WARSHIPS OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
Two classes of vessels stand forward prominently as the products of the
twentieth century. One is the _Dreadnought_, or all-big-gun one-calibre
type of battleship, the other is the submarine. The fact that both
are the result of the slow developments of centuries does not render
them the less the products of the last few years. Both are untried in
battle, and they are regarded as preparing the way for the introduction
respectively of surface and under-water warships, the power of which
is conjecturable only. Associated with both is the torpedo. The dream
of a submarine which shall travel faster than a surface vessel of the
same size is never likely to be realised, provided that the surface
vessel is built for speed also, for the simple reason that the vessel
travelling on the surface has only about a third of its surface in
connection with the water, whereas the submarine has its whole surface
submerged, and has three times as much friction against the water to
overcome. Hence, a lightly armed, very fast vessel is regarded as
likely to play an important role in the navy of the not distant future,
and finds its representative in the destroyer of to-day.
The submarine and the destroyer owe their existence to the battleship’s
greatest enemy, the torpedo. All three vessels carry that weapon,
and any two of them may combine against the third. The spar-torpedo
was such an unsatisfactory weapon at best that it had either to be
abandoned, save under most unusual circumstances, or improved out of
all recognition. The possibilities of the torpedo itself were so great
as to compel its retention, and the startling proposition was made that
torpedoes should be fired by under-water guns at a distant ship. The
blowing up of the _Albemarle_ in the American Civil War showed what
could be accomplished by a small fast steam launch. If this could be
done with a spar-torpedo, how much more destructive would a torpedo
be which could be directed against a hostile vessel from a small fast
launch which could approach to within an effective range, and then turn
and make a rush for safety from the gun-fire which might be brought
to bear in her direction. Several torpedoes of one kind and another
have been designed, but they have all had to give way to the Whitehead
torpedo. The inventor is stated to have derived his idea in 1864 from
a fire-boat designed by an Austrian officer, who thought of loading
a small boat with explosives, to be fired by a pistol connected with
protruding spars which should strike the vessel attacked, while the
fire-boat itself was to be propelled by a screw driven by clockwork.
Whitehead improved on this by making his boat of iron, and able to
travel under water for a short distance at a speed of six knots. Its
explosive was a few pounds of dynamite. By 1870 he had improved this
to a torpedo having a speed of eight knots, a range of 400 yards,
and a charge of 76 lb. of gun-cotton. The modern Whitehead torpedo
is a wonderful piece of mechanism, so wonderful that to the ordinary
spectator it seems almost endowed with intelligence. To see it lying
in its cradle ashore it is simply a beautifully polished smooth steel
cylinder. The fore end is blunt and with an innocent-looking steel
spike projecting from the centre of its rounded front, but it is this
spike which strikes the object aimed at and causes the ignition of the
explosive an inch or two behind it in the head of the cylinder. The
torpedo has a fine run aft for about a third of its length, and at the
after end are two vertical and two horizontal rudders, and two screws
revolving in opposite directions. It is some time since compressed air
was adopted as the motive power. The efficacy of the compressed cold
air has been increased to an extraordinary degree by the introduction
of an apparatus for heating the air. A torpedo fitted with a heater
can travel over double the distance at a given speed and the same
expenditure of air that a torpedo without a heater can. “If a torpedo
be run for the same distance with a heater as a similar torpedo without
a heater, a 100 per cent. gain of power would be realised by increasing
the speed, and at a range of 2,000 yards this increase is from 26 knots
to 33.5 knots, the highest which has ever been realised with a torpedo
over a range of 2,000 yards.”[56] The newest form of torpedo is that in
which hot air instead of cold air is used.
[Illustration: A TORPEDO. DISCHARGED FROM A DESTROYER, TRAVELLING BY
ITS OWN ENGINES TOWARDS AN ARMOURED BATTLESHIP.]
In the case of the latest pattern 18-inch Whitehead torpedo, a speed
of 28 knots for 2,000 yards, or 34½ knots for 1,000 yards when using
the ordinary cold air, has been obtained. For longer distances, such
as 3,000 and 4,000 yards, the speed is proportionately less, falling
to about 20 knots for the 4,000 yards range. When using the heater,
“the same torpedo maintains a speed of over 40 knots for 1,000 yards,
37 knots for 2,000 yards, 30 knots for 3,000 yards, and 27 knots for
4,000 yards. The speeds are quite extraordinary, as they represent
exactly 100 per cent. more power from the engines, and it is further
pointed out that the heater is extremely small, simple, and burns any
ordinary lamp oil, and is capable of being fitted to practically any
existing type of torpedo. The Admiralty has never been slow to adopt
improvements in the torpedo armament of the fleet, and for years
Great Britain has led in the matter of submarine tubes for firing
torpedoes.”[57]
The explosive carried, usually gun-cotton, weighs 200 lb. An ingenious
arrangement of gyroscope, valve and pendulum causes the torpedo to
remain at the required depth, and to return to it if it should be
diverted from it.
There have been several attempts to solve the problem of directing
torpedoes by means of wireless telegraphy. The great drawback,
however, has been that the receiving apparatus which the torpedo had
to carry was outside it and must appear above the surface of the
water, and was, therefore, liable to be sighted and shot away. The
same objection has been raised to the equipment of submersible torpedo
boats with “wireless.” Of recent years a torpedo has been contrived
which the inventors claim can be directed by wireless telegraphy, and
as there seems no reason why the principle applied cannot be improved
and extended to submarines and submersibles, the utility of these
under-water craft may be augmented to an inconceivable degree. The
“Actinaut” is the name of the torpedo, and the jet of salt water which
it ejects serves not only to indicate the position of the torpedo, but
is an “indestructible receiver for the electric waves.”[58]
SUBMARINES
Submarine warfare and exploration are no new ideas, but in the past
as in the present, the great difficulties have been to ensure the
provision of sufficient power for rapid propulsion, and to keep the air
pure enough for the crew to breathe for a long journey under water.
Efforts at submarine warfare seemed to have been made many centuries
ago, but none of the contrivances then used had any fighting value,
and were more interesting as freaks than in any other capacity. It is
unnecessary to attempt even to summarise all the schemes which early
and late inventors evolved to render possible under-water attacks
upon an enemy’s fleet. The problem was as fascinating seven or eight
hundred years ago as at the present time. Most of the alleged mediæval
inventions probably never got beyond the imaginative or paper stage,
and however wonderful the inventors’ theories or written descriptions
may have been, even when embellished with weird illustrations showing
the contrivance at the bottom of the sea, it is not recorded that any
of the submarines achieved any actual success whatever. One of the
earliest submarine descents which is supposed to have been made was
that of Alexander the Great, who is mendaciously represented to have
been lowered to the bottom of the sea in a glass barrel, too small
for him to stand up in, with a smoky oil lamp or two, and an animal
which might have been a dog or a cat (it is difficult to say which
the artist intended) for company, the circumstances being such that
he could not have failed to be asphyxiated in a very short space of
time. It appears, too, that he wore a crown and his royal robes on that
occasion, so that he evidently visited Neptune in state.
As early as the year 1190 a man is said to have constructed a diving
boat of leather. Numerous suggestions were made to enable men to go
under water in order to bore holes through the sides of an enemy’s
ships, which, considering the thickness of the planks, must have been
a somewhat laborious undertaking. The Barbary corsairs are stated to
have used some sort of submarine explosive against the ships of their
opponents, but this explosive or combustible was most likely Greek fire.
William Bourne, who served in Queen Elizabeth’s navy, is said to have
had a submarine boat which could have been made useful, but there are
no records in existence to show that the experiment ever took place.
An interesting feature of the suggestion was that he proposed to sink
or raise the vessel by admitting and expelling water. About the middle
of the seventeenth century, a Dutchman is said to have invented a
boat which travelled under water from Westminster to Greenwich, and
it is even asserted that it carried passengers, in addition to twelve
men at the oars, and that the air in the interior of this vessel was
purified by a “chymicall liquor.” A Royal Warrant, dated June 29th,
1626, ordered the delivery of “360 fforged iron cases with fireworkes,
50 water mynes, 290 water petards, and two boats to conduct them under
water, for H.M. special service to goe with the fleete.”
Two worthy friars of the Order of Minims turned from their spiritual
contemplations to devise a submarine, and they appear to have been the
first to suggest that it should be built with both ends alike, and
pointed so that it could move either end foremost; it was to be given
wheels to move along the sea floor, and to be propelled by oars. It
was even to carry guns, to be fired through holes in the side. Another
inventor in the seventeenth century waxed so enthusiastic over his
submarine, that, besides pointing out its advantages in all manner of
possible and impossible circumstances in time of war, he represented
that it should be used for submarine hunting parties, who might have
great sport shooting the fish as the boat went along. A Frenchman named
De Son, built in 1663, at Rotterdam, a vessel about 72 feet in length,
circular, and running to a cone at each end, by which he promised, but
did not perform, great things. A few years later a boat was designed by
the Abbé Borelli to travel under water, his idea being that the boat
should rise or sink according to the amount of water admitted through
holes in the hull to skins provided for the purpose. Bushnell, an
American inventor, had a vessel he called the _Turtle_, which seems to
have been shaped more like an egg. It floated at the surface of the
water with the pointed end downward, and had a small screw propeller,
jutting out at one side. On the opposite side of the body of the vessel
was a magazine containing about 150 lb. of powder. This magazine was
detachable from the inside of the ship, and was fastened by a rope to
a powerful screw which the inventor intended to drive into the hold
of the opposing warship, and then make the best of his way to safety,
leaving the magazine attached to the screw. He was more anxious to find
someone to make the attack on the British ships than to do it himself.
[Illustration: THE “HOLLAND” SUBMARINE.]
[Illustration: THE “GOUBET” SUBMARINE.]
Probably the first really successfully designed submarine was that
of Robert Fulton, the American, who submitted his plans of the
_Nautilus_ to the French Directory in 1797. His first boat was tried
experimentally on the Seine in 1800. His next boat had iron ribs, and
was copper-sheathed, and was shaped like a very long egg; it was fitted
with a small hinged mast and a bat-wing sail, so that it could be used
for surface navigation if necessary. He made a few descents in the
Seine with success, but at no time stayed under water more than twenty
minutes. Still, the experiment was held to be sufficiently promising
for the boat to be tried at Brest, where he failed in his attempts to
do any damage to the English ships of war. A preliminary experiment,
before that against the English, was successful. On the British side, a
so-called catamaran was contrived, by which it was intended to blow up
the French ships at Boulogne. The catamaran consisted of a framework in
which one man should sit immersed up to his arm-pits, and should paddle
himself along under cover of darkness, and tow a floating box of powder
to be exploded by clockwork in so many minutes, this affording him time
to paddle away in safety. This floating mine or torpedo was to be
fastened under the counter of the wooden man-of-war. Fulton is supposed
to have had a hand in this, but the attack when it was made ended in an
absolute failure, the catamarans making the attack being mostly blown
up, while those vessels against which it was directed suffered no harm
whatever. Upon his return to America, Fulton constructed a submersible
called the _Mute_, which was to fire “Colombiads,” or under-water guns.
Her inventor died during the course of her trials, which, however, did
not reveal anything to show that the boat would have been other than an
absolute failure as a warship. Though the British and the French naval
authorities were strongly opposed to submarine warfare for a variety
of reasons, American inventors continued their experiments. A diving
boat passed under the British 74-gun ship _Ramilies_ three times, and
at last got close under the vessel, and tried to fasten a clockwork
mine to it by means of a screw after the plan Bushnell adopted, but
the screw broke. Other attempts were made, and as there were then no
means of discovering when a submarine attack was intended, the British
officer in command placed a number of American prisoners on board his
ships and notified the American Government that if any of the ships
were blown up, the American prisoners as well as the crew would go with
it. What was known as an American torpedo-pilot was really a large
boat covered from end to end with a curved iron deck, above which
was a small pilot-house or look-out chamber, which also served as a
ventilator; the boat was propelled by paddle-wheels, and travelled so
low in the water as to be practically awash, and towed a mine behind
her. Some of these mines or torpedoes contained as much as six barrels
of gunpowder. An Englishman named Johnson designed a submarine or
diving boat in which he was to have rescued the ex-Emperor Napoleon
from Saint Helena, but Napoleon’s death intervened.
Various inventions were tried at one time and another, and the
misfortune is that in many cases the first experiment proved to be the
last, for the contrivances were the inventors’ coffins. Some of these
fatalities were unquestionably due to the submarines being made to
descend too low, when they gave way under the enormous pressure of the
water.
The first effective submarine designed for war purposes was a
cigar-shaped boat constructed by an American shoemaker named Phillips.
The boat was built of iron and carried a colombiad, which could
be fired through a port in the iron plating, and also a couple
of torpedoes or mines. Numerous experiments with this boat were
successful, but Phillips descended once too often.
A German named Bauer invented a diving boat, which scared the Danes
badly in the war between Denmark and Prussia in 1848-50. At its second
voyage it descended too far, but Bauer and his two companions escaped
through the scuttle. Thirty-six years later the boat was fished up, and
is now in the Naval Museum at Berlin. Failing to get any more money
in Germany, and being suddenly dropped in Austria after the Court and
Government had given him much encouragement, he came to England, where
the Prince Consort became his patron. He designed a submarine, but his
plans were altered by some of the leading engineers, ship-builders,
and statesmen, who, whatever their skill in surface navigation and
diplomacy may have been, knew next to nothing of submarine navigation.
The consequence was that his boat as altered to suit their views was
a failure, and the discredit was cast upon Bauer. Still believing
that he was right, he betook himself to the United States, but the
American Government, probably finding that the local supply of
inventors and submarines was a long way in excess of the demand, turned
a deaf ear to all his suggestions. He went back to Europe, and the
Russian authorities authorised him to construct his _Sea Devil_ which,
after numerous experiments, was sunk under circumstances never fully
explained. He managed, however, in one of his trips with her, to enter
Sebastopol harbour, to the great dismay of a Russian sentry who, seeing
him gliding by night in a standing position along the surface of the
water, took him for a ghost, dropped his rifle, and ran. The loss of
his boat has been attributed to an order of the Russian Government that
it should be deliberately sunk to get it out of the way.
The French boat _Plongeur_, launched at Rochefort in 1863, was
cigar-shaped with the upper side flattened, and was driven by an engine
deriving its power from compressed air. She was too long for her width
to be of much use, and had no stability.
The first Confederate _David_ has already been alluded to, and the
Southerners were so pleased with the success that they ordered another.
In five experiments the second boat sank five times, and drowned
altogether thirty-five men. Before she went down the next time it was
determined that she should attack one of the Federal warships. She was
directed against the _Housatonic_, then one of the fleet blockading
Charleston. The _David_ was being navigated along the surface of the
water instead of beneath, and her scuttles were open. The little
vessel’s spar-torpedo struck the warship in line with the magazine.
Nothing was ever seen of the _David_ afterwards, nor of her crew. The
_Housatonic_ went down, but nearly all on board were saved.
Though the _Davids_ proved as destructive to themselves as to the
enemy, they demonstrated as nothing else could have done that a small
boat approaching noiselessly under cover of darkness could destroy by
means of mines or torpedoes a hostile ship.
The most inappropriately named submarine was the _Resurgam_, invented
by an English clergyman named Garrett, for during an experiment off the
Welsh coast, in 1879, it never returned to the surface after diving.
The first submarine as a locomotive engine of warfare was invented
by John P. Holland, and it is to his boat, known as the _Holland the
First_, that all the modern submarines and submersibles owe their
parentage. It was a one-man affair, just big enough to allow him to sit
down in it and work with his feet the paddle arrangement that turned
the propeller shaft. It carried five small torpedoes, which could be
placed outside through a chamber in the dome or conning tower, and were
discharged by electricity. This marked the introduction of one of the
means which made modern submarine vessels possible, for until it was
discovered how to use electricity in this way, a clockwork arrangement
was the only reliable method by which a torpedo could be exploded. The
application of electricity rendered it possible to eject the torpedo
a considerable distance from the ship, comparatively speaking, and by
means of connecting wires discharge it when thought advisable. This
vessel was only 16 feet in length. The second _Holland_, built in
1877, was only 10 feet long. A small gas or oil engine was introduced
to drive the screw propeller of a third submarine built by Holland
two years later. This boat was 31 feet long, 6 feet in diameter, and
cigar-shaped. The experiments he conducted with it showed that it
was impossible to depend on ordinary vision when travelling in any
depth of water on account of the darkness. She carried a pneumatic
gun discharging a 9-inch projectile, the range of the weapon being
130 feet. It was not until 1884 that Holland’s fourth boat appeared.
In the following year he tried again with a rather larger vessel, 40
feet long and 7 feet in diameter, often called the _Zalinski_, because
it was fitted with pneumatic guns of the type invented by an American
army lieutenant of that name. Again there was a long silence in regard
to Holland, until he submitted the designs of his seventh boat--the
sixth was planned but never built--to the American Government, which
had decided to adopt the under-water torpedo boat as a definite part
of the navy. The _Holland the Seventh_, as designed and launched,
was to be 85 feet long, of 100 tons displacement, and to carry three
torpedo tubes and two steel armoured gun turrets. The Holland Company
had meanwhile designed a vessel they considered much superior, and the
Government consented to adopt it in place of No. 7. She was something
like a porpoise, and above a semi-cylindrical hull carried a flat-sided
superstructure, which has been one of the distinguishing features
of the Holland type of submarines from that day to this. Her aerial
torpedo was to carry 100 lb. of gun-cotton. After discharging it she
was to dive, approach the vessel she sought to destroy, and fire her
Whitehead torpedo. If this missed, she was to go under the vessel and
discharge her after submarine gun immediately after passing underneath.
The _Holland_ was altered and improved, and when the French announced
that they had become possessed of types of submarines and submersibles
upon which dependence could be placed in time of war for destroying
an enemy’s vessels, the British Admiralty abandoned the attitude of
scepticism and watchfulness combined it had maintained for so long, and
ordered five boats from the Holland Company for experimental purposes.
The experiments which were made with these boats resulted in the
Government becoming possessors of what were known as the A class of
submarine.
[Illustration: BRITISH SUBMARINE A13. _Photograph by E. Sankey,
Barrow._]
[Illustration: BRITISH SUBMARINE C22. _Photograph by E. Sankey,
Barrow._]
Very little has been revealed of the details of modern submarines, for
if there is one subject more than another upon which the admiralties
of the world are agreed, it is that they should not let one another
know the secrets of the mechanism of these under-water craft. That,
at least, is the theory, but it is very questionable if all the
governments are not quite well informed as to the constructional
details of each other’s submarines, and probably know almost as much
about them as they do about their own. The experiments at Barrow
and elsewhere with the Holland boats and their successors have been
responsible for the introduction of several classes of submarines,
every one of which embodies improvements upon its predecessor. The
five boats built for Great Britain at Barrow, in 1902, were 63 feet
4 inches in length by 11 feet 9 inches breadth, by 12 feet 1 inch
depth, and had a surface speed of ten knots and a submerged speed of
seven knots. The A class, which appeared in 1902, began with a vessel
of 180 tons displacement, and 100 feet in length by 12 feet 8 inches
beam. Larger vessels of this class were built from 1904 to 1907 of 204
tons displacement, but varying considerably in dimensions. The B class
of 313 tons submerged displacement was introduced in 1903-4. These
vessels were 135 feet by 13 feet 6 inches, and had a cruising speed
of fourteen knots and a submerged speed of nine knots. The C class,
which resembled the B class in many particulars, appeared in 1906-7,
as did also the D class, but the latter were of 500 tons submerged
displacement and of fifteen knots cruising speed. The five boats built
on the Holland designs were each propelled by a 4-cylinder 190 h.p.
petrol engine besides an electrical engine of 70 h.p. The armament was
an 18-inch torpedo tube in the bow, and each carried five torpedoes.
These vessels were divided into seven compartments. The deck was 31
feet 4 inches by 4 feet 5 inches. There were two diving rudders at
the stern, and the conning tower, of 32 inches diameter, was formed of
4-inch armour. The A type, the first of which sank in March, 1904, off
Spithead, had a 12-cylinder 600 h.p. gasolene engine. The B type had
engines of 850 h.p., and could carry 15 tons of fuel structurally, and
were provided with a forward superstructure. The D type have heavy oil
engines, and can carry 15 tons of fuel. Yet another and more advanced
type of submarine is stated to be under consideration and possibly
under construction. It is to be larger, according to report, than any
existing submarine, and is to carry a gun, which it will come to the
surface to discharge. Is this to be the forerunner of a new cruiser, to
be equally at home and equally dreaded, whether it be operating at the
surface or beneath the waves, advancing stealthily upon its foe?
The Japanese, when they decided upon importing some submarines from
this country, had two specially built at Barrow. It was not thought
advisable to send them under their own power, or in tow of tugs, to
the Far East, so a special vessel was built for their accommodation.
For two-thirds of her length her main deck could be removed and her
bottom was constructed to permit of the two submarines lying side by
side. In order to get them on board, this steamer, which was called
the _Transporter_, was sunk in dock at Liverpool, the submarines were
floated into place and the water was pumped from the dock, and, of
course, from the steamer also. As it subsided, the submarines were
carefully adjusted in their cradles, and when this work had been
completed, the _Transporter_ with her strange cargo returned to Barrow
in order to be prepared for the voyage to Japan.
[Illustration: SUBMARINE D1, WITH WIRELESS TELEGRAPH MAST. _Photograph
by Stephen Cribb, Southsea._]
[Illustration: LAUNCH OF U.S. SUBMARINE “NARWHAL.” _Photograph supplied
by the Fore River Shipbuilding Co._]
[Illustration: FRENCH SUBMARINE “X.” _Photograph by Stephen Cribb,
Southsea._]
It is necessary, however, to consider what other nations have done
in connection with the submarine, long before the _Holland_ was
adopted by the British Admiralty. A Swedish inventor, Dr. Nordenfeldt,
who had given a great deal of attention to the subject, was attracted
by Mr. Garrett’s method of what was called “bottling up” the steam
engine, so as to permit of the vessel diving under water. The first
_Nordenfeldt_ was cigar-shaped and 64 feet long, and was remarkable
in one respect, for she was the first to carry a tube for discharging
Whitehead torpedoes. She underwent in the presence of Royalty a fairly
successful trial on the first day, and was ultimately purchased by the
Greek Government. In 1887 Dr. Nordenfeldt and Mr. Garrett designed
boats with screws placed on top, for regulating the ascent and descent,
and the torpedo tube of each was carried at the outside of the bow
instead of inside. One of these boats was taken by Mr. Garrett to
Constantinople, where she was put through numerous evolutions in the
presence of the Sultan himself and the greater part of the population
of that city. The engineer and Mr. Garrett understood their work
perfectly, but the same could not be said for the Turkish crew who
were told off to be drilled in its manipulation. They knew nothing of
submarines and did not want to learn, and maintained their obstinacy to
the utmost. The trials took place in June, 1887. The Turkish boatmen
simply would not keep out of her way, until one of them navigated his
empty barge too close to the _Nordenfeldt_, whose revolving propeller
knocked such a large hole in the barge’s bottom that it was as much
as the boatman could do to get it to the shore to save it foundering.
After that the _Nordenfeldt_ was allowed more room. The first time, so
far as navigation was concerned, she was tried she was a success, but
directly her stability was altered by the discharge of her Whitehead
torpedo from the bows, her trim was changed very materially, and it was
even thought possible that she might go down stern first. However, the
Turks bought her and added her to the collection of naval purchases
of which they could make little use. A later submarine was built by
Nordenfeldt, but proved no more stable, horizontally, than the other.
It was purchased by the Russian Government, and was lost on the way to
the Baltic.
The French have seemed to find an extraordinary fascination in
submarine navigation. It was very great before Jules Verne published
his fascinating romance, “Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea,”
and became even more enthusiastic than ever. Of the early French
experiments it is not necessary to say much. One of the first of the
reliable French submarines was the _Goubet_, 10 feet in length, 6 feet
high and 3 feet wide. This vessel was succeeded in the estimation
of the French naval authorities by the _Gymnote_, which proved as
remarkable a forerunner of a type as the _Dreadnought_ did of the new
type of battleships, and, like the _Dreadnought_, she has been steadily
superseded by improvements upon her design. The _Gymnote_ was designed
by M. Gustave Zédé, although the credit of suggesting her in the first
instance is sometimes ascribed to M. Dupuy de Lôme. She was launched in
September, 1888, and was cigar-shaped. She displaced about 50 tons with
dimensions of 59 feet in length, 6 feet in depth, and 5 feet 7 inches
in breadth, and her electrical motor was supplied with the necessary
power from a large installation of accumulators. Her conning tower was
telescopic, and she had a periscope to enable her commander to take
observations without coming to the surface; she was one of the first
vessels, if not the first, to be fitted with a periscope or optical
tube, the principle of which is that a mirror placed at a certain angle
above the tube has its reflection reproduced by another mirror placed
entirely parallel to it at the bottom of the tube. She carried
two Whitehead torpedoes. M. Zédé planned another submarine which was
launched in June, 1893, and its electrical installation nearly poisoned
its crew owing to the fumes given off. Another _Goubet_ followed, but
was so slow that the Government rejected her. Since then, especially in
the last few years, the French Government has gone in for a singular
variety of these vessels. Some of them have undergone marvellous tests
with conspicuous success. But none have attempted such a feat as two
British submarines have accomplished, viz., from England to Hong Kong.
They were towed part of the way, and escorted all of it, but their own
power was not allowed to be idle.
[Illustration: THE “TRANSPORTER.” _Photograph supplied by Messrs.
Vickers, Ltd._]
[Illustration: U.S. GUNBOAT “PADUCAH.” _Photograph supplied by the Gas
Engine and Power Co._]
It is now attempted to propel French submarines by Diesel engines for
surface work, and by electric motors for underwater work; the result of
the experiment is not known at the time of writing.
The Russian Government is said to favour submarines of the Lake
pattern, so named after its American inventor, of which a great deal
is thought; and America is said to have adopted both Holland and Lake
submarines. One Lake boat was provided with wheels, and went on a
submarine motor tour along the New England coasts, and Mr. Lake finally
offered to demonstrate the usefulness of his vessel by finding and
cutting the cables of the mines protecting one of the American ports.
This was more than the American Government could allow, so he had a
cable laid across a harbour mouth, and having found it, severed it.
The Italian authorities have modified the Holland and French plans to
suit their own ideas, and though their boats are said to have given
excellent results, singularly little is known about them.
All makes of submarines and submersibles have to return to the
surface at fairly frequent intervals to renew the supply of fresh
air, and have to approach it at even more frequent intervals in order
that the navigating officer may see what are his surroundings at the
surface, and, in time of war, whether it would be safe for him to
bring his vessel up. The difficulty of finding his way about without
revealing his whereabouts by exposing the periscope to view is one of
the greatest the commander of a submarine has to meet, but it would
be futile to say that the ingenuity of scientific inventors will not
overcome even this difficulty.
TORPEDO BOATS AND DESTROYERS
When the _Iris_ was given a speed of 18½ knots, many declared that the
limit in speed, with a due regard to safety, had been attained. Much
the same was said when Mr. Thornycroft brought out the _Lightning_ in
1876, the first real torpedo boat ever built for the British Navy,
which had a speed of 18½ knots. Now, however, the speed has been more
than doubled, and the sea-going qualities of the vessels are so much
better that there is scarcely room for comparison. In 1873 the same
firm built for the Norwegian Government a small steamboat intended to
be employed in torpedo work only. The _Lightning_ was 87 feet over all,
with a displacement on her trials of 28½ tons; now torpedo boats are a
hundred feet or so longer.
[Illustration: THE EARLIEST EUROPEAN TORPEDO BOAT. BUILT FOR THE
NORWEGIAN GOVERNMENT IN 1873. SPEED 18 KNOTS. _Photograph supplied by
Messrs. J. Thornycroft & Co., Ltd._]
[Illustration: FIRST BRITISH TORPEDO BOAT, “LIGHTNING.” SPEED 18 KNOTS.
BUILT IN 1876. _Photograph supplied by Messrs. J. Thornycroft & Co.,
Ltd._]
[Illustration: H.M. TORPEDO BOAT NO. 79, BUILT IN 1886. _Photograph by
Stephen Cribb, Southsea._]
[Illustration: H.M.S. “VULCAN.” _Photograph by E. Sankey, Barrow._]
A small torpedo boat built for the Russian Government by Messrs.
Yarrow, in 1879, was considered to be the most formidable vessel of her
class afloat. Her speed was 22 knots, and on 10 tons of coal it was
estimated that she would be able to steam 800 miles at a speed of 10 to
12 knots. Her stem was formed to be a sharp ram, and from the conning
tower to the stem she had a hood over her deck to throw off the
water she might take over her bows. The two launching tubes for her
Whitehead torpedoes were on either side of the bows. The theory was
that the first torpedo should break through the nets or other guards,
and that the second torpedo, discharged a few seconds later, should
pass through the gap thus made in the ship’s defence and attack the
hull itself. A comparatively recent invention is a contrivance to be
carried on the nose of the torpedo to cut through the net.
Torpedo boats had to have their “parent ship,” or ship to which they
could go for any repairs to be made when at sea. The parent ship was
necessarily a floating torpedo boat factory, and, if the torpedo
boat were not too large, could hoist her on board and repair her as
effectually as if she were in dry dock or on the slips ashore, and
lower her again to the water when the work was finished. The _Vulcan_,
of 6,620 tons displacement, was launched in 1889 to undertake these
duties, and also act as a laboratory in connection with the mining
service. She had two powerful hydraulic cranes for hoisting in and out
torpedo boats, of which she carried six on her deck for the assistance
of the fleet she might accompany, and also had two counterbalancing
barges and steam pinnaces. In order that she might be able to protect
herself she was equipped with twenty quick-firing guns. Several
“parents” or floating repair ships have been added to the Navy of
recent years, and every one of them is as modern as science and money
can make her.
Having a large fleet of cruisers and battleships, it has been the
British policy of late years to arm them with a powerful secondary
battery, especially designed to meet torpedo attack. It is not touching
upon international or diplomatic questions to state that the very
preponderance of the British fleet has rendered the risk of invasion of
these islands exceedingly small, and the resources of this country have
been, and are, so vast, that the much-debated two-power standard--in
spite of the numerous and contradictory estimates of comparative naval
strength based upon it--has, on the whole, been maintained.
If the theoretical British frontier be the coast-line of a possible
opponent, it is evident that vessels which can steam to an enemy’s
coasts and destroy his torpedo boats there are of greater use than
the torpedo boats which can only operate along the coast-line, or
venture to cross the seas in fine weather. This has been set forth as
one reason why the British Admiralty of recent years has preferred
destroyers to the smaller vessels.
The introduction of rapid-firing guns of great power and range is
claimed by some naval authorities to have reduced very materially the
effectiveness of the torpedo boat. Its speed has been doubled in a few
years, but it is contended that with the improvement in guns this has
been more than neutralised by the greater size it has been necessary
to give the torpedo boats in order to provide sufficient space for the
machinery and retain the vessel’s sea-going qualities, as the increased
size renders the vessel easier to hit. It must be remembered, moreover,
that the anti-torpedo boat armament of a modern warship can fire as
many as a hundred shots a minute, or several times as many as when
torpedo boats were added to the world’s fleets.
[Illustration: HIGH-SPEED SEA-GOING TORPEDO BOAT OR GUNBOAT, PROPELLED
BY INTERNAL COMBUSTION ENGINES. SPEED 23 KNOTS. _Photograph supplied by
Messrs. Yarrow & Co., Ltd._]
[Illustration: U.S. DESTROYER “LAWRENCE.” _Photograph supplied by the
Fore River Shipbuilding Co._]
Some of the Continental powers have been quick to appreciate the value
of the torpedo boat as propelled by internal combustion engines, among
the most noteworthy examples being those built and engined by Yarrow
for the Austrian Government. The “E,” for instance, is 60 feet in
length by 9-feet beam, and has a draught of 2 feet 8 inches. She has
three screws, and her five sets of these engines give her a speed of
22¼ knots, in spite of her diminutive size, and her radius of action at
11 knots is three times what would be obtainable with vessels of the
same size propelled by steam. Another, of the same length, has attained
a speed, when light, of 25½ knots, and of 24 knots with a load of 3
tons, and her radius of action at full speed is 250 miles. A somewhat
larger vessel from the same makers is 100 feet in length, with a beam
of 13 feet 6 inches, and her internal combustion engines give her a
speed of 23½ knots. The advantages, and they are very great, claimed
for all boats propelled by powerful engines of this type over those
propelled by steam engines, are that as the vessels have no funnels
there can be no flaming from funnels, with its risk of betrayal of the
vessel’s whereabouts; that only half the engine-room staff is required,
and that the range of action is three times what it would be under
steam.
The development of the torpedo boat as a means of offence soon made
it necessary for a means to be devised of defeating them. The torpedo
gunboat was accordingly designed, the idea being that it should be able
not only to act as a small cruiser, scout or gunboat, but by reason of
its superior size, armament, and sea-going qualities should hold the
torpedo boats in check. One of the earliest of these was the French
_Bombe_ launched in 1885. She was of 395 tons displacement, and was
intended to have a speed of 18 knots, but being lightly constructed,
proved a slow boat whenever there was the suspicion of a sea on.
England followed suit with the _Rattlesnake_ and others, of 550 tons,
but they also failed to maintain their designed speed of 19½ knots.
Improved gunboats followed, which, however, were not considered to be
equal to the duties required of them, especially as by 1902 torpedo
boats were built to travel at a speed which would leave the gunboats
far behind.
This left the way open for the appearance of the torpedo boat
destroyer, which has been described as the result of the failure of
the gunboat to perform its second purpose satisfactorily.
The destroyer was designed to be able to overtake torpedo boats by
superior speed, to be of larger dimensions, and therefore able to
maintain her speed in rougher weather than the torpedo boat could, and
to be sufficiently powerfully armed to sink a torpedo boat or hostile
destroyer by gun-fire. The destroyer was also to carry torpedoes, it
being desired to take advantage of the great speed to deliver torpedo
attacks upon cruisers and other large ships as occasion offered.
The earliest British destroyers were the _Daring_ of 237 tons, in
1893 the _Hornet_ of 240 tons, and the _Ferret_ of 250 tons, built
respectively by Thornycroft, Yarrow and Laird, all three boats having
a speed of 27½ knots; and about two years later the Palmer firm built
at Jarrow the _Janus_, _Lightning_, and _Porcupine_ of equal speed.
With Thornycroft’s _Boxer_, in 1894, the speed was brought up to
29 knots; and in the same year the _Desperate_, 280 tons, and the
_Quail_, 305 tons--two odd names to be associated--were the pioneers
of the destroyers of the 30-knot type, many of which attained to 32
knots. These were turbine boats, but the _Albatross_ by Thornycroft,
with reciprocating engines, also attained 32 knots in 1899. The last
30-knot destroyer had her engines fitted with forced lubrication on a
special system, which overcame the difficulty of oiling the engines
satisfactorily for running at the high speed necessary and was the
first destroyer in the British Navy to be thus equipped.
[Illustration: STERN VIEW OF H.M.S. “SYLVIA.” 30-KNOT DESTROYER, WITH
COAL-BURNING WATER-TUBE BOILERS. _Photograph supplied by Wm. Doxford &
Son, Ltd., Sunderland._]
No further advance of a sensational character was announced until
the _Star_ was launched from Palmer’s yards, and she was surpassed
very shortly afterwards by the performance of the little steamer
_Turbinia_. This vessel was only 100 feet in length, and of 44½ tons
displacement. The engines of the Parsons type of turbines, with
which it was fitted experimentally, received the cold shoulder, which
seems to be the fate of all innovations that do not come into the
world through official channels. But the owners of this vessel and
the proprietors and inventors of the engines adopted a method of
compelling recognition as daring as it was successful. The occasion
chosen was the naval review held in honour of the diamond jubilee of
the late Queen Victoria, and shortly before the Royal Yacht arrived to
pass between the rows of warships, this turbine steamer shot into the
fairway and went at her utmost speed from one end to the other of the
lines of steamships and the finest assemblage of warships the world had
ever seen, and there was not in the whole British Navy one destroyer
or torpedo boat present that she could not outdistance. Thousands of
spectators witnessed the exploit, and the success of the turbine engine
was assured from that moment.
The remarkable development in steamship propulsion this vessel heralded
was represented in less than ten years by the fastest and largest
steamships in the world, and the largest and fastest and most powerful
battleships afloat. The builders’ estimate of the power of her rotary
engines was that for every ton of the machinery 72 h.p. should be
developed, and though this seems to have been accomplished in the
_Turbinia_, equally satisfactory results have not been attained in the
large seagoing destroyers fitted with turbine engines, but the results
were in advance of those obtainable with reciprocating engines.
It was not, however, until 1900 that the first turbine-driven war
vessel was added to the fighting force of the Navy. The Admiralty
had not been idle, and as the result of numerous tests and inquiries
made the great experiment which brought about the revolution in the
propulsion of the world’s fighting ships. The mercantile marine led the
way, the Allan line being the first to have Atlantic liners equipped
with turbines. The Government watched the experiment carefully, and in
spite of opposition from some influential quarters decided to try how
turbines would act in a destroyer. This was the _Viper_, of 390 tons
displacement. The hull and boilers were by Hawthorn, Leslie and Co.,
and the engines were by the Parsons Turbine Company. She astonished
everyone by attaining a speed of 36.6 knots when running light, and
from that time onward the development of turbines for warships has been
one long series of progress.
The destroyers of the River class, begun in 1903 and completed in
1906, had displacements varying from 540 to 590 tons, but the speed of
all of them was about 25½ knots. These were followed by the coastal
destroyers, designed, as their name indicates, to operate as destroyers
along the coast against any hostile torpedo boats, but now classed as
torpedo boats. In the latter capacity their guaranteed speed of 26 to
27 knots would stand them in good stead, but as destroyers they were
soon outclassed. Some of them were provided with turbines.
[Illustration: H.M. TORPEDO BOAT DESTROYER “SWIFT.” OIL FUEL.
_Photograph by Stephen Cribb, Southsea._]
[Illustration: H.M.S. “WEAR.” _Photograph supplied by Palmer
Shipbuilding Co., Ltd._]
The announcement that the Admiralty favoured a speed of 33 knots evoked
a chorus of disapproval. The Admiralty was supposed to have become
obsessed by a craze for speed, to which everything must be sacrificed.
All the old objections which had done duty at every increase of speed
for years, and had been proved to be ill-founded, were revived, brought
up to date, and launched against the Admiralty proposals. Again it
was contended that a vessel travelling at that speed must inevitably
founder if she should unfortunately bury her nose in a wave, and that
the violent alternation of stresses as she travelled in a rough sea
must cause her to break her back or buckle her decks without more ado.
But the _Mohawk_, in 1907, came and conquered, much to the delight of
everyone except those whose prophecies, as usual, were upset, and
not only attained a speed of 34½ knots, but accomplished it in fairly
rough weather in the wintry month of November of that year, and proved
her soundness of construction and the possession of excellent sea-going
qualities. An objection, which at first was supposed to be serious,
was that to attain such a high speed her consumption of fuel would
be so great that her radius of action would be greatly restricted.
The contract under which the _Mohawk_ was built by White, at Cowes,
contained the stipulation that she should maintain a speed of 33 knots
for six hours; at her trials, however, she averaged 34½ knots. Her
consumption of oil fuel on this occasion was 64¼ tons, and as she is
fitted to carry 148 tons, her radius of action at this enormous speed
is 435 knots, and at 14 knots, which is known now as the cruising
speed, she is estimated to cover 1,500 miles. Though 270 feet in
length she is only 25 feet beam. She is constructed entirely of high
tensile steel, the tensile strength ranging from 37 to 40 tons per
square inch. Her three screw propellers are driven by turbine engines,
and it has been found that with oil fuel she can attain her full
speed in less time than would be possible were her furnaces fed with
coal. Her armament consists of three 12-pounder rifled quick-firing
breech-loading guns, two of which are forward and one aft, and two
revolving tubes on deck for firing 18-inch torpedoes. Another of the
class, Thornycroft’s _Tartar_, made 35.678 knots on the measured
course, an almost equal speed on the six-hours’ run, while the highest
speed she showed was 37.037 knots, thereby establishing a world’s
record.
The same year saw the launch of the _Swift_, at Birkenhead. She has a
displacement of 1,800 tons, and is the largest and fastest destroyer
yet constructed. She is of a special type, a class by herself; her
turbine engines of 30,000 indicated h.p. give her a speed of 36 knots,
and for armament she carries four 4-inch guns and two torpedo tubes.
Not far behind her in dimensions and speed is the Japanese _Kaifu_, but
a Russian destroyer building at the Putilov yard in Russia is to be of
1,300 tons, but with engines as powerful as those of the _Swift_, is
expected to prove fully as fast, if not faster.
The ocean-going destroyers, built in 1909, have displacements varying
from 880 to 1,000 tons, and a speed of from 33 to 34 knots, a typical
example being the _Maori_, built by Denny at Dumbarton. The new
naval force for the Australian Commonwealth includes some very fine
destroyers, among which may be mentioned the _Yarra_.
A tendency has been manifest in some of the later destroyers to provide
better all-round fighting and sea-going qualities than were possible
in vessels like the _Swift_, in which speed was all-important. The
_Beagle_ and _Acorn_ are considered to be good representatives of the
compromise.
The bunker capacity of destroyers being very limited, and their
consumption of fuel large, it is evident that the scope of their
operations must be considerably restricted. At no time is it possible
for them to be more than fourteen days away from their coal base. In
case of necessity they might coal at sea, if coal storeships accompany
the fleet to which they are attached. The adoption of oil fuel, which
can be stored in the double bottom, may increase the range at which
these vessels can operate, and if, as is expected in the near future,
destroyers driven by internal combustion engines are adopted, their
range of action will prove more extensive still.
[Illustration: H.M. TORPEDO BOAT DESTROYER “TARTAR.” TURBINE DRIVEN,
SPEED 35 KNOTS. _Photograph supplied by Messrs. J. Thornycroft & Co.,
Ltd._]
[Illustration: H.M. TORPEDO BOAT DESTROYER “MAORI.” _Photograph
supplied by W. Denny & Brothers, Dumbarton._]
German and British rivalry in the production of faster destroyers
and torpedo boats has resulted in the production of two types, each
peculiarly suitable to the country to which it belongs; the British
vessels have been designed rather for the offensive, on the
principle perhaps that the truest defence is the swiftest attack, while
the German boats have become torpedo boats rather than destroyers, and
though capable of performing the duties of both roles, are considered
by British experts to be less destroyers than the British boats, which
are admittedly destroyers first and torpedo boats afterwards. By 1909
the tonnage of the British destroyers had reached 950 tons, the speed
being 27 knots. In that year, too, the Admiralty standardised its
vessels instead of leaving the contractors to design their own craft.
Oil fuel was tried in the small boats of these classes in the British
Navy in 1904 and for three years subsequently, but was dropped, only to
be taken up again in 1909, in which year Germany also experimented in
this direction. The armament of the British and German ships shows that
the destroyers of the latter are meant to be torpedo boat destroyers,
though it is contended that they could be more heavily and effectively
armed still than they are without interfering with their sea-going
qualities and speed. The British boats have probably the greater gun
power, while the German torpedo boats have the better torpedo power.
The scouts were a class introduced early in the present century,
intended to combine the advantages of a fast gunboat with the speed
of a small cruiser and the activity of a commerce destroyer. One of
the best examples is the _Adventure_, launched in 1904, of 2,940 tons,
whose engines of close upon 16,000 h.p. under forced draught give
her a speed of 25.4 knots. She is, moreover, powerfully armed for a
vessel of her lightness and speed, as she has ten 12-pounders and eight
3-pounders. The Americans in 1907 brought out the remarkable scout
cruiser _Salem_, built by the Fore River Company. She was a 24-knot
vessel, and though only of 4,640 tons displacement fully loaded, was
given a freeboard of 34 feet at the stem, 19 feet 8¼ inches amidships,
and 21 feet 6 inches at the stern, or higher than that of any vessel
then in the American navy, in order to give her excellent seagoing
qualities in all weathers, and a wide range of stability. She was built
of steel throughout, carried two torpedo tubes, and is heavily armed.
The crushing defeat of the Russians by the Japanese in both the naval
engagements of the war was brought about by the superior long-range
firing of the Japanese, whose big guns played havoc with the Russian
vessels.
The Battle of Tsushima resulted in the “all-big-gun one-calibre
battleship of high speed.” How this came about has been admirably
demonstrated by Lieut.-Commander Simms, of the United States Navy,
and chief of the American naval artillery department, in a remarkable
report on the battle and its influence on shipbuilding.
“Experiments have shown,” he wrote, “that it is exceedingly difficult
to hit an enemy at long range when the range is changing rapidly. This
is, of course, not true at short range, but at long ranges half the
danger spaces--those at which the gun sights must be set in order to
hit--are so small, say 50 yards. The bearing of these facts on naval
tactics is very important, since it means that, generally speaking,
you cannot make many hits at long range while you are manœuvring.
Conversely, you will not receive many hits at such a time, because,
when at short ranges, the most dangerous position in which a ship can
place itself is end-on to the enemy. It is usually assumed that this is
equally true at all ranges; but this is not the case, provided the rate
of change in fire is rapid.... From the point of view of the theory of
gun-fire alone it would be unwise to think of building a man-of-war
of any type having more than one calibre of gun in her main battery.
In other words, it may be said that the abandonment of the mixed
battery ships in favour of the all-big-gun one-calibre ship was
directly caused by the recognition of certain fundamental principles of
naval marksmanship developed by gunnery officers.”
[Illustration: U.S. SCOUT “SALEM.” _Photograph supplied by the Fore
River Shipbuilding Co._]
[Illustration: U.S. CRUISER “MAINE.” _Photograph supplied by the W.
Cramp & Sons, Ship and Engine Building Co., Philadelphia._]
There was no great heralding by trumpet-blast the arrival of the
_Dreadnought_. The true significance of this vessel only became
understood by degrees. The Admiralty kept its secret well: indeed,
it may be doubted if an Admiralty secret has ever been so well kept
before. A short paragraph in the papers was all that was vouchsafed for
the edification of the public or the naval experts of other nations.
It was known that a warship to bear the historic name of _Dreadnought_
was to be launched, but the public took it for granted that it was an
addition to some “programme” or other, and regarding modern battleships
as too wonderful and too full of mechanism to be comprehended by
ordinary mortals, was content to accept that much, and leave the
rest to the experts. But the naval experts of the other powers were
astounded when they learnt the march that Great Britain had stolen upon
them. They appreciated to the full the importance of the new era in
warship building which had been inaugurated, for they saw that England
had a lead which they could not overtake, and that with her splendid
resources she would be able to accept any challenge for rivalry for
first position which any power might offer. The _Dreadnought_ meant
that any other warship afloat was already rendered out of date. Her
gun-fire, as much by its weight as by the range of her guns, would
enable her to pick and choose where and when and how she would fight,
and her speed would enable her to prevent any ship, however powerful,
from shrinking from a combat if the _Dreadnought_ thought fit to insist
upon one. It was even recognised that she was a match for two or three
of the most powerful ships that could be brought against her, for her
big guns would be equal to theirs in hitting power, and their smaller
guns would be ineffective at the range at which she could fight. Again,
by concentrating a portion of her fire upon one of her antagonists she
would be able to crush it, and then turn her attention to the other
two with the odds as represented by gun-fire distinctly in her favour.
Some enthusiastic adherents of the _Dreadnought_ even went so far as to
assert that she was equal to half a dozen _Lord Nelsons_, but the more
extreme views of this nature were rather severely criticised. It was
not only in the number of big guns that the _Dreadnought_ exceeded all
previous ships, but in their penetrative quality also. Compared with
those of the _Majestic_ they are of about fifty per cent. greater power.
Lieut.-Commander Simms, however, was by no means the only one or the
first to hold the views explained in his report. They were entertained
by many authorities in other countries, and especially in England, and
the recognition by this country of the importance of the theory led to
the secrecy with which everything connected with the _Dreadnought_ was
invested.
One notable change introduced with the _Dreadnought_ was that she had
no intermediate or secondary armament. She carried ten 12-inch guns as
her main battery, and some smaller guns to repel torpedo attack, but
whereas the _Lord Nelson_ had twenty-nine anti-torpedo boat guns the
_Dreadnought_ had but five, depending rather upon her smaller armament
of twenty-four 3-inch quick-firers (12-pounders), and in addition she
had five under-water torpedo tubes.
[Illustration: H.M.S. “DREADNOUGHT.” _Photograph by Stephen Cribb,
Southsea._]
A Parliamentary Paper issued at the time described the arrangement of
her guns as follows:--
“In arranging for a uniform armament of 12-inch guns it became at
once apparent that a limitation to the number of guns that could be
usefully carried was imposed by considerations of the blast effect
of the guns on the crews of those guns adjacent to them. It is
obviously uneconomical to place the guns in such relative positions
that the blast of any single gun on any permissible training should
very seriously hamper the use of one or more of the remaining guns.
While it is recognised that broadside fire is held to be the most
important in a battleship, all-round fire is also considered of
great importance, since it lies in the power of an enemy to force an
opponent who is anxious to engage to fight an end-on action. In the
arrangement of armament adopted six of the guns are mounted in pairs
on the centre line of the ship; the remaining four guns are mounted in
pairs on the broadside. These eight 12-inch guns--80 per cent. of the
main armament--can be fired on either broadside, and four or possibly
six 12-inch guns--or 60 per cent. of the main armament--can be fired
simultaneously ahead or astern.
“In view of the mobility of modern torpedo craft, and considering the
special chances of torpedo attack toward the end of the action, it
was considered necessary to separate the anti-torpedo boat guns as
widely as possible from one another, so that the whole of them should
not be disabled by one or two heavy shells. This consideration led
the committee to recommend the numerous and yet widely distributed
armament of 12-pounder quick-firing guns of a new design and greater
power than those hitherto carried for use against torpedo craft.
In order to give the ship sea-going qualities and to increase the
command of her forward guns a forecastle is provided giving the ship
a freeboard forward of 28 feet, a higher freeboard than has been
given to any modern battleship. The main armoured belt has a maximum
thickness of 11 inches, tapering to 6 inches at the forward and 4
inches at the after extremity of the vessel; the redoubt armour
varies in thickness from 11 inches to 8 inches; the turrets and
fore conning tower are 11 inches thick, and the after conning tower
is 8 inches thick. The protective deck varies from 1¾ inches to 2¾
inches in thickness. Special attention has been given to safeguarding
the ship from destruction by under-water explosion. All the main
transverse bulkheads below the main deck--which will be 9 feet above
the water-line--are unpierced except for the purpose of leading pipes
or wires conveying power. Lifts and other special arrangements are
provided and give access to various compartments. Mobility of force
is of prime necessity in war. The greater the mobility the greater
the chance of obtaining a strategic advantage. This mobility is
represented by speed and fuel endurance. Superior speed also gives the
power of choosing the range. To gain this advantage the speed designed
for the _Dreadnought_ is twenty-one knots.”
Turbines were decided upon because it was held that their adoption
conferred certain advantages which more than counterbalanced their
disadvantages. Compared with reciprocating engines, they were said
to be lighter, to have a less number of working parts, to work more
smoothly and be more easily manipulated, and to be less liable to
breakdown. They were claimed also to show a saving in coal consumption
at high powers, and to require less boiler-room space and a smaller
number of engineers to look after them. Another important consideration
was that turbines could be placed lower in the ship. The point
which chiefly occupied the committee was the question of providing
sufficient stopping and turning power for quick and easy manœuvring. A
series of experiments with pairs of sister ships, fitted respectively
with reciprocating and turbine engines, and also at the Admiralty
experimental works at Haslar, influenced the Admiralty in their
decision in favour of turbines. The _Dreadnought’s_ bunker capacity is
2,700 tons, with which she could steam 5,800 sea miles at economical
speed, or 3,500 sea miles at 18½ knots, due allowance being made for
extra consumption in bad weather, and for a small quantity being left
in the bunkers. Oil fuel was not taken into account in estimating the
ship’s radius of action, but a considerable quantity was arranged
for and would, of course, greatly increase her effectiveness in this
respect.
Another innovation in this remarkable ship was in the rearrangement of
the principal officers’ quarters. Hitherto they had been accommodated
as far as possible from the conning tower, where their most important
duties were performed, but in this ship the admiral’s and captain’s
quarters are placed on the main deck forward, near the conning tower.
The officers’ quarters also are placed forward, both on the main deck
and on the upper deck. Ample accommodation for the remainder of the
crew is available on the main and lower decks aft.
Space does not permit--and to attempt it would be out of place in
a book of this character, which does not profess to do more than
indicate the general lines upon which the world’s warships have
developed--of a detailed account of all the ships which have followed
the _Dreadnought_. Some idea of the wonderful progress that has been
made may be obtained from a comparison of the _Dreadnought_ herself and
one of her latest successors, the battleship _Orion_, in the matter
of armament. The _Dreadnought_ could fire on the broadside eight
guns of 12-inch calibre, throwing projectiles of 850 lb. weight, her
weight of broadside being 6,800 lb. The _Orion_ has ten guns on the
broadside having a calibre of 13½ inches, and throwing projectiles of
1,250 lb. in weight, the weight of broadside being 12,500 lb. Now,
if we take the ships intended to be able to take their place in the
line of battle since 1906, we find the evidence of development to be
equally startling. The dimensions of the _Lord Nelson_ and _Agamemnon_
have already been referred to, and are of exceptional interest in
this connection as showing the type of vessel the _Dreadnought_
superseded. This vessel herself was exceeded slightly in displacement
by the _Bellerophon_, _Temeraire_, and _Superb_, which had sixteen
anti-torpedo boat 4-inch guns, as against the twenty-seven 12-pounders
of the _Dreadnought_. The _St. Vincent_, completed in 1909, and her
sisters the _Vanguard_ and _Collingwood_, completed in 1910, are 500
feet in length by 84 feet beam, and have a displacement of 19,250 tons,
and engines of 25,400 h.p.; their armoured belt is 9¾ inches thick
amidships, tapering fore and aft to 6½ inches, while the armour of the
barbettes is 11 inches in thickness, and the protective deck is 2¾
inches. They have the same number of big guns and torpedo tubes, but
the number of the 4-inch anti-torpedo guns was increased to twenty,
and they also had six Maxims. In 1911 the _Colossus_, _Hercules_ and
_Neptune_ were launched, and showed a very great advance on those
immediately before them. Their length was increased to 510 feet, and
they were 86 feet in the beam and of 20,250 tons displacement, and
their engines developed 25,000 h.p. Their armour was more powerful,
as their water-line belt amidships was 10 inches thick, tapering to 8
inches forward and 7 inches aft; their armament was the same. These
three ships were given conning towers with 11-inch armour. There
were also launched in 1911 the _Orion_, _Thunderer_, _Monarch_, and
_Conqueror_, built respectively at Portsmouth, Blackwall, Elswick
and Dalmuir. These four vessels are so much larger and heavier than
preceding ships of the all-big-gun type that they have been claimed
as inaugurating another class. They carry ten 13.5 inch guns, which
include the famous “12-inch A,” in five barbettes, all of which are
on the centre line of the ship. These four vessels are each 545 feet
in length between perpendiculars, and 584 feet over all, and have a
beam of 88 feet 6 inches. The weight of the _Orion_ at launching was
about 8,000 tons, and her estimated load displacement is 22,500 tons.
Her engines, developing 27,000 shaft h.p., are Parsons turbines,
driving four shafts and screws, each having a turbine for ahead and
astern, the ship having a nominal speed of 21 knots, which is expected
to be exceeded. She has eighteen water-tube boilers, and can carry,
besides 2,700 tons of coal, 1,000 tons of oil in her double bottom
tanks. Her armour varies from 12 inches to 4 inches. Under ordinary
circumstances the arrangement adopted for the guns would restrict
their direct ahead and astern fire very materially, and in order to
overcome this difficulty and double the gun-fire ahead or astern, the
second and fourth pairs of guns are raised to fire above the others.
Besides increasing the effectiveness of the end-on fire, it will also
add materially to the weight of the broadside fire, as, the guns
being on a different level, there will be less of what is known as
the interference of one pair of guns with another, and the air will
become clear the sooner so that the gunners will be able to take a more
accurate aim than would otherwise be possible. There are also sixteen
anti-torpedo 4-inch guns.
[Illustration: H.M.S. “NEPTUNE.” _Photograph by Stephen Cribb,
Southsea._]
[Illustration: H.M. SUPER-DREADNOUGHT “COLOSSUS.” _Photograph by
Stephen Cribb, Southsea._]
The _Orion_ has about 2,000 tons more displacement than the _Neptune_,
and this has enabled her to carry the heavier guns. She has one
elevated tripod mast which is provided with wireless telegraphy
apparatus. Her two funnels are of more than usual height, and steam
is generated in a series of water-tube boilers. To summarise, by
way of contrast, the armament arrangement of these ships, it may be
said that the _Dreadnought_, the three _Bellerophons_, and the three
_St. Vincents_ have six 12-inch guns in three turrets on the middle
line of the ship, and two in a turret on either wing. The _Neptune_,
_Colossus_, and _Hercules_ have their wing turrets _en echelon_, so
that ten guns can be trained on either side. The _Orions_ have all
their guns on the centre line of the ship. Which of these systems is
the best has been keenly debated. Experiments in gun-fire are being
carried out to ascertain it, but the true test can only be warfare, and
even then much will depend on the circumstances of the battle and on
the men behind the guns.
The _Hercules_ was the first of her class to be given only one mast.
Of the centre-line turrets, one is forward and the other two are aft,
and of these two the foremost can fire over that aft of it. This
arrangement of the turrets makes it possible for ten of these immense
guns to be fired on either broadside. There are also twenty 4-inch
quick-firers and three submerged 21-inch torpedo tubes. Her maximum
coal capacity is 2,700 tons and she can also carry oil fuel in her
double bottom. She is a sister vessel to the _Neptune_ and _Colossus_.
These three vessels are protected against attack by aerial warships.
Like all the rest of the _Dreadnoughts_, the _Neptune_ was constructed
in unusually quick time, only two years elapsing from the laying of the
keel until she was ready for being commissioned. She has been described
as a 30 per cent. improvement on the _Dreadnought_, but the rapidity of
her construction made her a cheaper vessel than the other, her cost per
ton of displacement working out at £86.85, as against £101.29 for the
_Dreadnought_.
The _Monarch_ took the water with a launching weight of about 11,500
tons, a record for a warship, after having been just a year on the
stocks. This weight included the main structure, the boilers, funnels,
funnel uptakes, casings, and a large quantity of auxiliary machinery
and armour. Her eighteen boilers weighed 23 tons each, and her two
funnels, which are 53 feet high above the upper deck, weigh 18 tons
apiece. The deck-houses and bridges were also in place, and she was
in other respects in a forward condition. The whole of the work was
carried out in 220 working days. This shows what can be done in the
private ship-building yards of this country. Builders of warships
now find it more economical to put as much work as possible into the
hull before launching it, modern dockyard methods rendering this
comparatively easy. A great boiler is raised bodily and lifted into
position without trouble, and even items weighing 20 to 30 tons or more
are lifted and deposited where wanted with no more trouble than if
they weighed so many hundredweights.
Mention has been made in earlier pages of such splendid vessels as the
_Hood_, _Trafalgar_, _Nile_ and _Royal Sovereign_, all of which in
their day, not so long past, were considered to be unsurpassed, and
by some to be unsurpassable. Their fighting efficiency is as great as
the day they were launched, yet these and many others, equally good
vessels, have been removed from the list of the Navy as obsolete and
ere long will retire ingloriously to the scrap-heap. All these vessels
have been launched since 1890, and however much one may deplore that
such fine ships should be discarded, there is no denying that they are
hopelessly outclassed by the _Dreadnoughts_, and that a dozen of them
would not be a match for one of the latest _Orions_. Yet more than one
of them was hailed as the last word in battleships, and there were some
who asserted that they would prove to be the last big armoured ships to
be built, as torpedo craft and protected cruisers would constitute the
navies of the future. But that prophecy was made before the Battle of
Tsushima was fought, and the lessons it taught were learnt.
Protests by naval men against the relegation of these ships to the
lists of the useless have been frequent, and it has been contended
that some of these fine old battleships could have been sent to the
Colonies to act as harbour-defence vessels. But the Colonies have shown
no disposition to be satisfied with anything under the best that money
can buy, and they have contended that if a ship be out of date it is no
use to them, especially as any hostile power sending a ship out against
them would probably send one of the best and newest and most powerful.
The compound armour produced in 1879 enabled the thickness of armour
carried to be reduced to 18 inches, and proved equal to the attacks
of the 80-ton gun of the period, but was ultimately beaten by heavier
guns and improved projectiles. All-steel armour was introduced in
1890, and was followed in 1892 by the super-carburising and subsequent
chilling of the face of plates made of nickel steel. Five years later
steel plates were made yet harder, until the 9-inch plate of the modern
battleship was equal to a 13-inch plate of the early hardened type; or
a 20-inch compound plate of the ’eighties, or a 26-inch wrought-iron
plate of the ’sixties.[59]
The modern 12-inch gun, it has been pointed out, with a muzzle velocity
of 2,859 feet per second, can penetrate the thickest armour on any of
the ships of the _Majestic_ class at a range of 12,700 yards; the ships
of the _Duncan_ class would suffer at about the same range; that of
the _Ocean_ class would be penetrated at 13,350 yards; and that of the
_Formidables_ at over 11,000 yards. The broadside water-line belt of
any of these ships could be perforated by the same gun at any range up
to the limit of observation. On the other hand, the primary guns of the
ships of the classes named could only perforate the water-line belt of
the _Dreadnoughts_ at from 7,000 to 9,000 yards range, the former being
the range of the _Oceans_ for this purpose. The modern ship could smash
the others without receiving a hit in return. Even if they did succeed
in getting close enough to use their heavier guns and the 6-inch guns
as well, they would be exposed to the risk of a much severer blow in
return. This is not the only consideration. Rapidity of gun-fire has
to be taken into account. The _Majestic’s_ four 12-inch guns can only
fire six rounds each in ten minutes or twenty-four rounds in all in
that time, and the other three classes named could fire forty rounds
per ship in a ten minutes’ action. The _Dreadnoughts_ of 1906-7 could
reply with 120 rounds, and the latest type of _Dreadnought_ with 150
rounds, using the 12-inch guns, and of course the disparity would be
even greater with the newest guns.[60]
[Illustration: BRAZILIAN BATTLESHIP “MINAS GERAES,” SHOWING DECK AND
SUPERIMPOSED TURRETS. _Photograph supplied by Sir W. G. Armstrong,
Whitworth & Co., Ltd._]
The rapidity of fire of the large guns has been greatly increased of
late years, and compared with the destructive effects inflicted by some
of the guns they have superseded, notwithstanding that the changes
were not brought about without encountering some opposition, the new
guns are held to have justified their selection to the fullest. The
experiments made in firing on old battleships have shown what the guns
then considered sufficient could accomplish, and as the muzzle velocity
and muzzle energy and the other scientific data could all be calculated
to a nicety, and the effects on certain constructions of armour when
struck by projectiles of certain shapes and weights could be estimated
approximately and verified by actual experiment, it became really a
question for the gun-makers whether they could produce a weapon which,
at the range at which modern actions at sea are likely to be fought
in the future, would be able to penetrate the heaviest armour which
could be placed on a battleship of known displacement. This problem
has exercised the artillerists of all nations with naval aspirations,
particularly those of Great Britain, Germany, Italy and the United
States, and of recent years Japan. Austria has usually been content
to follow the lead of Germany in this respect, and the other powers,
such as the South American States, China, and the smaller European
States, have had to content themselves with the advice of the experts
in the gun-manufacturing countries, except when political necessities
and diplomatic pressure have regulated their choice for them, to the
financial advantage of the vendors. Some of the most powerful warships
afloat have been designed by private firms, notably those built
at Barrow, or on the Tyne, or at Liverpool, for the South American
States, the _Minas Geraes_ and her two sisters being conspicuous
examples. These vessels have each twelve 12-inch guns, twenty-two 4.7
quick-firers, and eight 3-pounder quick-firers, and four torpedo tubes.
Their displacement is 19,250 tons, their horse-power indicated 24,500,
and their speed 21 knots.
The other nations made up their minds that they must follow the lead
that England had set, and have _Dreadnought_ ships as good as hers or
better. The naval architects of the powers have since been engaged
in a struggle to surpass each other and England in particular. The
name-ship has been so much improved upon in recent designs that she is
as inferior to the last of the super-_Dreadnought_ battleships as the
displaced pre-_Dreadnoughts_ were to her.
One American legislator, unaware of the historical significance of the
name of the _Dreadnought_, suggested at Washington that the United
States should “go one better” by building the “United States warship
_Skeered-o’-Nothing_,” with thirty or forty guns--a few big guns more
or less apparently did not matter to this naval humorist--and let
England see that there was a flag called “Old Glory” which could also
brave the battle and the breeze. The suggestion was a sample of that
peculiar humour, now, happily, almost moribund, in the Great Republic,
and usually estimated at its proper value; it was taken seriously,
however, in some quarters, and it was shown to be impossible to build
a vessel which should carry forty guns larger than those of the
_Dreadnought_, and be faster.
[Illustration: U.S.S. “NORTH DAKOTA.” _From a Photograph by permission
of the Fore River Shipbuilding Co., U.S.A._]
Modern American battleships have attracted more than ordinary attention
by the daring character of the innovations the naval architects
of that country have not hesitated to introduce. The armament of
the _Kearsarge_ and _Kentucky_ was extremely powerful, and its
arrangement was unique. There were two turrets with walls 13 inches
thick, each containing two 13-inch guns; and above each of these
turrets was a smaller turret with 9-inch walls, in which were two
8-inch guns. This gave two two-storeyed turrets with four guns to each;
either pair of guns could be fired independently of the other pair,
but they could not be aimed independently, and when it was necessary
to turn the turret all four guns had to go with it. This experiment,
though apparently excellent in theory, did not prove satisfactory in
practice, and the designs for subsequent vessels which were to have
had similar turrets were altered. Other nations have not taken kindly
to the idea, and have not adopted it, and too many objections have
been raised to the proposal that the upper and lower turrets should
be constructed so as to revolve independently of each other for this
plan to be given serious trial. Some of the American vessels have
been fitted with what are known as lattice masts, or miniature Eiffel
towers. It is claimed for them that they are of great strength for
their weight, and that they are less likely than the military mast
or the tripod mast to be utterly destroyed by gun-fire. The naval
authorities of the other powers are interested but not converted.
When the _Dreadnought_ was launched, the Americans replied with the
ships of the _Delaware_ class, of 20,000 tons and carrying ten 12-inch
guns. The French had done very little for some time in the building of
big ships, seeming to prefer smaller ships in greater number, but they
too fell into line and built the _Danton_ and others. The _Danton_ was
built in four years, which contrasts favourably with the seven years
spent on some French ships.
Germany, in constructing her modern fleet, had to bear in mind that the
waters round her coasts are rather shallow, but she has produced some
splendid ships of great fighting power and high speed. She has some
ships under construction more powerful than any at present in her navy,
and one of these--the cruiser _Moltke_--is expected to be quite as good
as anything England or America can show.
So great has been the demand for _Dreadnoughts_, that at the beginning
of this year, for Great Britain alone, there were built or building no
fewer than twenty-two, and arrangements had been made for laying down
five more; while for foreign powers there have been constructed, or
were still in the builders’ hands, up to January last, the enormous
total of sixty. The average cost of these vessels has not been much
short of a couple of millions sterling, and some have cost fully
£2,300,000. The _Dreadnought_ type has admittedly not reached its
maximum development yet, and it may well be asked, where is it to stop?
At present battleships of a somewhat smaller type are being advocated.
What will be the type of the battleship of the future? Revolutionary
as have been the developments in the nineteenth century, great as have
been the changes in the last twenty-five years, marvellous as has been
the adaptation of scientific discoveries and appliances to the means
for conducting naval warfare, it would be an idle boast for anyone to
say that he can see finality. The dream to render war impossible by
the introduction of some dread weapon has been entertained by many
inventors, but never a one of them has seen its fulfilment. When
steam-driven armoured warships were proposed, there were not wanting
those who declared that henceforth fleets of wooden walls were doomed,
and that naval war would become an impossibility. Yet the wooden
walls have passed away, the nations unanimously adopted the newer
methods, and the contingency of naval war must ever be provided for.
The heavily armoured iron ship, carrying few guns of enormous power,
came; and when at last it was found that were the armour made much
thicker the ship would sink under the weight of her own protection and
armament, and that guns could be constructed to smash that armour,
again the hope was entertained that the limit had been reached, that
naval warfare had become an impossibility, and that the world’s
highways on the vast and beautiful ocean should be devoted solely
to the purposes of commerce and peace. But science had already come
to the rescue and dispelled the illusion before it was half-formed.
Steel, at first gradually and then wholly, took the place of iron in
the building of ships, the production of guns, and the manufacture of
projectiles. Steel itself has been improved since it was made possible
by the Bessemer process, and Harveyised steel, Krupp steel, and steel
toughened with nickel or chrome or tungsten, or by what is known as
the Simpson process, have all been tried and have all proved their
value. The science of ballistics has made equal progress, and the
development of the resources of marine engineering are little short of
the miraculous. And the end is not yet!
There are guns in existence which at their maximum elevation will
hurl a projectile weighing not far short of three-quarters of a ton a
distance of 25 miles, and the projectile itself contains an explosive
charge more powerful and destructive than the heaviest charge which
could be placed in the heaviest gun which was fought in the Battle
of Trafalgar. The whole fleet which bombarded Alexandria would be
no match for the latest _Orion_, and the _Orion_ herself at no very
distant date will be removed from the list of effective ships as
obsolete, or as having only a doubtful fighting value. Scientific
development cannot be arrested, and the only hope is that some day
the inventions for war purposes will have become so terrible that
the dream of inventors that they have made war impossible will be
realised. In the meantime, science is seeking to surpass all its
present achievements. The marine steam engine, of whatever type, will
give way to the internal combustion engine of a type which will surpass
all the existing machinery as surely as the best turbines are ahead of
the old compound engines. The battleship of the future will have an
armament surpassing in effective range and penetrative power anything
at present afloat, and an armour as far in advance of the present
steel armour as that is ahead of the compound armour it but lately
supplanted. The adoption of the internal combustion engine will mean
the removal from the ship’s deck of the obstructions which now find a
place there. With no furnaces, there will be no funnels. An armoured
citadel, flush decked from end to end, has been prophesied as a coming
type in the early future, with one mast for signalling purposes and to
convey the wireless telegraphy apparatus, the necessary ventilators,
and the conning towers as the only breaks in the smoothness of the
deck. Submarine signalling, already in extensive use in warships and
the mercantile marine, is being improved beyond all comparison with
what it was a few years ago, and if the wireless apparatus be shot away
it will still be possible for a ship to signal by the other method over
a distance of some miles. Moreover, submarine signalling will enable
an admiral to judge how an enemy’s fire may be affecting a distant
ship of his own squadron. Size will be another feature of the coming
battleship, for in size lies one of the chief protections from the
attack of the most insidious and most to be feared naval weapons of
the present, as well as the future. The submarine ship will launch its
torpedo at a greater range as the propelling machinery of the torpedo
is strengthened, and, granted that the aim is true, the only hope the
great warship will have of surviving the explosion of the under-water
weapon will lie in the number of compartments into which her dimensions
will permit of her hull being subdivided or her double bottom to
accommodate, thereby restricting the area of the damage and limiting
the inrush of water.
The torpedo itself is destined to play a part more important than has
yet fallen to its lot in war. Not only will it be launched from the
tubes of the battleship or cruiser or destroyer at the distant foe, but
it will be dirigible, controlled and steered by wireless telegraphy,
and extra speed, or counter explosion, or gun-fire, or the disablement
of the vessel sending it forth will alone be the means of rendering it
ineffective. Torpedo nets may be of value when ships are at anchor or
travelling slowly, but not at any other time.
The submarine will not be the only danger to be guarded against from
an unexpected quarter. The aeroplane and airship will play their
parts in the next naval war. Experiments have already been tried in
starting a flight of an aeroplane from a platform at the bows of an
American warship, and this being accomplished, it is not too much to
anticipate that aeroplanes for purposes of observation or attack may
become part of the equipment of every battleship or large cruiser. The
flying machine will drop its bomb on the deck of the attacked vessel,
if the aviator has the good fortune to aim sufficiently straight,
but whether the dropped explosive will do much harm will depend on
whether the deck is comparatively flat as at present, or is curved
like the modern protective deck, or has a bomb-proof turtle back
covering it entirely. Will the battleship of the future, then, be
an immense cylindrical-backed hull, with one mast or none, innocent
of funnels, leaving no trace of smoke behind her, and rushing at a
speed of a railway train as she belches forth with almost unerring
precision terrible explosives at a similar enemy so far distant as to
be barely discernible on the horizon? Are we to see cruisers as much
faster than the battleship, as the present cruiser is than the present
_Dreadnought_? If, as is asserted to be possible, the battleship of
twenty years hence will attain a speed of 30 knots under internal
combustion engines, armed with weapons showing a corresponding advance
in power and range and penetration, will the cruiser of that time
cover its 40 or 45 knots, and the destroyer hurl itself forward at
even greater speed to explode its torpedo, also correspondingly more
destructive and deadly than now, at its foes? Will the aeroplane enable
the whereabouts of the submarine to be more easily detected than
now? It sounds like a confusion of ideas that such a thing should be
suggested, but it is a well-established fact that it is possible to
see further into the open sea from a height above it than when close
to the surface. If the cruising aeroplane can detect and reveal the
submarine to the battleship, the submarine will be robbed of half its
terrors, and if the aeroplane can drop an explosive sufficiently near
to the submarine it is not improbable that the career of the latter
will be terminated instantly. The same fate may await the submarine
as the result of the aeroplane signalling its whereabouts, for recent
experiments have shown that it is possible for a warship to sink a
submarine by gun-fire, even when the latter is several feet under the
surface, the victim in this case being the ill-fated A1. Thus, it is
not at all improbable that the under-water craft may find the swift
aeroplane its greatest and most to be dreaded enemy. The aeroplane will
be attacked by other aeroplanes, and aerial navies may yet be seen
“grappling in the central blue,” fighting their battles on their own
account and so high among the clouds as to be almost out of reach of
the guns which might be directed against them. Are these ideas but
visions and day dreams? It is impossible to say. Yet they have one and
all been enunciated by naval experts and strategists. Whether these are
the lines upon which the navy of the not distant future will operate,
time alone will show. Events point in their direction. But one thing
is assured, and that is that, marvellous as have been the developments
in the last twenty-five years, it will indeed be strange if the
developments of the next twenty-five years do not surpass them.
INDEX
Adherence to sail after adoption of steam, 120, 122
Admiralty:
Adoption of steam power and iron armour, 146;
builds its first steamer, 89;
attachment to wooden ships, 256;
first iron steamship, 99
Advance towards _Dreadnought_ gun arrangement, 251
Advice boats, 59
Aeroplane _v._ Submarine, 329;
and warships, 329
African war canoes, 24
Alexander the Great’s State visit to Neptune, 289
Alexandria, Bombardment of, 214 _et seq._;
the defences, 215;
British ships’ weight of broadsides, 216;
damage caused by British fire, 217-9;
Egyptian and British losses, 218
“All-big-gun” one calibre ships (_see_ _Dreadnoughts_)
All-round fire, 164
(_see_ _Dreadnoughts_)
America:
first modern cruisers, 223;
frigates, 60, 105, 124;
navy, 60, 61;
turret-ship’s Atlantic voyage, 188;
warships sold to Europe, 189
American Civil War:
_Atlanta_ sunk by _Weehawken_, 134;
_Albemarle_ (Confederate ram) sunk by improvised torpedo boat, 134;
_Tennessee_ (Confederate) designed as ironclad ram, 134;
battle with Union fleet, 135;
_David_, 136;
_Ironsides_ attacked by, 136;
improvised gunboats, 137;
innovations, 104;
“tinclads,” 137
(_see also_ _Alabama_, _Merrimac_, _Monitor_)
Ammunition tubes, 174;
hoists, 277
Ancient Egyptian warships, 2, 3, 4
Antiquity of naval warfare, 2
Anti-torpedo boat armament: rate of fire, 304
“Anti-war shell,” 268
Arab dhow, 33, 37
Archers on shipboard, 19;
fighting tops for, 41, 48
Armour:
_Agamemnon_ (1906) 8-in. armour equal to 12-in. four years
earlier, 253;
_Hercules’_, impenetrable, 159;
value of, proved at Lissa, 157;
concentration of, at sides, 119;
increased thickness, 162;
French, 163;
_Warrior_, _Devastation_ and _Hercules_ compared, 162, 163;
_Inflexible’s_, 2 ft. thick, 176;
limit, 176;
belts, 165;
Armstrong-Whitworth competition, 275;
on deflective principle, 242;
targets, 275;
steel and iron compared, 267, 277;
developments, 321;
_Rossia’s_ in Japanese battle, 259;
tests with H.M.S. _Ruby_, 100;
iron plates superposed, 100;
rolled armour plates for Crimean War, 100;
steel, 20 inches thick, 246;
compound belt, 18 inches thick, 247;
Harveyised steel, 247, 248
Armour-cased screw frigate, 194
“Armour-patched” ship, 121
Armour plate experiments, 183, 266, 268, 269, 270;
“impregnable armour plating,” 269;
Italian experiments at Spezzia, 276
Armour plates:
_Warrior’s_ costly, 118;
tests, 118;
_Black Prince’s_, 121;
_Glutton’s_, 183
(_see_ Armour _and_ Artillery)
Armoured bow citadel, 148;
bulkheads, 119, 148
Armoured frigates, 118, 181
Armoured ships (_see also_ Floating Batteries):
French Emperor decides to use against Russian forts, 109;
French floating batteries, 109, 110;
first iron-clad citadel ship in Europe, 109;
similar floating batteries built by British, 110;
objections to retention of, after Crimean War, 115;
Royal Commission (1858) reports French building four
iron-plated ships, 117;
_Gloire_, battleship, converted to armoured frigate, 117;
Britain’s reply with the _Warrior_, 118
Armstrong breech loaders, 148
Armstrong, Sir W., 274
Artillery:
Chinese, 35;
firearms introduced into western Europe, 39;
cannon introduced, first used in naval warfare, early guns,
method of mounting, chambers for, 40;
brass guns, 48;
heavy Russian at Sinope, 106;
ditto at Sebastopol and Cronstadt, 107;
rivalry between guns and armour, 108;
150-pounders, 300-pounders, 152;
12½-ton gun, 158;
80-ton gun, 176;
100-ton guns, 178;
111-ton guns, 245;
12-inch guns, 247, 277, 282, 283;
13½-inch guns, 247;
15-inch guns, 282;
6-inch quick firers, 247;
quick firers introduced, 274;
breech loaders, 148, 244, 265, 270, 271, 275, 269;
hydraulic machinery, 171, 174;
loading by machinery, 174, 278-81;
guns loaded at any elevation, 278-81;
rifling: polygonal, 274;
increasing twist, 274;
difficulties attending, 265, 270, 274, 275;
Whitworth rifled gun, 267;
Whitworth hexagonal, 171;
windage, 265, 274;
cast-iron rifled guns, 265;
wrought-iron rifled guns, 265;
steel rifled guns, 265, 266;
malleable iron gun, 266;
smoothbores rifled, 275;
uniform rifling, 283;
Bessemer steel guns, 266;
steel tubes, 266;
steel guns adopted for the Navy, 266;
muzzle-loading rifled gun, 176;
competitive experiments with Armstrong and Whitworth guns, 267, 275;
Whitworth gun range, 268;
British Government declines competition between muzzle loader and
Whitworth breech loader, 269;
pivoted guns, 126, 175, 273;
Armstrong-Woolwich gun, 164, 153, 271, 272;
Dahlgren, 126, 131, 189, 190;
adapted to Paixhan system of shell firing, 126;
Hontoria, 227;
Stockton-Ericsson, 128, 139;
Parrott, 137;
Paixhan, 110, 126;
Rodman, 159, 190, 269, 270;
Mackay, 270;
Fraser’s cheap construction muzzle-loading, 271;
French and English methods of working big guns, 277-8;
manufacture, 282;
underwater guns, 292;
columbiads, 292-3;
hexagonal bore, 270;
energy, 270, 272;
dimensions, 272-3;
wire guns, 273;
rapid fire, 273, 274, 279;
turntable, 159;
heavy guns in barbettes introduced, 244;
sponsons, 96, 126;
blast, 249;
46-ton wire gun more powerful than 110½-ton gun, 249;
record weight of discharge prior to _Dreadnoughts_, 177;
Spezzia experiments, 178;
anti-torpedo boat guns, 176, 248;
greater security through breech loading, 280;
superiority of 12-inch gun over those prior to 1906, 252;
range of _Dreadnought’s_ guns, 262;
25-miles range, 268;
length in proportion to calibre, 283
Assouan (Syene) Expedition, 3
Australian bark canoe, 23
Austrian fleet at Lissa, 153
Auxiliary steam: three-deckers, 105
Ballingers, 43
Baltic and Crimean campaigns, 104, 114, 115;
Sea of Azof, 113
Banked ships, 7
Barbary pirates, 74
Barbette ships of high displacement, 248;
freeboard, 247
Barbettes and turrets, 244
Barton, Sir Andrew, and family, 49
Basket-work boats, 6, 15
Basket-work shields, 6
Battle between steam fleet and sailing fleet, 106
Battles:
Acre, 94;
Copenhagen, 64;
“Glorious First of June,” 64;
La Hogue, 59;
La Rochelle, 40;
Lissa, 152;
Ramming at, 153, 155, 157;
Losses, 156;
Migdol, 4;
Min River, 224;
Navarino, 64;
Sinope, 106;
Sluys, 40;
Trafalgar, 64;
Tsushima, 238-9
(_see also_ _Huascar_, _Merrimac_, _Monitor_, American Civil War,
Spanish American War)
Battleship of the future, 328-31
Battleship-cruisers, 254, 255, 261, 262
Battleship’s greatest enemy, 285
Beardmore and Sons, 252
Beardmore, Mr., on armour progress, 253
Beginning of the English Navy, 44
_Bellatorium_ (fighting castle), 20
Beresford, Lord Charles, and Egyptian gunner, 218