, having a coal capacity of 750 to 1,000 tons,
and carrying two 6-inch guns, ten 4.7-inch, and two 3-inch guns, all
quick-firers, and two machine guns.
A vessel which attracted considerable attention when she was begun in
1902--at various other times since when changes in her plans have been
suggested to meet the views of French naval experts, or the theories
of successive Ministers of Marine, a tinkering process from which she
has not been the only sufferer on the other side of the Channel--until
she was completed in 1908, is the _Ernest Renan_ cruiser. The length of
time which has elapsed between the laying-down and the completion of
some French vessels has seen them surpassed by newer types from other
shipyards, notably British, even before they have been commissioned.
But this is not the case with the _Ernest_ _Renan_, which, apart
from the _Dreadnought_ cruisers, is an exceedingly powerful ship, and
a great credit to her builders at St. Nazaire. She is rather narrow,
being only 70 feet 6 inches beam, with a length of 515 feet, and her
draught is 26 feet 9 inches. She is more effectively protected than
many a battleship of a few years earlier, having an armoured deck 2
inches in thickness, an armoured belt varying from 6¾ inches to 4
inches, while above the water-line belt she carries armour varying from
5 inches to 3 inches in thickness. Her armament is remarkably varied,
including, as it does, four 7.6-inch guns, twelve 6.4-inch guns,
twenty-one 1.8-inch guns, and two 1.4-inch guns, besides two submerged
torpedo tubes. Her main gun positions are protected by 8 inches of
armour, and her secondary armament by 5 inches of armour.
CHAPTER IX
GUNS, PROJECTILES AND ARMOUR
The introduction of direct shell fire at Sebastopol was a most
important advance in the science of attack, and was followed
soon afterwards by the adoption of elongated instead of circular
projectiles, the French leading the way. Both for solid shot and
explosive projectiles, it became necessary to increase the range and
accuracy. To do this the windage had to be reduced as much as possible
and the barrels of the guns were rifled in order to give the projectile
a certain amount of twist on its axis.
Rifled breech-loading guns were proposed by Major Cavalli, of
the Sardinian artillery, and by Baron Warendorff, of Sweden, and
experiments were made with the weapons in this and other countries.
A great deal of difficulty was found in adopting rifling for heavy
guns, owing to the much greater strain imposed upon the metal, and the
difficulties were still further increased when it became necessary
that ordnance should be produced of very large calibre and able to
throw heavy projectiles with high velocities. One way in which it was
sought to get over the difficulty was by reducing the charge of powder
considerably, and as the form of the newer projectiles was different
from that of the old spherical projectiles, and the windage was as far
as possible eliminated, it was found that this plan gave the desired
result. Wrought iron and steel replaced cast-iron and bronze, though a
few cast-iron rifled guns were strengthened with steel hoops. Wrought
iron was adopted for gun carriages, and steel or chilled iron for
armour-piercing projectiles.
Sir Henry Bessemer manufactured the first gun that was ever made of
malleable iron without a weld or joint, and though he showed that guns
could be made of steel, the Admiralty, with its then fondness for the
things of the days that were, decided to continue making its guns of
iron. But when the bore of the iron gun showed cracks, the Admiralty
decided on the insertion of a steel tube, and tied it with a piece of
iron.
“Why not with a piece of steel?” Sir Henry Bessemer asked, in 1881,
many years later. “Why not a cylinder made of steel in preference
to that iron coil? For the making of steel cylinders was then an
accomplished fact, but the making of those iron coils was not an
accomplished fact. The iron coil system has been thoroughly shown
up, but at an enormous expense to this country. The incident was the
turning-point which made us have iron guns, while every other country
in the world has got steel guns.” But the next year the Government
decided that the Navy’s guns should be constructed entirely of steel.
At the International Exhibition of 1862, a spherical steel cannon-ball
was exhibited, and in January, 1864, some particulars were published of
trials of projectiles of this class fired from a smooth-bore against
armour-plate 5½ inches in thickness. This moved Sir Henry to remark
that an expenditure of £50 three years earlier would have given as full
a proof of the efficiency of these projectiles.
“Meanwhile how many hundred thousands pounds have been expended
in building iron-plated ships, which these long-neglected steel
projectiles will riddle as easily as the cast-iron shot found its
way through the wooden walls of our old men-of-war!... It is not
less remarkable that while our firm at Sheffield have manufactured
some hundred and fifty pieces of Bessemer steel ordnance for foreign
service, guns of this material are still untried by our government,
although it is well known that the strength of this metal is double
that of ordinary iron, while such is the facility of production that
a solid steel gun block of twenty tons in weight can be produced from
cast fluid in the short space of twenty minutes, the homogeneous mass
being free from weld or joint.
“Our armour-plate system has certainly received a severe shock, and
it behoves us now to see how far it is possible to increase the
resisting power of ships so as to keep pace with the advances made by
steel shot.... The fine ship _Minotaur_ ... was all that excellent
workmanship and the best iron could make her, but still she was only
iron. It has been stated that the hull of the vessel weighs 6,000
tons, and her 4½-inch armour 1,850 tons. Now, had the hull of this
vessel been built of a material possessing double the strength of
ordinary iron her weight might have been reduced to 3,000 tons; but
suppose that, while we admit a double strength of material, we only
reduce the weight by one-third, this would give 4,000 tons of steel
for the hull. Now, with this reduction in the weight of the hull, we
may employ 9-inch armour-plates in lieu of the 4½-inch armour-plates
now employed. It must be borne in mind that the resistance offered
by the armour-plate is equal to the square of its thickness; hence
a vessel constructed in the manner proposed would bear a blow of
four times the force that the present structure is calculated to
withstand. Thousands of Bessemer steel projectiles are now being made
for Russia.... Have we a single ship afloat that can keep out these
simple round steel shots fired from a common smooth-bore gun, if ever
directed against us?”
[Illustration: 12½-PR. Q.F. 50-CALIBRE GUN AND MOUNTING.]
[Illustration: 4-INCH B.L. 40-CALIBRE GUN AND MOUNTING FOR TORPEDO BOAT
DESTROYERS. _Photographs supplied by the Coventry Ordnance Works, Ltd._]
After a remarkable series of experiments, Sir Joseph Whitworth produced
a number of rifled guns of great power and precision. In 1863 they
proved their worth in the Civil War in America, and in 1864 a series
of competitive experiments was conducted by the British Government at
Shoeburyness between the Armstrong and Whitworth guns. The committee
of artillerists reported its inability to decide which was the better
weapon, and the Whitworth gun was not then adopted by the Government,
though foreign nations bought them largely. Four years later a
Whitworth gun was produced which threw a 250-lb. projectile 11,243
yards, a range never before attained, and a 310-lb. projectile, 11,127
yards. Sir J. Whitworth also attempted to prove that a flat-headed
projectile will penetrate armour-plates even when striking obliquely.
Like all inventors of war material of increased efficiency, he
believed that the more destructive the weapons and explosives the more
improbable would war become, until it should be rendered impossible.
“Were it not that the increased destructiveness of war must tend to
shorten its duration and diminish its frequency--thus saving human
life--the invention of my projectiles could hardly be justified; but
believing in the really pacific influence of the most powerful means
of defence, these long projectiles I call the anti-war shell.” But Sir
Joseph Whitworth was disappointed, and the millennium has not dawned
yet.
His own summary of what he accomplished, however, shows how one step
after another has been taken in the production of weapon after weapon.
The progress has been maintained by one inventor and scientist after
another, until the remarkable guns with their 25-miles range which now
are carried have been made possible.
“In 1857 I proved for the first time that a ship could be penetrated
below the water-line by a flat-headed rifled projectile.
“In 1860 I penetrated for the first time a 4½-inch armour-plate with
an 80-lb. flat-headed solid steel projectile. In 1862 I penetrated
for the first time a 4-inch armour-plate with a 70-lb. flat-headed
steel shell, which exploded in an oak box supporting the plate. In
1870 I penetrated with a 9-inch bore gun three 5-inch armour-plates
inter-laminated with two 5-inch layers of concrete. In 1872, with my
9-pounder breech-loading gun and a flat-headed steel projectile, I
penetrated a 3-inch armour-plate at an angle of 45 degrees. All these
performances were the first of their kind and were made, with one
exception, with flat-headed projectiles, which alone are capable of
penetrating armour-plates when impinging obliquely, and which alone
can penetrate a ship below the water-line.”
The Brazilian Government began a series of experiments in 1871 which
convinced them that better guns were produced in this country than on
the Continent. The Bessemer steel process was improved by Sir Joseph
Whitworth for gun-making, and having adopted breech-loading guns,
he obtained results superior to those obtainable with any form of
muzzle-loading weapon. The Brazilian Government gave permission for him
to offer to lend to the British Admiralty a 7-inch breech-loading steel
gun he had made for the former, and a 35-ton muzzle-loading gun, in
order that comparative tests might be made, but the British Government
declined; it had no love for breech-loaders.
Having produced a type of gun capable, as he believed, of penetrating
any armour then in existence, Sir Joseph Whitworth set about
producing an armour-plate which should be able to beat the gun.
Using his compressed steel, he invented what he called “impregnable
armour-plating,” built in hexagonal sections, each of which was
constructed of a series of concentric rings arranged round a central
circular disc, this method preventing a crack caused by the impact
of a projectile from passing beyond the ring in which it occurred. A
Palliser shell of 259 lb. fired from a 9-inch gun with a charge of 50
lb. of pebble powder, which would have smashed an ordinary 12-inch
iron armour-plate, was itself smashed against this new armour, and the
target itself was forced 18 inches back into the sand and was only
slightly dented.
A great deal of reliance was placed in America on the gun invented by
Mr. Rodman, after whom it was named. Several of the American monitors
were armed with these weapons. One, bought by the British Government
and tested at Shoeburyness, weighed 19 tons and had a smooth bore 15
inches in diameter, and fired a round shot of 453 lb. with a charge
of 100 lb. of American powder. It pierced the 8-inch plates of the
_Warrior_ type of target, but as in other experiments it was less
successful, the Americans claimed that it was used in such a way as not
to show its full capabilities. Even if it had been, it could only have
had a very short career, as the breech-loading gun was steadily making
its way in foreign navies, and any form of smooth-bore muzzle-loader,
whether American or English, would have proved singularly ineffective
against ships carrying rifled breech-loaders. The Mackay gun, an
English invention doomed to early supersession, was an attempt to
combine the simplicity of the smooth-bore with the penetrating force
of the rifled gun, and in experiments made with this weapon on the
_Agincourt_ target, in 1867, the gun fully demonstrated its usefulness.
[Illustration: HEAVY GUN UNMOUNTED.]
[Illustration: 6-INCH B.L. 50-CALIBRE GUN COMPLETED AND WITH MOUNTING.
_Photographs supplied by the Coventry Ordnance Works, Ltd._]
No satisfactory results either with rifling or with the hexagonal
bore could be obtained, and as guns became more powerful it was found
that the only way of utilising them with the best results was by
loading them at the breech instead of at the muzzle. Obviously, a
heavy explosive shell could not be rammed down a big muzzle-loader.
The old 32-pounder had a muzzle velocity of 1,600 feet per second, and
the 40-pounder rifled breech-loader which took its place was of only
1,200 foot seconds, and the muzzle energy was 570 and 400 foot tons
respectively. Various methods were employed and were not by any means
satisfactory, but when slower burning powders were introduced, the
strain upon the gun was less sudden and more cumulative, so that the
pressure upon the projectile was exerted to the full as long as it was
within the gun and it was then expelled at the muzzle with the greatest
force obtainable. A great advance in naval gunnery was made with the
appearance of the Armstrong breech-loader. The first breech-loader from
this famous firm was a tube gun which was formed to admit of a breech
block being dropped in to close the bore and a screw attachment held
it fast. From about 1860 the principal guns in use in the Navy of the
Armstrong screw type were the 9-pounder weighing 6 cwt., the 12-pounder
weighing 8 cwt., the 20-pounder of 16 cwt., the 40-pounder of 35 cwt.,
and the 7-inch gun, 99½ cwt. The last-named was of 7.2 inches diameter,
and fired projectiles weighing 109 lb. All these guns were on the
polygroove system. About this time iron or steel gun carriages were
introduced for use on shipboard. The Admiralty, for some reason best
known to themselves, fancied muzzle-loaders, and obstinately remained
faithful to them long after all other naval powers had discarded
them as cumbersome and comparatively useless compared with the newer
types of breech-loading guns. The newer muzzle-loaders, however, were
improvements on the old smooth-bores, and were built on what is known
as the Fraser system, and they were far larger than any which had been
constructed before.
The inner barrels of the Armstrong 12-inch, 9-inch, and 7-inch
muzzle-loading guns were of tempered steel, with solid ends; these were
strengthened with wrought-iron coils shrunk on; the trunnion ring,
breech-piece and cascable, which was screwed into the latter, were
solid wrought-iron forgings. The different parts were hooked together
with shoulders and corresponding recesses, to prevent their separation.
The muzzle-loader of 64 lb. on Fraser’s cheap construction plan
consisted simply of a coiled iron tube, having the muzzle part double,
but with a triple coil over the breech.
The Armstrong big muzzle-loading guns were formed with the Woolwich
system of rifling or grooving, the projectiles being fitted with studs
to correspond to the grooves. The muzzle-loading guns varied from the
7-inch 7-ton gun to the 16-inch 80-ton gun. The 8-inch was 118 inches
in length, the 9-inch 125 inches, and so on, up to the 16-inch gun,
which was 288 inches in length; the last-named took a charge of 450
lb., and fired a projectile weighing 1,684 lb. with a muzzle velocity
of 1,590 foot seconds and a muzzle energy of 29,530 foot tons, capable
of penetrating at the muzzle between 24 and 25 inches of wrought iron.
By 1877 the initial velocity of rifled projectiles had been increased
from 1,600 to 2,100 foot seconds, and the energies by nearly 75 per
cent., so that a further reconstruction of artillery became compulsory.
It was not until after 1881 that the Admiralty definitely adopted
heavy breech-loading guns for its armed cruisers. Even as late as 1885
the squadron sent to sea when it was feared that trouble with Russia
was brewing, included thirteen battleships, not one of which had a
breech-loading gun of more than 6 inches diameter. As a contrast to
this, all the heavy guns of the Russian ships were breech-loaders. What
would have happened to the English ships had hostilities occurred, and
had the Russian gunners been able to use their weapons properly, is
best left to conjecture, but it might have proved a sorry day in the
naval history of England. Even by 1894 muzzle-loaders were still in use
in the Navy.
The Woolwich Armstrong breech-loading guns varied from 12-pounders of
3 inches to the 16.25-inch 111-ton gun, the length of which was equal
to 30 calibres. The last-named gun took a charge of 960 lb. of powder,
and fired a projectile weighing 1,800 lb. with a muzzle velocity of
2,087 foot seconds, and a muzzle energy of 54,390 foot tons, calculated
to penetrate over 36 inches of wrought iron at the muzzle. Gunpowder
not being powerful enough for these great weapons, other explosives
were introduced, which had, among other advantages, that of being much
more powerful. The principal of these explosives at present in use is
cordite.
In the early ’sixties the guns chiefly in use on this side of the
Atlantic were the 9-inch gun, weighing 12 tons, and discharging a
250-lb. shot with 43 lb. of powder, the initial velocity being 1,730
feet per second. The largest gun was the 23½ tons, with a 12-inch
diameter, its shot weighing 600 lb. and the charge of powder 70 lb.,
and the muzzle velocity being 1,240 feet per second. The larger guns
could not be worked without considerable improvements being made in the
ships themselves. Greater height had to be given between the decks, and
the distances between the guns had also to be increased, there being
25 feet between the centre lines of the ports for the 12-ton guns,
while the 23-ton guns required about 30 feet between the ports and
between 8 and 9 feet between the deck and the underside of the beams
supporting the deck above. To keep the portholes as small as possible
an arrangement was made whereby the gun should be pivoted near the
muzzle.
The later developments in naval artillery began with the 12-inch 46-ton
wire gun, which was the chief weapon of the battleships between 1894
and 1897. This gun was 37 feet 1 inch in length, or 35.43 calibres, and
threw an armour-piercing shell of 850 lb. with a charge of 167½ lb. of
cordite. It had a muzzle penetration of 36.8 inches of wrought iron,
and was in every respect as powerful as the 13½-inch 67-ton gun, which
it replaced. During 1898, the 12-inch wire gun, weighing about 50 tons,
was introduced.
The adoption of breech-loading made possible a very rapid rate of
firing, even with the heaviest guns. In 1881, the Government, in reply
to an invitation it issued for guns to meet certain requirements,
received a number of replies from gun-making firms, as did also
the French Government at about the same time in reply to a similar
invitation. These guns, which became known as quick-firing or
rapid-firing guns, were comparatively small weapons, and the Armstrong
Company at Elswick, having improved upon them with quick-firers of 4.7
inches and 6 inches calibre, they were adopted throughout the Navy as
the secondary armament. Their superiority over those they displaced was
such that a battery’s firing power was increased sixfold. An important
trial took place on board the _Hardy_ in 1887, when a 4.7 gun was
mounted on a centre pivot recoil mounting, the whole weighing 4 tons
12 cwt.; this gun fired ten rounds in less than 48 seconds. Compare
this with the firing of the ordinary 5-inch breech-loading gun on the
gunboat _Mastiff_, when ten rounds took 6 minutes 16 seconds.
In rifling some of the guns an increasing twist was given, while in
others the twist was uniform throughout the bore. The object of the
increasing twist was to lessen the strain upon the gun, as the rotary
motion was not started when the projectile was first put into motion,
but developed as it moved down the bore. The projectiles were provided
with studs which fitted into the grooves. The breech-loading guns on
the polygonal system of rifling fired projectiles which were coated
with lead fixed on with zinc, so that the bore of the gun was not
injured by the rush of gas past the projectile as was the case in the
rifled guns in which there was windage. Two systems of breech-loading
were designed by Sir W. Armstrong, one being the screw system and the
other known as the wedge.
The projectiles invented by Major Palliser were specially designed
to penetrate iron armour. Cast iron was found to be smashed against
armour, wrought iron was too soft to do any damage, and steel in
those days was too expensive to be of use. Major Palliser solved the
difficulty by making his projectiles of chilled iron, and giving
them a cylindrical shape with the pointed or ogival head.
[Illustration: PROJECTILES AND CHARGES USED IN THE BRITISH NAVY.
_Photograph by Stephen Cribb, Southsea._]
1. Projectile, 16·25 B.L., 1,800 lbs.
2. Charge for ” ” 960 lbs. powder.
3. Projectile, 13·5 B.L., 1,250 lbs.
4. Charge for ” ” 187½ lbs. cordite.
5. Projectile, 12-in. B.L., 850 lbs.
6. Charge for ” ” 211 lbs. cordite.
7. Projectile, 9·2 B.L., 380 lbs.
8. Charge for ” ” 103 lbs. cordite.
9. Projectile, 7·5 B.L., 200 lbs.
10. Charge for ” ” 77½ lbs. cordite.
11. Projectile, 6-in. B.L., 100 lbs.
12. Charge for ” ” 29 lbs.
13. Projectile, 5-in. B.L., 50 lbs.
14. Charge for ” ”
15. Projectile, 4·7, 45 lbs.
16. 4·7 Cylinder for Cartridge.
17. Projectile, 4-in., 25 lbs.
18. 4-in. Cylinder.
19. Projectile, 12-pounder.
20. 12-pounder Charge.
21. 12-pounder Case Shot.
22. 12- ” 8 cwt. Charge.
23. 6- ” Cartridge.
24. 3- ” ”
25. 1¼-lb. Cartridge.
Experiments are often carried out to ascertain the resisting qualities
of various combinations of armour offered to projectiles of varying
weights and penetrative powers according to the distances at which
they are fired. When iron was used for armour-plating, targets were
built in duplication of those provided for the armoured ships. Both the
Armstrong and Whitworth 70-pounders fired in the competition trials
over 3,000 rounds, or three times the number assigned as the limit to
the life of the old cast-iron smooth-bore guns. Of course, the bigger
the gun the shorter the life, as a rule.
The French adopted for naval service four different patterns of heavy
breech-loading rifled guns, all made of cast iron, and strengthened
behind the trunnions with steel rings which were shrunk on. Their
weight varied from 21 tons 13 cwt., with a calibre of 10.82 inches,
to the gun of 4 tons 18.5 cwt., with a calibre of 6.48 inches, firing
projectiles respectively of 476 lb. and 99 lb. The weight of the charge
was rather more than one-sixth of that of the projectile. The guns were
mounted on wrought-iron carriages and slides constructed on the box
girder system.
As the powers possessed a great number of old smooth-bore guns and
rifled guns were expensive, several attempts at a compromise were made
by lining the smooth-bore guns and converting them into rifled guns,
the lining being rifled according to whichever system the power owning
the gun happened to prefer at the moment. The Dutch Government is said
to have set the example of national frugality in this respect.
How slow the Admiralty was, is shown by the statement of the Secretary
to the Admiralty in the House of Commons in March, 1881, to the
effect that “at this moment there is not a single heavy breech-loading
gun mounted on any of our ships, but by the end of next year a very
substantial beginning would have been made towards arming our fleet
with breech-loaders.... The Admiralty was driven to the step by the
fact that a high velocity was now required for the projectile, that
high velocity was only obtainable by a great length of gun, and that
to load a gun over a certain length at the muzzle became impracticable
under the ordinary conditions of mounting guns afloat.” The Government,
it was contended, was now able to profit by the experience which
foreign nations had gained, and intended to improve upon the guns which
were in use abroad. But whatever may have been the official view, the
fact remains that the Admiralty was years behind other nations, that
Woolwich, in spite of official claims, discovered nothing that had not
been known to be possible a decade earlier at least, and that the Navy
was armed with out-of-date muzzle-loaders. Fortunate it no doubt was
for this country that it had no wars in which its Navy could be tested
against a navy armed with breech-loaders.
In the matter of armour this country owes a debt of gratitude to Sir
John Brown, who made the Atlas Works at Sheffield famous throughout the
world for the excellence of the armour-plates produced there. Indeed,
the records of what he has accomplished seem to indicate that his rule
was to surpass whatever his rivals produced, and never to forget that
he might be able to learn something from others. His company took up
the manufacture of chrome steel, which was patented in America about
1871. When the Italian experiments at Spezzia resulted in the 100-ton
gun smashing, in 1876, 22 inches of iron armour and its backing, the
French turned their attention to steel plates, as did also Sir Joseph
Whitworth, but Sir John Brown thought that better results would be
secured with iron plates with steel faces. These compound plates had
half their thickness of steel. By 1888 the firm was producing compound
plates each 32 tons in weight.
An interesting comparison between French and English methods was made
a few years ago[55] by M. Canet, of the well-known French firm of gun
manufacturers, in a paper on the heavy naval guns and warships of the
two countries. Referring to the latest type of the large weapons then
employed at sea, viz., the English 12-inch gun, known officially as
Mark IX., he described its method of construction, which has already
been alluded to, and pointed out that the corresponding gun in the
French navy was of 305-mm. bore (or 12.008-inch) and of 45 calibres
in length. The barbette system of gun-mounting, as already explained,
owed its origin to French inventiveness, and is preferred in the
British Navy; but the French, curiously enough, seem to have preferred
the English system of mounting turrets for the guns. The turrets
themselves, however, differed from those of the English pattern, the
French idea being to make them oval and smaller, so as to offer the
narrowest possible target, and this theory was carried into practice
even at the expense of the interior roominess. The limited dimensions,
however, made it no easy task for artillerists to arrange conveniently
inside the turrets all the machinery required, and M. Canet avowed a
preference for the English practice of allowing the designer plenty
of weight and room inside the turrets or barbettes. There were
also structural differences in the methods of the two countries of
arranging the armour, and it was claimed that the French oval form,
with the other characteristics, had, among other advantages, that of
distributing the blows of the projectiles over a greater weight of
armour. Another important difference lay also in the method of working
the guns. It has been the custom for many years in the British Navy
to take up the recoil of the guns by hydraulic buffers, and to use
hydraulic pressure to run out the guns again. The French introduced
springs, which were compressed by the force of the recoil. Again,
hydraulic appliances are preferred in the British Navy for training
and elevating the guns, but our neighbours across the Channel prefer
electricity. The latter has been tried in the British Navy, the
most notable example being one of the super-_Dreadnoughts_, but the
experiment has by no means given satisfaction.
Even more striking differences appeared in the matter of the ammunition
hoists, etc. The French battleships, M. Canet said, were equipped with
hoists leading direct from the magazines to the guns, and there was
the drawback that the guns had to be returned to a certain position to
be reloaded, and the muzzle had to be depressed a few degrees below
the horizontal to facilitate the loading, the projectile being pushed
home with a rammer by the gun crew, whose strength was assisted by a
compressed spring. The ammunition hoists on the English battleships, on
the contrary, were made in two sections. The lower section raised the
ammunition to a relay chamber, and the upper section carried it thence
to the gun. This method is held to allow of more rapid firing, as a
large supply of ammunition can be placed, prior to an action, in the
relay chamber, and the store there, as fast as it is drawn upon, can be
replenished from the magazines. It has also been held that in case of a
shell bursting in the turret the danger to the magazine would be less,
and in M. Canet’s opinion the English method is superior to that of
the French. Another matter in which he considered the English to have
an advantage was in the manner of loading the guns. How this was done
on the French battleships has just been explained. The English gun
crews could load the guns at any elevation. The ammunition was carried
up in a curved hoist, so that it could be delivered at any point
desired, and was pushed home by a hydraulic rammer moving with the gun.
[Illustration: 12-INCH BREECH MECHANISM (CLOSED).]
[Illustration: 12-INCH BREECH MECHANISM (OPEN). _By permission of
Messrs. Vickers, Sons & Maxim, Ltd._]
[Illustration: INTERIOR OF A BARBETTE, SHOWING 12-INCH GUN, H.M.S.
“CÆSAR.” _Photograph by Gale & Polden, Aldershot._]
Time brings strange revenges. At one period the French were the
leading nation in the world in the matter of naval construction, and
the English were content to copy the French designs. But in later
years England has taken the lead, and not only France but the other
maritime powers of the world have been glad to sit at the feet of
Britannia and accept the instruction she has been able to impart. Some
of these pupils, if pupils they be, have proved themselves exceedingly
apt copyists and improvers, and are inclined to think that their own
creations are every whit as good as anything this country can produce.
The superiority of the British methods alluded to by the famous French
gun-maker were not lost upon French naval architects, and in some of
the latest French battleships these methods have been copied. The
rapidity of the fire of the big guns would thus, it was expected, be
raised to two rounds a minute. Electricity, however, has been retained,
as the French consider it to be better than hydraulic machinery for
the loading of the guns and movement of the turrets, and more easy of
repair in case of damage under hostile fire.
The size and weight of the pieces forming the breech mechanism
of the modern guns of large calibre made compulsory the adoption
of mechanical means for loading them. There was also the further
advantage that machinery was less likely to make mistakes, or to
suffer from the accidents which are bound to disable some of the crew
in a naval engagement. In some of the earlier battleships, in which
the large muzzle-loading guns were fitted, the charge was raised to
the gun-mouth by machinery worked by hand-power, and after it had
been rammed home by the crew the projectile was inserted and rammed
home also, obviously an impossible arrangement when it was sought to
introduce rifled explosive shells. When guns were made too large to
be withdrawn into the turrets to be loaded, they were loaded by being
depressed so that their muzzles just entered a specially cut orifice
in the deck in front of the turret, and the loading crew were able to
do their work in safety. The drawback to this system was that the gun
had to be brought back to the same position for loading, then revolved
with its turret once more to the direction in which it was to be
discharged, and aimed afresh before its missile could be sent at its
mark. The chief advantage of this system was that the gun required a
smaller, and consequently less weighty, turret for the protection of
its crew. The introduction of the breech-loader enabled the guns to be
loaded in greater security, with greater speed, and without interfering
with the aim or training of the gun, thereby rendering a more rapid
fire possible. Ammunition hoists brought the charge and projectiles
right into the turret or barbette more expeditiously and with greater
precision than the best-drilled crew, and the men had simply to load
the weapon and fire it. The human element came in here, however, in all
its uncertainty, and, in spite of the greatest possible care, accidents
occurred. A charge or a shell was dropped or caused to explode in some
way, and disastrous were the results. Again the necessity for the
mechanical appliances caused them to be forthcoming. The projectiles
and charges for fighting purposes, which naval strategists declared
to be necessary in ever-increasing size and weight, and the greater
rapidity of fire which was demanded, made it impossible for dependence
on hand power to be retained. After various experiments, both steam
power and electricity being tried, hydraulic power was introduced, and
has proved more suitable for the purpose than any other method. Now
the heaviest projectiles, weighing half a ton or more, are lifted with
the greatest ease and exactness to the required position by hydraulic
power, are pushed into their places by the same power which does a like
office for the charge of explosive, closes and fixes the breech, and
does not desist until its task is finished. In the latest appliances,
the machinery is made interlocking, so that, at least in the system
introduced lately by Messrs. Vickers, no one operation connected with
loading the gun can be performed until its immediate predecessor has
been accomplished. With a view to securing more rapid and accurate fire
this firm has introduced a modification of the breech mechanism by
what is known as a “pure couple.” The hydraulic breech mechanisms just
alluded to are used for the largest guns, such as the 12-inch weapons,
and have also been installed on the Japanese ships for the 10-inch
guns. The guns can be loaded at the required angle of elevation, the
advantage claimed for this being that the sight can be kept on the
target all the time.
The pressure to which guns are subjected when the charge explodes
is enormous. One reason why they do not burst is that they have not
time to do so. How rapidly the pressure arises against the sides of
the gun and then against the projectile to expel it from the bore,
was shown by experiments which Sir Andrew Noble conducted some time
ago with a 6-inch gun of 100 calibres length of bore. Practically
instantaneously with the ignition of the charge, that is to say in
about the four-hundredth part of a second, a maximum pressure against
the interior of the gun of 22 tons per square inch was reached,
but this declined to about 13 tons per square inch in about the
twelve-hundredth part of a second more. But by that time the projectile
had left the gun, and was rushing, faster than the eye could follow it,
towards its mark.
The English 12-inch (Mark IX.) gun consists of a steel tube, wound
practically from end to end with layer after layer of steel ribbon or
wire of very great tensile strength. This tube is known as the A tube,
and may be called the hollow heart of the gun. As much as a hundred
miles of wire will be used for one of these guns, and, of course,
for the newest guns, the 13-inch weapons, such as have been placed
in the latest super-_Dreadnoughts_, or the 15-inch guns which it is
said will be placed in the _Dreadnoughts_ of 1912 or the year after,
the amount is a great deal more. The greatest thickness of layers is
placed round the breech of the gun, where the strain is most severe,
and each succeeding layer is wound on with increasing tension, though
to the ordinary observer the first layer seems to fit so tightly that
nothing could be tighter; but the gun makers know better. All along
the chase or fore part of the tube another tube, called the B tube, is
shrunk on to ensure that it shall be the tightest fit possible. Then,
over a portion of the B tube, and also over a portion of the winding,
that part of the gun known as the breech jacket is shrunk. Apparently
everything is so strongly fixed together that nothing can cause the
parts to separate, but the gun makers know this is not so, for into
this jacket a bush is screwed to prevent any movement of the A tube, so
far as the jacket is concerned. The A tube itself contains a thin steel
inner tube inserted from the breech and fixed in position by the breech
bush. It is this inmost tube which has to bear the wear and tear caused
by the firing, and suffers from erosion, due to the gases generated by
the explosion of the charges, and has to be replaced by a new tube when
it is no longer fit for service.
[Illustration: THE 12-INCH GUNS OF H.M.S. “NEPTUNE.” _Photograph by
Stephen Cribb, Southsea._]
Gun makers have always responded cheerfully to the challenge to
penetrate the hardest armour of the time, and have succeeded in
producing weapons which are able to penetrate any armour now carried.
The problem at present is to increase the range at which the
penetrative power may be exercised. This can only be attained by the
increase in the length of the gun and the use of explosives developing
higher pressures in order to obtain higher velocities. The British gun
of 45 calibres and 9.2 inches diameter is about to be superseded by one
of 50 calibres, and the 40-calibre gun carried in some of the latest
ships is being superseded by the 12-inch gun of 45 calibres.
Twelve-inch guns of 45 calibres and 10-inch guns of 50 calibres have
been installed in the new ships, built at Elswick recently, for the
navies of Japan and one of the South American States.
Greater length means a greater muzzle energy, higher velocity, and
increased power of penetration. The latest guns, too, have shown that
the manufacturers have been considering the advisability of effecting
a certain amount of redistribution in the thicknesses of the different
parts of which the gun is built, notably the tubes, wires, and jackets,
and the adoption of a uniform type of rifling. The theory was that the
rifling should be increased as the grooves passed down the tube, so
that a gradually increasing twist should be given to the projectile,
but it is now held that no advantage is obtained by this method,
whatever may have been the case in the past, and that the uniform
rifling will give better results as to accuracy, muzzle energy and
velocity, and inflict no greater strain upon the gun or shorten the
“life” of its tube. The trials already made have shown that uniform
rifling for modern high velocity guns has resulted in giving greater
range and greater accuracy in shooting.
The war between France and Germany in 1871 brought machine guns into
notice. Great things were expected by the French of the _mitrailleuse_,
and some of the patriotic Paris newspapers at the time published
glowing prophecies of the number of Germans each gun could be depended
upon to kill in a few minutes, with the result that, according to
their calculations, there would be no Germans left after a few days to
continue the war. But events turned out otherwise; the _mitrailleuse_
failed, and the Germans were victorious. This machine gun was
very defective, and served to advertise by contrast the Gatling,
Nordenfeldt, Gardner, and Maxim automatic guns, named after their
respective inventors. Of these the Maxim has been so improved that it
is considered to be superior to any of the others. The machine guns
fire, according to the number of their barrels and their calibre, from
four hundred to six hundred or more shots per minute, at a range equal
to that of the best infantry rifle, and can be sighted with deadly
accuracy.
CHAPTER X
WARSHIPS OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
Two classes of vessels stand forward prominently as the products of the
twentieth century. One is the _Dreadnought_, or all-big-gun one-calibre
type of battleship, the other is the submarine. The fact that both
are the result of the slow developments of centuries does not render
them the less the products of the last few years. Both are untried in
battle, and they are regarded as preparing the way for the introduction
respectively of surface and under-water warships, the power of which
is conjecturable only. Associated with both is the torpedo. The dream
of a submarine which shall travel faster than a surface vessel of the
same size is never likely to be realised, provided that the surface
vessel is built for speed also, for the simple reason that the vessel
travelling on the surface has only about a third of its surface in
connection with the water, whereas the submarine has its whole surface
submerged, and has three times as much friction against the water to
overcome. Hence, a lightly armed, very fast vessel is regarded as
likely to play an important role in the navy of the not distant future,
and finds its representative in the destroyer of to-day.
The submarine and the destroyer owe their existence to the battleship’s
greatest enemy, the torpedo. All three vessels carry that weapon,
and any two of them may combine against the third. The spar-torpedo
was such an unsatisfactory weapon at best that it had either to be
abandoned, save under most unusual circumstances, or improved out of
all recognition. The possibilities of the torpedo itself were so great
as to compel its retention, and the startling proposition was made that
torpedoes should be fired by under-water guns at a distant ship. The
blowing up of the _Albemarle_ in the American Civil War showed what
could be accomplished by a small fast steam launch. If this could be
done with a spar-torpedo, how much more destructive would a torpedo
be which could be directed against a hostile vessel from a small fast
launch which could approach to within an effective range, and then turn
and make a rush for safety from the gun-fire which might be brought
to bear in her direction. Several torpedoes of one kind and another
have been designed, but they have all had to give way to the Whitehead
torpedo. The inventor is stated to have derived his idea in 1864 from
a fire-boat designed by an Austrian officer, who thought of loading
a small boat with explosives, to be fired by a pistol connected with
protruding spars which should strike the vessel attacked, while the
fire-boat itself was to be propelled by a screw driven by clockwork.
Whitehead improved on this by making his boat of iron, and able to
travel under water for a short distance at a speed of six knots. Its
explosive was a few pounds of dynamite. By 1870 he had improved this
to a torpedo having a speed of eight knots, a range of 400 yards,
and a charge of 76 lb. of gun-cotton. The modern Whitehead torpedo
is a wonderful piece of mechanism, so wonderful that to the ordinary
spectator it seems almost endowed with intelligence. To see it lying
in its cradle ashore it is simply a beautifully polished smooth steel
cylinder. The fore end is blunt and with an innocent-looking steel
spike projecting from the centre of its rounded front, but it is this
spike which strikes the object aimed at and causes the ignition of the
explosive an inch or two behind it in the head of the cylinder. The
torpedo has a fine run aft for about a third of its length, and at the
after end are two vertical and two horizontal rudders, and two screws
revolving in opposite directions. It is some time since compressed air
was adopted as the motive power. The efficacy of the compressed cold
air has been increased to an extraordinary degree by the introduction
of an apparatus for heating the air. A torpedo fitted with a heater
can travel over double the distance at a given speed and the same
expenditure of air that a torpedo without a heater can. “If a torpedo
be run for the same distance with a heater as a similar torpedo without
a heater, a 100 per cent. gain of power would be realised by increasing
the speed, and at a range of 2,000 yards this increase is from 26 knots
to 33.5 knots, the highest which has ever been realised with a torpedo
over a range of 2,000 yards.”[56] The newest form of torpedo is that in
which hot air instead of cold air is used.
[Illustration: A TORPEDO. DISCHARGED FROM A DESTROYER, TRAVELLING BY
ITS OWN ENGINES TOWARDS AN ARMOURED BATTLESHIP.]
In the case of the latest pattern 18-inch Whitehead torpedo, a speed
of 28 knots for 2,000 yards, or 34½ knots for 1,000 yards when using
the ordinary cold air, has been obtained. For longer distances, such
as 3,000 and 4,000 yards, the speed is proportionately less, falling
to about 20 knots for the 4,000 yards range. When using the heater,
“the same torpedo maintains a speed of over 40 knots for 1,000 yards,
37 knots for 2,000 yards, 30 knots for 3,000 yards, and 27 knots for
4,000 yards. The speeds are quite extraordinary, as they represent
exactly 100 per cent. more power from the engines, and it is further
pointed out that the heater is extremely small, simple, and burns any
ordinary lamp oil, and is capable of being fitted to practically any
existing type of torpedo. The Admiralty has never been slow to adopt
improvements in the torpedo armament of the fleet, and for years
Great Britain has led in the matter of submarine tubes for firing
torpedoes.”[57]
The explosive carried, usually gun-cotton, weighs 200 lb. An ingenious
arrangement of gyroscope, valve and pendulum causes the torpedo to
remain at the required depth, and to return to it if it should be
diverted from it.
There have been several attempts to solve the problem of directing
torpedoes by means of wireless telegraphy. The great drawback,
however, has been that the receiving apparatus which the torpedo had
to carry was outside it and must appear above the surface of the
water, and was, therefore, liable to be sighted and shot away. The
same objection has been raised to the equipment of submersible torpedo
boats with “wireless.” Of recent years a torpedo has been contrived
which the inventors claim can be directed by wireless telegraphy, and
as there seems no reason why the principle applied cannot be improved
and extended to submarines and submersibles, the utility of these
under-water craft may be augmented to an inconceivable degree. The
“Actinaut” is the name of the torpedo, and the jet of salt water which
it ejects serves not only to indicate the position of the torpedo, but
is an “indestructible receiver for the electric waves.”[58]
SUBMARINES
Submarine warfare and exploration are no new ideas, but in the past
as in the present, the great difficulties have been to ensure the
provision of sufficient power for rapid propulsion, and to keep the air
pure enough for the crew to breathe for a long journey under water.
Efforts at submarine warfare seemed to have been made many centuries
ago, but none of the contrivances then used had any fighting value,
and were more interesting as freaks than in any other capacity. It is
unnecessary to attempt even to summarise all the schemes which early
and late inventors evolved to render possible under-water attacks
upon an enemy’s fleet. The problem was as fascinating seven or eight
hundred years ago as at the present time. Most of the alleged mediæval
inventions probably never got beyond the imaginative or paper stage,
and however wonderful the inventors’ theories or written descriptions
may have been, even when embellished with weird illustrations showing
the contrivance at the bottom of the sea, it is not recorded that any
of the submarines achieved any actual success whatever. One of the
earliest submarine descents which is supposed to have been made was
that of Alexander the Great, who is mendaciously represented to have
been lowered to the bottom of the sea in a glass barrel, too small
for him to stand up in, with a smoky oil lamp or two, and an animal
which might have been a dog or a cat (it is difficult to say which
the artist intended) for company, the circumstances being such that
he could not have failed to be asphyxiated in a very short space of
time. It appears, too, that he wore a crown and his royal robes on that
occasion, so that he evidently visited Neptune in state.
As early as the year 1190 a man is said to have constructed a diving
boat of leather. Numerous suggestions were made to enable men to go
under water in order to bore holes through the sides of an enemy’s
ships, which, considering the thickness of the planks, must have been
a somewhat laborious undertaking. The Barbary corsairs are stated to
have used some sort of submarine explosive against the ships of their
opponents, but this explosive or combustible was most likely Greek fire.
William Bourne, who served in Queen Elizabeth’s navy, is said to have
had a submarine boat which could have been made useful, but there are
no records in existence to show that the experiment ever took place.
An interesting feature of the suggestion was that he proposed to sink
or raise the vessel by admitting and expelling water. About the middle
of the seventeenth century, a Dutchman is said to have invented a
boat which travelled under water from Westminster to Greenwich, and
it is even asserted that it carried passengers, in addition to twelve
men at the oars, and that the air in the interior of this vessel was
purified by a “chymicall liquor.” A Royal Warrant, dated June 29th,
1626, ordered the delivery of “360 fforged iron cases with fireworkes,
50 water mynes, 290 water petards, and two boats to conduct them under
water, for H.M. special service to goe with the fleete.”
Two worthy friars of the Order of Minims turned from their spiritual
contemplations to devise a submarine, and they appear to have been the
first to suggest that it should be built with both ends alike, and
pointed so that it could move either end foremost; it was to be given
wheels to move along the sea floor, and to be propelled by oars. It
was even to carry guns, to be fired through holes in the side. Another
inventor in the seventeenth century waxed so enthusiastic over his
submarine, that, besides pointing out its advantages in all manner of
possible and impossible circumstances in time of war, he represented
that it should be used for submarine hunting parties, who might have
great sport shooting the fish as the boat went along. A Frenchman named
De Son, built in 1663, at Rotterdam, a vessel about 72 feet in length,
circular, and running to a cone at each end, by which he promised, but
did not perform, great things. A few years later a boat was designed by
the Abbé Borelli to travel under water, his idea being that the boat
should rise or sink according to the amount of water admitted through
holes in the hull to skins provided for the purpose. Bushnell, an
American inventor, had a vessel he called the _Turtle_, which seems to
have been shaped more like an egg. It floated at the surface of the
water with the pointed end downward, and had a small screw propeller,
jutting out at one side. On the opposite side of the body of the vessel
was a magazine containing about 150 lb. of powder. This magazine was
detachable from the inside of the ship, and was fastened by a rope to
a powerful screw which the inventor intended to drive into the hold
of the opposing warship, and then make the best of his way to safety,
leaving the magazine attached to the screw. He was more anxious to find
someone to make the attack on the British ships than to do it himself.
[Illustration: THE “HOLLAND” SUBMARINE.]
[Illustration: THE “GOUBET” SUBMARINE.]
Probably the first really successfully designed submarine was that
of Robert Fulton, the American, who submitted his plans of the
_Nautilus_ to the French Directory in 1797. His first boat was tried
experimentally on the Seine in 1800. His next boat had iron ribs, and
was copper-sheathed, and was shaped like a very long egg; it was fitted
with a small hinged mast and a bat-wing sail, so that it could be used
for surface navigation if necessary. He made a few descents in the
Seine with success, but at no time stayed under water more than twenty
minutes. Still, the experiment was held to be sufficiently promising
for the boat to be tried at Brest, where he failed in his attempts to
do any damage to the English ships of war. A preliminary experiment,
before that against the English, was successful. On the British side, a
so-called catamaran was contrived, by which it was intended to blow up
the French ships at Boulogne. The catamaran consisted of a framework in
which one man should sit immersed up to his arm-pits, and should paddle
himself along under cover of darkness, and tow a floating box of powder
to be exploded by clockwork in so many minutes, this affording him time
to paddle away in safety. This floating mine or torpedo was to be
fastened under the counter of the wooden man-of-war. Fulton is supposed
to have had a hand in this, but the attack when it was made ended in an
absolute failure, the catamarans making the attack being mostly blown
up, while those vessels against which it was directed suffered no harm
whatever. Upon his return to America, Fulton constructed a submersible
called the _Mute_, which was to fire “Colombiads,” or under-water guns.
Her inventor died during the course of her trials, which, however, did
not reveal anything to show that the boat would have been other than an
absolute failure as a warship. Though the British and the French naval
authorities were strongly opposed to submarine warfare for a variety
of reasons, American inventors continued their experiments. A diving
boat passed under the British 74-gun ship _Ramilies_ three times, and
at last got close under the vessel, and tried to fasten a clockwork
mine to it by means of a screw after the plan Bushnell adopted, but
the screw broke. Other attempts were made, and as there were then no
means of discovering when a submarine attack was intended, the British
officer in command placed a number of American prisoners on board his
ships and notified the American Government that if any of the ships
were blown up, the American prisoners as well as the crew would go with
it. What was known as an American torpedo-pilot was really a large
boat covered from end to end with a curved iron deck, above which
was a small pilot-house or look-out chamber, which also served as a
ventilator; the boat was propelled by paddle-wheels, and travelled so
low in the water as to be practically awash, and towed a mine behind
her. Some of these mines or torpedoes contained as much as six barrels
of gunpowder. An Englishman named Johnson designed a submarine or
diving boat in which he was to have rescued the ex-Emperor Napoleon
from Saint Helena, but Napoleon’s death intervened.
Various inventions were tried at one time and another, and the
misfortune is that in many cases the first experiment proved to be the
last, for the contrivances were the inventors’ coffins. Some of these
fatalities were unquestionably due to the submarines being made to
descend too low, when they gave way under the enormous pressure of the
water.
The first effective submarine designed for war purposes was a
cigar-shaped boat constructed by an American shoemaker named Phillips.
The boat was built of iron and carried a colombiad, which could
be fired through a port in the iron plating, and also a couple
of torpedoes or mines. Numerous experiments with this boat were
successful, but Phillips descended once too often.
A German named Bauer invented a diving boat, which scared the Danes
badly in the war between Denmark and Prussia in 1848-50. At its second
voyage it descended too far, but Bauer and his two companions escaped
through the scuttle. Thirty-six years later the boat was fished up, and
is now in the Naval Museum at Berlin. Failing to get any more money
in Germany, and being suddenly dropped in Austria after the Court and
Government had given him much encouragement, he came to England, where
the Prince Consort became his patron. He designed a submarine, but his
plans were altered by some of the leading engineers, ship-builders,
and statesmen, who, whatever their skill in surface navigation and
diplomacy may have been, knew next to nothing of submarine navigation.
The consequence was that his boat as altered to suit their views was
a failure, and the discredit was cast upon Bauer. Still believing
that he was right, he betook himself to the United States, but the
American Government, probably finding that the local supply of
inventors and submarines was a long way in excess of the demand, turned
a deaf ear to all his suggestions. He went back to Europe, and the
Russian authorities authorised him to construct his _Sea Devil_ which,
after numerous experiments, was sunk under circumstances never fully
explained. He managed, however, in one of his trips with her, to enter
Sebastopol harbour, to the great dismay of a Russian sentry who, seeing
him gliding by night in a standing position along the surface of the
water, took him for a ghost, dropped his rifle, and ran. The loss of
his boat has been attributed to an order of the Russian Government that
it should be deliberately sunk to get it out of the way.
The French boat _Plongeur_, launched at Rochefort in 1863, was
cigar-shaped with the upper side flattened, and was driven by an engine
deriving its power from compressed air. She was too long for her width
to be of much use, and had no stability.
The first Confederate _David_ has already been alluded to, and the
Southerners were so pleased with the success that they ordered another.
In five experiments the second boat sank five times, and drowned
altogether thirty-five men. Before she went down the next time it was
determined that she should attack one of the Federal warships. She was
directed against the _Housatonic_, then one of the fleet blockading
Charleston. The _David_ was being navigated along the surface of the
water instead of beneath, and her scuttles were open. The little
vessel’s spar-torpedo struck the warship in line with the magazine.
Nothing was ever seen of the _David_ afterwards, nor of her crew. The
_Housatonic_ went down, but nearly all on board were saved.
Though the _Davids_ proved as destructive to themselves as to the
enemy, they demonstrated as nothing else could have done that a small
boat approaching noiselessly under cover of darkness could destroy by
means of mines or torpedoes a hostile ship.
The most inappropriately named submarine was the _Resurgam_, invented
by an English clergyman named Garrett, for during an experiment off the
Welsh coast, in 1879, it never returned to the surface after diving.
The first submarine as a locomotive engine of warfare was invented
by John P. Holland, and it is to his boat, known as the _Holland the
First_, that all the modern submarines and submersibles owe their
parentage. It was a one-man affair, just big enough to allow him to sit
down in it and work with his feet the paddle arrangement that turned
the propeller shaft. It carried five small torpedoes, which could be
placed outside through a chamber in the dome or conning tower, and were
discharged by electricity. This marked the introduction of one of the
means which made modern submarine vessels possible, for until it was
discovered how to use electricity in this way, a clockwork arrangement
was the only reliable method by which a torpedo could be exploded. The
application of electricity rendered it possible to eject the torpedo
a considerable distance from the ship, comparatively speaking, and by
means of connecting wires discharge it when thought advisable. This
vessel was only 16 feet in length. The second _Holland_, built in
1877, was only 10 feet long. A small gas or oil engine was introduced
to drive the screw propeller of a third submarine built by Holland
two years later. This boat was 31 feet long, 6 feet in diameter, and
cigar-shaped. The experiments he conducted with it showed that it
was impossible to depend on ordinary vision when travelling in any
depth of water on account of the darkness. She carried a pneumatic
gun discharging a 9-inch projectile, the range of the weapon being
130 feet. It was not until 1884 that Holland’s fourth boat appeared.
In the following year he tried again with a rather larger vessel, 40
feet long and 7 feet in diameter, often called the _Zalinski_, because
it was fitted with pneumatic guns of the type invented by an American
army lieutenant of that name. Again there was a long silence in regard
to Holland, until he submitted the designs of his seventh boat--the
sixth was planned but never built--to the American Government, which
had decided to adopt the under-water torpedo boat as a definite part
of the navy. The _Holland the Seventh_, as designed and launched,
was to be 85 feet long, of 100 tons displacement, and to carry three
torpedo tubes and two steel armoured gun turrets. The Holland Company
had meanwhile designed a vessel they considered much superior, and the
Government consented to adopt it in place of No. 7. She was something
like a porpoise, and above a semi-cylindrical hull carried a flat-sided
superstructure, which has been one of the distinguishing features
of the Holland type of submarines from that day to this. Her aerial
torpedo was to carry 100 lb. of gun-cotton. After discharging it she
was to dive, approach the vessel she sought to destroy, and fire her
Whitehead torpedo. If this missed, she was to go under the vessel and
discharge her after submarine gun immediately after passing underneath.
The _Holland_ was altered and improved, and when the French announced
that they had become possessed of types of submarines and submersibles
upon which dependence could be placed in time of war for destroying
an enemy’s vessels, the British Admiralty abandoned the attitude of
scepticism and watchfulness combined it had maintained for so long, and
ordered five boats from the Holland Company for experimental purposes.
The experiments which were made with these boats resulted in the
Government becoming possessors of what were known as the A class of
submarine.
[Illustration: BRITISH SUBMARINE A13. _Photograph by E. Sankey,
Barrow._]
[Illustration: BRITISH SUBMARINE C22. _Photograph by E. Sankey,
Barrow._]
Very little has been revealed of the details of modern submarines, for
if there is one subject more than another upon which the admiralties
of the world are agreed, it is that they should not let one another
know the secrets of the mechanism of these under-water craft. That,
at least, is the theory, but it is very questionable if all the
governments are not quite well informed as to the constructional
details of each other’s submarines, and probably know almost as much
about them as they do about their own. The experiments at Barrow
and elsewhere with the Holland boats and their successors have been
responsible for the introduction of several classes of submarines,
every one of which embodies improvements upon its predecessor. The
five boats built for Great Britain at Barrow, in 1902, were 63 feet
4 inches in length by 11 feet 9 inches breadth, by 12 feet 1 inch
depth, and had a surface speed of ten knots and a submerged speed of
seven knots. The A class, which appeared in 1902, began with a vessel
of 180 tons displacement, and 100 feet in length by 12 feet 8 inches
beam. Larger vessels of this class were built from 1904 to 1907 of 204
tons displacement, but varying considerably in dimensions. The B class
of 313 tons submerged displacement was introduced in 1903-4. These
vessels were 135 feet by 13 feet 6 inches, and had a cruising speed
of fourteen knots and a submerged speed of nine knots. The C class,
which resembled the B class in many particulars, appeared in 1906-7,
as did also the D class, but the latter were of 500 tons submerged
displacement and of fifteen knots cruising speed. The five boats built
on the Holland designs were each propelled by a 4-cylinder 190 h.p.
petrol engine besides an electrical engine of 70 h.p. The armament was
an 18-inch torpedo tube in the bow, and each carried five torpedoes.
These vessels were divided into seven compartments. The deck was 31
feet 4 inches by 4 feet 5 inches. There were two diving rudders at
the stern, and the conning tower, of 32 inches diameter, was formed of
4-inch armour. The A type, the first of which sank in March, 1904, off
Spithead, had a 12-cylinder 600 h.p. gasolene engine. The B type had
engines of 850 h.p., and could carry 15 tons of fuel structurally, and
were provided with a forward superstructure. The D type have heavy oil
engines, and can carry 15 tons of fuel. Yet another and more advanced
type of submarine is stated to be under consideration and possibly
under construction. It is to be larger, according to report, than any
existing submarine, and is to carry a gun, which it will come to the
surface to discharge. Is this to be the forerunner of a new cruiser, to
be equally at home and equally dreaded, whether it be operating at the
surface or beneath the waves, advancing stealthily upon its foe?
The Japanese, when they decided upon importing some submarines from
this country, had two specially built at Barrow. It was not thought
advisable to send them under their own power, or in tow of tugs, to
the Far East, so a special vessel was built for their accommodation.
For two-thirds of her length her main deck could be removed and her
bottom was constructed to permit of the two submarines lying side by
side. In order to get them on board, this steamer, which was called
the _Transporter_, was sunk in dock at Liverpool, the submarines were
floated into place and the water was pumped from the dock, and, of
course, from the steamer also. As it subsided, the submarines were
carefully adjusted in their cradles, and when this work had been
completed, the _Transporter_ with her strange cargo returned to Barrow
in order to be prepared for the voyage to Japan.
[Illustration: SUBMARINE D1, WITH WIRELESS TELEGRAPH MAST. _Photograph
by Stephen Cribb, Southsea._]
[Illustration: LAUNCH OF U.S. SUBMARINE “NARWHAL.” _Photograph supplied
by the Fore River Shipbuilding Co._]
[Illustration: FRENCH SUBMARINE “X.” _Photograph by Stephen Cribb,
Southsea._]
It is necessary, however, to consider what other nations have done
in connection with the submarine, long before the _Holland_ was
adopted by the British Admiralty. A Swedish inventor, Dr. Nordenfeldt,
who had given a great deal of attention to the subject, was attracted
by Mr. Garrett’s method of what was called “bottling up” the steam
engine, so as to permit of the vessel diving under water. The first
_Nordenfeldt_ was cigar-shaped and 64 feet long, and was remarkable
in one respect, for she was the first to carry a tube for discharging
Whitehead torpedoes. She underwent in the presence of Royalty a fairly
successful trial on the first day, and was ultimately purchased by the
Greek Government. In 1887 Dr. Nordenfeldt and Mr. Garrett designed
boats with screws placed on top, for regulating the ascent and descent,
and the torpedo tube of each was carried at the outside of the bow
instead of inside. One of these boats was taken by Mr. Garrett to
Constantinople, where she was put through numerous evolutions in the
presence of the Sultan himself and the greater part of the population
of that city. The engineer and Mr. Garrett understood their work
perfectly, but the same could not be said for the Turkish crew who
were told off to be drilled in its manipulation. They knew nothing of
submarines and did not want to learn, and maintained their obstinacy to
the utmost. The trials took place in June, 1887. The Turkish boatmen
simply would not keep out of her way, until one of them navigated his
empty barge too close to the _Nordenfeldt_, whose revolving propeller
knocked such a large hole in the barge’s bottom that it was as much
as the boatman could do to get it to the shore to save it foundering.
After that the _Nordenfeldt_ was allowed more room. The first time, so
far as navigation was concerned, she was tried she was a success, but
directly her stability was altered by the discharge of her Whitehead
torpedo from the bows, her trim was changed very materially, and it was
even thought possible that she might go down stern first. However, the
Turks bought her and added her to the collection of naval purchases
of which they could make little use. A later submarine was built by
Nordenfeldt, but proved no more stable, horizontally, than the other.
It was purchased by the Russian Government, and was lost on the way to
the Baltic.
The French have seemed to find an extraordinary fascination in
submarine navigation. It was very great before Jules Verne published
his fascinating romance, “Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea,”
and became even more enthusiastic than ever. Of the early French
experiments it is not necessary to say much. One of the first of the
reliable French submarines was the _Goubet_, 10 feet in length, 6 feet
high and 3 feet wide. This vessel was succeeded in the estimation
of the French naval authorities by the _Gymnote_, which proved as
remarkable a forerunner of a type as the _Dreadnought_ did of the new
type of battleships, and, like the _Dreadnought_, she has been steadily
superseded by improvements upon her design. The _Gymnote_ was designed
by M. Gustave Zédé, although the credit of suggesting her in the first
instance is sometimes ascribed to M. Dupuy de Lôme. She was launched in
September, 1888, and was cigar-shaped. She displaced about 50 tons with
dimensions of 59 feet in length, 6 feet in depth, and 5 feet 7 inches
in breadth, and her electrical motor was supplied with the necessary
power from a large installation of accumulators. Her conning tower was
telescopic, and she had a periscope to enable her commander to take
observations without coming to the surface; she was one of the first
vessels, if not the first, to be fitted with a periscope or optical
tube, the principle of which is that a mirror placed at a certain angle
above the tube has its reflection reproduced by another mirror placed
entirely parallel to it at the bottom of the tube. She carried
two Whitehead torpedoes. M. Zédé planned another submarine which was
launched in June, 1893, and its electrical installation nearly poisoned
its crew owing to the fumes given off. Another _Goubet_ followed, but
was so slow that the Government rejected her. Since then, especially in
the last few years, the French Government has gone in for a singular
variety of these vessels. Some of them have undergone marvellous tests
with conspicuous success. But none have attempted such a feat as two
British submarines have accomplished, viz., from England to Hong Kong.
They were towed part of the way, and escorted all of it, but their own
power was not allowed to be idle.
[Illustration: THE “TRANSPORTER.” _Photograph supplied by Messrs.
Vickers, Ltd._]
[Illustration: U.S. GUNBOAT “PADUCAH.” _Photograph supplied by the Gas
Engine and Power Co._]
It is now attempted to propel French submarines by Diesel engines for
surface work, and by electric motors for underwater work; the result of
the experiment is not known at the time of writing.
The Russian Government is said to favour submarines of the Lake
pattern, so named after its American inventor, of which a great deal
is thought; and America is said to have adopted both Holland and Lake
submarines. One Lake boat was provided with wheels, and went on a
submarine motor tour along the New England coasts, and Mr. Lake finally
offered to demonstrate the usefulness of his vessel by finding and
cutting the cables of the mines protecting one of the American ports.
This was more than the American Government could allow, so he had a
cable laid across a harbour mouth, and having found it, severed it.
The Italian authorities have modified the Holland and French plans to
suit their own ideas, and though their boats are said to have given
excellent results, singularly little is known about them.
All makes of submarines and submersibles have to return to the
surface at fairly frequent intervals to renew the supply of fresh
air, and have to approach it at even more frequent intervals in order
that the navigating officer may see what are his surroundings at the
surface, and, in time of war, whether it would be safe for him to
bring his vessel up. The difficulty of finding his way about without
revealing his whereabouts by exposing the periscope to view is one of
the greatest the commander of a submarine has to meet, but it would
be futile to say that the ingenuity of scientific inventors will not
overcome even this difficulty.
TORPEDO BOATS AND DESTROYERS
When the _Iris_ was given a speed of 18½ knots, many declared that the
limit in speed, with a due regard to safety, had been attained. Much
the same was said when Mr. Thornycroft brought out the _Lightning_ in
1876, the first real torpedo boat ever built for the British Navy,
which had a speed of 18½ knots. Now, however, the speed has been more
than doubled, and the sea-going qualities of the vessels are so much
better that there is scarcely room for comparison. In 1873 the same
firm built for the Norwegian Government a small steamboat intended to
be employed in torpedo work only. The _Lightning_ was 87 feet over all,
with a displacement on her trials of 28½ tons; now torpedo boats are a
hundred feet or so longer.
[Illustration: THE EARLIEST EUROPEAN TORPEDO BOAT. BUILT FOR THE
NORWEGIAN GOVERNMENT IN 1873. SPEED 18 KNOTS. _Photograph supplied by
Messrs. J. Thornycroft & Co., Ltd._]
[Illustration: FIRST BRITISH TORPEDO BOAT, “LIGHTNING.” SPEED 18 KNOTS.
BUILT IN 1876. _Photograph supplied by Messrs. J. Thornycroft & Co.,
Ltd._]
[Illustration: H.M. TORPEDO BOAT NO. 79, BUILT IN 1886. _Photograph by
Stephen Cribb, Southsea._]
[Illustration: H.M.S. “VULCAN.” _Photograph by E. Sankey, Barrow._]
A small torpedo boat built for the Russian Government by Messrs.
Yarrow, in 1879, was considered to be the most formidable vessel of her
class afloat. Her speed was 22 knots, and on 10 tons of coal it was
estimated that she would be able to steam 800 miles at a speed of 10 to
12 knots. Her stem was formed to be a sharp ram, and from the conning
tower to the stem she had a hood over her deck to throw off the
water she might take over her bows. The two launching tubes for her
Whitehead torpedoes were on either side of the bows. The theory was
that the first torpedo should break through the nets or other guards,
and that the second torpedo, discharged a few seconds later, should
pass through the gap thus made in the ship’s defence and attack the
hull itself. A comparatively recent invention is a contrivance to be
carried on the nose of the torpedo to cut through the net.
Torpedo boats had to have their “parent ship,” or ship to which they
could go for any repairs to be made when at sea. The parent ship was
necessarily a floating torpedo boat factory, and, if the torpedo
boat were not too large, could hoist her on board and repair her as
effectually as if she were in dry dock or on the slips ashore, and
lower her again to the water when the work was finished. The _Vulcan_,
of 6,620 tons displacement, was launched in 1889 to undertake these
duties, and also act as a laboratory in connection with the mining
service. She had two powerful hydraulic cranes for hoisting in and out
torpedo boats, of which she carried six on her deck for the assistance
of the fleet she might accompany, and also had two counterbalancing
barges and steam pinnaces. In order that she might be able to protect
herself she was equipped with twenty quick-firing guns. Several
“parents” or floating repair ships have been added to the Navy of
recent years, and every one of them is as modern as science and money
can make her.
Having a large fleet of cruisers and battleships, it has been the
British policy of late years to arm them with a powerful secondary
battery, especially designed to meet torpedo attack. It is not touching
upon international or diplomatic questions to state that the very
preponderance of the British fleet has rendered the risk of invasion of
these islands exceedingly small, and the resources of this country have
been, and are, so vast, that the much-debated two-power standard--in
spite of the numerous and contradictory estimates of comparative naval
strength based upon it--has, on the whole, been maintained.
If the theoretical British frontier be the coast-line of a possible
opponent, it is evident that vessels which can steam to an enemy’s
coasts and destroy his torpedo boats there are of greater use than
the torpedo boats which can only operate along the coast-line, or
venture to cross the seas in fine weather. This has been set forth as
one reason why the British Admiralty of recent years has preferred
destroyers to the smaller vessels.
The introduction of rapid-firing guns of great power and range is
claimed by some naval authorities to have reduced very materially the
effectiveness of the torpedo boat. Its speed has been doubled in a few
years, but it is contended that with the improvement in guns this has
been more than neutralised by the greater size it has been necessary
to give the torpedo boats in order to provide sufficient space for the
machinery and retain the vessel’s sea-going qualities, as the increased
size renders the vessel easier to hit. It must be remembered, moreover,
that the anti-torpedo boat armament of a modern warship can fire as
many as a hundred shots a minute, or several times as many as when
torpedo boats were added to the world’s fleets.
[Illustration: HIGH-SPEED SEA-GOING TORPEDO BOAT OR GUNBOAT, PROPELLED
BY INTERNAL COMBUSTION ENGINES. SPEED 23 KNOTS. _Photograph supplied by
Messrs. Yarrow & Co., Ltd._]
[Illustration: U.S. DESTROYER “LAWRENCE.” _Photograph supplied by the
Fore River Shipbuilding Co._]
Some of the Continental powers have been quick to appreciate the value
of the torpedo boat as propelled by internal combustion engines, among
the most noteworthy examples being those built and engined by Yarrow
for the Austrian Government. The “E,” for instance, is 60 feet in
length by 9-feet beam, and has a draught of 2 feet 8 inches. She has
three screws, and her five sets of these engines give her a speed of
22¼ knots, in spite of her diminutive size, and her radius of action at
11 knots is three times what would be obtainable with vessels of the
same size propelled by steam. Another, of the same length, has attained
a speed, when light, of 25½ knots, and of 24 knots with a load of 3
tons, and her radius of action at full speed is 250 miles. A somewhat
larger vessel from the same makers is 100 feet in length, with a beam
of 13 feet 6 inches, and her internal combustion engines give her a
speed of 23½ knots. The advantages, and they are very great, claimed
for all boats propelled by powerful engines of this type over those
propelled by steam engines, are that as the vessels have no funnels
there can be no flaming from funnels, with its risk of betrayal of the
vessel’s whereabouts; that only half the engine-room staff is required,
and that the range of action is three times what it would be under
steam.
The development of the torpedo boat as a means of offence soon made
it necessary for a means to be devised of defeating them. The torpedo
gunboat was accordingly designed, the idea being that it should be able
not only to act as a small cruiser, scout or gunboat, but by reason of
its superior size, armament, and sea-going qualities should hold the
torpedo boats in check. One of the earliest of these was the French
_Bombe_ launched in 1885. She was of 395 tons displacement, and was
intended to have a speed of 18 knots, but being lightly constructed,
proved a slow boat whenever there was the suspicion of a sea on.
England followed suit with the _Rattlesnake_ and others, of 550 tons,
but they also failed to maintain their designed speed of 19½ knots.
Improved gunboats followed, which, however, were not considered to be
equal to the duties required of them, especially as by 1902 torpedo
boats were built to travel at a speed which would leave the gunboats
far behind.
This left the way open for the appearance of the torpedo boat
destroyer, which has been described as the result of the failure of
the gunboat to perform its second purpose satisfactorily.
The destroyer was designed to be able to overtake torpedo boats by
superior speed, to be of larger dimensions, and therefore able to
maintain her speed in rougher weather than the torpedo boat could, and
to be sufficiently powerfully armed to sink a torpedo boat or hostile
destroyer by gun-fire. The destroyer was also to carry torpedoes, it
being desired to take advantage of the great speed to deliver torpedo
attacks upon cruisers and other large ships as occasion offered.
The earliest British destroyers were the _Daring_ of 237 tons, in
1893 the _Hornet_ of 240 tons, and the _Ferret_ of 250 tons, built
respectively by Thornycroft, Yarrow and Laird, all three boats having
a speed of 27½ knots; and about two years later the Palmer firm built
at Jarrow the _Janus_, _Lightning_, and _Porcupine_ of equal speed.
With Thornycroft’s _Boxer_, in 1894, the speed was brought up to
29 knots; and in the same year the _Desperate_, 280 tons, and the
_Quail_, 305 tons--two odd names to be associated--were the pioneers
of the destroyers of the 30-knot type, many of which attained to 32
knots. These were turbine boats, but the _Albatross_ by Thornycroft,
with reciprocating engines, also attained 32 knots in 1899. The last
30-knot destroyer had her engines fitted with forced lubrication on a
special system, which overcame the difficulty of oiling the engines
satisfactorily for running at the high speed necessary and was the
first destroyer in the British Navy to be thus equipped.
[Illustration: STERN VIEW OF H.M.S. “SYLVIA.” 30-KNOT DESTROYER, WITH
COAL-BURNING WATER-TUBE BOILERS. _Photograph supplied by Wm. Doxford &
Son, Ltd., Sunderland._]
No further advance of a sensational character was announced until
the _Star_ was launched from Palmer’s yards, and she was surpassed
very shortly afterwards by the performance of the little steamer
_Turbinia_. This vessel was only 100 feet in length, and of 44½ tons
displacement. The engines of the Parsons type of turbines, with
which it was fitted experimentally, received the cold shoulder, which
seems to be the fate of all innovations that do not come into the
world through official channels. But the owners of this vessel and
the proprietors and inventors of the engines adopted a method of
compelling recognition as daring as it was successful. The occasion
chosen was the naval review held in honour of the diamond jubilee of
the late Queen Victoria, and shortly before the Royal Yacht arrived to
pass between the rows of warships, this turbine steamer shot into the
fairway and went at her utmost speed from one end to the other of the
lines of steamships and the finest assemblage of warships the world had
ever seen, and there was not in the whole British Navy one destroyer
or torpedo boat present that she could not outdistance. Thousands of
spectators witnessed the exploit, and the success of the turbine engine
was assured from that moment.
The remarkable development in steamship propulsion this vessel heralded
was represented in less than ten years by the fastest and largest
steamships in the world, and the largest and fastest and most powerful
battleships afloat. The builders’ estimate of the power of her rotary
engines was that for every ton of the machinery 72 h.p. should be
developed, and though this seems to have been accomplished in the
_Turbinia_, equally satisfactory results have not been attained in the
large seagoing destroyers fitted with turbine engines, but the results
were in advance of those obtainable with reciprocating engines.
It was not, however, until 1900 that the first turbine-driven war
vessel was added to the fighting force of the Navy. The Admiralty
had not been idle, and as the result of numerous tests and inquiries
made the great experiment which brought about the revolution in the
propulsion of the world’s fighting ships. The mercantile marine led the
way, the Allan line being the first to have Atlantic liners equipped
with turbines. The Government watched the experiment carefully, and in
spite of opposition from some influential quarters decided to try how
turbines would act in a destroyer. This was the _Viper_, of 390 tons
displacement. The hull and boilers were by Hawthorn, Leslie and Co.,
and the engines were by the Parsons Turbine Company. She astonished
everyone by attaining a speed of 36.6 knots when running light, and
from that time onward the development of turbines for warships has been
one long series of progress.
The destroyers of the River class, begun in 1903 and completed in
1906, had displacements varying from 540 to 590 tons, but the speed of
all of them was about 25½ knots. These were followed by the coastal
destroyers, designed, as their name indicates, to operate as destroyers
along the coast against any hostile torpedo boats, but now classed as
torpedo boats. In the latter capacity their guaranteed speed of 26 to
27 knots would stand them in good stead, but as destroyers they were
soon outclassed. Some of them were provided with turbines.
[Illustration: H.M. TORPEDO BOAT DESTROYER “SWIFT.” OIL FUEL.
_Photograph by Stephen Cribb, Southsea._]
[Illustration: H.M.S. “WEAR.” _Photograph supplied by Palmer
Shipbuilding Co., Ltd._]
The announcement that the Admiralty favoured a speed of 33 knots evoked
a chorus of disapproval. The Admiralty was supposed to have become
obsessed by a craze for speed, to which everything must be sacrificed.
All the old objections which had done duty at every increase of speed
for years, and had been proved to be ill-founded, were revived, brought
up to date, and launched against the Admiralty proposals. Again it
was contended that a vessel travelling at that speed must inevitably
founder if she should unfortunately bury her nose in a wave, and that
the violent alternation of stresses as she travelled in a rough sea
must cause her to break her back or buckle her decks without more ado.
But the _Mohawk_, in 1907, came and conquered, much to the delight of
everyone except those whose prophecies, as usual, were upset, and
not only attained a speed of 34½ knots, but accomplished it in fairly
rough weather in the wintry month of November of that year, and proved
her soundness of construction and the possession of excellent sea-going
qualities. An objection, which at first was supposed to be serious,
was that to attain such a high speed her consumption of fuel would
be so great that her radius of action would be greatly restricted.
The contract under which the _Mohawk_ was built by White, at Cowes,
contained the stipulation that she should maintain a speed of 33 knots
for six hours; at her trials, however, she averaged 34½ knots. Her
consumption of oil fuel on this occasion was 64¼ tons, and as she is
fitted to carry 148 tons, her radius of action at this enormous speed
is 435 knots, and at 14 knots, which is known now as the cruising
speed, she is estimated to cover 1,500 miles. Though 270 feet in
length she is only 25 feet beam. She is constructed entirely of high
tensile steel, the tensile strength ranging from 37 to 40 tons per
square inch. Her three screw propellers are driven by turbine engines,
and it has been found that with oil fuel she can attain her full
speed in less time than would be possible were her furnaces fed with
coal. Her armament consists of three 12-pounder rifled quick-firing
breech-loading guns, two of which are forward and one aft, and two
revolving tubes on deck for firing 18-inch torpedoes. Another of the
class, Thornycroft’s _Tartar_, made 35.678 knots on the measured
course, an almost equal speed on the six-hours’ run, while the highest
speed she showed was 37.037 knots, thereby establishing a world’s
record.
The same year saw the launch of the _Swift_, at Birkenhead. She has a
displacement of 1,800 tons, and is the largest and fastest destroyer
yet constructed. She is of a special type, a class by herself; her
turbine engines of 30,000 indicated h.p. give her a speed of 36 knots,
and for armament she carries four 4-inch guns and two torpedo tubes.
Not far behind her in dimensions and speed is the Japanese _Kaifu_, but
a Russian destroyer building at the Putilov yard in Russia is to be of
1,300 tons, but with engines as powerful as those of the _Swift_, is
expected to prove fully as fast, if not faster.
The ocean-going destroyers, built in 1909, have displacements varying
from 880 to 1,000 tons, and a speed of from 33 to 34 knots, a typical
example being the _Maori_, built by Denny at Dumbarton. The new
naval force for the Australian Commonwealth includes some very fine
destroyers, among which may be mentioned the _Yarra_.
A tendency has been manifest in some of the later destroyers to provide
better all-round fighting and sea-going qualities than were possible
in vessels like the _Swift_, in which speed was all-important. The
_Beagle_ and _Acorn_ are considered to be good representatives of the
compromise.
The bunker capacity of destroyers being very limited, and their
consumption of fuel large, it is evident that the scope of their
operations must be considerably restricted. At no time is it possible
for them to be more than fourteen days away from their coal base. In
case of necessity they might coal at sea, if coal storeships accompany
the fleet to which they are attached. The adoption of oil fuel, which
can be stored in the double bottom, may increase the range at which
these vessels can operate, and if, as is expected in the near future,
destroyers driven by internal combustion engines are adopted, their
range of action will prove more extensive still.
[Illustration: H.M. TORPEDO BOAT DESTROYER “TARTAR.” TURBINE DRIVEN,
SPEED 35 KNOTS. _Photograph supplied by Messrs. J. Thornycroft & Co.,
Ltd._]
[Illustration: H.M. TORPEDO BOAT DESTROYER “MAORI.” _Photograph
supplied by W. Denny & Brothers, Dumbarton._]
German and British rivalry in the production of faster destroyers
and torpedo boats has resulted in the production of two types, each
peculiarly suitable to the country to which it belongs; the British
vessels have been designed rather for the offensive, on the
principle perhaps that the truest defence is the swiftest attack, while
the German boats have become torpedo boats rather than destroyers, and
though capable of performing the duties of both roles, are considered
by British experts to be less destroyers than the British boats, which
are admittedly destroyers first and torpedo boats afterwards. By 1909
the tonnage of the British destroyers had reached 950 tons, the speed
being 27 knots. In that year, too, the Admiralty standardised its
vessels instead of leaving the contractors to design their own craft.
Oil fuel was tried in the small boats of these classes in the British
Navy in 1904 and for three years subsequently, but was dropped, only to
be taken up again in 1909, in which year Germany also experimented in
this direction. The armament of the British and German ships shows that
the destroyers of the latter are meant to be torpedo boat destroyers,
though it is contended that they could be more heavily and effectively
armed still than they are without interfering with their sea-going
qualities and speed. The British boats have probably the greater gun
power, while the German torpedo boats have the better torpedo power.
The scouts were a class introduced early in the present century,
intended to combine the advantages of a fast gunboat with the speed
of a small cruiser and the activity of a commerce destroyer. One of
the best examples is the _Adventure_, launched in 1904, of 2,940 tons,
whose engines of close upon 16,000 h.p. under forced draught give
her a speed of 25.4 knots. She is, moreover, powerfully armed for a
vessel of her lightness and speed, as she has ten 12-pounders and eight
3-pounders. The Americans in 1907 brought out the remarkable scout
cruiser _Salem_, built by the Fore River Company. She was a 24-knot
vessel, and though only of 4,640 tons displacement fully loaded, was
given a freeboard of 34 feet at the stem, 19 feet 8¼ inches amidships,
and 21 feet 6 inches at the stern, or higher than that of any vessel
then in the American navy, in order to give her excellent seagoing
qualities in all weathers, and a wide range of stability. She was built
of steel throughout, carried two torpedo tubes, and is heavily armed.
The crushing defeat of the Russians by the Japanese in both the naval
engagements of the war was brought about by the superior long-range
firing of the Japanese, whose big guns played havoc with the Russian
vessels.
The Battle of Tsushima resulted in the “all-big-gun one-calibre
battleship of high speed.” How this came about has been admirably
demonstrated by Lieut.-Commander Simms, of the United States Navy,
and chief of the American naval artillery department, in a remarkable
report on the battle and its influence on shipbuilding.
“Experiments have shown,” he wrote, “that it is exceedingly difficult
to hit an enemy at long range when the range is changing rapidly. This
is, of course, not true at short range, but at long ranges half the
danger spaces--those at which the gun sights must be set in order to
hit--are so small, say 50 yards. The bearing of these facts on naval
tactics is very important, since it means that, generally speaking,
you cannot make many hits at long range while you are manœuvring.
Conversely, you will not receive many hits at such a time, because,
when at short ranges, the most dangerous position in which a ship can
place itself is end-on to the enemy. It is usually assumed that this is
equally true at all ranges; but this is not the case, provided the rate
of change in fire is rapid.... From the point of view of the theory of
gun-fire alone it would be unwise to think of building a man-of-war
of any type having more than one calibre of gun in her main battery.
In other words, it may be said that the abandonment of the mixed
battery ships in favour of the all-big-gun one-calibre ship was
directly caused by the recognition of certain fundamental principles of
naval marksmanship developed by gunnery officers.”
[Illustration: U.S. SCOUT “SALEM.” _Photograph supplied by the Fore
River Shipbuilding Co._]
[Illustration: U.S. CRUISER “MAINE.” _Photograph supplied by the W.
Cramp & Sons, Ship and Engine Building Co., Philadelphia._]
There was no great heralding by trumpet-blast the arrival of the
_Dreadnought_. The true significance of this vessel only became
understood by degrees. The Admiralty kept its secret well: indeed,
it may be doubted if an Admiralty secret has ever been so well kept
before. A short paragraph in the papers was all that was vouchsafed for
the edification of the public or the naval experts of other nations.
It was known that a warship to bear the historic name of _Dreadnought_
was to be launched, but the public took it for granted that it was an
addition to some “programme” or other, and regarding modern battleships
as too wonderful and too full of mechanism to be comprehended by
ordinary mortals, was content to accept that much, and leave the
rest to the experts. But the naval experts of the other powers were
astounded when they learnt the march that Great Britain had stolen upon
them. They appreciated to the full the importance of the new era in
warship building which had been inaugurated, for they saw that England
had a lead which they could not overtake, and that with her splendid
resources she would be able to accept any challenge for rivalry for
first position which any power might offer. The _Dreadnought_ meant
that any other warship afloat was already rendered out of date. Her
gun-fire, as much by its weight as by the range of her guns, would
enable her to pick and choose where and when and how she would fight,
and her speed would enable her to prevent any ship, however powerful,
from shrinking from a combat if the _Dreadnought_ thought fit to insist
upon one. It was even recognised that she was a match for two or three
of the most powerful ships that could be brought against her, for her
big guns would be equal to theirs in hitting power, and their smaller
guns would be ineffective at the range at which she could fight. Again,
by concentrating a portion of her fire upon one of her antagonists she
would be able to crush it, and then turn her attention to the other
two with the odds as represented by gun-fire distinctly in her favour.
Some enthusiastic adherents of the _Dreadnought_ even went so far as to
assert that she was equal to half a dozen _Lord Nelsons_, but the more
extreme views of this nature were rather severely criticised. It was
not only in the number of big guns that the _Dreadnought_ exceeded all
previous ships, but in their penetrative quality also. Compared with
those of the _Majestic_ they are of about fifty per cent. greater power.
Lieut.-Commander Simms, however, was by no means the only one or the
first to hold the views explained in his report. They were entertained
by many authorities in other countries, and especially in England, and
the recognition by this country of the importance of the theory led to
the secrecy with which everything connected with the _Dreadnought_ was
invested.
One notable change introduced with the _Dreadnought_ was that she had
no intermediate or secondary armament. She carried ten 12-inch guns as
her main battery, and some smaller guns to repel torpedo attack, but
whereas the _Lord Nelson_ had twenty-nine anti-torpedo boat guns the
_Dreadnought_ had but five, depending rather upon her smaller armament
of twenty-four 3-inch quick-firers (12-pounders), and in addition she
had five under-water torpedo tubes.
[Illustration: H.M.S. “DREADNOUGHT.” _Photograph by Stephen Cribb,
Southsea._]
A Parliamentary Paper issued at the time described the arrangement of
her guns as follows:--
“In arranging for a uniform armament of 12-inch guns it became at
once apparent that a limitation to the number of guns that could be
usefully carried was imposed by considerations of the blast effect
of the guns on the crews of those guns adjacent to them. It is
obviously uneconomical to place the guns in such relative positions
that the blast of any single gun on any permissible training should
very seriously hamper the use of one or more of the remaining guns.
While it is recognised that broadside fire is held to be the most
important in a battleship, all-round fire is also considered of
great importance, since it lies in the power of an enemy to force an
opponent who is anxious to engage to fight an end-on action. In the
arrangement of armament adopted six of the guns are mounted in pairs
on the centre line of the ship; the remaining four guns are mounted in
pairs on the broadside. These eight 12-inch guns--80 per cent. of the
main armament--can be fired on either broadside, and four or possibly
six 12-inch guns--or 60 per cent. of the main armament--can be fired
simultaneously ahead or astern.
“In view of the mobility of modern torpedo craft, and considering the
special chances of torpedo attack toward the end of the action, it
was considered necessary to separate the anti-torpedo boat guns as
widely as possible from one another, so that the whole of them should
not be disabled by one or two heavy shells. This consideration led
the committee to recommend the numerous and yet widely distributed
armament of 12-pounder quick-firing guns of a new design and greater
power than those hitherto carried for use against torpedo craft.
In order to give the ship sea-going qualities and to increase the
command of her forward guns a forecastle is provided giving the ship
a freeboard forward of 28 feet, a higher freeboard than has been
given to any modern battleship. The main armoured belt has a maximum
thickness of 11 inches, tapering to 6 inches at the forward and 4
inches at the after extremity of the vessel; the redoubt armour
varies in thickness from 11 inches to 8 inches; the turrets and
fore conning tower are 11 inches thick, and the after conning tower
is 8 inches thick. The protective deck varies from 1¾ inches to 2¾
inches in thickness. Special attention has been given to safeguarding
the ship from destruction by under-water explosion. All the main
transverse bulkheads below the main deck--which will be 9 feet above
the water-line--are unpierced except for the purpose of leading pipes
or wires conveying power. Lifts and other special arrangements are
provided and give access to various compartments. Mobility of force
is of prime necessity in war. The greater the mobility the greater
the chance of obtaining a strategic advantage. This mobility is
represented by speed and fuel endurance. Superior speed also gives the
power of choosing the range. To gain this advantage the speed designed
for the _Dreadnought_ is twenty-one knots.”
Turbines were decided upon because it was held that their adoption
conferred certain advantages which more than counterbalanced their
disadvantages. Compared with reciprocating engines, they were said
to be lighter, to have a less number of working parts, to work more
smoothly and be more easily manipulated, and to be less liable to
breakdown. They were claimed also to show a saving in coal consumption
at high powers, and to require less boiler-room space and a smaller
number of engineers to look after them. Another important consideration
was that turbines could be placed lower in the ship. The point
which chiefly occupied the committee was the question of providing
sufficient stopping and turning power for quick and easy manœuvring. A
series of experiments with pairs of sister ships, fitted respectively
with reciprocating and turbine engines, and also at the Admiralty
experimental works at Haslar, influenced the Admiralty in their
decision in favour of turbines. The _Dreadnought’s_ bunker capacity is
2,700 tons, with which she could steam 5,800 sea miles at economical
speed, or 3,500 sea miles at 18½ knots, due allowance being made for
extra consumption in bad weather, and for a small quantity being left
in the bunkers. Oil fuel was not taken into account in estimating the
ship’s radius of action, but a considerable quantity was arranged
for and would, of course, greatly increase her effectiveness in this
respect.
Another innovation in this remarkable ship was in the rearrangement of
the principal officers’ quarters. Hitherto they had been accommodated
as far as possible from the conning tower, where their most important
duties were performed, but in this ship the admiral’s and captain’s
quarters are placed on the main deck forward, near the conning tower.
The officers’ quarters also are placed forward, both on the main deck
and on the upper deck. Ample accommodation for the remainder of the
crew is available on the main and lower decks aft.
Space does not permit--and to attempt it would be out of place in
a book of this character, which does not profess to do more than
indicate the general lines upon which the world’s warships have
developed--of a detailed account of all the ships which have followed
the _Dreadnought_. Some idea of the wonderful progress that has been
made may be obtained from a comparison of the _Dreadnought_ herself and
one of her latest successors, the battleship _Orion_, in the matter
of armament. The _Dreadnought_ could fire on the broadside eight
guns of 12-inch calibre, throwing projectiles of 850 lb. weight, her
weight of broadside being 6,800 lb. The _Orion_ has ten guns on the
broadside having a calibre of 13½ inches, and throwing projectiles of
1,250 lb. in weight, the weight of broadside being 12,500 lb. Now,
if we take the ships intended to be able to take their place in the
line of battle since 1906, we find the evidence of development to be
equally startling. The dimensions of the _Lord Nelson_ and _Agamemnon_
have already been referred to, and are of exceptional interest in
this connection as showing the type of vessel the _Dreadnought_
superseded. This vessel herself was exceeded slightly in displacement
by the _Bellerophon_, _Temeraire_, and _Superb_, which had sixteen
anti-torpedo boat 4-inch guns, as against the twenty-seven 12-pounders
of the _Dreadnought_. The _St. Vincent_, completed in 1909, and her
sisters the _Vanguard_ and _Collingwood_, completed in 1910, are 500
feet in length by 84 feet beam, and have a displacement of 19,250 tons,
and engines of 25,400 h.p.; their armoured belt is 9¾ inches thick
amidships, tapering fore and aft to 6½ inches, while the armour of the
barbettes is 11 inches in thickness, and the protective deck is 2¾
inches. They have the same number of big guns and torpedo tubes, but
the number of the 4-inch anti-torpedo guns was increased to twenty,
and they also had six Maxims. In 1911 the _Colossus_, _Hercules_ and
_Neptune_ were launched, and showed a very great advance on those
immediately before them. Their length was increased to 510 feet, and
they were 86 feet in the beam and of 20,250 tons displacement, and
their engines developed 25,000 h.p. Their armour was more powerful,
as their water-line belt amidships was 10 inches thick, tapering to 8
inches forward and 7 inches aft; their armament was the same. These
three ships were given conning towers with 11-inch armour. There
were also launched in 1911 the _Orion_, _Thunderer_, _Monarch_, and
_Conqueror_, built respectively at Portsmouth, Blackwall, Elswick
and Dalmuir. These four vessels are so much larger and heavier than
preceding ships of the all-big-gun type that they have been claimed
as inaugurating another class. They carry ten 13.5 inch guns, which
include the famous “12-inch A,” in five barbettes, all of which are
on the centre line of the ship. These four vessels are each 545 feet
in length between perpendiculars, and 584 feet over all, and have a
beam of 88 feet 6 inches. The weight of the _Orion_ at launching was
about 8,000 tons, and her estimated load displacement is 22,500 tons.
Her engines, developing 27,000 shaft h.p., are Parsons turbines,
driving four shafts and screws, each having a turbine for ahead and
astern, the ship having a nominal speed of 21 knots, which is expected
to be exceeded. She has eighteen water-tube boilers, and can carry,
besides 2,700 tons of coal, 1,000 tons of oil in her double bottom
tanks. Her armour varies from 12 inches to 4 inches. Under ordinary
circumstances the arrangement adopted for the guns would restrict
their direct ahead and astern fire very materially, and in order to
overcome this difficulty and double the gun-fire ahead or astern, the
second and fourth pairs of guns are raised to fire above the others.
Besides increasing the effectiveness of the end-on fire, it will also
add materially to the weight of the broadside fire, as, the guns
being on a different level, there will be less of what is known as
the interference of one pair of guns with another, and the air will
become clear the sooner so that the gunners will be able to take a more
accurate aim than would otherwise be possible. There are also sixteen
anti-torpedo 4-inch guns.
[Illustration: H.M.S. “NEPTUNE.” _Photograph by Stephen Cribb,
Southsea._]
[Illustration: H.M. SUPER-DREADNOUGHT “COLOSSUS.” _Photograph by
Stephen Cribb, Southsea._]
The _Orion_ has about 2,000 tons more displacement than the _Neptune_,
and this has enabled her to carry the heavier guns. She has one
elevated tripod mast which is provided with wireless telegraphy
apparatus. Her two funnels are of more than usual height, and steam
is generated in a series of water-tube boilers. To summarise, by
way of contrast, the armament arrangement of these ships, it may be
said that the _Dreadnought_, the three _Bellerophons_, and the three
_St. Vincents_ have six 12-inch guns in three turrets on the middle
line of the ship, and two in a turret on either wing. The _Neptune_,
_Colossus_, and _Hercules_ have their wing turrets _en echelon_, so
that ten guns can be trained on either side. The _Orions_ have all
their guns on the centre line of the ship. Which of these systems is
the best has been keenly debated. Experiments in gun-fire are being
carried out to ascertain it, but the true test can only be warfare, and
even then much will depend on the circumstances of the battle and on
the men behind the guns.
The _Hercules_ was the first of her class to be given only one mast.
Of the centre-line turrets, one is forward and the other two are aft,
and of these two the foremost can fire over that aft of it. This
arrangement of the turrets makes it possible for ten of these immense
guns to be fired on either broadside. There are also twenty 4-inch
quick-firers and three submerged 21-inch torpedo tubes. Her maximum
coal capacity is 2,700 tons and she can also carry oil fuel in her
double bottom. She is a sister vessel to the _Neptune_ and _Colossus_.
These three vessels are protected against attack by aerial warships.
Like all the rest of the _Dreadnoughts_, the _Neptune_ was constructed
in unusually quick time, only two years elapsing from the laying of the
keel until she was ready for being commissioned. She has been described
as a 30 per cent. improvement on the _Dreadnought_, but the rapidity of
her construction made her a cheaper vessel than the other, her cost per
ton of displacement working out at £86.85, as against £101.29 for the
_Dreadnought_.
The _Monarch_ took the water with a launching weight of about 11,500
tons, a record for a warship, after having been just a year on the
stocks. This weight included the main structure, the boilers, funnels,
funnel uptakes, casings, and a large quantity of auxiliary machinery
and armour. Her eighteen boilers weighed 23 tons each, and her two
funnels, which are 53 feet high above the upper deck, weigh 18 tons
apiece. The deck-houses and bridges were also in place, and she was
in other respects in a forward condition. The whole of the work was
carried out in 220 working days. This shows what can be done in the
private ship-building yards of this country. Builders of warships
now find it more economical to put as much work as possible into the
hull before launching it, modern dockyard methods rendering this
comparatively easy. A great boiler is raised bodily and lifted into
position without trouble, and even items weighing 20 to 30 tons or more
are lifted and deposited where wanted with no more trouble than if
they weighed so many hundredweights.
Mention has been made in earlier pages of such splendid vessels as the
_Hood_, _Trafalgar_, _Nile_ and _Royal Sovereign_, all of which in
their day, not so long past, were considered to be unsurpassed, and
by some to be unsurpassable. Their fighting efficiency is as great as
the day they were launched, yet these and many others, equally good
vessels, have been removed from the list of the Navy as obsolete and
ere long will retire ingloriously to the scrap-heap. All these vessels
have been launched since 1890, and however much one may deplore that
such fine ships should be discarded, there is no denying that they are
hopelessly outclassed by the _Dreadnoughts_, and that a dozen of them
would not be a match for one of the latest _Orions_. Yet more than one
of them was hailed as the last word in battleships, and there were some
who asserted that they would prove to be the last big armoured ships to
be built, as torpedo craft and protected cruisers would constitute the
navies of the future. But that prophecy was made before the Battle of
Tsushima was fought, and the lessons it taught were learnt.
Protests by naval men against the relegation of these ships to the
lists of the useless have been frequent, and it has been contended
that some of these fine old battleships could have been sent to the
Colonies to act as harbour-defence vessels. But the Colonies have shown
no disposition to be satisfied with anything under the best that money
can buy, and they have contended that if a ship be out of date it is no
use to them, especially as any hostile power sending a ship out against
them would probably send one of the best and newest and most powerful.
The compound armour produced in 1879 enabled the thickness of armour
carried to be reduced to 18 inches, and proved equal to the attacks
of the 80-ton gun of the period, but was ultimately beaten by heavier
guns and improved projectiles. All-steel armour was introduced in
1890, and was followed in 1892 by the super-carburising and subsequent
chilling of the face of plates made of nickel steel. Five years later
steel plates were made yet harder, until the 9-inch plate of the modern
battleship was equal to a 13-inch plate of the early hardened type; or
a 20-inch compound plate of the ’eighties, or a 26-inch wrought-iron
plate of the ’sixties.[59]
The modern 12-inch gun, it has been pointed out, with a muzzle velocity
of 2,859 feet per second, can penetrate the thickest armour on any of
the ships of the _Majestic_ class at a range of 12,700 yards; the ships
of the _Duncan_ class would suffer at about the same range; that of
the _Ocean_ class would be penetrated at 13,350 yards; and that of the
_Formidables_ at over 11,000 yards. The broadside water-line belt of
any of these ships could be perforated by the same gun at any range up
to the limit of observation. On the other hand, the primary guns of the
ships of the classes named could only perforate the water-line belt of
the _Dreadnoughts_ at from 7,000 to 9,000 yards range, the former being
the range of the _Oceans_ for this purpose. The modern ship could smash
the others without receiving a hit in return. Even if they did succeed
in getting close enough to use their heavier guns and the 6-inch guns
as well, they would be exposed to the risk of a much severer blow in
return. This is not the only consideration. Rapidity of gun-fire has
to be taken into account. The _Majestic’s_ four 12-inch guns can only
fire six rounds each in ten minutes or twenty-four rounds in all in
that time, and the other three classes named could fire forty rounds
per ship in a ten minutes’ action. The _Dreadnoughts_ of 1906-7 could
reply with 120 rounds, and the latest type of _Dreadnought_ with 150
rounds, using the 12-inch guns, and of course the disparity would be
even greater with the newest guns.[60]
[Illustration: BRAZILIAN BATTLESHIP “MINAS GERAES,” SHOWING DECK AND
SUPERIMPOSED TURRETS. _Photograph supplied by Sir W. G. Armstrong,
Whitworth & Co., Ltd._]
The rapidity of fire of the large guns has been greatly increased of
late years, and compared with the destructive effects inflicted by some
of the guns they have superseded, notwithstanding that the changes
were not brought about without encountering some opposition, the new
guns are held to have justified their selection to the fullest. The
experiments made in firing on old battleships have shown what the guns
then considered sufficient could accomplish, and as the muzzle velocity
and muzzle energy and the other scientific data could all be calculated
to a nicety, and the effects on certain constructions of armour when
struck by projectiles of certain shapes and weights could be estimated
approximately and verified by actual experiment, it became really a
question for the gun-makers whether they could produce a weapon which,
at the range at which modern actions at sea are likely to be fought
in the future, would be able to penetrate the heaviest armour which
could be placed on a battleship of known displacement. This problem
has exercised the artillerists of all nations with naval aspirations,
particularly those of Great Britain, Germany, Italy and the United
States, and of recent years Japan. Austria has usually been content
to follow the lead of Germany in this respect, and the other powers,
such as the South American States, China, and the smaller European
States, have had to content themselves with the advice of the experts
in the gun-manufacturing countries, except when political necessities
and diplomatic pressure have regulated their choice for them, to the
financial advantage of the vendors. Some of the most powerful warships
afloat have been designed by private firms, notably those built
at Barrow, or on the Tyne, or at Liverpool, for the South American
States, the _Minas Geraes_ and her two sisters being conspicuous
examples. These vessels have each twelve 12-inch guns, twenty-two 4.7
quick-firers, and eight 3-pounder quick-firers, and four torpedo tubes.
Their displacement is 19,250 tons, their horse-power indicated 24,500,
and their speed 21 knots.
The other nations made up their minds that they must follow the lead
that England had set, and have _Dreadnought_ ships as good as hers or
better. The naval architects of the powers have since been engaged
in a struggle to surpass each other and England in particular. The
name-ship has been so much improved upon in recent designs that she is
as inferior to the last of the super-_Dreadnought_ battleships as the
displaced pre-_Dreadnoughts_ were to her.
One American legislator, unaware of the historical significance of the
name of the _Dreadnought_, suggested at Washington that the United
States should “go one better” by building the “United States warship
_Skeered-o’-Nothing_,” with thirty or forty guns--a few big guns more
or less apparently did not matter to this naval humorist--and let
England see that there was a flag called “Old Glory” which could also
brave the battle and the breeze. The suggestion was a sample of that
peculiar humour, now, happily, almost moribund, in the Great Republic,
and usually estimated at its proper value; it was taken seriously,
however, in some quarters, and it was shown to be impossible to build
a vessel which should carry forty guns larger than those of the
_Dreadnought_, and be faster.
[Illustration: U.S.S. “NORTH DAKOTA.” _From a Photograph by permission
of the Fore River Shipbuilding Co., U.S.A._]
Modern American battleships have attracted more than ordinary attention
by the daring character of the innovations the naval architects
of that country have not hesitated to introduce. The armament of
the _Kearsarge_ and _Kentucky_ was extremely powerful, and its
arrangement was unique. There were two turrets with walls 13 inches
thick, each containing two 13-inch guns; and above each of these
turrets was a smaller turret with 9-inch walls, in which were two
8-inch guns. This gave two two-storeyed turrets with four guns to each;
either pair of guns could be fired independently of the other pair,
but they could not be aimed independently, and when it was necessary
to turn the turret all four guns had to go with it. This experiment,
though apparently excellent in theory, did not prove satisfactory in
practice, and the designs for subsequent vessels which were to have
had similar turrets were altered. Other nations have not taken kindly
to the idea, and have not adopted it, and too many objections have
been raised to the proposal that the upper and lower turrets should
be constructed so as to revolve independently of each other for this
plan to be given serious trial. Some of the American vessels have
been fitted with what are known as lattice masts, or miniature Eiffel
towers. It is claimed for them that they are of great strength for
their weight, and that they are less likely than the military mast
or the tripod mast to be utterly destroyed by gun-fire. The naval
authorities of the other powers are interested but not converted.
When the _Dreadnought_ was launched, the Americans replied with the
ships of the _Delaware_ class, of 20,000 tons and carrying ten 12-inch
guns. The French had done very little for some time in the building of
big ships, seeming to prefer smaller ships in greater number, but they
too fell into line and built the _Danton_ and others. The _Danton_ was
built in four years, which contrasts favourably with the seven years
spent on some French ships.
Germany, in constructing her modern fleet, had to bear in mind that the
waters round her coasts are rather shallow, but she has produced some
splendid ships of great fighting power and high speed. She has some
ships under construction more powerful than any at present in her navy,
and one of these--the cruiser _Moltke_--is expected to be quite as good
as anything England or America can show.
So great has been the demand for _Dreadnoughts_, that at the beginning
of this year, for Great Britain alone, there were built or building no
fewer than twenty-two, and arrangements had been made for laying down
five more; while for foreign powers there have been constructed, or
were still in the builders’ hands, up to January last, the enormous
total of sixty. The average cost of these vessels has not been much
short of a couple of millions sterling, and some have cost fully
£2,300,000. The _Dreadnought_ type has admittedly not reached its
maximum development yet, and it may well be asked, where is it to stop?
At present battleships of a somewhat smaller type are being advocated.
What will be the type of the battleship of the future? Revolutionary
as have been the developments in the nineteenth century, great as have
been the changes in the last twenty-five years, marvellous as has been
the adaptation of scientific discoveries and appliances to the means
for conducting naval warfare, it would be an idle boast for anyone to
say that he can see finality. The dream to render war impossible by
the introduction of some dread weapon has been entertained by many
inventors, but never a one of them has seen its fulfilment. When
steam-driven armoured warships were proposed, there were not wanting
those who declared that henceforth fleets of wooden walls were doomed,
and that naval war would become an impossibility. Yet the wooden
walls have passed away, the nations unanimously adopted the newer
methods, and the contingency of naval war must ever be provided for.
The heavily armoured iron ship, carrying few guns of enormous power,
came; and when at last it was found that were the armour made much
thicker the ship would sink under the weight of her own protection and
armament, and that guns could be constructed to smash that armour,
again the hope was entertained that the limit had been reached, that
naval warfare had become an impossibility, and that the world’s
highways on the vast and beautiful ocean should be devoted solely
to the purposes of commerce and peace. But science had already come
to the rescue and dispelled the illusion before it was half-formed.
Steel, at first gradually and then wholly, took the place of iron in
the building of ships, the production of guns, and the manufacture of
projectiles. Steel itself has been improved since it was made possible
by the Bessemer process, and Harveyised steel, Krupp steel, and steel
toughened with nickel or chrome or tungsten, or by what is known as
the Simpson process, have all been tried and have all proved their
value. The science of ballistics has made equal progress, and the
development of the resources of marine engineering are little short of
the miraculous. And the end is not yet!
There are guns in existence which at their maximum elevation will
hurl a projectile weighing not far short of three-quarters of a ton a
distance of 25 miles, and the projectile itself contains an explosive
charge more powerful and destructive than the heaviest charge which
could be placed in the heaviest gun which was fought in the Battle
of Trafalgar. The whole fleet which bombarded Alexandria would be
no match for the latest _Orion_, and the _Orion_ herself at no very
distant date will be removed from the list of effective ships as
obsolete, or as having only a doubtful fighting value. Scientific
development cannot be arrested, and the only hope is that some day
the inventions for war purposes will have become so terrible that
the dream of inventors that they have made war impossible will be
realised. In the meantime, science is seeking to surpass all its
present achievements. The marine steam engine, of whatever type, will
give way to the internal combustion engine of a type which will surpass
all the existing machinery as surely as the best turbines are ahead of
the old compound engines. The battleship of the future will have an
armament surpassing in effective range and penetrative power anything
at present afloat, and an armour as far in advance of the present
steel armour as that is ahead of the compound armour it but lately
supplanted. The adoption of the internal combustion engine will mean
the removal from the ship’s deck of the obstructions which now find a
place there. With no furnaces, there will be no funnels. An armoured
citadel, flush decked from end to end, has been prophesied as a coming
type in the early future, with one mast for signalling purposes and to
convey the wireless telegraphy apparatus, the necessary ventilators,
and the conning towers as the only breaks in the smoothness of the
deck. Submarine signalling, already in extensive use in warships and
the mercantile marine, is being improved beyond all comparison with
what it was a few years ago, and if the wireless apparatus be shot away
it will still be possible for a ship to signal by the other method over
a distance of some miles. Moreover, submarine signalling will enable
an admiral to judge how an enemy’s fire may be affecting a distant
ship of his own squadron. Size will be another feature of the coming
battleship, for in size lies one of the chief protections from the
attack of the most insidious and most to be feared naval weapons of
the present, as well as the future. The submarine ship will launch its
torpedo at a greater range as the propelling machinery of the torpedo
is strengthened, and, granted that the aim is true, the only hope the
great warship will have of surviving the explosion of the under-water
weapon will lie in the number of compartments into which her dimensions
will permit of her hull being subdivided or her double bottom to
accommodate, thereby restricting the area of the damage and limiting
the inrush of water.
The torpedo itself is destined to play a part more important than has
yet fallen to its lot in war. Not only will it be launched from the
tubes of the battleship or cruiser or destroyer at the distant foe, but
it will be dirigible, controlled and steered by wireless telegraphy,
and extra speed, or counter explosion, or gun-fire, or the disablement
of the vessel sending it forth will alone be the means of rendering it
ineffective. Torpedo nets may be of value when ships are at anchor or
travelling slowly, but not at any other time.
The submarine will not be the only danger to be guarded against from
an unexpected quarter. The aeroplane and airship will play their
parts in the next naval war. Experiments have already been tried in
starting a flight of an aeroplane from a platform at the bows of an
American warship, and this being accomplished, it is not too much to
anticipate that aeroplanes for purposes of observation or attack may
become part of the equipment of every battleship or large cruiser. The
flying machine will drop its bomb on the deck of the attacked vessel,
if the aviator has the good fortune to aim sufficiently straight,
but whether the dropped explosive will do much harm will depend on
whether the deck is comparatively flat as at present, or is curved
like the modern protective deck, or has a bomb-proof turtle back
covering it entirely. Will the battleship of the future, then, be
an immense cylindrical-backed hull, with one mast or none, innocent
of funnels, leaving no trace of smoke behind her, and rushing at a
speed of a railway train as she belches forth with almost unerring
precision terrible explosives at a similar enemy so far distant as to
be barely discernible on the horizon? Are we to see cruisers as much
faster than the battleship, as the present cruiser is than the present
_Dreadnought_? If, as is asserted to be possible, the battleship of
twenty years hence will attain a speed of 30 knots under internal
combustion engines, armed with weapons showing a corresponding advance
in power and range and penetration, will the cruiser of that time
cover its 40 or 45 knots, and the destroyer hurl itself forward at
even greater speed to explode its torpedo, also correspondingly more
destructive and deadly than now, at its foes? Will the aeroplane enable
the whereabouts of the submarine to be more easily detected than
now? It sounds like a confusion of ideas that such a thing should be
suggested, but it is a well-established fact that it is possible to
see further into the open sea from a height above it than when close
to the surface. If the cruising aeroplane can detect and reveal the
submarine to the battleship, the submarine will be robbed of half its
terrors, and if the aeroplane can drop an explosive sufficiently near
to the submarine it is not improbable that the career of the latter
will be terminated instantly. The same fate may await the submarine
as the result of the aeroplane signalling its whereabouts, for recent
experiments have shown that it is possible for a warship to sink a
submarine by gun-fire, even when the latter is several feet under the
surface, the victim in this case being the ill-fated A1. Thus, it is
not at all improbable that the under-water craft may find the swift
aeroplane its greatest and most to be dreaded enemy. The aeroplane will
be attacked by other aeroplanes, and aerial navies may yet be seen
“grappling in the central blue,” fighting their battles on their own
account and so high among the clouds as to be almost out of reach of
the guns which might be directed against them. Are these ideas but
visions and day dreams? It is impossible to say. Yet they have one and
all been enunciated by naval experts and strategists. Whether these are
the lines upon which the navy of the not distant future will operate,
time alone will show. Events point in their direction. But one thing
is assured, and that is that, marvellous as have been the developments
in the last twenty-five years, it will indeed be strange if the
developments of the next twenty-five years do not surpass them.
INDEX
Adherence to sail after adoption of steam, 120, 122
Admiralty:
Adoption of steam power and iron armour, 146;
builds its first steamer, 89;
attachment to wooden ships, 256;
first iron steamship, 99
Advance towards _Dreadnought_ gun arrangement, 251
Advice boats, 59
Aeroplane _v._ Submarine, 329;
and warships, 329
African war canoes, 24
Alexander the Great’s State visit to Neptune, 289
Alexandria, Bombardment of, 214 _et seq._;
the defences, 215;
British ships’ weight of broadsides, 216;
damage caused by British fire, 217-9;
Egyptian and British losses, 218
“All-big-gun” one calibre ships (_see_ _Dreadnoughts_)
All-round fire, 164
(_see_ _Dreadnoughts_)
America:
first modern cruisers, 223;
frigates, 60, 105, 124;
navy, 60, 61;
turret-ship’s Atlantic voyage, 188;
warships sold to Europe, 189
American Civil War:
_Atlanta_ sunk by _Weehawken_, 134;
_Albemarle_ (Confederate ram) sunk by improvised torpedo boat, 134;
_Tennessee_ (Confederate) designed as ironclad ram, 134;
battle with Union fleet, 135;
_David_, 136;
_Ironsides_ attacked by, 136;
improvised gunboats, 137;
innovations, 104;
“tinclads,” 137
(_see also_ _Alabama_, _Merrimac_, _Monitor_)
Ammunition tubes, 174;
hoists, 277
Ancient Egyptian warships, 2, 3, 4
Antiquity of naval warfare, 2
Anti-torpedo boat armament: rate of fire, 304
“Anti-war shell,” 268
Arab dhow, 33, 37
Archers on shipboard, 19;
fighting tops for, 41, 48
Armour:
_Agamemnon_ (1906) 8-in. armour equal to 12-in. four years
earlier, 253;
_Hercules’_, impenetrable, 159;
value of, proved at Lissa, 157;
concentration of, at sides, 119;
increased thickness, 162;
French, 163;
_Warrior_, _Devastation_ and _Hercules_ compared, 162, 163;
_Inflexible’s_, 2 ft. thick, 176;
limit, 176;
belts, 165;
Armstrong-Whitworth competition, 275;
on deflective principle, 242;
targets, 275;
steel and iron compared, 267, 277;
developments, 321;
_Rossia’s_ in Japanese battle, 259;
tests with H.M.S. _Ruby_, 100;
iron plates superposed, 100;
rolled armour plates for Crimean War, 100;
steel, 20 inches thick, 246;
compound belt, 18 inches thick, 247;
Harveyised steel, 247, 248
Armour-cased screw frigate, 194
“Armour-patched” ship, 121
Armour plate experiments, 183, 266, 268, 269, 270;
“impregnable armour plating,” 269;
Italian experiments at Spezzia, 276
Armour plates:
_Warrior’s_ costly, 118;
tests, 118;
_Black Prince’s_, 121;
_Glutton’s_, 183
(_see_ Armour _and_ Artillery)
Armoured bow citadel, 148;
bulkheads, 119, 148
Armoured frigates, 118, 181
Armoured ships (_see also_ Floating Batteries):
French Emperor decides to use against Russian forts, 109;
French floating batteries, 109, 110;
first iron-clad citadel ship in Europe, 109;
similar floating batteries built by British, 110;
objections to retention of, after Crimean War, 115;
Royal Commission (1858) reports French building four
iron-plated ships, 117;
_Gloire_, battleship, converted to armoured frigate, 117;
Britain’s reply with the _Warrior_, 118
Armstrong breech loaders, 148
Armstrong, Sir W., 274
Artillery:
Chinese, 35;
firearms introduced into western Europe, 39;
cannon introduced, first used in naval warfare, early guns,
method of mounting, chambers for, 40;
brass guns, 48;
heavy Russian at Sinope, 106;
ditto at Sebastopol and Cronstadt, 107;
rivalry between guns and armour, 108;
150-pounders, 300-pounders, 152;
12½-ton gun, 158;
80-ton gun, 176;
100-ton guns, 178;
111-ton guns, 245;
12-inch guns, 247, 277, 282, 283;
13½-inch guns, 247;
15-inch guns, 282;
6-inch quick firers, 247;
quick firers introduced, 274;
breech loaders, 148, 244, 265, 270, 271, 275, 269;
hydraulic machinery, 171, 174;
loading by machinery, 174, 278-81;
guns loaded at any elevation, 278-81;
rifling: polygonal, 274;
increasing twist, 274;
difficulties attending, 265, 270, 274, 275;
Whitworth rifled gun, 267;
Whitworth hexagonal, 171;
windage, 265, 274;
cast-iron rifled guns, 265;
wrought-iron rifled guns, 265;
steel rifled guns, 265, 266;
malleable iron gun, 266;
smoothbores rifled, 275;
uniform rifling, 283;
Bessemer steel guns, 266;
steel tubes, 266;
steel guns adopted for the Navy, 266;
muzzle-loading rifled gun, 176;
competitive experiments with Armstrong and Whitworth guns, 267, 275;
Whitworth gun range, 268;
British Government declines competition between muzzle loader and
Whitworth breech loader, 269;
pivoted guns, 126, 175, 273;
Armstrong-Woolwich gun, 164, 153, 271, 272;
Dahlgren, 126, 131, 189, 190;
adapted to Paixhan system of shell firing, 126;
Hontoria, 227;
Stockton-Ericsson, 128, 139;
Parrott, 137;
Paixhan, 110, 126;
Rodman, 159, 190, 269, 270;
Mackay, 270;
Fraser’s cheap construction muzzle-loading, 271;
French and English methods of working big guns, 277-8;
manufacture, 282;
underwater guns, 292;
columbiads, 292-3;
hexagonal bore, 270;
energy, 270, 272;
dimensions, 272-3;
wire guns, 273;
rapid fire, 273, 274, 279;
turntable, 159;
heavy guns in barbettes introduced, 244;
sponsons, 96, 126;
blast, 249;
46-ton wire gun more powerful than 110½-ton gun, 249;
record weight of discharge prior to _Dreadnoughts_, 177;
Spezzia experiments, 178;
anti-torpedo boat guns, 176, 248;
greater security through breech loading, 280;
superiority of 12-inch gun over those prior to 1906, 252;
range of _Dreadnought’s_ guns, 262;
25-miles range, 268;
length in proportion to calibre, 283
Assouan (Syene) Expedition, 3
Australian bark canoe, 23
Austrian fleet at Lissa, 153
Auxiliary steam: three-deckers, 105
Ballingers, 43
Baltic and Crimean campaigns, 104, 114, 115;
Sea of Azof, 113
Banked ships, 7
Barbary pirates, 74
Barbette ships of high displacement, 248;
freeboard, 247
Barbettes and turrets, 244
Barton, Sir Andrew, and family, 49
Basket-work boats, 6, 15
Basket-work shields, 6
Battle between steam fleet and sailing fleet, 106
Battles:
Acre, 94;
Copenhagen, 64;
“Glorious First of June,” 64;
La Hogue, 59;
La Rochelle, 40;
Lissa, 152;
Ramming at, 153, 155, 157;
Losses, 156;
Migdol, 4;
Min River, 224;
Navarino, 64;
Sinope, 106;
Sluys, 40;
Trafalgar, 64;
Tsushima, 238-9
(_see also_ _Huascar_, _Merrimac_, _Monitor_, American Civil War,
Spanish American War)
Battleship of the future, 328-31
Battleship-cruisers, 254, 255, 261, 262
Battleship’s greatest enemy, 285
Beardmore and Sons, 252
Beardmore, Mr., on armour progress, 253
Beginning of the English Navy, 44
_Bellatorium_ (fighting castle), 20
Beresford, Lord Charles, and Egyptian gunner, 218
Bessemer, Sir Henry, 266
Betts, Hanlon and Hollingsworth, 123
Bilge keels, 120
Biremes, Triremes, etc., 7 _et seq._
Blakely shells in war, 198
“Blast” of great guns, 249
Blockade runners, 141
Boilers:
Belleville, 260;
watertube and cylindrical in combination, 260
Bomb vessels, 58
Boulton and Watt, 89
Bow armour, 147
Box or central battery, 119, 121
Brazil-Paraguay War (1865), 198
Brazilian gun experiments, 269
Breastwork monitors, 183
Breastworks, 164
Breech-loading guns in European ships, 195
(_see_ Artillery)
Britain’s first iron screw steamer, 94
Britain’s reply to United States monitors, 162
British naval resources, 62, 303
British Navy begun, 44
British-built monitors for Holland, 192
Broadside ironclads, 147, 148, 153
Broadside or central battery ships, 212
Broadside ships, 174, 243
Brooke, Commander, 127
Brooklyn Navy yard, 104
Brown, Sir John, 276
Brunel, I. K., 89
Buchanan, Commander Franklin, 128
Built canoes, 30
Bulkheads:
armoured, 174, 120;
iron-plated, 121
“Busses,” 20
Cammell (Sheffield), 179
Cancelli, 6
Canet, M., 277
Cannon, demi-cannon, 74
Carronades, 75
Catamarans, 30, 291
Cavalli, Major, 265
Cellular double bottoms, 152
Central armoured citadel, 178
Central battery, 148, 174, 175, 243
Central battery and double turret combined, 244
Central box battery ships in action, 203
Central hexagonal box battery (Mackrow system), 194
Cervera, Admiral, 230-2
Charles II.’s navy, 58
Chatham Islands catamarans, 30
Cheeses (Dutch) as cannonballs, 76
Chili-Peruvian War:
Peruvian fleet, 203;
Chili’s modern ironclads, 203;
how the Chilians fought and lost the _Esmeralda_, 205;
naval battles of the war, 203-7
Chilian Revolution:
Rebel _Esmeralda_ (1884), 208;
fight between _Blanco Encalada_ and _Almirante Lynch_ and
_Almirante Condell_, 209-10;
sulking of the _Blanco Encalada_, 210
Chinese artillery, 35
Chinese war junks, 35
Chino-Japanese War, 234-5
Cinque ports, 51
Circular ships, 180
Citadel, central armoured, 178
Citadel-ships (_see_ Floating Batteries), 109, 119
Classifications, 57, 59, 62
Coal supply for warships, 181, 183, 185
Coast defence ships, 161, 182
Cochrane, Admiral, and Chili, 88
“Cogs,” 43
Coles, Capt., 146, 150, 160-1
Combination of central battery and barbettes or turrets, 174
Commerce destroyers, 256
Complete protective steel deck, 258
Composite vessels, 185
Conning towers, 166
Contest between guns and armour, 283
Copper:
fastenings, 62;
sheathing, 256
Coracles, 15
Cordite, 273
Corvettes, 256
Cost of warships:
Queen Elizabeth’s time, 57;
present day, 250, 251
Crimean campaign, 104, 114, 115
Cruisers:
Classified, 255;
duties of, 253;
last British with square sails, 254;
retention of sails advocated, 254;
cruiser-battleships, 254, 255, 261, 262;
in Russo-Japanese War, 254;
great speed of _Dreadnought_-cruiser, 255;
steel and iron, wood sheathed, 257;
first protected cruiser, 208, 258;
armoured cruisers, 258, 260, 261;
protected cruiser preferred by Admiralty, 258;
protected cruisers, 259;
armoured replace protected cruisers, 260;
“Town” class, 261;
cruisers developed from battleships, 261;
belted cruisers, 261;
powerful Japanese, 263;
fast German, 253
Crusades, 20
Culverins and demi-culverins, 74
Cupola ship, 194
Danes, 16
Decked Western vessel (first), 18
Decks:
nickel steel, 260;
plated, 164, 165;
protective, 146, 164
Denmark introduces turret system, 151
Denny (Dumbarton), 310
Depressible guns, 84
Destroyers, 285;
why necessary, 305;
requirements, 306;
earliest British, 306;
famous builders, 306;
increasing speed, 306;
first turbine destroyer, 308;
coastal destroyers, 308;
for Australian Commonwealth, 310;
fighting and sea-going qualities, 310;
fuel consumption and range of action, 310;
British and German rival types, 310-1
Ditchburn and Mare, 94, 99, 118
“Double-built” ship, 54
Double canoes, 24, 29
Double turret and central battery combined, 244
_Dreadnought_:
Why designed, 240;
revised gun arrangements, 245;
forerunners of, 251;
hitting power at long range, 252;
_Dreadnought_ cruisers, 262;
how all big gun one-calibre ships came about, 312;
secrecy as to the _Dreadnought_, 313;
fighting value compared with other types, 313;
absence of secondary armament, 314;
official description, 314-5-6;
turbines, 316;
radius of action, 316;
officers’ quarters forward, 316;
armament and broadside, 316;
_Orion’s_ armament and broadside, 316;
other super-_Dreadnoughts_, 317-9;
arrangement of turrets and guns, 319;
other nations adopt the type, 325, 326;
_Invincible’s_ speed, 253, 255
Dromons built at Southampton, 43
Dudgeon, J. and W., 148-50
Dudgeon’s twin screws, 242
Duels between warships:
_Merrimac_--_Monitor_, 128 _et seq._;
_Alabama_--_Kearsarge_, 141;
Anglo-American, 61;
between armoured and wooden ships, 205, 206
(_see also_ _Huascar_, etc., 205-7)
Dug-outs, 21, 24, 29, 32
Dyak head-hunters’ canoes, 34
Dynamite gun, 224
Earlier and later _Dreadnoughts_ compared, 261
Early four-masted ship, 44, 47
East India Company, 76, 91
East Indiamen, 77
Elder, John, inventor of circular ships, 181
Elevated platforms, 20
Elongated shell (Stevens’), 86, 87
Elswick, 178, 179, 258
Engagement between fleet and barge, 199
English and French guns compared, 277
Ericsson, John, offers _Monitor_, 128;
and British Admiralty, 92, 131, 138;
guns, 93, 128, 139;
offer to France, 110
(_see also_ _Monitor_)
Engines:
Side-lever superseded by direct acting, 101;
American oscillating beam engines, 101;
necessity of placing machinery below the water level, 102, 103;
Penn’s oscillating cylinder, 102;
Maudslay’s double cylinders, 102, 107;
horizontal engines, 103;
Penn’s trunk engines, 103;
supersession of trunks by high-pressure steam, 103;
surface condensation, 104;
compound engines, 104;
cylindrical boilers, 104;
Maudslay’s “Siamese” engine, 98;
improved vertical compound engine, 179;
internal combustion, 304;
turbines, 262, 307, 308
Eskimo kayak, 23
Euphrates boats, 6, 15
Evans, Admiral Robley D., 232
Extravagant theories, 145
Fairbairn, 100
False bows and sterns, 184
Farragut, Admiral, 134, 135, 139
Fighting castle, 20
Figure-head hinged as gun-port, 185
Fijian canoe, 30
Firearms introduced by Moors, 39
First armour-plated ship to enter Pacific, 192
First automobile torpedo fired in war, 201
First British warship with Harveyised steel armour, 248
First Clyde-built steam frigate, 100
First ironclad built at Hull, 204
First iron-screw British steamer, 94
First iron sea-going propeller steamer constructed in
United States of America, 123
First iron warship, 91
First iron war steamer in action, 91
First modern protected cruiser, 208
First protected cruiser, 258
First sea-going ironclad, 118
First steam warship to round Cape Horn, 88
First steel battleship for British Navy, 244
First twin screw ocean-going ironclad, 150
First war steamers in battle, 95
Floating batteries, 109, 110, 111;
armament and sails, 111;
given two screw propellers, 111;
wooden-built and armoured, 112;
iron-built, 112;
French attack on Kinburn forts, 112;
victory of armoured batteries, 112;
armour unpierced, 113;
Admiral Popoff’s floating fortresses, 180
Floating castle, 175
Floating hells, 76
Forced draught invented, 86
Fore River Co., 311
Forty-banked ships, 7
Franco-Prussian War: Fight between gunboats _Bouvet_ and _Meteor_, 211
Freeboard, 163;
raised by sunk forecastle, 164;
high, 252
French and Dutch two-and three-deckers, 57
French Emperor and Ericsson, 109
French rifled breech-loading guns, 275
Frigates, 57, 59, 91, 95
Fulton, Robert, 82, 291
Galleys first with guns, 42
Garrett, 299 (_see_ Submarines)
German warships for Turkey, 74
Germany’s modern Navy begun, 194
Gibson’s Report on the Navy (1603), 72
Gokstad ship, 16
Grappling irons, 6
Great ships, 43
Greater space between decks, 55
Greek fire, 11, 39, 289
Greeks as warship builders, 7
Grenville, Sir Richard, 206
Griffiths’ propeller, 125, 147
Gunboats, 241;
shallow river, 90;
in action, 113
Gun carriages, improvements in, 119, 126 (_see_ Carronades)
Gunfire at Tsushima:
Japanese effective range, 237;
Russians’ shorter range, 238;
proportion of Japanese hits over Russian, 238;
concentration of rapid fire, 238
Gunfire, modern:
range, rapidity and weight, 322, 323;
discharge, 281;
internal pressure, 281;
Sir Andrew Noble’s experiments, 281
Gunports: Too near water, 49 higher, 147, 252
Head-hunters’ war canoes, 26, 31, 34
Henry V., naval progress under, 43
High displacement barbette ships, 248
High freeboard barbette type, 247
Hogging and sagging, 10
Howitzers, 189
_Huascar_:
Dimensions, armour and armament, 201;
mutiny, 201;
duel with British cruisers _Shah_ and _Amethyst_, 201, 202;
surrender to Peruvian Government, 202;
re-boilered, 203;
rams and sinks _Esmeralda_, 205;
nearly torpedoes herself, 204
Human heads fired from cannon, 73
Human trophies on war canoes, 25
Hurricane at Samoa: H.M.S. _Calliope’s_ struggle for the open sea;
six American and German warships wrecked, 257
Iliad catalogue, 2
Importance of accurate gunfire, 158
Improvised warships, 114
(_see_ American Civil War)
Increased range of gunfire, 194
Indian war canoes, 22
Infernals, 58
Internal combustion engines, 304
Iron armour, 83
Ironclad, first ship designed, 81
Ironclad rams in action (_see_ _Tennessee_, _Merrimac_,
_Monitor_; _also_ _Terribile_ and _Formidabile_), 153
Ironclads, conversion from wooden ships, 146;
first European in action, 152
Iron-framed vessels, 138
Iron shipbuilding advocated, 90
Iron war steamers: H.M.S. _Trident_, first ever built, 99
Italian fleet at Lissa, 152
Japanese:
Junks, 37;
protected galleys, 37;
modern ships:
first ironclad frigate, 233;
first built by Japan, 234
(_see_ _Tsushima_)
Kane, Captain, 257
Keel, steel built, 165
Kinburn, 108;
problems created by failure of attack, 108;
inauguration of the struggle between guns and armour, 108;
French Emperor favours small ironclads, 109
King Alfred’s ships, 17
King Charles’s ships (1633), 55
Laird, J., 90, 91, 99, 306
Last British paddle frigate, 97
Last British single turret ship, 246
Last British wooden battleship, 116
Legendary expeditions, 2
Letters of marque, 48
Lime dust as missile, 20
Limit of thickness of iron armour, 176
Lowering bulwarks, 151, 172
Low freeboard ships, 160, 244
Maudslay’s, 98, 102, 116
Machine guns, 284
Machines for hurling stones, 39, 40
Main deck battery divided, 174, 175
Malay:
Pirates’ dug-outs, 32;
fighting decks, proa, 33
Mediterranean and Atlantic coast vessels compared, 16
_Merrimac_:
Steam frigate, 125;
visit to England, 124;
dimensions, 125;
boilers and engines, 125;
equal of any European vessel, 125;
system of construction, 125;
sail area, 125;
heavy armament, 126;
peculiar gun mountings, 126;
burnt by Federals, 127;
raised, altered and refitted by Confederates, 127;
railway-iron armoured casemate, 127;
her destructive trial trip, 128;
duel with _Monitor_ and gunboats, 128, 131, 132, 133, 137;
scuttled by commander, 133
Military mast, 166
Millwall Ironworks, 122
Modern guns and ships in war, 236
Modern heavy artillery construction, 282
_Monitor_:
Ericsson’s tender, 128;
officials’ interference with plans, 129;
derision and abuse, 129;
change in naval construction inaugurated by, 129;
as ram, 129;
Admiral Porter’s advocacy, 130;
peculiar shape, 131;
narrow escape, 131;
why name chosen, 131;
armament and armour, 131;
duel with _Merrimac_, 128, 131-3;
steering gear and anchor
out of reach of hostile fire, 133;
lost in rough weather, 133
Monitor:
in Prussian-Danish War, 151;
coast defence, 182;
double turreted, 151, 153;
craze for, 144
Mortar boats, 114
Napier, Sir C., 90
Napoleon I., proposed rescue from St. Helena, 293
Naval artillery: Later developments, 273
Naval corruption, 221
Necessity of armour protection, 146
New Georgia canoes, 31
New Guinea Lakatoi, 29
New Zealand (Maori) war canoes, 25 _et seq._
Noble, Sir A., 281
Nordenfeldt, Dr., 299
(_see_ Submarines)
Number of rowers in banked ships, 9
Oblong iron forts on steam rafts, 199
Old ships re-armed, 243
“One-ass power,” 15
Oscillating paddles, 81
Outriggers, 24, 25
Paddles:
Boxes and wheels, objection to, 81, 97;
frigates with, 96, 97, 106;
gunboats in action, 113;
trials against screws, 98;
war steamers with, 95;
war junks with, 35;
sponsons extended to carry cannon, 97
Palliser, Major, 274
Palmer’s, 306
Parodus, 6
Passengers called on to fight, 77
Penn, John, and Sons, 103, 178
Pett, Phineas, 54, 57
Phœnicians’ connection with Britain, 15;
war galleys, 6
Pickled human heads, 49
Pioneer of modern battleship, 244
Portholes, invention of, 42, 49;
plated ports, 120;
reduced size, 120;
diagonal plates, 125
Privateers, 140
Projectiles:
Armour-piercing, 265, 273;
Bessemer steel, 267;
Dutch cheeses, 76;
flat-headed, 268;
human heads, 73;
anti-war shell, 268;
Palliser, 164, 269, 274;
Whitworth, pointed and cylindrical, 274;
studded, 277;
steel, 268;
stone cannon balls, 40;
solid and hollow shot, 126;
resistance of armour to, 322-3;
lead-coated, 274;
velocity, 272;
weight, 274;
elongated shell, 85, 86
Propellers:
Adjustable, 123;
advantages, 148;
Dudgeon’s, 148;
Ericsson’s screw, 92;
Griffiths’, 125, 147;
Smith’s, 92;
Mangin, 122;
twin screws, 138, 148, 173;
adoption by Admiralty, 150;
first British twin screw ironclad, 150;
twin screw in United States of America, 125
Proposal to subject _Cerberus_ to gunfire with crew on board, 184, 185
Protected ships (Japanese), 37
Queen Elizabeth and Navy, 50, 51;
second embassy to Turkey, 53
Rafts, 21
Railway locomotives as marine engines, 106
Raleigh, Sir Walter, as critic, 55
Ram, 5, 6, 7, 10, 119, 172, 190, 205
Ramberges, 44
Range-finding tower, 259
Rapid building, 192, 247
Ratings, 57, 59
Recessed ports, 150, 172
Reed, Mr., afterwards Sir E., 195
Remarkable French ironclads, 190-1
Rennie, J. and G., 94
Report on Royal Navy (1552), 50
Resistance of armour to projectiles, 322-3
Robinson and Russell, 98, 113
Russell, Scott, 90, 120
Russo-Japanese War:
Russian fleet’s departure for the Far East, 236;
British trawlers or Japanese torpedo boats, 236;
Russian fleet’s slow speed, 236;
going to destruction, 236;
Japan’s ships’ superior speed, 237;
Russians reach Japanese waters, 236;
sudden Japanese attack, 237;
Russian ships overloaded and filthy, 237;
Japanese gunnery superior, 237;
Russians defeated in two hours, 237;
Admiral Togo’s objects, incidents of the battle, 239-40
Russo-Turkish War:
Value of torpedo to Russians, 200;
powerful Turkish fleet, 212;
Turkish ships torpedoed, 212-3;
naval encounter, 214
Ruthven’s hydraulic propulsion, 186;
experiments, 187-8
Sailers converted into steamships, 105
Sailing warships with attendant steamers, 95, 107
Sakers, 74
Samoan war canoe, 26
Samuda, 194, 233
“Sappy timbers and rotten planking,” 241
Scouts, combination of gunboat, cruiser and destroyer, 311;
English and American, 311
Sea-fights of the Crusades, 14
Sea-going turret ship, 193
Secondary armaments, 251, 252, 303
Semmes, Capt. R., 140
Seppings, Sir R., 65
Serpentines, 45
Seventeenth century cannon, 74
Screws (_see_ Propellers)
Shark’s-mouth rudders, 149
Shields of basket work, 6, 15
SHIPS MENTIONED:
_Aaron Manby_, 90
_Abyssinia_, 183
_Achilles_, 172
_Acorn_, 310
_Actinaut_, 288
_Active_ (1822), 89
_Admiral Popoff_, 180
_Adventure_, 60
_Adventure_ (scout), 311
_Affondatore_, 153
_Agamemnon_ (1853), 105
_Agamemnon_ (1906), 252, 317
_Agincourt_ (1865), 122, 167
_Alabama_, 141
_Albatross_, 185
_Albatross_ (1899), 306
_Albemarle_ (Confederate), 134, 286
_Alecto_, 98
_Alexander III._ (Russian), 238
_Alexandra_, 174, 216
_Almirante Cochrane_, 203, 296
_Almirante Condell_, 209, 210
_Almirante Lynch_, 209, 210
_Amethyst_, 201
_Amphion_ (1895), 253
_Antelope_ (Queen Elizabeth), 52
_Archimedes_, 92
_Arethusa_ (1895), 253
_Ark Royal_, 52
_Arrogant_, 103
_Arminius_, 194
_Ascension_ (Queen Elizabeth), 53
_Assar-i-Chevket_, 214
_Assar-i-Tewfik_, 212
_Ataka Maru_, 37
_Atlanta_ (Confederate), 133
_Atlanta_ (United States), 222
_Audacious_, 173
_Avni-Illah_, 212
_Azazieh_, 212
_Bacchante_, 256
_Baltimore_ (United States), 224, 225, 227
_Bangor_ (United States), 123
_Barfleur_, 260
_Basilisk_, 99
_Battle Animal_, 5
_Beacon_, 216
_Beagle_, 310
_Bellerophon_ (1865), 148, 163, 172
_Bellerophon_ (1907), 317
_Belier_, 163
_Beloved of Amon_, 5
_Benbow_, 245
_Berenguela_ (Spanish, 1865), 198
_Birkenhead_, 99, 100
_Bittern_, 216
_Black Eagle_, 102
_Black Galley_, 51
_Black Prince_ (1860), 129, 158
_Black Prince_ (1904), 261
_Blanco Encalada_, 203, 296 _et seq._
_Bolivar_ (Venezuelan), 173
_Bombe_ (1885), 305
_Bonaventure_, 52
_Borodino_ (Russian), 238, 239
_Boston_ (United States), 222, 227
_Boxer_, 306
_Brilliant_ (36-gun frigate), 60
_Brooklyn_ (United States, 1862), 140
_Brooklyn_ (United States, 1895), 233
_Buenos Ayres_ (Argentine), 263
_Cabral_ (Brazil), 199
_Caledonia_ (1794), 64
_Caledonian_, 172
_Calliope_, 257
_Camperdown_, 245
_Canopus_, 250, 260
_Captain_, 160, 161, 183
_Caracon_, 46
_Castilla_ (Spanish), 227
_Centurion_ (1897), 248
_Cerberus_, 183, 184, 185, 243
_Charleston_ (United States), 223
_Chesapeake_ (United States), 60, 61
_Chicago_ (United States, 1883), 222
_Christopher Spayne_, 43
_Collingwood_, 317
_Colombo_ (Brazil), 199
_Colossus_ (1882), 244
_Colossus_ (1911), 318, 320
_Columbia_ (United States), 225
_Comet_ (1821), 89
_Commerce de Marseilles_ (French), 63
_Comus_, 257
_Concord_ (Spanish), 228
_Condor_, 216
_Congreve_ (French), 109
_Conqueror_ (1882), 244
_Conqueror_ (1911), 262, 318, 319
_Constant Warwick_, 57
_Constellation_ (United States), 60
_Constitution_ (United States), 60, 61
_Courageux_, 58
_Covadonga_ (Chilian), 197, 205, 206
_Cressy_, 261
_Cristobal Colon_ (Spanish), 232
_Cushing_ (United States), 224
_Cygnet_, 216
_Dandolo_ (Italian), 152, 177
_Danton_ (French), 325
_Dantzig_ (Prussian), 98
_Daring_, 306
_Dartford_, 261
_David_ (Confederate), 136, 294
_Decoy_, 216
_Delaware_ (United States), 325
_Demologos_, 82
_Desperate_, 306
_De Tygre_ (Dutch), 193
_Devastation_ (1869), 161 _et seq._, 176, 243
_Dévastation_ (French, 1854), 109
_Devonshire_, 260
_Diamond_ (1874), 256
_Dictator_, 138
_Dolphin_ (United States), 222
_Don Antonio de Ulloa_ (Spain), 229
_Doncaster_, 81
_Don Juan_ (Austrian), 153
_Dover_, 93
_Drache_ (Austrian), 153
_Drake_ (1902), 260
_Dreadnought_ (_Caledonia_), 64
_Dreadnought_ (Queen Elizabeth), 52
_Dreadnought_ (turret), 244, 240, 171, 176
_Dreadnought_ (1906), 240, 313-321
_Druid_, 185
_Duilio_ (Italian), 152, 177
_Duncan_, 250, 261
_Dunderberg_, 189
_Duke of Wellington_, 105
_Dupuy de Lôme_, 259
_Dwarf_, 94
“_E_,” 304
_Edinburgh_, 244
_Edward_, 47
_Elburkah_, 90
_Elizabeth Jones_, 52
_Encounter_, 103
_Esmeralda_ (1865), 197
_Esmeralda_ (1883), 258
_Erebus_ (1854), 112
_Ernest Renan_, 263
_Essex_, 60
_Faid Gihaad_, 97
_Far East_, 150
_Ferdinand Maximilian_, 153, 155
_Fingal_, 133
_Flora_, 148
_Foo-So_ (Japanese), 233
_Formidabile_ (Italian), 153
_Formidable_, 250
_Foudroyant_ (French), 109
_Fulton the First_, 82
_Furor_ (Spanish), 232
_Fury_, 171
_Gabriel Royal_, 49
_Garry Owen_, 91
_Gem of the Ocean_, 225
_George_, 51
_Glatton_ (1854), 111
_Glatton_ (1869), 161, 182
_Gibraltar_ (_ex Sumter_), 141
_Gloire_ (French), 117-20
_Glorious in Memphis_, 5
_Gorgon_, 95
_Goubet_, 300
_Grappler_, 76
_Grace de Dieu_, 44
_Great Britain_, 93
_Great Dragon_, 17
_Great Eastern_, 93
_Great Harry_, 44, 45, 46, 47, 50
_Greenock_, 101
_Guadeloupe_, 91
_Guerriere_, 61
_Gymnote_, 300
_Habsburg_, 153
_Handig Vlug_, 241
_Hardy_, 274
_Hartford_ (United States), 136
_Hatteras_, 141
_Hebe_, 149
_Hebe_ (French frigate), 96
_Hecate_, 90
_Hecla_, 90
_Hector_ (1860), 147, 172
_Heiligerlee_ (Dutch), 192
_Helicon_, 172
_Henry_, 57
_Henry Grace de Dieu_, 44
_Hercules_ (1866), 158, 173, 195, 243
_Hercules_ (1911), 318
_Hibernia_ (1790), 62
_Holigost_, 43
_Holland_, 295 _et seq._
_Holy Ghost_, 44
_Hood_ (1897), 247, 248, 321
_Hornet_, 306
_Housatonic_, 294
_Huascar_, 200 _et seq._
_Imperieuse_ (1881), 258
_Inconstant_ (1869), 181, 257
_Indiana_, 232
_Independencia_ (Peru), 202-206
_Infanta Maria Teresa_, 230, 232
_Inflexible_ (1876), 175-8, 216, 241
_Inflexible_ (1907), 261
_Invincible_, 58
_Invincible_ (1876), 216
_Invincible_ (1907), 253
_Iowa_, 233
_Iris_ (1878), 253
_Iron Duke_, 173
_Ironsides_, 136
_Janus_, 306
_Jesus_, 43
_Kaifu_, 310
_Kaiser_ (Austrian), 153
_Kaiser Maximilian_, 153
_Katahdin_, 222
_Katherine_, 57
_Katherine Forteless_, 50
_Kearsarge_, 141
_Kearsarge_ (second), 225
_Kentucky_, 225
_Key-ing_, 35
_King Edward VII._, 251
_King George_ (Greek), 194, 212
_Kniaz Suvaroff_, 238, 239
_Krokodil_, 192
_Kron Prim_, 194
_Lady Nancy_, 114
_Lave_ (French), 109
_Leander_, 257
_Leicester_ (galleon), 53
_Leviathan_, 58
_Lightning_ (1823), 89
_Lightning_ (1876), 302
_Lightning_ (1894), 306
_Lion_ (Queen Elizabeth), 52
_Lion_ (15th century), 49
_Liverpool_, 261
_Long Serpent_, 18
_Lord Clyde_, 147
_Lord Nelson_, 314, 317
_Lutfi-Djelil_, 213
_Magdala_, 183
_Magenta_ (French), 191
_Magnificent_, 248-50, 261
_Mahmoudieh_, 212
_Maine_ (1886), 224, 226, 255
_Majestic_, 248-50, 262, 314, 322
_Maori_, 310
_Marie de la Cordeliere_, 45
_Mary_, 173
_Mary Florence_, 207, 208
_Mary Rose_, 49, 50, 52
_Mastiff_, 274
_Megæra_, 99
_Merchant Royal_, 53
_Mercury_ (1878), 253
_Mermaid_ (1842), 94
_Merrimac_, 124 _et seq._
_Messoudiye_, 175, 212
_Miantonomoh_, 189
_Minos Geraes_, 324
_Minin_, 179
_Minneapolis_, 225
_Minotaur_ (1865), 122, 147, 148, 158
_Minotaur_ (1906), 261
_Mohawk_, 308
_Moltke_, 326
_Monarch_ (1868), 159-61, 183, 216, 244
_Monarch_ (1911), 318-20
_Monitor_, 92 (_see_ Index)
_Monkey_, 89
_Mouette_ (French), 113
_Mrs. Grand_, 50
_Mute_, 292
_Nahant_, 133
_Naugatuck_, 137
_Nautilus_, 291
_Nemesis_, 91
_Neptune_, 103
_Neptune_ (1911), 318-20
_Niger_, 99
_Nile_, 244, 246, 321
_Nix_ (Prussian), 113
_Nonpareil_, 52
_Northumberland_ (1865), 122, 147, 148, 243
_Novelty_, 92
_Novgorod_, 180
_Numancia_ (1864), 192, 197, 230
_Ocean_, 172
_O’Higgins_, 208
_Old Ironsides_, 61, 136
_Olympia_, 227
_Onondaga_, 190
_Oquendo_, 230
_Oregon_, 226, 233
_Orel_, 238, 239
_Orion_, 317, 318, 321
_Orkanieh_, 212
_Osliabya_, 239
_Osmanieh_, 212
_Pallas_ (armour plate), 172
_Pallas_ (36-gun frigate), 60
_Pelayo_, 230
_Penelope_ (1843), 96
_Penelope_ (1867), 150, 216
_Peter the Great_, 179
_Phæton_ (1897), 254
_Phœnix_ (British), 95
_Phœnix_ (Stevens’), 82
_Plongeur_, 294
_Pluton_, 232
_Powerful_, 259
_President_ (United States), 60
_Prince_ (Prince Royal), 54
_Princess Royal_, 262
_Princeton_, 92
_Prinz Eugen_, 153
_Quail_, 306
_Queen Mary_, 262
_Rainbow_, 52
_Raleigh_, 227
_Ramillies_, 292
_Rattler_, 98
_Rattlesnake_, 305
_Recruit_, 113
_Re d’Italia_, 152
_Re de Portogallo_, 152
_Regent_, 45, 49
_Reina Cristina_, 227
_Renown_ (1897), 248, 260
_Research_, 172
_Resurgam_, 295
_Retribution_, 106
_Rhadamanthus_, 90
_Rio de Janeiro_, 262
_Rising Star_, 88
_Roccafortis_, 20
_Rochambeau_, 189
_Rolf Kraake_, 151
_Rossia_ (1896), 259
_Royal Louis_, 58
_Royal Sovereign_ (1783), 63
_Royal Sovereign_ (1861), 146, 243
_Royal Sovereign_ (1897), 247, 248, 321
_Royal William_, 94
_Rupert_, 244
_Rurik_ (1894), 259
_Rurik_ (1906), 259
_Salamander_ (Austrian), 153
_Salamander_ (Prussian), 113
_Salamander_ (1832), 89
_Salem_, 311
_Sans Pareil_, 245
_Sapphire_ (1874), 256
_Scorpion_, 172
_Scourge_ (United States), 124
_Sea Devil_ (Russian), 294
_Seraing_, 186
_Shah_, 201
_Shannon_, 61
_Shannon_ (1853), 105
_Shenandoah_ (Confederate), 140, 143
_Ship of Pharaoh_, 5
_Simoom_, 99
_Skeered-o’-Nothing_ (United States), 324
_Southfield_, 164
_Sovereign_, 45, 49
_Sovereign of the Seas_, 55
_Speedwell_, 51
_Star_, 306
_Stromboli_, 95, 114
_St. Vincent_ (1909), 317
_Submarine A1_, 296
_Success_, 76
_Sultan_, 103, 167, 173
_Sumter_ (Confederate), 140
_Superb_ (1875), 175, 212, 216, 243
_Superb_ (1908), 317
_Superbe_ (French), 58
_Swift_, 309
_Swiftsure_ (Queen Elizabeth), 52
_Tartar_, 309
_Taureau_, 163, 190
_Temeraire_ (1876), 174, 216, 244
_Temeraire_ (1907), 317
_Tennessee_ (Confederate), 134
_Terribile_ (Italian), 153
_Terrible_ (steam frigate), 97
_Terrible_ (1895), 259
_Terror_ (1854), 110
_Texas_, 224, 225, 233
_The Pitt_, 76
_Thetis_, 113
_Thunderbolt_, 233
_Thunderer_ (1869), 162, 171, 176
_Thunderer_ (1911), 318, 319
_Tonnante_, 109
_Trafalgar_ (1886), 246, 321
_Transporter_, 298
_Trident_, 99
_Trinity_, 44
_Trinity Royal_, 43
_Triumph_ (1578), 51, 52
_Triumph_ (1903), 251
_Trusty_ (1854), 111
_Tryeright_, 51
_Tsushima_, 263
_Turbinia_, 306
_United States_, 60
_Valorous_, 97
_Vanguard_ (1512), 52
_Vanguard_ (1871), 173
_Vanguard_ (1909), 317
_Vesta_, 214
_Vesuvius_, 95
_Vesuvius_ (United States), 224
_Victoria_ (Peruvian), 198
_Victoria_ (Spanish), 230
_Victoria_ (1859), 116
_Victoria_ (1887), 245, 246
_Victory_, 52
_Ville de Madrid_, 198
_Ville de Paris_, 62
_Viper_, 188
_Virginia_, 124
_Vixen_, 188
_Vizcaya_, 230
_Vladimir_, 106
_Von der Tann_, 253
_Vulcan_, 303
_Wampanoag_, 256
_Warrior_, 118, 147, 243
_Warspite_ (1881), 258
_Waterwitch_, 186
_Weehawken_, 134
_Weser_, 113
_Whang-Ho_, 35
_Wyvern_, 172
_Yarra_, 310
_Yorktown_, 223
_Ysabel Segunda_, 96
Shortland Island Canoes, 31
Simms, Lieut.-Commander W. S., U.S.N., 237, 312, 314
Slaves as rowers, 11
Sloops, 59
Solomon Island Canoes, 30, 31
Ship of 1486-50, 41
Ship construction:
Longitudinal, 120;
transverse, 120;
longitudinal watertight bulkheads, 171;
brass stern and rudder post, 182;
bracketed frames, 163;
sunk forecastle, 163
(_see_ Freeboard)
“Ship of the Future,” 193
Ships with banks of oars, 7
Siamese native warships, 38
Soft-ended barbette ships, 244
Spanish-American War, 227 _et seq._:
American Pacific fleet, 227;
Spanish naval force at Manila, 227;
American and Spanish fleets compared, 228;
Battle of Manila Bay, 228-9;
destruction of Spanish fleet, 229;
American Atlantic fleet, 230;
Spanish fleet, 230;
Admiral Cervera’s complaints, 230;
Spanish dash from Santiago; destruction of Spanish fleet, 230-3;
Admiral Sampson’s 4th July present to the nation, 231
Spanish Armada, 51
Spur gearing, 98, 101, 103
Sponsons as gun platforms, 97
Speed, 202, 236, 237, 238, 239, 253, 302;
rapid firing guns and increased speed, 304;
of destroyers, 306;
with turbines, 308;
objections to high speed, 308;
_Invincible_ and _Von der Tann_, 254;
former’s speed, how obtained, 255;
speed retarded by marine growths, 257;
importance of, in armoured cruisers, 260;
turbine engines, 262;
length, beam, and speed, 263, 264
Stanhope, Lord, 87
Steam rotated circular fort, 86
Steel:
adopted by United States of America, 222;
protective deck, 146;
supplanting iron, 179, 181;
gradual adoption in warships, 241;
early steel warship, 241;
advantages over iron, 243;
heavy armoured steel ship, 244;
first battleships for British Navy, 244;
single-turreted battleships, 246;
armour 20 inches thick, 246;
Harveyised steel armour introduced in British Navy, 248;
_Renown_ 10-inch armour stronger than _Royal Sovereign’s_
18-inch armour, 248;
hulls, wood sheathed, 259;
nickel steel armoured deck, 261;
chrome, 276
Steering gear:
protection, 133, 159;
lack of protection, 153;
first warship with steam steering gear, 123
Stevens’ floating battery, 83, 84;
ironclad ram, 138
Stitched canoes, 30;
planks, 21, 28
Stockton, Commodore R. F., 84, 128
Superiority of _Dreadnoughts_ over pre-_Dreadnoughts_, 262
Swivel guns on paddle steamers, 126
Symonds, Captain, 173
Symonds, Sir W., 66
Submarines:
Hindrance to great speed, 285;
early experiments, 288-90;
diving boat of leather, 289;
friars as inventors, 290;
Abbé Borelli’s experiments, 290;
Bushnell’s American turtle, 291;
Fulton’s _Nautilus_, 291;
catamarans with floating mines, 291;
Fulton’s _Mute_, 292;
fatal experiments, 293;
Philipp’s cigar-shaped, 293;
first iron, 293;
Bauer’s submarines, 293;
he visits England and America, 293-4;
_Sea Devil_ sunk, 294;
_Davids_ show possibility of torpedo boats, 295;
Garrett’s _Resurgam_, 295;
Holland’s boats, 295-6;
adoption by Admiralty, 296;
Classes A to D: dimensions and engines, 297-8;
Japan’s submarines, 298;
steamer sunk to receive them, 298;
steam-engine “bottled-up,” 299;
Nordenfeldts, 299;
first to carry Whitehead torpedo, 299;
Turks and Nordenfeldt, 299;
French experiments with submarines, 300;
periscope, 300, 302;
British submarines’ voyage: England to Hong Kong, 301;
engines for, 301;
“Lake” submarines, 301;
submarine motor tour, 301;
submersibles, 302
Tahitian Pahi, 30
Tatnall, Commodore J., 132, 134
Tatnall, Midshipman Joseph: examination, 221
Targets (_see_ Armour, Artillery)
Tegethoff, Admiral, 154
Thames Ironworks, 118, 194
Thorneycroft’s, 302, 306, 309
Ting, Chinese Admiral, 234-5
Togo, Admiral, 237
Torpedoes:
Spar, 285, 286;
torpedo possibilities compel recognition, 286;
American Civil War, 286;
Whitehead torpedo, 286;
range and speed of modern torpedoes, 287;
torpedo explosives, 288;
steering by “wireless,” 288;
cellular double bottoms as protection against, 152;
employment at Mobile, 139;
French experiments, 151
Torpedo boats:
Destruction of _Albemarle_, 134;
British and French experiments, 151;
in Russo-Turkish War, 214;
first British, 302;
parent ships, 303;
guns to repel attack by, 303-4;
internal combustion engines, 304
Torpedo gunboats, 305
Torpedo nets, 303
Torpedo tubes, 177, 249
Trials of H.M.S. _Devastation_ (1873), 167
Triple canoes, 29
Tryon, Admiral Sir George, 245
“Tumble-home,” 42
Turret gunboats, 193
Turret rams, 177
Turrets:
Double-turreted ocean-going full-rigged ship, 159;
Captain Coles’s system, 146;
revolving, 146;
disposition of, 146-60;
_v._ broadside system, 151;
double-turreted monitor, 151;
_Monarch_ and _Captain_, 161;
_en echelon_, 244;
oval, 277;
pear-shaped, 174;
Popoff’s, 180;
leaky American, 131;
Russian ships, 179;
turrets on spindles, 131, 163;
Captain Coles’s revolving rollers, 163;
superposed turrets, 225;
American twin turret, 225
Twentieth century ships, 285
Twin-screw steamer (1805), 81
Twin screws (_see_ Propellers)
Two-deckers, etc. (_see_ Ratings)
Ulysses’ ships, 1
Unarmoured ends (_see_ Armour, Concentration of)
United States’ modern navy, 219;
“Antiquated and rotting ships,” 219;
America unprepared for naval war, 219-20;
Navy in 1879, 220;
advisory board, 1881, 222;
steel adopted, 222;
ram _Katahdin_, 222;
Congress recommendations, 222;
first vessels of new navy, 223;
Europe’s amused interest, 223;
16-knot vessels, Europe’s profound interest, 223;
the White Squadron, 223;
_Charleston’s_ chase of filibusterer _Itata_, 224;
second-class battleship _Texas_, 224;
_Maine_, 224;
dynamite gunship, 224;
first armoured steel torpedo boat, 224;
first modern United States built cruiser, 224;
imported armour, 225;
superimposed turrets, 225;
_Maine_ blown up, 226;
_Oregon’s_ wonderful steaming feat, 226;
inventiveness, 225
(_see also_ Spanish-American War)
Upper-deck battery, 173
Vickers, Sons and Maxim, Ltd., 259, 281
Vikings, 16
Waling pieces, 10
War junks with paddle wheels, 35
Warendorff, Baron, Sweden, 265
Warships built in private yards, 61, 62
Warships of the Crimea and Baltic, 105, 106, 115
Watertight compartments, 121
West Indiamen, 77
When to shoot, 73
White (Cowes), 309
Whitehead torpedoes, 213
Whitworth, Sir Joseph, 267, 276
Windward position (first manœuvre for), 19
Winslow, Capt., 141
Wooden walls’ last battles, 64, 139
Wooden warships converted into ironclads, 146, 147
Will war be impossible?, 268
William the Conqueror’s ships, 18
Yarrow, 303, 306
Yellow, metal, 268
Zalinski, Lieut., U.S.N., 224
Zédé, Gustave, 300
PRINTED BY CASSELL & COMPANY, LIMITED, LA BELLE SAUVAGE, LONDON, E.C.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Evelyn’s Memoirs.
[2] Bohn’s Library.
[3] “Life in Ancient Egypt,” by Adolf Erman.
[4] “A History of Egypt under the Pharaohs,” by Dr. H. Brugsch Bey.
[5] “Nile Gleanings,” by Villiers Stuart.
[6] “Life in Ancient Egypt,” by Adolf Erman.
[7] Paper on the Viking ships, by Mr. N. Nicolaysen, President of the
Christiania Antiquarian Society.
[8] “The New Zealanders,” by George French Angas.
[9] “Maori Art,” by A. Hamilton.
[10] “Eastern Pacific Lands,” by F. W. Christian.
[11] “Canoes of the Solomon Islands,” by C. M. Woodford, F.R.G.S.
[12] “Borneo and the Indian Archipelago,” by F. S. Marryat.
[13] “Borneo and the Indian Archipelago,” by F. S. Marryat.
[14] The model is in the United Services Museum.
[15] Fincham’s “Naval Architecture.”
[16] John Rous (died 1491) MS. in the Cottonian Library.
[17] Derrick’s “Rise and Progress of the Royal Navy.”
[18] Grafton’s description in Sir W. L. Clowes’ “History of the Royal
Navy.”
[19] Harrison’s “Description of Britain,” printed in 1577, and quoted
by Hume.
[20] Mosque.
[21] “Queen Elizabeth and the Levant Company,” by Rev. H. G. Rosedale,
M.A., from Hakluyt Papers. 1904.
[22] Sir W. L. Clowes’ “History of the Royal Navy.”
[23] “Encyclopædia Britannica,” 9th Edit.
[24] The diameter of this and other guns referred to in this section is
that of the bore.
[25] Chesney’s “Observations on Firearms.”
[26] “Asiatic Register of the Progress of Shipbuilding in the
Territories of the East India Company.”
[27] Appleton’s “Cyclopedia of American Biography.”
[28] “The Progress of the City of New York during the last Fifty
Years,” lecture by Charles King, President of Columbia College.
[29] H.P. is used here and subsequently to indicate horse-power.
[30] “The Marine Steam Engine,” by Sennett and Oram.
[31] Appleton’s “Cyclopedia of American Biography.”
[32] _Illustrated London News_, 1843.
[33] “Naval Development of the Century,” by Sir N. Barnaby; and “Two
Centuries of Shipbuilding.”
[34] _The Artizan_, Sept., 1855.
[35] “The Encyclopædia Britannica.”
[36] “Thames Ironworks’ Historical Catalogue,” 1905.
[37] _Times_, July 22, 1887.
[38] Appleton’s “Cyclopedia of American Biography.”
[39] _Engineering_, March 26, 1897.
[40] “Service Afloat,” by Raphael Semmes.
[41] “The Royal Navy,” by Sir W. Laird Clowes.
[42] _The Times_, 1869.
[43] King’s “The Warships of Europe.”
[44] _Daily Telegraph_, July 16, 1866.
[45] _The Engineer._
[46] “Ironclads in Action,” by H. H. Wilson.
[47] Valparaiso letter to _New York World_.
[48] _Daily News._
[49] “The New American Navy,” by Ex-Secretary of the Navy, John D. Long.
[50] From “The New American Navy,” and “The United States Naval
Academy,” by Park Benjamin.
[51] “The New American Navy,” by John D. Long.
[52] Report by Lieut.-Commander Simms, U.S.N.
[53] _The Times_, December 24, 1864.
[54] _Engineering_, April 28, 1911.
[55] Paper by M. Canet, Junior Institution of Engineers, 1907.
[56] _The Times._
[57] _Engineering._
[58] _Illustrated London News_, June, 1903.
[59] “Two Centuries of Shipbuilding.”
[60] _Engineering_, April 28, 1911.9
Transcriber's Notes:
Italics are shown thus: _sloping_.
Variations in spelling and hyphenation are retained.
Perceived typographical errors have been changed.
In the illustration THE TRIAL OF SCREW v PADDLE, the sloop Alert
has been corrected to the sloop Alecto.
Pages 337/338 in the index were printed out of order,
this has been rectified.
Two-deckers, etc. (_see_ Ratings), replaced correctly
in the index.
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