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.