compartments, fore and aft. She had a double bottom amidships,
considerably subdivided (fifty-seven of the compartments), but no
double bottom in the modern sense.
The _Warrior’s_ engines, by Penn, were horizontal single expansion.
On trial they developed 5,267 I.H.P., and the then excellent speed of
14.079 knots.[92] Her six hours’ sea speed trial resulted in a mean
5,092 H.P. and 13.936 knots.
[Illustration:
FRENCH LA GLOIRE
WARRIOR & BLACK PRINCE
HECTOR
ACHILLES
MINOTAUR
NORTHUMBERLAND
EARLY BRITISH BROADSIDE IRONCLADS]
Save for her unprotected steering gear, the _Warrior_ may be described
as a brilliant success for her era. She was launched on December 29th,
1860, and completed in the following year. The _Black Prince_ was
completed in 1862.
The _Warrior_ and _Black Prince_, under a system which long endured in
the British Navy, were followed by a certain number of diminutives, of
which the first were the _Defence_ and _Resistance_, of 6,150 tons,
with speeds of just under 12 knots, and an armament of 16 guns. The
armour was the same, but the battery protection was extended fore and
aft, so that all guns were inside it. These ships were completed in
1862.
Three more ships were projected, of which the _Hector_ and _Valiant_,
completed in 1864 and 1865, were of precisely the same type as the
_Resistance_, but displaced 6,710 tons, with about a knot more speed,
and carried a couple of extra guns.
A third ship, originally intended to have been of the same class, was
the _Achilles_, but, mainly owing to the influence of Mr. Reed (of whom
more anon), who pointed out the danger of unprotected steering gear,
her design was altered and a complete belt of 4½-inch armour given to
her instead of a partial one.
Those changes in the design, together with an increased horse-power
which produced on trial 14.32 knots, advanced the displacement of the
_Achilles_ to 9,820 tons, while the armament was brought up to fourteen
12-ton guns and two 6½-ton. The weight of armour was 1,200 tons.
The _Achilles_, like many another ship that was to follow her, was
the “last word” of her own day. No expense was spared in seeking to
secure a maximum of efficiency in her. As originally completed she
was a ship-rigged vessel, but with a view to improving her sailing
efficiency, this was subsequently altered to a four-masted rig, which
proved so little successful that eventually she reverted to three masts
again.
In the meantime the authorities were so pleased with the _Achilles_
that three improved editions of her were designed. They were not
completed until a new type of ship, which was completed before they
were, replaced them; but chronologically they followed close upon the
_Achilles_. They were laid down in 1861, and designed by Isaac Watts.
They were named _Agincourt_, _Minotaur_, and _Northumberland_. They
differed in minor details, but in substance were all about 1,000 tons
more than the _Achilles_, and their increased displacement mostly went
in one inch extra armour protection (5½-inch against 4½-inch).
As originally designed they were intended to mount seven 12-ton and
twenty 9-ton guns, but at a very early date the first two were given a
uniform armament of seventeen 12-ton. A small portion of this armament
of the upper deck was provided with armoured protection for right-ahead
fire.
[Illustration: THE _ACHILLES_ AS A FOUR-MASTER.
Photographed about 1866.]
In appearance they were magnificent ships, fitted with five masts.
Being 400 feet between perpendiculars they were the largest ships of
their time, and at sea always proved very steady under both sail and
steam.
These ships were the subject of violent disputes between the Controller
of the Navy and their constructor. The Controller insisted that they
were extravagantly large ships, as compared to French ships. The
constructor insisted that it was essential that for any given power and
protection a British ship must be larger than a foreign one, because of
her more extended probable duties, and the consequent necessity of a
larger coal supply.[93]
[Illustration: THE _MINOTAUR_, 1867, ORIGINAL RIG.]
At and about this period there were a number of wooden
ships-of-the-line building, which had been laid down from the year
1859 onwards. Following the French fashion, they were converted into
ironclads. These ships, displacing from 6,100 to 6,830 tons, were the
_Repulse_, _Royal Alfred_, _Zealous_ (laid down 1859), _Caledonia_,
_Ocean_, _Prince Consort_, _Royal Oak_ (1860).[94]
The upper-decks of these ships were removed, and they were fitted with
side armour, which was 4½ inches in the earliest to be treated, and 5½
inches in the latest. All of them carried sixteen 9-ton guns and four
6½-ton, with provision for ahead fire.
The experiment, though useful as a temporary expedient, was very
expensive, and several of the ships had to be lengthened before
anything could be done to them. None of them were very successful, and
most of them disappeared from the Navy List at an early date.
This ends the period of “broadside ironclads”; of the best of which it
may be said that they were nothing but efforts to adapt new ideals to
old methods.
XI.
THE REED ERA.
In 1862 Mr. (afterwards Sir) E. J. Reed, was appointed Chief
Constructor, and proceeded at once to produce the type of ship chiefly
associated with his name. His ideals ran in the direction of short,
handy ships of medium size, as heavily armed as possible, and with
a good turn of speed. His arguments in favour of these ideals he
afterwards described as follows:--[95]
“The merits of ironclad ships do not consist in carrying a large
proportion of weights to engine-power, or having a high speed in
proportion to that power; but rather in possessing great powers
of offence and defence, being comparatively short, cheap, and
handy, and steaming at a high speed, not in the most economical way
possible, but by means of a moderate increase of power on account
of the moderate proportions adopted in order to decrease the weight
and cost, and to increase the handiness.”
Generally speaking, his views were very revolutionary. The greatness of
Sir E. J. Reed lay in the fact that he was the first man to conceive of
the ironclad as a separate and distinct entity. Previously to him the
ironclad was merely an ordinary steamer with some armour plating on her.
[Illustration: SIR E. J. REED.
From a portrait made when he was Chief Constructor of the British Navy]
His first ship was the _Bellerophon_, of 7,550 tons displacement. She
embodied distinct novelties in the construction of her hull, described
by her designer in the following passages:--[95]
“The _Warrior_ and the earlier ironclads are constructed with deep
frames, or girders, running in a longitudinal direction through
the greater part of the length of the ship, combined with numerous
strong transverse frames, formed of plates and angle-irons,
crossing them at right angles. In fact, up to the height of the
armour the ship’s framing very closely resembles in its character
that of the platform or roadway of a common girder bridge, in
which the principal or longitudinal strength is contributed by
the continuous girders that stretch from pier to pier, and the
transverse framing consists of short girders fitted between and
fastened to the continuous girders. If we conceive such a platform
to be curved transversely to a ship-shape form, and the under
side to be covered with iron plating, we have a very fair idea of
the construction of the lower part of the _Warrior_. If, instead
of this arrangement, we conceive the continuous longitudinal
girders to be considerably deepened, and the transverse girders
to be replaced by so-called ‘bracket-frames,’ and then, after
curving this to a ship-form, add iron-plating on both the upper
and the under sides, we have a correspondingly good idea of
the construction of the lower part of the _Bellerophon_. The
_Bellerophon’s_ construction is, therefore, identical in character
with the cellular system carried out in the Menai and other tubular
bridges, which system has been proved by the most elaborate and
careful experiments to be that which best combines lightness and
strength in wrought-iron structures of tubular cross-section.
The _Warrior’s_ system, wanting, as it does, an inner skin of
iron--except in a few places, such as under the engines and
boilers--is not in accordance with the cellular system, and is
inferior to it in strength. As regards safety, also, no comparison
can be made between the system of the _Warrior_ and that of the
_Bellerophon_. If the bottom plating is penetrated, in most places
the water must enter the _Warrior’s_ hold, and she must depend for
safety entirely on the efficiency of her watertight bulkheads.
If the _Bellerophon’s_ bottom is broken through, no danger of
this kind is run. The water cannot enter the hold until the inner
bottom is broken through, and this inner bottom is not likely
to be damaged by an ordinary accident, seeing that it is two or
three feet distant from the outer bottom. Should some exceptional
accident occur by which the inner bottom is penetrated, the
_Bellerophon_ would still have her watertight bulkheads to depend
on, being, in fact, under these circumstances in a position
similar to that occupied by the _Warrior_ whenever her bottom
plating is broken through; while an accident which would prove
fatal to the _Warrior_ might leave the _Bellerophon_ free from
danger so long as the inner bottom remained intact.”
As to be related later, the _Vanguard_ disaster tended to contravert
this optimism--but of that further on. The point of present interest
is the recognition and establishment of a principle which, however
commonplace to-day, was in those days a complete novelty and a special
feature of the iron ship as a peculiar war entity.
Equally of interest, in some ways more so, are the following
anticipations of torpedo possibilities. The torpedo is such a familiar
thing to-day that it is hard to throw ourselves back into the point of
view necessary to appreciate the prophetic instincts of the man who
created the first vessels which can really be called “battleships.”
“It may be proper in this connection to draw attention to the
fact that the probable employment of torpedoes in a future naval
war has not been lost sight of in carrying out these structural
improvements. Up to the present time torpedoes have been used
almost solely for coast and harbour defence, and have, under
those circumstances, proved most destructive, as a glance through
the reports of the operations of the Federal Fleet at Charleston
and other Confederate ports will show. It is still doubtful,
however, whether these formidable engines of war can be supplied
with anything like the same efficiency at sea under the vastly
different conditions which they will there have to encounter.
The Americans have, it is true, proposed to fit torpedo-booms to
their unarmoured ocean-cruisers, such as the _Wampanoag_, and
a naval war would doubtless at once bring similar schemes into
prominence. Nothing less than actual warfare can be expected to
set the question at rest; but whatever the result of such a test
may be, it is obviously a proper policy of construction to provide
as much as possible against the dangers of torpedoes; and it must
be freely admitted that the strongest ironclad yet designed,
although practically impenetrable by the heaviest guns yet
constructed, would be very liable to damage from the explosion of
a submerged torpedo. No ship’s bottom can, in fact, be made strong
enough to resist the shock of such an explosion; and the question
consequently arises: How best can the structure be made to give
safety against a mode of attack which cannot fail to cause a more
or less extensive fracture of the ship’s bottom, even if it does no
more serious damage? In our recent ships, as I have said, attempts
have been made to give a practical answer to this question.
Seeing that the bottom must inevitably be broken through by the
explosion of a torpedo which exerts its full force upon the ship,
it obviously becomes necessary to provide, as far as possible,
against the danger resulting from a great in-flow of water. This
is the leading idea which has been kept in view in arranging the
structural details of our ships to meet this danger, and the reader
cannot fail to perceive that the double bottom and watertight
subdivisions described above are as available against injury from
torpedoes as they are against the injuries resulting from striking
the ground.”
[Illustration: THE _BELLEROPHON_, COMPLETED 1866.]
Details of the _Bellerophon_ were as follows:--
Displacement--7,550 tons.
Length--300 ft. between perpendiculars.
Beam--56ft. 1in.
H.P.--6,520.
Mean Draught--26ft. 7ins.
Guns--Ten 12-ton M.L.R., five 6½-ton M.L.R. (changed in 1890 to ten
8-in. 14-ton B.L.R., four 6-in., six 4-in. ditto.)
Armour (iron)--Belt 6in., Battery 6in., Bulkhead 5in., Conning
tower 8in.
Speed--14.17 knots.
Coal--650 tons.
Launched--1865; completed, 1866.
Cost--Hull and machinery--£322,701.
The 12-ton guns were on the main deck, the 6½-ton on the upper deck,
two of them being in an armoured bow battery. The _Bellerophon_,
completed in 1866, was ship rigged, and carried the then novel
feature of an armoured conning tower, abaft the mainmast.[96] She
proved extremely handy, her turning circle being 559yds. as against
939yds. for the _Minotaur_ and 1,050yds. for the _Warrior_. A balanced
rudder, introduced in her for the first time, helped this result to
some extent; but the well thought-out design of this, the first real
“battleship,” was the main cause.
The _Bellerophon_ was followed by a series of “improved
_Bellerophons_,” which will be dealt with later. First, however, it is
necessary to revert to the coming of the turret-ship.
So long ago as the Crimean War Captain Cowper-Coles had introduced the
_Lady Nancy_, “gun-raft,” previously mentioned in connection with that
war. In the year 1860 his plans had matured sufficiently for him to
make public the designs of a proposed turret ship, with no less than
nine turrets in the centre line, each carrying two guns which were to
recoil up a slope and return automatically to position.
There has been much discussion in the past as to whether Coles or
Ericsson, the designer of the _Monitor_, first hit upon the turret-ship
idea. As a matter of fact neither of them invented it, as the idea
was first propounded in the 16th century, and “pivot guns” had long
existed. In so far as adapting the idea to modern uses is concerned,
Ericsson was first in the field, but his turret revolved on a spindle.
The merit of the Cowper-Coles design was that he evolved the idea of
mounting the turret on a series of rollers, thus making it of real
practical utility.
[Illustration: THE _ROYAL SOVEREIGN_, 1864.]
Coles’ ideal turret ship was not received officially with any great
show of enthusiasm; as a matter of fact it was an impracticable sort of
ship. The famous fight between the _Monitor_ and the _Merrimac_, early
in 1862, in the American Civil War, was, however, followed by a perfect
“turret craze.” Turret ships were popularly acclaimed as essential
to the preservation of British naval power. The idea of a sea-going
ship without sail power was unthinkable; but the turret ships for
coast defence purposes were demanded with such insistence that in 1862
Captain Coles, now more or less a popular hero, was put to supervise
the reconstruction of the old steam wooden line-of-battleship _Royal
Sovereign_ into a turret ironclad.
This ship was originally a three-decker. Coles cut her down to the
lower deck, leaving a freeboard of ten feet. The sides were covered
with 4½-inch iron armour. Four turrets were mounted on Coles’ roller
system, the forward turret carrying two and the other three one
12½-ton guns. These turrets were generally five inches thick, but at
the portholes were increased up to ten inches. They were rotated by
hand power. There was one funnel, in front of which a thinly armoured
conning tower was placed. Three pole masts were fitted. This ship was
completed in 1864, and was fairly successful on trials. The cost of
conversion was very heavy, and being wooden-hulled her weight-carrying
ratio was small, 1837 tons to 3,243 tons, weight of hull.
Coles was at no time satisfied with this old three-decker an a proper
test of his ideas, and his agitation was so far successful that the
_Prince Albert_ was presently built to his design. She was an iron
turret-ship, generally resembling the _Royal Sovereign_, though
carrying only one gun in each turret.
Particulars of her are:--
Displacement--3,880 tons.
Length--240ft. p.p.
Beam--48ft. 1in.
H.P.--2,130.
Mean Draught--20ft. 4ins.
Speed--11.65 knots.
Coal--230 tons.
Guns--Four 9-in. 12-ton M.L.R.
To the same era belong three armoured gunboats--_Viper_, _Vixen_, and
_Waterwitch_--of about 1,230 tons each, armed with a couple of 6½-ton
M.L.R. guns, armour 4½ins. The _Waterwitch_, which was slightly the
heavier, was fitted with a species of turbine, sucking water in ahead
and ejecting it astern (a very old idea revived). This was moderately
successful, as the trial speeds of the three were:--
_Viper_--8.89 knots.
_Vixen_--9.59 knots.
_Waterwitch_--9.24 knots.
In the _Vixen_ twin screws were for the first time tried.
The _Prince Albert_ was completed in 1866, the same year as the
_Bellerophon_. Long before she was completed, Coles was agitating for
the application of his principles to a sea-going masted ship.
[Illustration: THE _WATERWITCH_, COMPLETED 1867.]
Sir E. J. Reed has left it on record that his attitude in the matter
was that of an interested observer. He was at no time blind to the
advantages that the turret system conferred; but, unlike the Coles’
party, he was equally observant of its disadvantages. At a very
early date he threw cold water on the masted turret-ship idea, and
insisted that for a sea-going turret-ship to become practicable she
must be mastless. He further pointed out that for a given weight eight
guns could be mounted broadside fashion for four carried in turrets.
He developed his own ideas in the _Hercules_, laid down in 1866.
The _Hercules_, except that recessed ports were introduced to
supply something like end-on fire to the battery, was an amplified
_Bellerophon_. Particulars of the _Hercules_ (which was always a very
successful ship) are:--
Displacement--8,680 tons.
Length--325ft.
Beam--59ft. ½in.
Mean Draught--26ft. 6ins.
H.P.--6,750.
Guns--Eight 18-ton M.L.R., two 12½-ton M.L.R., four 6½-ton M.L.R.
Armour (iron)--9in. 6in. Belt and Battery.
Speed--14.00 kts. (14.69 on the measured mile trials).
Coal--610 tons.
Cost--Hull and machinery, £361,134.
The _Hercules_ was completed in 1868, contemporaneously with the
completion of the _Agincourt_ and _Northumberland_, which were very
slowly finished.
At and about the same time the _Penelope_ was built. She was designed
for light draught and river service, her maximum draught being kept
down to 17½ft. She carried eight 9-ton guns and had a 6-inch belt. Sir
E. J. Reed being absent from office, his chief assistant, afterwards
Sir N. Barnaby, was mainly responsible for this ship. She was given
twin screws.
Captain Coles meanwhile continued to demand turret-ships, and in 1865
submitted a design for a sea-going turret-ship, which was referred to a
Committee of Naval Officers. They declined to approve the design, but
expressed much interest in the principle involved, and recommended that
an Admiralty design on similar principles should be worked out, and a
ship built to it. This eventuated in the _Monarch_, which in substance
was an ordinary ironclad of less freeboard than usual (14ft.) with two
turrets on the upper deck, carrying each a pair of the heaviest guns
then in existence (25 tons).
[Illustration:
BELLEROPHON.
HERCULES.
AUDACIOUS.
SULTAN.
ALEXANDRA.
BROADSIDE AND CENTRAL BATTERY SHIPS OF THE REED ERA.]
It is difficult to ascertain what part (if any) Sir E. J. Reed had
in the design of the _Monarch_. At a later date in the work already
referred to (1869) he criticised her severely enough.[97]
“I have already intimated that the enlarged adoption of the turret
system has usually been associated in my mind with those classes
of vessels in which masts and sails are not required. It is well
known that others have taken a wider view of its applicability,
and have contended that it is, and has all along been, perfectly
well adapted for rigged vessels. I have never considered it wholly
inapplicable to such vessels: on the contrary, I have myself
projected designs of sea-going and rigged turret-ships, which I
believe to be safe, commodious, and susceptible of perfect handling
under canvas. But most assuredly the building of such vessels
was urged by many persons long before satisfactory methods of
designing them had been devised; and my clear and strong conviction
at the moment of writing these lines (March 31, 1869) is that no
satisfactorily designed turret-ship with rigging has yet been
built, or even laid down.
“The most cursory consideration of the subject will, I think,
result in the feeling that the middle of the upper deck of a
full-rigged ship is not a very eligible position for fighting
large guns. Anyone who has stood upon the deck of a frigate,
amid the maze of ropes of all kinds and sizes that surrounds
him, must feel that to bring even guns of moderate size away
from the port holes, to place them in the midst of these ropes,
and discharge them there, is utterly out of the question; and
the impracticability of that mode of proceeding must increase in
proportion as the size and power of the guns are increased. But
as a central position, or a nearly central position, is requisite
for the turret, this difficulty has had to be met by many devices,
some of them tending to reduce the number of the ropes, and others
to get them stopped short above the guns. In the former category
come tripod masts; in the latter, flying-decks over the turrets;
the former have proved successful in getting rid of shrouds, but
they interfere seriously with the fire of the turret guns, and are
exposed to the danger of being shot away by them in the smoke of
action; the latter are under trial, but however successful they
may prove in some respects, they will be very inferior in point of
comfort and convenience to the upper decks of broadside frigates.
In the case of the _Monarch_, which has a lofty upper deck, neither
a tripod system nor a flying deck for working the ropes upon has
been adopted. A light flying deck to receive a portion of the
boats, and to afford a passage for the officers above the turrets,
has been fitted; but the ropes will be worked upon the upper deck
over which the turrets have to fire, and consequently a thousand
contrivances have had to be made for keeping both the standing
and running rigging tolerably clear of the guns. It seems to me
out of the question to suppose that such an arrangement can ever
become general in the British Navy, especially when one contrasts
the _Monarch_ with the _Hercules_ as a rigged man-of-war. Nor is
the matter at all improved, in my opinion, in the case of the
_Captain_ and other rigged turret-ships in which the ropes have to
be worked upon bridges or flying-decks poised in the air above the
turrets. Such bridges or decks, even if they withstand for long the
repeated fire of the ship’s own guns, must of necessity be mounted
upon a few supports only; and I am apprehensive that in action an
enemy’s fire would bring down parts, at least, of these cumbrous
structures, with their bitts, blocks, ropes, and the thousand and
one other fittings with which a rigged ship’s deck is encumbered,
with what result I need not predict.