The Turret

It beat the Broadside and Central Battery

This Naval History is a continuation carrying on from: "Armour"

In March 1862, there took place in Hampton Roads an indecisive fight between two american ships, the "Merrimac" of the Confederate Navy and the "Monitor," belonging to the North. The fight was a scrambling affair, but its importance in ship-construction was very significant.

It introduced two featires for the consideration of men; one quite new, the other so old as to have been for long almost forgotten. These features were the Turret and the Ram.

Both ships were odd-looking craft, both were hasty improvisations. The "Merrimac" would have been quite an ordinary sailing ship had she not been cut right down, given engines, and had stretched over most of her length an armoured rectangular casemate with a pent-house roof designed to protect her broadside battery of ten guns.

When completed, she drew 22-feet of water and took thirty minutes to turn! She had a brief but glorious career. The frigates of the North fought her in vain. They tried not to harm her, while she could pulverize them.

Armour

The Ram

On the very day before the all-important action, she had engaged the wooden sloop "Cumberland," who had poured in broadside after broaside at short range, the shortest possible ranges as the fight drew to an end, for, ignoring the "Cumberland's" fire as though it did not exist, the "Merrimac" had closed and rammed. The sailing ship sank quickly.

The "Merrimac" then turned her shell-guns on another wooden ship, the frigate "Congress," and the massacre on board the latter was horrifying. Faced with such a foe the North had to retaliate, speedily.

In great haste they produced the "Monitor" which was one of the least seaworthy ships that had ever ventured to sea. She was composed of one heavily armoured revolving turret, mounting two 11-inch 150 lb. shell-guns.

The duellists met, forunately, in sheltered water and manoeuvered round each other like elephants. Neither scored a clear-cut victory. The "Monitor" tried to ram but missed by three feet. Then the "Merrimac" rammed, but was up against something much tougher than the "Cumberland."

Her bow passed over passed over the deck of the "Monitor" and the sharp edge of the upper-deck side cut through the iron shoe on her stern and deep into the oak bodywork. she did no damage; nor did her guns.

The "Monitor was struck twenty-two times, but nothing was damaged. Meanwhile the "Merrimac" was hit too, but not so often, though the shots were more effective; for the "Monitor's" shots were far heavier. But there was still little damage. The action ended in stale-mate. A lieutenant was blinded one of the few casualties on either side.

Experts from all over the world came to the conclusion that the "Monitor" had the better of the fight. Of the Ram not much need be said; it had had its day, its influence upon ship-design and upon war was minimal. It was questionable if the Ram should be treated as part of the ship or a weapon? It was really both, though rarely used it was a mighty if ponderous weapon.

The sinking of the "Cumberland" in the Hampton Roads fight highlighted the effectiveness of the ram. All over the world rams were built into ships and in 1866, the pace grew even faster. Because in that year, in hot blood, the Ram achieved a most widely advertised, if somewhat misleading, triumph.

The Italian and Austrian War

When the Italians and the Austrians were at war, on the 20th of July, the rival fleets met off Lissa in the Adriatic. In the fierce and confused fight that ensued, the Astian Commander -in-Chief, Tegetthoff, drove his 5,000-ton flagship, at 11.5 knots, upon what he thought was a ship carrying his rival, the inefficient Persano.

The crash opened a hole 300 square feet in the side of his victim, the "Re d'Italia," half of it below the waterline, and as soon as the Austrian ship backed off the other ship sank like a stone.

This dramatic ending was doubless moral-shattering in the highest degree. The circumstances in that place and at that time were unusually favourable for the use of the ram weapon. The "Re d'Italia," was actually stationary at the time of the collision.

There were many other attempts to ram, on both side, but almost all of them proved to be easily avoidable so long as the attacked ship was under way. On one occasion, The Austrian "Kaiser," a wooden ship, did manage to ram the "Re d'Portogallo," an iron clad ship, and came off second best.

The obvious difference in materials helped, but also owing to the hot fire directed upon her, at almost touching distance as she scraped along the ship's side. It was this unsuccessful attempt rather than Tegetthoff's triumph which truly forecast the future of ramming.

Armour versus Penetration

In 1866, Armour was, a step ahead of Penetration. As the latter proved. The damage gun-power could inflict upon an attacker became so decisive as to make ramming all but impossible. The rammer would probably be sunk before it could ram.

In France, the newly popularized ship-feature the ram, grew to proposterous dimensions; nearly, sometimes, a third of a ship's length. In Engaland we never went to such extremes as this. We took discreet precautions, and greatly strengthened the bow-construction of our ships.

We had begun this practice before the Lissa fight; even before the Hampton roads action. The "Warrior" herself possessed a rudimentary ram, and the fashion was continued, sparodically, up to the end of the century.

Unfortunately, in 1875, H.M.S. Vanguard was accidentally rammed, during fog in the Irish Channel, by her sister ship the "Iron Duke," she sank almost at once. In June 1893, our Mediterranean Fleet lost its flagship and its Commander-in-Chief, when the ill-starred "Victoria" was rammed by the "Camperdown," carrying the flag of the Second-in-Command.

This shocking calamity was due to an error of judgment on the part of Sir George Tryon, the admiral commanding. The two ships, each heading her own half of the fleet in practicing manoeuvers, deliberatly turned in upon one another on his orders, holding their courses though everyone present could see that there was no room for them to complete their circles without colliding.

Three hundred and fifty men including Tryon were lost. Nor was it only British ships which suffered in that way; there were two similar catastrophies in the Russian navy, two in the French, one in the Spanish, and one in the German. From first to last the Ram was responsible for destroying more friends than foes.

The Turret had immense influence

The Turret, though recognition was slow, was to have immense influence on future ships. This was due, not so much of the "Monitor's" performance in action, which was spectacular, but to the severe limitations of the broadside in action. The line of fire was at right angles to the line of advance in a broadside ship.

Nor could one attack be sufficient, except under exceptional circumstances. What was wanted mostly was effective ahead fire. And this need became even more urgent as the introduction of steam gave more and more free movement to the warship.

Now that a ship was able, owing to the new power, to head straight for the spot where she would be closest to the enemy, or in a position to do him the most damage. It was never the intention to abolish abeam fire altogether, though for a time naval thought was swinging away from it. What was mostly required was ahead fire as well.

What the "Monitor" did in her clumsy way, was to show how effective ahead fire could be with the freedom from the broadside. Such enlargement of a field of fire from her swivelling turret opened vast opportunities. Another disadvantage of the Broadside began to come apparent; it was difficult to protect all the guns on one deck.

Armour, could not be lavished equally over the whole ship, because of its thickness, which was coming to be considered necessary. The answer was to concerntrate some guns in central positions; which is where the Central Battery came in. However, because the number of guns had to be reduced; but the same or better fire-power was required to be retained.

The guns themselves must be bigger and much more powerful; so the reached conception was, what is usually called a "central battery" ship. Fewer but heavier guns, still comparatively fixed, were to be located in a central stronghold. Not a turret.

The Central Battery

There were many ingenious devices for enlarging the field of fire, not by moving pieces about, but by shaping the ship and cutting away angles of it as to allow the guns to point in as many directions as possible. The old field of fire was improved upon considerably, but not much in the direction that was most desired; ahead.

Such was the state of things when the "Monitor" stepped into the limelight. The source of her success, such as it was, was clear enough to all. The Turret could be rotated in either direction at will, and through the four right angles.

Though the steam rotating apparatus failed her in the heat of action, it was instantly seen that given reliability, the field of fire of such a turret would be limited only by obstructions on the ship herself.

From very early times the man-killing gun had been pivoted. Now the ship-killer was to be pivoted too; it was an immense and revolutionary advancement. At last it was ceasing to be necessary, when aiming the guns, to aim the ship as well.

The Admiralty, not convinced, made its first experiment on the cut-down "Royal Sovereign" in 1864, and at the same time began laying down ships on these lines-the same old story.

It was not until the "Devastation" was completed in 1873,that the experiment was tried in a major ship, and even after that, Turret and Central Battery went on competeing for some years. But the Turret won. The last central-battery ship, the "Orion" being completed in 1882.

Now it was a question of arranging the other objects on board ship; masts, funnels, forecastles, etc. so as to interrupt as little as possible the freedom of the Turrets field of fire.

By 1883, the Turret had won a complete victory not only over the Broadside but also over the Central Battery. The number of turrets and the positioning of them were huge problems in their early days.

The "Dreadnought" of 1905, was the first all-big-gun Capital Ship. She had five, three on the middle line and one on each side, each containing two 12-inch guns. In most cases missiles hold the field in today's Navy.

The continuation of this Naval History will be called: "Capital Ships"

The Turret Capital Ships

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