Warships and their story

by R. A. Fletcher

Photograph by E. Sankey, Barrow.

THE BIG GUNS OF THE OLD “DREADNOUGHT.”

Photograph by E. Sankey, Barrow.

The Thunderer, a sister ship in some respects to the Devastation, and the Fury, afterwards called the Dreadnought, followed, but each one included improvements and modifications suggested by the experience gained with the Devastation. Hydraulic machinery was installed for working the 38-ton guns of the Woolwich rifle pattern, but in the Thunderer the two 35-tons were worked by hand. Their guns were by no means generally approved, many artillerists being of opinion that Whitworth hexagonal guns would have been better.

The important feature in the Thunderer, and one which contributed very materially to her safety, was the introduction of a longitudinal watertight bulkhead between the two sets of engines and boilers, so that if one set should be disabled from any cause, the vessel would still have the other set to depend upon. The Dreadnought was engined on the compound system, which gave her a better speed on a proportionately less coal consumption.

It is an old saying that the speed of a fleet is that of its slowest ship. When the situation was further complicated by the varying sailing powers of the ships the difficulty of the admiral in command to keep his fleet together must sometimes have been very great. Admiral Yelverton, for instance, when in command of a Channel squadron, in 1866, consisting of the Caledonian, Lord Clyde, Bellerophon, Achilles, Hector, Pallas, Ocean, Wyvern, Research, and Helicon, reported that he “took every opportunity of trying them to their utmost, always placing them in positions as to wind and sea most likely to test their capabilities as sea-boats, without much regard to the safety of their spars or the risk of shipping far more water than under ordinary circumstances ships of war would be exposed to....

“The Pallas and Research were the only two ships that could not keep company with the squadron. The Pallas appeared to plunge heavily, and carried away her jib-boom, but took her place in the squadron on the following morning. The Research, from her very small steam power, was out of sight at sunset, and put into Plymouth to fill up with coal. On the 23rd we reached the prescribed rendezvous ... when steaming ceased for a while, and the trials of sailing began.” The ships varied as much under sail as they did under steam.

The Wyvern, which was not a good sea-boat, and her sister ship, the Scorpion, were built for the Confederate States, in 1864, at Birkenhead, and were bought by the British Admiralty. They were 220 feet by 42 feet, and of 1,827 tons, and had engines of 350 nominal h.p. Each had two turrets containing two 300-pounders. They had ram bows, and, except on the poop and forecastle, the bulwarks could be let down when the ships were cleared for action.

The Pallas, an armour-plated six-gun ship, and the Research were given recessed ports, in order to increase their firing range, but the ports were constructed angularly and did not allow the guns to be sufficiently depressed to hit a small boat close at hand; thus the weapons would have been no defence against a torpedo-boat attack, if the latter got to close quarters. This fault was remedied in the Venezuelan transport and cruiser Bolivar, in which the recessed ports were fitted under the personal superintendence of their inventor, Captain Symonds, and were slanted outside the gun ports so that they would allow of a gun being depressed to strike a small boat lying nearly alongside, while their wall was curved instead of flat as in the British ships mentioned. Her sister ship, so far as dimensions were concerned, the Mary, was devoted to the more peaceful requirements of the cattle-trade between London and Gothenburg. The Bolivar was a twin-screw vessel, and it is curious to note that even then, when this method of propulsion had proved its superiority, it was gravely stated concerning her trials that “To keep time in all weathers and in all seasons nothing is superior to the paddle, but in long voyages, especially where sails are occasionally used, the screw may be employed with advantage.”[44]