JUBILEE OF THE IRONCLAD.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 97, 14 October 1911, Page 11

JUBILEE OF THE IRONCLAD.

ROMANTIC GROWTH OF OUR MODERN" BATTLESHIPS. Tlic present year marks the jubilee of the entrance of the. armored ship into tlie sea-going Meets of the world. In 1801 the first ironclad battleship, the Warrior, was commissioned for service, and the era of naval construction thus inaugurated has proved the most progressive, the most expansive, and incidentally the most expensive in the whole history of shipbuilding. The total number of ironclad ships launched for the British Navy since tlie pioneer of super-Dreadnoughts was laid down at Blaokwall in 1559 is 180, and they have varied in size from the 2750 tons of the "masted turret ships" Scorpion and Wivern laid down at Birkenhead for the Southern States during the American Civil War and seized by the British Government, to the 20,300 tons of the Lion and Princess Royal "superDreadnought cruisers" now completing for sea.

Great as the increase in size has been, however, it is nothing when compared with tlie increase in lighting power that lias accompanied it. For nearly twenty years after the Warrior was built our ships continued to be armed with muz-zle-loading guns, but there was a steady increase in the size and power of these weapons. The heaviest gun mounted in the Warrior was the i)-inch 12-ton gun, firing a shell of 25151b. In 18C8 there appeared a Winch IS-ton weapon, firing a 4Kllb shell, and this was followed in 1870 by a 12-inch 25-ton, in 1874 by a 12.5-inch 38-ton, and in 1876 by a "16inch 80-ton gun, the weights of the respective shells being 0141b, 8201b, and 17001b. Four of these last were mounted in the old Inflexible. When the muzzle-loader thus reached the climax of its development, it was finally displaced by the breech-loader, which had been forging ahead for some years. It would be impossible to enumerate all the calibres and patterns of this gun that have been made and mounted in our ships; but if we take the principal guns alone we shall get a very good idea of the enormous strides that have been made in the manufacture of ordnance. The earliest pattern of 12inch breech-loader was 27ft long, weighed 44 tons, and fired a shell of 7141b weight at an initial velocity of 1832 ft per second. The guns gradually increased in length and weight until the latest types, such as are mounted in the Hercules and Colossus, are 51.5 ft long, weigh 66 tons, and fire a shell of 8501b at a velocity of 3010 ft per second. This, however, does not mark the extent of our progress. The Orion, now nearly ready for her trials, will carry ten KJ.oin guns, each of which is about 52ft long, weighs 70 tons, and fires a 12501b shell.

Bunt gun-powder is measured principally in muzzle-energy—that is, the force with which the shell leaves the bore. In the case of the Warrior's heaviest guns this force was 3095 foot-tons; for the 80-ton muzzle-loaders of the Inflexible it was 29,530 foot-tons; and for the earliest 12-inch breech-loaders 18,060 foot-tons. The old 13.5 in guns mounted in the ships of the Royal Sovereign class had a muzzle-energy of 35,230 tons. For our latest 12in guns the energy is 53,400 foot-tons, and for the new 13.5inch 00,000 foot-tons. At a range of 2000 yds the Warrior's guns could just penetrate nine inches of wrought iron; at 3000 yds the new 13.5 in can penetrate 2(5 inches of Krnpp steel, which is equal to 78 inches of wrought iron. At a range of six miles the new gun can break through armor which the guns of fifty years ago could barely have dented at the muzzle.

Needless to say, armor has improved as well as the gun. the one having urged on the other. In fact, it is the competition between these two, representing the attack and the defence, which has been responsible for practically the whole of the increase in tonnage. From the Warrior to the Dreadnought the percentage of displacement accounted for by the guns increased from 13.5 to 18, and by the armor from 14.1 to 28; so that these two elements now absorb almost a half of the full displacement of the ship. The. resisting power of armor, however, has not increased as rapidly as the attacking power of the gun. Our early ironclads were protected by wrought iron. This was succeeded in the eighties by compound armor —wrought iron with a face of hardened steel. Then came H.'irveyed steel in 1893, and, four years later, Krupp steel, which is now almost universally used, the only notable exception being Italy. Krupp steel is equal to about three times its thickness of wrought iron; but it will have to be seen from the figures already given that the power of the gun has increased considerably more than three times since the days of wrought iron. It is interesting to note that out of the 180 ironclad ships that will have been launched for the Navy by the end of this year, 128 still may be found in the Navy List. The total expenditure on the Navy in the ironclad era amounts to £950,497,504 and the total tonnage of the armored ships launched from 1860 to the end of the present, year is 2,217,854.