Navy (1860)

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Navy, a collective term for the vessels of war belonging to a sovereign or nation. The war fleets of the ancients, though often numerous, were insignificant when compared with those of the present day, in regard to the size of the ships, their powers of locomotion, and their aptitude for offence. The sea-going vessels of Phoenicia and Carthage, of Greece and Rome, were flatbottomed barges, unable to live in a gale of wind; sea room, in a squall, was destruction to them; they crept along the coasts, casting anchor at night in some cove or creek. To cross over from Greece to Italy, or from Africa to Sicily, was a dangerous operation. The ships, unfit to carry the press of sail to which our modern men-of-war are accustomed, were provided with but little canvas; the oars were relied upon to propel them sluggishly through the waves. The compass had not yet been discovered; latitudes and longitudes were unknown; and landmarks and the pole star were the only guides in navigation. The implements for offensive warfare were equally inefficient. Bows and arrows, javelins, clumsy ballistas and catapults, were the only arms that could be used at a distance. No serious harm could be done to an enemy at sea until the two fighting ships came into actual contact. Thus, there were but two modes of naval fighting possible: to manoeuvre so that the sharp, strong, iron-pointed prow of your own ship should be driven with full force against the enemy’s broadside in order to run him down; or else to run on broadside to broadside, fasten the two ships together, and board the enemy at once. After the first Punic war, which destroyed the naval superiority of the Carthaginians,⁴⁰⁰ there is not a single naval engagement in ancient history offering the slightest professional interest, and Roman dominion soon put an end to the possibility of further naval contests in the Mediterranean.

The real birthplace of our modern navies is the German ocean. About the time when the great mass of the Teutonic tribes of central Europe rose to trample down the decaying Roman empire and to regenerate western Europe, their brethren on the northern shores, the Frisians, Saxons, Angles, Danes, and Northmen, began to take to the sea. Their vessels were firm, stout sea boats, with a prominent keel and sharp lines, relying mostly on sails alone, and not afraid to face a gale in the middle of that rough northern sea. It was with this class of vessels that the Anglo-Saxons passed from the mouths of the Elbe and Eider to the shores of Britain, and that the Northmen undertook their roving expeditions, extending to Constantinople on the one side and America on the other. With the construction of ships that dared cross the Atlantic, navigation underwent a complete revolution; and before the middle ages had passed away, the new sharp-bottomed sea boats had been adopted on all the coasts of Europe. The vessels in which the Northmen made their excursions were probably of no very large size, perhaps not exceeding 100 tons burden in any case, and carrying one or at the outside two masts, fore-and-aft rigged.

For a long time both ship building and navigation appear to have remained stationary; during the whole of the middle ages vessels were small,- and the bold spirit of the Northmen and the Frisians had passed away; whatever improvements were made were owing to Italians and Portuguese, who now became the boldest sailors. The Portuguese discovered the route by sea to India; two Italians in foreign service, Columbus and Cabot, were the first since the times of Leif the Northman to cross the Atlantic. Long sea voyages now became a necessity, and they required large ships; at the same time the necessity of arming vessels of war and even merchantmen with heavy artillery, equally tended to increase size and tonnage. The same causes which had produced standing armies on land, now produced standing navies afloat; and it is from this time only that we can properly speak of navies. The era of colonial enterprise which now opened for all seafaring nations, also witnessed the formation of large fleets of war to protect the newly formed colonies and their trade; and a period followed richer in naval struggles and more fruitful to the development of naval armaments than any that preceded it.

The foundation of the British navy was laid by Henry VII, who built the first ship called The Great Harry. His successor formed a regular standing fleet, the property of the state, the largest ship of which was called the Henry Grace de Dieu. This vessel, the largest ever built up to that time, carried 80 guns, partly on two regular flush gun decks, partly on additional platforms both forward and astern. She was provided with 4 masts; her tonnage is variously stated at from 1,000 to 1,500. The whole of the British fleet, at the death of Henry VIII, consisted of about 50 sail, with an aggregate tonnage of 12,000, and manned by 8,000 sailors and marines. The large ships of the period were clumsy contrivances, deep-waisted, that is to say, provided with towering forecastles and poops, which rendered them exceedingly top-heavy. The next large ship we hear of is the Sovereign of the Seas, afterward called the Royal Sovereign, built in 1637. She is the first vessel of whose armament we get something like an accurate account. She had 3 flush decks, a forecastle, a half deck, a quarter deck, and a round house; on her lower deck she carried 30 guns, 42 and 32-pounders; 30 on her middle deck, 18 and 9-pounders; on her upper deck 26 lighter guns, probably 6 and 3-pounders. Beside these, she carried 20 chase guns and 26 guns on her forecastle and half deck. But on her regular home establishment this armament was reduced to 100 guns, the full complement being evidently too much for her. As to the smaller vessels, our information is very scanty.

In 1651 the navy was classed in 6 rates; but beside them there continued to exist numerous classes of unrated ships, such as shallops, hulks, and later bombs, sloops, fire ships, and yachts. In 1677 we find a list of the whole English navy; according to which, the largest first rate three-decker carried 26 42-pdrs., 28 24-pdrs., 28 9-pdrs., 14 6-pdrs., and 4 3-pdrs.; and the smallest two-decker (fifth rate) carried 18 18-pdrs., 8 6-pdrs., and 4 4-pdrs., or 30 guns in all. The whole fleet consisted of 129 vessels. In 1714, we find 198 vessels; in 1727, 178; and in 1744, 128. Afterward, as the number of vessels increases, their size also gets larger, and the heaviness of the armament is augmented with the tonnage.

The first English ship answering to our modern frigate was built by Sir Robert Dudley, as early as the end of the 16th century; but it was not till fully 80 years later that this class of ships, first used by the southern European nations, was generally adopted in the British navy. The particular fast-sailing qualities of frigates were little understood, for some time, in England. British ships were generally overgunned, so that their lower ports were but 3 feet from the water’s edge, and could not be opened in a rough sea, and the sailing capacities of the vessels were also greatly impaired. Both the Spaniards and the French allowed more tonnage in proportion to the number of guns; the consequence was that their ships could carry heavier caliber and more stores, had more buoyancy, and were better sailers. The English frigates of the first half of the 18th century carried as many as 44 guns, of 9, 12, and a few of 18 lbs. caliber, with a tonnage of about 710. By 1780 frigates of 38 guns (mostly 18-pdrs.) and of 946 tons were built; the improvement here is obvious. The French frigates of the same epoch, with a similar armament, averaged 100 tons more. About the same time (the middle of the 18th century) the smaller men-of-war were more accurately classed in the modern way as corvettes, brigs, brigantines, and schooners.

In 1779 a piece of ordnance was invented (probably by the British Gen. Melville) which changed to a great extent the armaments of most navies. It was a very short gun, with a large caliber, approaching in its shape a howitzer, but intended to throw solid shot, with small charges, at short ranges. From these guns being first manufactured by the Carron iron company, in Scotland, they were called carronades. The shot from this gun, useless at long ranges, had fearful effects upon timber at close quarters; from its reduced velocity (by the reduced charge), it made a larger hole, shattered the timber far more, and made numerous and more dangerous splinters. The comparative lightness of the guns, too, made it easy to find room for a few of them on the quarter deck and forecastle of vessels; and as early as 1781 there were 429 ships in the British navy provided with from 6 to 10 carronades over and above their regular complement of guns. In reading the accounts of naval engagements during the French and American wars, it should be borne in mind that the British never include the carronades in the number of guns given as a ship’s complement: so that, for instance, a British frigate, stated to be a 36-gun frigate, may in reality have carried 42 or more guns, including the carronades. The superior weight of metal which the carronades gave to the British broadsides, helped to decide many an action fought at close quarters during the war of the French revolution. But after all, carronades were merely a makeshift to increase the strength of the comparatively small-sized men-of-war of 80 years ago. As soon as the size of the ships was increased for 368 Frederick Engels each rating, they were again cast aside, and are now comparatively superseded.

In this particular, the construction of men-of-war, the French and Spaniards were decidedly ahead of the English. Their ships were larger and designed with far better lines than the British; their frigates especially were superior both in size and sailing qualities; and for many years the English frigates were copied from the French frigate Hebe, captured in 1782. In the same proportion as the vessels were lengthened, the high towering erections at the bow and stern, the forecastles, quarter decks, and poops, were reduced in height, the sailing qualities of the ships being increased thereby; so that gradually the comparatively elegant and swift-sailing lines of the present men-of-war came to be adopted. Instead of increasing the number of guns to these larger ships, the caliber was increased, and so were the weight and length of each gun, in order to admit of the use of full charges, and to receive the greatest point-blank range, so as to allow of the fire being opened at long distances. The small calibers below 24 lbs. disappeared from the larger vessels, and the remaining calibers were simplified, so as to have no more than two calibers, or at the outside three, on board of any one vessel. In ships of the line, the lower deck, being the strongest, was armed with guns of the same caliber as the upper decks, but of greater length and weight, in order to have at least one tier of guns available for the greatest possible range.

About 1820 the French Gen. Paixhans made an invention which has been of great importance in naval armaments. He constructed a gun of large caliber provided with a narrow chamber at the breech for the insertion of the powder, and began to fire hollow shot, at low elevations, from these “shell guns” (canons obusiers). Hitherto hollow shot had been fired against ships from howitzers in shore batteries only; though in Germany the practice of firing shell horizontally from short 24-lb. and even 12-lb. guns had been long in use against fortifications. The destructive effects of shells against the wooden sides of vessels were well known to Napoleon, who at Boulogne⁴⁰¹ armed most of his gun boats for the expedition to England with howitzers, and laid it down as a rule that ships must be attacked with projectiles which will burst after hitting. Now, Paixhans’ shell guns gave the means of arming ships with cannon which, by throwing their shells as nearly as possible horizontally, could be used at sea, ship against ship, with nearly the same probability of hitting as the old round-shot guns. The new gun was soon introduced into all navies, and, after undergoing various improvements, now constitutes an essential portion of the armament of all large men-of-war.

Shortly afterward the first attempts were made to apply steam to the propulsion of ships of war, as it had already been applied by Fulton to that of commercial vessels. The progress from the river steamer to the coasting steamer, and gradually to the ocean steamer, was slow; in the same ratio was the progress of war steamers retarded. As long as paddle boats were the only steamers in existence, this was justifiable. The paddles and part of the engine were exposed to the enemy’s shot, and could be disabled by a single lucky hit; they took up the best portion of the broadside room of the vessel; and the weight of engine, paddles, and coal so much reduced the capacity of the ship, that a heavy armament of numerous long guns was entirely out of the question. A paddle steamer, therefore, could never be a ship of the line; but its superior speed might permit it to compete with frigates, which are expected to hover on the flanks of an enemy, to collect the fruits of a victory, or to cover a retreat. Now a frigate has just the size and armament which enable it to go fearlessly on any independent roving errand, while its superior sailing qualities enable it to withdraw in time from an unequal contest. The sailing qualities of any frigate were far outstripped by the steamer; but without a good armament the steamer could not fulfil its mission. Regular broadside fighting was out of the question; the number of guns must, for want of space, be always inferior to that of a sailing frigate. Here, if anywhere, the shell gun was in its place. The diminished number of guns on board a steam frigate was counterbalanced by their weight of metal and caliber. Originally these guns were intended to throw shells only, but recently they have been made so heavy, especially the chase guns (at the bow and stern of the vessel), that they can, with full charges, throw solid shot also to considerable distances. Moreover, the reduced number of guns admits of traversing platforms and railways being laid down on the deck, by means of which all or most of the guns can be brought to bear in almost any direction; a provision by which the strength of a steam frigate for an attack is nearly doubled, and a 20-gun steam frigate can bring at least as many guns into action as a 40-gun sailing frigate with but 18 working guns for each single broadside. Thus the large modern paddlesteamer frigate is a most formidable ship; the superior caliber and range of her guns, added to her velocity, enable her to cripple an opponent at a distance where scarcely any effective return of fire is possible to the sailing vessel; while the weight of her metal comes in with crushing power when it is to her advantage finally to force the fighting. Still the disadvantage remains that her whole motive force is exposed to direct fire, and offers a large object to aim at.

For smaller vessels, corvettes, advice boats and other light craft, not counting in a naval battle, but very useful throughout a campaign, steam was at once found of great advantage, and there were many such paddle boats constructed in most navies. It was the same with transport ships. Where landings were intended, steamers not only reduced the length of passage to a minimum, but permitted one to calculate to a moral certainty the time of arrival at any given place. The transport of bodies of troops was now made a matter of great simplicity, especially as every naval country had a large fleet of commercial steamers to fall back upon for transport vessels in case of necessity. It was on these considerations that Prince de Joinville, in his well known pamphlet, ventured to maintain that steam had altered the condition of naval warfare to such an extent as to render an invasion of England by France no longer an impossibility.⁴⁰² Still, so long as the ships used for decisive action, the ships of the line, remained exclusively sailing vessels, the introduction of steam could work but little change in the conditions under which great naval battles were fought.

The invention of the screw propeller was destined to supply the means of revolutionizing naval warfare entirely, and to transform all war fleets into steam fleets. It was fully 13 years after the invention of the screw before the first step in this direction was made. The French, always superior to the English in naval design and construction, were the first to do it. Finally in 1849 the French engineer Dupuy-Delôme constructed the first screw line-of-battle ship, the Napoléon, of 100 guns and 600 horse power. This ship was not intended to depend upon steam only; unlike the paddles, the screw allowed a ship to retain all the lines and rigging of a sailing vessel, and to be moved, at will, by steam alone, by sails alone, or by both combined. She could, therefore, always save her coal for emergencies by having recourse to her sails, and was thus far less dependent upon the proximity of coaling stations than the old paddle-wheel steamer. On this account, and because her steam power was too weak to give her the full speed of a paddle steamer, the Napoléon and other vessels of this class were called auxiliary steam vessels; since then, however, ships of the line have been constructed which have steam power enough to give them all the speed of which the screw propeller is capable. The success of the Napoléon soon caused screw ships of the line to be built both in France and England. The Russian war gave a new impulse to this radical change in naval construction; and when it was found that most strong-built ships of the line could, without too much difficulty, be fitted with a screw and engines, the transformation of all navies into steam fleets became only a matter of time. No large naval power now thinks of constructing any more large sailing vessels; almost all ships newly laid down are screw steamers, excepting the few paddle steamers which for certain purposes are still required; and before 1870 sailing ships of war will be almost as completely antiquated as the spinning wheel and the smoothbore musket are now.

The Crimean war called into existence two new naval constructions. The first of these is the steam gun boat or mortar boat, originally constructed by the English for the contemplated attack on Cronstadt; it is a small vessel drawing from 4 to 7 feet of water, and armed with one or two heavy long-range guns or a heavy mortar; the former to be used in shallow and intricate waters generally, the latter in the bombardment, from a long distance, of fortified naval arsenals. They answered exceedingly well, and will no doubt play an important part in future naval campaigns. The mortar boat, as proved at Sveaborg,⁴⁰³ totally alters the relations of attack and defence between fortresses and ships, by giving the ships that power of bombarding the former with impunity which they never before possessed; at 3,000 yards, from which the shells of the mortar boats can hit an object as large as a town, they are themselves quite secure from their smallness of surface. The gun boats, on the contrary, when acting in concert with coast batteries, will strengthen the defence, and will also provide naval warfare with those light skirmishers which were hitherto wanting to it.

The second innovation is the iron-sided, shot-proof floating batteries, first constructed by the French, for the attack of coast defences. They were tried at Kinburn only, and their success, even against the rickety parapets and rusty cannon of that little place, was not so very signal.⁴⁰⁴

Still, the French appeared to be so well satisfied with them, that they have gone on ever since experimenting upon steel-plated vessels. They have constructed gun boats with a kind of shot-proof steel parapet on the forecastle, which shelters the gun and its crew; but if the floating batteries were unwieldy and had to be towed, these gun boats always had their heads in the water and were not at all seaworthy. They have however produced a steel-plated steam frigate called La Gloire, which is said to be shot-proof, of very good speed, and quite capable of living in a gale. The most exaggerated statements are made with regard to the probable revolution these shot-proof frigates will create in naval warfare. We are told that ships of the line are antiquated, and that the power to decide great naval actions has passed over to these frigates with a single battery of guns, covered in shot-proof on all sides, against which no wooden three-decker can stand. This is not the place to argue these questions; but we may observe that it is far easier to invent and put on board ship rifled artillery heavy enough to smash iron or steel plates, than it is to construct vessels cased with metal thick enough to withstand the shot or shell from these guns. As to the Gloire, it is not certain after all that she is fit to live in a gale, and from her incapacity for holding coal it is said that she cannot keep the sea under steam for more than 3 days. What her British competitor, the Warrior, will do, remains to be seen. No doubt, by reducing the armament and coal, and by altering the mode of construction, it may be possible to render a ship entirely shot-proof at long and medium ranges, and a fair steamer; but in an age when the science of artillery makes such rapid strides, it is very doubtful whether such ships will be worth constructing in the long run⁴⁰⁵.

The revolution in artillery which the rifled gun is now effecting appears to be a far more important matter for naval warfare than any thing that can be effected by steel-plated ships. Every rifled gun that deserves the name gives such a precision at long ranges that the ancient inefficiency of naval firing at such ranges appears to be fast becoming a matter of the past. Moreover, the rifled cannon, by admitting elongated shot and reduced charges, allows a considerable reduction in the bore and weight of broadside guns; or otherwise, the bore remaining the same, gives results far greater. The elongated shot from a 56 cwt. rifled 32-pounder will surpass the round shot from a 113 cwt. smooth-bore 10-inch gun, not only in weight, but also in penetration, range, and precision. The power of attack of every vessel is at least tripled if it be armed with rifled ordnance. Moreover, the great desideratum has always been to invent a useful percussion shell which should explode the very moment it penetrates a ship’s side. The rotation of round shot has rendered this impracticable; the percussion fuze was not always in the proper position when the shell struck, and then it did not go off. But an elongated shot from a rifled cannon, rotating round its longitudinal axis, must always strike head foremost; and a simple percussion cap on the fuze head bursts the shell the moment it enters the ship’s side. It is not probable that any steel-clad ship yet invented can brave two such broadsides from a two-decker with impunity; not to speak of the shells which enter the ports and must explode between decks. Rifled ordnance must to a great degree put a stop to such close-fought actions as were those in which carronades could be useful; manoeuvring will once more regain the ascendant; and as steam now makes the contending vessels independent of wind and tide, naval warfare will in future much more approach the method and be subject to the tactics of land battles.

The vessels of war of which modern navies are composed are classed in various ratings, from first to sixth rates; but as these ratings are both variable and arbitrary, it will be better to class them in the common way as ships of the line, frigates, sloops, brigs, schooners, &c. Ships of the line are the largest men-of-war afloat, destined to form the line of battle in a general action, and to decide the struggle by the weight of metal thrown into the enemy’s ships. They are either 3-deckers or 2-deckers; that is to say, they have either 3 or 2 covered decks armed with guns. These decks are called the lower, middle, and main or upper deck. The upper deck, which was formerly covered in at the quarter deck and forecastle only, is now covered in by a continuous open deck from stem to stern. This open deck, which is still called the quarter deck and forecastle (the position amidships being called the gangway), also carries artillery, mostly carronades; so that in reality a 2-decker carries 3, and a 3-decker 4 tiers of guns. The heaviest guns are, of course, placed on the lower deck; and the guns become lighter in proportion as the batteries are more elevated above the water. The caliber being mostly the same, this is obtained by reducing the weight of the guns themselves, in consequence of which those on the upper decks can only stand reduced charges, which implies that they can be used only at shorter ranges. The only exception to this rule is in the case of chase guns, which are placed at the bow and stern of a ship, and which, even if placed on the forecastle or quarter deck, are still as long and heavy as possible, as they are required to act at the longest ranges practicable. Thus, the bow and stern guns of English ships of the line are composed either of 8 or 10-inch shell guns, or of 56-pdr. (bore 7.7 inches) or 68-pdr. (bore 8.13 inches) solid shot guns, one of which is placed on the forecastle on a traversing platform. There are in the English navy generally 6 stern and 5 bow guns to a first rate; the remaining armament of such a ship is as follows:

Position.	Description.	W’ght.	Length.	No.
Lower deck........	8-inch shell guns.	65 cwt.	9 ft. 0 in.	4
Lower deck........	32-pounder guns.	56 cwt.	9 6	28
Middle deck	8-inch shell guns.	65 cwt.	9 0	2
Middle deck	32-pounder guns.	50 cwt.	9 0	32
Upper deck	32-pounder guns.	42 cwt.	8 0	34
Forecastle and	32-pounder guns.	45 cwt.	8 6	6
quarter deck	32-pounder carronades	17 cwt.	4 0	14
Total	.............	..........	..............	120

The armament of the smaller ratings of vessels of the line is arranged upon the same principle. For the sake of comparison, we also give that of a French first rate, viz.: lower deck, 32 long 30-lb. guns; middle deck, 4 80-lb. shell guns, and 30 short 30-lb. guns; upper deck, 34 30-lb. shell guns; forecastle and quarter deck, 4 30-lb. shell guns, and 16 30-lb. carronades; in all, 120 guns. The French 80-lb. shell gun has a larger bore than the 8-inch English gun by 0.8 inch; the 30-lb. shell gun and the 30-lb. gun have a slightly larger bore than the English 32-pdr., so that the advantage of weight of metal would lie with the French. The smallest ship of the line now carries 72 guns; the largest frigate carries 61.

A frigate is a ship with only one covered deck carrying guns, and another open deck above it (forecastle and quarter deck) which is equally provided with guns. The armament, in the English service, is generally of 30 guns (either all shell guns or part shell guns and part long 32-pdrs.) on the gun deck, and 30 short 32-pdrs. on the forecastle and quarter deck, with a heavy pivot gun on a traversing platform at the bow. Frigates being mostly sent on detached service, where they are always likely to become engaged single-handed against hostile frigates sent on the same errand, it has been a great point with most naval nations to make them as large and powerful as possible. In no class of vessels is the increase in size so remarkable as in this. The United States, requiring a cheap navy strong enough to enforce respect, were the first to see the great advantage to be drawn from a fleet of large frigates, each of them superior to any frigate which other nations could bring against it. The superiority of the American ship builders in producing swift vessels was also taken advantage of, and the last war against England (1812-T4)⁴⁰⁶ showed in many well contested engagements what formidable antagonists these American frigates were. Up to the present day the U.S. frigates are considered models of this class of vessels, although the difference in size when compared with other navies is not by far so marked as it was 30 or 40 years ago.

The next class of men-of-war are called corvettes. They have but one tier of guns, placed on an open deck; but the larger class are provided with a forecastle and quarter deck (not connected, however, by a continuous deck amidships), where they carry a few guns more. Such corvettes, therefore, almost correspond to what a frigate was 80 years ago, before the two elevated extremities of the vessel were connected by a flush deck. These corvettes are still strong enough to carry the same caliber of guns as the larger vessels. They also carry 3 masts, all square-rigged. Of smaller vessels, brigs and schooners carry from 20 guns to 6. They have but two masts, square-rigged in brigs, fore-and-aft rigged in schooners. The caliber of their guns is necessarily smaller than that of the larger ships, and does not generally exceed 18 or 24-pdrs. going down as low as 12 and 9-pdrs. Vessels of this small power of offence cannot be sent where serious resistance is anticipated. In European waters they are becoming generally superseded by small steamers, and they can be of actual service only on such coasts as those of South America, China, &cvwhere they have to meet powerless antagonists, and where they merely serve to represent the flag of a powerful naval nation.

The armaments given above are merely those adopted at present, but they will undoubtedly be changed in every respect during the next 10 years by the general adoption of rifled ship guns⁴⁰⁷.