Navies of the world

by Edward W. Very

In France there has always been a generous system of legislation for the support of the marine, but in this country the navy has never been considered of the vital importance to the safety of the nation that it has in England; consequently naval controllers have always been obliged to exercise a much greater economy in development, and the rigidly mathematical system of the French in the exercise of all control is nowhere better exemplified than in the development of their fleet. The ships of the fleet will be found most rigidly classified, each type being clearly distinct. Reconstruction and development is carried on as it were en masse in accordance with the prescriptions of fleet programmes carefully studied out to meet the exigencies of the time, and once settled upon being rigidly followed to the end. It is on this account that the French are found as a rule backward in introducing radical changes of detail. Whilst keeping to their systems of classification, the French have kept close to the English in the matter of fleet strength. There has been one period in which France fell so far to the rear as almost to take third place in strength of fleet, whilst development ceased entirely. This was caused by the disastrous Franco-Prussian war, from whose effects the navy still suffers, although it has fully regained its former position close to that of Great Britain.

In the United States, naval development has been constantly hampered not only by parsimonious legislation but by a constant legislative meddling, imposing a restraint far more injurious than lack of funds or the distractions of war itself. At no time has the strength of the fleet been sufficient to bear a comparison with that of either England or France, but in the matter of architectural development the United States has repeatedly passed to the front at a single stride. In spite, however, of the advantages gained, parsimoniousness and political meddling have invariably interfered to hold the navy fast at its single stage of advance until its first developments sank into insignificance beside the modifications and perfections applied in Europe. During the Crimean war American architects laid down a programme for an efficient steam fleet and led the world in the development of the steam frigate and corvette. Notwithstanding this start, the outbreak of the civil war in 1861 found the navy with but the nucleus of a steam fleet. Whilst sailing war-vessels had almost disappeared from European navies, giving place to steam types founded mainly upon the principles which had given American architects the lead, the bulk of the United States Navy was still composed of the old sailing frigates and sloops. The turreted iron-clad, the river gun-boat, and the rapid cruiser again showed the way to the world; but the close of the war brought demoralization to all systems of development.

In 1865 the United States possessed a fleet fully able to protect the whole line of its immense sea-coast against foreign aggression; in 1870 the fleet was reduced to a handful of vessels that, whilst showing heterogeneousness equal to the English fleet, did not possess a single element of strength.

At the date of the outbreak of the Crimean war, the building of sailing war-vessels may be said to have ceased throughout the world. Steam corvettes and frigates formed the bulk of the effective fighting fleets, whilst steam line-of-battle ships were being slowly introduced, as yet scarcely beyond the experimental stage. The introduction of steam propulsion and the advancement in the science of naval architecture had given rise not only to improvements in design, strength, and seaworthiness of men-of-war, but also to a gradual increase in dimensions of the different classes. The extent of this advancement is well shown in comparing the English line-of-battle ship Victory, Nelson’s flag-ship at Trafalgar, having a displacement of less than 2900 tons, with the average displacement of English first-class frigates in 1854, which was not less than 2800 tons; the battery power of the frigates being more than twice as effective, steam-power being added, and handiness and speed under sail alone being much superior. Progress in this direction had been made to the extent that in 1854 the French had laid the keel of the Imperatrice Eugènie, a frigate of 3600 tons displacement, designed for a speed of 12 knots and a battery of 56 guns (five and six inch smooth-bores). At the declaration of war with Russia neither the English nor the French navy was in a condition to meet the suddenly created exigencies; both fleets were in a transition state from sail to steam. The necessity for steam-power on all ships was suddenly made forcibly apparent, and architectural development ceased almost entirely in the work of converting all the available line-ships and frigates of the old sailing fleet into steamers.

This total extinction of sailing vessels as fighting war-ships made its effects felt across the ocean, and an attempt was made in the United States to create an efficient steam navy. With but a limited supply of funds for its creation, American architects were forced to study fully the necessities of the fleet before embarking on the new work. Since the foundation of the navy it had been always one of the principles of American construction to build ships whose measurement exceeded those of similar types in Europe. Carrying out this principle in the development of the new fleet, there appeared in 1855 four steam frigates superior in every way to any European vessels of their class that had yet appeared. The importance of these vessels did not lie simply in their excess of measurements over European frigates, but in the combination of all those parts which go to make up the efficient lighting vessel. The Imperatrice Eugènie with her 3600 tons displacement had surpassed previous frigate developments, but had made no impression on other types of vessels. On the contrary, the appearance of the Minnesota, Wabash, Colorado, and Merrimac was the signal for the disappearance of the line-of-battle ship. The displacement of these ships was about 4700 tons, or 1100 tons in excess of the Eugènie. The battery was of the same number of guns as in the French ship, but exceeded by an inch in calibre that of any broadside afloat, the combination of numbers and weight giving these ships superiority even over three-deckers. Whilst the design of the Eugènie called for a speed of 12 knots, her coal supply was sufficient for but 1500 miles. The Americans, with a speed of 9½ knots, carried coal for 2500 miles. The sail-surface of these ships was enormous, ranging as high as thirty times the area of the immersed midship section. In 1858 a fifth vessel was added to this type (Niagara), the displacement in this instance being carried to 5500 tons, speed 12 knots, with a coal capacity for steaming 2500 miles, full sail-power, and a battery in which calibre had been carried to the extreme limit of broadside fire (11 inches).

Whilst the French were engaged on their Eugènie type the English had laid down a type of 3000-ton frigates (Emerald class) which reached a speed of 13 knots. On the appearance of the Wabash in European waters, the English at once designed a type to surpass her, and completely overshot the mark in the Mersey and Orlando, in which displacement was carried to 5600 tons; but in the attempt to realize a speed of 13 knots, they gave the vessels proportions that were unfit for wooden construction. With their profusion of experiments, however, we find between 1857 and 1860 a succession of types ranging from 2500 to 4600 tons, the majority averaging about 3800 tons. In these ships may be seen the constant search to find the one combination that shall possess all the excellences. All of these vessels were thorough cruisers, and in no case except in the Mersey type do we find the experiment resulting in worthlessness; still, an examination of the frigates will show the impossibility of giving a distinct classification to them. Beyond the Crimean war it has been already stated that the development of the line-of-battle ship had scarcely passed the experimental stage, and after 1857 the sudden increase in power of the frigate, combined with the introduction of the sea-going iron-clad, stopped almost entirely the development of this type, although their construction was carried on until 1860.

In France a new fleet programme was laid down in 1857, in which the heavy American and English frigates were entirely ignored, and whilst new frigates of the Eugènie type were built almost without change, the increase in vessels of this class was confined almost exclusively to lengthening and converting the old frigates of 2500 tons into steamers of 3000. Development of wooden ships was found only in the corvette class. The reason for this independent departure was, in all probability, due to the original start made by France in the development of the iron-clad frigate in this same year, combined with a dissatisfaction on the part of the French with the speed realized in the Wabash and Orlando.

In 1858 the United States Navy put forth a type of vessel new in every particular, and one whose value, although not immediately recognized, has by its development become the true standard for effective medium unarmored cruisers. The Hartford, Brooklyn, Richmond, and Pensacola combined all the advantages of both the second-class frigate and the sloop-of-war. With a displacement of 3000 tons, which placed them in a line with light frigates, their steam-power was fully developed, whilst steaming capacity and sail-power were kept at a maximum, and strength of battery combined, in the best manner, calibre and number of guns. In the civil war, which soon followed, no class of vessels proved itself of so much fighting value as this. These vessels formed a distinct class in the navy, and contemporaneously with them appeared a third and lighter class (Iroquois, Wyoming, Mohican, and Narragansett), with a displacement ranging from 1600 to 1900 tons.

In France this latter type had appeared in the navy at the same time, the Cosmao and Dupleix, with a displacement of 1800 tons, realizing a speed of nearly two knots greater (12 knots), whilst steaming capacity and sail-power were the same, and the battery was inferior in about the same proportion as the speed was superior.

In England the development of this class was an extension of the old steam-sloop, realizing in the Challenger and Barossa type a displacement of 2350 tons, with the disadvantages of excessive draught of water, lack of development of speed and steaming capacity. No better evidence of the complete demoralization of architectural development in the United States can be found than in the movement made in 1872, in which the Hartford class, after having established thoroughly its great utility, was by the addition of a spar-deck reduced to the plane of the Challenger, with increased draught, reduced speed and steaming capacity, and in fact a reduction of all the qualities which had rendered it superior, notwithstanding the total disappearance of the type not only in the English but in all foreign navies.