Warships and their story

by R. A. Fletcher

One of these revivals of political ferment brought the Huascar into prominence, and made her for some years the most famous fighting ship in the world. The interest taken everywhere in the doings of this ship was extraordinary. She was launched in 1865 at Birkenhead, from that yard which has sent so many ships to sea to make history, and if local associations have their influence over ships, and sailors say they have, the records of the Huascar show that she was not false to tradition. Built to the order of the Peruvian Government, she was a turret ship of 1,800 tons displacement and eleven knots speed, and carried a belt of armour on the water-line of from 4½ inches thick at the centre portion to 2½ inches at the ends. Her one turret, which was placed rather forward of amidships, was built on Captain Coles’s design, and given 5½-inch iron plates. In it she carried two 10-inch 12½-ton Armstrong muzzle-loaders; and on her decks were two 40-pounders and one 12-pounder, all three being muzzle-loaders and unprotected. Her lower foremast was on the tripod system, but this was afterwards discarded and she was given an ordinary mast. She had a main- and mizen-mast also, and all three carried topmasts and square sails; when her masts were altered a military top of iron plates was built upon the cap of the mainmast.

She had a most exciting career. Her crew mutinied and put to sea in her, and took to freebooting quite in the spirit of the old days of the Spanish Main and the South Eastern Pacific. She was declared a pirate. At the end of May, 1877, the British cruisers Shah and Amethyst, which had been ordered to look for her, discovered her off Ilo. These were both light unarmoured cruisers, the latter being much the smaller of the two, and depended largely upon their speed to render attack upon them more difficult, or to avoid it altogether, or to assume the offensive at a time best suited to themselves. Their guns were more modern and powerful than those of the Huascar, and also more numerous, so that in gun power the cruisers were superior to the ironclad.

This engagement is noteworthy for the reason that in it the first automobile torpedo ever employed in war was discharged by the Shah against the Huascar, and failed to reach its mark. The Shah bore the brunt of the engagement with the Huascar. The latter almost ignored the Amethyst, whose small guns did no more harm to her sides than a mosquito would do to an elephant, but helped to make the mutineer’s deck guns useless, and the ironclad reserved her attention for her more formidable antagonist. Whenever the firing became unpleasantly severe, as it frequently did, the Huascar steamed in front of Ilo, and the Shah then hesitated to fire lest her shells should miss the Huascar and hit the town, notwithstanding that the Huascar then fired at the Shah. But the Huascar’s aim was faulty, partly because of the poor shooting powers of her gunners, and partly because the Shah kept rapidly on the move and so presented no steady mark to the Peruvian gunners. The Huascar tried to ram her, but the Shah’s speed enabled her to avoid the blow without difficulty, and give a telling shot at short range in return. Altogether the ironclad was hit nearly seventy times, but though she was badly dented, only one shell passed through her 3-inch armour to a sufficient extent to cause any injury to the interior of the vessel or to her crew. The hulls of the British ships were not struck once, though their rigging suffered a little trifling damage. They hoped to capture the Huascar on the morrow, but by daylight she was out of sight, and during the morning was surrendered by her commander to the Peruvian Government ships. But her fighting days were by no means over. This battle was held by the experts in naval matters to demonstrate the value of armour and the weakness of the ordinary 9-inch muzzle-loader, and also the prime necessity of accurate shooting. The English gunnery was bad and that of the Peruvians was execrable.

When Chili and Peru indulged in a war in 1879-81, the latter country owned the Huascar and the Independencia. The latter was an armoured vessel of 3,500 tons, built in England in 1865, and occasionally confused with the other Independencia built on the Thames a few years later for another South American State, but which passed into the possession of the British Government. The Peruvian Independencia carried two 150-pounders, twelve 72-pounders, and four 30-pounders, all muzzle-loading rifled guns, and for this war her fighting power was strengthened by the addition of a 9-ton gun and a 150-pounder. The Huascar had been reboilered since her fight with the Shah and the Amethyst. The Peruvian navy was a fairly formidable fighting fleet, but what it displayed in this respect was more than neutralised by the inefficiency of its personnel who, however brave individually they may have been, sadly lacked order and control. The Chilians included in their fleet two modern powerful ironclads, the Blanco Encalada and the Almirante Cochrane, both of which were built in England in 1874-5. Each was of about 3,500 tons, and designed on the central box battery plan, and as will be seen from the accompanying particulars of the Almirante Cochrane, both vessels were exceedingly formidable fighting ships. The Blanco Encalada also had two Nordenfeldts and the Almirante Cochrane one.

The Almirante Cochrane was 210 feet in length on the water-line, with a breadth of 45 feet 9 inches, and a depth of hold of 21 feet 8 inches; and in fighting trim she drew 18 feet 8 inches of water forward and a foot more aft. Her whole length in the neighbourhood of the water-line was protected by a stout belt of armour and teak backing 8 feet wide, with the armour-plates 9 inches thick at the water-line and the teak backing 10 inches. The battery was amidships, and was armed with six 12½-ton Armstrong guns. The whole of the armour and backing was fastened to a double thickness of skin plating by bolts similar to those used in the British Navy. She was the first ironclad built at Hull.

With the three guns on each side she was able to fire over all the points of the compass, this advantage being attained by placing each of the fore and aft guns at the corners of the battery, and recessing the side of the ship so as to enable the foremost guns to fire right forward and in a line with the keel, and in like manner the after guns to fire right aft. The batteries being octagonal, the corner guns could be brought into the broadside position and command any single angle between that and the line of keel. The midship guns on each side were made to fire on the broadside, and also to support the fire of the forward guns up to within 20 degrees of the line of keel.

It is unnecessary to describe the naval manœuvres preparatory to the meeting of the hostile vessels, or to deal with the causes of the war.

The Huascar very nearly blew herself up instead of her antagonist, the Abtao, off Antofagasta. She fired a Lay torpedo at her, but the missile turned and headed straight at the Huascar, whose turbulent career would most likely have been ended there and then had not one of her lieutenants dived overboard at the torpedo and diverted it so that it missed the warship by a few inches.

As soon as the Chilians heard that the Peruvian fleet had come south, the former left the historic Esmeralda and another wooden ship, the Covadonga, which was equally slow, behind at Iquique, and went to look for the Peruvian ships. The latter slipped past in the darkness and sent the Huascar and the Independencia to smash up the two wooden ships left behind to blockade Iquique. The Huascar attacked the Esmeralda and the Independencia endeavoured to account for the Covadonga. Thus, two modern powerful ironclads were opposed to two old wooden ships indifferently armed and painfully slow. On the face of the paper statistics the battle should have lasted four minutes; as it was, it lasted four hours. As soon as the Peruvians on shore saw that the Esmeralda and the Covadonga were to be attacked by the two Peruvian ironclads they opened fire on the blockading ships and compelled the Esmeralda to seek a less favourable position. The Huascar, seeing this was a suitable moment, tried to disable her with the ram, but inflicted very little injury. Before this a shell from the Huascar’s turret gun pierced the Esmeralda’s engine room, killing all the engineers and disabling the engines so that for a time the wooden ship was helpless. But the Chilians patched up the engines and got them going again. This one shot from the Huascar was probably due to good luck rather than good shooting, for although she hit once with her turret gun she missed thirty-nine times. The Esmeralda, on the contrary, hit the Huascar repeatedly, but her smaller projectiles were harmless against the iron armour, and inflicted no damage to the hull, but the careful firing of the Chilians rendered it very difficult for the Huascar’s crew to expose themselves in any degree on deck for working the other guns. The Huascar again rammed the Esmeralda, this time on the starboard bow, and the Chilians with extraordinary bravery attempted to carry the ironclad by boarding it, but in the confusion the order to board was not understood, and the attempt consequently failed. Again the Huascar rammed, now making a great gaping wound in the side of her feeble opponent, through which the water rushed and caused her to founder in a few minutes. She went down with her colours flying, all her wounded on board, and nearly all the rest of her crew.

The other duel, between the Independencia and the Covadonga, was of a very different nature. The Chilian boat had an English pilot on board and determined to effect by strategy what she could not accomplish by force. She went away along the coast, keeping in the shallower waters, pursued by the Independencia. The Covadonga at last found herself near the reefs, touched a rock and stopped, but did not remain fast. The Independencia, which was only 200 or 300 yards behind, thought that this was a grand opportunity to ram her, and not knowing the reason of the Covadonga’s sudden stoppage, headed straight for her. Instead of striking the Covadonga, she ran on the reef with all her force, and remained hard and fast. The smaller wooden boat then steamed into a favourable position astern of the ironclad where the latter could not bring her great guns to bear, and at short range poured shell after shell into her stern until it was soon blazing fiercely. During the pursuit of the Covadonga the two vessels had exchanged several shots. As usual, the Peruvian gunners, who were untrained, missed nearly every time, and the Chilian gunners, who shot carefully, seldom failed to do damage. This ended the career of the Independencia. The Covadonga was sunk by Peruvian torpedoes in September, 1880, off Chancay.