Photo. G. West & Son.
H.M.S. “Lightning.”
Photo. G. West & Son.
H.M.S. “Tartar,” Torpedo Boat.
Armour-plated batteries found their chief representatives in the batteries of the time of the Crimean War, of which the Glatton and Terror may be regarded as types, and the double-turret principle was developed in such vessels as the Cerberus. The Terror was built by Palmer’s for the destruction of the Cronstadt forts. She had three masts carrying square sails on the fore-mast, and excessively sloping sides and bluff ends, and would form a remarkable contrast to the graceful lines of the modern battleship. The Terror was built, armour-plated, and launched in about three months, thanks to Sir Charles Palmer’s invention of rolling instead of forging the armour plates.
The battle of Tsushima afforded naval architects some valuable lessons, and the Dreadnought and the Lord Nelson may be regarded as the first results. The Japanese-built Satsuma is virtually on the same lines, there being little to choose between the Satsuma and the Lord Nelson.
The Dreadnought’s turbine machinery drives four shafts, and immediately aft of the inner shafts are twin rudders to give the ship greater steering facilities. The Admiralty adopted turbines, according to an official statement, because “of the saving in weight and reduction in number of working parts, and reduced liability to breakdown; its smooth working, ease of manipulation, saving of coal consumption at high powers, and hence boiler-room space and saving of engine-room complement; and also because of the increased protection which is provided for with this system, due to the engines being lower in the ship: advantages which more than counterbalance the disadvantages. There was no difficulty in arriving at a decision to adopt turbine propulsion from the point of view of seagoing speed only. The point that chiefly occupied the committee was the question of providing sufficient stopping and turning power for purposes of easy and quick manœuvring. Trials were carried out between the sister vessels Eden and Waveney, and the Amethyst and Sapphire, one of each class fitted with reciprocating and the other with turbine engines.... The necessary stopping and astern power will be provided by astern turbines on each of the four shafts.
“These astern turbines will be arranged in series, one high- and one low-pressure astern turbine on each side of the ship, and in this way the steam will be more economically used when going astern, and a proportionally greater astern power obtained than in the Eden and Amethyst.”
Messrs. John I. Thorneycroft and Co.’s first torpedo-boat for the British Navy was the Lightning, of 18 knots, but the firm’s Tartar, launched in 1907, broke all records by travelling at 35·67 knots.