OUR IRON-CLAD FRIGATES.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume II, Issue 46, 15 May 1862, Page 5 (Supplement)

OUR IRON-CLAD FRIGATES.

(From Bell's Life in London). When the Emperor of the French first began building his iron fleet, it was thought by many shrewd observers in this country that he made rather a false step in the atttempt to secure preponderance for his navy by the use of the new material, for that, from the immense resources of our great private yards, and our unquestioned superiority in all relating to ironwork, it would be seen that England could turn out six such ships quicker, better, and cheaper than three could be built in France. Not more than three years have elapsed since that time, and already the prediction is fulfilled. It reflects no ordinary credit on the skill of our manufacturers and naval architects that they have even now overtaken the long start France had over us in this respect; that they the French dockyards are still feeling their wav, experimenting on kinds of plates and forms of ships, and turning out a succession of almost failures at prodigious cost, we have already sent afloat two of the finest, lastest, and most invulnerable ships in the world. It is a very general, but a very great error, however, to suppose that all our iron frigates are Warriors and Black Princes. We did not jump at once to perfection, and all our ironsides, except the two we hare named, represent more or less strongly the successive stages of failure through which we have passed to success. The Resistance and Defence are neither steam rams nor iron frigates. Unwieldy in form and slow in speed, they can never be safely used for m ore than floating batteries. Fortunately, however, they are built entirely of iron, instead of, like the first floating batteries, iron over oak, and the Defence and Resistance, therefore, are likely to be as strong a century hence as they are now. The Sector and Valiant, now building at Westwood and Bailie’s and Napier’s, are as great improvements on the Defence and Resistance as the Warrior and Black Prince have been improvements upon them all. To take a single instance of the rapidity with which science and engineering skill are developing to the utmost the powers of those tremendous ships, let us look at the Warrior and Black Prince. These are sister ships, alike to a rivet, and on the trial cruise of the former she attained, and with wind and steam maintained, a speed of 17i- knots an hour, or 20 statute miles, very nearly the speed of a parliamentary train. Yet, from the experience of the Warrior, it is said that Mi\ Penn already sees where he may introduce such modifications? into the engines of the Black Prince, as will give her nearly half a knot an hour more speed than her great sister. But even with these results, which surpass the most sanguine expectations, we are not content to stand still. The four improved warriors ordered and now building, the Achilles, at Chatham ; the Minotaur, at the Thames Iron Works : the Ca,plain, at Mr. Laird’s, and the Northumberland, at Mr. Marc’s, are each and all of them to be larger, stronger, and swifter than any that have gone before. In fact, when we look back on our brief, but vigorous competition with the French, we find that our first attempts at iron ships were in many important particulars below the standard at which the French stai’ted with La Oloire. But the difference is that the French have adhered to their standard, while we nave constantly striven for improvements and more improvements ; and the result is, that so far as our present knowledge goes, we have attained perfection, while our neighbors are comparatively still drudging at the bottom of the form. That this statement of the merits of the two countries in iron ships is perfectly well founded, we think we can show r . Only a few weeks since one or two of our most eminent shipbuilders, thoroughly conversant with ironsides, visited some of the French dockyards to see what was doing there. They were allowed to inspect some of the iron-clad frigates building, all the works connected with which were advancing much more slowly than they had been led to expect. Those which theyinspected were merely wooden ships plated, or tobe plated, with apparently little, if at all, more than 3-inch iron. They were mostly vessels of from 3,000 to 3,500 tons; in fact, frigates and

t wo-deckers cut down, and much strengthened in their scantling, to enable them to carry armor from end to end. From the want of great tonnage, a flat floor, and large displacement, it was evident that they would bo so immersed by the weight of their armor as to bring their portsills dangerously near the water, and render their guns all but useless in a seaway. Nor is this their only fault, for their wooden frames not having the strength of our iron vessels, which are as rigid as bolts, work so much when steaming in a seaway as almost to work them to pieces, and make dockSg and fresh caulking necessary after every gale. the worst of all their defects is that the iron and the oak do not go well together, and we may infer, from the causes being alike in both cases, that the framework of the French ships will rot as quickly as our own floating batteries did, that is to say, within some eight or ten years. Iron war vessels, of various sizes and thickness of armor, are now building on the Thames for the Russian, Danish, and Peruvian Governments, and it is said that in a short time Spain intends to orner two frigates of the same class. If anything were needed to show that the French are still at a loss to make really good armor plates, it woidd be found in the recent offer of the authorities at Toulon to the lhames Ironworks. When the great experiments at Shoeburyness against the Warrior target, and to which we shall refer presently, had proved that the plates and the sides of the ship generally were practically invulnerable to the fire of artillery, no matter how concentrated, the Thames Company were offered their own terms to manufacture 1 ,€O3 tons of similar jilates for the dockyard at Toulon. This proposition the Thames Company declined, alleging, truly, that they had already as many orders of the kind in hand for our government as they could compass. Had oniy one or two plates been ordered, it would have meant nothing more than that the French were about to experiment on them as we had done ourselves. 13ut with the Protectionist leanings of hrench dockyard oflleials, it is not too much to presume that after the trial at Shoeburyness they must have known that tlieir own armor plates were vastly inferior to the Warrior’s , when they went the extreme length of trying to get for themselves no less than a thousand tons of such plates from an English firm. Hie experiments upon die target, the success of which was so unequivocally endorsed by our neighbors, took place at Shoeburyness, in the presence of the Lords of the Admiralty and a large number of naval and military officers, scientific gentlemen, and others. The target was a perfect section of the Warrior’s broadside, 20 feet long and 10 high, made by the Thames Iron Company of exactly the same materials as the Warrior itself. Iliis was erected at 200 yards distance from a battery of six guns, two solid GB-pounders, three ol Armstrong s 100-pounders, and one 120-poundor shunt-gun. Every one know before the experiments commenced that such a target would stand an immense amount of pounding, and the chief curiosity was evinced to see how the teak backing would support the plates, and, above all, how the rivets m the ribs would resist the tremendous concussion. •'° one > however, was prepared for the astounding success oi the result that did ensue, and which snowed itself at the dose of the experiments, doling which the target was subjected to every conceivable ordeal of artillery practice, yet survived comparatively uninjured, and practically as invulneiablc as ever. The guns were fired in volleys of threes, and fours, and sixes simultaneously. Their shot w ere concentrated upon white spots painted on what were supposed to be the parts most likely to yield. On these the fire of the most tremendous missiles, lOOIb., 1201 b., and even 2001 b. bolts were directed, with a force and weight which seemed irresistable; but in vain. The shot flew oft in ragged splinters, hissing through the air, the iron plates became almost red-hot under the tremendous strokes, and the whole target rang like a huge gong, but nothing more. As a rule, the 68-pounders left tlieir mark in massive dents more deeply than the 100-pounder Armstrongs, b ut the live percussion shell of either did little more than discolor the plates with the smoke of their impotent explosions. Two discharges, each of three 2001 b. cast iron bolts, were fired in succession at two different spots, but though, of course, the plates had been often struck before, in the same places, the additional injury was eomparalivcly trifling. A grand final salvo w T as given with all the six guns, trained three on each of the already battered spots. As the guns were loaded each with sixteen pounds of powder, tin's volley, in fact, was equal to a 6001 b. shot fired at the target with 100 pounds of powder. The effect of this tremendous trial was to make a gap on one side of the target about 15 inches long, and 5 deep, driving the iron, in fact, almost into the teak. Some bolts of the plates were also loosened, and the plates themselves began to crack under their long ordeal. Yet, strange to say, even under this the strong teak backing was still" undisturbed, and not even the paint on tlic rivets bad started. In fact, as representing the side of a ship, she would still have been perfectly watertight and uninjured. The tongueing and grooving by which the edges of the plates are dovetailed into each other had given way, and some of the plates themselves had started outwards as much as an inch and a half. But the target, as a target, was as good as ever. There is only one possible condition in which the Warrior could be placed, to be exposed to a concentrated fire as severe as that to which her section was subjected at Shoeburyness, and that would be if she stranded within 200 yards of the guns of a powerful fortress. Even then, in such a last extremity, we arc very much inclined to believe the Warrior would he quite as formidable to the fort as the fort to hnr. The practical result of this grand experiment has been to show that nothing is gained bv backing up the armor plates with such a tremendous thickness of teak as 20 inches. It is found that practically 10 inches will do as well as 20, and that the saving thus effected in the reduction of weight will allow another inch thickness of iron to "be used in the plates themselves. Thus the “improved Warriors,” now building, instead of 1 .V inches of armor, and 20 inches of teak, are to have 10 inches of teak, and 51 of iron, an addition to the metal covering which is really unnecessary, ns they arc already invulnerable, in the most perfect and lite-

ral souse of the term, to all the efforts of artillery. Before speaking of the intended Warriors, however, we must refer for a moment to those we have got. In their construction the Admiralty very wisely abandoned mure routine, except on two points, where it was rigidly adhered to, in the rig, and in the number of the crew ; and it is in these two points that the Warrior is deficient. Routine persists in considering this huge vessel, larger than three line-of-battle ships, and match for half-a-dozen, as an ordinary frigate, and so she has only an ordinary frigate’s crew of 600 men. Had she been a vessel of the Hero class, that is to say, nearly two-thirds smaller, she would have been manned with 850 or 900 men ; but being more than double the size of the largest three-deck” er in the navy, she gets 600. Every one knows how this grievous disparity tells on the crew ; how, no matter what the weather or the hour, all hands must be on deck to perform manoeuvres which the watch of a lino-of-ba(tle ship can do with ease. In fact, the Warrior has more than a line-of-bat-tle ship’s sails and spars, with less than half the number of men to handle them than are considered absolutely necessary in a ship of 3,000 tons instead of 7,000. All hands would be a whole day in holystoning the Warrior's deck, and it will not keep clean an hour longer than a smaller vessel’s. In short, unless the Admiralty want to make these ships unpopular with the sailors, by exacting from their crews an amount of work out of all proportion to their number, they will allow them the crew which their size and importance require. W ith regard to the rig, all practical shipbuilders were most strongly of opinion that she ought to have had a fourth mast, and the late experimental cruises of the Warrior have proved the correctness of their judgment. Her mainmast is so far aft that the power exerted by her sails is most disadvantageously placed, and the result, it is said, is that the Warrior is rather unmanageable under canvas, alone. We believe that, those facts are so well known to the Admiralty that a special rig, giving them four masts and more fore-and-aft sails, will be adopted for the ships now building.