Armour

Protection was influenced by more powerful guns

This Naval History is a continuation on from: "Old For New"

The necessity to clothe ships in protective armour arose entirely from the development of the gun and its rapid improvements. Its infulence on ships was immense.

The desire to protect one's ship against whatever missiles the enemy can launch at her is a natural one, and doubtless throughful men had given much conideration to the problem in all of the ages. But the consequent urge, though present, did not become overwhelmingly strong until the improvement in the attacking weapon, turning protection to a necessity.

That is why Armour has little pre-Crimean War history; but, it has some. The well-known practice, although antique, the Shield, was used in naval terms, a method, by fixing a wall of the men's sheilds together along the bulwarks of their ship, which was really nothing but an anti-missile protection device.

It was customary in the days of Henry VIII, and in earlier Elizabethan times to have the "cage-works" or castles of a ship protected by bulkheads known as "cubbridge-heads," while the ship's waist was often fitted with high, thick planking known as "blinders," made as rule of stout elm; these latter devices were sometimes mounted on wheels and were therefore movable at will.

All of this was protective armour in its way, though intended mainly to keep out the light "man-killers" among weapons rather than such "ship-killing" missiles as men possessed.

Old For New

Experiments in protection

There is some early evidence of ship-protection. Attempts to ward off fire-attacks are heard of in the Middle Ages, especially in the southern waters, where the Greek Fire was often employed. Ships were sometimes covered with a layer of felt which could, in an emergency, be moistened with vinegar, one of the few known antidotes to fire.

One ship so covered, and painted green and yellow, was sunk in the Mediterranean by Richard I. In northern regions, where the fire-attack technique existed, the corresponding sort of "armour" was raw hides, which seem to have been sufficient to protect the ship from catching alight when assailed by fire-tipped arrows.

There is also a little evidence of anti-cannon protective efforts. The famous sixteenth-century Italian, Admiral Andrea Doria, owned a vessel which is said to have been sheeted so thickly with lead that she was invulnerable to any artillery then in existence; but what price he paid for his immunity in speed, manoeuvrability and sea-worthiness we are not told.

There is a certain amount of evidence, dating from the Armada year, that the Spaniards were experimenting to some extent in ship-protection. The lower work of the said galeons; the timbers were out of measure strong, having ribs four or five feet in thickness and framed with extra thick planks. If this is true, then those galleons were armoured in the wide sense of that word, even though the armour was of wood.

Later in the eighteenth century, the French began to stand out once more as pioneers, building queer "floating batteries" designed to bombard land fortifications. Their sides were elaborate "sandwiches" concocted of an outside slice and an inside slice of cork, between the two was a thick layer of sand, kept moist by an intricate system of little waterways.

The experiment was most ingenious-too ingenious. For it failed to work when its supreme test came the siege of Gibraltar in 1782. The British defenders peppered them with so much red-hot shot that they were all burnt out.

One last experiment was Fulton's "Siamese Twin" the "Demologos," it had a so immensely thick that the was able to claim, probably with truth, that it was impenetrable by any missile of that day. But the material was still wood. All this goes to show that Armour was still in a very experimental stage.

Yi-sun-sin a contemporary of Drake

It is from the Far East that there comes the best evidence of a really armoured ship existing in the sixteenth century. That remarkable Korean admiral, Yi-sun-sin, a contemporary of Drake, and a man who, has been called "the Eastern Nelson," had in his great struggle with the Japanese a first-rate battle winner.

It was called "Kwi-sun"-"Tortoise-boat" it was covered with a highly domed armoured deck, made of iron plates and studded over almost over all of its surface with sharp spikes.

There were holes in the bow and the stern, and there were ports along the sides, out of which missiles could be launched from under cover, and the enemy soon found that she could not be boarded because of her spearheads, or set alight by fire-arrows because of her material.

In several desperate fights she seems to have proved a trump card in the hands of the skillful Korean who, four years after the Amarada fight, completely broke up a Japanese attempt upon his homeland. But Kwi-sun's life was not very long, for, five years later, she was absent from the last series of Japano-Korean battles; which were won by Yi-sun-sin without her.

Sinope in the Black Sea

In 1853, a Russian fleet set upon a Turkish squadron off Sinope in the Black Sea and demolished it so speedily and thoroughly that experts all over the world were under the circumstances instantly to ask "Why?" The answer was the "Shell." The fiasco at Sevastopol in 1854, drove home the same lesson.

The damage inflicted on our wooden ships and the casualties to the men inside them showed clearly enough that a new offensive weapon had appeared on the scene; which our trusted Wooden Ships simply could not face.

Once more the French, now our allies, were the first to react. Exactly a year later there appeared in the Black Sea, at the mouth of the Bug, three ugly little craft, the Armoured Floating Batteries "Tonnante," "Lave" and "Devastation."

At less than 1,000 yards range their crews plied their guns in what appeared to be complete safety, for the Russian round-shot simply bounced off the French ships 4.5-inches thick iron plates fastened on to a wall of 17-inches thick timber, while their shells were causing devastation.

These new batteries were wooden ships, flat-bottomed in order to be able to operate in shallow water, and propelled by steam.

The Admiralty acted upon pressure

Great Britain's reaction was quick for once, because there was a strong popular demand going on in the Press for gunboats in the Baltic theatre of the war, and because we had no trust in Napolion III as an ally, and we did not want to get left behind in the race.

We hurriedly built the "Trusty," "Thunder," "Glatton" and "Meteor"-close imitations of the French batteries-and, next year, produced distinctive improvements on them in the shape of the "Thunderbolt," "Terror," "Aetna" and "Erebus." The former quartet were the first British armoured steamers. The latter were the first iron-hulled, armoured, steam-driven ships in the world.

Many have claimed for the "Warrior" the title of "the first battleship," using the term in its modern sense. It is a matter of opinion and choice. She was undoubtedly a forerunner of the wooden battleship, but she differed entirely from the Wooden Ships in three important aspects, she was a steamer, she was built of iron, and she was armoured.

These three features combined in one ship, certainly make her a revolutionary one, and in another respect her size, she easily outdid all of her predecessors; she was 380 feet long, and her displacement was over 9,000 tons; she was far bigger than any Line Ship could ever be.

But two distinctive features of the Wooden Ship remained in her. She was "full rigged," and she was, still, a "broadside" ship. In general she was like the original steam frigates of the '40s. We would prefer to regard her as an important-probably the most important representative of the Transition from old to new; not "old," but not quite "New."

The rapid improvement of the Gun

Improvements in the gun followed very quickly, the race between "Offence" and "Defence"-"Guns" and "Armour" had begun, the thickness of the armour increased rapidly.

The "Captain" had 8-inches on her sides, with 10-inches round her turrets. The figures of the "Devastation," completed in 1873, were 12-inches and 14-inches respectively. The increase continued until the "Inflexible" appeared, commissioned in 1881. She was a ship of nearly 12,000 tons and was little more than an armoured tower, clad in 24-inches of armour.

This principal has survived in other ships. Thereafter successive improvements in the manufacture of steel armour-plate enabled considerable reductions to be made while giving an increase in protection.

But armour-plate, reinforcing the sides of ships, was not the only form of ship-protection to be developed against the enemy's attack. There were four other methods used.

The first, was the sub-division of the interior of the ship into chambers separated by watertight bulkheads. This idea came from the East, and was first used in the East India Company's ship the "Nemesis" in 1839. It was not used much until the armed and heavily armoured warships came along.

In 1881, the "Inflexible" had 135 such compartments. Then there was the double bottom; inside the original one was built another, with a space of two feet between. The "Bellerophon" of 1866, was the first ship to be given this very-much-below water protection.

Next came the armoured deck-not the upper deck, but a special layer of steel set below the waterline, which divided the whole ship horizontally into two parts.

The first ships to receive this form of additional defence were the "Shannon" completed in 1877, and her larger sister the "Nelson" in 1880. Warships have retained this type of horizontal protection ever since, though it is now above the waterline.

Last came the special underwater protection of the sides because of the ever increasing efficiency of mines and torpedoes. Various experiments were tried, first nets, made of heavy steel meshing, which proved to be clumsy and slowed the ship down.

Then "blisters" special bulges formed by an outer wall; these were first fitted in a wide curve to the outside of ships that were alread built, and were designed to take the main impact of the explosion. Later the blister was incorporated into the ship's design, but built on the inside.

For the title of "First Modern Battleship," was perhaps, the "Devastation," completed in 1873, it has the best all-round claim. This ship, possessed the three "modern" qualifications of the "Warrior" steam, iron hull and armour but she also two more, and she had dropped the "full rig," and she no longer had her guns ready for a broadside; her guns were in armoured turrets.

The "Devastation" was not completely modern, because she never had all of those other protections that have just been mentioned. As an iron, armoured, "turreted" battleship, propelled by steam and, with no sail or broadside, she may be classed as modern, in those day's.

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Here the similarities parted

It was at this point where "Merchant" and the "War" ship reached a fork in their common road of progress, and swung off along diverging routes. It was the armour and the progress of the gun, that made the difference; before this period they had marched, on the whole, together.

We have seen to some extent, why they remained similar in general lines in the days of Sail and wood. Even at first Steam and Iron did not part them.

If we look at the the set illustrations of steamers of the two services in the Paddle era side by side, we shall see the similarities rather than the differences. But henceforward the differences grow ever greater, and the similarities dissapear.

The merchantman and the liner could develop freely in pursuit of pure utility and speed; while the warship was infuenced by the keeping out of all missiles of the enemy, and at the same time mounting as strong an armourment as possible, with as open a field of fire as she could obtain.

It was these things which turned her into that highly specialized and intricate machine, the modern battleship.

The continuation of this Naval History will be called: "The Turret"

Armour The Turret

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