One of the issues in studying history is where the public romanticization does not line up with the historical documentation or facts and how to navigate making that argument. In fact this is perhaps the primary function of historians. One of my favourite papers (with perhaps the coolest title I’ve come up with up to date) is on naval combat in World War One.
To set the stage for this, at this time is the rise of large Iron-hulled (Often understood as Ironclads) ships with ever increasingly large naval cannons and in response ever increasingly thick iron plating. Navies which stayed within the age of Wood and Sail were rendered entirely obsolete with the introduction of Ironclads first seen in the American Civil War with the legendary duel of the USS Monitor and the CSS Merrimack (Virginia) in which slugged at each other for hours without so much as any indication of serious damage on either side. This leads into the Spanish-American War in which American Ironclads after being barraged at for a number of hours by the Spanish Pacific Squadron was scuttled decisively by American Ironclads. Were one to be an observer in this transformative point in naval history might assume that the Ironclad was the new age of naval warfare which would become the new propogation of military strength by western powers, but it ended almost as abruptly as it started. Of course we still see the large destroyer battleships and such, but the larger emphasis by many military powers starting from the Second World War is actually on the Aircraft Carrier, not the battleship or destroyer.
The naval arms race effectively rendered the naval arms race obsolete in itself. As guns got bigger, armor got bigger, as armor got bigger, guns got bigger. The culmination was the Battle of Jutlands in World War One in the largest naval engagement in the 20th century. These massive ships slugged at each other, unable to penetrate each other’s armor and the battleship that Britain lost was not due to hostile fire, but often theorized as the mishandling of munitions for increased rate of fire which led to an internal powder explosion on the ship. These ships could fire at extraordinary ranges, engaging enemies multiple kilometeres away, but without automated targetting systems the guns had to manualed aimed, loaded and fired by the crew leading to a large degree of human error which was unable to fire consistently accurate shots at that range in the rolling North Sea. This battle eventually turned into the British victory and subsequent control of the North Sea, but also displayed the identifiable irrelevence of Battleship style ships in naval combat. Their large guns I would imagine were quite effective in sea to land bombardments along the coast and were exceptionally threatening to other less armoured and armed craft.
Interestingly, the equipment of less armored craft with Torpedos would be the largest threat of naval warfare. The misunderstood, but statistically most effective strategy employed by navies was to arm light fast ships with torpedos and have them charge into torpedo range and blast a hole into the hull below the sea-line which was much less armoured and much more vulnerable. One might as why the gunnners did not use this strategy as well, and in honesty, they would have liked to but the rolling seas made this extremely hard. The large shells also lost much of their trajectory the moment they hit the water, so for them to make effective penetration it had to be immediately below the sealine which was never in a constant or predictable position. Thus the high explosive guided projectile of the Torpedo became the most effective weapon in Naval Warfare, but doesn’t quite look as cool as the large naval cannons firing barrages of massive shells at one another.
While my study is fairly limited and looks primarily at the turn of the century up to World War One in Europe. There is also evidence of the effectiveness of Torpedos (and other underwater explosives) being used by the Ottoman forces during their defence against the invading British into present day Turkey. Furthermore one can see this continuation of large ships with large guns up until World War Two in which the Bismark and Turpitz are often considered to have been a nearly indestructible naval ships which were eventually brought down by damage to the external propulsion system rather than any penetration of their hulls.
This type of conflict is glorified in games such as World of Warships, which creates an entertainning scenario in which gamers can emulate the legendary duels of the massive warships slugging at each other, but in reality each match of World of Warship (which are already relatively long) would be endless as without a Torpedo, Underwater Mine or high trajectory projectile (a projectile coming from above down onto the deck) would largely be incapable of penetration of each other’s nearly inpenetrable hull.
The Rise of the Capital Ships:
David versus Leviathan
Alexander Rousseau
24452147
Hist215
Human domination of the sea through naval technology has been a keystone of civilisation and the enforcement of empire throughout history. The combination of advanced metallurgy and industrial capabilities lead to the design of ironclad ships and capital ships. Considering the clash between the Monitor and the ironclad Virginia in 1862, Iron plating rendered the exploding shell obsolete, which was the primary naval weapon to sink large wooden ships.1 Even with the effectiveness proven by the clash of iron plating, the United States will commission the USS Trenton in 1873. Despite the English producing full iron ships such as the HMS Warrior (1860) and the HMS Devastation (1871), the United States finished building the Trenton in 1877, six years after the Devastation. The iron hull on the Warrior and the Devastation would make the USS Trenton completely impotent, and the heavy guns mounted on them would make short work of Trenton’s wooden hull. Even as navies adopted heavier weapons, such as the 14inch heavy gun, the heavy guns in combat were not able to reliably penetrate the standard plating utilised at the time.2 The heavy warships coming from the Royal Navy’s dockyards gave them an edge on the previous era of warships and ushered in a new era of naval warfare. Although the new warships were ushering in a new era of naval warfare that combined innovations in training and technology, although the fear of much less investment heavy torpedo boats dictated the use of these new massive Dreadnoughts and Battleships more than the size of weapons or ability of the gunners.
It was not a clear path to the Dreadnought class capital ship. Had the Trenton been constructed it constructed 20 years earlier it may have been the pinnacle of Naval Innovation with its rifled guns, and steam power, but the construction of the Trenton following the Warrior, the Trenton was obsolete coming off the dockyards.3 The first iron-hulled ship was the HMS Warrior, and it outmatched any wooden ship at the time such as the Trenton.4 Despite being so significantly far ahead of its time in armour, it still it clung to sails albeit being steam powered. Thus, the Warrior is the transition between the old naval warship and the new capital ship centric navy. While the development is not as clean as going from the Warrior to the exclusively engine powered capital ships, as seen in the Warrior’s sails, which persisted until the Devastation. The inclusion of sails extended well beyond the invention of an efficient steam engine. The primary concern was to extend cruising radii of their ships due to the need to have long ranged ocean-going ships to exert the influence of their overseas empires. The United States, lacking the strategically placed coaling stations echoed this by the inclusion of sails up until 1895.5 The Warrior standing on the cusp of a new style of warfare is perhaps more impactful to the development of a new form of Naval Warfare than the Devastation. Although, the Warrior lacked the direct correlation that the latter had with rendering previous era warships obsolete due to the Devastation’s more radical innovations such as the forgoing of sails and turret mounted heavy guns.6 The Devastation and her sister ship the Thunderer had the potential to destroy any previous era fleet with no resistance.7 Following the introduction of the Devastation class warships, the world began to follow suit and entered the new era of Naval warfare.
The capital ships epitomised the combination of new technologies, but just because one is given access to state of the art equipment does not mean they will utilise it effectively. The Royal Navy stuck with the theory that bigger was better and continued to produce more heavily armoured ships with bigger guns. The Devastation’s armour was a response to the larger French guns, and the growing armour was only beginning with the Devastation.8 Ironically, in response, the French unable to compete with Britain through industrial capabilities, was able to produce cheap but effective and fast torpedo ships that forced British investment in cruisers and destroyers to try and protect their shipping lanes while also maintaining their battleship supremacy.9 This small ship-centric navy was conceptually a much more effective means of enforcing naval power than the Royal Navy’s focus on large, expensive capital ships. Within the Royal Navy, Fisher initially argued that combining torpedo ships and battlecruisers would be all that is necessary to propagate British regional power.10 In fact, Churchill saw the submarine as a cheap means of protecting Mediterranean interests without attempting to maintain naval dominance in both the North Sea and the Mediterranean.11 Regardless of having the technology to more efficiently waging naval war, the Royal Navy chose to focus primarily on the heavy battleship as being the primary unit of combat. The British focus convinced the other world powers that they needed to compete with them directly, despite evidence of alternatives.
While the world entered a new era of naval warfare, torpedoes remained the fringe threat that guides naval battle. Robertson summarises “smaller vessels now decided when and where fleets could sail.”12 While there is great romanisation of the effectiveness of naval combat, torpedoes permeate through the eras as being the most effective weapon in destroying or damaging even the most heavily armoured ships. The ironclads of the American Civil War would be an early example of the ineffectiveness of heavy guns and the effectiveness of torpedoes.13 While George does identify that the “[Dreadnought] made all existing battleships obsolete,” and summarises the battlecruisers rendering cruisers obsolete, he never mentioned the torpedo boat.14 While limited in range, the torpedo had the advantage of not needing the penetration power of a heavy gun to do damage. The damage inflicted by torpedoes to capital ships in World War I is an order of magnitude greater than the damage inflicted by capital ships to torpedo boats.15 Considering the method of application, the limited range and comparative regard for the torpedo boat, its no surprise the Admiralty did not put a greater emphasis on it as opposed to the mostly ineffective capital ships. Before World War I, the Russo-Japanese conflict provided the sample battle between capital ships in which observers concluded that torpedoes were not as high a threat as perceived regarding damage inflicted.16 Regardless, torpedoes posed the most significant risk to the under protected hull below the waterline.17 Even so, most experts before the first world war disregarded the torpedo boat and submarine as limited in effectiveness, but the damage inflicted would convince later observers otherwise.
The introduction of heavy guns was the culmination of experts concluding that the heavily armoured long-range combatants were the future of naval combat. Given that naval experts at the time found the speed of ships and range of armaments was a more significant emphasis; the best defence was to outrun and outrange the enemy.18 The focus on speed and range coincides with Fisher’s theory on rendering battleships obsolete with fast, powerful battlecruisers.19 While torpedo boats were effective, they were easily overcome by small guns as the torpedo had a limited range. The fact that the threat of the torpedo boat was well within the range of fire that gunners were expected to engage the enemy in alleviated naval anxiety over torpedo boats. The threat of torpedoes changed when the torpedoes range was greater than 10,000 yards. The Royal Navy was impressed when gunners could consistently hit a stationary target 1,500 yards away and were entirely unprepared when it came to anything beyond 10,000 yards.20 Although it would be necessary for ships to become faster to outmanoeuvre their adversaries, it fails to recognise the inaccuracy and effectiveness of the armour at the time. While Sandler suggests, the introduction of the breech-loading gun made the overall effective protection of the Devastation class unfeasible against the breech-loading gun, it was enough to protect the ships from debilitating damage.21 At the range of engagements that were most common, the capital ship’s armour sufficiently protected the most vulnerable targets against even the most substantial guns deployed at the time in everything but the best-case scenario to make penetration feasible.22 Considering the inconsistent gunnery, a ship could expect less than one in twenty shells of hitting and failing to cause debilitating damage.23 As suggested by Fisher’s theory in rendering heavy Battleships obsolete with fast, heavy hitting Battlecruisers.24 Speed was the best defence because a battleship would not have the reliability to destroy a fast-moving ship.
In practice, the battleship was not much of a step up from the clash between the Virginia and the Monitor who slugged at each other without any significant damage from either side. The difference was that the Breech loading guns could penetrate the armour of their opponents given the right situation but rarely did debilitating damage. The Battle of Jutland shows the horror of outright capital ship warfare. The British fleet armed with 13.5inch and 15inch heavy guns outnumbered the German fleet. To try and maximise the rate of fire, the British left their munitions open and easily accessible, which led to catastrophic explosions which destroyed their battleships after taking only two shots.25 While previously suggested the armour was sufficient in deflecting the heavy guns, the sinking of the HMS Queen Mary was not the standard case. Many ships on both sides would sustain fifteen to twenty-four hits and remain afloat.26 Thus, the most significant naval battle of World War I showed how ineffective capital ships were at fighting other capital ships, seeing as British mishandling of munitions rather than enemy armaments is the source of the most significant damage.
It seemed almost entirely pointless to have a navy based on the capital ship. The entire capital ship design was unnecessary: Heavy guns were not large enough to penetrate most vital armour and had atrocious accuracy. In fact, capital ships accidentally running over smaller ships was greater than the damage inflicted on enemy torpedo boats.27 The capital ship was likely the evolution of the concept of "Guns, Sails, and Empire,” considering the United States and Britain were primarily concerned with efficient long-range naval capabilities. Even though, the weight and training required to manage the sails inhibited the performance of engine powered ironclads more than it made it practical.28 The capital ship was the next stage of the evolution of warships following the wooden frigate design which followed the concept of bigger is better. It was sensible as ships got bigger they were able to transport more arms, more storage and more troops because they were powered by wind, not by an engine which required fuel. The arms race of naval powers pushed for more armour and more massive guns. Thus, capital ships got bigger, and so they demanded larger engines with more fuel to make them feasible for larger Western oversea empires. Even if it were possible to be an empire enforcing ship, it had significant vulnerabilities that supplanted its usefulness as an ocean-going vessel, primarily its lack of speed and the threat of submarines and torpedo ships restricted the capital ship to protected harbours. Given that the risk of submarines and torpedo ships was a universal threat, it is a debatable argument, but furthermore, the battleships, which acted as the centrepiece of Dreadnought era navies, were entirely ineffective in protecting maritime interests against anything but other battleships. Given that submarines with a modern torpedo could destroy a battleship more efficiently than another battleship could at a fraction of the development and upkeep cost, it seemed almost redundant to maintain and develop the capital ship navy.
Bibliography
Bell, Christopher M. 2011. "Sir John Fisher’s Naval Revolution Reconsidered: Winston Churchill at the Admiralty, 1911–1914." War in History (SAGE Publications) 18 (3): 333-356.
Brooks, John. 2007. "Dreadnought: Blunder, or Stroke of Genius." War in History (SAGE Publications) 14 (2): 157-178.
George, James L. 1998. History of Warships: From Ancient Times to the Twenty-First Century. Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press.
Grove, Eric. 2017. "The Jutland Paradox: A keynote address." Mariner's Mirror (Routledge) 103 (2): 168-174.
Relations, Strategic Determinism in Technology Selection: The Electric Battleship and U.S. Naval-Industrial. 1992. "McBride, William M." Technology and Culture (John Hopkins UP) 33 (2): 248-277.
Robertson, Rodrigo Garcia y. 1987. "Failure of the Heavy Gun at Sea, 1898-1922." Technology and Culture (John Hopkins UP) 28 (3): 539-557.
Ross, Angus K. 2010. "Four Lessons that the U.S. Navy must learn from the Dreadnought Revolution." Naval War College Review 63 (4): 119-143.
Sandler, Stanley. 1970. "The Emergence of the Modern Capital Ship." Technology and Culture (John Hopkins UP) 11 (4): 576-595.
Wolters, Timothy S. 2011. "Recapitalizing the Fleet: A Material Analysis of Late-Nineteenth-Century US Naval Power." Technology and Culture (John Hopkins UP) 52 (1): 103-126.
James L. George, History of Warships: From Ancient Times to the Twenty-First Century (Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press 1998), 69.
Rodrigo Garcia y Robertston, “Failure of the Heavy Gun at Sea, 1898-1922,” Technology and Culture (John Hopkins UP, 1987), 548.
Timothy Wolters, “Recapitalizing the Fleet: A Material Analysis of Late-Ninteenth-Century U.S. Naval Power,” Technology and Culture 52, no.1 (John Hopkins UP: 2011), 108-109.
George, 68.
William M. McBride, “Strategic Determinism in Technology Selection: The Electric Battleship and US Naval-Industrial Relations,” Technology and Culture 33, no. 2 (John Hopkins UP: 1992), 249.
Stanley Sandler, “The Emergence of the Modern Capital Ship,” Technology and Culture 11, no. 4 (John Hopkins UP: Oct. 1970), 578.
Sandler, 588.
Stanley, 584.
Spector, 25.
Angus K. Ross, “Four Lessons that the U.S. Navy Must Learn from the Dreadnought Revolution,” Naval War College Review 63, no. 4 (2010), 127.
Christopher M. Bell, “Sir John Fisher’s Naval Revolution Reconsidered: Winston Churchill at the Admiralty 1911-1914” War in History 18, no 3 (SAGE Publications: 2011), 353.
Robertson, 541.
George, 70.
Ibid., 85.
Robertson, 540.
Ronald H. Spector, At War, at sea (New York: Viking Penguin, 2001), 23.
Robertson, 577-578.
Spector, 23.
John Brooks, “Dreadnought: Blunder, or Stroke of Genius?” War in History 14, no. 2 (London: Sage Publications, 1972), 162.
Robertson, 545-546.
Sandler, 593.
Robertson, 577-578.
Robertson, 541.
Ross, 128.
Eric Grove, “The Jutland Paradox: A keynote address,” The Mariner’s Mirror 103, no. 2 (Routledge: 2017), 170-171.
Spector, 93.
Robertson, 540.
Sandler, 580.
