By SIR EDWARD J. REED.
We have now to pass under review that vast array of naval constructions which the Continental navies of Europe offer to our observation.
It is not at all surprising that the introduction of steam-engines, of iron and steel hulls, and of armor-plating has been attended throughout Europe by even greater diversity of thought and practice than has characterized our naval progress—“our progress” here signifying that of both the United States and Great Britain. And this may, I think, truthfully be said without in any degree neglecting the striking originality of the American Monitors, to which I endeavored to do justice.
As regards two of the three great changes just adverted to, the only differences of opinion that have arisen have been in the nature of competitions rather than of conflicts. No one, so far as I am aware, has ever proposed to revert to sail-power or to wooden hulls in important ships-of-war. On the contrary, the powers have been in continual competition in the effort to reduce the weights of the hulls of war-ships (apart from armor) by the extended use, first of iron, and afterwards of steel, and to apply the savings of weight thus effected to the development of engine-power, speed, and steaming endurance. On the other hand, it must be acknowledged that the development of armor has been pursued with less constancy and less earnestness, the result being that marked contrasts are exhibited by European navies.
It may be said, with little or no qualification, that all other European naval powers followed, in the first place, the example set by the late Emperor Napoleon III., inLa Gloire, by covering the whole of the exposed part of the war-ship’s hull with armor-plating. All the early iron-clads of Russia, Italy, Austria, and Germany were protected from stem to stern, and from a few feet below water to the upper deck. England did the same in the cases of a few ships, although she began, as we sawbefore, with theWarriortype, in which the armor was limited to the central part of the ship. But the system of completely covering the exposed ship with armor has now entirely and properly passed away from European practice, and has been succeeded by varied arrangements of armor.
The importance of giving effectual protection to the hull “between wind and water,” as it is called (signifying from a few feet below the water-line to a few feet above that line), has been steadily recognized by Continental governments, with but the rarest exceptions. Nothing corresponding to that wholesale abandonment of armor for about a hundred feet at each end of the ship which has been practised in the British ships of theInflexibleandAdmiraltypes is displayed in the line-of-battle ships of the Continent. In France, indeed, two such ships were laid down under some temporary influence,viz., theBrennusand theCharles Martel, but they appear to have soon fallen under suspicion, and there has not been, to my knowledge, any great disposition to complete them for service. A return made by the Admiralty to the order of the House of Commons has been printed, and says of theBrennusandCharles Martel: “Though these vessels still appear in the list of the French navy, but little money has been voted for their construction in 1886, and all work on them is now reported to have been stopped.” I know not what significance is to be attached to the fact, but I observe that these two ships were omitted altogether from the iron-clad ships of France published so recently as May, 1886, in theUniversal Registerof shipping, whichLloyd’s RegisterCommittee “believe will be found the most complete list that has yet been published.” It seems not improbable, therefore, that the dangerous system of exposing two-thirds of the ship’s length to destruction from all kinds and every system of naval guns, even the smallest, which prevailed in the British navy for more than twelve years, and which has now happily been superseded in the powerful new shipsNileandTrafalgar, obtained but little more than momentary approval in France, and is likely to have led to the condemnation of the only two ships in which it was attempted—a result which is creditable alike to French science and to French sagacity.
In Italy theInflexiblesystem (which has met in France with the fate we have just seen) obtained temporary favor, and was adopted in theDuilioand theDandolo, two very large ships, of 11,000 tons each, of a speed exceeding fifteen knots, and each carrying four 100-ton guns in turrets. Although these ships are 340 feet in length, even the armored belt amidships (if “belt” in any sense so short a strip of armor may becalled[22]) is but 107 feet long, leaving therefore 233 feet of the ship at the ends wholly devoid of water-line protection. As the author of the “citadel system,” I cannot regard such an arrangement as this as a fair and reasonable embodiment of it, the discrepancy between the armored and unarmored portions being greater in these two ships than even in theAjaxandAgamemnon, which are perhaps the worst examples of the abuse of the citadel system in the British navy. It is to the credit of the Italian government that ships of this type were not repeated in their navy; and it is but right to point out that there were excuses (which probably ranked in the minds of the designers asreasons) for a more extreme proportionate limitation of the citadels being adopted in theDuilioandDandolothan in theAjaxandAgamemnon. Among these were the possession by the Italian ships of heavier armaments, and of far greater steam-power and speed than the British ships possessed—a matter to which further reference will be made hereafter—and probably, also, the adoption of somewhat finer water-lines as a means of attaining the superior speed.
In this connection it may be well to observe that the question of leaving so-called armored line-of-battle ships without armor at the extremities is first one of principle, and afterwards one of degree. The principle (which should be observed in the design of every armored vessel which is intended for the line of battle, or for those close and severe contests of ship with ship which will probably supersede in a great degree the system of fighting in lines of battle) is this: the proportion which the armored citadel bears to the unarmored ends must always be such as to enable the ship to keep afloat all the time the armor itself holds out against the attack of the enemy; so that injuries to the unarmored ends, however great or multiplied, shall not alone suffice to destroy the ship. Whatever may occur in the future to interfere with the application of this principle—and I do not deny that such interferences may arise under certain perfectly conceivable circumstances—nothing has yet happened to justify its abandonment, or to even justify the remotest chance of its being violated.
If a ship is not intended to close with an enemy, or to fight her anyhow and anywhere on the open sea—which certainly has been the dominant idea of the British navy, in so far as its great line-of-battle ships are concerned—if, for example, a combination of immense speed withone or two extremely powerful and well-protected guns should serve a particular object better than a slower and more fully protected ship would serve it—then even great destructibility in the ship itself may justifiably be incurred. But for general naval service, and in every case in which a ship is intended to accept battle with a powerful antagonist and fight it out, or to force an action when she encounters such an enemy, it cannot be wise to leave her so exposed that that enemy may almost certainly sink her or cause her to capsize by merely pouring any kind of shot or shell into her unarmored parts. But even the observance of the above general principle is not alone all that is desirable in armored line-of-battle ships. It is not well to leave even so much of the ends of such ships wholly exposed as may lead to the speedy loss in action of her steaming or steering powers. The armor-belt should be of sufficient length to fairly guarantee the ship against prompt disablement in action, and to do this it must be carried very much nearer to the bow and stern than it has been in the cases of the Italian ships (DuilioandDandolo) now under notice.
On the other hand, where ships are formed with fine water-lines, and the two opposite sides are consequently very near to each other for many feet, it is quite unnecessary to cover them with armor. The buoyancy comprised between the two sides aft such parts is very small, and consequently penetration can let but little water into the ship, and do but little harm. It is a matter for the exercise of professional judgment where to draw the line between the armored and the unarmored parts. In the new British shipsNileandTrafalgar, which have excited great admiration in England, there are about sixty feet of length at each end left without armor, and as the ships have fine lines, but are nevertheless of considerable breadth at sixty feet from the ends, it seems probable that good judgment has been shown by their designers in this matter.
I have discussed this question at some length because it is one of primary consideration in the design of important armored ships, and because the abandonment of a long belt of armor is also one of the few features of construction respecting which the designers of the Continent have steadfastly refrained from following the example set by the Admiralty Office at Whitehall from the years 1870 to 1885. It will complete the consideration of this branch of the subject to say that there are numerous ships of the iron-clad type in foreign navies in which the armor (justifiably, as has just been shown) stops somewhat short of the ends, but very few indeed in which the length of the unarmored partsexceeds that of the armored. Among the last named may be mentioned a very questionable class of vessels (Sachsentype) in the German navy, and a much smaller sea-going vessel belonging to the Argentine Republic, named theAlmirante Brown, which is a well-designed vessel in other respects, but which, on account of her long defenceless bow and stern, would do better to avoid than to fight an enemy.[23]
Having now dealt with the primary question of the defence of ships by means of armor-belts, we come to the greater or less defence bestowed upon them above water. The course taken by the French designers, when the increased thickness of armor made it impossible to repeat the complete protection adopted inLa Gloireand her compeers, was in some few cases that of belting the ship with armor, and giving great “tumble home” to the sides above water, excepting at the central armored battery, thus allowing that battery to project, and its guns to fire directly ahead and astern, past the inwardly inclined sides. Thissystem has been strikingly carried out in the two sister shipsCourbetandDévastation, the former of which is shown, stem on, in the cut onpage 75, which is engraved from a photograph taken after her launch, and before she began to receive her armor-plating. A representation of the sister vessel,Dévastation(forming one of the series of engravings given in this chapter from drawings specially executed for the purpose by Chevalier De Martino), forms our illustration onpage 73.
But generally in the French navy, and in nearly all but its earliest ships, direct head and stern fire has been obtained by means of elevated and projecting towers, armor-plated to a sufficient height to protect the gun machinery, but with the guns themselves unprotected, and firingen barbette. In the case of the two shipsDévastationandCourbetthe main-deck projecting battery carries four guns, each commanding a full quadrant of a circle. The barbette batteries, standing up above the upper deck, carry a powerful gun on each side of the ship, with great range of fire.
War-ship in harborTHE “DEVASTATION:” FRENCH ARMORED SHIP OF THE FIRST CLASS.
THE “DEVASTATION:” FRENCH ARMORED SHIP OF THE FIRST CLASS.
Having given these general indications of the system of attack and defence adopted in the French navy—by far the most important of all the Continental navies—it now becomes desirable to go more into particulars. It is not necessary to dwell upon the early iron-clads of France. TheGloireand a dozen others of like character were all built of wood, without water-tight bulkheads, without rams or spurs, with armor-plates from four to six inches thick only, and with guns of small calibre and power. They may be left out of consideration in dealing with the present French navy. They were followed by six other vessels, also built of wood, but with upper works of iron,viz., theOcéan,Marengo,Suffren,Richelieu,Colbert,Trident. They were armored with plates of a maximum thickness of 8½ inches, and carried four guns of 10¾ inches calibre, weighing 23 tons each, with four 16-ton guns, and half a dozen light ones. They varied in some particulars, ranging in tonnage from 7000 to 8000 tons, in horse-power from 3600 to 4600, and in speed from 13 to 14½ knots. TheFriedlandis another vessel which is frequently classed with the previous six ships, the largest of which she generally resembles, but she is built of iron, and carries eight 23-ton guns, and none of the 16-ton. A committee which sat in 1879, and which had for its president and vice-presidents men no less eminent than the late M. Gambetta and MM. Albert Grévy and Jules Ferry, pronounced these seven ships to be the strongest armored ships of the French navy then in service. Such great advances have since been made, however, that it is only necessary to add respecting these vessels that they were nearly all single-screw ships, and that they carried their principal armament at broadside ports on the main-deck, and in raised barbette towers placed at the four corners of the central battery. TheRichelieuwas the largest of these vessels.
War-ship in harborTHE “COURBET” (FORMERLY THE “FOUDROYANT”): FRENCH ARMORED SHIP OF THE FIRST CLASS.
THE “COURBET” (FORMERLY THE “FOUDROYANT”): FRENCH ARMORED SHIP OF THE FIRST CLASS.
Not one of the foregoing French ships of the early period conformed to conditions which were laid down officially in 1872 as those requisite for first-class French iron-clads,viz., that they should be constructed of iron (or steel), with water-tight compartments, be armored with plates 12 inches thick, with decks from 2 to 2½ inches thick, armed with guns of 24 centimetres calibre, commanding certain prescribed ranges of fire, and furnished with spurs or ram stems. There were, however, four ships then under construction or trial which did conform to the prescribed conditions,viz., the two already spoken of—theCourbetandDévastation, and two others named theRedoutableand theAmiral Duperré. With these powerful ships may be said to have commenced the era of iron and steel line-of-battle ships in France. We will now bring them, together with still more recent French ships of the first class, into a table in which their particulars may be conveniently grouped.
Table A.—MODERN FRENCH ARMORED SHIPS OF THE FIRST CLASS.[24]
The ship which alphabetically falls last in this table among the ships of 9000 tons and upwards, theRedoutable, came first in point of time,viz., in 1872, and her design marked the commencement of the new era in French iron-clad construction. One of the features of the change was, as already intimated, the abandonment of wooden hulls, which we had succeeded in accomplishing in England eight years before. The first design proposed by myself to the British Admiralty provided for an iron hull, and although the force of circumstances compelled us to construct my earliest war-vessels in timber, yet so strongly averse were we to the employment of so perishable a material as wood within an iron casing that Admiral Sir R. Spencer Robinson succeeded in preventing the construction of three out of five wooden line-of-battle armored ships that had previously been proposed by the government of the day, and sanctioned by Parliament. This was in 1863 or 1864, theLord ClydeandLord Wardenbeing the last large armored wooden ships laid down in her Majesty’s dockyards.
War-ship in harborTHE “RICHELIEU.”
THE “RICHELIEU.”
The French delayed the change for some years, as we see. M. De Bussy, the designer of theRedoutable, and a most accomplished naval constructor, built a very large part of the ship of steel, and by so doing brought the French dockyards into early acquaintance with the superiority of that material to iron for constructive purposes. TheRedoutablehas armor of more than 14 inches in thickness upon her belt, and of 9½ inches upon her central battery. She carries eight 25-ton guns[26]—four in her central battery, two in barbette half-towers, and two on revolving platforms at the bow and stern respectively. She also carries eight light 5½-inch guns. This ship generally resembles her successors, theDévastationand theFoudroyant(by the same designer), in so far as that her batteries fire past sides, with great tumble home.
Lord Brassey (in this respect somewhat erroneously following Mr. King, of the United States navy, in his able work upon “The War-ships and Navies of the World”), says, “The faculty of firing parallel to the line of keel is secured in the French ship by the tumble home of the ship’s sides, and not by the projection of the battery beyond them, as in the English vessel (theAudacious).” It is difficult to understand what this means, because it is obviously only by the projection of the battery beyond the sides of the ship which are before and after it that fore and aft fire can be obtained from the battery in either case. But it is not true that the battery of theAudacious, any more than the battery of theRedoutable, projects beyond the breadth of the ship at the water-line, which would seem to be what is intended, and Lord Brassey may assure himself of the fact by looking at Plate III. of his own work on “The British Navy,” from which the above words are quoted. TheRedoutableis a full-rigged ship, and nevertheless steams 14¼ knots per hour. There is one particular in which theDévastationand theFoudroyant, like her as they are in general design, differ materially from theRedoutable. I refer to the armament. The former two ships each carry four 34-centimetre 48-ton guns in the main-deck battery, in lieu of the four 25-ton guns of theRedoutable.
TheAmiral Duperré(designed by M. Sabattier, the able French chief constructor) claims a few words, as she differs materially in typefrom the three ships just discussed. She has a complete belt of very thick armor from stem to stern—greatest thickness 22 inches, tapering to 10 inches at the extremities, with a thick deck (2 inches) at the top of the belt in the usual manner. But above this belt there is no armored main-deck battery, as in the other ships, the chief armament, of four 48-ton guns, being carried in four elevated barbette towers, two of which are well forward, and project considerably to enable their guns to act efficiently as bow-chasers, and at the same time to command all round the broadside and right astern. To facilitate this the sides of the ship have great tumble home. The other two towers are situated at the middle line of the ship, one near the stern, and the other farther forward, between the main and the mizzen masts. The main-deck, although without armor defence, is not without armament, as it carries fourteen 5½-inch 60-pounder rifled breech-loaders. Other particulars of theAmiral Duperréare given in the table, and onpage 81is a view of her, engraved from a photograph with which I have been favored by a French officer.
It will be observed from her description that the most characteristic feature of this great ship of more than 10,000 tons is the absence of any guns protected by armor. The barbette towers, it is true, are armored with 12-inch plates, and the main-deck guns are under the protection of the thin plating of the ship’s side, which latter is of little or no avail, however, against the armament of other first-class ships. Practically the whole of theDuperré’sguns are unprotected. It may be added that during the discussions in London upon the “ships armored in places” an attempt was made to show that theDuperré, owing to her alleged small initial stability, was as devoid of stability when injured above the belt as certain vessels of the BritishAdmiralclass when injured before and abaft the belt—a statement which I distrust, as I regard it as a mere inference from an experiment which I believe to be delusive. At the same time, theDuperréwould have been the better for more initial stability.
War-ship in harborTHE “AMIRAL DUPERRÉ:” FRENCH ARMORED SHIP OF THE FIRST CLASS.
THE “AMIRAL DUPERRÉ:” FRENCH ARMORED SHIP OF THE FIRST CLASS.
But it is obvious that all belted or partially belted vessels, in which the belt is carried but a small height above the water for the size of the ship, must run the risk of losing both buoyancy and stability very soon if even moderately inclined in or after battle, seeing that, with a moderate inclination only, the entire armor-belt on the depressed side of the ship must disappear beneath the sea’s surface. The strenuous assertion of this source of danger, although it could not lead to much increase in the stability of the existing armored ships, has produced as one effect the busy and earnest efforts which both English and French constructors have been recently making to subdivide their shipsabove the armorinto as many water-tight compartments as possible, and to stuff these compartments as full as possible of buoyant (or at least of water-excluding) materials. The necessity for resorting to this device, however, in first-class ships of nine, ten, or eleven thousand tons displacement, and of something approaching to five million dollars each in value, is not a thing for either French or English naval constructors to be proud of. But the assertion of the danger in question has had in England the further and very satisfactory result of bringing much more trustworthy ships, like theNileandTrafalgar, into being, and of insuring the determined support of these ships in Parliament whenever those who foolishly confound mere cheapness with merit in such constructions seek to interfere with the progress of these magnificent vessels.
Two other powerful ships of the French navy, closely resembling theAmiral Duperré, are theAmiral Baudinand theFormidable. They are of 3¼ feet more beam than theDuperré(and therefore probably have much larger stability), and their displacement exceeds hers by 900 tons. Their armaments chiefly differ from hers in the employment of three guns of 75 tons each in their towers, in lieu of the four guns of 48 tons of theDuperré. TheNeptune,Hoche,Magenta, andMarceauare four other powerful ships, as will have been seen from Table A, the principal armament of each consisting of four guns of 52 tons, carried in towers, with the exception of theHoche, which has two of her four principal guns of 28 tons each only.
Incidental mention has already been made onpage 76of two ships, theCaïmanandIndomptable, which, although of only 7200 tons, carry very thick armor (19½ inches), and as a matter of fact carry also guns of the heaviest type (75-ton). There are two other vessels of the same description, theTerribleandRequin. Careful note should be taken of these four steel-built vessels, which add greatly to the power of France. Each carries two of the very powerful guns just mentioned, and steams at a speed of 14½ knots. In the same category of thickly armored ships the French have yet one other ship, theFurieux, of 5560 tons. Her armor is 17½ inches thick in places, and she is armed with two 48-ton guns. Her speed is 12 knots. TheTonnanthas the same armor and armament, but she is of nearly 1000 tons less displacement, drawing much less water, and steaming only at 10 knots per hour.
We may sum up the facts relating to the larger class of French iron-clads which still rank among the efficient ships of 7000 tons and upward by saying that, in addition to the sixteen ships of which the particulars are given in Table A, there are on the efficient list theColbert,Friedland,arengo,Océan,Richelieu,Suffren,Trident,Savoie,Revanche,Surveillante, andHéroïne, most of which have been previously described in general terms, and the remainder of which are of less than 6000 tons, and were built chiefly of wood many years ago.
The French navy further comprises thirteen armor-plated cruisers, of which four have lately been dropped out of some official lists. Of the remaining nine, four are modern vessels, and all of about equal size and power. These are theDuguesclin,Vauban,Bayard, andTurenne; but of these, while the first two are built of steel, the last two are built of wood, with iron topsides, as are all the remaining five vessels of this class. The subjoined table will indicate the inferior character of most of the vessels of this type:
Table B.—FRENCH ARMORED CRUISERS.
Of the above ships it may be remarked that theThetisandReine Blanchehave been nearly twenty years afloat, theGalissonièrewas launched in 1872, theVictorieusein 1875, and theTriomphantein 1877. The remainder of the nine, as previously stated, are modern vessels, theDuguesclinbeing not yet completed. TheDuguesclinand her sister ships are of theDuperrétype, much reduced in dimensions.
There are nine completed coast-guard iron-clads and eight armored gun-boats in the French navy, as follows:
Table C.—FRENCH IRON-CLAD COAST-GUARD VESSELS.
Table D.—FRENCH IRON-CLAD GUN-BOATS.
The vessels in the tables C and D are all revolving-turret vessels, with the exception of theTaureauand of the four second-class gun-boats, which fire their gunsen barbette. They embrace very different types of construction, involving different degrees of sea-worthiness—very low degrees in some of them, I fear. With the exception of theTempête, they are all furnished with twin screws. TheFulminant,Tonnerre,Tempête, andVengeur, in Table C, and the whole of the vessels in Table D (as yet incomplete), are of iron or of steel, or of the two combined; the remainder have hulls principally built of wood. I have chosen for illustration the turret-vesselVengeur, as seen onpage 87, which has been engraved from a photograph sent to me by a naval friend in France.
We come now to the unarmored ships of France, and as in writing of these I purpose accepting the official classifications adopted in France, which are not identical with those employed in England, it may be well to repeat here a caution which the British Admiralty has given in a memorandum prefixed to a recent “return” of theirs “showing the fleets of England, France, Russia, Germany, Italy, Austria, and Greece.” The caution is to the effect that France includes under the heading of “cruisers” vessels of about similar value to the larger class of English sloops, which are excluded from the English “cruiser” class. But I regret the necessity of observing that the Admiralty officers, while careful to put this explanation well forward, appear to be equally careful to withhold an explanation of much greater moment concerning three French cruisers of large size and of greater importance—withheld in pursuance, apparently, and as I have most reluctantly come to fear, of an uncandid, and indeed of a misleading spirit, which seems to have taken possession of some persons who have to do with the preparation of Admiralty returns to Parliament. The exercise of this spirit has forced me ere now to draw the attention of Parliament to the matter,and in one instance to have an official return, which contained erroneous and too favorable classifications of British ships, withdrawn.
Any one referring to the Parliamentary return of British and foreign fleets just adverted to will find under the heading of “Unarmored Vessels Building” two large and remarkably fast steel cruisers, theTageand theCécile, the former of which exceeds 7000 tons in displacement, while the latter approaches 6000 tons, and both of which are to steam at the immense speed of 19 knots an hour, or a knot in excess of the fastest armed vessel (neglecting torpedo craft) in the British navy. These two French cruisers are respectively 390 and 380 feet in length, and are to be driven by over 10,000 indicated horse-power in theTage, and by nearly 10,000 indicated horse-power in theCécile. A third vessel, theSfax, launched at Brest in 1884, of 4420 tons, 7500 indicated horse-power, and 16½ knots speed, is also given without remark in the Parliamentary return as an “unarmored” vessel. Now even this last-named vessel has a steel deck one and three-fourths inches thick to protect her boilers, machinery, and magazines, while theTageandCécilehave such decks three inches thick. These, being mere decks, do not, of course, remove the ships out of the category of unarmored ships, and the return is correct in this respect. But now in this same return all the British ships provided with protecting decks of this character are kept out of the lists of unarmored or “unprotected” vessels, and are classed separately, and are described as “protected” vessels. And not only is this true of vessels like theMerseyclass, which have such decks two and one-half inches thick in places, but it is true likewise of some twenty vessels, ranging, many of them, as low as 1420 tons in displacement, and with decks and partial decks of less thickness than that of theSfax, the weakest of the three French ships in this respect. In short, while the twenty-two English ships are withheld from the category of unarmored ships, although every one of them is inferior in protecting decks to the three French ships, the latter are placed in the inferior category, and not a word of explanation is offered to prevent the uninitiated and unsuspecting reader from regarding as weaker than our vessels those French vessels which are in fact the strongest and best protected. I must say that, as an Englishman, I grieve to see returns to the British Parliament made use of for the dissemination of information so misleading as this; and I should do so if I could believe there was nothing but official negligence involved; but I am sorry to say I cannot doubt that had the mere reproduction of foreign classifications put three of the very fastest and most important cruisers of our ownnavy, of Admiralty origin, at the very great disadvantage to which the French ships are put in this return, we should have had a very full and a very prominent explanation of the seeming discrepancy given. It is to the credit ofLloyd’s Registeroffice that what the Admiralty Office failed to do in a paper issued at the end of July was properly done in theirUniversal Register, published two or three months earlier; for in the latter the three French ships are separately detailed under the heading of “Deck-protected Cruisers.”