It requires time to learn to handle the new weapons of naval warfare, which are very different and much more complicated than those of the days of wooden frigates and smooth-bore guns, such as our navy is still composed of, and that is another reason why we should keep up a navy in time of peace. Torpedo and torpedo-boat attacks, for instance, depend almost entirely upon the skill in their management. We have no such things as torpedo-boats and whitehead torpedoes, etc., and our officers have had no experience or practice with such weapons.
Germany, the leading military nation of the world, has the proper idea of preparing her navy for war in time of peace. Beside being provided with the best and most effective weapons, all her naval force, active and reserve, are exercised each summer and the men and officers are trained in their duties on board the vessels, and with the weapons they will have to use in time of war. Then, each article, from a sailmaker’s needle to a gun is kept ready at the naval stations, all the articles belonging to one ship being labeled with the ship’s name, and all kept together so that they can instantly be put on board. The German Admiralty has recently reported that the whole naval force can be put in effective working order, for offensive or defensive movements, in one week’s time. It was only by similar preparations with her army in time of peace, that she was enabled, so promptly, to meet and to conquer France in 1870.
But let us glance at the kind of weapons which would be used against us in a foreign war, and with which we are unprovided and with which we must supply ourselves. Except the United States, every nation of any maritime importance possesses immense war vessels. There are some vessels which have an average speed of sixteen miles an hour; which have their batteries and their machinery protected by solid iron of a thickness of two feet, or of steel and iron combined of one and a half feet thickness; whose battery, or armament rather, consists of a few very heavy guns, capable of sending a mass of metal weighing one ton a distance of eleven miles, several guns of less weight and power, a number of revolving cannon, a dozen or two dozen torpedoes, two torpedo-boats, each of these fitted with four torpedoes and a revolving gun; whose crews are supplied with rapid, accurate and distant-firing small arms (muskets and pistols). In addition to all this, these vessels are rams, and are themselves most powerful weapons of war, and could cut in two and sink any ship they struck. These vessels, when complete, with their guns, ammunition, crews, provisions and coal, everything in fact on board, weigh from 9,000 to 13,000 tons. About twenty-seven feet of the depth of such a vessel while she floats is beneath the surface of the water, and the whole ship is divided into fifty or more water-tight compartments, so that if any two compartments are filled with water the ship will still float. These iron-clads (more properly armor-clads) do not have this two feet thickness of iron all around the ship, only the vital parts, the engines and boilers, etc., and that part of the ship where the great guns are fought, are so protected. The armor consists of a belt eight to ten feet wide (deep) and from one to two feet thick; half of its width or depth is below the surface of the water and half is above. The machinery, engines and boilers in a war vessel are put in the ship as low down as possible, the farther below the surface of the water the better, as below the surface of the water a shot is not effective, that is, for a greater depth below the surface than one or two feet.
The machinery then is protected from shot on the sides and underneath. To protect it from shot on top, a steel deck of three inches thickness is built in the ship immediately over the engines and boilers, the deck inclining toward the sides of the ship, so that if a shot did strike the deck it would be deflected upward and away from the engines and boilers. This deck is also placed below the surface of the water, if practicable.
The guns of such a ship are generally placed in a citadel and on the deck underneath the citadel. The citadel is clad with iron or steel, and the guns on the deck beneath are protected by the belt of armor spoken of above.
The amount of metal that the guns can fire from one side of such a ship is anywhere from 6,700 to 8,960 pounds. The shot composing this mass of metal travel through the air with a velocity of 1,800 feet per second, and travel nine miles in about twenty-five seconds. When a shot weighing one ton and traveling with such velocity strikes an object squarely, the object must indeed be strong to withstand the shock.
What resistance to such a force could the walls of a wooden ship give, or even those of ten-sixteenths of an inch of steel or of seven inches of iron? Yet there is no United States war vessel with a greater thickness of side than seven inches of iron. Most of our monitors have only 5″ armor.
The people of this country have reason to be proud of the deeds of their navy in the past, and many a time has the “ruler of the seas” lowered his flag to the stars and stripes. But those victories were gained with ships the equal of any in the world, and with guns which had no superiors and with crews and officers well trained and accustomed to the use of their weapons. Is it so now with our navy? No. We would go into battle with the odds all against us. The sides of our ships are as pasteboard to the high-power guns of the present time.
Our guns are as much use against two feet of iron armor, or its equivalent in steel, as a pop-gun is against a stone wall, and would make just about as much impression. And, although we have just as brave, patriotic and skillful men and officers in our navy to-day as we ever had, they are not skilled or trained in the use of the proper weapons, in the management of modern weapons—such as their opponents will use against them.
The possession of these instruments of war would make all governments very careful and respectful in their treatment of us and increase the probabilities of their never being used in actual warfare. The annual cost would not amount to the one millionth of the amount of damage Brazil, or Italy, or Germany, or France, or England, or Chili even could do us in the same length of time if we are without them.