A number of postings on this blog have dealt with naval ramming
accidents in the late 19th Century (see references at end of article). Ram bows had been seen as
desirable feature of warships of any size after the successes scored by the Austro-Hungarians
at the Battle of Lissa in 1866 and few vessels entered service in any navy
between then and 1914 without them. In practice the ram proved a serious danger
to vessels’ peacetime sisters, in what would be now termed “blue on blue”
accidents, and use of the weapon in anger was to prove difficult in the extreme.
An example of the latter is that the Peruvian (later Chilean) turret ram Huascar made some ten ramming attacks in
the course of her career, only one of which resulted in sinking of an enemy
ship.
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| Personal photograph taken by Remi Kaupp in the Musée de la Marine, Paris (Multi-license with GFDL and Creative Commons CC-BY-SA) |
A now largely-forgotten ramming accident occurred in 1875
when the French armoured corvette Jeanne d’Arc
sank the third class cruiser Forfait off
the east coast of Corsica. By that time both ships were obsolescent, their hulls
constructed of wood and, in the Jeanne d’Arc’s
case, protected with armoured plate. This latter was a substantial vessel, one
of a class of seven launched in 1867/68 when warship design was in a state of
flux. Of 3600 tons and with a length of 382 feet, these vessels carried four
7.6-inch guns in open-topped circular armoured barbettes, plus smaller weapons
on the broadside. A wrought-iron belt some 8-feet wide and six-inches thick
protected the entire waterline and the armour of the barbettes was some
four-inches thick. One cannot but wonder how effectively this heavy plating was
fastened to the wooden hull, and whether the backing structures could have
stood up to heavy gunfire in actions that luckily never came. These vessels had
1600 to 1900-Horsepower single shaft steam-engines which gave them a maximum
speed of over eleven knots. As was common at the time they also carried sailing
rigs and crews of around 316.
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| Forfait in service |
The Forfait was a
smaller and older vessel, in service since 1860 and unarmoured. Of 1126 tons and
222 feet long, she was capable, under steam, of almost 12 knots. By the early
1870s her armament had been increased from an initial four, to a later six six-inch
guns. She was classed as a “wing scout”, intended for reconnaissance duties
with larger fleet units, and she could be regarded as what later came to be
classed as a “Third Class Cruiser”. She was no less suited to independent roles
and saw active service in the early 1860s supporting the French intervention in
Mexico, transporting troops and equipment to Vera Cruz and in 1864 landing a
shore party to assist capture of the Mexican city of Tuxpan. The later 1860s
were spent in South-East Asia and the Pacific, including survey work off the northwest
coast of Borneo. By 1872 she was back in French home waters and assigned to the
Mediterranean fleet based at Toulon.
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| A contemporary illustration of the squadron - Jeanne d'Arc on extreme right |
On 21 July 1875 a French squadron consisting of six ironclads,
as well as smaller units, was involved in exercises off the east coast of
Corsica. The ironclads steamed in two parallel lines, one headed by the Magenta, with the Jeanne d’Arc and Reine
Blanche following astern while the other line was led by the Amide, followed by the Thetis and Alma. The squadron was a homogeneous one, all vessels sisters
except for the flagship, the 6700-ton broadside ironclad Magenta.
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| The black-hulled ironclad Magenta, seen here at Brest in the 1860s The three-decker Napoleon in background, still in service then, would have been suited to service at Trafalgar |
The Forfait,
unsuited by her lack of armour for service in the battle-lines, was positioned
to one side, ready to undertake scouting or other duties as directed. The
weather was fine and the sea calm – a splendid Mediterranean day – as the two
lines forged ahead majestically at 8 knots. At noon a signal from the admiral directed
Forfait to pass astern of the Magenta to receive orders. At this remove the requested manoeuvre seems to
have been a dangerous one since it involved inserting the Forfait into the gap between Magenta
and Jeanne d’Arc.
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| A contemporary artist's-impression of Forfait sinking |
In the event the manoeuvre proved fatal. The Forfait’s commander misjudged his turn
across the Jeanne d’Arc’s bows and the
ironclad’s pointed ram smashed into the smaller vessel’s side. A large rent was
torn, through which water rushed in’ but the shock of collision was almost unnoticeable
on the Jeanne d’Arc. Nobody was killed
or injured on either ship, but the Forfait
was now doomed. She remained afloat for fourteen minutes, allowing her 160-man
crew to get away safely in her boats. Her captain remained on the bridge as his
ship sank under him, then floated free, caught hold of floating wreckage, and was
saved.
The ram had claimed another friendly victim and only good weather
prevented a more tragic outcome. Two years later, in July 1877, two of the sister
ironclads present, the Reine Blanche and
the Thetis, were also involved in a
ramming incident, though both survived. But
the ram was to remain a fixture – and a dangerous one – for another four
decades.
Here are links to earlier blogs about ramming incidents:
The Loss of HMS Vanguard,
1875: http://bit.ly/1Vh6Yys
The ramming of SMS Grosser
Kurfürst, 1878: http://bit.ly/1Ro70xI
SS Utopia and HMS Anson, 1891: http://bit.ly/1TvIVwj
Collision of HMS Hannibal
and HMS Prince George, 1903: http://bit.ly/1UbVsSC
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