“The Téméraire fires three 25-ton guns right ahead, against two 25-ton and two 18-ton guns in the Alexandra; on either bow, two 25-ton against one 25-ton and one 18-ton; right aft, one 25-ton against two 18-ton; on either quarter, one 25-ton against one 18-ton; on either beam, if engaged on one side at a time, two 25-ton and two 18-ton, with a third 25-ton available through only half the usual arc, against three 18-ton guns, with two of the same weight and one of 25-tons, each available with the limitation just described.”[4]
THE “ALEXANDRA.”
The Alexandra is a ship of 9500 tons displacement, the Téméraire is of 8500 tons; after them came the Nelson (to which the Northampton is a sister ship), of 7320 tons displacement. This vessel cannot be regarded as an armored ship at all, in the usual sense of the word, having but a partial belt of armor, and none of her guns being enclosed within armor protection, although two guns for firing ahead and two for firing astern are partially sheltered by armor. Even less protection than this is afforded to the guns of the Shannon, which also has but a partial belt of armor, and protection for two bow guns only. The comparatively small size of the Shannon (5400 tons displacement) relieves her in some degree from the reproach of being so little protected; but it is difficult (to the present writer) to find a justification for building ships of 7320 tons, like the Nelson and Northampton, and placing them in the category of armor-plated ships, seeing that their entire batteries are open to the free entrance of shell fire from all guns, small as well as large. Where a ship has a battery of guns protected against fire in one or more directions, but freely exposed to fire coming in other directions, to assume that the enemy will be most likely to attack the armor, and avoid firing into the open battery, appears to be a reversal of the safe and well-accepted principle of warfare, viz., that your enemy will at least endeavor to attack your vulnerable part. No doubt, when the size or cost of a particular ship is limited, the designer has to make a choice of evils, but where people are as free as is the British Board of Admiralty to build safe and efficient ships, the devotion of so much armor as the Nelson and Northampton carry to so limited a measure of protection is a very singular proceeding, and illustrates once more with how little wisdom the world is governed.
THE “TÉMÉRAIRE.”
Before passing from the armored ships of the navy—or, rather, as we must now say, in view of some of the ships just described and illustrated, before passing from the ships which have some armor—it is desirable to take note of a few exceptional vessels which cannot be classed either with the pretentious and so-called line-of-battle ships or with the rigged iron-clads generally. Among these will be found two comparatively small ships, designed by the writer many years ago to serve primarily as rams, but to carry also some guns. These were the Hotspur and Rupert. The water-line of the Hotspur was protected with very thick armor for her day (11-inch), extending from stem to stern, dipping down forward to greatly strengthen the projecting ram. She carried (besides a few smaller guns) the largest gun of the period, one of twenty-five tons, mounted on a turn-table, but protected by a fixed tower pierced with four ports.[5] This fixed tower was years afterwards replaced by a revolving turret, similar to that which the writer gave in the first instance to the Rupert, designed soon after the Hotspur. Both the armor and the armament of the second vessel were heavier than those of the first, but the ram, as before, was the chief feature of the ship.
It is needless here to describe some of the very early turret-ships, such as the Prince Albert, Scorpion, Wyvern, and Royal Sovereign, all of which embodied the early (though not by any means the earliest) views of that able, energetic, and lamented officer, the late Captain Cowper Coles, R.N., who was lost at sea by the capsizing of his own ship, the Captain, her low sides failing to furnish the necessary stability for enabling her to resist, when under her canvas, the force of a moderate gale of wind. Had he been able to foresee the coming abandonment of sail-power in rigged ships, and had he been placed, as the writer advised, in charge of the revolving turrets of the navy, leaving ship-designing to those who understood it, he might have been alive to this day, to witness the very general adoption in the British navy of that turret system to which he for some years devoted and eventually sacrificed his life.