Warships and their story

by R. A. Fletcher

H.M.S. “KING EDWARD VII.”

Photograph by the Carbonora Co., Liverpool.

H.M.S. “LORD NELSON.”

Photograph by Stephen Cribb, Southsea.

The increasing power and range of naval guns rendered it necessary that better protection and more destructive weapons should be given to the ships, and accordingly there was introduced in 1903, and completed in 1905, the King Edward VII., and eight of this class were built. Their displacement was 16,350 tons, and in this respect they were the largest ships yet built for the Navy, but though they were shorter than the Triumph, they were of 2 feet greater draught. Their armour belt was of 9 inches of steel, and their main guns were protected by 8 to 12 inches. These ships carried four 12-inch, four 9.2-inch, and ten 6-inch quick-firers, and thirty anti-torpedo-boat guns. They cost not far short of a million and a half sterling each. Their engines of 18,000 h.p. gave them a speed of about nineteen knots. In 1906, there was launched the Lord Nelson, carrying fewer guns but better protected. Her armament comprised four 12-inch and four 9.2-inch, besides twenty-nine smaller guns and five torpedo tubes, and the armour both of her belt and for her main guns was of steel 12 inches in thickness.

The King Edward VII. and Lord Nelson were the finest examples of the types of battleships carrying four big guns and a powerful secondary armament. Both classes were provided with four 12-inch guns, but the Lord Nelson and the Agamemnon marked an advance from the principle which had endured so long towards the principle of the all-big-gun one-calibre ship as exemplified in the Dreadnought. They were not, however, ships carrying all big guns of one calibre, for instead of a secondary armament like that of the King Edward, they carried ten 9.2-inch guns and twenty-four smaller weapons. The Lord Nelson and Agamemnon were about 410 feet in length by 79 feet 6 inches beam, and on a draught of 27 feet had a displacement of 16,500 tons. They were 15 feet shorter than the King Edward class and 18 inches broader. Many naval men preferred the Agamemnon to the Dreadnought, when the latter appeared in 1906, on account of the greater rapidity of fire of the former; but against this it was contended that her hitting power at long range was less. Upon her trials the Agamemnon’s engines developed 17,285 h.p. indicated, and gave her a speed of eighteen and three-quarter knots, both power and speed being in excess of the estimates. Her high freeboard was a notable feature; her forward guns were 27 feet and her after pair 22 feet above the water-line, while in a superstructure above them were the smaller guns some 34 feet above the water-line, where they were admirably placed for dealing with any attempt at a torpedo attack.

The Agamemnon was built by the Beardmore firm, at Dalmuir, and launched in June, 1906, and the Lord Nelson left the slips at Palmer’s establishment at Jarrow in the following September. It was contended that their 12-inch guns were half as powerful again as any of similar calibre mounted previous to 1906. Of their 9.2-inch guns, eight were in what are called twin barbettes, and the other two in single barbettes between the others. There are also a few 12-pounders and a greater number of 3-pounders, thirty-five in all, most of which are in a somewhat exposed position. These ships have each a complete belt extending along the water-line from stem to stern, 12 inches thick amidships, and tapering to 6 inches at the bow and 4 inches aft, while the sides above the belt and between the barbettes have 8-inch armour raised to the level of the upper deck; diagonal bulkheads, also of 8-inch armour, enclose the citadel at either end. Yet that 8-inch armour was declared by Mr. Beardmore, when the ship was launched, to be more than equal in its power of resisting projectiles to the 12-inch armour of only four years earlier.

In considering the development of the modern warship attention naturally turns to the battleship, but it should be remembered that other vessels of scarcely less importance help to constitute the modern navy, the most notable being the cruisers of various classes, the destroyers and torpedo boats, and submarines.