Modern ships of war

by Sir Edward J. Reed; Edward Simpson

THE FRENCH NAVY.

By SIR EDWARD J. REED.

We have now to pass under review that vast array of naval constructions which the Continental navies of Europe offer to our observation.

It is not at all surprising that the introduction of steam-engines, of iron and steel hulls, and of armor-plating has been attended throughout Europe by even greater diversity of thought and practice than has characterized our naval progress—“our progress” here signifying that of both the United States and Great Britain. And this may, I think, truthfully be said without in any degree neglecting the striking originality of the American Monitors, to which I endeavored to do justice.

As regards two of the three great changes just adverted to, the only differences of opinion that have arisen have been in the nature of competitions rather than of conflicts. No one, so far as I am aware, has ever proposed to revert to sail-power or to wooden hulls in important ships-of-war. On the contrary, the powers have been in continual competition in the effort to reduce the weights of the hulls of war-ships (apart from armor) by the extended use, first of iron, and afterwards of steel, and to apply the savings of weight thus effected to the development of engine-power, speed, and steaming endurance. On the other hand, it must be acknowledged that the development of armor has been pursued with less constancy and less earnestness, the result being that marked contrasts are exhibited by European navies.

It may be said, with little or no qualification, that all other European naval powers followed, in the first place, the example set by the late Emperor Napoleon III., in La Gloire, by covering the whole of the exposed part of the war-ship’s hull with armor-plating. All the early iron-clads of Russia, Italy, Austria, and Germany were protected from stem to stern, and from a few feet below water to the upper deck. England did the same in the cases of a few ships, although she began, as we saw before, with the Warrior type, in which the armor was limited to the central part of the ship. But the system of completely covering the exposed ship with armor has now entirely and properly passed away from European practice, and has been succeeded by varied arrangements of armor.

The importance of giving effectual protection to the hull “between wind and water,” as it is called (signifying from a few feet below the water-line to a few feet above that line), has been steadily recognized by Continental governments, with but the rarest exceptions. Nothing corresponding to that wholesale abandonment of armor for about a hundred feet at each end of the ship which has been practised in the British ships of the Inflexible and Admiral types is displayed in the line-of-battle ships of the Continent. In France, indeed, two such ships were laid down under some temporary influence, viz., the Brennus and the Charles Martel, but they appear to have soon fallen under suspicion, and there has not been, to my knowledge, any great disposition to complete them for service. A return made by the Admiralty to the order of the House of Commons has been printed, and says of the Brennus and Charles Martel: “Though these vessels still appear in the list of the French navy, but little money has been voted for their construction in 1886, and all work on them is now reported to have been stopped.” I know not what significance is to be attached to the fact, but I observe that these two ships were omitted altogether from the iron-clad ships of France published so recently as May, 1886, in the Universal Register of shipping, which Lloyd’s Register Committee “believe will be found the most complete list that has yet been published.” It seems not improbable, therefore, that the dangerous system of exposing two-thirds of the ship’s length to destruction from all kinds and every system of naval guns, even the smallest, which prevailed in the British navy for more than twelve years, and which has now happily been superseded in the powerful new ships Nile and Trafalgar, obtained but little more than momentary approval in France, and is likely to have led to the condemnation of the only two ships in which it was attempted—a result which is creditable alike to French science and to French sagacity.

In Italy the Inflexible system (which has met in France with the fate we have just seen) obtained temporary favor, and was adopted in the Duilio and the Dandolo, two very large ships, of 11,000 tons each, of a speed exceeding fifteen knots, and each carrying four 100-ton guns in turrets. Although these ships are 340 feet in length, even the armored belt amidships (if “belt” in any sense so short a strip of armor may be called[22]) is but 107 feet long, leaving therefore 233 feet of the ship at the ends wholly devoid of water-line protection. As the author of the “citadel system,” I cannot regard such an arrangement as this as a fair and reasonable embodiment of it, the discrepancy between the armored and unarmored portions being greater in these two ships than even in the Ajax and Agamemnon, which are perhaps the worst examples of the abuse of the citadel system in the British navy. It is to the credit of the Italian government that ships of this type were not repeated in their navy; and it is but right to point out that there were excuses (which probably ranked in the minds of the designers as reasons) for a more extreme proportionate limitation of the citadels being adopted in the Duilio and Dandolo than in the Ajax and Agamemnon. Among these were the possession by the Italian ships of heavier armaments, and of far greater steam-power and speed than the British ships possessed—a matter to which further reference will be made hereafter—and probably, also, the adoption of somewhat finer water-lines as a means of attaining the superior speed.

In this connection it may be well to observe that the question of leaving so-called armored line-of-battle ships without armor at the extremities is first one of principle, and afterwards one of degree. The principle (which should be observed in the design of every armored vessel which is intended for the line of battle, or for those close and severe contests of ship with ship which will probably supersede in a great degree the system of fighting in lines of battle) is this: the proportion which the armored citadel bears to the unarmored ends must always be such as to enable the ship to keep afloat all the time the armor itself holds out against the attack of the enemy; so that injuries to the unarmored ends, however great or multiplied, shall not alone suffice to destroy the ship. Whatever may occur in the future to interfere with the application of this principle—and I do not deny that such interferences may arise under certain perfectly conceivable circumstances—nothing has yet happened to justify its abandonment, or to even justify the remotest chance of its being violated.

If a ship is not intended to close with an enemy, or to fight her anyhow and anywhere on the open sea—which certainly has been the dominant idea of the British navy, in so far as its great line-of-battle ships are concerned—if, for example, a combination of immense speed with one or two extremely powerful and well-protected guns should serve a particular object better than a slower and more fully protected ship would serve it—then even great destructibility in the ship itself may justifiably be incurred. But for general naval service, and in every case in which a ship is intended to accept battle with a powerful antagonist and fight it out, or to force an action when she encounters such an enemy, it cannot be wise to leave her so exposed that that enemy may almost certainly sink her or cause her to capsize by merely pouring any kind of shot or shell into her unarmored parts. But even the observance of the above general principle is not alone all that is desirable in armored line-of-battle ships. It is not well to leave even so much of the ends of such ships wholly exposed as may lead to the speedy loss in action of her steaming or steering powers. The armor-belt should be of sufficient length to fairly guarantee the ship against prompt disablement in action, and to do this it must be carried very much nearer to the bow and stern than it has been in the cases of the Italian ships (Duilio and Dandolo) now under notice.