The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, May 15, 1898, Page 19

: THE SAN FRANCISCO CALL, SUNDAY, MAY 15, 1898. 19 OUR NAVY AND THE KINDS OF VESSELS THAT ARE FIGHTING FOR US. READ THIS AND YOU WILL UNDERSTAND THE DIFFER- ENCES BETWEEN BATTLE-SHIPS, CRUISERS, MONITORS AND THE “UNTRIED WON- DERS” OF THE SEA. T is a question, in spite of the fam- iliarity of the public with the tech- nical phraseology of the warship, whether the average reader has a very accurate idea of the distinc- tions between the various classes of ships and between the various ele- battle-ship rarely displaces less than 10,000 tons, and in some foreign navies the displacement runs up to nearly 16,- 000 tons. This will be understood by reference to the perspective view, where the armored portions of the ship are indicated by full lines and shading, the ordinary shell plating being dotted. tion of warships, are somewhat flexible. ‘We may find a battle-ship like the 12,- 320-ton Yashima (Japanese), with a trial speed of 191 knots. On the other hand, we see cruisers like the Viscaya (Spanish), with a 12-inch belt and car- rying heavy guns of 11-inch caliber. The battle-ship and the cruiser of a f Mm’L " v —_— FORWARD TURRET OF THE BATTLE-SHIP INDIANA, SAID TO BE THE FINEST FIGHTING ENGINE AFLOAT m the combination of which their distinctive ive ics. t the Indiana is a bat- klyn an armored bia a protected itan a monitor. that he has only a as to what qualities it is distinction, or why the ed to exist at all. grams and a perspective the constructive al types of war- :pared to answer which sh of the s been 3 the armor is in- lines or by shad- e thickness of rdinary plating of the perspective view the ar- full lines and shading ts down n the naval architect -k to design a warship of a he kno that there is one the vessel which is fixed i unalterable, and that is her dis- cement. By displacement is meant he actual weight of the ship, which is, )f course, exactly equal to the weight of water which she displaces. This to- tal weight is the capital with which the architect has to work, and he uses his judgment in distributing it among the various elements which go to make up the ship. Part is allotted to the hull, part to the motive power, part to the armor protection, part to the fuel, stores, furnishing and general equip- ment. It is evident that the allotment of weights is a matter of compromise— whateve s is given to one element must be taken from another, else the ship will exceed the given displace- ment. Among the elements abov mentioned there are some, such as the weight of hull, provisions, stores and furnishings, which for a given size of ship will not vary greatly. There are other elements, such as guns, armor, engines and fuel supply which may vary considerably in different ships, according to the type of vessel that is produced. If, for instance, th: architect is de- signing an extremely fast ship of type 1, which has a sp-ed of twenty- three knots, he will have to allot such a large amount of weight to the motive that he will only be able to give ip very slight armor protection and a comparatively light battery of guns. If he wishes to produce a fast hat shall be more heavily armed yred he has to be content with d, & twenty or twenty-one as in . 2, and the weight so d on the motive nower appears in ape of a side belt of armor at the line. more complete protection in the shape of barbettes and considerably heavier ament. 1If, again, he desires to pro- a ship capable of contending with rful ships in line of bat- , he is content with much sixteen or seventeen . n hour, and he increases the of his guns until they weigh sixty tons apiece, and pro- ts them with great redoubts and :ts of steel one and a half feet ides protecting his water line he region of the .ngines and boilers h a belt of steel of the same dimen- The swift and lightly armed and ar- hip is known as a protected T the less speedy but more heav- {ly armed and armored ship belongs to the armored cruiser type, and the slow- est ship, with its capacity for taking and giving the heaviest blows that modern guns can inflict, is known as a battle-ship. In the construction of a warship the *wo qualities of attack and defense nave to be supplied. The offensive powers are furnished by the guns, tor- pedoes, ete. Now it can readily be understood that all this amount of heavy armor and Buns adds greatly to the weight of the ship, and for this reason, in spite of her smaller engine power, a first-class It will be seen that all that part of ru the ship lying below the water line is shut in by a continuous roof of steel which is three inches in thickness for- ward and aft of the bulkheads. Over the central armored citadel it is two and three-quarter inches thick. All the plating indicated by dotted lines might be shot away without the ‘“vitals” suf- fering injury or the ship being sunk. The reader will s that it is its loftier reeboard ra deck and and the ex « which they provide which constitute practically the difference between a battl p and a monitor. Th brings us to the consideration of the monitor type. Take away from a battle-ship all that portion which is shown in our drawing in dotted lines s above the wate lower the bar- bettes until they v a few feet above the steel deck, nd we have ship of the general monitor type. monitor is distinguished by very low eboard—only a few inches in the ex- tr type—the absence of a heavy secondary battery and the po! ion of a main armament of heavy guns. Such a ship labors heavily in bad weather and is not intended for ser- vice at any distance from the coasts. To make a seagoing vessel out of her it would be necessary to add one, or even two decks, placing the guns well up above the water, after which changes she would be no longer moni- tor, but seagoing battle-ship. In the cruiser type the protective deck does not extend across the ship at one level, but curves down to meet the hull at a point several feet below the water line. This sloping portion is made thicker than the flat portion, as in diagram No. II, where the deck is three inches thick on the flat and six inches on the slopes. In the case of the armored cruisers, a belt of verticai armor is carried at the water line ana in all cruisers the V-shaped space be- tween belt and sloping deck is filled in with coal or with some form of water- excluding material, such as cornpith cellulose. In diagram II, which represents the fine armored cruiser Brooklyn, it will be seen that before it could reach the engine-room a shell would have to pass through three inches of vertical steel, about six feet of coal and six inches ot inclined armor—a total resistance equal to fourteen or fifteen inches of solid steel. The guns and turning gear are protected by five and one-half inch steel turrets and eight-inch barbettes. The barbettes, it will be seen, do not ex- tend continuously down to the armored deck, as in the battle-ship, for thls would require a greater weight of armor than can be allowed. Conse~ quently, the architect is only able to furnish the guns with a small armor- plated tube for protecting the ammuni- tion in its passage from the magazines to the barbettes. In the protected cruiser the side ar- mor at the water line disappears alto- gether, and dependence is placed en- tirely upon the sioping sides of the pro- tective deck, the water excluding cel- Julose and the 6 or 8§ feet of coal which js stowed in the bunkers in the wake of the engines and bollers. The barbettes, turrets and armored ammunition tubes of the armored cruiser disappear, and their place is taken by comparatively light shields and casements of four- inch steel which serve to protect the gun Crews. It will be seen from the above de- scription that each class of vessel is only fitted to engage ships of its own type. The protected cruiser Colum- bia (No. 1) might, with her light 6 and 4 inch guns, hammer away all day at the Indiana (No. 3) without being able to do much more than knock the paint off the latter’s 18-inch armor, whereas one well directed shot from the 13-inch guns of the Indiana would be sufficient to sink or disable the Columbia. The Brooklyn would fare better, and at close range her 8-inch guns might hap- pen to penetrate the belt or turret ar- mor of the Indiana, but the issue of the duel would never be in doubt for an in- stant. A Columbia or a Brooklyn would show its heels to an Indiana or ‘Massachusetts, and their great speed would give them the option of refusing or accepting battle with . almost any craft that is afloat upon the seas to- day. I¥ should be mentioned, in conclusion, that the dividing line in the classifica- modern navy hold the same mutual re- lation as the three-decker and the swift frigate in the days of the salling ship. ‘When a fleet set sail in the olden days to find the enemy and bring him to bat- tle upon the high seas, the heavy and somewhat slow line-of-battle ships kept together in a methodical forma- tion, while the fri~ates cruised at a dis- tance of several miles, where they could report the first appearance of the en- emy and signal to the main fleet his position and maneuvers. When the main fleet had been brought within striking distance, the brunt of the bat- tle fell upon the three-deckers. To-day the swift protected cruiser will perform the same duties for the heavily armored and more cumbrous battle-ships. When the attack takes place it will be the battle-ships and ar- mored cruisers that will decide the is- sue. Hence the battle-ships will con- stitute a nation’s main line of offense and defense upon the sea. A cruiser will avoid engagement with a battle- ship—it will be no disgrace to her if she shows it a clean pair of heels, trusting to her great speed for safety; for she could neither hope to pierce the armor n}«‘-{ resist the great guns of the heavier ship. The battle-ship is built to fight. It is designed with this sole object in view, and it must be prepared to fight at any time, and if need be against big odds. It has great offensive power and equally great powers of resistance. There has been only one great naval fight between modern warships—the battle of the Yalu, between Japanese and Chinese fleets—and the most, by far the most, important fact developed by that engagement was the correct- ness of the theories upon which mod- ern battle-ships are designed. The brunt of the Japanese attack fell upon two somewhat antiquated battle-ships, the Ting Yuen and Chen Yuen, and for several hours the swift Japanese cruis- ers circled around these two grim ships of war, pouring in a perfect hail of rapid-fire shells, with occasional shells from their great 66-ton guns; yet the two battle-ships came out of the fight with their armor and big guns practi- cally intact. The same deadly concen- tration of shell-fire would have sunk a whole fleet of cruisers. Had the Chi- nese battle-ships been manned by bet- ter crews the Yalu would have had an- other ending. The new navy of the United States is relatively strong in battle-ships. We have now twelve first-class ships of this type either built, building or author- jzed. Four, the Indiana, Massachusetts, Oregon and Iowa, are in commission; two, the Kentucky and Kearsarge, are launched; three, the Alabama, Illinois and Wisconsin, are about half com- pleted, and three others are authorized. [ 0 m i i M 1 i i M = el g ST | Eia—t e A battle-ship, as we have already shown, is essentially a fighting ma- chine, and when the designer has given her sufficient structural and armored protection to enable her to take her place in the first line of battle, his next object is to arm her with as many ar- mor-piercing and rapid-fire guns as the limits of her displacement will allow. Judged by this double standard, the In- diana is without a rival; for it is a fact which has never been disputed that she carries the heaviest armament of any ship afloat to-day. This preponderance of power is due to the eight 8-inch guns which are carried in four turrets flank- ing the two turrets of the 13-inch guns. They are an entirely novel feature in battle-ship design, and may be called the chief distinctive feature of this ship. The accepted type of battle-ship carries usually a main battery of four heavy guns disposed in two turrets, fore and aft, supplemented by a broad- side secondary battery of 5 or 6 inch guns, the first being capable of piercing armor and the latter being used against the lightly armored or unarmored por- tions of the enemy. Thus the Camperdown of the British navy, a ship of the same size as the In- diana, and less effectively protected, carrles four 67-ton guns of about the same power as the heavy guns of the American ship and a secondary battery of six 6-inch guns. Against this the In- diana carries in addition te her main and secondary batteries the eight 8- inch armor-piercing guns above men- tioned—a preponderance of power which should give her the victory in a naval duel. The crulsers are the light cavalry of the navy. As their name implies, their duty is to cruise the seas, keep- ing in touch with the enemy’s fleets and acting as the “eyes” of the line- of-battle ships. They are also intend- ed for the double duty of attacking an enemy's commerce and defending that of the country whose flag they carry. Fleets of merchant vessels or of trans- port ships will be “convoyed” by cruis- ers from port to port. Upon the cruis- er will devolve the duty of hunting down, capturing or sinking the armed merchantmen, known as auxiliary cruisers, and the regular cruisers of the enemy, and she must be ready at any time to make a dash at her top- most speed with important naval dis- patches. For these special duties she requires to be a good seaboat with high free- board adapted for steaming at a high rate of speed in all weathers. She must be furnished with powerful en- gines, and her lines must be fair and fine; she must have a large coal sup- ply, enabling her to keep to the sea for lengthy periods; she must have ample berthing space for a numerous crew, some of whom will have to be placed aboard her prizes to carry them to a 2 ~ T ANVRIGH A ) A . Aaiciaet, NN ARMOR BELT /8 iw. Tngines Boiters Magazine I, ZATTLESHIP-17 KNOTS . COMPARATIVE ARMOR PROTECTION IN PRINCIPAL. TYPES OF MODERN WAR VESSELS. \ THE INVULNERABLE FLOATING FORT, WITHIN —— [ PRI THE O f | > — A x\s 1P N 'WwiTH| 13- INCH|GUNS\ SWUNG . . home port; and, finally, she must be armed with a powerful battery of me- dium caliber guns, to enable her to fight ships of her own class. The earlier ships of our navy were entirely of the cruiser class, and at the present time these ships consti- tute the most numerous portion of our fleets. The monitors of our navy form a oonnecting link between the early and later systems of armored warship con- struction. They embody in the original design the lessons which had been learned in the naval operations of the Civil War, and, as their name implies, they are modeled after the plan of Ericsson’s famous Monitor. The chief characteristics of this style of ship are moderate speed, low freeboard, mak- ing them a difficult object to hit, thick armor, and an armament of a few ex- ceptionally heavy guns. Sitting low in the water, they are not suited for work on the high seas, and their sphere of operations lies within sheltered wat- ers, such as are found in our bays and harbors. This is their proper sphere of action, and to enable them to man- euver In shoal waters they have as lit- tle draught as possible. Strictly speaking, they are floating batteries, and as such they are in- tended to co-operate with the land batteries in defense of our coasts. But though the monitor is designed especi- ally for harbor defense, it would be quite capable of taking part in a fleet action off the coast in ordinary weather. By far the most unique ship in our navy, and, indeed, the only craft of its kind in the world, is the armored ram Katahdin. The ram as a weapon of naval warfare is one of the most an- cient of which we have any recorded history. It was used with deadly ef- fect in the naval fights of Greece and Rome, and in later times, as at Lissa and during our own Civil War, it proved a terrible engine of destruction. The value of the ram as attached to the huge and swiftly moving warships of modern navies has yet to be de- termined, and many authorities claim that the ship which uses the ram is liable to be only less badly strained and shaken up by the shock than her opponent. The Katahdin, however, was designed for the express purpose of ramming, and her hull has been constructed with a view to her being able to withstand the terrible wrench which a ship that runs its nose at full speed into a mov- ing vessel is certain to suffer. The Vesuvius, like the Katahdin, is a type of vessel that is only to be found in the United States navy. She was designed for carrying dynamite guns of considerable range and enor- mous power, and it is upon these that she depends for her offensive power. The Helena is one of three light- A A B o = Coouste Dertorn UTER WALLS OF A MODERN BATTLE-SHIP. Al Purts Above the Water Line, Shown by Dotted Lines and Light Shading, Might Be Shot Away Without Destroying the Fighting Powst of the Ship. { TANA STARBOARD draught gunboats authorized in 1893, The ship wa y designed for service on the rivers of China, and was originally intended for the Asiatic sta- tion. With a beam of 40 feet she draws only 9 feet of water. She is driven by twin W engines of 1988 indicated horsepower and her twin screws, coupled with her large rudder area, give her excellent turning power, a valuable feature in river work. ‘While the boat was being planned a Japanese officer happened to see the designs, and he suggested the utility of a conning tower of sufficient eleva= tion to overlook the banks of the Yels low River of China, the Yang-tse- Kiang. These banks are so high that they exclude the view of the country from those on an ordinary ship's deck. ;l“he Navy Department acted on the hint. One of the earliest successful at- tempts to make use of the torpedo=- boat in naval warfare occurred in the Civil War, when the Housatonic was sunk by a rebel craft,.which paid for its daring with its own destruction, be- ing sucked into the ~hastly hole which it had torn in the man-of-war. This was one of the lessons of the Civil War which was laid to heart by the European nations, and out of this and later successful of the torpedo has sprung that vast fleet of miniature craft which forms such a formidable feature of the equipment of the navies of the world. The earlier boats were what is known as spar torpedo-boats, from the fact that the torpedo was car- ried at the end of a long spar which projected forward from the bow of the boat, the torpedo exploding by cone tact. < Then came the automobile Whitehead torpedo, with its ability when once dis- charged to run 600 or 800 yards of its own accord. The size and speed of the torpedo boat were rapidly increased, especially the latter, and the impor- tance of this method of attack was instantly recognized. The torpedo boat of twenty-five years ago with its spar torpedo, was a diminutive affair, having a speed of only twelve or thir- teen knots. In 1877, however, it had grown to have a length of from 85 to 100 feet and a speed of from eighteen to twenty-ons knots. As the demand increased the builders paid particular attention to re- duction of- weight and increase of boiler and engine efficiency, and in 18387 the Ariete, built by Thornycroft for the Spanish Government, astonished the world by running a mile at a speed of twenty-six knots an hour. Five years later the Daring, a 220-ton boat, built by Thornycroft for the British navy, made 28.65 knots an hour, and in 1898 the Sokol, built by Yarrow for the Rus- sian Government, passed the thirty knot limit. The later torpedo boats are known, destroyers. They are large vessels t; 300 to 400 tons displacement and power- ful enough to maintain their speed in rough weather, which the torpedo boat cannot do. They have a speed from thirty to thirty-three knots and carry a powerful armanent of rapid-fire guns, the object being to enable them to chase and sink a fleet of torpedo boats and prevent them from attacking the larger ships. At the same time the de- stroyer carries a full complement of torpedoes and would be capable of sinking battle-ships and cruisers if sha could get within torpedo range. It is greatly to be regretted that In the earlier years of our naval construc- tion we omitted to provide the navy with an adequate torpedo fleet, as we are likely to suffer from lack of them. The defect is being remedied. however, as fast as the boats can be turned out, and the present Congress has recom- mended the construction of thirtv craft of the kind in addition to those already. on the stocks. The Bailey is one of three torpedo boat catchers for which provision was made at the last session of Congress. The sum appropriated for each boat was $250,000. In advertising for bids the Navy Department stipulated that a speed of 30 knots per hour would be ex- acted on the official course. If we except the Porter, which fis, strictly speaking, a first-class torpedo boat, the Bailey and her mates are the first torpedo boat destroyers to be built for our navy; and if the expectations of her builders are fulfilled she will be ea- pable of a speed of 33 knots an hour. The principal features of the designs are: Length, 205 feet; beam, 19 feet; depth of hold, 13 feet 5 inches; dis- placement on trial, 235 tons, and dis- placement when in commission, 265 tons. The Bailey, like the Dupont and Por- ter, will be able to do battle with bat- tle-ships after the fashion of torpedo boats. When thus engaged she will have recourse to her torpedo tubes. But the princip 1 duty of the new craft will be to drive off and annihilate with gun fire the torpedo boat torments of the battle-ships and cruisers. Speed alone will enable the Bailey to do this, and this speed the catcher is expected, by reason of her size, to maintain in a high sea. The Bailey Is essentially a seagoing vessel. Her bunker capacity is deemed sufficient to enable her to steam three thousand knots at economical speed. In time of war she may be expected to ac- company the battle-ship fleet, and to serve both as a scout and defense for the heavier vessels. It is probable that the introduction of a successful submarine torpedo-boat on the lines of .the Holland will mark one of the greatest revolutions that ever occurred in naval warfare, for there is a general belief that a thor- oughly efficient under-water warship would have the above-water ship at its mercy. A submarine torpedo-boat, be- cause of its invisibility, is deadly by day and in the open—it will be doubly, 8o by night.