The British Navy Past and Present
Published by The Navy League
Chapter II STEAM AND OUR EARLY IRONCLADS. During the long peace which ensued between 1815 and 1854, the only striking change In naval equipment was the introduction of steel. Ships continued to grow, but their shape and construction did not materially alter. The idea of steamers, as first applied in the paddle-wheel vessel did not have a favourable reception in the minds of seamen. They objected to the clumsy paddle wheels, and saw danger in the boiler from projectiles. The screw propeller was to many equally objectionable. When in 1837 Ericsson took the Lords of the Admiralty for a trip on the Thames in his screw-propelled launch Francis B. Ogden, they did not think much of the invention. With the power applied at the stern they anticipated difficulty in steering. But in spite of naval conservatism both paddle and screw slowly made their way in the fleet, tile former in special vessels, while the latter was adapted to our line-of-battle ships. It was to bean auxiliary to their sail power. A few officers recognised the great change that was impending, but the majority clung to the past. Thus, in 1854, when we joined France against Russia, and despatched fleets to the Black Sea and Baltic, only a certain number of the ships were propelled by steam. By clearing our harbours a formidable force was collected, but the old difficulty of manning it again cropped up. Large bounties had to be resorted to, and a number of individuals who had no pretensions to being seamen found their way into our ships. This was especially the case as regards the Baltic fleet, but by dint of continuous drilling a fair amount of efficiency was attained. As the Russian fleet did not, either in the Black Sea or Baltic, contest our naval supremacy, this war did not afford any complete test of our skill at sea. Under those circumstances the work of the Navy in this war has not received its proper attention. Independent of the fact that the expedition to the Crimea was impossible without an assured command of the sea, the fall of Sebastopol was mainly due to the assistance given by the fleet. Of the guns placed in position to overcome the Russian defences, between seventy and eighty were furnished by our ships, while the naval brigade, which did such good work during the siege, consisted of 3,300 officers, seamen and marines. Little has also been recorded of the important operations carried out by the Navy in the Sea of Azoff.
This war was the connecting link between the past and the present Navy. It was the death-blow to our wooden walls and gave birth to the ironclad. The terrible effect of shell against wooden structures was realised in one quarter at least, and from that time it was evident that fleets in future would have an entirely different character. There was no gradual evolution, but a leap from the 120-gun wooden line-of-battle ship to the iron frigate carrying one quarter the number of guns but burdened with over a thousand tons of armour four inches thick. Such was now to represent the power of nations at sea, and which, with the same advance in dimensions as characterised the wooden ships from one century to another, has continued to do so up to the present time. Though I do not intend to dwell otherwise than briefly upon our early ironclad fleet, it is useful to recall one or two of the characteristics of the first representative. When completed for sea in 1861 the Warrior, had a displace-ment of 8,820 tons, of which 1,350 tons were devoted to armour that is to say, less than one-sixth of her displace-ment was given to the defence. This cannot be considered an inordinate amount, but later on we find the weight of armour carried is doubled, while the total weight of the ship only advanced 2,000 tons. As showing how backward we were in ordnance, the first armament of the Warrior consisted of smooth bore guns, but the anomaly was removed soon after her completion by the substitution of 7-in. rifled pieces. The armour at the water line did not extend to the ends, but this being recognised as a defect, following ships of a similar type, such as Achilles, Bellerophon and Agincourt class, were given a complete belt of armour. As if now to make up for past dilatoriness, artillerists were rapidly developing the power of rifled guns. Armour had to be thickened to meet their attack, and the area it covered reduced to some extent to obviate the necessity for such enormous dimensions of vessel to which we afterwards attained. Mr. F. J. Reed, the chief constructor of the British Navy, was equal to the demand, and in the Hercules produced a vessel no larger than the Warrior which had a complete armour belt twice as thick in central portion as the Warrior carried, while her armament consisted of guns each of which weighed eighteen tons. When completed she was considered the finest battleship afloat, but was surpassed by her sisters, the Sultan and Alexandra, shortly afterwards. Though all are now over thirty years old, only lately have most of them been struck off the effective list.
The broadside system of carrying guns was now super-seded by the turret vessel, in which the main armament was limited to four guns of immense weight. The competition between ordnance and armour had been keen and continu-ous, but certainly, while the attack showed great skill and ingenuity, the defence was entirely lacking in originality. The design and manipulation of guns weighing thirty tons and upwards involved the solution of many problems hither-to unconsidered - such as the improvement of gunpowder, application of the hydraulic principle for loading and controlling recoil, with new methods of sighting and firing. All were successfully worked out and adopted. The defence had no better idea than that of increasing the thickness of armour, until we arrived at the monstrosity of a ship being burdened with twenty-four inches of iron on her sides. It can hardly be doubted that if a sufficient inducement had been offered metallurgists would have given us years ago some worthier substitute, some improvement in the material, such as we now find in steel treated according to the Harvey and Krupp processes.
In our early turret ships we observe the immense weight of armour carried in proportion to displacement of ship. The first, the Devastation, of 9,500 tons, had 3,000 tons of armour, but it was carried to the fullest extent in the Dreadnought of 10,850 tons, in which the armour actually absorbed 3,800 tons, or practically one-third of the whole weight. Hence only four guns, each from thirty to forty tons weight, could be mounted in two turrets. This was the extreme limitation of gun-power we reached in the line-of--battle ship thirty years ago, and it affords a curious contrast to the 120-gun ship of the old Navy.
Owing to her efficient protection and other qualities, the Dreadnought was highly thought of in the Navy.
The Inflexible, which followed the Dreadnought, cannot be considered any great improvement on the latter. With all extra 1,000 tons displacement she carried, it is true, four 80-ton guns, but her armoured defence, though in aggregate weight slightly less than in the Dreadnought, had the grievous defect that it protected only a small portion of the hull. This enabled a thickness of twenty-four inches of iron to be carried -a fact which neither compensated for its limitation nor gave that general protection against shell fire for which armour was introduced.The Inflexible was launched in 1876 and completed in 1880, her total cost being £900,000. She took part in the bombardment of the Egyptian forts at Alexandria in 1882, and was sold last year, with machinery and guns onboard, for £20,000. Most of the other early ironclads have either been sold or converted into depot ships.
[Index] [Chapter III]
