Sir E. J. Reed’s “breastwork monitors” have already been referred to. They were received with little enthusiasm by the Admiralty, and the first of them were merely Colonial coast defence vessels. These were:—

In general design all were identical, a redoubt amidships carrying two centre line turrets and a small oval superstructure between. Twin screws were employed.

The belief in the ram already alluded to had by now attained such proportions that a ship specially designed for ramming was called for, and the Hotspur was the result. Nothing written by Sir E. J. Reed (and he wrote a great deal) indicates that he was in sympathy with her design, though nominally responsible. The Hotspur was not even a turret-ship. She carried a fixed armoured structure of considerable size,107 inside of which a single 25-ton gun revolved, firing through the most convenient of several ports. She was fitted with two masts with fore and aft sails. Particulars of her were:—

• Displacement—4,010 tons.
• Length—235ft.
• Beam—50ft.
• H.P.—3,060.
• Mean Draught—21ft. 10ins.
• Guns—One 25-ton M.L.R., two 6½-ton.
• Belt Armour—11in. to 8in.; complete belt.
• Turret Armour—10in.
• Coal—300 tons.
• Speed—12.8 knots (twin-screw).
• Builder—Napier, Glasgow.
• Launched—1870; completed, 1871.
• Cost—Hull and machinery, £171,528.

She was built solely and simply as an “answer” to a series of “rams” projected for the French Navy, apparently more with an Admiralty idea of not being caught napping “in case,” than from any belief in her efficacy.

Sir E. J. Reed’s ideas in the matter of turret-ships now found expression in four ships of the Cerberus type enlarged. These were the Cyclops, Gorgon, Hecate, and Hydra. Like their prototype, they were of the breastwork type, and differed only in having an inch more belt armour and a displacement of 3,560 tons. Differing from them, and perhaps more on Reed lines, was the Glatton. Her special feature was the introduction of water to reduce her freeboard in action. She had a single turret only, but her belt was 12ins. thick, and she represented the, then, “last word” in coast defence ships, so far as the British Navy was concerned. Details of her are as follows:—

• Displacement—4,910 tons.
• Length—245ft.
• Beam—54ft.
• H.P.—2,870.
• Mean Draught—19ft. 5ins.
• Guns—Two 25-ton M.L.R.
• Armour (iron)—12-10in. Belt Turret, 14in.
• Coal—540 tons.
• Speed—12.11 knots (twin screw).
• Builder of Ship—Chatham Dockyard.
• Builder of Machinery—Laird.
• Floated out of Dock—1871; completed, 1871.
• Cost—Hull and Machinery, £219,529.

The last ship of this group was the ram Rupert, of 5,440 tons, laid down at Chatham, in 1870. She was, in substance, merely an enlarged Hotspur, carrying two 18-ton guns in a single revolving turret forward and two 64-pounders behind the bulwarks aft. Her armour was slightly inferior to the Glatton’s: her speed considerably higher—14 knots being aimed at, though it was never reached. She was one of the very few ships which had their engines built in a Royal Dockyard, hers being constructed at Portsmouth Yard.

About the year 1890, when re-construction was very much to the fore, the Rupert was re-constructed. She was given a couple of 10in. breech-loaders instead of her old 10in. M.L., a military-top, and a few other improvements. The net result of this re-construction was that when, after it, she first proceeded to coal she began to submerge herself almost at once. Her torpedo tubes were awash before she had received her normal quota of coal, and she was, generally, the most futile example of re-construction ever experienced.

The failure was such that thereafter no further attempt to modernise old ships was ever made; instead, a policy of “scrapping” all such was introduced. This is probably the best service that the Rupert ever rendered to the Navy. She demonstrated for all time that—so far as the British Navy was concerned—modernising was a hopeless task. It took France and Germany many years to learn a similar lesson. To-day, it is generally recognised that, as a ship is completed, she represents the best that can be got out of her; and that any attempt to improve her in any one direction merely spells reduced efficiency in some other. Hence the apparently early scrapping of many ships of later date and the present day proverb, “Re-construction never pays.”

The whole of the series, however, can only be regarded as improvements on the old Prince Albert idea. Sir E. J. Reed’s real answer to the Captain was the Devastation, designed in 1868, but not completed till 1873; at which date he had left the Admiralty. The Devastation and the Thunderer (completed four years later than her sister) cost Sir E. J. Reed his position. In them he introduced all his ideas as to what the sea-going turret-ship should be. He carried the Admiralty with him; but before ever the Devastation was set afloat, it was “proved” to the satisfaction of the general public that she was an “egregious failure.” The date of her design is about 1868, though, as mentioned above, she was not completed till 1873. The Dreadnought of more or less these times was nothing in the way of novelty compared to the Devastation of the later sixties.

Details of the Devastation (laid down Nov., 1869), were:—

• Displacement—9,330 tons.
• Length—385ft.
• Beam—62ft. 3ins.
• Mean Draught—25ft. 6ins.
• H. P.—6,650.
• Guns—Four 35-ton M.L.R.108
• Belt Armour—12in. and 10in. (iron).
• Turret Armour—14in. (iron).
• Coal—1,800 tons.
• Speed—13.84 knots (twin-screw).
• Where Built—Portsmouth Dockyard.
• Builder of Machinery—Humphrys.
• Launched—1871; completed, 1873.
• Cost—Hull and Machinery, £353,848.

On her trials the Devastation proved completely successful. An interesting and little known item in connection with her is that as designed she was to carry two signal masts,109 one forward of the turrets, one aft. For these, on completion, a single mast on the superstructure was substituted.

How the Devastation, even after successful completion, was received by the public can be gleaned from the following extracts from the contemporary press:—110

With such labour and travail was the modern British battleship born! Public opinion decidedly modified naval construction—leading, as it did, to a considerable delay with the Thunderer,111 the re-designing of the Fury, and the building of some old-type ships which else had probably never been constructed.

As already mentioned, Sir E. J. Reed left the Admiralty before the Devastation was completed. None the less the ships which immediately followed were in all essential particulars “Reed Ships,” and so are included in this chapter.

The Devastation, owing to the Committee on Designs, received certain minor modifications before completion. These mainly concerned the hatches. Her sister ship, the Thunderer, built at Pembroke and engined by Humphrys, was held back, pending the Devastation’s trials, and not completed till 1877.

Save that in one turret she carried a couple of 38 ton (12.5-inch) instead of 35 ton (12-inch) guns, she was a replica of the Devastation.

A third ship of the same type, named the Fury, was in hand, but criticisms of the Devastation caused her to be re-designed, and she was eventually completed as the Dreadnought. In her the very low freeboard forward and aft of the Devastation type was done away with and freeboard maintained at a uniform medium height.

The Devastation and Thunderer had their armour-plates amidships pierced with square portholes. These with some reason were attacked as likely to weaken the armour very considerably, and the Dreadnought was built entirely wall-sided and so depended on artificial ventilation, known in the Navy in those days as “potted air,” even more than her predecessors.

Particulars of the Dreadnought:—

• Displacement—10,820 tons.
• Length—320ft.
• Beam—63ft. 10in.
• Draught—26ft. 9in.
• Armament—Four 38-ton M.L.R., two 14in. torpedo tubes.
• Armour (iron)—Belt 14-11in., Bulkheads 13in., Turrets 14in.
• H.P.—8,210 = 12.40 knots.

In the original design of the Fury provision was made for a conning tower with a heavily-armoured communication tube. She proved a very successful ship. No sisters were ordered, probably because the Admiralty wished to see how she did before committing themselves to the type. Ere she was finished a different fashion in warships had set in. The cost of the Dreadnought was about £600,000.

The Alexandra was designed long after Reed had left the Admiralty. That famous constructor had nothing whatever to do with her. None the less she was the apotheosis of his box-battery ironclad ideas and for that reason is included in his era. She was simply an “improved Sultan.”

Particulars of her:—

• Displacement—9,490 tons.
• Length (between perpendiculars)—325ft.
• Beam—63⅔ft.
• Draught—26½ft.
• Armament—Four 25-ton M.L., ten 18-ton M.L., four above-water torpedo dischargers (14in.)
• Armour (iron)—12-6in. belt, flat deck on top of it. Bulkheads 8-5in. Battery 12-6in.
• Horse-power—9,810 = 15 knots.
• Coal—680 tons = 2,700 knots at 10 knots (nominal).

She was built at Chatham Dockyard; engined by Humphrys; completed for sea, 1877.

Four of the 18-ton guns were carried in an upper deck battery, and had end-on training. The other guns were carried in the main-deck battery, which was some 10ft. high. The 25-ton guns had a right-ahead training.

After completion she served as Mediterranean flagship, though at the bombardment of Alexandria the flag was transferred to the Invincible, which, being of lighter draught, was able to enter the inner harbour. At a later date (about 1890) she was “partially reconstructed.” For her original barque rig a three-masted military rig was substituted, and six 4-inch Q.F. were mounted on top of her upper deck battery. She has been described as the apotheosis of Reed broadside ideas, and a very apotheosis she was. No broadside or central battery ironclad of the British or any other Navy ever equalled her, and she dropped out of the first rank only because the big gun rendered broadside ships entirely obsolete.

GUNS IN THE ERA.

The principal guns (all M.L.R.) in the Reed Era were as follows:—

In the early part of the period Armstrong breech-loaders up to 120 pounders had been in use, but the elementary breech blocks were so unsatisfactory that the Navy quickly discarded them, and adhered to muzzle-loaders long after all other Powers had given them up.

The big muzzle loaders tabulated were of a very elementary type also. They were made by shrinking red hot wrought-iron collars over a steel tube; and it was never quite certain how far the interior would be affected. The projectiles never fitted accurately, with the result that there was considerable leakage of gas and very erratic firing. The rifling consisted of five or six grooves into which studs in the projectile fitted.

In 1872 some experiments were carried out, the Hotspur firing at the Glatton’s turret at a range of 200 yards. The first shot missed altogether, the other two struck the turret, but not at the point aimed at. The turret was not appreciably damaged, though theoretically it should have been completely penetrated. This eventually led to the invention of an improved gas check—reference to which will be found at the end of the Barnaby Era.

UNARMOURED SHIPS OF THE ERA.

Contemporaneously with the Hercules the Inconstant was designed. She was inspired by the United States Wampanoag, a type of large, fast, unprotected, heavily-gunned frigate, to which the Americans had always been partial. The Wampanoag, as a matter of fact, never reached expectations, whereas the Inconstant was a decided success so far as she went. She marked, so far as the British Navy was concerned, the first appearance of the theory that speed and gun power—in other words, “the offensive”—might be developed advantageously, at the cost of defensive arrangements, a theory which still survives in the “battle-cruisers” of to-day, though of course in a very modified form. None the less, the Inconstant represents the germ idea of our present battle-cruisers, and is supremely important on that account.

Particulars of the Inconstant were:—

• Displacement—5,780 tons.
• Length (between perpendiculars)—337⅓ ft.
• Beam—50¼ft.
• Draught (mean)—25½ft.
• Guns—Ten 12½ ton M.L.R., six 6½ ton M.L.R.
• H.P.—7,360 = 16 knots (trial 16.2).
• Speed—Sixteen knots (trial 16.2).
• Built at Pembroke Dockyard. Completed for sea 1868 at a cost of £213,324. She had an iron hull, wood-sheathed and coppered. A coal supply of 750 tons gave a nominal radius of 2780 miles. She was ship-rigged and sailed well.

She was followed by a couple of variants on her, the Raleigh and Shah, the former 5,200 tons and the latter 6,250 tons.

The Shah was originally named the Blonde, but rechristened out of compliment to the Shah of Persia, who was visiting England at the time of her launch.

At a later stage in her career (1877) the Shah, then flagship on the S.W. Coast of America, fought a much-criticised action with the Peruvian turret-ship Huascar, a Laird-built monitor, carrying a couple of 12½ ton guns, launched in 1865, and generally of the same type (though smaller) as the British Hotspur and Rupert.

The Huascar had been seized by the Revolutionists and practically turned into a pirate ship. In attacking her the British Admiral de Horsey gave hostages to fortune, seeing that it was an axiom of those days that an unarmoured ship was helpless against an ironclad monitor. He had, however, no alternative.

As things turned out, the Huascar never succeeded in hitting either the Shah, or the Amethyst which accompanied her, while the British flagship, having a speed advantage, the efforts of the Huascar to ram her were futile. The Huascar was hit about thirty times, and one man was killed on board her, but the damage done to the turret-ship was practically nil. The engagement is of further special interest as for the first time a torpedo was used from a big ship in action. The range, however, was too great and no hit was secured.

During the night following the action an attempt was made to torpedo the Huascar from the Shah’s steam pinnace, but the enemy could not be found. Yet it is probable that the knowledge of the Shah’s torpedoes was the reason why Pierola surrendered the Huascar next morning to the Peruvian fleet.

It must have been abundantly clear to him that he had next to nothing to fear from the British gun-fire, while a single water-line hit from him would probably have put the Shah entirely at his mercy, save in so far as her torpedoes might make attempts to ram fatal to him.

END OF VOL. I.