SAILING SHIPS AND BROADSIDE BATTERIES
When the nineteenth century began, the ships that contended for the control of the sea were, and for two centuries had been, sailing ships with broadside batteries: the guns, that is, were distributed along both sides from the bow to the stern on one, two, three, or four decks. From the largest down, all were of this type until the very smallest class was reached. In the latter, which could scarcely be considered fighting ships, the gun power was at times concentrated into a single piece, which swept from side to side round the horizon, thus anticipating partially the modern turreted ironclad with its concentrated revolving battery.
The arrangement of guns in broadside involved anomalies and inconveniences which seem most singular when first noted. A ship in chase of another, for instance, had no guns which threw straight ahead. If it were wished to fire, in order to cripple the fleeing enemy, it was necessary to deflect from the course; and in order to bring most of the guns on one side into play the vessel had to swing round nearly at right angles to the direction of pursuit. This, of course, lost both time and ground. Broadside fire—the distribution of guns in broadside—rests, however, upon an unchangeable condition, which controls now as it did a century ago. Ships then were from three to four times as long as they were broad; the proportion now is, length from four to six times the breadth—or beam, as it is technically called. Therefore, except in small vessels, where the concentration of the whole weight that can be carried in battery gave but one piece effective against a probable target, a full development of fire required the utilization of the long side of the ship rather than of its short cross-section. This is precisely analogous to the necessity that an army has of deploying into line, from any order of march, in order to develop its full musketry fire. The mechanical attainment of the last century did not permit the construction of single guns that would contain the weight of the whole battery of a big ship: but even had it, guns are not wanted bigger than will penetrate their target most effectively. When an ounce of lead will kill a man it is useless to fire a pound. The limit of penetration once reached, it is numbers, not size, that tell: and numbers could be had only by utilizing the broadside. This condition remains operative now; but as modern battle-ships present two or more kinds of target—the heavy armored and that which is light armored, or unprotected—the application of the principle in practice becomes more complicated. Batteries now are necessarily less homogeneous than they once were, because targets vary more.
DISAPPEARANCE OF BOW FIRE
The adoption of broadside batteries followed, therefore, necessarily upon increase of size and consequent length, but not upon that only. It is instructive to observe that the sailing fighting ship was derived, in part, at least, from the galley, and its resemblance in form to the latter is traceable for at least a century after the general disuse of the oar. As the galley, however, was small, it could concentrate its fire advantageously in one or two pieces, for which small number the cross-section offered a sufficient line of emplacement: and as, when it could move at all, it could move in any direction, there was a further advantage in being able to fire in the direction of its motion. Hence, bow fire prevailed in galleys to the end, although the great galleasses of Lepanto and the Armada had accepted broadside batteries in great part, and whenever the galley type has recurred, as on Lake Champlain during our Revolutionary War, bow fire has predominated. The sailing ship, on the contrary, was limited as to the direction in which she could move. Taking her as the centre of a circle, she could not steer directly for much more than half the points on the circumference. Bow fire consequently was much less beneficial to her, and, further, it was found that, for reasons not necessary to particularize, her sailing, steering, and manœuvring were greatly benefited by the leverage of sails carried on the bowsprit and its booms, projecting forward of the bow, where they interfered decisively with right-ahead fire.
For all these reasons, bow fire disappeared and broadside fire prevailed; but the fundamental one to be remembered is the greater development of fire conferred by greater length. All ships—except the very small ones known as schooners, cutters, and gunboats—were broadside vessels, moved by canvas which was carried commonly on two or three masts; but into the particulars of the sails it is presumed readers will not care to enter. Being thus homogeneous in general characteristics, the ships of this era were divided commonly into three principal classes, each of which had subdivisions; but it was recognized then, as it is now in theory though too little in practice, that such multiplication of species is harmful, and our forerunners, by a process of gradual elimination, had settled down upon certain clearly defined medium types.
The smallest of the three principal classes of fighting ships were called sloops-of-war, or corvettes. These had sometimes two masts, sometimes three; but the particular feature that differentiated them was that they had but one row of guns in broadside, on an uncovered deck. The offices discharged by this class of vessel were various, but in the apprehension of the writer they may be considered rightly as being above all the protectors or destroyers of commerce in transit. All ships of war, of course, contributed to this end; but the direct preying upon commerce, upon merchant ships, whose resisting power was small, was done most economically by small vessels of relatively small power. Having a given amount of tonnage to devote to commerce destroying, many small vessels are more effective than a few big ones of unnecessary force. Such being the nature of the attack, the resistance must be similar in kind. That is, a flock of merchant ships being liable to attack by many small adversaries, several small protectors would be more efficient than one or two large ones. Sloops-of-war served also as despatch vessels and lookouts of a fleet, but were less well adapted to this service than the frigate was.
THE FRIGATE AND HER GUNS
This latter celebrated and favorite class of ship stood next in order of power above the corvette, with which it might also be said to have blended; for although in the frigate class there were two, or at the most three, rates that predominated vastly in numbers over all the rest, yet the name covered many differing degrees of force. The distinguishing feature of the frigate was that it carried one complete row of guns upon a covered deck—upon a deck, that is, which had another deck over it. On this upper or spar deck there were also guns—more or fewer—but lighter in weight than those on the covered deck, usually styled the main deck. The two principal classes of frigates at the beginning of this century were the thirty-two-gun and the thirty-eight-gun. That is, they carried nominally sixteen or nineteen guns on each side; but the enumeration is misleading, except as a matter of comparison, for guns of some classes were not counted. Ships generally had a few more cannon than their rate implied. The United States thirty-two-gun frigate Essex, for example, carried at first twenty-six long twelves on the main deck, with sixteen carronades and two chase guns on the spar deck. Above these two classes came the forty-four-gun frigate, a very powerful rate, which was favored by the United States navy and received a development of strength then unprecedented.
Being such as here described, the frigate was essentially, though not exclusively, the appendage of a fleet of line-of-battle ships. Wars are decided not by commerce destroying nor by raids, however vexatious, but by fleets and armies, by great organized masses—that is, by crushing, not by harassment. But ships of the line, to perform their function, must keep together, both when cruising and when on the field of battle, in order to put forth their strength in combination. The innumerable detached services that must be discharged for every great organized force need for a fleet to be done by vessels of inferior strength, yet so strong that they cannot be intercepted or driven off lightly by every whipper-snapper of an armed ship that comes along. Moreover, a fact not always realized, speed—speed to hasten on a mission, to overtake a foe, or to escape pursuit—depends upon size, masts that can carry sail and hold way amid heavy seas. Hence the frigate, not the lighter sloop, was indicated for the momentous duties upon which depended the intelligence and the communications of the fleet. Such leading considerations are needed to be stated and to be kept in mind, for they affected the warfare of the last decade of the century quite as really as they did that of the first, and a paper would indeed be incomplete which confined itself to indicating points of difference of progress, so-called, and failed to recognize those essential and permanent conditions which time will never remove. Frigates and sloops have disappeared in name and form, in motive power and in armament. Their essential functions remain, and will remain while war lasts.