STEAM-POWER AND THE NAVY
The steam vessels first built for the Navy were hardly worth calling
warships and were of little or no value for fighting purposes. The
first steam-propelled vessel in the Navy was the _Monkey_, of 210 tons,
built at Rotherhithe in 1820 and fitted with engines of 80 nominal
horse-power by Boulton and Watt. She had two cylinders of about 35¹⁄₂
inches diameter and 3 feet 6 inches piston-stroke. The _Active_, of 80
nominal horse-power, was launched by the same firm two years later, and
in 1823 Messrs. Maudslay began with the _Lightning_ that connection
with the Royal Navy which was maintained as long as the firm was in
existence. Up to 1840 about seventy steam vessels were added to the
Government fleet, the majority of which were given side-lever engines
and flue boilers with a steam-pressure of about 4 lb. to the square
inch above the air-pressure. All these vessels were chiefly used for
towage and general purposes, including mail carriage when necessary,
and not as warships. There was a gradual improvement in the size of the
vessels, and in 1832 the _Rhadamanthus_ was constructed by Maudslay,
Sons, and Field with engines of 220 nominal horse-power and 400
indicated. Her machinery weighed 275 tons.
The steamer _Salamander_ appeared in 1832, and thereafter several
similarly propelled wooden-hulled steamers were added to the Navy.
Between 1840 and 1850 tubular boilers were generally adopted, the
boilers being lighter and more compact than those previously in use,
enabling the working pressure of the steam to be increased to ten or
fifteen pounds above that of the atmosphere. All these vessels had
paddle-wheels. Warships similarly propelled were adopted by other
nations also, but with the exception of skirmishes with the natives of
uncivilised or semi-civilised countries, vessels of this type were not
tested in serious warfare until the war in the Crimea. Even then many
of the British and French warships were stately wooden three-deckers.
Such vessels of the attacking fleets as were paddle-driven usually
suffered badly about the wheels when they ventured within range of the
Russian guns; while those, chiefly despatch vessels and gunboats, which
had screws, were comparatively safe so far as their propellers were
concerned, but were too weak to engage the Russian batteries. Floating
armoured batteries were therefore decided upon, some of which had
screw propellers, single or twin, but from the marine, apart from the
military, point of view, they achieved no great success.
Long before this, however, the screw propeller had proved so reliable
and the advantage of its position below the water-line was so obvious
that the Admiralty could no longer maintain its prejudice, and the
warsloop _Rattler_ was built at Sheerness in 1843 and fitted with a
screw propeller. Her displacement was 1078 tons. Her engines, of 437
indicated horse-power, had a spur gearing by which the revolutions of
the screw were increased to four times those of the crank. The steamer
_Alecto_ had paddle-engines of the direct-acting type, and of about
the same power as those of the _Rattler_. The two vessels were made
fast stern to stern with only a short distance between them to test
the powers of their respective methods of propulsion, and although
each did her best the screw boat towed the other at a speed of nearly
2¹⁄₂ knots. Of course a test of this sort could not demonstrate the
superiority of one method over the other; all that it proved was that
the _Alecto_ was less powerful than the _Rattler_. A similar contest
took place in the English Channel in June 1849, between the screw
corvette _Niger_ and the paddle-sloop _Basilisk_. The tug-of-war lasted
an hour, and the _Niger_ towed the _Basilisk_ stern foremost 1·46
knots. These two vessels were very evenly matched in every respect, and
the test in this case left no room for doubt as to which was the better
method.
The first screw-propelled vessel in the British Navy was the _Dwarf_,
built as the _Mermaid_ by Messrs. Ditchburn and Mare at Blackwall in
1842, and as she attained at her trial the guaranteed speed of twelve
miles an hour, the Admiralty fulfilled its promise and took her over
and then renamed her. She was engined by Messrs. J. and G. Rennie. Her
cylinders were vertical, of 40 inches diameter with 32 inches stroke,
and the propeller was on their conoidal principle in which three
blades are used, the surface of which, according to the specification,
is “obtained by the descent of a tracer down the surface of a cone
or conoid,” this giving an increasing pitch. The vessel was 130 feet
long and of 164 tons measurement. Three years later she was used for a
series of experiments with a variety of screw propellers.
Of the many inventions brought under the notice of the Admiralty and
of private shipowners, one which attained a considerable measure of
success was the contrivance patented by Taylor and Davies in 1836, and
known as a modified and improved form of Bishop’s disc engine. It was
tried in a pinnace, the _Geyser_, built in 1842 by Rennie.
In this form of engine the steam chamber is partly spherical, and the
end-covers are cone-shaped, while the chamber contains a piston or
circular disc fitted with a central boss that fits into spherical seats
made in the covers, and a projecting arm placed at right angles to
the disc engages with a crank arm on the screw shaft. A fixed radial
partition intersecting the disc divides the chamber into four cells,
to which steam is admitted by a slide valve. In 1849 H.M.S. _Minx_ was
equipped with one of these engines having a disc of 27 inches diameter,
in addition to the high-pressure engine, and coupled to the propeller
shaft in such a manner that it was not necessary to disconnect the
horizontal engines. With the disc engine the vessel attained a speed 11
per cent. higher than without. Improvements in other engines, however,
rendered inevitable the relegation of the disc engine to the list of
superseded contrivances.
In 1838 Mr. John Penn’s oscillating engines with tubular boilers were
fitted in some of the boats running above London Bridge, and attracted
the attention of the Admiralty. The Admiralty yacht _Black Eagle_ was
turned over to him and he installed, instead of her former engines,
oscillating engines of double their power, with tubular flue boilers,
the change entailing no addition to the weight or engine space. The
advantages of this installation were so great that many other vessels
were similarly treated, among them being the royal yacht _Victoria and
Albert_. His trunk engine, designed for the propulsion of warships
carrying a screw, and capable of being placed below the water-line so
far as to be out of reach of hostile shot, achieved an even greater
success, and in 1847 Mr. Penn was instructed to place engines of
this type in H.M.S. _Arrogant_ and H.M.S. _Encounter_. These were so
satisfactory that orders for engines were received for vessels ranging
from a small gunboat, to be fitted with engines of 20 horse-power,
to vessels like the _Sultan_, with engines of 8629 horse-power, and
_Neptune_ (ex _Independencia_), with 8800 indicated horse-power. Up to
the time of his death his firm fitted 735 vessels with engines having
an aggregate actual power of more than 500,000 horses. Among them were
the _Orlando_, _Howe_, _Bellerophon_, _Inconstant_, _Northampton_,
_Ajax_, _Agamemnon_, _Hercules_, _Sultan_, _Warrior_, _Black Prince_,
_Achilles_, _Minotaur_, and _Northumberland_.
The barque-rigged steam frigate _Penelope_ attracted as much attention
in the Admiralties of the world as did the advent of the first
_Dreadnought_ a few years ago. She was an ordinary 46-gun frigate, and
might have attained neither more nor less publicity than fell to the
lot of other ships of her class. Her conversion in 1843, however, into
a steam frigate made her famous. She was described as “a war steamer
of a magnitude unequalled in our own or any foreign service, with an
armament that will enable her to bid defiance to any two line-of-battle
ships, especially as her steam will give her the means of taking a
commanding position.”[95] She was one of the old French _Hebe_ class
of frigates, of which there were between thirty and forty lying in the
various British ports in good condition, but considered useless, as
larger frigates had been introduced by other powers. She was cut in
half amidships and lengthened by 63 feet, the new middle space being
devoted to her engines and boilers and to bunkers capable of holding
600 tons of coal. In addition to her crew of 300 officers and men, she
could accommodate 1000 soldiers, with provisions and water for a voyage
to the Cape of Good Hope. Her armament as a steamer consisted of two
10-inch pivot guns, each weighing 4 tons 4 cwt.; eight 68-pounders
capable of firing both shot and shell, and fourteen 32-pounders. Her
two steam-engines were believed to be of greater power than any yet
made, having a combined horse-power of 625 horses. The cylinders had
a diameter of 92 inches with a piston stroke of nearly 7 feet. The
engines were direct-acting, and similar to those of the _Cyclops_,
_Gorgon_, and other steam frigates in the Navy. A recess between the
two foremost boilers contained the step for the main-mast, which
therefore stood almost in the centre of the engine- and boiler-room.
The funnel was placed abaft the main-mast, but the paddles were before
it.
[95] _Illustrated London News_, July 1843.
In 1845, Admiral Fishbourne adopted Scott Russell’s wave-line principle
and made certain recommendations as to the lines on which a ship of
war should be built. These were: “the buttock-lines are continuous
curves, to minimise pitching; with the same object a fine bow and full
afterbody are provided. To promote steady steering there is a long run
of perpendicular side, a long keel, a lean forefoot, and a fine heel,
while to insure powerful action of the rudder the draught of water is
greatest aft; the floor rises aft from the midship section.”
But although shipbuilding of the modern type was initiated nearly
three-quarters of a century ago, and iron vessels as warships had
proved their utility more than once in the “affairs” of other nations,
the British Admiralty remained faithful to wooden three-deckers long
after a radical change in their allegiance would have been justified.
It took a long time to convert the Admiralty. As early as 1842 an iron
frigate was built by Laird at Birkenhead, called the _Guadeloupe_,
for the Mexican Government. It was 187 feet long by 30 feet beam
and 16 feet depth. An iron vessel, the _Nemesis_, was used in the
Crimean War and was struck fourteen times by the enemy’s shot, the
holes in every instance being clean and free from splinters. The
Admiralty was not convinced, however, and as late as 1861 ordered
nearly a million pounds’ worth of wood for warship construction.
Other iron vessels carrying heavy guns, the _Nimrod_, _Nitocris_,
_Assyrian_, _Phlegethon_, _Ariadne_, and _Medusa_, were built for
the East India Company at Laird’s. The Admiralty had their first
iron vessel, the _Dover_, built there, followed by the _Birkenhead_
troopship, both paddle-steamers. The brigantine-rigged steam frigate
_Birkenhead_ was 210 feet in length between her perpendiculars, 60
feet 6 inches breadth outside the paddle-wheels, and 37 feet 6 inches
inside the paddle-wheels, and had a depth of 23 feet. Her engines of
556 horse-power were by George Forrester and Co. A peculiar feature
she had in common with several of her contemporaries was that she was
clincker-built below water and carvel-built above. The unhappy ending
of this ship is one of the most tragic events in the annals of the
British Navy. She sailed from Queenstown, January 1852, for the Cape,
having on board a portion of the 12th Lancers and of nine infantry
regiments. She struck a pointed rock off Simon’s Bay, South Africa, and
of the 638 persons on board no fewer than 454 of the crew and soldiers
perished. The remainder, many of whom were women and children, were
saved by the boats.
The honour of being the first British steam iron warship belongs to
the _Trident_, a paddle-steamer, launched from Ditchburn and Mare’s
shipbuilding yard at Blackwall in December 1845. Her length was 280
feet, the length of engine-room 45 feet, her beam 31 feet 6 inches,
her breadth over paddles 52 feet 6 inches, her depth of hold 18 feet,
and she was of 900 tons burden, including machinery, coals, water,
guns, and stores. Her displacement at launching was 385 tons; the
engines of 330 horse-power had oscillating cylinders, and her boilers
were of a tubular pattern. She was designed by the builders. Her ribs
were double, each rib being composed of two angle irons 4 inches by
3¹⁄₂ inches by half an inch thick, riveted together, and in one entire
length from the gunwale to the keel, there being 270 pairs of these
double ribs. The iron skin was three-quarters of an inch thick at
the keel, and half an inch at the gunwale. The skin contained 1400
plates of iron which were riveted to each other and to the ribs and the
keel by 200,000 rivets. Each rivet was wrought red-hot and required
the united labours of three workmen and two boys to fix it in its
corresponding hole. The price of iron when the ship was commenced was
£8 10_s._ per ton, and when it was launched £16. The _Trident_ carried
two long swivel guns of 10-inch bore, one forward and one aft, to fire
in line with the keel, and had also four 32-pounder broadside guns.
The _Greenock_, built by Scott, Sinclair and Co. at Greenock in 1849,
was a second-class steam frigate and was the first steam frigate ever
launched on the Clyde for the British Navy. Her length was 213 feet
and her tonnage 1413 tons Admiralty measurement, with engines of 565
horse-power by the same builders. The screw propeller was 14 feet in
diameter, constructed on F. P. Smith’s principle, and though it weighed
seven tons, could be disengaged from the machinery and raised from
the sea with ease. “The funnel also is to have some peculiar mode by
which its hideous and crater-like physiognomy can be made at once to
disappear, and leave the ship devoid at once of this unsightly feature,
and of those cumbrous excrescences, paddle-boxes, giving her all the
appearance and symmetry of a perfect sailing ship.”[96] Her figure-head
was a bust of the late Mr. John Scott, father of the head of the firm
who built her. The keel, stem, and stern were of solid malleable iron,
measuring 5 inches thick by 9 inches deep. The _Greenock_ was the
only one of four vessels ordered by the then Board of Admiralty, to
be fitted as a frigate and propelled with full power. She was armed
on the main deck, and her model was so designed as to enable her to
fight her bow and stern guns in line with the keel, in which important
qualification she stood almost alone in the Navy.
[96] _Illustrated London News_, May 12, 1849.
The value of private shipbuilding yards able to undertake Admiralty
work at short notice was abundantly proved during the Crimean War.
“In 1854, at the commencement of the Crimean War,” said the _Times_
in an article on the building of warships in private establishments,
“when Admiral Napier found himself powerless in the Baltic for want of
gunboats, it became imperative to have 120 of them, with 60 horse-power
engines on board, ready for next spring, and at first the means for
turning out so large an amount of work in so short a time puzzled the
Admiralty. But Mr. Penn pointed out, and himself put into practice,
an easy solution of the mechanical difficulty. By calling to his
assistance the best workshops in the country, in duplicating parts,
and by a full use of the admirable resources of his own establishments
at Greenwich and Deptford, he was able to fit up with the requisite
engine-power ninety-seven gunboats. This performance is a memorable
illustration of what the private workshops of this free country can
accomplish when war with its unexpected requirements comes upon us....
Altogether during the Crimean War 121 vessels were fitted with engines
for our Government by Mr. Penn.”
Two paddle-wheel gunboats, _Nix_ and _Salamander_, were launched in
1851 by Messrs. Robinson and Russell for the Prussian Government,
which exchanged them during the Crimean War for a frigate called the
_Thetis_, and they were renamed _Recruit_ and _Weser_. They were
double-ended and could steam in either direction without turning.
The paddle-frigate _Dantzig_, built by the same firm for the same
foreign Government, had the peculiarity of being able to carry guns
on her sponsons. The last wooden battleship built for the Navy was
the _Victoria_, 121 guns, launched in 1859, commissioned in 1864, and
discarded in 1867. She was engined by Maudslay with horizontal return
connecting-rod engines indicating 4400 horse-power and giving her a
speed of 12 knots. The _Bann_ and _Brune_ were built by Scott Russell
as improvements on the _Salamander_, and were on the longitudinal
system with wave-lines, and they had internal bulkheads separating the
engine and boiler rooms from the bunkers.
The success of the floating batteries at the Crimea was held by the
French to justify the construction of a sea-going ironclad, and the
_Gloire_ resulted. Experiments in America had shown the possibility of
the plan, but the French naval architect, Dupuy de Lôme, considered
that it would be sufficient to plate existing vessels. The _Gloire_ was
a big wooden ship cut down and iron-plated.
This stirred the Admiralty to activity and the _Warrior_ was
ordered. The launch of this vessel on the Thames was regarded as an
event of national importance, and in spite of the cold day at the
end of December 1860 on which she took the water, the attendance
was exceedingly large, even the tops of the tall chimneys of the
neighbourhood having been let out for the day to enthusiastic
sightseers. She was frozen down to the ways so firmly that it was with
the utmost difficulty that she could be got into the water at all.
Tugs, hydraulic presses, the hammering by hundreds of men on the ways,
and the firing of cannon from her deck to start her by concussion were
all tried separately and then together, and at last the ship glided
slowly into the water. The beauty of her lines was remarkable as she
floated in her light trim, and afterwards, when she was properly
equipped and in sea-going trim, she was one of the most beautiful ships
the country ever possessed. She was iron built throughout, frame and
plating being alike of the metal. She was 420 feet over all, 58 feet
in breadth, and 41 feet 6 inches in depth from spar deck to keel. She
was of 6177 tons builders’ measurement. Her engines, which were of 1250
nominal horse-power, weighed about 950 tons, but her bunkers only held
950 tons, or enough coal for six days’ steaming. She was divided into
twenty-seven water-tight compartments at the bows and stern, and as
the whole of her sides were so armoured as to afford protection to the
vital parts of the ship, it was stated that even if the fore and stern
parts of the ship were shot away, the centre would remain as a floating
battery.
[Illustration: THE “WATERWITCH.”]
The _Waterwitch_ is chiefly remarkable for the trial given in her
to Mr. Ruthven’s system of hydraulic propulsion. A small boat was
fitted with the machinery and tried on the Thames. A vessel provided
with the Ruthven apparatus was built to the order of the Prussian
Government in 1853, and for many years worked satisfactorily on the
Oder. The chief engineer of Portsmouth Dockyard, when testifying to
the Government as to the capabilities of the Ruthven method, said it
afforded extraordinary facilities for manœuvring under steam, and
he saw no reason why a speed should not be attained with it equal
to that of the paddle or screw. A vessel called the _Seraing_ was
built by the Belgian shipbuilding firm of Cockerill and fitted with
a Ruthven propeller, and when tried against a paddle-wheel vessel of
the same form, tonnage, and horse-power was found to have about 10
per cent. greater speed than the other. The testimony of the chief
engineer of the Portsmouth Dockyard resulted in the _Waterwitch_
experiment. The hull of this vessel was constructed by the Thames
Iron Works and Shipbuilding Company, and the design of the engines
and the construction of the enormous turbine wheel, of which the
propeller consists, were entrusted by the Admiralty to Messrs. Dudgeon.
The _Waterwitch_ was built of iron and was of 778 tons measurement,
162 feet in length by 32 feet in breadth, and 13 feet 9 inches in
depth. She was flat-bottomed, broad in proportion to her length,
and double-ended and had a rudder at each end. Her armour consisted
of a belt of plating 4¹⁄₂ inches in thickness at the water-line and
centrally on her broadside, with armour-plated bulkheads across her
upper deck, the object of the latter arrangement being to enable her to
fight her guns over her deck in line with her keel, through gunports in
the thwartship bulkheads as well as through broadside ports. For the
machinery, and in the bottom of the vessel near the centre, was a long
and shallow iron box with its length in the direction of the vessel.
The lower side of this box had an immense number of small rectangular
orifices, admitting water from outside and under the ship’s bottom,
the passage of the water being controlled by valves which were only
opened when the engines were at work. The turbine wheel drew the water
in through the bottom of the vessel and ejected it through copper
propulsion pipes and nozzles, through an aperture on each side of the
ship, a little below the water-line.
The propelling power of the hydraulic wheel is obtained from the
force and volume of the column of water ejected by the wheel from
the discharge pipes, on a principle that a gun recoils on being
discharged, but with this difference, that the recoil from the
water-wheel is continuous. If the column of water were discharged
towards the stern the vessel moved forward, and if towards the stem
it moved in the other direction; if discharged in both directions the
vessel remained stationary, and if discharged forward on one side and
towards the stern on the other, the vessel turned either on her centre
as on a pivot, or if the pressure were greater in one direction than in
the other, in a circle the size of which depended on the pressure of
the discharge from either set of nozzles. No reversing of the engines
or of the hydraulic wheel was required under any circumstances, the
direction and force of the discharge being regulated by a series of
valves. The hydraulic wheel was fixed immediately over the sluice
valves and water-box, and revolved in a cast-iron circular case 19 feet
in diameter. The wheel was itself 14 feet 6 inches in diameter and
weighed eight tons, and was fitted with eleven vertical or radial arms
and blades. The engines were of 160 nominal horse-power, and steam was
supplied by two ordinary tubular boilers. At her trial the _Waterwitch_
covered the measured mile in Long Reach in 6 minutes 20 seconds. At
other trials later in the day she averaged 9 knots.
The shape of the vessel and the fact that she could be steered in
either direction with equal facility were of undoubted advantage from
the point of view of manœuvring, but the trials can hardly be called
successful so much as experimental, as it was ascertained that she
would probably have done better had her nozzles been differently placed
and provision made for altering the size of the nozzles according to
the speed at which the vessel was required to travel. The machinery
itself, however, worked beautifully.
The Government ordered a number of comparative tests to be made in
which the efficacy of the _Waterwitch_ method could be judged against
that of the double-screw system installed in the gunboats _Viper_ and
_Vixen_, all three vessels being of the same size. The two gunboats
were not the best of their kind as they had double sternposts with a
cavernous recess between them and flat overhanging sterns.
Mr. M. W. Ruthven, son of the inventor of the system, it being under
his father’s patent that the _Waterwitch_ machine was built, in
addressing the Institute of Marine Engineers a few years ago, said:
“My efforts to make a ship safe, from an engineer’s point of view, lie
in the method of propulsion. My plans are to apply all the engine-power
of the ship to pumps for propulsion, and which can be used for pumping
out leakage and propelling at the same time. In the largest pump I have
made, 800 indicated horse-power discharged 350 tons of water a minute,
and propelled the vessel faster than her sister ships with twin screws.
The hydraulic propeller is of greatest value for the highest speeds,
and has the greatest power of control. As the hydraulic is capable
of subdivision to a great degree, the greatest amount of safety is
possible. After an experience of sixty years of hydraulic propulsion, I
am still of opinion that it is the means by which greater safety can be
obtained at sea, and by which the highest speeds can be obtained with
safety and economy.”[97]
[97] _Institute of Marine Engineers’ Transactions_, vol. ix.
This, however, was said before such phenomenal speeds were obtained
with turbines and combined turbine and reciprocating engines.
A number of lifeboats fitted with jet-propelling machinery have been
built by, among others, Messrs. Thornycroft, and have given every
satisfaction. Whatever be the advantages of the system, and they are
many, the drawbacks are very great, and the hydraulic method has been
generally condemned because of the friction engendered by the pumping
of such large quantities of water, and the probability of the inlet
orifices becoming choked by sand, mud, or floating matter.
Notwithstanding its evident advantages, the screw propeller, whether
single or double, had many enemies. It was asserted to be the cause of
premature decay in both wood and iron vessels, and stringent orders
were even given to ship captains to use canvas except in extreme cases
when steam was absolutely necessary. “Our screw navy is, therefore,”
said a paper of that period, “more of a sailing than a steam navy.” The
twin-screw arranged by Messrs. Dudgeon was claimed to have developed
the principle in such a way as to leave no doubt of its superiority
over the single propeller. Twin-screws were no new thing at this time.
Captain Smith, known as “Target Smith” because of his movable target in
use on the _Excellent_, had experimented with some with a considerable
measure of success, but it was Messrs. Dudgeon who solved the problem
of twin-screw propellers for ocean-going steamers. They demonstrated
that as good results could be got from two small propellers as from one
large one.
The first application of twin-screws on the modern principle was made
by Messrs. J. and W. Dudgeon in the _Flora_ in November 1862.
Twin-screws were tried by the Admiralty some years earlier in the
construction of the iron-cased floating batteries, but were driven
in those vessels by one motion from the engines. The adoption of the
twin-screw in their case enabled the Admiralty to build vessels that
required only a moderately light draught of water, and carried, for
their tonnage, an enormous weight of armament and armour, besides
the weight of their engines; but the vessels had no increased powers
of turning nor could they manœuvre rapidly under steam in any
circumscribed space. The double independent screws overcame these
drawbacks.
A small vessel in the Clyde worked two screws also, with two rudders,
the idea, as acknowledged by the adaptor, having been derived from the
model exhibited in the Exhibition of 1851 by Mr. John Sturdee, master
shipwright’s assistant at Portsmouth Dockyard.
An unusual degree of interest attached to the trial of the steam-ship
_Flora_ by reason of the fact that each of her twin-screws was to
be operated by its own engine. In the light of future events it is
worthy of note that up to this time it was thought that the twin-screw
would be useful for smaller vessels and gunboats carrying six guns
or less; whereas the _Flora_, as representative of ships capable of
carrying large armaments of guns, with considerable engine-power,
and a light draught of water, and with a power of manœuvring such as
could not be possessed by a single-screw vessel, marked a step forward
in the march of improvement which was destined to have far-reaching
results, both in the Navy and the Mercantile Marine. So important was
the trial deemed that the Admiralty sent special representatives to
report thereon. The _Flora_ was an iron vessel, 150 feet long, 22¹⁄₂
feet beam, and 13 feet depth, and of 365 tons. She had two independent
engines and screws, the latter being placed one under each quarter,
and therefore in front of the rudder, in contrast to the prevailing
system of placing a single screw right astern and behind the rudder.
The cylinders of the two engines were 26 inches in diameter, with a
stroke of 21 inches; and the propellers were each of 7 feet diameter
with a pitch of 14¹⁄₂ feet. She had two tubular boilers working at 30
lb. pressure, and one high-pressure boiler working at 50 lb. pressure,
the latter boiler being intended to be used for producing a steam
blast in the chimney and to dry the steam from the two common boilers.
The engines were of 120 horse-power collectively. She was rigged as
a fore-and-aft schooner. The principal test to which the vessel was
subjected tried her capabilities of being manœuvred. With the helm
hard over and the engines going full speed ahead, the first circle was
made in 3 minutes 14 seconds, the next in one second less time, and
the third circle in 3 minutes 16 seconds, the diameter of the circle
being about three lengths of the ship, but slightly diminished each
time. The ship was then tested with one screw working ahead and the
other astern. One circle was made in 3 minutes 39 seconds, and another
in 3 minutes 49 seconds; “in making these circles the action of the
ship’s hull was extraordinary, the central part being stationary, and
both ends moving round equally. The circle was made on a pivot from
the ship’s midship section. The vessel was then put in a straight
course, stopped, and from a state of rest the engines were started, one
ahead and the other astern, the circle being completed in 3 minutes 55
seconds and the diameter being as before within the ship’s length.”[98]
The _Flora_ proved herself faster than any other steamer of her size
and horse-power, and became, thanks to her speed, one of the most
successful blockade-runners during the American Civil War.
[98] _Illustrated London News_, November 29, 1862.
[Illustration: H.M.S. “MINOTAUR.”]
The experiments in the _Flora_, and afterwards in the _Hebe_ and
_Kate_, which were of about the same dimensions and power, were
considered so satisfactory that a trial on a larger and more important
scale was made in the summer of 1863 with the _Aurora_. This was an
iron vessel, 165 feet in length, with a beam of 23 feet, and a depth of
13 feet 6 inches. Her engines, of 120 collective nominal horse-power,
drove two three-bladed screws, each independently of the other; the
screws were 7 feet in diameter and had a pitch of 14 feet 6 inches. The
cylinders were of 26 inches in diameter with a stroke of 21 inches. On
her trials she steered equally well with either propellers or rudder,
and in the matter of speed passed everything she came across, including
the _Sea Swallow_, one of the fastest paddle-boats on the Thames. The
distance from Tilbury to the Nore, twenty nautical miles, was done in 1
hour 17 minutes, “an almost unparalleled rate of speed, considering the
vessel’s horse-power of engine and hull displacement.”[99]
[99] _Times_, August 1863.
The _Experiment_ was the first twin-screw boat built for the Navy. The
engines were direct-acting, horizontal, high-pressure, and drove two
three-bladed propellers, having a diameter of 3 feet 6 inches. She was
built by Dudgeon in February 1863.
Some interesting experiments were also carried out in February
1863 with a steamer called the _Edith_, built by Dudgeon with a
view to testing further, for the benefit of the Admiralty, whose
representatives were present, the advantages of the twin-screw for
naval manœuvring purposes. This vessel was not constructed for the
Navy, however, but for commercial service across the Atlantic. She was
rather larger than the _Experiment_, being 175 feet in length, 25 feet
in breadth, and drawing 9 feet aft and 6 feet 6 inches forward. The
twin-screws, each driven by its own engine, were three-bladed and had
a diameter of 8 feet 6 inches, and a pitch of 16 feet. On her trial
run down the river with the Admiralty officials on board, a speed was
attained of nearly 12 knots against the tide, and nearly 15 knots with
the tide, the engines averaging 100 revolutions a minute under 28
lb. steam-pressure. The vessel turned a complete circle in 3 minutes
29 seconds with her own centre as a pivot, and then the action of
both screws was suddenly reversed. Their action upon the vessel was
instantaneous, the revolving motion of the ship being changed to the
opposite direction with the greatest ease. The manœuvre was repeated
several times, and the vessel thus represented a revolving battery
mounted with heavy ordnance, too heavy for training upon any given
object by ordinary appliances. The hull became the carriage for such
heavy guns, and trained them upon any given point by revolving under
the action of the screws alone.
[Illustration: _Photo. G. West & Son._
THE “KOENIG WILHELM,” GERMAN NAVY.]
[Illustration: _Photo. G. West & Son._
THE “BADEN,” GERMAN NAVY.]
The American Navy up to the time of the Civil War was not taken into
very serious consideration by the other nations, but in that momentous
struggle the Federals awoke to the need of thoroughly effective vessels
and built them quickly. They were the last to take to iron ships of war
but they more than made up for the delay. In scarcely a year after the
launch of Ericsson’s _Monitor_, the first ship of its class possessed
by the Federal Government, there were built, or building, close upon
twenty of these vessels. Various modifications were introduced but
the principle was the same. This was the turret on the deck, where
the armament of the vessel was placed, it being sought to construct
an effective battery for defensive operations rather than to build a
sea-going ship.
The contest between the Confederate iron protected _Merrimac_ and the
Federal wooden warships, which ended disastrously for the latter, and
the battle between the _Monitor_ and the _Merrimac_ proved that the
old wooden three-deckers had become obsolete and that they would be
perfectly useless against a steam ram like the _Merrimac_ and harmless
against an ironclad ram like the _Monitor_.
For a time rams and turrets were regarded as all-important. The extreme
in this combination was reached in the French ironclad ram _Taureau_.
She was one of the most peculiar warships ever constructed. Seen
end on she looked like a tremendous buoy, surmounted by a turret, a
funnel, and two masts. A side view showed that an immense bow extended
forward as a long ram, and that the turret was situated near the bows.
The prow was of bronze and weighed eleven tons, and projected some
forty feet under the water. Her deck view represented her as almost
pear-shaped, with cylindrical sides, and she had her greatest beam at
about the water-line. She was iron-clad for about three feet above
the water-line amidships and aft, but the turret and bows had 5 inch
armour. Altogether she was about 197 feet long by 48 feet beam, and
carried one heavy gun in the turret.
A combination of three-decker and ironclad ram was the French warship
_Magenta_, constructed in 1862. She had an enormous ram like the
_Taureau_ and carried eighty guns, and was barquentine rigged.
In England, Captain Coles began in 1859 to urge the construction of
vessels of the cupola or turret type, and after the lesson of the
famous contests in America between the two ironclads, the British
Admiralty decided to try Captain Coles’ boats experimentally. He
advocated the cutting down of the three-deckers into one-deck ships,
carrying on this one deck one or more turrets or cupolas in which the
guns should be placed. These turrets were capable of being turned so
that the guns in them could be fired in any direction, and he proposed
that a portion of the bulwarks should be hinged in order that they
could be let down when it was required to fire the guns, and thus
form a sort of additional protection to that portion of the ship’s
side above the water-line, while when raised they would add to the
seaworthiness of the vessels by keeping the water off their decks.
Vessels built according to Captain Coles’ plans, it was contended,
would be floating defences “which would be at once thoroughly
manageable, impervious to shot, movable with ease, and seaworthy. Nor
would they be so monstrous and unsightly to a nautical eye as the
inventions of our American cousins. They would be fitted with masts and
yards, having the one peculiarity of being made of one uniform size,
so that ships of all classes abroad could be furnished at depots, in
case of accident, or ships meeting each other could exchange with or
supply their comrades,” to quote from one of the descriptions published
at the time. Another advantage was that the conversion of heavy
frigates and line-of-battle ships into iron-plated vessels, fitted with
the Coles shield, could be effected at a comparatively moderate cost.
Experiments with the cupola were tried on the _Trusty_ and _Hazard_
with success. The standardisation of masts and rigging was another
point on which Captain Coles laid stress. The cupola system had so
much to recommend it that Sir William Armstrong wrote to the _Times_
endorsing it as solving the problem of working the heaviest guns. Could
shipbuilding have stood still at that period the system would have
been an unqualified success, but the rivalry between armour-makers
and gunmakers was so intense that no sooner did an armour-plate maker
produce a plate impenetrable to existing guns and projectiles than the
gunmakers set to work to produce a gun and projectile which should
smash the armour plate.
[Illustration: _Photo. G. West & Son._
H.M.S. “DEVASTATION.”]
[Illustration: _Photo. G. West & Son._
H.M.S. “THUNDERER.”]
The steam corvette _Pallas_, launched at Woolwich in 1865, differed
materially from any other vessel hitherto constructed. She was
originally intended to be built of iron, but as the necessary machinery
was not then in existence at Woolwich, she was constructed of wood and
iron-plated, and had a belt of armour to protect the most important
parts. She was rigged as a ship so that she might keep at sea for
a considerable time, the sails enabling her to economise her fuel.
In order to increase her seaworthiness she was made high above the
water, her fixed bulwarks being eighteen feet above the water-level.
She was also designed to be able to fight end on. The engines were of
600 horse-power, and, to counteract the enormous strains the screw
propeller was expected to impose, a new system of stern construction
was adopted whereby the sternposts and deadwood were connected with the
sides by internal iron bulkheads, decks, and flats, and external brass
castings. The _Pallas_ was 2372 tons burden, and was intended to be a
faster vessel than any wooden frigate in the Navy. The fastest wooden
frigate afloat and complete then was the _Mersey_, which once got up
to 13¹⁄₄ knots an hour. The _Pallas_ was provided with Mr. Reid’s new
bow, known as the =[U]= bow from its shape. This bow gave considerable
buoyancy where it was needed to support the ram, but its shape created
a wave forward and thus militated against the vessel’s speed.
H.M.S. _Minotaur_, launched in 1865, was almost the last of the
great sailing warships carrying a ram and having powerful auxiliary
machinery. She had five square-rigged masts, and all five topsails were
on the divided principle.
The German ironclad _Prinz Hendrick_, built by Laird Brothers of
Birkenhead, and launched in October 1866, was barque-rigged, and was
fitted with Captain Coles’ tripod masts. She was also fitted with
revolving turrets, hinged bulwarks, and a sliding funnel.
The _Hercules_, begun in June 1866, and launched in February 1869, was
one of the best specimens of the entirely iron-built, iron-armoured
frigates the Navy possessed at that time. Her ram bow did not protrude
so far as in former vessels and only weighed about five tons. The
armour plating on the sides of the ship weighed 1145 tons. The total
weight of metal worked into the ship was 4252 tons. The bulwarks were
of wood, but below them the first two strakes were of plates 6 inches
thick; next was a strake of 8-inch armour covering the lower portion
of the main deck or central box battery; then two strakes of 6-inch
armour, then a belt of 9-inch armour along the water-line, then a
strake of 6-inch plates resting above the double skin of the hull
itself. The 9-inch plates were backed by 10 inches of teak, inside of
which was an iron skin 1¹⁄₂ in. thick, supported by vertical frames
10 inches deep and 2 feet apart, while further stiffening structures
were also included. The engines worked up to over 7000 indicated
horse-power. The vessel also afforded an illustration of the tendency
to reduce the number of guns and increase their weight. To add to her
steering capacities she had a balanced rudder which was itself jointed
and hinged upon the line of pivot.
[Illustration: H.M.S. “DREADNOUGHT.”]
The carrying of such quantities of armour was against the maintenance
of high speed at sea, and accordingly the unarmoured iron frigate
_Inconstant_ was launched later in the same year. She carried sixteen
guns and was faster than any other warship afloat.
The Prussian ironclad _Koenig Wilhelm_, built by the Thames Iron Works
and Shipbuilding Company, from designs by Mr. E. J. Reid, in 1869, was
commenced for the Turkish Government, and was built on the longitudinal
system, having a series of wrought-iron girders or frames extending
from end to end of the ship. There was an inner skin on the inner sides
of the frames and ribs, as though one ship was inside another. She was
then the heaviest vessel ever docked in the Thames, as she weighed 8500
tons. Her armour was 8 inches thick amidships and tapered slightly
towards the ends.
The year 1869 was remarkable for the introduction into the British
Navy of large ironclads without masts or sails and relying upon steam
alone for their propulsion, and these vessels also demonstrated the
most perfect form then understood of the turret ship as applied to
a sea-going warship of large capacity. The _Devastation_, built at
Portsmouth, and the _Thunderer_ at Pembroke, were the first of this
class, and were claimed to be more formidable than any other warships
in existence both for offence and defence. They were each of 285 feet
in length and 4406 tons, as compared with the first ironclad _Warrior_,
380 feet and 6019 tons, and the _Minotaur_, of 400 feet length and 6021
tons. The _Warrior’s_ armour was 4¹⁄₂ inches of hammered plate that
would break under the impact of heavy shot; that of the _Minotaur_
was 5¹⁄₂ inches of rolled armour, in each vessel there being a strong
backing of teak and iron plating built into the frame. The two turret
ships had 12 inches of rolled armour plating on a teak backing built
into an immensely strong framing 18 inches thick, and the whole was
backed up with an inner skin of iron plating 1¹⁄₂ inches thick. The
thickest armour then in use in the French Navy was 8¹⁄₄ inches and was
carried only by rams of the _Bélier_ class. These vessels also included
an improvement in the bracket-frame system of construction, first
introduced in the _Bellerophon_ by Mr. Reid. The “breastwork monitor”
of the _Devastation_ type was regarded as an improvement on the
American types of monitors. The turrets were mounted on Captain Coles’
system and each turret carried two 30-ton guns. The ships were driven
by independent twin-screws and had a speed of 12¹⁄₂ knots.
In 1870 the ill-fated _Captain_ was lost. She was designed by Captain
Coles and built by Messrs. Laird as a sea-going turret vessel. The
principal armament was four 25-ton Armstrong guns carried in two
turrets, one fore and one aft; these turrets were 27 feet diameter
outside and 22¹⁄₂ feet inside, half the thickness of the wall
consisting of iron plating. This ship behaved admirably on her trials
and also on an experimental cruise, and was sent to sea with the
fleet in September of that year. From some reason never explained
satisfactorily she capsized without warning, and went down in a few
seconds during a gale in the Bay of Biscay before daylight on the
morning of September 7. Only nineteen of the 500 persons on board were
saved, among the drowned being Captain Coles himself.
This disaster evoked such an amount of criticism as to the vessel’s
stability and seaworthiness that no more of the type were constructed,
the turret ships subsequently built being modifications of the
principle.
[Illustration: _Photo. G. West & Son._
H.M.S. “LIGHTNING.”]
[Illustration: _Photo. G. West & Son._
H.M.S. “TARTAR,” TORPEDO BOAT.]
Armour-plated batteries found their chief representatives in the
batteries of the time of the Crimean War, of which the _Glatton_ and
_Terror_ may be regarded as types, and the double-turret principle
was developed in such vessels as the _Cerberus_. The _Terror_ was
built by Palmer’s for the destruction of the Cronstadt forts. She had
three masts carrying square sails on the fore-mast, and excessively
sloping sides and bluff ends, and would form a remarkable contrast to
the graceful lines of the modern battleship. The _Terror_ was built,
armour-plated, and launched in about three months, thanks to Sir
Charles Palmer’s invention of rolling instead of forging the armour
plates.
The battle of Tsushima afforded naval architects some valuable lessons,
and the _Dreadnought_ and the _Lord Nelson_ may be regarded as the
first results. The Japanese-built _Satsuma_ is virtually on the same
lines, there being little to choose between the _Satsuma_ and the _Lord
Nelson_.
The _Dreadnought’s_ turbine machinery drives four shafts, and
immediately aft of the inner shafts are twin rudders to give the
ship greater steering facilities. The Admiralty adopted turbines,
according to an official statement, because “of the saving in weight
and reduction in number of working parts, and reduced liability to
breakdown; its smooth working, ease of manipulation, saving of coal
consumption at high powers, and hence boiler-room space and saving of
engine-room complement; and also because of the increased protection
which is provided for with this system, due to the engines being
lower in the ship: advantages which more than counterbalance the
disadvantages. There was no difficulty in arriving at a decision to
adopt turbine propulsion from the point of view of seagoing speed
only. The point that chiefly occupied the committee was the question
of providing sufficient stopping and turning power for purposes of
easy and quick manœuvring. Trials were carried out between the sister
vessels _Eden_ and _Waveney_, and the _Amethyst_ and _Sapphire_, one
of each class fitted with reciprocating and the other with turbine
engines.... The necessary stopping and astern power will be provided by
astern turbines on each of the four shafts.
“These astern turbines will be arranged in series, one high- and one
low-pressure astern turbine on each side of the ship, and in this way
the steam will be more economically used when going astern, and a
proportionally greater astern power obtained than in the _Eden_ and
_Amethyst_.”
Messrs. John I. Thorneycroft and Co.’s first torpedo-boat for the
British Navy was the _Lightning_, of 18 knots, but the firm’s _Tartar_,
launched in 1907, broke all records by travelling at 35·67 knots.
The latest destroyers have a speed of 33 knots, though the coastal
destroyers have a speed of only 26 knots. Another remarkable feature in
the Navy of late years has been the number of vessels to be fitted with
oil-burning apparatus instead of coal.
The destroyer _Mohawk_, built by J. Samuel White at Cowes, is 270
feet in length, 25 feet beam, and 765 tons displacement, and contains
water-tube boilers and turbines of 14,000 horse-power, and attained
a speed of forty miles an hour. She carries no coal, oil fuel being
used, of which her bunkers can take seventy-three tons. The _Tartar’s_
record was broken by the destroyer _Swift_, 345 feet in length with a
displacement of 1800 tons, and having quadruple turbine engines giving
her a speed of 36 knots.
The cruiser _Invincible_, launched by Armstrongs at Elswick in April
1907, is a first-class armoured cruiser 530 feet in length and of
17,250 tons displacement, and has turbine engines of an equivalent
horse-power of 40,000 and a speed of 25 knots.
[Illustration: _Photo. G. West & Son._
H.M.S. “LORD NELSON.”]
[Illustration: _Photo. G. West & Son._
H.M.S. “INVINCIBLE,” ARMOURED CRUISER.]
The construction of warships has resolved itself into a struggle to
attain an ever-increasing speed combined with offensive power and great
range of action, and warships of varying types have been produced
with startling rapidity, so that one powerful vessel after another
has been evolved, each superseding its predecessor in some degree,
until there are “Dreadnoughts” and “Super-Dreadnoughts” carrying guns
and armour and possessing a speed undreamt of a few years ago. Among
smaller vessels, torpedo-boats, destroyers, scouts, cruisers of various
classes, commerce destroyers, cruiser-battleships, and submarines now
take their places in the nation’s fleet. There is no telling in what
direction the next development will be. The battle of the boilers has
played an important part in the development of the warship, and it is
safe to say that had this struggle not taken place to produce a boiler
which should give a great pressure of steam quickly, the speed of the
warship as now known would not have been attainable. Twin screws are
succeeded by triple screws, and these are to be followed by quadruple
screws.
The second-class protected cruiser _Bristol_, launched at Messrs.
John Brown and Co.’s Clydebank establishment in February last, is
of special interest as she embodies the introduction of yet another
method of propulsion. When it became known that an experiment was
to be made there was some speculation as to whether the gas system
was to be tried, as the experiments in the gunboat _Rattler_ are
understood to have been successful, and it is well known that more
than one engineering firm has been giving attention to the subject.
The _Rattler_ experiments did not prove that the requisite power
could be developed by the method, and the _Bristol_ experiment is an
installation of the “Brown-Curtis” turbine, this vessel being the first
of recent years for the British Navy in which Parsons turbines have not
been placed. She is of 4850 tons displacement and is to have a speed
of 25 knots. Four sister ships, also building, are fitted with Parsons
turbines. The _Bristol_ will have twelve Yarrow water-tube boilers, and
the furnaces will use either coal or oil. Two other British warships,
one an improved _Bristol_, are to be fitted with Curtis turbines,
besides vessels for other Powers, and another experiment which will be
watched with considerable interest is the combination of Parsons and
Curtis turbines proposed to be placed in the 32-knot destroyers under
construction for the Argentine Government by Cammell, Laird and Co.
Foreign Governments, the French especially, have made many experiments
in warship building and designing, for the attempts to develop fixed
types have failed in this country as elsewhere, as the type has been
generally superseded almost before the specimen vessel has been
completed. This was particularly the case with the turrets when first
introduced. The barbette system has descended from it, and in turn
has been subjected to numerous changes. The amount of sail carried
by modern gunboats and cruisers, if any, is reduced to the smallest
quantity, the masts being little else than signalling poles; while in
the big battleships and cruisers the masts, which were at one time of
the “military” pattern and were used as hoists for ammunition, being
made hollow and of large diameter for the purpose, have in their turn
given way to skeleton masts and tripods, and combinations of the two,
of a strictly utilitarian character. The bringing down of a mast,
fitted for wireless telegraphy, at the first round in some firing
practice recently, showed that naval architects have not yet reached
the last word in the development, or diminution, of the masts.
Some exceedingly powerful battleships have been built in this country
for foreign nations, among the latest being the _Minas Geraes_, by
Armstrongs on the Tyne, for Brazil, which represents all that is most
modern in the construction of a warship, this vessel and her sister
being two of the most powerful battleships ever designed. They show,
too, what private yards can accomplish.
[Illustration: THE “MINAS GERAES,” BRAZILIAN NAVY.]
Many of the vessels which defeated the Russians at the battle of
Tsushima were built in this country. Both Germany and Japan, which were
among Britain’s best customers for warships, now depend, entirely in
the case of Germany and almost entirely in that of Japan, upon their
own shipbuilding yards. The Germans have been building warships of
the “Dreadnought” class and making such improvements as they thought
suited to their needs, and of late years have been producing a number
of vessels equal in power and speed to the British ships, and, if
some people are right, of even greater fighting capacity in every
way. The rise of Germany to the position of a first-rate Naval Power
has been rapid, and the sacrifices the country has made to obtain its
magnificent Navy have been great.
The American Navy has developed in its own way. The naval architects
of the United States have been unfettered by the traditions of the
navies of other countries and their products have been remarkable for
the number of vessels designed to meet special circumstances. This was
particularly the case during the Civil War, when all sorts of steamers,
from excursion boats to tugs, were pressed into service, and many gave
an exceedingly good account of themselves. A remarkable vessel which
was expected to revolutionise naval warfare was the _Destroyer_, in
which a special make of dynamite gun was fixed, but it was hopelessly
outranged by other guns. The opposition to steam in the Navy was as
bitter in America as in this country when the innovation was first
proposed. James Kirke Paulding, a member of Van Buren’s Cabinet in
1837, disliked steamers so much that he wrote that he would “never
consent to see our grand old ships supplanted by these new and ugly
sea-monsters”; and elsewhere he wrote “I am steamed to death.”
In 1858 the American naval architect, John Willis Griffiths, built to
the order of the American Government the gunboat _Pawnee_, which was
fitted with twin screws and a drop bilge to increase the stability at
the least expenditure of engine-power. The _Pawnee_ carried a frigate’s
battery, but it is stated to have drawn only ten feet of water. He
also, in 1866, designed and constructed triple screws for great speed.
The United States decided upon a very powerful Navy a few years
ago, and sent a splendid fleet on a tour round the world as an
object-lesson. As it is contended that the life of a battleship as a
fighting unit of the first class is only fifteen years, an extensive
modernising process has been going on. The sister ships _Kentucky_
and _Kearsarge_ were constructed with superimposed turrets, two fore
and two aft, the lower turrets having two 13-inch guns and the upper
turrets two 8-inch guns each, but this method of placing the turrets
has not commended itself to naval architects of other countries, and
has not been repeated in the American Navy.
The warships _Wilmington_, _Kearsarge_, _Missouri_, _Arkansas_, _West
Virginia_, _Charleston_, _Virginia_, _North Carolina_, and _Delaware_
are among those built by the Newport News Shipbuilding and Dry Dock
Company, and several have been constructed by Messrs. Cramp at
Philadelphia and by the Union Iron Works at San Francisco.
The battleship of the future, in the opinion of one eminent shipbuilder
at least, will be very different from existing types. Messrs. Vickers,
Sons, and Maxim, who are no mean authorities on warship construction,
were stated recently to have been engaged in elaborating plans for
a mastless vessel, propelled by a system of gas machinery, without
funnels or other deck obstructions, of a greater speed than any warship
afloat, and able to fire ten 12-inch guns on either broadside and six
of them either right ahead or astern, without counting a number of
smaller guns. Such a vessel would be propelled by four screws.
[Illustration: _Photo. G. West & Son._
THE “KEARSARGE,” U.S. NAVY.]
[Illustration: _Photo. G. West & Son._
THE “SAN FRANCISCO,” U.S. NAVY.]