SHIPS OF WAR
Much of the story of ships is contained in the story of ships of war,
which, from time immemorial, have been vital factors in the lives of
nations. The Egyptians fought battles on the sea. The Greeks saved
their civilization from the armies of Xerxes by defeating the ships of
the Persians at Salamis. Rome defeated Carthage because Rome secured
the upper hand on the sea. It is true that much of the story of the
Punic Wars is the story of Hannibal and Hamilcar, but while Hannibal
marched his army from Spain across the Pyrenees, across France, across
the Alps, and finally into Italy, where he spent years harrying the
land, Carthage owed her downfall to the ships of Rome, as Hannibal
owed his final defeat by Scipio Africanus to those ships. Similarly
Napoleon, two thousand years later, owed the collapse of his plans not
so much to the defeats he suffered on land as the defeats he suffered
on the sea at the hands of Nelson and the British Navy.
It is not, however, within the province of this book to discuss wars
and battles on the sea. The person interested in that important subject
should read Admiral A. T. Mahan’s “The Influence of Sea Power upon
History” in order to gain a clear picture of the great phases of that
subject. But all of this is outside the range of this book, which deals
only with the types of ships and their development.
The first warships of which history gives any account were those of
the Egyptians. They differed little from the other ships of the time
except in having affixed to their bows a metal ram. This, however, was
well above water. When these ships were in action the sail was rolled
up and made fast by loops of line to the upper yard. They were driven
by large paddles, and were steered, as well, by paddles, many being
required. Egyptologists tell us that the Egyptians, between 3000 and
1000 B. C., fought occasional naval battles with people as far distant
as those of Sicily, for Egypt seemed to have a fascination for all the
Mediterranean peoples even of this early day, and occasional forays
were made against the Egyptian coast.
[Illustration: AN ENGLISH WARSHIP OF THE TIME OF HENRY V
_By the time this ship was built hulls had grown considerably in size
over what they had been at the time of William the Conqueror, and the
era of lavish decoration was well under way. The numerous decks of
this ship were not unusual for the time._
]
The Phœnicians came next as a sea-going people, and it was they who
so greatly developed ships. So little, however, is known of Phœnician
ships that it is necessary, in this hurried account, to pass them by in
order to take up the Greek ships of which many records are still extant.
In Chapter I, I have mentioned the galleys, but there are many things
concerning them upon which it is interesting to enlarge.
These ancient war vessels are divided into two major types—“aphract,”
or those which had no protection for the topmost tier of rowers,
and “cataphract,” or those that had a raised bulwark which shielded
them from the sight and arrows of the enemy. These two words mean,
literally, “unfenced” and “fenced.” In other words, the cataphract
ships had a “fence” built up above their sides to shield the oarsmen,
while on the aphract ships this “fence” was not installed. Both these
types had upper and lower decks, although the cataphract type was
higher than the other.
The oars used on these ships were not so large as one might think. On
a trireme, or three-banked ship, the oars of the upper bank were about
fourteen feet long; the next lower oars were about ten and a half feet,
and the oars of the lowest bank were about seven and a half feet long.
Even the topmost oars on the “tessereconteres,” or forty-banked ship,
which some questionable authorities mention as having been built, are
said to have been but fifty-three feet long, but as the seats of the
rowers are said to have been two feet apart vertically it is difficult
to see how a fifty-three foot oar, of which perhaps a third was inside
the ship, could have reached to the water. But these forty-banked ships
sound more like imaginary craft than like real ships.
In the cataphract ships the lower deck was only about a foot above the
water line. Below this deck was the ballast, and through the deck were
cut a number of hatches through which buckets could be lowered in order
to bail out the almost ever-present bilge water, for these ships,
particularly when they were subjected to the strains coincident to
sailing in a seaway, were more than likely to leak at an uncomfortably
rapid rate.
[Illustration: A BRITISH LINE-OF-BATTLE SHIP, 1790
_This awkward ship is one of the type that made up the great fleets
that fought, for instance, at Trafalgar. Nelson’s flagship, the_
Victory, _is of this type._
]
The backbone of these ships was a heavy keel, below which was fitted
a false keel, used, apparently, to take the wear that resulted from
hauling the ships up on to the beach.
Above the keel a keelson, similar to the keelsons of to-day, was
fitted, strengthening the keel and serving, also, as a strengthener to
the ribs which were fastened beneath it.
The bows of these ships were very strongly constructed, for battle
tactics called for the use of the ram. The ram, instead of being
above the water, as it was on the older Egyptian ships, was at the
water level, and was strengthened by the heavy timbers which formed
the stem. In order to strengthen the hull still more, and to prevent
as much as possible the strain of ramming from springing the seams,
strong cables were wound once or twice around the whole hull from bow
to stern. These were drawn up with levers and bound the ship tightly
together, particularly as the cables shrank when they were wet. All
these precautions were essential, for the ram on these ships was about
ten feet long, and was seconded by a somewhat shorter ram above the
water line.
The Athenian triremes were all about the same size—about one hundred
and thirty feet long—and most of their equipment was standardized so
that it was really interchangeable. The crews of these ships numbered a
few more than two hundred. The rowers numbered one hundred and seventy,
and there were ten or a dozen marines and about a score of seamen.
In building these triremes the frame was first set up and the ribs
were covered on both sides with planking. Then around the outside
of the ship at the water line a heavy timber was attached which, at
the forward end, was carried out to form the ram, which was heavily
sheathed with metal. A little above this strengthening timber there
was another one similarly built, ending in the secondary ram, which
sometimes had at its end a metal sheep’s head. Sometimes a third line
of timbers was placed above this.
Running from bow to stern on both sides just above the topmost oars was
a narrow platform, built out about two feet wide from the side of the
ship. The ribs as they continued upward from this point curved inward,
and their ends supported the cross beams that bound the ship together
over the rowers’ heads and also served to support the deck. On this
deck the marines, or heavily armed warriors, were placed in battle,
while over their heads was stretched a stout awning of leather to
protect them from the enemies’ arrows. The runways at the sides served
as passageways and were used by the sailors in working the ship.
[Illustration: THE AMERICAN FRIGATE _CONSTITUTION_
_This ship set a new style in frigates, for she was the largest and
most heavily armed frigate of her time when she was launched. She is
still to be seen at Boston, and seems but a little thing in contrast
with ships of to-day._
]
At the stern there were several steps in the deck elevating it
gradually above the midship deck. Here the officer in command was
stationed near the helmsman, who was second in command, and who
steered the ship by a cleverly arranged pair of oars—one on each side,
connected and operated by ropes and pulleys.
The bow was decorated by an erection sometimes shaped like a swan’s
neck which was a continuation of the stem. The stern also had a highly
raised timber running up and curving forward over the helmsman. These
ships usually carried two masts, each spreading a single square sail,
but sail was not carried in action. Often, as a matter of fact, the
sails and the heavier spars were left ashore if a battle was imminent.
These galleys, for many centuries, were light craft, meant for speed,
but as more strength was demanded in order to make possible hulls that
could withstand the shock of ramming, the ships became heavier and
heavier, which, in turn, demanded more oarsmen, which, again, brought
larger ships into being, until, when Rome became the mistress of the
sea, five-banked ships had become the standard, and the three-banked
ships were relegated to a second place.
[Illustration: A STEAM FRIGATE—THE U. S. S. _HARTFORD_
_Which was used in the American Civil War by Admiral Farragut._]
Then Rome invented the “corvus” or great hinged gangplank with its
heavy barbed end. This gangplank was swung at the forward end of the
ship and was loosely hinged to the deck, being kept upright by a tackle
holding it to the mast. When an enemy’s ship was approached the Romans
did not attempt to ram, but ran alongside, let go the tackle, and the
heavy corvus fell to the enemy’s deck, where its metal barb fastened
itself in the deck planks. Thereupon, the soldiers, with whom the
Romans crowded the decks of their ships, rushed across and the sea
battle became a mêlée.
[Illustration: THE _MONITOR_
_The first armoured ship to mount a turret. This is the ship that
fought with the_ Merrimac _the first battle between armoured ships._]
For nearly two hundred years these heavy ships were the “battleships”
of the Roman fleet. But at the Battle of Actium, in 31 B. C., Mark
Antony’s ships, which were of this type, were soundly beaten by light,
swift two-banked ships called the Liburnian biremes.
Thereupon these Liburnians became the most important ships of war,
and later grew into the great galleys of the Middle Ages. The later
development, however, tended to the use of one bank, while the oars
grew longer and longer until they reached such size that several men
were used on each—sometimes as many as seven men being employed on a
single oar. This form of rowed war vessel was in more or less common
use, principally in the Mediterranean, until the beginning of the 17th
Century.
In the north of Europe the Viking influence was felt plainly for many
years, but finally it was outgrown, or practically outgrown, largely,
perhaps, because of the introduction of the raised forecastles and
sterncastles, and the introduction of more highly developed rigging.
During the Crusades most of the fleets consisted largely of merchant
ships, which were more or less converted into war vessels by the
addition of raised castles. These castles were, perhaps, of Roman
origin, for the old Roman ships sometimes had somewhat similar
contrivances at bow and stern.
The invention of gunpowder brought about many changes in ship design.
At first the guns were small and were pivoted in the rails, as they
were on Columbus’s ships, but later, as larger cannon came into use, a
new arrangement of them became necessary.
Galleys found it difficult to use many cannon, for they could not be
mounted amidships, that part of these ships being crowded with rowers,
who, by the way, were now seldom below deck. Guns, consequently, had
to be mounted at bow and stern, where only a few could be installed.
This, then, was one reason for the decline of galleys, for ships driven
exclusively by sail were able to mount cannon on deck, where many of
them could be carried and fired over the sides.
As ships increased in size it became possible to mount cannon below
deck and to cut portholes through which they could fire.
It was along these lines that warships next progressed, until, at
the end of the 18th Century, the line-of-battle ships were great
unwieldy affairs with three gun decks below, on which were mounted a
hundred guns. Earlier ships had been built which had carried even more
guns than this, but the guns had been smaller and consequently less
effective.
For those interested in the details of the development of warships from
the time of the introduction of gunpowder down to the beginning of
steam I recommend two books—“The Royal Navy,” by W. Laird Clowes, and
“Ancient and Modern Ships,” by Sir G. C. V. Holmes. I have the space
to describe only the final forms that the larger ships took ere the
introduction of steam and steel changed radically the design of all
naval ships.
[Illustration: THE _MERRIMAC_
_An ironclad built by the Confederates during the American Civil War.
This ship proved how superior to wooden ships armoured ships could be.
She was armed with a ram with which she sank the_ Cumberland, _and her
armour amply protected her from the enemy’s guns._
]
At the end of the 18th Century and the beginning of the 19th the
greatest warships were called line-of-battle ships. They were great
unwieldy affairs, slow and cumbersome under sail, and were meant only
to take the shock of battle when rival fleets met. Their sides were
high, and below the main deck were three gun-decks, each carrying many
cannon that fired through square ports cut in the sides. Sometimes,
if the wind was abeam, as it generally was during an engagement, the
lower ports on the side away from the wind could not be opened because
the deck was so low that the “list” of the ship would have allowed the
water to enter, perhaps in such quantities as to sink her. Gradually,
however, this lower deck was raised until all the guns on the “lee”
side could be used except in heavy weather.
The _Victory_, Nelson’s flagship at the Battle of Trafalgar, was a
typical line-of-battle ship, and in the hearts of Britons she occupies
much the same place as with Americans the frigate _Constitution_
occupies. These two ships—the one a line-of-battle ship and the other
a frigate—are of the two types that, toward the close of the era of
sail, were the most important ships of naval powers. They occupied in
their day positions similar to those occupied by the battleship and
the cruiser of to-day. In describing these two particular vessels,
then, I shall be describing not merely two outstanding ships, which,
fortunately, are carefully preserved by the countries for which they
fought, but shall also be describing the two most important types.
The _Victory_ was built in 1765. She is 186 feet long, 52 feet wide,
and her tonnage is 2,162. She carried 100 guns on her three gun-decks,
and is, in rig, a ship—that is, she carries three masts, spreading
square sails, the mast farthest aft carrying as its lowest sail a
spanker. Her head sails—that is, the sails at the bow—were jibs set
between the foremast and the bowsprit, which was elongated by the
addition of a jib boom and a flying jib boom.
Her shape is clumsy, her sides are high, but the highly raised
forecastle and sterncastle are entirely missing. A section of the bow
is called the forecastle, but only the name is left of the earlier
raised structure from which the name came. Astern there is a slight
sign of what, centuries before, had been the sterncastle, for there is
a raised deck, called the quarter-deck, in evidence. The stern itself
is a highly ornamental affair, fitted with many windows and with much
scrollwork, and, at least in the eyes of the present day, is anything
but nautical in appearance.
[Illustration: A TORPEDO BOAT
_About the time of the Spanish-American War these boats were common in
the navies of the world. Now they are eliminated, and their successors
are the torpedo-boat destroyers, now called destroyers._
]
This high-sided, bluff-bowed craft carried about seven hundred men in
her crew, although where they kept themselves is, to the average person
of to-day, a mystery. They slept, of course, in hammocks, and these
were lashed to their hooks between decks. So thick were they that when
the crew had turned in the whole deck looked like a cave filled with
strange huge bats hanging parallel to the ceiling.
The guns on these ships were crude affairs. They were muzzle loaders,
of course, and were generally cast of brass or iron. They were mounted
on awkward wooden carriages which were set on four small wheels.
But such a weighty implement mounted on wheels needed much careful
attention to keep it tightly secured when the ship, once outside her
harbour, ceaselessly rolled from side to side, even in an almost glassy
sea, and, in a seaway, rolled and pitched and rolled again, until,
should one of these wheeled monsters have broken its fastenings, it
might readily have become more dangerous than an outside enemy. Victor
Hugo’s powerful description of such a scene in “Ninety-three” presents
a graphic picture of the danger that such a misfortune would bring with
it.
These heavy-wheeled cannon were made fast in their places, each with a
square port through which it could fire; and a gun-deck with thirty or
more of these polished juggernauts lined up along its two sides, with
the decks holystoned, and with the gear of every description carefully
stowed in place, had a most businesslike appearance.
In battle, however, with the air thick with powder smoke, with sanded
decks and wounded men, with piles of ammunition and half-naked gunners
apparently gone mad, with splinters split from oaken beams and gaping
holes where the the enemy’s guns had wrought their havoc—then the deck
was bedlam. Roars of cannon, fired in broadsides, orders, oaths, and
shrieks of dying wretches—stabs of fire as the cannon belched, glowing
matches in the hands of powder-blackened men, messengers running here
and there, officers standing by, strained, intent, and heedless of
everything save the guns they commanded—there was a scene worthy of the
pen of Dante.
[Illustration: H. M. S. _DREADNAUGHT_
_The first all-big-gun ship, and the one that gave its name to
present-day battleships, which are universally called dreadnaughts or
super-dreadnaughts._]
And such a sight as a fleet of these ships presented as it grappled
with a rival fleet perhaps equally strong. Two lines, each of a score
or more of these awkward giants—first they manœuvre for position, each
strung out in single file, each with sails set, each silent, each
watchful, each anxious. Slowly they converge. Closer and closer they
come, their ports open, the black muzzles of the cannon protruding. On
the gun-decks men are waiting quietly, peering out, waiting for the
command to fire. Above, on the quarter decks, groups of officers with
their awkward field glasses, watching the enemy, watching the flagship.
Aloft, in the masts, groups of sharpshooters with muskets ready,
waiting for an opportunity to bring down the officers and men on the
decks of the enemy’s ships.
Closer the ships sail and closer still, still noiseless save for the
gurgle of water at the bows and the sounds of the rigging. Then on the
flagship a string of flags is run up and the attacking fleet changes
its course sharply toward the enemy. Another string of flags and a
crash of guns—the battle is on. Great clouds of smoke, more cannon
roars—the enemy has answered. Closer still, and closer, until each ship
is alongside one of the opposing fleet. Grappling irons are thrown over
the rail, and the two fleets have become a long tangled row of duelling
pairs, each locked tightly to its adversary, their sides grinding
together, their rigging tangled. An hour, perhaps, of awful havoc. The
line is broken, ships drifting here and there. Broken masts and spars
clutter the decks. A ship catches fire and her magazine explodes, and
as she sinks the victor cuts the lines that bind the two together and
stands on to help a friend. An hour or two—maybe a little more—and
the victory is won. History is made—perhaps Trafalgar has been fought
and the whole world will feel the effect. Such were the duties of the
line-of-battle ships.
But the frigates were built for a different work. They were the
cruisers of a hundred years ago. They were the commerce destroyers, the
raiders. A frigate was a ship which carried guns on the main deck and
on one gun-deck below. Sometimes they sailed with other ships, but more
often played their game alone. The _Constitution_ was one of these, and
an important one. Not only did she win battles: also she affected the
design of ships.
She was launched in 1797, and was, actually, an improvement on the
frigates of the day. She was 204 feet long, 43.6 feet broad, and
she carried thirty 24-pounders on her gun-deck, twenty-two 32-pound
carronades on the quarter deck and forecastle deck, besides three
“bow chasers” or long guns for use when pursuing a fleeing ship.
Thus she had fifty-five guns (although later this was reduced) and
consequently far outclassed foreign frigates of the day. They carried
from thirty-two to fifty guns, and these of lighter weight. While the
main battery of the _Constitution_ consisted of 24-pounders, foreign
frigates used 18-pounders. A 24-pound shot is naturally more effective
than an 18-pound shot from the same type of gun.
But not only was the _Constitution_ heavily armed. She was built of
timbers of about the size of those used in line-of-battle ships, and
so was much stronger than other frigates. As a matter of fact, she so
outclassed the frigates of the British Navy that several line-of-battle
ships were cut down until, technically, they became frigates, in order
that they might meet her on more favourable terms.
[Illustration: A SUBMARINE]
The _Constitution_ was a more graceful ship than the _Victory_, as
frigates, as a class, were more graceful than all line-of-battle ships.
They required more speed, and so had finer lines. Their sides were not
so high, their bows less bluff, their sterns more finely designed.
Line-of-battle ships were hardly more than floating wooden forts,
carrying as many guns as possible. Frigates were fine ships, having all
the qualities of fine ships, and carrying modified batteries.
So regularly did the _Constitution_ defeat other frigates, and so
simply was she able to refuse battle with superior forces, that the
British Navy profited by her advantages and built similar ships. But
the end of the era of sail was approaching, and before much could be
done in the further perfection of ships of this kind, new warships
propelled by steam had come into being, throwing into the discard both
the line-of-battle ships and the frigates of an earlier day.
Following the War of 1812 there were no engagements of great importance
in which warships played a part until the Crimean War, in 1855. During
this period both steam and iron had been utilized by the designers of
warships, and navies had made the first of the great steps that changed
the fleets of the world from the wooden sailing ships of Trafalgar to
the steel monsters of Jutland.
Typical warships of the most improved design just prior to the Crimean
War were not greatly dissimilar from the line-of-battle ships and
frigates of the War of 1812 except that they used steam as well as
sails. They were larger, it is true. Such a ship was the British _Duke
of Wellington_. She was 240 feet long, 60 feet wide, and displaced
5,830 tons. Her engines were of 2,000 horse power, and her speed under
power was a trifle less than ten knots (nautical miles per hour). She
carried 131 guns on four decks. This arrangement of guns was similar
to that formerly used on line-of-battle ships, which sometimes carried
guns on the upper deck as well as on the three gun-decks below. She
was, then, one of the line-of-battle ships of her day, although
this term was changed about this time to “ships-of-the-line.” Other
somewhat smaller ships, propelled by steam and sails and with guns
placed similarly to those of the earlier frigates, had come to be
called “steam frigates,” or sometimes still were called frigates. The
_Hartford_, Admiral Farragut’s flagship at the Battle of Mobile Bay in
the American Civil War, was of this type.
[Illustration: A MODERN DESTROYER
_This type of ship was originally designed to protect the larger ships
from torpedo boats, but now that duty has been eliminated by the
elimination of torpedo boats, and destroyers have many uses with the
fleets to which they belong._
]
At about this time, too, explosive shells were introduced, and as these
were far more formidable than the solid shot of earlier times, naval
men set about protecting ships in order to reduce the effectiveness of
this new form of attack.
Iron had been introduced a few years earlier as a ship-building
material, and so iron, naturally enough, was used as armour on some of
the ships sent to Crimea, for wooden ships of the line had been badly
battered by the guns of the Russians when a combined naval force of
British and French ships had attacked a fort near Sebastopol. Both the
British and the French instantly began to build armoured ships for use
in the Crimean War. The British ships were not completed in time, but
three of the French ships went very successfully through an engagement
with a Russian fort in 1855.
These ships were, of course, awkward, heavy, and slow, but they did
prove the value of armour, and so both the French and the British went
to work placing armour on wooden ships and building ships of new design.
In 1859 an iron frigate called the _Warrior_, a ship 380 feet long,
displacing 8,800 tons, was begun by the British. A wide strip of armour
4½ inches thick was placed on each side. This armour strip was 213 feet
long and was wide enough to extend from a little below the water line
to the upper deck. Both bow and stern were unprotected. This ship was,
in appearance, merely an enlargement of the wooden steam frigates that
had preceded her, but she made the surprising speed, under power, of 14
knots an hour.
While she was being built a new type of cannon was perfected which gave
greater power with less weight and she was armed with these improved
guns, each of which was of seven-inch bore and weighed between six and
seven tons.
Then came the American Civil War and a still newer type of armoured
ship was invented. This was the ship with a turret, and the first of
these was the _Monitor_. She was designed by Captain Ericsson, the
same man who perfected the screw propeller, and the turret, the most
important feature of this ship, is the original one from which the
highly perfected turrets of to-day have developed.
The idea of mounting guns in turrets had been suggested before, as a
result of the experience gained in the Crimean War, but Ericsson, when
he designed the _Monitor_, was the first to put the idea into practice.
[Illustration: A MODERN SUPER-DREADNAUGHT
_Which carries the heaviest type of guns, and is protected by heavy
armour. Its speed is less than that of cruisers._]
The _Monitor_ was a strange-appearing ship. The fact that she was said
by the Confederates to be a “cheese box on a raft” gives some idea of
her appearance. She was 170 feet long, 41½ feet wide, and displaced
about 1,200 tons, but her appearance was unique. Her deck was but two
feet above the water and from bow to stern she was as smooth as a paved
street except for a tiny pilot house near the bow and a huge round
“cheese box” amidships. This cheese box was the turret and in it were
mounted two 11-inch Dahlgren guns, the _Monitor’s_ only battery. The
turret was about twenty-two feet in diameter and the sides of it were
of iron eight inches thick. This was built up of eight thicknesses of
one-inch plates bolted together. The broad smooth deck was covered with
three inches of iron and the low sides with five inches. This strange
vessel was completed just in time to be sent to Hampton Roads in order
to protect the wooden ships of the Union Navy from the ferocious and
effective onslaughts of the _Merrimac_, a Confederate ironclad that
had just sunk the _Cumberland_ and set fire to the _Congress_. This
ship had been the wooden frigate _Merrimac_ which had been partly
burned when the Union forces had abandoned the Norfolk Navy Yard. The
Confederates had raised her, repaired her, cut her sides down almost
to the water line, and had built a huge deck house amidships. This
deck house, in which the cannon were mounted, had sloping walls which
were covered with railroad rails. Harking back to the time of Greece,
they affixed a huge ram to her bow, and then sent her forth against
the Union ships in Hampton Roads. Their shells ricochetted from her
armoured sides like hail from a tin roof. All the cannon the helpless
_Cumberland_ could bring to bear disturbed her not at all, and slowly
bearing down upon her wooden adversary she buried her ram in the
_Cumberland’s_ hull. Slowly the old sailing ship filled and sank, her
guns still firing and her shells still glancing harmlessly from the
_Merrimac’s_ armour of rails. The Confederate ship then turned her
attention to the _Congress_, shelled her and set her on fire, and then
calmly returned to her base none the worse, save for a few dents in her
armour.
But during the night that followed the _Monitor_ appeared, having
slowly made her way down the coast from New York. The next day the
_Merrimac_ came out to finish her work of destruction, when the
_Monitor_, a tiny ship beside her great opponent, steamed slowly toward
the approaching ironclad. A duel memorable in naval annals followed—the
first battle between ironclad ships.
As the two ships approached each other the _Monitor’s_ turret slowly
revolved. The black muzzles of the two guns came to bear on her great
antagonist. A double blast from them, and the _Merrimac_ reeled
from the shock, but the turning turret had carried the gun muzzles
on around, away from the fire of the Confederate ship. As the turret
revolved the gun crew, with feverish haste, loaded again, and once more
the muzzles faced the _Merrimac_. All this time the Confederate had
been raining shells at her little opponent, but they glanced harmlessly
from the deck or barely dented the iron walls of the turret. The
_Merrimac_ tried to ram, but the _Monitor_ out-manœuvred her and the
battle continued. A shell struck the _Monitor’s_ pilot house and the
commander was temporarily blinded, but the fight continued. At last,
however, the _Merrimac_ withdrew. The fight, perhaps, was a draw, but
can more properly be called a victory for the _Monitor_—the first ship
to mount a turret, for the _Merrimac_ never again faced a Union ship,
and later in the war was sunk by her own men to keep her from falling
into the hands of their enemies.
[Illustration: A BATTLE CRUISER
_A ship carrying the heaviest of guns but lacking the heavy armour
of the dreadnaughts. Its speed is greatly superior to that of
dreadnaughts._]
Following this engagement many ships similar to both the _Monitor_ and
the _Merrimac_ were built to take part in the Civil War. And others of
other designs were constructed. The war ended, however, with no further
important steps having been made in the design of warships.
Following the Civil War the Navy of the United States fell into decay
for twenty years, but European nations continued the building of
ironclad and, later, steelclad warships. In these, many experiments
were made with turrets and side armour but little of permanent value
resulted.
Guns were perfected, it is true, and the old muzzle-loading
smooth-bores of Civil War and earlier times were succeeded by
breech-loading rifles. These new guns, too, became more and more
powerful and more and more accurate. Still, however, the accuracy of
gunfire was not greatly improved, although it improved slowly.
The newer ships gradually eliminated sails and came to depend
exclusively on their engines, just as passenger ships did during this
same period, and the engines increased in power and reliability until,
in the early ’nineties, many of the world’s cruisers were capable of a
speed of more than twenty knots an hour.
Turrets had become revolving armoured turntables carrying one or
two guns, and these had been placed on an equally heavily armoured
“barbette” or circular steel base through which shells and ammunition
were hoisted into the turret. Side armour grew heavier and heavier,
and a “protective deck,” somewhat above the water line, was built in.
This deck was of comparatively thin steel armour, and as it approached
the side of the ship it was bent down so that it was attached to the
sides at or below the water line, thus placing over the all-important
boilers, engine rooms, and magazines the protection that they needed
from the enemy’s shells. During this period, guns were such that an
enemy’s projectile would probably strike the side of the ship, and this
deck, therefore, did not have to be designed to prevent the entrance
of shells striking it except at a small angle. Consequently, the light
armour used was sufficient. Later, at the Battle of Jutland (in 1916)
and elsewhere, these decks were easily penetrated by shells fired at
such a distance that they fell at a very steep angle.
[Illustration: A SCOUT CRUISER
_This ship is one of the_ Omaha _class, built after the World War for
the U. S. Navy._]
Shortly before the Spanish-American War, a new type of warship began to
appear, and it created much interest because of its supposed ability
to annihilate other types of ships. This new type was the torpedo
boat. It was small and was very fast, for that day, being capable of
twenty-one or twenty-two knots and sometimes a little more. It was a
fragile affair, but it carried the newly perfected Whitehead torpedo.
“Torpedoes” had been used during the Civil War, but in reality they
were nothing but mines, set off by a trigger or by contact, and capable
of use only when they could be set in the path of a ship, or by being
fastened at the end of a long pole could be thrust against a ship,
below the water line, by another craft. Some success attended their use
during the Civil War, but they were not numerous or widely successful.
The Whitehead torpedo, however, was a new development. It consisted of
three parts: first, the “war head,” or foremost section, filled with
high explosive which was set off when its sharp nose came in contact
with a solid object; second, a round steel compressed-air tank, which
took up the midship section; and third, the section to which were
attached propellers, vertical and horizontal rudders, and in which
there was a powerful engine operated by the compressed air of the
midship section. This torpedo could be plunged into the water from a
“torpedo tube” and its engine would propel it for four or five hundred
yards, while it was kept in a direct line and at an even depth beneath
the surface by its automatic rudders.
A torpedo boat, then, small, fast, and capable of making a
comparatively high speed, did seem to be a dangerous warship. But
during the Spanish-American War two Spanish torpedo boats, the
_Furor_ and the _Pluton_, were smothered by the fire of the American
ships—notably the _Vixen_, which was only a converted yacht—at
the Battle of Santiago, and later another type of ship called the
“torpedo-boat destroyer” was designed. This new type completely
eliminated the torpedo boat.
The heavier warships had grown into weird collections of turrets.
Turrets carried 12-inch guns, and 8-inch guns, and 6-inch guns, and
all of these were sometimes placed on a single ship. Turrets were
forward and aft and on both sides, sometimes as many as eight of them.
But the 12-inch guns outranged the 8-inch guns, and the 8-inch guns
outranged the 6-inch guns, and so the British, seeing the fallacy of
these numerous guns of various sizes, decided to build a ship armed
only with the heaviest type of naval guns in use and with small guns to
withstand torpedo attacks. Thus the _Dreadnaught_ came to be designed.
She was the first “all-big-gun” ship, and immediately she changed the
design of all line-of-battle ships, or, as they had come to be called
by this time, battleships. Incidentally, so great was the effect that
the _Dreadnaught_ had, that all the great battleships to-day are called
“dreadnaughts,” or, now that they have increased so much in size,
“super-dreadnaughts.”
[Illustration: AN AIRPLANE VIEW OF THE U. S. S. _LANGLEY_
_An airplane carrier. In order to build the great flying deck the
funnel had to be led to the port side, where it projects only slightly
above the deck._
]
The _Dreadnaught_ was built in 1906. She is 490 feet long, 92 feet
wide, and displaces 17,900 tons. From this will be seen the enormous
increase in size that ships had gone through since the introduction of
steel. She carried ten 12-inch guns, mounted in five turrets, and in
addition to these, originally carried no other guns save twenty-four
12-pounder rapid-fire guns. She could steam at 21½ knots an hour, and
the distance she could go without replenishing her supply of coal was
5,800 miles.
This ship, as I have suggested, revolutionized modern battleship
design, and, since she first appeared, the leading naval powers have
built ships of her type as their first line of defense. It is true
that her secondary battery was found to be inadequate and that later
dreadnaughts and super-dreadnaughts have increased the size of the guns
in this minor battery, but they still retain the huge and powerful
battery of big guns of a uniform size.
Dreadnaughts have enlarged their guns from 12-inch to 14-inch and
at last to 16-inch, which, under the Disarmament Treaty signed at
Washington in 1921, is the limit in size, and some of the newest ships
have their guns mounted three in a turret instead of one or two, but
the characteristic that made the _Dreadnaught_ a dreadnaught is still a
characteristic of all present-day first-line battleships.
Other types have come into existence, but unfortunately I have no space
in which to discuss them. Battle cruisers are fast ships of tremendous
size—they are the largest of modern warships—which carry little armour
but are armed with huge batteries of the heaviest guns and are capable
of enormous speed. They can make from 28 to 35 knots an hour—a speed
that can be equalled only by destroyers. There are submarines, those
slinking creatures that infested the North Sea, the Atlantic, and the
Mediterranean during the World War. The hours I have spent on duty in
the English Channel and the Bay of Biscay, leaning on the bridge rail,
scanning every wave and every bit of wreckage, helping to pick up
occasionally the crew of a torpedoed steamer, searching night and day
for the submarines sent out from Kiel and Zeebrugge, have not made of
submarines a type of warship for which I have any love. But I realize
that, despite the aversion I grew to have for them, they are marvellous
structures, capable of amazing feats, and capable, too, of better, or
at least not such vicious, uses as those to which the Germans put them.
But the warships of to-day—they are of almost innumerable designs
and sizes and uses. A modern fleet is no longer able to maintain
itself with fighting ships alone. Supply ships, hospital ships,
airplane carriers, colliers, gunboats, fleet submarines, ordinary
submarines, destroyers, scout cruisers, battle cruisers, dreadnaughts,
super-dreadnaughts—these are some of the types that only an
encyclopædia of naval information could adequately describe.