EXPERIMENTAL IRONCLADS.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 5, Issue 207, 8 September 1916, Page 2 (Supplement)

EXPERIMENTAL IRONCLADS.

WARSHIPS THAT WERE OBSOLETE BEFORE THEY WERE LAUNCHED.

Coincidences arising out of the Jutland sea fight have been fairly common but one of the most interesting seems so far to have escaped not ; ce. This concerns the loss of the sister ships Warrior and Black Prince. Two predecessors bearing these historic names were the first ironclad vessels added to the British Navy, while the Warrior, completed in 1562, was the first warship in the world specially built to receive protective plates. The naval wonder of her day, she remained on the active service list for over forty years, though actually rendered obsolete and practically wseless for fighting purposes before she left the stocks. It was the beginning of the struggle between armour and ammunition which, to the immense cost of every naval nation, nas continued ever since. The story of that struggle, shown by the latest results to l>e more keen than ever, should be specially interesting to follow. ONLY SIXTY YEARS AGO. Considering the immense strides made in iron and steel shipbuilding, -t is not a little surprising that the earliest departures from wood, and even then only in part, should have been made under sixty years' ago. True, exexperiments had been tred a decade or so rarher in thinly plafc'ng ordinary wooden ships, one of the first to be -a treated being the ill-fated troopship Birkenhead, but gunnery tests subsequently conviced naval experts of those days that for war purposes iron-covered hulls were hopeless, and much too dangerous to adopt. As has more than once happened since, circumstances broughi a change of mind. Durng the Crimean War our French Allies introduced for use against Sebastopol some "floating batteries" protected with iron plating. This country followed suit, and likewise adopted similar means to protect some of the bombarding warships. Though found highly dangerous to navigate and manoeuvre, the st : ffened hulls showed gratifying resistance to shell effects, and once more attention was turned to iron constructive possibilities.

THE FRENCH LA GLOIKE. It was left to the French, howevtM, to make the first move. After peace had heen declared, our neighbours cut down a wooden double-decker, and fixed an iron belf all round the remain. der of the hull. Re-<?hristened L& Gloire, the strengthened Vessel was ha'led as the most powerful warship then afloat.

Tn the same year, however, 1360, tlrs country laid down the Warrior, to oe an entirely new and not a merely reconstructed "iron" vessel. In reality she was a wooden frigate, with an armour plating 4J inches thick fastened over the centre of her sides, her bow and stern, including the steering gear, being left entirely unprotected. Apparently naral opinion in those days place.! most importance on engines and magn-z-'nes. and considered wheels and rudders, without which the ship would become unmanageable, of secondary importance. These defects, however, were remedied in later experiments. Though only of 6100 tons burthen, such were the difficulties o"! this new departure in naval construction that it took nearly two years to complete the Warrior. Meanwhile, as already stated, improvements in destructive weapons rendered her obsolete. Rifled guns had come into being, and experiment l ; made with these showed it possible to penetrate iron protection even stronger than that placel upon the as yet unlaunched Warjior. Notwithstanding, she and her s ; ster ship, the Black Prince, were completed according to programme, and were acclaimed with much jubilation as the most powerful ships afloat. Doubts as to this came from a very unexpected quarter. During the American War there was fought the famous action l>etween the Merrhnac and Monitor. Both iwere protected vessels, out whereas the Merrimae was armed with ten broadside guns, the Monitor, built on the entirely new turret system, carried only two revolving g/uns. which could be trained at will on any part of an enemy ship. Lying low in the water, hostile shot, unless fired from a distance, passed armlessly over the hull of the Monitor type, while her own powerful guns played havoc with the h'gh decks of an opponent. Added to this was the resistance to shot offered by the gun turrets, which more than anything else drew the attention of naval architects to the new system.

CAPTAIN COLES'S EXPERIMENTS

In England experiments were initiated chiefly owing to the energy of a Captain Coles. The first practical result was a turret ship which bore for name his rank as an officer. One of thi greatest disappointments ever associated with our Navy, she turned turtle and foundered on her maiden voyage The disaster was ascribed to faulty design rather a disconcert : ng matter in a vessel which on completion had been officially described as >a match, singlehanded, for any entire foreign fleet that could lie brought against her. Tho persons responsible for the eulogy were i'kewise responsible for me vessel's failure and fate.

Though steam navigation had been known for eighty vears, nothing would induce the Admiralty officials of xhe late 'sixties to rely solely on this means of propulsion for their warships. Consequently, in an evil moment they persuaded Coles to fit the Captain with masts and sailing gear, thus altering her oi'g'nal design without allowing any material compensation in hull specifications. Tn result the vessel proved top-heavy, and foundered when unable to right herself after heeling over in a .form. PATRICK MILLER'S PIONEER MIIP. This leads to two interesting reflections. Sometirng has been already saij on the tardiness with which naval authorities adopted vessels constructed of iron, and we have just seen how persistently they clung to the sailing craft Yet, according to the most competent authorities, the very first vessel to lie propelled by steam was built of iron. This was a boat invented by Patrick M'ller, of Dalwinton, in Dumfriesshire, wlrch made her trial trip on the 14th October 178 R. Among thase on board ai> said to have been Burns, the poet, and Alexander Nastuythj painter of the famous portrait of the bard. Nasmyth also drew up the plans for the projected boat, and left a drawing of her when complete. The engines which propelled the vessel were subsequently acquired by the South Kensington Museum.

Following .Miller cam. 1 Fulton and Bell, and long iiefore the hitter produced his famous Comet, a no less celebrity than Lord Nelson urged the British Government to take up and encourage h : s schemes for steam navigation. The apjxeal was disregarded, and the same reluctance to experiment with "hot water," as with " iron tanks," maintained almost to our own day. But for this prejudice it is hard to say how much further ahead of tho world we might have been.