5. Picket torpedo-boats

(_torpilleurs-videttes_) less than 25 tons. The _Condor_, _Epervier_, _Faucon_, and _Vautour_ are examples of the first class, and combine the lightness of hull and the gun armament of the torpedo-catcher with the sea-going powers of the cruiser. They are twin-screw steel vessels, 216 feet long, 29 feet 2 inches in beam, 15 feet 5 inches in draught, and with 3200 indicated horse-power are expected to develop 17 knots. The armament consists of five torpedo-tubes, five 4-inch and six machine guns. In England the _Scout_, the prototype of this class, is a twin-screw torpedo-cruiser, 220 feet in length, 34 feet 3 inches in beam, and with 14 feet draught displaces 1450 tons. Like the _Condor_ she is subdivided into water-tight compartments and has a steel deck; on her trial she developed with forced draft 17.6 knots and 3350 horse-power. Her armament consists of eleven torpedo-tubes, four 5-inch rifles on central pivots, and eight Nordenfeldt guns. The _Fearless_ is a sister ship to the _Scout_. So highly was the class esteemed that eight others known as the _Archer_ class were laid down, and of these the _Cossack_, _Mohawk_, _Porpoise_, _Tartar_, _Archer_, and _Brisk_ have already undergone satisfactory steam trials, while the _Serpent_ and _Raccoon_ are approaching completion. All these vessels have a protective deck extending throughout their length, and carry a battery of six 6-inch guns on sponsons, two at each extremity, and two in the waist. On the final trials the _Archer_ developed under forced draft 17.8 knots and 4122 horse-power, the _Brisk_ 18 knots and 3954 horse-power, the _Cossack_ 18 knots and 4003 horse-power, the _Porpoise_ 17.5 knots and 3943 horse-power, and the _Tartar_ 17.28 knots and 3824 horse-power. They have a very low coal consumption, and a coal endurance which was estimated in the _Archer’s_ case to be sufficient for six days, or 2600 knots at full speed, or for 7000 miles at a 10-knot rate. Both the Russians and the Austrians have vessels of this type, and there is no doubt of the favor with which it is looked upon. Besides the _Grasshopper_ class mentioned in the text, and which includes the _Rattlesnake_, _Spider_, _Sandfly_, and _Sharpshooter_, there are two steel cruising torpedo gun-vessels, the _Curlew_ and _Landrail_, of 785 tons; these are fitted with a protective steel deck throughout their length, and have a battery of one 6-inch gun, three 5-inch pivots, a supply of machine guns, and four torpedo-tubes. They were intended to develop 14 knots and 1200 horse-power, but on trial the _Curlew_ attained 15.081 knots and 1452 horse-power. Owing to a faulty design these ships draw with their proposed weights two feet four inches more water than was expected. In addition to these ships the English have the composite gun-vessels _Buzzard_, _Swallow_, _Nymphe_, and _Daphné_ of 1040 tons; the _Icarus_ and _Acorn_, of the _Reindeer_ and _Melita_ type; the _Rattler_, _Wasp_, _Bramble_, _Lizard_, _Pigmy_, _Pheasant_, _Partridge_, _Plover_, _Pigeon_, and _Peacock_, all of 715 tons displacement, with an average speed of 13.5 knots and from 1000 to 1200 horse-power; and the two despatch and scout vessels _Alacrity_ and _Surprise_. The last named displace 1400 tons, and were designed for 3000 horse-power and 17 knots. Both exceeded these expectations, and the _Alacrity_ was lately assigned a battery of four 5-inch guns on sponsons, four 6-pounder rapid fire, and two five-barrelled Nordenfeldts. It must be stated, however, that, so far torpedo-boats are not as successful in practice as Admiral Aube would have had the naval world believe. “Swayed by the concurrent testimony of different officers who conducted or took part in the naval manœuvres of 1886, professional opinion appears to agree that torpedo-boats are very delicate instruments at best, and that a greater tonnage is imperative where service at sea is anticipated. A day or two in even moderate weather is sufficient to exhaust the stanchest crew on account of the excessive balloting about, and a prolonged voyage has been found to be fatally injurious to the adjustments of the Whitehead for horizontal accuracy. Furthermore, in such small, low craft a correct estimate of the distance, speed, or course of the enemy is most difficult, especially if the officer be in the conning-tower, looking through the narrow sight-slits; in anything of a sea-way, also, accurate pointing is out of the question.... In the course of the past year Schichau has yielded to Thornycroft the honor of producing the fastest vessel in the world, the owner now being the Spanish Admiralty in place of the Russian. This boat is the _Ariete_, with a speed of 26.18 knots. “It has become a question in the minds of some eminent designers and observers, notably M. Normand, whether or not the extreme speeds sought and obtained in some recent boats are not excessive. Damage to the motive machinery is more to be apprehended than any injury to the hull or casualty among the crew. When it is considered that under ordinary conditions of weather and service the speed of the fastest will be little greater than that of an ordinary twenty-knot boat, the propriety at once suggests itself of devoting to steel plate the extra weight of boiler, water, and engine necessary to produce that practically superfluous horse-power.”[30] The trials of this year have not confirmed the great promises made for the type by its most able and influential advocates. Many of the English boats broke down, and in few cases were the high speeds realized in actual sea duty. The truth is, torpedo-boats have been brought down to such a condition of refinement to meet the special circumstances of their work that it appears probable they have become too delicate for rough handling. Out of twenty-seven boats that were required to steam a distance of one hundred miles, seven failed to run the course at all, having been, from one cause or another, practically disabled. Such a heavy percentage of failures—one resulted in a loss of life—under a trial test to which the boats might at any time be subjected, arouses a natural doubt as to a policy which is sacrificing for certain impracticable results considerations that are of vital importance. So far as the French naval manœuvres proved this year, the torpedo-boats were not equal to the task assigned them. During these experiments a squadron of eight armored battle-ships, three cruisers, and two sea torpedo-boats, under command of Vice-admiral Peyron, was supposed to represent a convoy of troop-ships and guard-vessels which was to be intercepted on a voyage from Toulon to Algiers by a torpedo division of four cruisers, one store-ship, and sixteen boats, with the _Gabriel Charmes_, gun-boat, all lying off Ajaccio, under command of Rear-admiral Brown de Coulston. Vice-admiral Peyron and his heavy squadron left port on the day appointed with a strong northerly gale and a high sea, and shortly after clearing the land the _Indomptable_, an armored battle-ship, sustained some damage and had to anchor under the Hyères Islands. The mistral sent the other vessels rapidly on their way to the African coast without slackening speed, all keeping well together, with the two torpedo-boats steaming along under the higher sides of their consorts. On the other hand, the torpedo division of Rear-admiral Brown, which had left Toulon two days before the fictitious convoy, was concentrated at Ajaccio. They ran seaward on Saturday night to find the Peyron ships, but the latter had cleverly given them the go-by in the darkness and bad weather, and the mosquito flotilla was forced to return to Corsica for shelter. Ajaccio was reached by Rear-admiral Brown on Sunday afternoon, and it was not until four-and-twenty hours afterwards that the weather moderated sufficiently to enable him to put to sea again, but by that time the Algiers convoy had already been at anchor in their port of destination since the morning. The preliminary operations were therefore a pronounced failure. The _Gabriel Charmes_ illustrates a design which is similar to that of a torpedo-boat, except that in place of a torpedo tube one 5.5-inch gun is carried forward. The deck is strengthened to bear this weight, and immediately abaft the piece is an armored conning-tower, within which the commanding officer is enabled by an ingenious mechanism to direct the movements of the vessel. The dimensions are as follows: length 132.6 feet, beam 12.6 feet, draught 6.7 feet, and displacement 74 tons. The engines are two-cylindered compound, and developed 560 indicated horse-power and 19 knots. The boats are said to be very cranky even in smooth water, but so highly is their fighting power rated that fifty more have been ordered. In the Mediterranean manœuvres of May the _Gabriel Charmes_ proved to be the swiftest vessel of the torpedo squadron, as on the run from Toulon to Ajaccio she led the others by three hours, and was always in the advance while scouting. One paddle-wheel armored despatch-vessel and seven composite armored transports complete the record of additions made to the French fleet last year. THE ITALIAN, RUSSIAN, GERMAN, AUSTRIAN, AND TURKISH NAVIES. The Continental navy next in present interest to that of France is the Italian, owing to the fact that the Italian government, although largely abstaining from the use of armor, has applied itself urgently to developments of gun-power and speed in large war-ships. The _Duilio_ and _Dandolo_ (illustrated on page 105) were considered in the chapter on the French navy, and their resemblance to the _Inflexible_ type pointed out. They are nearly as large as the _Inflexible_, although differing greatly in proportions and form from her. They appear to me to be more objectionable, from the want of armored stability, if one may so speak, than even the _Ajax_ and _Agamemnon_, which are themselves, as we know, more objectionable than the _Inflexible_. The cause of this is to be found in the fact that in designing the British ships, whatever else they may have lost sight of, the Admiralty constructors saw that the more you contracted the length of the armored citadel, the more necessity there was for giving the ship great breadth. The reason of this can be made clear. The fractional expression which represents the statical stability of a ship has in its numerator the quantity _y^3x_, in which _y_ represents the half-breadth of the ship at the water-line, and _x_ the length of the ship. If we regard the stability of the armored citadel only, and neglect the unarmored ends, _x_ represents the length of that citadel, and _y_ its half-breadth. Now if we take two rectangular citadels, one, say, 100 feet long and 60 feet broad, the other the same length, but only 50 feet broad, then the value of _x_ will be the same for both, but the values of _y^3_ will be 216,000 and 125,000 respectively, the ship 60 feet broad having, _cæteris paribus_, nearly double the citadel stability of the 50-feet broad ship. On the other hand, if you wish to give the narrower ship the same citadel stability as the broader one, it will be necessary to make her citadel no less than 172-8/10 feet long. Now the citadel of the _Duilio_ is 107 feet in length,[31] and the breadth is 64 feet 9 inches—say 65 feet. The citadel of the _Inflexible_ is 110 feet long, and its breadth 75 feet, the figures for the _Ajax_ being 140 feet and 66 feet. Now presuming the citadels to be rectangular in each case, we shall have, Inflexible _y^3x_ = 618,750 Ajax _y^3x_ = 453,024 Duilio _y^3x_ = 452,075 From which it would appear that the _Duilio_ of 11,000 tons derives from this element of stability only about as much as the _Ajax_ of 8500 tons derives from it, and only about three-fourths of that which the _Inflexible_ of 11,400 had allowed to her. There are other circumstances, of course, which enter into the stability of these ships, but nothing which I know of or can imagine to enable the _Duilio_ to compare much more favorably in this respect with the other vessels, deficient as they themselves are. All this applies, of course, solely to the ability of these ships to depend upon their armored citadels for safety in war: in peace they are all safe enough as regards stability, because they have their unarmored ends to add largely to it, although I should doubt if the _Duilio_ is greatly over-endowed with stability even with her long unarmored ends intact. [Illustration: THE “DUILIO.”] I now come to a series of ships in which the question of the amount of their armored stability does not arise, because they have no armored stability at all. For some reason or other Lloyds, in their _Universal Register_, following bad examples, have arrayed the _Italia_ and her successors under the heading of “Sea-going Armor-clads.” These ships are nothing of the kind, in any reasonable sense of the word, but are, as ships, wholly unarmored, although carrying elevated armored towers, and some armor in other places. Mr. King (in his work previously referred to) puts the facts correctly when he says: “The armor is only used” (in the form of a curved deck, be it understood) “to keep out shot and shell from the engines and boilers, the magazines, shell-room spaces, and the channels leading therefrom to the upper deck, and to protect the guns in the casemate when not elevated above the battery, and the gunners employed in firing them. But all other parts of the ship above the armored deck” (which is below water, be it said), “all the guns not in the casemate, and all persons out of the casemate, and not below the armored deck, will be exposed to the enemy’s projectiles.” Mr. King takes note of this total abandonment of side armor as a means of preserving stability when a ship is pierced at the water-line, and regards this abandonment as a bold defiance of the principles which I have laid down for some years past. I cannot say that I take this view of the matter. I have always discussed this matter from the British navy point of view, and had these ships of the _Italia_ type been built for the British navy in substitution of real iron-clads, while France, Russia, and other European countries were still building such iron-clads, I should have certainly condemned them. The primary requirement of British first-class ships is that they shall be able to close with and fight any enemy of the period whatever, and any defect which unfits them for this work, or makes it extremely dangerous to perform it, is a disgrace to England. Even if armor were given up by other powers, it would be a matter for careful consideration in England whether enough of it for the protection of their existence against contemporary guns should not be retained in her principal ships. England’s ability to live as a nation and as the head of an empire is dependent upon her naval superiority, and no price to purchase that can be too great for her to pay. But with Italy the case was and is wholly different. She could not compete with England in naval power, and would not wish to if she could, for she is without an ocean empire to preserve. But Italy has European neighbors, and when she began to build these _Italias_ and _Lepantos_ she had for neighbor one power, France, which had unwisely persisted for years in building wooden armor-clads, neither strongly protected nor swift, nor very powerfully armed; and I am not at all sure that, to such a navy as France then had, a few extremely fast and very powerfully armed ships such as Italy built were not excellent answers. The _Italia_ would have been available also against a very large proportion of the British iron-clad fleet, and of the fleets of Austria, Turkey, and Russia. The idea of the Italian ministers clearly was to give weaker ships no time for long engagements with them, but to pounce upon them by means of enormous speed, and to destroy them at a blow by means of their all-powerful ordnance. They might well expect to have with such ships so great a command over the conditions under which they would give battle as to be well able to repair in time, and at least temporarily, such dangerous wounds as they might receive. But more than this cannot be said for such ships: they are not fit to engage in prolonged contests, or to fight such actions as by their assaults on superior numbers and their endurance of close conflict have won that “old and just renown” of which England is so deservedly proud. It seems to me as obvious as anything can possibly be that such ships as the _Italia_, if once adopted as models for other great powers, would admit of easy and cheap answers. Ships of equal speed, merely belted with very thick armor, and armed with an abundance of comparatively light shell-guns, would effectually defy them. There would be no need of enormous and costly armaments, or of ponderous armored towers, or of huge revolving turrets, for giving battle to ships which any shells would be able to open up to the inroads of the sea, and which, being opened up, would lose their stability, and insist upon turning bottom upward. But for the purposes of the Italian government, as I conjecture them, the _Italia_ class of ships, large as they are, have probably been excellent investments, and may continue to be, so long as the priceless value of impregnable belts and interior torpedo defence is understood by so very few. The Italian government, having completed the _Italia_, is now pressing forward with four other equally large ships (of over 13,000 tons each) of similar type, and with three others of 11,000 tons. Curiously enough, it keeps with these among the “war vessels of the first class” not only the _Palestro_ and _Principe Amedeo_, of about 6000 tons, launched in 1871-72, but also the _Roma_, a wooden vessel of 5370 tons, launched twenty years ago, and some four or five iron ships, of 4000 tons and of 12 knots speed, launched more than twenty years ago. I will not occupy time and space by regarding the particulars of these old vessels (having omitted similar ones from my French tables), but will here give the particulars of the modern vessels of the Italian first class, which alone deserve notice: MODERN ITALIAN WAR-SHIPS OF THE FIRST CLASS.