Warships and their story

by R. A. Fletcher

CAPTURE OF NEW ORLEANS—ATTACK ON FORT PHILIP.

From a Contemporary Steel Engraving, showing improvised warships employed.

The Shenandoah was the name given by the Confederates to the Glasgow-built auxiliary steamer Sea-Horse, which was the only ship to carry the southern flag from Dixie’s Land to the Cape, thence to Australia, and up to the North Pacific. She found her chief prey among the American whalers.

CHAPTER VI

IRON SHIPS OF WAR—continued

The Admiralties, naval architects, and a great many other people throughout the world were troubled for several years through trying to reconcile all the divergent and often contradictory claims put forward as to what should constitute a fighting ship. Those who troubled most were those who knew least of the subject. The naval architects, having to make the necessary calculations, were not without some knowledge of the limitations of the materials at their disposal; and the Admiralties left matters to the experts, whether employed by Governments or in private shipbuilding establishments, confident that those who were best acquainted with such a technical subject would be most likely to set forth something possible of attainment and destined to show certain definite results. And this has been the attitude of all Governments towards all inventors, whether their inventions were of practical utility or were merely the outcome of seeing visions and dreaming dreams. This does not imply, however, acceptance of the official theory that Government experts know everything.

Many people, after the American war, went turret-mad, and became possessed of the idea that this country should own a numerous fleet of monitors, so numerous, indeed, that every port all round the British coasts should have two or three of such vessels in order that an enemy’s fleet, usually conjectured by the turret enthusiasts to consist of large two or three-decked battleships, should be met by a succession of monitors each manned by a fresh crew and full of ammunition, and reduced to submission if possible, or sunk, or scattered as was the Spanish Armada, an historical allusion which these good people found very useful as adding a picturesque touch. Nor were the enthusiasts of other countries behind those of Great Britain in their advocacy of their pet theories. Naval economists, who yet wished to swim with the current of naval enthusiasm, did not hesitate to point out the economy of construction to be effected by a fleet of monitors or of small vessels carrying turrets. Some contended that no guns were too heavy to be sent afloat, so that they should smash any armour by the weight of their projectiles; and ingenious were the calculations to demonstrate how easy it would be for a heavy gun, such as was used for land fortifications, to be sent to demolish a hostile vessel whatever her dimensions and armament. Others clamoured for the heaviest possible armour, even if only moderately powerful artillery should be installed, coupled with great ramming power. That every part of the ship should be so heavily armoured as to be invulnerable was another contention which found much favour, its adherents forgetting that too much armour would sink the vessel; but its opponents rejected it in favour of the concentration of the armour over the vital parts of the ships, and leaving the ends unprotected or nearly so. Other claims were for high speed, great coal capacity, large sail power, lofty freeboards, seaworthiness, steadiness of gun platform, small size, shallow draught, and comparative invisibility to an enemy’s gunners.[41]

As it was manifestly impossible to build ships which should meet the requirements of all the nation’s advisers and be suitable to be sent to perform all kinds of duties anywhere, armoured ships began to be constructed of special types according to the work expected of them. The first division was into battleships, armoured cruisers, and coast defence ships.

As the result of Captain Coles’s advocacy of the turret system, which he began in 1861, the Admiralty, when converting a number of old and new wooden ships into ironclads, had one of them, the Royal Sovereign, cut down, covered with armour, and given four armoured revolving turrets placed on the upper deck in the middle line of the ship. She marked the conversion of the Admiralty to the new order of things which steam power and iron armour in combination had rendered possible. One step in the process of conversion was that sail power was no longer considered necessary in fighting vessels, another was that the combatant part of every ship intended for heavy fighting should be afforded as much protection as possible, and a third step was that the guns should be few in number, of considerable power, and so disposed as to have the widest possible range. This ship could fire all her guns on either broadside, and also had a direct fire ahead and astern. She started her career as a 131-gun line-of-battle ship, but after her alterations she carried five 12-ton muzzle-loading guns, of which two were in the foremost turret and one each in the others. She was also the first of the converted vessels to be given a steel protective deck, in her case two inches thick, but it was not curved so as to place the edges below the water-line, and it consequently would not have afforded any protection to the vessel had a shot penetrated the armour at the water-line. Her low freeboard would have rendered her difficult to hit, and she would have been able to approach an enemy and deliver a telling fire at comparatively short range without running undue risk of receiving much damage in return.