Warships and their story

by R. A. Fletcher

CHAPTER VIII

BATTLESHIPS AND CRUISERS

There was no sudden change from iron to steel in the building of warships. Steel at first was very expensive, and by no means the perfect article that we know at the present day, besides which the supply was very restricted, and the Admiralty by using it in conjunction with iron was able to ascertain the extent to which it might ultimately be adopted. Thus, in one ship, steel was tried for the keel, in another for the protective deck, in another for facing armour, in another for the frames, and so on. The two screw propeller shafts of the Inflexible, for instance, were made of Whitworth compressed steel. They were 288 feet in length and weighed 63 tons. Had they been of wrought iron they would have weighed 97 tons.

One of the earliest steel warships ever built, and certainly one of the smallest, was the Dutch gunboat Handig Vlug, launched on the Thames in 1864. Commenting on this little gunboat, the Times said: “The general term ‘gunboat’ conveys to our minds the image of a vessel built of ‘sappy timbers’ and rotten planking, carrying two heavy shell guns on their low unprotected upper deck, fitted with 60 h.p. (nominal) engines, and averaging no more than eight knots under the most favourable circumstances, a class of vessel that has figured for almost fabulous sums in our annual navy estimates for ‘repairs,’ etc., but, nevertheless, a class of craft that has left imperishable marks of its usefulness and power in many parts of the world, and more especially on the rivers and seaboard of India and China.”

A comparison between the gunboats of the British Navy, as revealed by the foregoing quotation, and the type introduced by the Handig Vlug is striking. She was stated to be the first vessel of any class, built on this side of the Atlantic, to carry her armour on the deflective principle instead of offering vertical resistance to the impact of shot. She was constructed entirely of steel, her plates below the water-line being only ¼ inch thick, but above the water-line they were ⅜ inch thick, and the dome or cupola in which her battery was placed was composed of plates of similar thickness. This cupola occupied 60 feet in the centre of the vessel with a grated top for ventilation, and above this was a small pilot-house, resembling the usual American design, about 5 feet high. The cupola had three gunports at either end, permitting the guns to be trained ahead and astern, and on the bows or quarters. It also had a number of holes for rifle fire, which could be covered with brass slides when not in use. She was intended to be sufficiently fast under steam to be able to outstrip a battery operating on land in a country with so many watercourses as Holland, or to be rifle-proof if sent to Javanese waters. She was to carry two 12-pounder rifle shell guns and fifty riflemen. The length of this “hornet,” as she was called, was 100 feet between perpendiculars, her beam was 17 feet, and her depth 6 feet 6 inches, and she drew only 3 feet of water; her tonnage was 138 tons. In rough weather this little low ship made a speed of ten knots on her trial trip, and being a twin-screw vessel—the engines and ship were built by the Dudgeons—she was put through some tests in the presence of Admiralty representatives, and made a complete circle in two minutes forty-seven seconds, and another in three minutes, while in going ahead at full speed the course of the vessel was reversed by the altered action of the screws in one minute. The tests were held to “prove the worth of the double or twin-screw principle for purposes of warfare, as it has been proved before for some time for purposes of commerce, for handiness of any vessel under steam power is equally valuable for both purposes, whether in avoiding the shoals of a tortuous shallow river or in flanking the shore battery of an enemy.”[53]

As steel is much stronger in proportion to its weight than iron, it followed that the adoption of steel for building warships meant a great saving in the weight of the hull. The weight thus gained could be utilised in three ways: by increasing the extent of the armour carried, by increasing the weight of the guns carried, or by a combination of the two. As steel was still further improved it became possible to increase the size of the vessels, the power and weight of the engines and boilers—in which the power increased to a far greater proportion than the weight—the speed of the ships, the strength and extent of the armour carried, and the effectiveness of the guns. It permitted also of a destructive secondary armament.

We have seen how from the old broadside ships of the Northumberland type came the central battery ships like the Hercules, the last of these being the Superb. Their armament also underwent a modernising process as time went on, and many of these old ships, from the Warrior onwards, were equipped with both quick-firing and anti-torpedo-boat guns, and were retained long after their fighting capacity had become a very doubtful quality, and their surrender to the tender mercies of the shipbreaker became imperative.

Meanwhile from the converted Royal Sovereign there descended a series of turret ships, some, like the Cerberus, Devastation and Dreadnought, having two turrets on the centre line of the ship; others, like the Rupert and Conqueror, having one turret only; others, like the Monarch, having two turrets in the centre, and yet others having their turrets en echelon or placed diagonally, as in the Inflexible. The Colossus was an improved Inflexible, but of steel, and practically marked the end of the heavily armoured vessels of this type. From the double turrets and the central battery ships we have the combination of the two in the Temeraire.

The Colossus and the Edinburgh, which were begun in 1882 and completed in 1886, may be said to have inaugurated a new era in the building of the world’s battleships. They were the first battleships to be built wholly of steel for the British Navy, and were asserted to be more powerful as fighting ships than any other ships in existence. This was due not only to the material of which they were constructed, but also to the fact that they were given breech-loading guns, Great Britain being the last of the great Powers to dispense with the old-fashioned muzzle-loader. These ships were of much the same type as the Ajax and Inflexible, but their citadels were of greater length; they were of fourteen knots speed.

The Nile, launched in 1888, had a complete belt, and was the last low freeboard turret ship. She was preceded by what were known as the soft-ended barbette ships, because their ends were comparatively unprotected, the weight being concentrated amidships in order, among other objects, to increase the sea-going qualities of the vessels; the first of these was the Collingwood, begun in 1882 and launched in 1886, the principal armament being carried in barbettes.

H.M.S. “VICTORIA” FIRING 111-TON GUN.

Photograph by Sir W. G. Armstrong, Whitworth & Co., Ltd.

H.M.S. “VICTORIA,” SHOWING 111-TON GUNS AND TURRET.

Photograph by Sir W. G. Armstrong, Whitworth & Co., Ltd.

The Collingwood has been regarded as the pioneer vessel of the modern battleship, for it certainly was the first in which the real advantages of steel were displayed. On her was introduced the system of mounting four heavy guns in pairs on the middle line of the ship, not in turrets as in her predecessors carrying a few big guns, but in barbettes or fixed gun positions protected by heavy armour. The barbettes and turrets have been so modified in later ships that sometimes one term and sometimes the other is used by experts to denote the same design. The method of mounting the guns, as illustrated in the Collingwood, remained in vogue in the British Navy until it was supplemented by the Dreadnoughts. The Collingwood’s side armour was 18 inches in thickness; the armour of her bulkheads was 16 inches, that of the conning tower 12 inches, and that of her barbettes, in which her four 12-inch 45-ton guns were mounted, was 11½ inches. She also carried six 6-inch guns and several smaller guns. Her displacement was very little more than that of the Colossus, but she was two knots faster. Other vessels, described as sisters to the Collingwood, followed, but they were all rather larger, among them being the Camperdown, which had the misfortune to sink the Victoria during naval manœuvres in 1893 in the Mediterranean, when Admiral Sir George Tryon and nearly all the crew of his flagship went down with the vessel.

The Victoria was a steel-armoured first-class single-turreted battleship, and was built at Newcastle-on-Tyne in 1887. Her armour was from 18 to 16 inches thick, and there was a protective deck 3 inches thick. She had two sets of three-stage expansion engines, and steam was generated in eight steel boilers with four furnaces each, which were fired from four independent stokeholds. She was one of the three ships to be armed with 111-ton guns, of which she had two in a turret forward. One 29-ton gun was mounted aft to fire over the stern, and she also had twelve 6-inch, twelve 6-pounder quick-firers, twelve 3-pounder quick-firers, eight machine guns, and four torpedo tubes, two of which were submerged. Her displacement was 10,470 tons, length 340 feet, breadth 70 feet, and depth 27 feet 3 inches. The rapidity with which she heeled over and sank was supposed to be partly due to the weight of these enormous guns.

Great things were expected from the type represented by the Benbow, launched in 1885, and completed three years later, which, next to the Inflexible which cost nearly £800,000, was the most expensive ship Britain had then built, and cost the country close upon £775,000. She was very heavily armed, as she carried two 16.25 inch and ten 6-inch guns, all breech-loaders, and was the first vessel to be given five torpedo tubes. This vessel may be said to have inaugurated the big gun era, notwithstanding that she came under the category of soft-ended ships. The last British single-turret ship was the Sans Pareil, launched in 1887, and completed two years later, and in many respects a sister ship to the unfortunate Victoria. These three vessels did not give the satisfaction anticipated, and though various alterations were made in the Victoria no great improvement was effected, and the results were not considered such as to justify the construction of any more like them. The Benbow’s big guns were in barbettes, and those of the Sans Pareil were in a turret.

The Nile and Trafalgar, which were begun in 1886, were of 11,940 tons displacement, and were the largest ships up to then built for the Navy. Their heaviest guns, instead of being in barbettes, were placed in turrets. These vessels were exceedingly heavily armoured, having a belt of steel no less than 20 inches thick, and above this was an armoured redoubt, or citadel, protected by compound armour 18 inches in thickness for 141 feet along each side, the redoubt having parabolic ends of the same thickness of armour, enclosing the turret bases. Armour of equal thickness was placed on the turrets. The secondary armament, consisting of 4.7 inch quick-firing guns, was contained in an octagonal battery with steel sides 3 to 5 inches thick, placed between the turrets. These ships were 345 feet in length by 73 feet beam, and about 28 feet mean draught.

The Royal Sovereign, launched in 1891 and completed the following year, introduced what is known as the high freeboard barbette type, and in 1893 there was completed the Hood, the last of the British turret ships. The Royal Sovereign was noteworthy for several reasons. A record for rapid building was established in her, for she was laid down in September, 1889, and was launched as early as February, 1891, a quicker piece of work for a vessel of her dimensions and the weight of material handled than had ever been accomplished. One novelty about her armament was that she carried as many as eight Maxims. In her also the “big four” were 13½-inch breech-loaders, as against the 12-inch guns placed in her predecessors; these were mounted in pairs in barbettes. She also had ten 6-inch quick-firers, six of which were behind shields and four in casemates; and sixteen 6-pounders, twelve 3-pounders, and three torpedo tubes completed her weapons of offence. For the protection of the ship a belt of compound armour, 18 inches thick, extended along the water-line a sufficient distance to protect the bases of the barbettes. Across the ship at the top of the belt was a protective steel deck 8 inches thick, and this deck was continued at the level of the bottom of the belt to the extreme ends of the ship. Above the thick belt on the sides and protecting the ship as high as the main deck and from the fore to the after barbette was a belt of steel armour 4 inches thick, and above this, on the main deck, were the casemates enclosing the 6-inch quick-firers. Altogether eight of these vessels were built, the Hood being the only one of them to be given turrets instead of barbettes.

Artillerists, however, were not to be beaten, and so far as steel armour and compound armour were concerned, the gun appeared once more to be obtaining the advantage. The Harvey process of strengthening the resisting powers of steel came to the rescue of the armour-plate. The Renown, which has been called a “half-way house” between the Royal Sovereign and the Centurion, was the first warship in the British Navy to be given Harveyised steel armour, of which both her armoured belt and her armoured bulkheads were constructed. Whereas in the Royal Sovereign the thickest armour was 18 inches, that of the Renown was 10 inches, and yet the latter was declared to be the better protected.

The extraordinary reduction in weight thus secured made possible the advent of the Majestic and Magnificent. These two vessels and the others of their class were as far in advance of the Royal Sovereign as the heavy ironclads were in front of the iron-plated ships. The side armour of the Majestic and Magnificent of Harveyised steel was carried to twice the height that was possible with the Royal Sovereign, and though it was only 9 inches thick it offered a resistance to penetration by hostile projectiles at least equal to that of the massive sides of the Royal Sovereign, and was far stronger than the ponderous iron masses piled upon the sides of the great turret ships of a few years earlier.

H.M.S. “MAJESTIC.”

Photograph by West & Sons, Southsea.

With the Magnificent, launched in 1894 and completed the following year, came the barbette ships with a high displacement. She, and the others of her class, carried four 12-inch guns and twelve 6-inch quick-firers, and thirty-eight anti-torpedo-boat guns, a number which had not been equalled by any other vessel except the Royal Sovereign, and five torpedo tubes, as against seven which had been installed in that vessel and her sisters. The Magnificent had a displacement of 14,900 tons and engines of 12,000 indicated h.p., a designed speed of seventeen and a half knots which she exceeded, a coal capacity of 2,200 tons, a belt of 9 inches of steel armour, and from 10 to 14 inches of steel for the protection of the main guns. The Majestic was another of the sisterhood, though there were certain differences of detail, no two vessels being precisely alike. She was 390 feet between perpendiculars and, including the overhang of the stern and the ram of 15 feet, about 430 feet in length. Her beam was 75 feet. Thus she was longer than the Royal Sovereign but of the same beam, which made her a faster ship, her speed on her trial having reached 17.8 knots, although her engines indicated about 1,000 less h.p. than the battleships of the programme of 1889.

All the ships of this class were remarkable for their appearance, which certainly justified such names as Magnificent and Majestic. The great height of the superstructure fore and aft gave the idea of a good deal of top hamper, which however was quite as great in the Royal Sovereign. The upper deck 6-inch quick-firers of that vessel were only protected by ordinary shields, but the new ships had closed-in casemates at each corner of the battery and double plating above. The bridges and deck-houses of the Majestic were set back to avoid the “blast” of the great guns, and the forward conning-tower stood clear of the bridge and had an uninterrupted view all round. In regard to the bridges she differed considerably from many of her predecessors carrying heavy armament, as the “blast” from the big guns would have rendered a position on the bridge far from safe, especially when they were fired abeam. In these vessels the four 12-inch 46-ton wire guns were placed two in each barbette; the breech and body of each gun was protected by a steel hood with a maximum thickness of 10 inches. Their 6-inch guns were in casemates. The 12-inch guns were very powerful for their weight, and comparing them with some of their most notable predecessors, it was found that their energy nearly equalled that of the 67-ton gun and their perforating power exceeded that of the 110½-ton gun.

The Majestic and her sister ships were at the time they were added to the Navy the most powerful warships afloat. The smaller guns were unprotected, this being one of the objections urged against their design. They were provided rather for repelling attacks by torpedo boats, for which purpose they would no doubt have been very effective if they were not disabled by an enemy’s gun-fire first.

The Canopus class, of slightly larger displacement but less draught and more lightly armoured, was a lighter version of the Magnificent, and but very little faster. The next year, 1898, saw the launching of the Formidable, which carried the same powerful armament as the last two, but was considered to have it better protected, as her belt consisted of 9 inches of steel and her main guns were protected by steel armour 12 inches thick. The displacement and horse-power of the engines were greater, but there was little improvement in the matter of speed. This was remedied in the Duncan and her class. She was 405 feet in length and 75 feet 6 inches beam, being 5 feet longer and 6 inches wider than the Formidable, and of about the same draught, but her engines were of 18,000 h.p. indicated, giving her an estimated speed of nineteen knots and an actual speed of over twenty knots on occasion. These two classes of vessels attracted more than usual public attention because of their cost, as although the cost of warships had been steadily increasing, the Formidables and the Duncans were the first in which the cost per ship exceeded a million sterling. A somewhat smaller vessel followed in the Triumph, launched in 1903, which attained a speed of nearly twenty-one knots, and in which also the complete belt was revived. Her principal guns were four 10-inch and fourteen 7.5-inch quick-firers, and she had also twenty-four anti-torpedo-boat guns and two torpedo tubes.

H.M.S. “KING EDWARD VII.”

Photograph by the Carbonora Co., Liverpool.

H.M.S. “LORD NELSON.”

Photograph by Stephen Cribb, Southsea.

The increasing power and range of naval guns rendered it necessary that better protection and more destructive weapons should be given to the ships, and accordingly there was introduced in 1903, and completed in 1905, the King Edward VII., and eight of this class were built. Their displacement was 16,350 tons, and in this respect they were the largest ships yet built for the Navy, but though they were shorter than the Triumph, they were of 2 feet greater draught. Their armour belt was of 9 inches of steel, and their main guns were protected by 8 to 12 inches. These ships carried four 12-inch, four 9.2-inch, and ten 6-inch quick-firers, and thirty anti-torpedo-boat guns. They cost not far short of a million and a half sterling each. Their engines of 18,000 h.p. gave them a speed of about nineteen knots. In 1906, there was launched the Lord Nelson, carrying fewer guns but better protected. Her armament comprised four 12-inch and four 9.2-inch, besides twenty-nine smaller guns and five torpedo tubes, and the armour both of her belt and for her main guns was of steel 12 inches in thickness.

The King Edward VII. and Lord Nelson were the finest examples of the types of battleships carrying four big guns and a powerful secondary armament. Both classes were provided with four 12-inch guns, but the Lord Nelson and the Agamemnon marked an advance from the principle which had endured so long towards the principle of the all-big-gun one-calibre ship as exemplified in the Dreadnought. They were not, however, ships carrying all big guns of one calibre, for instead of a secondary armament like that of the King Edward, they carried ten 9.2-inch guns and twenty-four smaller weapons. The Lord Nelson and Agamemnon were about 410 feet in length by 79 feet 6 inches beam, and on a draught of 27 feet had a displacement of 16,500 tons. They were 15 feet shorter than the King Edward class and 18 inches broader. Many naval men preferred the Agamemnon to the Dreadnought, when the latter appeared in 1906, on account of the greater rapidity of fire of the former; but against this it was contended that her hitting power at long range was less. Upon her trials the Agamemnon’s engines developed 17,285 h.p. indicated, and gave her a speed of eighteen and three-quarter knots, both power and speed being in excess of the estimates. Her high freeboard was a notable feature; her forward guns were 27 feet and her after pair 22 feet above the water-line, while in a superstructure above them were the smaller guns some 34 feet above the water-line, where they were admirably placed for dealing with any attempt at a torpedo attack.

The Agamemnon was built by the Beardmore firm, at Dalmuir, and launched in June, 1906, and the Lord Nelson left the slips at Palmer’s establishment at Jarrow in the following September. It was contended that their 12-inch guns were half as powerful again as any of similar calibre mounted previous to 1906. Of their 9.2-inch guns, eight were in what are called twin barbettes, and the other two in single barbettes between the others. There are also a few 12-pounders and a greater number of 3-pounders, thirty-five in all, most of which are in a somewhat exposed position. These ships have each a complete belt extending along the water-line from stem to stern, 12 inches thick amidships, and tapering to 6 inches at the bow and 4 inches aft, while the sides above the belt and between the barbettes have 8-inch armour raised to the level of the upper deck; diagonal bulkheads, also of 8-inch armour, enclose the citadel at either end. Yet that 8-inch armour was declared by Mr. Beardmore, when the ship was launched, to be more than equal in its power of resisting projectiles to the 12-inch armour of only four years earlier.

In considering the development of the modern warship attention naturally turns to the battleship, but it should be remembered that other vessels of scarcely less importance help to constitute the modern navy, the most notable being the cruisers of various classes, the destroyers and torpedo boats, and submarines.

Broadly speaking, the cruiser of the present day is to the modern fleet what the frigate was to the line-of-battle ship in the days of the three-deckers. That is to say, she has to be the eyes of the fleet, able to show a good turn of speed, and capable of taking care of herself if need be. There the resemblance ends. The duties of the modern cruiser are multifarious. She has to be no less a commerce protector than a commerce destroyer, and while at one end of the scale she may be little more than a glorified gunboat, she may at the other end have to be able to take her place in the line of battle and help her more powerful sisters. Whatever her duties, speed is regarded as of great importance.

The Iris, in 1878, attained a speed of eighteen and a half knots, but more than seventeen years elapsed before this speed was equalled by any of the cruisers. Her sister ship, the Mercury, covered nearly 18.9 knots, or close upon twenty-two miles an hour. In 1895 the cruisers Amphion and Arethusa proved themselves able to exceed their designed speed of seventeen and a half knots, and thence onwards the increase in speed has been continuous, until we have the Invincible in the British Navy capable of exceeding twenty-nine knots under service conditions and in only moderately fine weather, and the Von der Tann, in the German navy, possessing a speed of twenty-eight knots under the most favourable conditions of weather and lightness of stores. At one time the German ship was asserted to be the fastest large cruiser afloat, but her supremacy, if it ever existed, in this respect was very short-lived.

The Phæton was one of the last class of cruisers to be given square sails. Her canvas certainly proved useful to her, for her machinery broke down during her commissioning trials preparatory to the naval review at Spithead in 1897, and had it not been for her sails she would have been totally disabled. The incident was seized upon by those who still favoured the older methods which had done duty for so many hundreds of years, as an argument for the retention of sail power for the ships of the Royal Navy, and the modernists replied that such incidents were few and far between, and with the improvements in mechanism which science was continually making would become virtually impossible.

Naval experts do not always agree as to the differences between a battleship and a cruiser. There are vessels in either category which could not possibly be placed in the other; but on the other hand there are some vessels that may be classed as either one or the other, and the types of the fast battleship and the armoured cruiser have been approaching each other in late years in so many respects, that some cruisers are fit to take their place in the line of battle against all but the heaviest battleships, and the natural result has been the appearance of the latest type of warship suitable for either duty, and known as the cruiser-battleship.

THE GERMAN DREADNOUGHT CRUISER “VON DER TANN.”

Photograph by Stephen Cribb, Southsea.

The Japanese, in their encounter with the Russian fleet, utilised cruisers against the Russian ships of the line, but whether they would have been able to do so had the Russian battleships been in as good condition as were those of their Oriental opponents is a point upon which opinions differ. The cruisers, like the latest Invincibles, have been given the armament of a battleship, but they have been less heavily protected in order to allow them superior speed; everything, should they have to take part in a naval battle, will therefore depend upon their antagonists and the exigencies of the engagement as to the duties they will have to perform.

Every nation has its own classification of warships, and the varieties of modern warships are so numerous, and the estimates of their effectiveness so much at variance, that it is little wonder the descriptions assigned to the vessels do not agree. Thus the American Maine, sunk at Havana, was described with equal accuracy as a cruiser and as a second-class battleship. But the nations have, for the most part, adopted the British classification of cruisers, though they have not failed to modify it to suit their own views. First come the unprotected cruisers, then the protected cruisers of the first, second, or third class; then the armoured cruisers; and of recent years the battle-cruiser, or heavy cruiser, capable of taking her place in the line with battleships. The unprotected cruisers have no side armour or other protection worth mentioning, and are mostly used for police duties, such as guarding fisheries, etc. They are lightly built and armed, and of relatively good speed for their size, and the duties they have to perform usually constitute the chief matter for consideration in the design of the several vessels. The protected cruisers have strong steel decks to protect their engines, etc., besides a great number of watertight compartments, and are classified according to their size, armament and speed, and the work for which they are intended.

Although the Admiralty adopted iron ships, it did not finally abandon its old wooden ships until 1874—or a year after that in which the first steel vessel was built for the Navy—in which year the British Navy was enriched by the addition of the wooden corvettes Sapphire and Diamond. Iron screw-driven cruisers or corvettes were the successors of the smaller fast wooden vessels, and a number of fast unarmoured ships of various types were built. One of them, the Bacchante, had the honour of being selected for the cruise round the world of the present King, when he and his brother, the late Prince Albert Victor, joined the Navy as midshipmen.

The Americans claim that these types of vessels were introduced by the Wampanoag, which was designed at the time of the American Civil War to chase Confederate commerce destroyers. The extraordinary reports published in the sensation-loving American papers, and duly copied and accepted as true by the British papers, as to the speed and capabilities of this vessel and others of her class, in 1866, induced the British Government to decide on something similar, and, if possible, superior, and the Inconstant was the result. She was 333 feet in length by 50 feet beam, and had a displacement of 5,782 tons on a draught of 23 feet. She was built of iron sheathed with wood and coppered, this arrangement enabling a light hull to be constructed which should take the strain of the machinery without being subject to the same “working” as a wooden ship would have had to endure on account of the greater elasticity of the material. The wood sheathing protected the iron, and also enabled the bottom to be covered with copper, or “yellow metal” as the composition was called which was generally used for the purpose, in order to prevent barnacles, weeds, and other marine growths from accumulating upon the submerged portion of the hull and retarding the speed. Considering that barnacles and weeds will grow thus to a length of several inches, the extent to which the speed of a vessel will be hindered may be imagined. All unsheathed vessels, whether of wood or iron, were peculiarly liable to these growths, which are particularly luxuriant in tropical waters, and might have their speed reduced even as much as from ten knots to six knots. The difficulty was to enable an iron ship to carry a skin of copper or yellow metal, the latter being mostly used in the mercantile marine, and the former for ships of war, private owners with their own money to spend being usually more economical than governments with the taxpayers’ money behind them, and not hampered by the problems of making the ships pay commercially. The Inconstant was launched in November, 1868, and was followed in 1873 by the Shah, whose famous encounter with the Huascar was alluded to in the previous chapter.

In 1879 the Comus class, usually called the “C” class, as their names began with that letter, and the Leander class were introduced, constructed partly of steel and partly of iron, their hulls being given a sheathing of wood. Their engines and boilers were given a protective steel deck over them 1½ inches thick, but otherwise they had little enough in the way of protection. The most famous of the former class was the Calliope, which, in March, 1889, made such a magnificently successful struggle against a hurricane, and fought her way from Samoa Harbour in the teeth of one of the most severe storms experienced in the Pacific. The consummate seamanship and cool daring displayed by Captain Kane in that struggle, lasting for hours, when six American and German gunboats in the harbour were wrecked, have made his feat memorable in the annals not only of the British Navy, but in the heroic records of the seamanship of all ages. It is no detraction from the merits of Captain Kane’s exploit to say that credit is due also to the members of his crew, whatever their station—and not least to the unknown hero who was at the wheel in that battle between man’s science and Nature’s force. All shared in the glory of the feat; from Captain Kane and his officers to the engineering staff who kept a set of unreliable engines going at a pressure they were never built to withstand, and to the half-naked coal-trimmers in the bunkers and firemen in the stokehold, who stuck to their work in the semi-darkness, knowing full well that in the case of failure on anyone else’s part, or breakdown in the engines, they were doomed to die like rats in a trap.

The incident directed attention to the splendid sea-going capacities of these vessels, and for many years afterwards the “lines” of the smaller cruisers bore a strong resemblance to those of the Calliope and her sisters.

It was not, however, until 1883 that the first protected cruiser appeared. This was not built for the British Navy, but for a South American State, and under the name of the Esmeralda came from the slips at Elswick. She had a complete protective deck, and not simply a protecting deck over her vital parts, engines capable of giving her a high speed, and a powerful armament. She was the pioneer vessel of her class. The British naval authorities, however, preferred the armoured cruisers, and led the way in 1881 with the Imperieuse and Warspite, but soon abandoned this type and adopted the protected cruiser. These two vessels were each of 8,000 tons displacement, 315 feet in length, and had a partial belt of 10-inch armour along 140 feet on each side, transverse bulkheads 9 inches thick at each end of the belt, and a protective deck 1½ inches thick. They carried four 9.2-inch guns in separate barbettes, one forward, one aft, and one on either side, besides ten 6-inch guns, twenty-six smaller and machine guns, and six torpedo tubes. Their hulls, which were of steel, were sheathed with wood and coppered.

RUSSIAN CRUISER “RURIK.”

By permission of Messrs. Vickers, Ltd.

RUSSIAN CRUISER “ROSSIA.”

Photograph by Stephen Cribb, Southsea.

Other nations, notably France and Russia, adhered to the armoured type, the former producing the Dupuy de Lôme, and the latter the Rossia and Rurik. Both these vessels were built at St. Petersburg in 1896 and 1894 respectively, and must be distinguished from the present Russian cruisers bearing these names. The Rossia was terribly knocked about in the war with Japan, but has survived it, thanks to her armour. She appeared at the Diamond Jubilee Review in 1897 at Spithead. The Rossia and the present Rurik, the latter launched at Barrow in 1906, attracted attention on account of their speed, the former attaining twenty and a quarter knots and the more modern boat nearly twenty-one and a half knots. Both were heavily armed, the latter especially so, being the only Russian cruiser to carry four 10-inch guns. She has, besides, eight 8-inch guns, twenty 4.7-inch quick-firers, eighteen smaller quick-firers, and two torpedo tubes, and when she left the builders was one of the most formidable cruisers afloat. Accurate long-range shooting being indispensable, the Rurik is also fitted with a range-finding tower.

The new Esmeralda, built in 1895 for the Chilian Government by the Tyneside firm who built her earlier namesake, had not a little to do with the introduction of side armour on British cruisers, thanks to the improvement of the Harvey and Krupp processes of strengthening steel.

The Powerful, launched at Barrow in 1895, and the Terrible, launched at Glasgow the same year, were the largest protected cruisers afloat at that time, and will long be remembered by the public for the excellent service their crews rendered during the Boer War, and among naval architects and marine engineers and shipbuilders by reason of the bitter controversy that arose over their installation of forty-eight Belleville water-tube boilers, they being the first cruisers in the British Navy in which these were carried.

As a contrast to these two was the armoured cruiser Drake, begun in 1899 and completed in 1902, and at that time the largest of her class anywhere. Though called a cruiser, she was a more formidable fighting-machine than the Barfleur, Renown or Canopus. With a displacement of 14,100 tons, and a length of 500 feet, and an equipment of Belleville boilers and engines developing 30,000 h.p., she and her sister ships could reach a speed of over twenty-four knots, and were faster than any other large vessels in the British Navy. She was belted on her sides with Krupp steel from one barbette to the other, and from 6 feet below the water-line to the level of the upper deck, and there was lighter armour above this. She had also two protective decks, the lower being 2 to 3 inches in thickness. Her two 9.2-inch breech-loading guns were in barbettes, and she was given sixteen 6-inch, fourteen 3-inch, and three smaller guns, which, like the last two classes, were quick-firers, and two machine guns.

The increase in gun power rendered necessary an addition to the protection of the vessels, and the Devonshire class of cruisers, which appeared early in the present century, were given 6 inches of armour instead of 4 inches. The ships of this class were tried for experimental purposes with four different types of water-tube boilers in combination with cylindrical boilers. These fast armoured cruisers were designed to replace the old protected cruisers, which were no longer equal to modern requirements, speed being now recognised as of very great importance.

H.M.S. “INDOMITABLE.”

Photograph by West & Son, Southsea.

H.M.S. “LIVERPOOL.”

Photograph by E. Sankey, Barrow.

It is not only in the larger ships, however, that examples of such extraordinary development are to be found. Progress is shown by the smaller vessels in no less degree. The continually changing conditions of commerce have necessitated as many changes in the construction and armament of vessels whose duty it would be in time of war to protect commerce at sea, or maintain order in estuaries and rivers.

The Dartford, belonging to the “town” class of cruiser, may be regarded as one of the best existing specimens of the modern smaller cruiser. She is of 5,250 tons displacement, as compared with 4,800 tons in the Liverpool, one of the earliest of her class, the addition being largely required to carry an increase in her fighting power, as her armament includes eight 6-inch quick-firers, all well protected, and several smaller guns, as compared with two 6-inch guns and ten 4-inch guns in her preceding sisters. The machinery is of the same type and power as that installed in the earlier “town” cruisers, and in view of the high efficiency of the Liverpool’s engines at her speed trials, the Dartford was expected to attain a speed of twenty-six knots. Besides her coal-bunkers at the sides, the Dartford has an armoured deck of nickel steel, with sloping sides extending well below the water-line. Her turbine machinery of 22,000 shaft h.p. is contained in three separate engine-rooms, and there are three separate boiler-rooms for her twelve water-tube boilers. Oil fuel is carried in her double bottom. She has two masts fitted with wireless telegraphy apparatus, and on the foremast is a platform from which the gun-fire can be electrically directed.

Some cruisers are distinctly lighter versions of battleships. As developments of the swift battleship of the Magnificent and Duncan types came the armoured cruisers Cressy, in 1899, Drake, in 1902, and the belted cruisers Black Prince, in 1904, and Minotaur, in 1906, whence there developed the cruiser-battleship Inflexible in 1907.

The Dreadnought cruisers as much surpass the preceding types of cruisers as the Dreadnought battleships surpassed the Majestics, etc. For that matter, Dreadnought cruisers, like the Princess Royal, as well as the Queen Mary now being built, “could steam round a fleet of pre-Dreadnought ships and fire when it suited them, keeping beyond the range which would enable the old battleship guns to penetrate the armour of the modern cruiser.”[54]

The last of the Dreadnought cruisers launched to the time of writing, the Princess Royal, is the largest warship ever built by a private firm in England for the British Government, although she is stated to be exceeded by the battleship Rio de Janeiro, under construction at Newcastle for the Brazilian Government, which is asserted to have a displacement of 32,000 tons.

The Princess Royal is a cruiser copy of the battleship Conqueror, launched the same day. The principal differences between the two vessels are that the cruiser has a pair less of the 13.5-inch guns, and also has her side armour 2 inches less in thickness, in order that she may steam thirty knots or more in place of the battleship’s twenty-one. Her beam is the same as that of the Conqueror, but in order to give her speed she is 700 feet over all as against the battleship’s 545 feet. In fighting power the Conqueror is superior to the Princess Royal, the latter having only eight big guns. An idea of the enormous power required to drive these ships at the necessary speed, and especially of the increase in power as between the two vessels, is shown by the fact that turbine engines of 27,000 h.p. will give the battleship a speed of twenty-one knots, but the thirty knots of the cruiser require engines developing 70,000 h.p., or 27,000 more than the Indefatigable, which has done twenty-nine knots. The vessel is to be completed for sea by March, 1912.

FRENCH CRUISER “ERNEST RENAN.”

Photograph supplied by Société Anonyme des Chantiers et Ateliers de Saint Nazaire.

FRENCH CRUISER “DANTON.”

Photograph by Stephen Cribb, Southsea.

It will have been seen from the dimensions quoted of the various cruisers mentioned that they are longer in proportion to their beam than the battleships, the additional length being necessary to give them greater speed. There was launched at Elswick in 1895, for the Argentine Government, the protected cruiser Buenos Ayres, which was very narrow for her length. Though 424 feet over all, she was only 47 feet 2 inches in beam, by 22 feet in depth. Her displacement was 4,500 tons. Her normal speed was twenty-three knots, and under forced draught twenty-four knots. Like all the warships built on the Tyne for South American States, she was heavily armed. One of the most heavily armed ships of her size early in the present century was the Japanese cruiser Tsushima, launched in 1902, but she has been surpassed by the later vessels of the Japanese navy in speed, coal capacity and armament, the latest, which are not yet completed, though only classed as protected cruisers of 4,035 tons, having a coal capacity of 750 to 1,000 tons, and carrying two 6-inch guns, ten 4.7-inch, and two 3-inch guns, all quick-firers, and two machine guns.

A vessel which attracted considerable attention when she was begun in 1902—at various other times since when changes in her plans have been suggested to meet the views of French naval experts, or the theories of successive Ministers of Marine, a tinkering process from which she has not been the only sufferer on the other side of the Channel—until she was completed in 1908, is the Ernest Renan cruiser. The length of time which has elapsed between the laying-down and the completion of some French vessels has seen them surpassed by newer types from other shipyards, notably British, even before they have been commissioned. But this is not the case with the Ernest Renan, which, apart from the Dreadnought cruisers, is an exceedingly powerful ship, and a great credit to her builders at St. Nazaire. She is rather narrow, being only 70 feet 6 inches beam, with a length of 515 feet, and her draught is 26 feet 9 inches. She is more effectively protected than many a battleship of a few years earlier, having an armoured deck 2 inches in thickness, an armoured belt varying from 6¾ inches to 4 inches, while above the water-line belt she carries armour varying from 5 inches to 3 inches in thickness. Her armament is remarkably varied, including, as it does, four 7.6-inch guns, twelve 6.4-inch guns, twenty-one 1.8-inch guns, and two 1.4-inch guns, besides two submerged torpedo tubes. Her main gun positions are protected by 8 inches of armour, and her secondary armament by 5 inches of armour.