It is always gratifying to an author to received feedback from
readers, particularly when detailed research to support a story is recognised
and appreciated. I was therefore delighted to be contacted recently by an
American reader, Douglas R. Smith, who was intrigued by the central role played
in my novel Britannia’s Spartan by
HMS Leonidas, a fictional member of the
innovative and real-life Leander
class of “protected cruiser” which entered service with the Royal Navy in the
1880s. I’m proud therefore to welcome Douglas as a guest blogger today. I’ve no
doubt you’ll enjoy his article.
PROTECTED CRUISERS IN
THE PRE-DREADNOUGHT ERA
by Douglas R.
Smith
The British Empire was vast and overextended in the late
1800s, and dependent upon vulnerable sea lanes. To compensate it had a Navy
equal to the next two contenders combined. British bankers and businessmen
built a network of intercontinental telegraph lines, reaching all of the way to
New Zealand by 1876, with London at the center. The role of protected cruisers
was for protecting commerce, and raiding that of the enemy, often operating
distantly and independently around the globe.
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1891 Telegraph Map
Telegraph Connections (Telegraphen Verbindungen), 1891 Stielers Hand-Atlas, Plate No. 5, Weltkarte in Mercators Projection. Uploaded to en:Wikipedia on 03:53, 16 February 2006 by w:User:Flux.books == Licensing == {{PD-
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"Britainia's
Spartan" by Antoine Vanner is the story of the shakedown cruise of the fictional HMS Leonidas, first of her class. Captain Nicholas Dawlish has earned the honor of being her first commander. We have followed
his meteoric career in earlier books, and like all career people, he must struggle to find a
balance, and determine if that balance is worth the personal cost. In a similar
way a warship must find a balance between speed, firepower, and protection, and
do so at an acceptable cost in lives and resources. This is an outline of naval
dynamics with respect to protected cruisers in the dawn of the Pre-Dreadnought
Era, when hydraulics, electricity, and triple reciprocating steam engines were
enhancing the capabilities of warships, but before submarines, destroyers, and
airplanes, much less carriers and tenders for them, changed the nature of naval
warfare.
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| HMS Leonidas - Nicholas Dawlish's command in Britannia's Spartan |
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HMS Leander, analog to the Leonidas.
Armed with ten 6" breechloaders, and carried two 2nd class torpedo boats.
She became a destroyer depot ship in 1904.
Source : "The Navy and Army Illustrated" Scanned by Steve Johnson.
Downloaded from Steve Johnson's cyber-heritage website : http://www.cyber-heritage.co.uk/vicnavy/
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Armored cruisers (
the Russian Navy favored them ) relied on a steel belt for protection, much the
same as the battleships. Often a belt included a ram in the bow, a relic of
ironclad steamships fighting against wooden ships. But since weight was the enemy of speed,
armored cruisers were little better than battleships at commerce raiding. Not
too cost effective. Protected cruisers relied on clever use of curved steel to
deflect shells away from, and coal bunkers to protect, the machinery and
magazines below water level. It worked well provided you didn't collide with
armored ships. The weight savings resulted in greater speed and the range to
defend a far-flung empire.
It's always nice to
have superior range in a main weapon. That's been true ever since the
trebuchet. You can hit the enemy, but they can't hit back. HMS Leonidas had a main battery of all
6" breech loading rifles. A bigger gun could do more damage, but a
contemporary 7", 8", 9",
or even 10" breach loader wouldn't necessarily have more velocity,
accuracy, or effective range ( about 10,000 yards). It would require separate
powder charges and shells in the magazine, complicate handling, adding weight and reducing speed,
particularly as a bow chaser, where it would be most advantageous. The
alternative solution would have been to develop lighter shells for long range
situations, but the trade-off would be reduced impact.
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Japanese
protected cruiser Izumi left
elevation plan
The British-built
protected cruiser Chilean Esmeralda
1884 (aka IJN Izumi after 1894 ).
A bow ram,
10" chasers, a 6" broadside, and 3 sizes of other guns,
but no
torpedo launchers until the sale and refit.
Source: Janes Fighting Ships, 1904
edition Sampson, Low, Marston and Co, London
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In Nelson's era, sailing ships of the line tended to have
lighter weapons as the decks got higher, ranging from 32-pounders to swivel
guns. It didn't much matter at "pistol shot range" in the days of
sail when rate of fire was the key. As
the range opened up in the Pre-Dreadnought Era, it became difficult to correct
the aim because they couldn't differentiate the splashes. The continuous smoke
from the rapid-fire weapons never cleared, so they couldn't see well enough to
aim anything properly. The innovative “all big gun” design of the HMS Dreadnought solved these issues.
Adding extra "tools" to the armament to anticipate
a multitude of situations, such as several small rapid-fire breach loaders of
various sizes to defend against torpedo boats, is a design temptation for an
independent command. This "Swiss Army knife approach" requires more
crew and training, complicates ammunition storage and handling, and versatility
comes at the expense of role specialization and refinement.
Torpedoes as we know
them were in the early stages, with an effective range limit of only 800 yards,
less for a moving target. Lethal, but more of a coup d' grace than a stand-off
weapon. HMS Leonidas carried two launchers on each broadside. Pairs of
torpedoes are much harder to avoid than solo ones, but crippled ships aren't so
nimble. Perhaps it wasn't a very practical addition to the armament.
An alternative
arrangement would be for the cruiser to carry a pair of torpedo boats, (like
HMS Leander, and the fictional Kiroshima in Britannia’s Spartan) which could be launched for coordinated night
attacks. More skill, but more effect. In terms of costs in cash and lives, it
takes a lot of torpedo boats to equal a battleship, so they were the emerging
threat at the time. France embraced them as part of her “Jeune Ecole” doctrine. The
Americans were developing flywheel powered torpedoes, which had no telltale
bubble trails. A pair of torpedo boats carried aft would lift the bow and
improve the ship's trim, offer an option against a battleship (when a gun fight
was out of the question) , and would enhance blockading a hostile port or
protecting a friendly one (more so with the addition of a few sea mines) . They
might also come in handy for patrolling, carrying messages, search and rescue,
or on convoy duty. They add weight, but would replace some boats and torpedo
launchers.
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HMS Vulcan, a torpedo boat depot ship launched in 1889 carried six 16' torpedo boats,
two counter-mining launches, and eight 4.7" guns.
|
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| Gatling being fired from a fighting top |
Ships retained masts, yards, and sails as backup propulsion
and to stretch the coal supply on long voyages, but the sailing rigs had less
area and the ships more weight than their predecessors, and weren't practical.
In combat, these rigs often became a liability that would obstruct a battery,
create splinters, or act as a sea anchor when hit. Radios hadn't been invented
yet, so they didn't need an antennae mast. They did still need signal halyard
and lookout platforms, and they were good places to mount Gatling guns and
search lights to defend against night torpedo boat attacks. An observer or
gunner couldn't see much from a mainmast close to the smoke stacks. A foremast
and it's supports interfered with the bow chaser and the view from the bridge.
It took years for naval architects to sort things out.
The first designated torpedo boat destroyer went into
service in 1895. Navies would adopt submarines at the turn of the century,
radio 1905, HMS Dreadnought in 1906,
and floatplanes circa 1910. In 1912 the effective range of the torpedo was as
much as 6,000 yards. By then the value and versatility of the destroyer was
proven, and they were replacing torpedo boats. Naval warfare would become
"modern". But in the early 1880s, other cruisers, battleships, and
torpedo boats were the recognized perils, and how to optimize the new cruisers
to fulfil the role of commerce raiders or protectors was the question.
Douglas R. Smith was born in Pennsylvania in 1959, where he
developed an interest in history and reading historical fiction. This included
Pre-Dreadnought navies, because they established both Japan and the USA as
world powers. He worked in agriculture, sales, and insurance. Now he and his
wife Karen are in Wisconsin, enjoying their retirement, dining, Disney, and
travel.
Britannia's Spartan
Six-inch breech loading guns represented the cutting edge of naval technology in the early 1880s. In my novel Britannia’s Spartan they are seen in use on both British and Japanese ships. The splendid woodcut below shows Japanese crews managing just such a weapon in the war of 1895 against China.
Download a free copy of Britannia’s Eventide
To thank subscribers to the Dawlish Chronicles mailing list, a free, downloadable, copy of a new short story, Britannia's Eventide has been sent to them as an e-mail attachment.
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