Plan of the Constitution.
While we were developing shipbuilders we were also developing gunmakers. For a long time after the war we were contented with making steel tubes which could be shoved into Dahlgren smooth-bores, and so convert them into rifles of eight-inch calibre. Such makeshift work, needless it is to say, served only to drag down the standard of the American gunmakers. But in 1886 the sum of $2,128,000 was appropriated for guns—that is, modern rifles. To go into the details of other modern shipbuilding or modern rifle-making in a history of this kind is obviously impossible; but we may recall the fact that the Monitor’s turret was composed of eight layers of one-inch iron plates, placed so as to break joints, and that the best rifle of that day, a seven-inch Brooke, firing a solid projectile weighing 150 pounds, was unable to do any material damage to the turret. The first contracts for gun-forgings and armor-plates of modern construction were signed in May, 1887—ten years ago. Since that time we have made the plant for the work, and have turned out armor-plates of steel eighteen inches thick that are hardened and toughened to a point where a drill cannot penetrate, and the best projectile, an armor-piercing projectile, weighing 1,100 pounds and “striking with a force sufficient to lift 1,000 tons twenty-five feet, crushed in the backing of oak, but only dented the plate.” The mere statement that our modern rifles throw projectiles weighing 1,100 pounds, which strike with sufficient force to lift 1,000 tons twenty-five feet high, tells the story of the development of the gun. Another exhibit of the progress made is found in the fact that an eight-inch smooth-bore in the old days threw a cast-iron projectile, weighing sixty-eight pounds, with a velocity of 1,579 feet per second at the muzzle of the gun. The energy of the projectile was estimated at 452 foot-tons. The modern eight-inch rifle throws a steel bolt weighing 250 pounds, at a muzzle velocity of 2,500 feet per second, with a striking power of 10,830 foot-tons. The old eight-inch iron shot could not penetrate four inches of iron plates, while the modern steel bolt penetrates twenty-six inches of wrought iron. The best thirteen-inch modern rifles have a striking power of about 35,000 foot-tons and penetrate thirty-four inches of wrought iron.
After an apprenticeship of ten years, the gunmakers and shipbuilders of the United States have done well enough to entirely satisfy the people whom they have served. And yet the American navy, in the matter of ships and guns, is at best the fifth in the world. It is not considered necessary to the interest of this history to enter into any argument to show that the American navy should have a higher standing in point of numbers. But, if the story of the American navy has been written here as the writer understood it, then it is apparent that the American’s hope of peace has always rested on the efficiency of a modest number of ships. We have had peace with the aggressive nations of the earth while we have had an efficient force afloat, and we have suffered humiliation when we have neglected our navy. To make the appeal that is likely to be effective, history shows that it does not pay to try to get on without a navy. It need not be either the first or even the third in point of numbers, but it must be first in point of efficiency. To keep our hands in practice and our tools from rusting and our inventors from stagnation, we must lay down at least one new ship of the first class every year. We must not forget that Europe has steadily built new ships to improve on those with which we have led the way.
While building ships that in general construction were like those of Europe, the United States has followed its ancient policy of encouraging inventors by trying what the conservatives call “newfangled notions.” The success that followed the adoption of “newfangled notions” like steam power, the screw propeller, and the Ericsson Monitor, has been fully appreciated by the world at large. The “newfangled Yankee notions,” in fact, kept up the quality of the old American navy. Since the navy began its rejuvenating career, ten years ago, three “newfangled” ideas have been tried. One was a steam ram, pure and simple. It was a ship designed to steam at seventeen knots per hour, with a ram for its sole weapon of offence, and it was built solely for harbor defence. Because, in its way, it is a revival of the porcupine policy, nothing more need be said about it.
The Vesuvius.
From a photograph by Rau.
Another novelty was what is called the dynamite cruiser Vesuvius. Here is a sea-going torpedo boat armed with three fifteen-inch air-guns that can throw 400 or 500 pounds of high explosive to a range of a mile or more with reasonable accuracy. It is not a popular style of warship with naval officers, and so far as its purpose is for harbor defence, these officers are entirely right. It is the business of the army, with its forts and submarine torpedoes, to defend the harbors. For forts and submarine torpedoes are entirely sufficient for the purpose, and much more economical than ships adapted only for harbor defence. Nevertheless, the idea of a dynamite cruiser has not had a fair trial. The Vesuvius is a very small ship. Her popguns are of a fixed elevation, the range being determined by varying the pressure of the air. It is reasonably sure that the defects that have been developed in trials of her guns and aerial torpedoes might be corrected were she in the hands of some one thoroughly in earnest in the matter, and that a cruiser, to fire high explosives accurately and efficiently and safely by means of compressed air, might be designed. It is also reasonably certain that, because of the dislike of naval officers generally for the present craft, no more of the kind will be designed until Uncle Sam is compelled to “hustle,” if one may be allowed the expression, by the pressure of actual war. Because coastwise steamers may be readily cut down, and adapted for the use of this kind of a torpedo in a very few months, no one is likely to worry about the present failure to build more dynamite cruisers.
