Warships and their story

by R. A. Fletcher

Several vessels followed in rapid succession after the turret ships, and an upper deck battery was added in the Sultan, a vessel which otherwise much resembled the Hercules, and then followed a class to which the Iron Duke and Vanguard belonged. The conditions imposed in the construction of this class were that they should draw 22 feet 6 inches of water, that they should carry armour not less than 8 inches thick at the water-line and 6 inches elsewhere except at the bow and stern, that they should have a speed of thirteen and a half knots, and that their guns should be capable of firing in any direction. This class was named after the Audacious, and proved fairly successful. The principal event which distinguished the class was the accidental ramming of the Vanguard by the Iron Duke, in September, 1875, off the coast of Ireland. They were all broadside ships, and the type was brought much nearer to perfection in the Alexandra, which was then the largest masted ironclad that had ever been designed; and though she was a central battery ship, four of her twelve guns could fire right ahead, and two right astern, and four to six guns could fire one either broadside. She carried two Woolwich rifled muzzle-loading guns of 25 tons each, and ten 18-ton guns. The two big guns were placed in the upper deck battery forward. As a further protection, besides her armour, the main deck battery between decks was divided in two by an armoured bulkhead. She was the first cruising armoured broadside ship in the British Navy to have engines on the compound system, and her twin screws were each driven by an independent set of engines with an aggregate indicated h.p. of 8,000. Her speed at her official trials was about fifteen knots.

Yet another type of turret ship was the Temeraire, launched in 1876, which marked a noteworthy combination of the central battery and barbettes or turrets. Her upper-deck armament was in two fixed turrets open at the top and pear-shaped instead of circular, and placed, one near the stern and the other near the bow. These stood about 6 feet above the deck, and measured about 33 feet by 21½ feet. They were placed with their length in the direction of the ship, and the rounded end of each pear, if it may so be called, was towards the nearer extremity of the vessel. Inside each of these batteries was a turn-table, hydraulically worked, on which was mounted a 25-ton gun borne on a carriage after the Moncrieff principle. This permitted of the gun being loaded in the turret and raised above it to be fired. The recoil caused it to sink into the turret to be reloaded. An armoured tube or hoist communicated with the ammunition chambers below, and the gun always had to be brought back into the same position for reloading. It will thus be seen that the guns were fired as barbette guns and loaded as turret guns, and many were the discussions as to the category in which they ought to be placed. The armour of the fore turret was 10 inches thick, and that of the rear turret 8 inches. On the main deck was a divided battery. The front portion had two 25-ton guns firing through ports at the corners, which were provided with oblique armoured bulkheads, and the guns were pivoted at the muzzle to allow of a fire from right ahead to abeam. The other portion of the battery was given four 18-ton guns to be fired on the broadside. She was preferred as a fighting ship by many to the Alexandra, which preceded her, in which the main armament was carried in a central battery. The Temeraire was heavily armoured down to below the ram, to protect her from an attempt to rake her bows when pitching, for it will be evident to anyone that when the fore part of a vessel is on the crest of a wave the bows are greatly exposed, sometimes nearly to the foot of the stem, and would be peculiarly vulnerable to hostile shot. The last central battery ship for the British Navy was the Superb. She was built to the order of the Turkish Government, but was acquired by this country. She carried sixteen 10-inch muzzle-loading rifle guns and six 4-inch breechloaders. She was a sister ship to the Turkish armour-clad Mesoudiye.

Though not launched until 1876 and completed in 1881, the Inflexible was described by her designer, in 1874, at a meeting of the Institution of Naval Architects as follows:—

“Imagine a floating castle, 110 feet long and 75 feet wide, rising 10 feet out of water, and having above that again two round turrets, planted diagonally at its opposite corners. Imagine this castle and its turrets to be heavily plated with armour, and that each turret has two guns of about 80 tons each. Conceive these guns to be capable of firing, all four together, at an enemy ahead, astern, or on either beam, and in pairs towards every point of the compass. Attached to this rectangular armoured castle, but completely submerged, every part being 6 to 7 feet under water, there is a hull of ordinary form with a powerful ram bow, with twin screws and a submerged rudder and helm. This compound structure is the fighting part of the ship. Seaworthiness, speed, and shapeliness would be wanting in such a structure if it had no addition to it; there is, therefore, an unarmoured structure lying above the submerged ship and connected with it both before and abaft the armoured castle, and as this structure rises 20 feet out of water from stem to stern without depriving the guns of that command of the horizon already described, and as it moreover renders a flying deck unnecessary, it gets over the objections which have been raised against the low freeboard and other features in the Devastation, Thunderer, and Dreadnought. These structures furnish also most luxurious accommodation for officers and seamen. The step in advance has, therefore, been from 14 inches of armour to 24 inches; from 35-ton guns to 80 tons; from two guns ahead to four guns ahead; and from a height of 10 feet for working the anchors to 20 feet. And this is done without an increase in cost, and with a reduction of nearly 3 feet in draught of water. My belief is that in the Inflexible we have reached the extreme limit in thickness of armour for sea-going vessels.”

Seeing that the Inflexible had armour two feet thick, the belief of her designer that the limit had been reached was justifiable. She was the only one of her class built for this country, though Italy, as will be seen, tried to copy and even to improve upon her. Her displacement was 11,800 tons, and her engines of 6,500 indicated h.p. were designed to give her a speed of twelve and a half knots, though on occasion she attained nearly fifteen knots. Her length was 320 feet, beam 75 feet, and draught 26 feet 4 inches. Her armament consisted of four 16-inch muzzle-loading rifled guns in her turrets and eight 4-inch breechloaders, besides twenty-one anti-torpedo boat guns and four torpedo tubes. The weight of a single discharge was 6,800 lb., which was not exceeded until 1906, though the energy in foot tons in that interval was increased several times over. She was, moreover, the first vessel in which the turrets were placed en echelon, i.e. diagonally, instead of one behind the other on the centre line.

H.M.S. “INFLEXIBLE,” 1880.

Photograph by Symonds & Co., Portsmouth.

The affection of the Italians for immense ships and guns to match was demonstrated even more remarkably by those which were built after the battle of Lissa than by those which took part in that memorable and disastrous engagement. Probably the two finest specimens were of the mastless turret type, the sister ships Duilio and Dandolo, which were designed to surpass any other fighting ship in existence, no matter what her nationality, and especially to show that Italian naval architects and constructors could surpass the Inflexible, on which Britain so justly prided herself. The Duilio was built at Castellamare, and the Dandolo at Spezzia. Their turrets were on much the same plan as those of the Inflexible, and quite a dispute arose between Italian and British naval architects as to whom the credit should be given of having first designed this type of ship.

The Duilio was of 10,650 tons displacement; her length between perpendiculars was 339 feet 7 inches, her extreme breadth 64 feet 7 inches, and her mean draught was 25 feet 11 inches. The height of her main deck above water was 11 feet, and that of her battery 15 feet 9 inches. The hulls of both these ships were built of iron and steel. Each had a double bottom extending for 230 feet of her length, and the numerous watertight compartments into which the double bottoms were subdivided were so arranged that any one or more of them could be filled with water or emptied as might be found necessary.