Other nations, notably France and Russia, adhered to the armoured type, the former producing the Dupuy de Lôme, and the latter the Rossia and Rurik. Both these vessels were built at St. Petersburg in 1896 and 1894 respectively, and must be distinguished from the present Russian cruisers bearing these names. The Rossia was terribly knocked about in the war with Japan, but has survived it, thanks to her armour. She appeared at the Diamond Jubilee Review in 1897 at Spithead. The Rossia and the present Rurik, the latter launched at Barrow in 1906, attracted attention on account of their speed, the former attaining twenty and a quarter knots and the more modern boat nearly twenty-one and a half knots. Both were heavily armed, the latter especially so, being the only Russian cruiser to carry four 10-inch guns. She has, besides, eight 8-inch guns, twenty 4.7-inch quick-firers, eighteen smaller quick-firers, and two torpedo tubes, and when she left the builders was one of the most formidable cruisers afloat. Accurate long-range shooting being indispensable, the Rurik is also fitted with a range-finding tower.
The new Esmeralda, built in 1895 for the Chilian Government by the Tyneside firm who built her earlier namesake, had not a little to do with the introduction of side armour on British cruisers, thanks to the improvement of the Harvey and Krupp processes of strengthening steel.
The Powerful, launched at Barrow in 1895, and the Terrible, launched at Glasgow the same year, were the largest protected cruisers afloat at that time, and will long be remembered by the public for the excellent service their crews rendered during the Boer War, and among naval architects and marine engineers and shipbuilders by reason of the bitter controversy that arose over their installation of forty-eight Belleville water-tube boilers, they being the first cruisers in the British Navy in which these were carried.
As a contrast to these two was the armoured cruiser Drake, begun in 1899 and completed in 1902, and at that time the largest of her class anywhere. Though called a cruiser, she was a more formidable fighting-machine than the Barfleur, Renown or Canopus. With a displacement of 14,100 tons, and a length of 500 feet, and an equipment of Belleville boilers and engines developing 30,000 h.p., she and her sister ships could reach a speed of over twenty-four knots, and were faster than any other large vessels in the British Navy. She was belted on her sides with Krupp steel from one barbette to the other, and from 6 feet below the water-line to the level of the upper deck, and there was lighter armour above this. She had also two protective decks, the lower being 2 to 3 inches in thickness. Her two 9.2-inch breech-loading guns were in barbettes, and she was given sixteen 6-inch, fourteen 3-inch, and three smaller guns, which, like the last two classes, were quick-firers, and two machine guns.
The increase in gun power rendered necessary an addition to the protection of the vessels, and the Devonshire class of cruisers, which appeared early in the present century, were given 6 inches of armour instead of 4 inches. The ships of this class were tried for experimental purposes with four different types of water-tube boilers in combination with cylindrical boilers. These fast armoured cruisers were designed to replace the old protected cruisers, which were no longer equal to modern requirements, speed being now recognised as of very great importance.
H.M.S. “INDOMITABLE.”
Photograph by West & Son, Southsea.
H.M.S. “LIVERPOOL.”