Chapter X: The Ironclad (1)

The year 1860 marks the most dramatic, swift, and far-reaching change which has ever befallen war material: the supersession of the wooden ship-of-the-line by the modern battleship in its earliest form. What were the causes, suddenly realized or acknowledged, which impelled this revolutionary change, and what were the circumstances which moulded the new form of naval construction? This final chapter will attempt to show. Before descending to a detailed examination of this evolution, however, let us trace out the most striking features of the transition; their measure of accuracy can be estimated by the light of the subsequent narration of progress.

In the first place, then, we remark that, potentially, from the time when shell-throwing ordnance was introduced into the French, and then as a counter-measure into our own fleet, unarmoured wooden ships were doomed. Strange it seems that so long a time elapsed before this fact was realized; though it is true that with spherical shells and small explosive charges the destructive effects of shell fire were not greatly superior to those of solid shot, that fuzes were unreliable, that trials of artillery against material were rarely resorted to, and that, moreover, no opportunity occurred between 1822 and the outbreak of the Crimean War to demonstrate in actual sea-fighting such superiority as actually existed. Implicit trust was placed in our fine sailing ships. So long as solid shot were used, indeed, these timber-built ships were admirably suited for the line of battle; as size and strength increased and as our methods of construction improved the ship gained an increasing advantage over the gun, defence increasingly mastered attack, to such a degree that by the end of the long wars with France the ship-of-the-line had become almost unsinkable by gun-fire. But so soon as shell guns were established--even with spherical shells fired from smooth-bore ordnance--wooden ships loomed easy targets for destruction. For a long time this disquieting conclusion was ignored or boldly denied; expert opinion with sagacity turned a blind eye to the portentous evidence presented to it of the power of shell. War came, but even then the full possibilities of shell fire were not developed. Enough proof was given, however, to show that in the special circumstances of that war unarmoured ships were of small value against shell fire. Armour was accordingly requisitioned, and, some few years after the war, was applied to seagoing warships.

Another development now took place. At this period when disruptive and incendiary shell was proving itself a more powerful agent than solid shot of equal size, both shell and shot gained an enhanced value from the application of rifling to ordnance; moreover, ordnance itself was developing so quickly that each year saw an appreciable increase in the unit of artillery force. This variation in the unit profoundly affected naval architecture. No longer was there a unit of standard and unchanging value, which, when multiplied by a certain number, conveyed a measure of a ship’s offensive power. No longer was the size of a ship a rough measure of its fighting strength; by concentrating power in a few guns, offensive strength could be correspondingly concentrated, if desired, in a small vessel. On the other hand, in view of the sudden accession of offensive strength, the defensive capacities of a ship remaining as before, it was now true that size had become an element of danger, diminutiveness of safety. Hence warships, which had for centuries triumphed in the moral and physical effect of their height and size, suddenly sought to shrink, to render themselves inconspicuous, to take the first step towards total invisibility.

An effect of the same development--of the increasing size of the unit gun, and therefore of the decreasing number of units which a ship could carry--was the mounting of every big gun so as to command as large an arc of fire as possible.

As the final development we note that the steam engine, in endowing the warship with motions far more variable, certain and controlled than those of the sailing ship, called forth tactical ideas quite different, in many respects, from those which governed sea actions in the canvas period. The warship itself is the embodiment of tactical ideas. Hence the design of the steam-propelled warship evolved along a different line from that of the sailing ship.

By the effect and interaction of these developments a complete revolution was compassed in naval architecture; by the progress of artillery and the steam engine, and by the improvement in mechanical processes in general, an entirely new unit of naval force was evolved from the old sailing ship: the mastless, turreted ironclad of the late ’sixties, the precursor of the modern battleship.

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No sooner had the shell gun given proofs of its destructive powers than experiments on the penetrative power of projectiles began to assume importance, and as early as 1838 trials were being made at Portsmouth against a hulk, the result of which, confirming the experiments made by the French with the _Pacificateur_ some sixteen years previously, demonstrated the far-reaching effects of explosive shell against a ship’s side-timbers. Four years later the prime minister was apprised from New York that the Americans had discovered a suitable and adequate protection for ships’ sides; iron plates of three-eighths of an inch in thickness, riveted together to form a compound 6-inch plate, were alleged to have been found ball-proof. On receipt of which intelligence the Admiralty instructed Sir Thomas Hastings, captain of the _Excellent_, to confirm or disprove by actual trial. Trial was made, but it was reported that no protection was afforded by such plates against the fire of 8-inch shell or 32-pounder shot, even at 200 yards’ range. No defensive remedy could be devised against shell fire, and the only counter-measures deemed practical were of an offensive nature, viz. to mount shell guns as powerful as those of the enemy, and to keep him at a distance by the employment of large and far-ranging solid-shot ordnance.

In the meantime iron, which was not acceptable as a protection, had been accepted as a constructive material for ships. For some years it had been increasingly used for mercantile shipping with satisfactory results. The scarcity of timber and its cost, as well as the positive advantages to be obtained from the use of the much stronger and more plentiful material, had decided the Admiralty in ’43 to build iron warships. Some small vessels were built and, in spite of adverse criticism and alarming prediction, acquitted themselves admirably on service. In ’46 it was resolved, however, to put iron to the test of artillery. An iron steamboat, the _Ruby_, was used as a target by the _Excellent_ gunners, and the results were unfavourable; the stopping power of the thin metal was small, and the balls which went clean through the near side wrought extensive damage on the opposite plates. In ’49 trials were made with stouter plates with more promising results: a report favourable to iron as a protection for topsides was made. But in ’51, as the result of elaborate trials made against a “mock up” of the side of the _Simoon_, the previous conclusions were reversed. Iron was condemned altogether as unsuitable for ships of war. “The shot and shell,” reported Captain Chads, “on striking are shivered into innumerable pieces, passing on as a cloud of langrage with great velocity,” and working great destruction among the crew. Nor was a combination of wood and iron any better. In fact the report claimed that, as regards the suitability or the unsuitability of iron, these experiments might be deemed to set the question at rest. The experience of the French had apparently been somewhat similar to our own. In both countries the use of iron for warships received a sudden check and, in England at any rate, the idea of unarmoured wood was once again accepted. In both countries the opinion was widely held that iron was unsuitable either for construction or protection, and that the view of General Paixhans, that vessels might be made proof even against shells by being “cuirassées en fer,” was preposterous and impracticable.[161]

Potentially, as it now seems, wooden sailing ships were so weak in defensive qualities that the new artillery, if only it could be adequately protected, had them at its mercy. Actually it required the rude test of war to establish the unpalatable truth. In November, 1853, such proof was given. At Sinope a squadron of Turkish frigates armed with solid-shot guns was almost blown out of the water by shell fire from a powerful Russian squadron; the latter were practically uninjured, while the Turkish fleet was set on fire and a terrible mortality inflicted among the crews in a short time. General Paixhans, who had lived to see his invention fulfil in actual warfare his early predictions, was able to emphasize, in the columns of the official _Moniteur_, the arguments against large ships and the advantages which would accrue to France especially by the subdivision of force and the substitution of small protected steamers armed with heavy guns for the existing wooden ships-of-the-line. The concentrated fire of a few such steamers would overpower the radiating fire of the largest three-decker.

The type of naval warfare imposed on the allies in the Crimean War lent special force to Paixhans’ arguments. For the attack of fortresses and coasts whose waters were exceptionally shallow it was at any rate clear that the orthodox form of warship, unarmoured, of large size and of deep draught, was of very limited value. Some special form was necessary; France made a rapid decision. Napoleon III issued an order for the construction of a flotilla of floating batteries, light-draught vessels capable of carrying heavy shell guns and of being covered with iron armour strong enough to resist not only solid shot but the effects of explosive shell.

The idea of armouring ships was, of course, not novel. Armour of sorts had been utilized from antiquity; in the days when the shields of the men-at-arms were ranged along the bulwarks of the war galleys; in the Tudor days when the waists of ships were protected by high elm “blinders,” and when Andrea Doria’s carrack was so sheathed with lead and bolted with brass that “it was impossible to sink her though all the artillery of a fleet were fired against her.” In the eighteenth century the French themselves had attempted to clothe floating batteries with armour, not indeed against shells but against red-hot shot. In 1782 they had devised, for the attack on Gibraltar, six wooden floating batteries which, with their armament, were protected by a belt of sand enclosed in cork and kept moist with sea water. But this experience had been disastrous. The sand-drenching apparatus failed to act, and the batteries were almost totally destroyed by fire.

But now, although experiments with iron-plated ships had been the reverse of satisfactory, data were to hand which showed that, if used in sufficient thickness, iron plates _were_ capable of withstanding the disruptive effects of shell. At Vincennes trials had been made, between 1851 and 1854, with various thicknesses and dispositions of iron; with plates four to five and a half inches thick, with compound plates, and with plates supported on a hard wood lining eighteen inches thick; of all of which the thick simple plates had proved the most effective. So the five floating batteries ordered for work in the Crimea were covered with 4-inch iron plates backed by a thick lining. Sixty-four feet long, 42 feet in beam, drawing about 18 feet of water, armed with sixteen 56-pounder shell guns and equipped with auxiliary steam machinery for manœuvring, their construction was hastened with all possible speed. By October, ’55, three of them, the _Dévastation_, _Tonnante_, and _Lave_, had joined the allied flags, and on the 17th of that month they took a principal part in the bombardment of Kinburn. Their success was complete. Although repeatedly hit their iron plates were only dented by the Russian shot and shell. “Everything,” reported the French commander-in-chief, “may be expected from these formidable engines of war.” Once again the arguments of Paixhans for armoured war vessels had been justified; the experience gained with iron armour at Kinburn confirmed that gained with shell guns at Sinope. France at once proceeded to apply these lessons to the improvement of her navy proper.

In England, on the other hand, no great impression was created either by shells or by iron protection. A comfortable faith in our fleets of timber-built ships persisted; and, with regard to policy, as it had been with shell guns, and with steam propulsion, so it appeared to be with armour; the national desire was to avoid for as long a time as possible all change which would have the effect of depreciating the value of our well-tried material. At the same time it is remarkable how small an effect was conveyed to expert opinion, both here and in America, by the events of the Crimean War. In the years immediately following the war some notable technical works were published: Dahlgren’s _Shell and Shell Guns_, Read’s _Modifications to Ships of the Royal Navy_, Grantham’s _Iron Shipbuilding_, Sir Howard Douglas’ _Naval Warfare with Steam_, and Hans Busk’s _Navies of the World_. From these works and from the press and parliamentary discussions of the day it is evident that, outside France, the impressions created were vague and conflicting. The main lesson conveyed was the great tactical value of steam propulsion. The reports laid no emphasis on shells, and so scanty was the information concerning them that it was very difficult to appraise their value. Their effect at Sinope was disguised by the overwhelming superiority of the Russian force, which rendered the result of the action a foregone conclusion; on another occasion (at Sebastopol) shells fired at long range were reported to have failed to penetrate or embed themselves in a ship’s timbers. Commander Dahlgren was uncertain, in the absence of fuller information, whether shells had justified their advocates or not. Nor was Grantham impressed by the French floating batteries. “One only of these vessels,” he incorrectly says, “was thus engaged, but then not under circumstances that gave any good proof of their efficiency, as the fire was distant and not very heavy.”

So no violent change in our naval material followed as the immediate result of the war. Only in the matter of light-draught gunboats and batteries tardy action was forced on the authorities by public opinion. Although iron had been condemned for warship construction iron ships had been built in the years preceding the war in considerable numbers for foreign governments; the firms of Laird and Scott Russell had built in 1850 powerful light-draught gunboats for Russia, and in the same year Russia had ordered from a Thames firm an iron gunboat whose novel design had been brought to the notice of the Admiralty. But these craft were intended for the defence of shallow waters, and nothing analogous to them was considered necessary for the British navy. The exigencies of the war demonstrated in the course of time the value of these light-draught vessels. Still there was long hesitation; though the French government pressed on us their advantages, and presented our minister with the plans of their own floating batteries. The disappointment of the Baltic expedition, however, and the realization that the powerful British fleet which in the summer of ’54 had set out to reduce Cronstadt had done nothing but prove the inherent unsuitability of large ships-of-the-line for the attack of fortresses in shallow waters, gave rise to a loud demand in the press that gunboats should be built. Several were accordingly laid down. The first of these were found to be too deep, but others of lighter draught were designed and by the autumn of ’55 sixteen were ready; and these, together with some dockyard lighters which had been fitted as mortar vessels, joined a flotilla of French floating batteries in the Baltic and effectually bombarded Sveaborg. As the war progressed the value of ironclad gunboats became more fully appreciated. A large number was ordered, but most of them were only completed in time to fire a grand salute in honour of the proclamation of peace.[162]

Apart from the building of these gunboats innovation was avoided. Unarmoured wooden ships, equipped with a mixed armament of shot and shell guns, continued to be launched and passed into commission, and it was only after France had constructed, at Toulon in ’58, an iron-encased frigate, that England unwillingly followed suit, convinced at last that a reconstruction of her materials could no longer be averted.

_La Gloire_, the iron-belted frigate, was the direct result of the lessons gained from the floating batteries in the Russian war. After Kinburn the French naval authorities took up the study of how to apply armour to sea-going ships. Was it possible to embody in a fighting unit sea-going capacity, high speed, great offensive power, in addition to the defensive qualities possessed by the slow, unwieldy batteries? Could such a weight as iron armour would entail be embodied in a ship design without loss of other important qualities? It was concluded that, while it would be impossible to cover the sides completely, it would be possible to protect the surfaces near the water-line, under cover of which all the ships’ vital parts could be secreted. A great increase in defensive power would thus be obtained. Before developing a plan in detail it was decided to carry out further armour trials, and solid iron plates of 4½ inches thickness were fired at with English 68-pounders and French 50-pounders, with solid balls and with charged shells. The results were satisfactory, so these plates were adopted as the standard of armour protection. To the design of M. Dupuy de Lôme the first ironclad frigate was constructed from a fine two-decked ship, the _Napoleon_, which was cut down, lengthened, and armoured from stem to stern. The result was the celebrated _Gloire_. She was followed shortly afterwards by two sister vessels. And then, in order to obtain a direct comparison between timber-built and iron ships, an armoured _iron_ frigate, the _Couronne_, was also built. The three wooden ships were given a complete belt round the water-line of 4½ inches of iron; the _Couronne_ had compound armour--3-inch and 1½-inch iron plates separated from each other and from the iron stem-plating by wood lining 6 inches in thickness. The armament of all four frigates consisted of thirty-six 50-pounder shell guns, carried low. They were given yacht masts and equipped with propelling machinery designed to give them 12 knots speed.

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The naval position of England at this time was the reverse of satisfactory. Comparing the material resources of the two great maritime rivals, it came to be noted with surprise that France, taking advantage of the development of steam propulsion during the decade, had actually drawn level with England in the numbers of steam warships available and in their aggregate motive horse-power. The French had submitted to great financial outlay on account of their navy. In this country a reaction, following the large and partially ineffective expenditure incurred in the Crimean War, had dried up the sources of supplies and stunted constructional development; there was little to show for the money spent on such works as the enlargement of docks and on the extensive new factories and docks established at Sheerness and Keyham. Apprehension was widespread when the intelligence of the building of the iron-sided ships was received, and this apprehension developed when whispers reached Westminster of a huge prospective programme meditated by France. To allay the panic a parliamentary committee was formed to inquire into the relative strength of the two navies; and their report, published in January, 1859, made bad reading. Comparing the steam navies--for, the committee reported, sailing ships could not be opposed to steamships with any chance of success--France and England each had afloat the same number of line-of-battle ships, viz. twenty-nine; and as regards frigates France had thirty-four to England’s twenty-six! This did not include the four _frégates blindées_ laid down by France, which would be substitutes for line-of-battle ships, which were being built with the scantling of three-deckers, and which were to be armed with thirty-six heavy guns, most of them 50-pounders throwing an 80-pound hollow percussion shell. “So convinced do naval men seem to be in France,” note the committee, “of the irresistible qualities of these ships, that they are of opinion that no more ships-of-the-line will be laid down, and that in ten years that class of vessel will have become obsolete.” The position is bad enough; yet so bewildered are our experts by the radical developments of the rival navy, so difficult appears the problem of countering the French designs by any new and well-studied procedure, that all that the committee can recommend is the accelerated conversion of our remaining sailing ships to steam. The committee realize that naval architecture, and still more naval artillery, is in a state of transition, and that the late invention of Armstrong’s gun “may possibly affect even the size and structure of ships of war.”

It is not possible, however, for a country desirous of maintaining its maritime supremacy to wait upon perfection in the manner implied as the policy of the parliamentary committee. Some drastic and immediate action was necessary, to redress the advantage accruing to France from the possession of the _Gloire_ and her sister frigates. Such action was duly taken; but before proceeding to examine this action it will be necessary to revert for a moment to a consideration of iron. We have already sketched the evolution of iron as a protective covering for warships; we must now glance back and briefly trace its progress as a constructive material.

Iron vessels had appeared on the canals of England in the latter part of the eighteenth century. In 1815 a pleasure boat of that material had sailed on the River Mersey, attracting crowds of people whose credulity had been severely strained by the statement that an iron ship would float. Admiral Napier had manifested an early interest in iron ships; in 1820, in partnership with a Mr. Manby, he had constructed the first iron steamer, the _Aaron Manby_, and navigated it from London up the Seine to Paris, where in ’22 it attracted considerable attention. From this date onwards iron vessels increased in number. In ’39 the _Nemesis_ and _Phlegethon_ were built by Mr. Laird for the East India Company, and in the China war of ’42 these gunboats played a conspicuous and significant part. The grounding of the _Nemesis_ in ’40 on the rocks of Scilly afforded early evidence of the value of watertight bulkheads (a Chinese invention) when embodied in an iron hull.

As the size of ships increased, the disabilities attaching to the use of timber became more and more evident. Though braced internally by an elaborate system of iron straps, knees, and nutted bolts in iron or copper, the large timber-built ship, considered as a structure, was fundamentally weak; in fact the presence of the straps and ties contributed in no small degree to its inability to withstand continuous stress. The fastenings did not accord with the materials which they fastened together, and the wood was relatively so soft that when a severe strain arose a general yielding took place, the boltheads sinking into the wood and causing it to give way to the pressure thrown locally upon it. As tonnage increased the metal fastenings grew more and more conspicuous, the ship became a composite structure of wood and iron, with the result that uniformity of elasticity and strength was lost and the stresses, instead of being distributed throughout the structure, tended to become localized at certain points. “The metallic fastenings of a timber-built ship act to accelerate her destruction so soon as the close connection of the several parts is at all diminished.” So in 1840 wrote Augustin Creuze, a graduate of the disbanded school of naval architecture and one of the most gifted and eminent men of his profession at that day.

Iron ships, on the other hand, were found to be well adapted to withstand the racking stresses, the localized loads and the vibrations which were introduced by steam machinery; they were lighter than wooden ships, more capacious, more easily shaped to give the fine lines necessary for speed, cheaper and immeasurably stronger. In course of time the objections to them gradually vanished; by aid of the scientists the derangement of their compasses was overcome, the dangers from lightning were obviated, and the extent of the fouling to which their surfaces were liable was kept within limits. In course of time, in spite of natural preference and vested interest, and since the advantages of iron were confirmed by continuous experience, wood became almost entirely superseded by the metal for large mercantile construction. But in the case of warships, as we have seen, insuperable objections seemed to prohibit the change of material. No sooner had a step been taken by the Admiralty, in the ordering of a group of iron paddlewheel frigates in ’43, than an outcry arose; the wooden walls of England were in danger, the opponents of iron declared, and iron ships were wholly unsuitable for warlike purposes. More were ordered in ’46. Sir Charles Napier, whose opinion naturally carried great weight with the public, led the opposition, and when, in ’49, the artillery trial demonstrated the dangerous effects of shot and shell on thin iron plates, the advocates of iron were fain to admit the error of their opinions. The iron frigates were struck from the establishment and transformed--such of them as were completed--into unarmed transports.

As experience with iron ships accumulated, the feeling grew in certain quarters that the artillery trials, the results of which had been claimed as being decisive proof of the unsuitability of iron for warships, might not have been the last word upon the subject. The events of the Crimean War tended to emphasize the doubt and uncertainty. A few there were who saw in that war clear proofs of the superiority of iron over wood; who argued that, though iron had proved to be dangerous in the form of thin plates in certain circumstances, yet it had shown itself to be impervious both to shot and shell, and indeed an indispensable defence in certain circumstances when applied in sufficient thickness; that thicker plates than those condemned as dangerous might therefore prove to be a great protection against shell fire; and that, even as regards thin plates, the splintering effect of shell against these was small, from all accounts, compared with the _incendiary_ effect of shell against timber. And in what other respects were the advantages of iron contested?

But, acting upon expert advice and influence, doubtless, by the remembrance of the _Birkenhead_ and _Simoon_ fiasco, the government still felt unable to sanction the use of iron, and it was not until news of the laying down of the _Gloire_ reached England that a decision was made to adopt the new material, both as armour and for the hulls of warships.

The high protagonist of timber-built ships, it was shortly afterwards revealed, was Sir Howard Douglas: the most strenuous advocate of iron was John Scott Russell. For years, it appeared, Sir Howard had been the influential and successful adviser of the government against the adoption of iron. “I was consulted by Sir Robert Peel,” he wrote in 1860, “on his accession to the government, as to the use and efficiency of a certain half-dozen iron frigates, two of which were finished, and four constructing by contract. I stated in reply that vessels wholly constructed of iron were utterly unfit for all the purposes of war, whether armed or as transports for the conveyance of troops.” In the same paper he stated the arguments on which he had tendered this advice; and these arguments appeared so fallacious, and the facts on which they were based so disputable, as to seem to call for some reply from the builders of iron ships. Sir Howard had certainly strayed far from science in his unsupported statements as to the calamitous effects of iron if used for warships; and unfortunately he had allowed himself to stigmatize the _Great Eastern_, as representative of iron ships generally, as “an awful roller,” and as never having attained anything like her calculated speed. Scott Russell made a violent reply. “After establishing that Sir H. Douglas’s conclusions are the reverse of the truth,” he began, “I shall proceed to establish that the future navy of England must be an iron navy. That its construction must be founded on facts and principles, which Sir H. Douglas’s writings ignore, and his deductions contradict; and I believe I shall prove that if iron ships had been introduced at the time when Sir Howard says he sedulously and systematically opposed their introduction, the money which has been spent on a wooden fleet about to become valueless would have given England a fleet greatly more powerful than the combined navies of the world.”[163]

It may be conceded that in this public argument Scott Russell had the advantage: the architect of the _Great Eastern_ had little difficulty in confuting the views of the artillerist. But by this time the battle between wood and iron had been fought and won. The Board of Admiralty, influenced by the arguments of Scott Russell and their own constructors, and in the presence of gigantic achievements in the form of iron-built liners, felt unable to agree with Sir Howard in his continued advocacy of timber; Sir John Pakington expressed his personal doubts to him in a correspondence. Expert opinion, naval officers and architects, leaned more and more in the direction of the new material, and, early in 1859, the decision was made to build an armoured frigate _of iron_. It was a momentous decision. The “wooden walls” had crumbled at last, and iron had won acceptance as alone able to cope with the new forces brought into existence by the progress of artillery and steam machinery. The opponents of iron could not sustain for long their arguments in favour of timber; experience was accumulating against them, and it was necessary to accept defeat. Chief among them was Sir Howard Douglas. There is, surely, something pathetic in the episode of his long-continued struggle against radical change; something tragic in the spectacle of this scientist, whose labours had done more, perhaps, than any other man’s for the efficiency of the nineteenth-century navy, in his old age casting the great weight of his influence unwittingly against the navy’s interest? How gamely the old general fought for his convictions is told us by his biographer, who with a natural warmth denounced the fierce criticism which Scott Russell had directed against a veteran of eighty-five winters, devoting his last hours to the service of his country. “His resistance to armour ships bore him down, his arguments met with unbelief, or elicited taunts, and ceased to influence the public. ‘All that I have said about armour ships will prove correct,’ he remarked, twenty-four hours before his death, toward the end of ’61. ‘How little do they know of the undeveloped power of artillery!’”

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In June, 1859, some months before the launching of the _Gloire_, the reply was given: the _Warrior_ was laid down. Up to this time the initiative, in the slow evolution of naval material, had rested mainly with France. From this moment England, having taken up the challenge, assumed the initiative and its responsibilities; and from now onwards, in spite of false moves, failures, and ineffective expenditures of money and labour, she regained more and more surely the preponderance in naval strength which she had possessed of old. At last a scientific era of naval architecture had opened. Up to this time the design and construction of warships had been treated as a mere craft: a craft hampered, moreover, by absence of method, reluctance to adopt new views, limitations as to size, interference and ever-varying decisions as to such factors as the extent of sail-power or the number of guns to be carried. By the official acceptance of scientific methods this was largely changed. By the raising of the old office of Surveyor to the dignity of Controller of the Navy, by the institution of a new school of naval architecture to take the place of that suppressed in 1832 (whose most eminent graduates, fittingly enough, were the chief witnesses against the debased state and management of naval construction as it was prior to 1860), by utilizing the services of men trained in mathematics, the effect on naval architecture soon became apparent. Originality had scope, forethought and cleverness had full play; men of considerable technical knowledge were pressed into service, who proved well able to cope with the new developments.

The outcome of this new orientation was the _Warrior_. It is usual to think of her as similar to the _Gloire_; like her she was designed to resist the 68-pounder unit of artillery, like her she carried a belt of iron armour 4½ inches thick, and was equipped with steam machinery to give her a high speed. Yet in important respects she differed from her French rival.

From a photograph in the possession of Dr. Oscar Parkes, O.B.E.]

Firstly, her size in relation to her armament caused general surprise. Admittedly the policy of restricting dimensions, pursued with such rigour from the seventeenth to the beginning of the nineteenth century, had operated to the detriment of our naval construction; admittedly the long and fine-shaped sailing vessels built during recent years were greatly superior to those of the older models; yet no reason presented itself for building a ship, of armament equal to that of the 5000-ton French frigate, which would displace over 9000 tons. Were not cost and tonnage directly related, and was there some real necessity forcing us to build ships of so large a size? Was it true that the basins at Portsmouth would require to be enlarged to take such a ship, and that her draught would be such that she could only be docked at certain tides? The question was debated vigorously by the Board itself. Three considerations, according to an authoritative statement made to parliament, prompted the decision to depart widely from the design adopted by the French: considerations one or more of which have influenced all subsequent construction in this country. Firstly, the world-wide duties of the British navy demanded a type of ship capable of making long and distant voyages either with steam or sail: in short, a fully rigged ship, a good sailer, and at the same time one with sufficient carrying capacity to enable her to keep the seas for a long time. Secondly, to ensure good sailing qualities and to avoid a defect which had been experienced in our own ships fitted with heavy pivot guns, and which was predicted in the case of the _Gloire_, the extremities must be as lightly loaded as possible, and not weighed down with heavy armour. Thirdly--and this was more or less special to the period--since artillery was already in a state of rapid transition to higher power, any protective armour approved must sooner or later be insufficient and require to be augmented. These conditions, and the advantages which increase of length were known to give in reducing the propeller power necessary to obtain a certain speed, governed the specifications to which the _Warrior_ was built. She was given a length of 380 feet, machinery for a speed of nearly 14 knots, full canvas, telescopic funnels, and waterline armour over her central parts: the ends being left unarmoured, but subdivided by watertight compartments. Of her forty-eight smooth-bore guns, twenty-six were behind armour and twelve were outside of the protective belt; the remaining ten were mounted on the upper deck, also without protection.

In another respect the _Warrior_ bore witness to the foresight of the Board. Hidden behind, and altogether disguised by, the shapely bow with its surmounting figure-head, was a stout iron ram-stem, worked to the knee and side-plates of the bow: an inconspicuous but significant feature. Ever since steamers had been established in the navy the possibilities of ramming had been discussed. The revolution in tactics resulting from the introduction of steam as motive power had been examined by authorities such as Bowles and Moorson, Douglas, Dahlgren and Labrousse, and all of them saw in the new conditions an opening for the use of the ram. In ’44 Captain Labrousse had suggested strengthening the bows of wooden ships for this purpose, and in England Admiral Sartorius had become the advocate of a special type of warship built expressly to ram. The circumstances of the naval warfare of the Crimea, in which slow-moving steamers operated in restricted waters, had displayed to naval men the advantages to be obtained from actual collision--from the use of their ship itself as a projectile against the enemy’s hull. In the case of the _Warrior_ an additional argument was now to hand for providing a ram. The use of iron as armour had restored the equilibrium between defence and attack which had been disturbed by the adoption of shell fire; nay more, it had actually turned the scale against artillery, the 68-pounder being unable to penetrate the armour of the ship in which it was carried. For this reason, that for the moment armour had the ascendancy over the gun, a ram was considered to be necessary as an additional means of offence; and a ram was accordingly embodied in the _Warrior_, to the strength of which her converging iron-plate structure aptly contributed.

And now, leaving the _Warrior_ for a moment, it will be convenient to glance ahead and note the part played by the ram and the value set upon it in connection with later types of warships.

In 1860 no doubt was felt but that ramming would play a very important part in future warfare. The experiences of the American Civil War of ’62 seemed to supply a perfect confirmation of this opinion. “We fought the _Merrimac_ for more than three hours this forenoon,” wrote the engineer of the _Monitor_ to John Ericsson, “and sent her back to Norfolk in a sinking condition. Ironclad against ironclad, we manœuvred about the bay here (Hampton Roads), and went at each other with mutual fierceness.... We were struck twenty-two times, the pilot house twice, the turret nine times, the side armour eight times, deck three times.... She tried to run us down and sink us, as she did the _Cumberland_ yesterday, but she got the worst of it. Her bow passed over our deck, and our sharp upper-edged side cut through the light iron shoe upon her stem, and well into her oak. She will not try that again. She gave us a tremendous thump but did not injure us in the least.... The turret is a splendid structure....”

On the preceding day the iron-covered _Merrimac_ had sunk the wooden sailing ship _Cumberland_ by ram alone, without the aid of artillery, the shots from her victim’s guns glancing off her iron casing “like hailstones off a tin roof.” She had then opened on the wooden _Congress_ with shell fire, and in a short time the crowded decks of that ship had been reduced to a shambles. Then she had fought the inconclusive duel with the armoured _Monitor_. What lessons were at length driven home by these three single actions! What a novel warfare did they not foretell! The helplessness of the wooden ship when attacked by an ironclad was apparent, the terrific effects of shell fire were once again conclusively proved. The value of thick armour was once more shown, but, above all, the power of the ram, the new _arme blanche_ of sea warfare, seemed to be indisputably demonstrated. On both sides of the Atlantic a revision of values took place: the wooden navies of the world sank into insignificance, the _Warrior_ and her type were seen to be the main support and measure of each nation’s naval power. “The man who goes into action in a wooden ship is a fool,” Sir John Hay was quoted as saying, “and the man who sends him there is a villain.” The ocean-sceptre of Britain was broken, thought an American writer forgetful of the limitations of monitors, by the blow which crushed the sides of the _Cumberland_ and _Congress_.

Four years later the battle of Lissa, in which the ironclad squadrons of Austria and Italy were engaged with one another, gave confirmation that the lessons of Hampton Roads were also applicable to blue-water actions. “Full speed. Ironclads rush against the enemy and sink him,” was the signal made by the Austrian admiral, Tegetthof. The ram was his chief weapon of offence, the gun being a useful auxiliary in gaining him the victory; gunfire, by disabling the steering gear of the _Ré d’Italia_, making her an easy prey for the ram of his flagship, _Ferdinand Max_.

Of all the factors influencing the evolution of naval material, the experiences and records of actual warfare are naturally considered to carry the greatest weight in council: they are, indeed, the only data whose acceptance is indisputable. The claims and achievements put forward in time of peace, however their excellence may have been attested by the most realistic experiments, are all referred to actual war for trial, and are accepted only in so far as they fit in with war experience. But sea actions between ironclads have been few and far between. It has been the more difficult, therefore, to draw from them the true lessons conveyed; the fixed points have been insufficient in number, so to speak, to allow of the true curve of progress being traced. Not only has this insufficiency been evident, but the restriction in the area of war experience has had another harmful effect, in that undue weight has been given to each individual experience. Difficult as it always is to strip each experience of its special circumstances and deduce from it the correct conclusion, errors have undoubtedly been made; and these errors have had a prominence which would not have been theirs if the number of experiences had been greater. On the other hand, an altogether insufficient weight has commonly been given to the experiences of peace-time.

These remarks find one application in the ram, and in the value placed upon it in the ’sixties and ’seventies. During this period artillery was undergoing a continuous and rapid improvement, eventually turning the scales against defensive armour; steam power was expanding and the manœuvring capacities of ships were being extended, so as to make ramming an operation more and more difficult to perform. Yet faith in the ram grew rather than decreased, influenced almost entirely by the evidence of the two sea-actions.

What was the actual experience of ramming gained in peace-time? In ’68 Admiral Warden, commanding the Channel Fleet, reported: “So long as a ship has good way on her, and a good command of steam to increase her speed at pleasure, that ship cannot be what is called ‘rammed’; she cannot even be struck to any purpose so long as she has room, and is properly handled. The use of ships as rams, it appears to me, will only be called into play after an action has commenced, when ships, of necessity, are reduced to a low rate of speed--probably their lowest.” As time progressed the chances of ramming certainly grew less. Yet Lissa and Hampton Roads continued to influence opinion to such a degree, as to lead to a glorification of ram tactics; in the press, and in the technical institutions which had now come into being, the ram retained a lustre which it no longer deserved. So long as artillery was feeble and gunnery of low efficiency, and so long as speeds of ships were slow and manœuvring power restricted, the ram was of great potential value. As these conditions changed, the value of the ram declined. But for a time it was actually in question which of the two forms of power, the steam engine or the gun, would ultimately exert the greater influence as a weapon in action. The subject of a Prize Essay for 1872 was, “The Manœuvres and System of Tactics which Fleets of Ships should adopt, to develop the powers of the Ram, Heavy Artillery, Torpedoes, etc., in an action in the open sea”; and it was the opinion of the prize-winner, Commander G. H. Noel, that the ram was at that time fast supplanting the gun in importance. “The serious part of a future naval attack,” wrote Captain Colomb, in _Lessons from Lissa_, “does not appear to be the guns, but the rams.” And the French Admiral Touchard described the ram as “the principal weapon in naval combats--the _ultima ratio_ of maritime warfare.” “There is a new warfare,” said Scott Russell in 1870. “It is no longer, Lay her alongside, but, Give her the stem, which will be the order of battle.” And he predicted fleets of high-speed vessels, equipped with powerful rams and twin-screw engines, in which both guns and armour were merely of secondary importance. And writers on tactics discerned future squadrons in action charging each other after the manner of heavy cavalry.

The evolution of artillery falsified these expectations. With the growing advantage of artillery over the defence, and with the coming of the torpedo, fighting ranges increased and the use of the ram declined. With greater speeds and greater ranges the possibility of ramming became (as might be deduced mathematically) a diminishing ratio; before the end of the century it was sufficiently clear, and was confirmed by actual warfare, that the ram formed but a very secondary factor of a warship’s offensive power. But for some years ramming, and “bows-on” fighting in which ramming was intended to play an important part, influenced to a great extent the designs of warships.

So much for the ram, first fitted in the _Warrior_. In her sister ship the ram was less pronounced and, before Hampton Roads had drawn attention to its possibilities, it was even in question to renounce it altogether. In the case of the _Warrior_ the heavy figure-head so overhung the ram that many were dubious whether the latter would seriously damage an enemy; and, moreover, the wisdom of driving a fully rigged ship against another vessel, and risking the dismantling of her masts and rigging, was widely doubted. In other respects, except for her armour belt and for the material of which she was built, that vessel was not radically different from her predecessors; the first of iron-built ironclads was a handsome screw frigate not unlike previous British ships of her type, from whom she was lineally descended.

Although on the whole she was a conspicuous success, it was soon apparent that the great length of the _Warrior_ tended to make her difficult to manœuvre: in fact, made her deficient in that very quality--handiness--which was indispensable to her effective use as a ram. And this unhandiness was accentuated in the _Minotaur_ class which was begun in 1861. These ships were given a belt an inch thicker than that of the _Warrior_, and, partial protection being considered objectionable, especially as leaving exposed the steering gear and a portion of the gun armament, the belt was made continuous over the whole length of the ship. This length, owing to the extra weight of the armour, was 400 feet: 20 feet greater than that of the _Warrior_ and a hundred greater than that of the longest timber-built ships. At first, five masts were fitted, in order to obtain a large sail-area while at the same time keeping the size of each sail within desirable limits; but these were afterwards reduced to three. Sail power and steam machinery were seen to be an imperfect combination in so large a vessel. The _Minotaur_ class proved to be costly, unhandy and vulnerable ships, and signalled a return to smaller dimensions. It was found possible to design ships equally fast and equally well armed and protected, by the use of fuller lines and less length and an increased engine power. “Increased manœuvring power and reduction in prime cost,” wrote the designer of the new type, “more than make amends for the moderate addition to the steam power.”[164]

Here we may briefly note the conversion of the timber-built fleet. In ’57 Captain Moorsom had submitted a scheme of cutting down ships to a short height above the water-line and using the weight thus gained to provide an armour belt. Sir Charles Napier had advocated a similar policy in parliament. As soon as the necessity for armour was accepted this policy was adopted; not only were the resources of the private ship-yards bent to the building of a fleet of new iron warships, but the best of the old navy was metamorphized in the royal dockyards by the process of the _razee_: the cutting down of two-deckers and their conversion into iron-belted frigates. By these exertions France was soon outstripped in the struggle. For a long time she clung to wooden ships, though in ’62 she adopted iron for upper works; and of such ships, of wooden bottoms but of iron above the water-line, she built a fleet “possessing only one possible merit--uniformity; which the new English construction lacked.” The combination of heavy steam machinery and wooden hulls was the cause of continuous difficulties; the growth of artillery rendered the ships obsolete almost before they were built.

§

By the time the _Warrior_ and her sister ships were afloat the great struggle between armour and artillery was well in progress. It was a struggle which was to lead to unsuspected developments in naval architecture.

For the moment, and in the presence of the new iron-built ironclads, the gun was at its lowest point of effectiveness. But rifling had conferred new powers on it, and the greatest efforts were being put forth to improve its position. As it grew rapidly in size and power, naval experts were faced with a succession of problems of extraordinary difficulty. Two things were in question: both the type and the disposition of gun best suited for a warship’s armament.

With regard to type, the adoption of armour inevitably gave a set-back to the value of the shell gun. Shells, which would rend and set on fire a wooden ship, would not pierce armour or inflame iron plates; of which facts Hampton Roads afforded a demonstration. It seemed clear also from that incident, to experts in this country and in France, that no extension of the Paixhans principle was likely to compete with armour in the future. The system of shell fire of General Paixhans, like the shot system of the inventor of the carronade, had relied on low muzzle velocities and curved trajectories, to effect its purpose. His shells were for lodgment rather than penetration, and did not gain their effect by their kinetic energy; and in view of this their inventor had himself conceived the use of iron armour as the very means whereby they might be countered. Nevertheless the Americans had been strongly attracted by the Paixhans principle, and with their Dahlgrens and Columbiads had extended it in practice to embrace the use of guns of the largest calibres. The action between the _Monitor_ and the _Merrimac_ did nothing to shake their faith in this class of ordnance. Subsequent experiments appeared to confirm the national predilection; and one of their writers, in giving credit to the navy chiefs for adhering to the principle of the large smooth-bore gun, recorded that the small-bore-and-high-velocity theory had received its quietus by the utter demolition of a 6-inch plate by a ball from a 15-inch gun at Washington in February, 1864.[165] In France and England it was held, and held rightly, that high velocities were necessary for the attack of armour.