The British Navy Book Part 12

I have a vivid recollection of a visit to the _Minotaur_ when a boy.

Possibly a few extracts from notes made at the time may be of interest.

"She has five masts and is a tremendous length. Her upper deck is furnished with a good many small guns for repelling boat attacks. Round the masts are placed some of the shot and sh.e.l.l for the large guns below, painted white, and the k.n.o.bs (i.e. studs to fit the rifling) and points gilded. Were here shown a Gatling gun for service on sh.o.r.e or for clearing the decks of boarders, &c. On going below we saw a couple of rocket-tubes burnished like a looking-gla.s.s.... In the steerage we saw a 7- or 9-pounder boat gun polished beautifully (as was all the metalwork in the ship) which had an arrangement for reducing the recoil by a cylinder full of oil. The main-deck battery consisted of 12-ton guns, lacquered to look like jet." The carriages, I remember, were painted white and the slides under them scarlet, which, with their burnished gun-metal machinery, gave them a most brilliant appearance, very different from the slate-coloured monsters of to-day. These guns were some which had replaced her original armament of more numerous but lighter cannon, and in consequence every other port in the battery was vacant. But the long line of guns presented a most imposing appearance.

"Between the guns were field-guns, boat-guns, &c. Round the hatchways were ranged shot, sh.e.l.l, and canister, which also appeared in every available corner."

Among other notes, too long to be transcribed, I find that the Whitehead torpedoes in the _Minotaur_ were made of copper, a material which has long since been superseded by steel, and that I was shown "the Rumpf coil for generating the electric light which can be shown in three places". Compare this very modest installation with the numbers of powerful search-lights which a battleship carries to-day, to say nothing of the thousands of incandescent lamps which light her interior. The "cylinder full of oil" for checking the recoil of a small boat-gun, which is referred to above, is noteworthy as the prototype of the almost universal system now in use both ash.o.r.e and afloat, though in the _Minotaur_ none of the big guns were fitted with this very effective apparatus.

As guns grew more powerful, and, in consequence, armour increased in thickness and weight, the amount of side protection had perforce to be reduced, so that as time went on the battleship's cuira.s.s was cut down to a comparatively narrow water-line belt, with a "box-battery"

containing her heavy guns amidships. In later types the foremost and aftermost guns in these batteries were placed at an angle and the port "recessed" in the ship's side, so that these guns could fire on the broadside and nearly ahead as well. In some ships, such as the _Sultan_, _Alexandra_--which, by the way, was long flagship of the Mediterranean fleet and a notable ship in her day--_Triumph_, and _Iron Duke_, the box-battery was arranged in two tiers, one above the other. All these were broadside ships and fully rigged. If they could not get along very fast under sail alone, the sails, under some circ.u.mstances, were useful in "easing the engines" and getting a little more speed out of the ship.

But in any case naval officers had not then brought themselves to accept the idea of relying on their engines alone; they liked to have a second string to their bow. Besides, the work and evolutions aloft were undeniably a splendid thing for the seamen; it rendered them quick, smart, and self-reliant, and kept them in excellent physical training.

The reverse side of the picture was the weight of yards, rigging, and sails, the resistance they offered to the wind when the ship was steaming against it, the danger in action to those quartered on the upper deck from the fall of yards, blocks, and spars from aloft, and the time taken in preparing them for action. The top-gallant masts were sent down on deck as well as the upper yards, the top-masts were generally lowered till they only showed a few feet above the heads of the lower masts, extra slings had to be put in place to secure the lower yards, the shrouds supporting the masts on either side had to be "snaked down", by coiling wire hawsers in a species of zigzag from top to bottom, so that if one or more shrouds were cut the whole would hang together, and many other precautions taken which occupied valuable time and were, perhaps, after all of a merely negative nature--that is to say, the rigging was more of a danger in action than a useful a.s.set. The tops were the only part of it that were of use. As in ancient days they afforded stations for archers and stone-throwers, and later on for musketry, swivel-guns, and grenade-throwers, so they were at this time utilized for mounting machine-guns to fire down upon an enemy's decks.

For at that period "close action" was always expected. Boarders were told off when the ship "went to quarters for action", and boarding-pikes and cutla.s.ses were provided for their use, while the small upper-deck guns--usually breech-loading Armstrongs--were mounted on carriages which enabled them to be fired downward to repel a boat attack or the rush of a steamboat with a spar torpedo. The ideas of an action at sea were practically the same as those which obtained in the days of Nelson.

"Masts and yards" were the source of yet another danger. The "smartness"

of a ship was still generally gauged by her "smartness" aloft. All evolutions in the Navy are done "against time", and for a ship to get her "royal yards across" some seconds before any other ship in the squadron was a notable feat of which every soul on board was proud to a degree. These ideas were those of the old sailing navy, and in spite of the advent of steam, ironclads, rifled guns, and torpedoes, the conservatism of our great sea service rendered them still paramount, so that even gunnery took a second place. There were regulation quant.i.ties of ammunition to be fired--"expended" was the usual term--at regulated periods, there were orders that torpedoes were to be run at stated intervals, that bluejackets and marines should be landed for drill ash.o.r.e every week when in harbour. But in most ships these things were regarded as secondary and annoying performances, to be got over and done with as soon as possible, if they could not be avoided altogether, so that all hands might be set to their "games with sticks and string", as, in course of time, irreverent observers began to call the cherished evolutions with mast and yards, and the important business of cleaning paintwork, burnishing "brightwork", and generally making the ship as spick and span as possible.

"Spit and polish" were the idols worshipped in those days by captains and more especially commanders, for it was almost universally recognized that their promotion depended more on the brilliant appearance of their ships at an inspection than on any other earthly matter. But for all that the days of "sticks and string" were numbered, as were those of broadside ironclads and box batteries.

The prime cause of the approaching change was the appearance of a queer-looking little craft in the Civil War in America between 1861 and 1864. The United States Government had a fine fleet of wooden steamships at the outbreak of hostilities, but the naval authorities of the seceding Southern States, having raised the _Merrimac_, a 40-gun frigate which had been sunk at the Norfolk navy yard, cut her down, built a battery amidships armoured with two or three thicknesses of railway iron, and attacked the Federal fleet. The _Merrimac_ had it all her own way, rammed and sank the frigate _c.u.mberland_, set the bigger _Congress_ on fire and compelled her to surrender, and withdrew with all the honours of war. But she was yet to meet her match. John Ericsson, a Swedish engineer, was commissioned by the United States Government to construct a small ironclad of his own designing. While the _Merrimac_ was engaged in defeating the wooden ships of the Federals in Hampton Roads, the _Monitor_, as the new vessel was called, was on her way south from New York. She joined the Federal fleet the very night before the _Merrimac_ made a second sortie. On this occasion, as she came out into the Roads and opened up the fleet she intended to attack, the _Merrimac_ spotted what someone described as looking "like a cheese-box on a raft".

It was an excellent description of the little _Monitor_, which was built with a very low freeboard and had nothing on her deck but a cylindrical revolving turret containing a couple of guns, no masts, and but the merest apology for a funnel. Yet she proved one too many for the _Merrimac_ with her more numerous battery of guns. She was unable actually to pierce her sides, as her commander had received the most peremptory orders not to use more than 15 pounds of powder to load his guns, but the _Merrimac_ got so "rattled" that she had to sheer off.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The _Monitor_, the famous little ship that revolutionized warship design

The upper figure is a broadside view, the lower one a transverse section amidships. The upper portion of the hull was very like a raft, and was heavily armoured all over, as was the turret and the little pilot-box forward.]

This first duel between ironclad vessels attracted an enormous amount of attention, as is only to be supposed. The net result in this country was that Captain Cowper Coles, R.N., was allowed to have a cupola- or turret-ship built which he had designed some years before. The _Royal Sovereign_, a wooden three-decker, was cut down to within a few feet of the water-line, plated with 5-1/2-inch iron, and fitted with four turrets. The foremost one carried two guns, the remainder one apiece.

She had very light pole masts and light, hinged iron bulwarks, which gave her 3-1/3 feet more freeboard at sea but had to be lowered before she could fight her guns. Captain Coles, however, had the usual hankering after "masts and yards", and, the _Royal Sovereign_ having proved moderately successful, induced the Admiralty to build a fully rigged turret-ship. This was the unfortunate _Captain_, whose low freeboard, heavy turrets, superstructures, and fully-rigged tripod masts caused her to turn turtle in a squall off Cape Finisterre on the night of 6th September, 1870. Her inventor went down in her. Her gunner and seventeen men were the sole survivors. One other full-rigged turret-ship was built--the _Monarch_. As she had a very considerable freeboard she proved a seaworthy ship, but she was the last of her kind.[42]

In the meantime several small coast-defence turret-vessels had been built, such as the _Scorpion_ and _Wyvern_ in 1865, the _Abyssinia_, _Magdala_, and _Cerberus_ in 1870, and the _Glatton_, _Gorgon_, _Cyclops_, and others a year or so later. They had one or two masts, but were not rigged ships. These little turret-ships developed into the battleships _Devastation_, _Dreadnought_, and _Thunderer_, launched between 1873 and 1877. Each had two turrets containing a couple of heavy guns apiece. Their hulls were heavily armoured, and they had but one mast fitted with a military top for machine-guns. It is from this branch of our earlier armour-clad construction that our modern "Dreadnoughts"

derive their descent rather than from the broadside type.

To explain further developments it must be noted that while in this country the success of the _Monitor_ induced us to experiment with placing guns in revolving armoured turrets, in France the tendency was to build a fixed armoured tower in the ship, and place the guns inside on a turntable _en barbette_--that is to say, so mounted that they could fire over the top of the armour in any direction. We tried to go one better in the _Temeraire_ (1877). She was a broadside ship, with a "box-battery" amidships, but forward and aft two pear-shaped armoured barbettes were built into her, the tops of which rose about 1 foot or 18 inches above her upper deck. In each of these was placed a 25-ton gun--we cla.s.sified guns by weight in those days, and not by inches of calibre as we do now--on a mounting, which enabled it to sink down on being fired, and to be raised up again into its firing-position when loaded. The _Temeraire_, it may be said, was an experimental ship in many ways. Though heavily rigged, she had only two masts, so was like an enormous brig. I believe I am right in saying that her mainyard was the longest and heaviest in the Service. At one time, too, she was painted grey, instead of the black which was then universal, except when ships were in hot climates, when it was generally changed to white. Yellow funnels were regulation, as was "mast-colour"--a sort of deep-yellow ochre with a reddish tinge--for all masts and spars. Ships were, and had been for very many years, painted white withinboard instead of the old eighteenth-century red. Outboard the black sides were finished off generally with a white water-line, and a broad white band along the upper part of the bulwarks, known as a "boot-top". Sometimes another white line was painted on the black side a few inches below it.

There was a good deal of controversy about this time as to the relative merits of "broadside" fire and "end-on" fire. s.p.a.ce forbids us from entering further into this question, but, generally speaking, if a British ship carried four guns heavier than the rest, they were so arranged that two could be fired ahead or astern, and all four on either broadside. But in a French ship the four corresponding guns would be each mounted singly in barbettes arranged diamond-fashion, so that three could be fired either ahead, astern, or on either broadside. A couple of armoured cruisers, the _Imperieuse_ and _Warspite_, were built, probably as an experiment, on these lines, on the latter of which I had the honour of serving for something like twelve months. They were originally brig-rigged, like the _Temeraire_, but this was done away with later and replaced by a single military mast. Personally I do not think they were a success. The _Warspite_, at any rate, was a very wet ship. When steaming against quite a moderate sea the water ran all over her, into the barbettes and down below, and she was much cramped in many ways by the arrangement of her guns. The _Devastation_ and her sisters proved very formidable and successful ships, but with the idea of getting a heavier fire ahead or astern a new departure was made in the _Inflexible_--the biggest ironclad we had yet constructed--by placing her turrets, not one forward and the other aft on the centre line of the ship, but _en echelon_--that is to say, diagonally amidships.

Theoretically this arrangement, which had been copied from the big Italian ships _Duilio_ and _Dandolo_, had a good deal to recommend it, but practically there is more to be said against it than for it.

Nevertheless, four other smaller ships were built on these lines, the _Ajax_ and _Agamemnon_--which gained notoriety as being almost impossible to steer--and the _Edinburgh_ and _Colossus_. The last two were armed with breech-loading guns, which were now superseding the old muzzle-loaders to which the ordnance authorities had clung with such obstinacy long after every other nation had consigned them to the sc.r.a.p heap.

Meanwhile a smaller single-turret ship, the _Conqueror_, had been built, an unwieldy-looking craft which went by the name of the "half-boot" from the resemblance her general outline had to that useful article of military equipment. But she seems to have met with the approval of the Admiralty, since an improved sister-ship, the _Hero_, was launched about five years later. These ships probably suggested the very much larger ones, _Victoria_ and _Sans Pareil_, each of which, on a displacement of 10,470 tons only, carried a couple of 111-ton guns of 1625-inch bore in a single turret--that is to say, as their main armament. They had also a 10-inch gun aft, and a dozen 6-inch breech-loading guns. These formed what is called her "secondary battery". The provision of such batteries marks a step in the evolution of war-ship construction which is very noteworthy. The bigger and bigger guns carried by battleships necessitated stronger and stronger armour.

In spite of improvements in quality and manufacture the weight of armour tended constantly to increase. The area covered had therefore to be more and more restricted. To carry all this weight of guns and armour comparatively large ships were necessary, and a great part of their sides had to go without any protection at all. Their flotation might be preserved--against attack by gun-fire--by the combination of armoured belt and sloping armoured decks which had by now become almost universal. But it was obvious that the unarmoured portions of the ship above water could be torn to pieces by the fire of comparatively light weapons. This led to the installation of "secondary batteries" of 4-, 5-, and 6-inch guns, for the purpose of attacking an enemy's ship in this way and of neutralizing his attack by keeping down the fire of _his_ secondary batteries.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Photo. West & Son, Southsea_

A MONSTER GUN WHICH IS NOW OBSOLETE

The 111-ton gun on the old _Benbow_, which was very slow of fire and whose life was estimated at little more than 70 rounds.]

The development of torpedo-attack brought about the Whitehead automobile torpedo, and the improvements in the speed and construction of destroyers and torpedo-boats caused also the introduction of "auxiliary batteries" of rapid-firing 3- and 6-pounder-sh.e.l.l guns. The machine-guns firing rifle bullets, and, later on, small steel shot, were found to have no "stopping-power" against torpedo-craft, and more powerful weapons became imperative.

The tragic end of the _Victoria_, which cost the nation, not only a fine ship, but the lives of the greater portion of her crew, and that very talented naval commander, Sir George Tryon, is a well-known tragedy of the sea, and there is little doubt that the enormous weight forward of her huge turret and guns, with nothing aft to counterbalance it, was one of the causes contributing to the completeness of the catastrophe.

No more ships were built on such lines, but about this period an important innovation was made by the introduction of a cla.s.s of ships in which the four heavy guns were carried in a couple of high barbettes with sloping sides, instead of in turrets. The whole gun was exposed, but not its mountings or crew, since the top of the barbette was closed in by a flat shield which revolved with the guns. These were the _Collingwood_, _Camperdown_, _Howe_, _Rodney_, _Anson_, and _Benbow_.

The last-named had one 111-ton gun in each barbette, instead of a pair of rather smaller cannon. Amidships, between the barbettes, were secondary batteries of half a dozen 6-inch guns (the _Benbow_ had ten).

These were entirely unprotected except from fire coming from ahead or astern, from which they were covered by armoured bulkheads reaching across the ship immediately behind each barbette.

I well recollect my first sight of these ships, which had all been completed during four years I had been away on a distant station, though, as a matter of fact, I had seen the _Rodney_ launched before I left England. I was on board H.M.S. _Aurora_, a new cruiser which had been specially commissioned for the naval manoeuvres. We left Plymouth and proceeded to Spithead, where a large fleet had been a.s.sembled to do honour to the Kaiser--with whom we were then on rather more friendly terms than latterly, and who came over at the head of a squadron of his war-ships. He was much more anxious to exhibit German war-ships to the British fleet than his naval commanders seem to have been during the Great War. We got into Spithead about six on a morning when there was a thick drizzle almost amounting to a fog, and as one after another of these monsters--as we thought them then--loomed up out of the mist and vanished astern, they presented a most impressive picture of strength and solidity. They really did look in the dim light like "castles afloat"!

But they were not by any means among our most successful efforts. No one liked the unprotected secondary batteries, and thought of the well-armoured _Devastation_ and her sisters. _They_ had no secondary batteries--but they were so well armoured that these were not necessary, except for purposes of offence. This consideration doubtless led to the building of the _Nile_ and _Trafalgar_, in which the four big guns were carried in turrets and the secondary armament in an armoured battery amidships. They were extremely well-protected ships and would have given a very good account of any ship of their day. But the tendency was ever for bigger ships, which allowed, generally speaking, for greater speed, greater radius of action, greater seaworthiness, and afforded a steadier gun platform.

This produced the "Royal Sovereign" cla.s.s, of over 14,000 tons displacement, a great advance in size on any ships which had preceded them. They created a considerable sensation at the time of their appearance, especially the _Royal Sovereign_ herself, the first of them.

My own first sight of her was somewhere in the Irish Sea, not far from the Isle of Man. I was serving on board H.M.S. _Triumph_ in the naval manoeuvres of 1892. The _Royal Sovereign_ pa.s.sed us just at the time tea was going on in the wardroom, which would be between half-past three and four, and I remember how everybody rushed up on deck to get a look at the new marvel in shipbuilding.

The _Royal Sovereign_ became practically the regulation type of battleship until the advent of the "Dreadnoughts", though of course each successive batch was an improvement on the preceding one in speed, protection, and gun-power. All had four heavy guns in low barbettes, covered with armoured hoods which revolved with the guns--so they may be said to have been a combination of turret and barbette. The single exception was the _Hood_ in the "Royal Sovereign" batch, which carried her four heavy guns in two regular turrets. All had secondary batteries, whose guns were distributed in armoured casemates at considerable intervals from each other, and all had a couple of military masts, with one or two fighting-tops on each, armed with light rapid-fire guns. This fine series of battleships amounted to forty in all, and formed a h.o.m.ogeneous and magnificent fleet, the like of which the world had never seen. Nearly all had a displacement of from 14,000 to 15,000 tons, and a speed of from 17 to 18 knots. Most are still in service, and though they have been put rather in the background by our "Dreadnoughts" and "Super-Dreadnoughts", we may still be very proud of them.

There were two intermediate steps between them and the epoch-making _Dreadnought_. The first was the creation of the "King Edward" cla.s.s of five ships, dating from 1902-3. These were very similar to their predecessors, but had over 1000 tons more displacement, were more thoroughly armoured, and, in addition to the four 12-inch and ten or a dozen 6-inch guns which formed their armament, were provided with four guns of 92 inches calibre, each placed singly in a turret at the corners of the superstructure. The final type before the _Dreadnought_ made her sensational appearance was the "Lord Nelson" cla.s.s, which, however, only comprised two ships--the _Lord Nelson_ herself and the _Agamemnon_.[43] They were very little bigger than the "King Edwards", but in their case the 6-inch guns were replaced by ten guns of 92-inch calibre, a most formidable secondary battery, capable of penetrating a considerable thickness of armour. The Battle of Tsushima, between the j.a.panese and Russians, led to the temporary abandonment of the secondary battery. It was considered that battles would in future be fought at such immense ranges that a decision, one way or another, would be reached before the smaller guns could be brought within effective range of the enemy, and the events of the European War go to confirm this theory. So it was that we once more arrived at the "all-big-gun ship", and in the _Dreadnought_, launched in 1906, went back to the principle followed in the armament of her namesake of 1875, and confined her armament--except for a few small anti-torpedo-boat guns--to cannon of the largest size. A comparison of the two _Dreadnoughts_ will form an appropriate termination to this chapter, which has already occupied more pages than I intended.

1875--H.M.S. _Dreadnought_. Displacement, 10,820 tons; speed, 14 knots; guns, four muzzle-loaders; armour, 10, 11, 13, and 14 inches; weight of projectiles, 809 pounds; penetration of wrought iron at 1000 yards, 17-1/2 inches.

1906--H.M.S. _Dreadnought_. Displacement, 17,900 tons; speed, 21 knots; guns, ten breech-loaders; armour, 6, 7, 9, and 12 inches; weight of projectiles, 850 pounds; penetration of wrought iron at 1000 yards, 36 inches.

FOOTNOTES:

[42] If we except the _Neptune_, which was built by a foreign Government and eventually acquired by the Royal Navy.

[43] It would perhaps be more correct to call the _Lord Nelson_ and _Agamemnon_ contemporaries of the _Dreadnought_. They were practically experimental ships offering an alternative type. The cost of thirty of these ships would have been the same as that of twenty-nine _Dreadnoughts_. The annual upkeep of twenty-nine _Dreadnoughts_ would be less by 15,000 than that of thirty _Lord Nelsons_.

CHAPTER XII

The Evolution of the Submarine and Submarine Mine

_Thomas._ They write here one Corneilius'[44] son Hath made the Hollanders an invisible eel To swim the Haven at Dunkirk and sink all The shipping there.

_Pennyboy._ But how is't done?

_Cymbal._ I'll show you, Sir.

It's an automa, runs under water With a snug nose, and has a nimble tail Made like an auger, with which tail she wriggles Betwixt the costs[45] of a ship and sinks it straight.

_Pennyboy._ A most brave device To murder their flat bottoms!

_The Staple of News._ BEN JONSON.

"PITT", said the famous Admiral Lord St. Vincent, in the course of an interview with the American inventor Fulton, "is the greatest fool that ever existed, to encourage a mode of war which they who commanded the seas did not want, and which, if successful, would deprive them of it."

Truer words were never spoken. Fulton had invented floating mines or torpedoes--"infernals" as they were then called--and even an ingenious form of submarine boat. The French, to whom he first offered them, to their honour be it spoken, would have nothing to do with them even though hard put to it to hold their own against the British fleet.

Admiral Decres reported that Fulton's inventions were "fit only for Algerines and pirates". The Maritime Prefect at Brest refused to allow him to attack an English frigate off the coast with his submarine, "because this type of warfare carries with it the objection that those who undertake it and those against whom it is made will all be lost.

This cannot be called a gallant death", he said. Finally, Admiral Pleville le Pelly, the Minister of War, stated that it appeared to him to be "impossible to serve a Commission for Belligerency to men who employ such a method of destroying the fleet of an enemy".