60

THE "INFLEXIBLE" AND HER ARMAMENT.

BY A. HILLIARD ATTERIDGE.

[PLATE CXXXI.]

THE

THE old type of man-of-war is now fast becoming a thing of the past. The splendid three-deckers and swift-sailing frigates that carried our flag to victory in the days of Jarvis and Nelson, or that only twenty years ago engaged the sea-forts of Sebastopol and blockaded the Baltic shores of Russia, will soon be as obsolete as the triremes of ancient Rome and the "tall galleons" of the times of the Armada. Already they have disappeared from the line of battle, and are relegated to the humble position of guardships at our home ports or cruisers on distant stations, where their most serious enterprises are the bombardment of a village or the capture of a slaver. One by one they are con'demned and broken up, and no new ships are laid down to replace them; and already we can anticipate the time when perhaps the sole representative of the grand old floating fortresses, that once formed our great unarmoured fleet, will be Nelson's ship, the Victory, lying at her moorings in Portsmouth harbour like some war-worn veteran of Greenwich or Chelsea whose fighting days are over, and who is spending his old age in honourable retirement.

The modern man of war is much more than an armed steamer. She is herself a great engine of destruction, provided with huge guns, clad in heavy armour, driven by powerful engines, and able to send an adversary to the bottom by one successful blow of her enormous bow. Year by year the thickness of armour and the weight of naval artillery go on increasing together: mechanical appliances have more and more replaced manual labour both in the dockyard and on shipboard; and at the same. time the form of the ships themselves has been carefully adapted to the work they have to do and the conditions under which they must act. Our first great ironclad, the Warrior, was only an ordinary war-steamer very incompletely protected with armour,

but quite sufficiently to resist the guns afloat in foreign navies at the time. Her armour was only 4 inches thick, her heaviest guns were 68-pounders, weighing 95 cwt. Her immense length of 380 feet was exceeded by that of the Minotaur and her sister ship the Northumberland; but it was found that these long ships were not well adapted for manoeuvring in line of battle, and later ironclads were made gradually broader in the beam, and shorter in the length from stem to stern. At the same time various minor improvements were introduced into the build, the most important of which was the change of the old oblique projecting bow into the almost perpendicular "swan-breasted" shape, which is substantially the same as that of the present running-down bow or ram. The armour was no longer restricted to the midship portion of our war ships; it was extended fore and aft, until they were completely covered above water and a few feet below it. The weight of the guns steadily increased, and with it the thickness of armour, while turrets and the tripod system of rigging were employed to give a concentration of fire on any desired point. The Bellerophon, with 12-ton guns, was given 6-inch armour; the Hercules, with 18-ton guns, armour of 9 inches; the Devastation carries 35-ton guns and armour of 12 inches on her sides, and 14 on her turrets; and the Inflexible, now building at Portsmouth, will have armour two feet thick and four 81-ton guns.

This turret ship is remarkable as the highest development of the modern fighting ship-for that is the best way to describe her. The navies of Europe are fast being divided into ships for coast defence, for cruising, and for action in line of battle in great naval engagements; and while fully available for the first of these purposes, the real object of the Inflexible is the last. There cannot be a doubt that she will be the most powerful man-of-war ever launched, though he would be a rash prophet that would predict that she will not ere long be left behind in the race of improvement by some still more formidable turret ship.

The Inflexible will be 320 feet long on the water-line, and will have a breadth of beam of 75 feet. The hull will consist of two parts the main substructure and the upper portion; the former being an iron hull, no part of which will be less than six or seven feet under water. It will be built with a ram-bow and provided at the stern with a rudder and a pair of twin screws. On this is erected the armoured central or fighting portion of the ship, which will have a height of 10 feet above the waterline, and will be 110 feet long. Upon its deck will be the two turrets, each armed with a pair of 81-ton guns. At both ends of this midship section rises a lighter structure of the same height, but having along its centre, running fore and aft, deck

houses 10 feet long and 30 feet wide (Fig. 1, Pl. CXXXI.). The deck-houses being prolonged to the bow and stern, will give a poop and a forecastle for working the anchors twenty feet above the water. A broad bridge passing over the turret-deck will connect them, and thus give an even upper deck 30 feet wide and more than 300 feet long, extending from stem to stern. The position of the turrets in the Inflexible has been made the subject of a novel arrangement. They are placed at each end of the central deck-not in an even line with each other, but diagonally at opposite corners of it, so that one turret is on the starboard and the other on the port side. The effect of this arrangement is that all the four guns have an uninterrupted range of fire all round the horizon. In firing ahead or astern the guns are trained so as to send their shot over the level portions of the deck on either side of the deck-houses (Fig. 1). In firing to starboard the port turret unites its fire with that of the starboard turret by aiming under the bridge, and vice versa. Thus while in all our other double-turreted ships there is a fire of four guns on either beam, but of only two guns ahead or astern, the Inflexible will be able to direct her four guns at an object any direction with respect to herself. The ship will have two or three masts, jury-rigged; none of the stays or running rigging will be brought down to the lower deck so as to interrupt the fire of the guns, all the working of the ship being carried on on the upper platform. Thus, by a simple and novel arrangement, the turret-system has been brought to what we may call perfection.

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The Inflexible will have four sets of engines, with an aggregate of 7,000 horse power. Her full speed, with both screws going, will be 14 knots an hour; but on ordinary occasions she will be able to economise fuel by working only one screw and its engines. At the speed of 10 knots an hour she will be able to carry coals for a cruise of 3,000 knots, or twelve and a half days, which is about the average coal-carrying power of the best ships of our ironclad fleet. She will also be able to use some auxiliary sail-power; and, independent of this, her try-sails will be valuable in steadying her, and keeping her head to the wind in heavy weather.

Only the central portion of the ship and the two turrets will be armoured, the former with two feet, the latter with a foot and a half of armour, for even if the lightly built ends were riddled with shot, the ship would still keep afloat. In these ends are the coal-bunkers; when full it would make very little difference even if water got in among the coal, and when they are empty the ship would be much lighter, and have more floating power. But whether empty or not, the ends will not be wholly unprotected. A narrow passage will lead round them at