We are now in a position to review the British navy, and to see of what ships it really consists. In this review it will not be necessary to pass before the eyes of the reader that large number of vessels of which even the boilers and magazines are without any armor or thick-plate protection whatever. It will help, nevertheless, to make the nature and extent of the navy understood if these are grouped and summarized in a few sentences. Neglecting altogether all large vessels with timber frames (which may be regarded as out of date, seeing that all the war vessels of considerable size now built for the navy have iron or steel frames), it may be first said that there are but three ships of the large or frigate class in the British navy which carry no thick protecting plate at all, viz., the Inconstant, the Shah, and the Raleigh. Of much less size than these, and equally devoid of protection, are the two very fast vessels, the Iris and Mercury, built as special despatch-vessels, steaming at their best at about eighteen knots. Among the unarmored corvettes are the Active, Bacchante, Boadicea, Euryalus, Rover, and Volage, all exceeding fourteen knots in speed, and all more than three thousand tons displacement. Then follow thirty-six smaller and less swift corvettes, nearly one-half the number being built wholly of wood, most of which exceed, however, thirteen knots in speed; and below these about an equal number of sloops of less speed and tonnage. The smaller gun-vessels and gun-boats need not be summarized.
THE “INCONSTANT.”
Passing on to vessels which, although themselves unarmored, have thick-plate decks to give some protection to the machinery, we observe first that there are eight ships of three thousand five hundred to three thousand seven hundred tons built and under construction, viz., the Amphion, Arethusa, Leander, Phaeton, Mersey, Severn, Forth, and Thames.[7] Lord Brassey very properly classes such of these vessels as he mentions in his lists as “unarmored ships,” although, as before mentioned, when two of them—the Mersey and Severn—were designed, with a deck two inches thick, the Admiralty at first ventured to put them forward as “armored ships.”
Ascending in the scale of protection, and dealing for the present with sea-going vessels only, we come to a long series of ships which are undeserving of the designation of armored ships, because they are liable to destruction by guns without the limited amount of armor which they carry being attacked at all. These ships are the Impérieuse and Warspite, previously discussed, and also the Ajax, Agamemnon, Colossus, Edinburgh, and the six large ships of the “Admiral” class. Any one who has intelligently perused the report of the committee on the Inflexible would justify the inclusion of that ship in this category; but she is omitted here out of deference to the strenuous exertions which were made to invent or devise some little stability for her, even when her bow and stern are supposed to be badly injured, and out of compassion upon those officers of the Admiralty who have long ago repented those trying compromises with conscience by aid of which they expressed some slight confidence in her ability to float upright with her unarmored ends badly damaged. She is omitted also out of gratitude to Lord Brassey for a sentence in which, while saving her from being placed in so dreadful a category, he honestly places some of the other ships in it without qualification or circumlocution. He says: “In one important particular the Ajax and Agamemnon are inferior to the Inflexible. The central armored citadel is not, as it is in the case of the Inflexible, of sufficient displacement to secure the stability of the ship should the unarmored ends be destroyed.”[8] In another place the former Secretary to the Admiralty, referring to the report of the Inflexible committee (which was nominated by the Admiralty, and under heavy obligations to support it), says: “It is doubtless very desirable that our armored ships should possess a more ample margin of stability than is provided in the armored citadel of the Inflexible. The ideas of the committee and of Sir Edward Reed on this point were in entire accord.”[9]
THE “COLOSSUS.”
It has recently been acknowledged that, as Lord Brassey states, the Ajax and Agamemnon are so constructed that they are dependent for their ability to float, the right side uppermost, upon their unarmored ends. To call such ships “armored ships” is, as we have seen, to mislead the public. But some pains have been taken of late to show that the “Admiral” class is better off in this respect, and certainly the known opinions of the present writer have been so far respected in these ships that their armored citadels, so called, have been made somewhat longer and of greater proportionate area. The following figures have been given: