Warships and their story

by R. A. Fletcher

H.M.S. “VICTORIA” FIRING 111-TON GUN.

Photograph by Sir W. G. Armstrong, Whitworth & Co., Ltd.

H.M.S. “VICTORIA,” SHOWING 111-TON GUNS AND TURRET.

Photograph by Sir W. G. Armstrong, Whitworth & Co., Ltd.

The Collingwood has been regarded as the pioneer vessel of the modern battleship, for it certainly was the first in which the real advantages of steel were displayed. On her was introduced the system of mounting four heavy guns in pairs on the middle line of the ship, not in turrets as in her predecessors carrying a few big guns, but in barbettes or fixed gun positions protected by heavy armour. The barbettes and turrets have been so modified in later ships that sometimes one term and sometimes the other is used by experts to denote the same design. The method of mounting the guns, as illustrated in the Collingwood, remained in vogue in the British Navy until it was supplemented by the Dreadnoughts. The Collingwood’s side armour was 18 inches in thickness; the armour of her bulkheads was 16 inches, that of the conning tower 12 inches, and that of her barbettes, in which her four 12-inch 45-ton guns were mounted, was 11½ inches. She also carried six 6-inch guns and several smaller guns. Her displacement was very little more than that of the Colossus, but she was two knots faster. Other vessels, described as sisters to the Collingwood, followed, but they were all rather larger, among them being the Camperdown, which had the misfortune to sink the Victoria during naval manœuvres in 1893 in the Mediterranean, when Admiral Sir George Tryon and nearly all the crew of his flagship went down with the vessel.

The Victoria was a steel-armoured first-class single-turreted battleship, and was built at Newcastle-on-Tyne in 1887. Her armour was from 18 to 16 inches thick, and there was a protective deck 3 inches thick. She had two sets of three-stage expansion engines, and steam was generated in eight steel boilers with four furnaces each, which were fired from four independent stokeholds. She was one of the three ships to be armed with 111-ton guns, of which she had two in a turret forward. One 29-ton gun was mounted aft to fire over the stern, and she also had twelve 6-inch, twelve 6-pounder quick-firers, twelve 3-pounder quick-firers, eight machine guns, and four torpedo tubes, two of which were submerged. Her displacement was 10,470 tons, length 340 feet, breadth 70 feet, and depth 27 feet 3 inches. The rapidity with which she heeled over and sank was supposed to be partly due to the weight of these enormous guns.

Great things were expected from the type represented by the Benbow, launched in 1885, and completed three years later, which, next to the Inflexible which cost nearly £800,000, was the most expensive ship Britain had then built, and cost the country close upon £775,000. She was very heavily armed, as she carried two 16.25 inch and ten 6-inch guns, all breech-loaders, and was the first vessel to be given five torpedo tubes. This vessel may be said to have inaugurated the big gun era, notwithstanding that she came under the category of soft-ended ships. The last British single-turret ship was the Sans Pareil, launched in 1887, and completed two years later, and in many respects a sister ship to the unfortunate Victoria. These three vessels did not give the satisfaction anticipated, and though various alterations were made in the Victoria no great improvement was effected, and the results were not considered such as to justify the construction of any more like them. The Benbow’s big guns were in barbettes, and those of the Sans Pareil were in a turret.

The Nile and Trafalgar, which were begun in 1886, were of 11,940 tons displacement, and were the largest ships up to then built for the Navy. Their heaviest guns, instead of being in barbettes, were placed in turrets. These vessels were exceedingly heavily armoured, having a belt of steel no less than 20 inches thick, and above this was an armoured redoubt, or citadel, protected by compound armour 18 inches in thickness for 141 feet along each side, the redoubt having parabolic ends of the same thickness of armour, enclosing the turret bases. Armour of equal thickness was placed on the turrets. The secondary armament, consisting of 4.7 inch quick-firing guns, was contained in an octagonal battery with steel sides 3 to 5 inches thick, placed between the turrets. These ships were 345 feet in length by 73 feet beam, and about 28 feet mean draught.