152 



NA TURE 



[December 14, 1893 



questionable. With regard to the first, it is pointed out 

 that the ram-bow of the h'on Duke drove the armour of 

 the Vanguard bodily inwards more than a foot. The 

 armour of the Va77guard was, however, only 6 to 8 

 inches thick, while the force of the blow with which she 

 was struck is said to have been two-thirds of that 

 delivered to the Victoria. The armour at the point 

 where the Victoria was struck would have been 15 

 or 16 inches thick if she had been fitted with an armour- 

 helt, while the energy of the blow delivered to her is 

 stated to have been "about the muzzle energy of a 12- 

 inch 45-ton B.L. R. gun, the estimated perforation of its 

 projectile being about 22^ inches of wrought-iron armour." 

 The armour of the Victoria was not, however, of wrought 

 iron, bv(t of iron faced with steel, on the " compound " 

 principle, which offers much greater resistance to 

 penetration than wrought iron. 



Seeing that the depth of the armour- belt would 

 be 7 to 8 feet, and its thickness 15 or 16 inches ; 

 and that the projectile referred to, whose energy is about 

 equal to that of the blow delivered to the Victoria, 

 only succeeds in penetrating the plate by concentrating 

 its whole effect upon an area 12 inches in diameter, 

 it does not appear that the armour ought to suffer much 

 from a blow distributed over so much greater an area. 

 The armour of the Vanguard was driven in because the 

 supports in its rear were not strong enough to resist the 

 blow. In our present ships the top of the armour-belt 

 comes against the edge of a protective deck, which is 2^ 

 or 3 inches thick, and could well be supported and con- 

 nected to it in such a manner as to effectually resist 

 being driven inwards ; and it appears to be mainly a ques- 

 tion of fitting a similar bearing at the bottom of the 

 armour, in connection with the armour-shelf, to furnish 

 sufficient resistance at the lower edge. Such an arrange- 

 ment for supporting the armour would not be difficult to 

 devise ; and it does not appear impossible to thus con- 

 struct an armour-bolt, in a ship like the Victoria, that 

 would resist being driven in by such a blow as she re- 

 ceived ; and would do so without necessarily causing the 

 water-tightness of the bulkheads, &c. adjacent to the 

 place where the blow was struck, to be destroyed by the 

 shock of the collision. The fact is that armour-belts 

 have usually been arranged exclusively for keeping out 

 projectiles Iromguns, and not with the view of resisting i 

 ramming. Had the latter been regarded as an import- 

 ant function for armour-plating to perform, the lower 

 edge of armour, which would receive the fiist force of the 

 blow in many cases, would have been supported in the 

 rear better than it now is, and probably somewhat in the 

 manner indicated. 



The second assumption upon which the opinion that 

 an armour-belt would have been useless is based is that, 

 by preventing the Camperdown from penetrating so far 

 as she did into the interior of the Victoria, there would 

 have been serious tearing of the bottom abaft the breach 

 as the ships got clear of each other. In support of this 

 it is stated that the bow of the Kotiig A'ilhelm tore open 

 the bottom of the Grosser Kurjiirstiox some distance abaft 

 the first breach, owing to the speed with which the latter 

 vessel tried to cross ahead of her. This tearing action 

 would depend very much, however, upon whether the 

 point of the ram would have penetrated far enough into the 

 bottom below the armour-belt to keep the ships together 

 for a sutticient time, and it is quite likely that it would. 

 Anyhow, it is impossible to say what depth of penetra- 

 tion would be necessary for this purpose, ebpecially as 

 the ram bows of ships by which a British vessel might 

 be attacked are very different in length and form ; and 

 it seems a doubtful process of reasoning which leads to the 

 result that the great depth to which the side of the 

 Victoria was penetrated might not have been con- 

 siderably reduced with advantage. 



NO. 



1259. VOL. 49] 



But the objections that have been made to leaving so 

 great a length at the ends of a battleship without armour 

 are not, as we have said, with reference to their being 

 rammed, but because of the damage to which they are 

 thus exposed by gun-fire. The results of the Admiralty 

 calculations show that the eftect of gun-fire upon the un- 

 armoured ends of such ships as the Victoria might be 

 very serious. We are informed by Mr. White that the 

 Victoria, as she was at the time of the collision, would 

 change her trinr 3 feet by the bow in consequence of no 

 tonsloss of buoyancy above the protective deck. It follows, 

 therefore, that if the whole of the compartments above the 

 protective deck were penetrated so as to admit water, there 

 would be a loss of buoyancy sufficient to change her trim 

 fully 5 feet by the head. The change of trim and extra mean 

 immersion thus caused by the loss of buoyancy would 

 bring the top of the armour-belt close to the water-line 

 at its fore end ; and the slightest inclination would 

 then be sufficient to immerse the fore end of the armour- 

 belt on its inclined side. Perforation of the thin side 

 plating at this point above the armour would thus admit 

 water into the ship over the top of the armour-belt, and 

 lead to a growing loss of buoyancy and stability, both 

 transverse and longitudinal, which would soon place the 

 vessel in a perilous position. The destruction of such a 

 ship does not thus appear very difficult by the large rapid- 

 firing guns that are carried in cruisers and in the secondary 

 batteries of battleships. These guns, firing twelve to 

 twenty projectiles of 6 inches and 45 inches diameter, 

 per minute could be aimed with great precision at the 

 water-line of a ship, and would very soon cause the 

 whole of the thin partitions in the unarmoured ends to 

 be penetrated through and through, and admit water 

 freely into the whole of the compartments. If the vessel 

 thus attacked were steaming ahead, at the slowest speed 

 possible, the additional water that would thus be forced 

 in would greatly increase the change of trim, and it 

 would only be necessary to follow up the process of 

 aiming at the water-line along the fore end, and over the 

 top, of the armour-belt in order to soon disable or sink 

 her. 



The foregoing considerations may suffice to show that 

 we see no sufficient grounds for believing the Admiralty 

 to be right in the assertion that the absence of an 

 armour-belt at the bow had no influence upon the final 

 result of the collision in the case of the Victoria ; still 

 less that an armour-belt could not be made more effective 

 than it now is against the attack of a ram ; and still less, 

 again, that an armour-belt of sufficient length to furnish 

 all the buoyancy and stability necessary for safety would 

 not afford a most powerful protection to a battleship 

 against the destructive effects of the present rapid 

 gun-fire. 



The sufficiency of the stability possessed by the ship. — 

 The Admiralty say "the capsizing of the Victoria, under 

 the special circumstances described, does not suggest 

 any insufficiency of stability in the design of that vessel. 

 The provision made was ample for all requirements. 

 When fully laden and in sea-going trim the metacentric 

 height was 5 feet, stability reached its ma.\imum at an 

 angle of 345 degrees to the vertical, and the range of 

 stability was 674 degrees." It will be observed that it is 

 only the stability that would be possessed when the hull 

 of the ship is absolutely intact that is here spoken of; 

 and it is doubtless sufficient for that condition, and would 

 enable the vessel to take considerable quantities of water 

 on board without'danger. This is not a point, however, 

 which has great practical importance in connection with 

 actual fighting requirements. In order to judge of the 

 sufficiency of the stability under ordinary fighting con- 

 ditions it is necessary to know what it would be when 

 the thinly-plated ends and compartments outside the 

 armour-belt are penetrated by projectiles. This is a 



