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The Emergence of the Modern Capital Ship

1970; Johns Hopkins University Press; Volume: 11; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1353/tech.1970.a894044

1097-3729

Stanley Sandler,

Maritime and Coastal Archaeology

The Emergence of the Modern Capital Ship STANLEY SANDLER When Edward James Reed, Admiralty chief constructor, initialed final plans for a mastless, seagoing, turret ironclad in 1869, he was mak­ ing a break more profound with the traditions of the Royal Navy than at any time before, or since. For this new warship, later given the name Devastation, not only rendered obsolete all previous warships, but re­ mained the pattern of future armored capital ships until, some seventy years later, they ceased to be built. While the navy had experienced a gradual improvement in admin­ istration, manning, tactics, strategy, and naval architecture between the times of Drake and Nelson, somewhat similar to the settling and sorting of English society between Tudor and Hanoverian reigns, the truly radical transformation of the materiel of the fleet did not even com­ mence until the,coming of steam and iron in the 1840s. By 1853, con­ tinued resistence to the obvious next step in naval architecture, armor protection from shellfire, was weakened by news of the battle of Sinope, where a Turkish fleet was shelled to destruction by the Russians. The French, first off the mark with the use of ironclads in battle during the Crimean War, were followed by the British, who laid down four simi­ lar ironclad batteries which were not completed in time for combat. When the French commenced the first seagoing ironclad, the Gloire, the Admiralty reacted by authorizing the magnificent HATS. Warrior, the first British seagoing ironclad. Like the Gloire, the Warrior (fig. 1) was a broadside, fully rigged steam frigate, but unlike the French fri­ gate, it was constructed of iron throughout. With this warship and her class the Royal Navy seized and retained a relatively easy qualitative lead over the armored fleet of the Second Empire, a lead made possible primarily by Britain’s superior ironworking facilities. And almost to the end of the 1860s the Warrior pattern was followed, albeit with modifi­ cations, particularly after 1863, when E. J. Reed was promoted to chief Dr. Sandler, of Alliance College (Cambridge Springs, Pennsylvania), has done research on military technology, especially the development of ironclad warships in 19th-century navies. 576 F ig . l.-H .M .S. Warrior. The first seagoing British ironclad. Iron constru ction throu ghout made possible almost doubling of length, but in most other respects this was simply an elongated version of the traditiona l wooden frig­ ate. (Courtesy Nationa l Maritime Museum, Richard Perkins Collection.) 578 Stanley Sandler Admiralty constructor.1 Guns grew heavier and fewer, while rifling was added along with more sophisticated mountings. Armor was thick­ ened and extended, while hulls were shortened and broadened to carry the new weights. Most important, it was becoming more obvious that the heavy new ordnance could only be effectively carried in revolving turrets. But masts and rigging interfered with the sweep of the turret guns, and by 1868 Reed had grown more receptive to designs that would sweep away all sailing impedimenta in turret ships and break entirely with the Warrior pattern. What resulted from Reed’s awareness and perseverance was a mastlcss turreted war engine, H.M.S. Devasta­ tion, a quantum jump in naval architecture that deserves study in some detail.« * # The original concept of mounting heavy ordnance within armored turrets, essential to the development of .a big-gun warship, was not Reed’s. Captain Cowper P. Coles, of the Royal Navy, and the American inventor, John Ericsson, contended for the honor. There were signifi­ cant differences between the American and the British turrets. Ericsson mounted his turret on an iron spindle, which transmitted the rotative power as well. Captain Coles carried his on conical rollers on the gun deck, the entire turret structure passing through the upper deck. Coles’s turret can be said to have been mechanically superior, for it was more difficult to jam than the turrets mounted on Federal monitors during the American Civil War. No Ericsson turret was ever mounted upon a British warship, and while several European naval powers laid down Ericsson-type monitors, all soon adopted the Coles turret as, signifi­ cantly, did the United States when it built its “New Navy” in the 1880s...