DESTROYERS
Except for the submarine the most prominent craft during the war has
undoubtedly been the destroyer.
All warships are in one sense destroyers, since it is their prime duty
to destroy other ships, so why should one particular kind of boat be
given this name specially? Like many other of the terms which we use it
is an abbreviation, a mere remnant of a fully descriptive title.
"Torpedo Boat Destroyer" is what these ships are called in the Navy
List.
Even that full title, however, only tells us what their original purpose
was: it leaves us very much in the dark as to the many various functions
which they perform.
The invention of the torpedo called for the construction of small boats
whereby the new weapon could be used to best advantage, and so we got
our torpedo boats. They in turn called forth another boat whose duty it
was to run down and destroy them, and in that way we get our destroyers.
From that bit of naval history we can almost see for ourselves what the
characteristics of the destroyers must be. They have to be bigger than
the torpedo boats, but as the latter were quite small the destroyers,
though larger, are still comparatively small craft, latterly of about
one thousand tons. Then they have to be very fast, in order to be able
to chase the others and, finally, they need one or two guns,
comparatively small so as not to overburden the ship and yet large
enough to dispose of anything of their own size or smaller.
Unquestionably, their greatest feature is their speed. They are the
fastest ships afloat, rivalling even a fairly fast train. Some of them
can exceed forty miles an hour. They are very active and nimble, too,
being able to turn in a comparatively small circle. For warships, too,
they are cheap, so that a commander can afford to risk losing a
destroyer when he would fear to risk another vessel. For all purposes
except the actual hard-hitting they are the most useful weapon which the
commander of the fleet possesses.
When the main fleet puts to sea a whole cloud of these smaller craft
hover round looking for submarines or for the surface torpedo boats
which might try to attack the large ships under cover of darkness, while
keeping a sharp look-out, too, for mines or any other kind of floating
danger, and thus they screen the more valuable ships.
Likewise do they convoy merchant ships sometimes, especially through
waters believed to be infested with submarines. They also sally forth on
little expeditions of their own, knowing that they can fight any craft
equally speedy and show a clean pair of heels to any heavier ships,
while by adroit use of their own torpedoes they may even "bag" a
cruiser or two.
They are pre-eminently the enemy of the submarine, for the under-water
boat is necessarily less active even when it is on the surface than they
are, so that a submarine caught by a destroyer stands a very good chance
of being rammed by it, which means that the destroyer deliberately
rushes at it, using its own bow as a ram wherewith to knock a hole in
it. Or if that be not practicable the destroyer, while dodging the
torpedo of the submarine, may plant a single well-aimed shot into its
opponent and the fight is over. A cleverly-handled destroyer appears to
have little difficulty in avoiding the comparatively slow torpedo, but
no ship ever built could avoid a properly aimed shell, two facts which
are clearly indicated by the very few cases in which, during the war, a
destroyer has succumbed to a submarine. The gun of the latter, if it has
one, is no match for the guns of the destroyer.
Naval strategy and tactics, when one thinks about them carefully, reveal
a very close resemblance to those of the football field. The destroyers
are like the forwards, quick, light and nimble, valuable chiefly because
of their ability to run swiftly and to dodge cleverly, while the heavy,
stolid backs represent the battleships in their ability to withstand the
heavy shocks of the game. Any imaginative boy will be able to carry this
simile farther still and a comparison of the description of the battle
of Jutland with his own knowledge of the game will reveal a surprising
parallelism.
Thus the reader will to a very large extent be able to see for himself
the manifold uses to which these wonderful little ships lend themselves,
and he will see that above everything else it is their speed which
counts, which fact gives us the key to their peculiar construction.
To commence with, they are made as light as possible. The material used
is different from that of ordinary ships, being "high-tensile" steel, a
steel into which a little more carbon than usual is introduced,
resulting in about 50 per cent higher tensile strength but also
involving, alas! rather more brittleness. When made of this material the
whole framework of the vessel can be made of lighter beams and the
covering can be of thinner plates than would be the case if the mild
steel ordinarily employed for shipbuilding were used. The high-tensile
steel is lighter for a given strength and therefore a ship built of it
is lighter than it would otherwise have to be.
Besides the use of this particular material every resource in the way of
ingenuity and skill on the part of the designers is bent towards saving
weight. No unnecessary part is ever put in, but, on the other hand,
necessaries are skinned down to the utmost limit consistent with safety
in order to produce a light ship. How difficult this problem is is
hardly realized until one thinks of the conditions which prevail when a
ship floats in the water. The upward support of the water is exerted in
a fairly regular way all along the ship while the weights inside which
are pressing downward are concentrated in lumps. The engines, for
example, represent a very heavy weight concentrated in one fairly
confined spot. Thus the vessel has to have sufficient stiffness to
resist the action of these opposing forces which are thus tending to
break her in two. That, moreover, occurs in the stillest water; when the
sea is rough still worse stresses are brought to bear upon the
comparatively fragile hull, for a wave may lift each end, leaving the
middle more or less unsupported, or one may lift the middle while the
ends to a certain extent are left overhanging. All this, too, is in
addition to the knocks and buffets caused by huge volumes of water being
flung against the ship by cross seas in the height of a tempest. In the
case of ordinary ships where speed is not of such great importance, the
problem is simplified by the use of what is termed a high "factor of
safety," which means that the designers calculate these forces as nearly
as they can and then make the structure _amply_ strong enough. In other
words, care is taken to keep well on the safe side. In a destroyer,
however, there is no room for such a margin of safety. Risks have to be
taken, and it is only the high degree of skill and experience possessed
by our ship designers which enable these light ships to be made with, as
experience shows, a very considerable degree of safety. They have to be
continually choosing between strength on the one hand and lightness on
the other and the way in which they combine the two is marvellous.
The weight thus saved is used for carrying engines, boilers and fuel.
Relatively to its size, the destroyer is about as strong as an
egg-shell, but its engines are of extraordinary power.
The destroyers are generally organized and operate in little groups or
flotillas of perhaps twenty or so with a small cruiser or a flotilla
leader as a flagship, on which is the officer in command of them all.
There is also usually a depot ship for each flotilla.
The flotilla leaders are what one might call super-destroyers, about
double the size of the ordinary large destroyer, which is to say, about
two thousand tons, and capable of very high speed.
The depot ships form a kind of floating headquarters for their
respective flotillas. They are usually old cruisers which are specially
fitted up for the purpose, and although they are of comparatively slow
speed they can by wireless telegraphy keep in touch with the destroyers,
which can return to them when occasion permits or demands. They carry
workshops in which small repairs can be carried out, spare ammunition
and stores of all kinds and spare men for the crews. In fact they can
look after the smaller craft much as a mother looks after her children,
and for that reason they are sometimes called "mother ships."
As has been said, the destroyer was originally intended to destroy
torpedo boats, but small torpedo boats have almost gone out of existence
or rather the class have so grown in size as to have become merged in the
destroyers, which, it must be remembered, are well armed with torpedoes
which they have at times used with great effect. It is not surprising,
therefore, to find that a still newer class of ship has arisen which has
been described by one authority as "destroyer-destroyers." Officially
known as "light armoured cruisers," not very much is known of their
details. They are, however, about 3500 tons, with 10 guns, large enough
that is to dispose of any destroyer which they might encounter.
Thus, to review the whole class of ships of which we have been speaking,
we may say that there are the destroyers, all the more recent of which
are about 1000 tons but diminishing as we go backward in time to about
350 or 400; the flotilla leaders about twice the size of the largest
destroyers; and the destroyer-destroyers nearly twice as large as the
flotilla leaders: all are characterised by high speed and by guns just
large enough for the work for which they are intended. All are armed,
too, with the deadly torpedo for attack upon larger ships than
themselves.
They are essentially night-birds, much of their time being spent
stealing about with all lights out, in pitch darkness, seeking for
information or for a chance to put a torpedo into some chance victim.
These night operations are very hazardous, but so skilful are the young
officers who have charge of these boats that seldom do we hear of
mishaps.
But although, as has been said, the torpedo boat has almost vanished,
its under-water comrade has recently assumed a place in the first rank
of importance, and perhaps to us the most valuable work of all done by
the destroyer is that of hunting down and sinking these modern pirates.