British Cruisers of the Victorian Era. Norman Friedman

      HMS Ringdove was a Redbreast class screw gunboat armed with six 4in guns. She displaced 805 tons (165ft pp × 31ft × 11ft) and could make 13kts (1200 IHP). She was launched on 30 April 1889, and was discarded in 1906 as part of Admiral Fisher’s program of scrapping ships which could ‘neither fight nor run away’.

      (Allan C Green, courtesy of State Library of Victoria)

      Objects were to determine (1) the most efficient distribution of a blockading squadron both day and night; (2) the best means of maintaining communication between scouts and the main body of a fleet; (3) the relative advantages and disadvantages of keeping the main body of a fleet off a blockaded port using an inshore squadron, or of keeping it at a nearby base, maintaining a cruiser and torpedo boat force off the blockaded port, ‘with means of rapid communication with the Fleet’ (radio did not yet exist); (4) the best means of keeping a blockading fleet supplied with coal; (5) the best means of using torpedo boats, both with and against a blockading fleet; (6) the best means of keeping track of hostile cruisers attempting to attack trade; (7) the best kind of identification signals for a fortified port and minefield; and (8) how to deal with the special dangers to which a blockading squadron would be exposed. These were not too different from the problems laid out in the 1885 manoeuvres.

      A Squadron reported that the exercise rules much favoured the blockaded fleet: it was impossible ‘to put a torpedo boat out of action except through the stupidity of the officer in charge of her ... and cruisers could with impunity brave the fire of the blockading force’. Fleet A considered its best blockade disposition to be with seagoing torpedo vessels innermost, then fast cruisers, and only then ironclads, the ironclads having cruisers on their flanks. The ships should be end-on to the shore, never exposing their broadsides, with their heads offshore if possible so that they could chase any emerging enemy force. This position would also make ramming much more difficult. To guard against ramming, ships should keep up full steam – which would run down their coal. Ships standing offshore should be able to protect themselves against torpedo attack using nets, but ‘in the whole fleet there is not an efficient net defence that could, if down at sea, be raised quickly clear of gun fire; and very few nets that would be safe down, if steaming 4 or 5kts’.

      Two torpedo boats and one catcher (torpedo gunboat) should be attached to each ironclad. The blockading fleet should have 50 per cent more ironclads than its enemy, and twice as many cruisers (and those of the highest possible speed). The inner blockade force should include a proportion of torpedo boats and catchers kept with the fleet to carry despatches, to scout, and for other purposes. Torpedo boats should work in pairs, if possible supported by catchers.

      Given the fragility of torpedo boats, a refuge should be set up for them on the nearby coast. Torpedo catchers (torpedo gunboats) were far more serviceable than torpedo boats, and could work in much worse weather. They were not nearly as exhausting for crews. Commanding B Squadron, Admiral Tryon considered catchers ‘of very great value. I have a very high opinion of them.’

      Cruisers and certain ironclads should be assigned nightly to chase and run down any enemy ships that might escape, special care being taken to assign enough to make capture certain. The chasing ships should be accompanied by catchers, which could report back to the admiral commanding the blockading squadron.

      Any enemy ship seen escaping should be followed by torpedo catchers (torpedo gunboats or torpedo cruisers), which would shine their searchlights on them while signalling the fleet, not giving up the chase until relieved by ships of the outer line. If enemy ships escaped in fog, a captive balloon would be a great help, determining which ships were still in harbour. It should be flown by a ship far enough offshore to be safe from enemy fire. In moderate weather, ships should be visible, particularly from aloft, three or four miles away.

      A telegraph ship should be attached to the blockading squadron, and a cable laid from the home base to it.

      It seemed most efficient to keep in touch with scouts via fast cruisers (‘in which we are at present sadly deficient’). Unless there was a nearby anchorage, the ironclads had to be kept constantly under way. To keep them fuelled, the fleet should include 10kt colliers, which would coal ships at their temporary base. Ships should fuel at every opportunity. Seagoing torpedo vessels were vital to the blockading fleet, as they could prevent the enemy from launching harassing torpedo attacks designed to break up the blockade. The enemy would be forced to seek a general action, in which case the torpedo vessels would fall back on the main body of ironclads.

      There was no real hope that the blockaders could rest in a nearby port while the enemy was watched by cruisers and torpedo vessels. Enemy ironclads could drive them off and then get away in fog.

      The chief dangers facing a blockading fleet were (1) running out of coal, (2) torpedo attacks, and (3) surprise by a second fleet working with the blockaded fleet. Squadron A was weakened daily by ships detached to coal, sometimes in a bay 60 miles away. It had a cruiser at Lamlash waiting for telegrams, a torpedo boat away for repairs, and a ship watering torpedo boats in a sheltered area. This was quite aside from accidents. In good weather the blockading fleet could coal at sea, a ship taking on 20 to 30 tons an hour from a collier. Special fleet colliers might be built.

      Ships were not fast enough, and the official fleet handbook (Steamships of England) overstated what they could do. The chief defects in the fleet were in boilers, generally due to using forced draught ‘which in my [commander of A Squadron] opinion, is the ruin of them. Forced draught is not supposed to be used unless in emergency, but having the power, emergency is certain to arise some time or other. This, and a very inferior class of Stokers, as well as Engineer Officers being strange to machinery, which they have had to work at high speeds without much experience in many of the ships, were the causes of failure in boilers and engines.’

      Of the cruisers, only Mercury maintained anything like her reputed speed. Mersey was reduced to 12kts after running 300nm at 17kts. Thames never attained more than 15kts, and stopped continually to deal with defects in steam pipes. Arethusa was good for 15kts. The Archer class torpedo cruisers were all reduced to 11 to 13kts. These ships were too heavily armed; the weights of their heavy guns fore and aft made them pitch excessively. In many cases (not just in cruisers) coal was very inferior and smoky. Tryon (B Squadron) commented that ‘ships are now apt to be too complicated and unnecessarily so. Everything should be as simple as possible. There is often a want of good means of communicating with the engine-room ... Electrical fittings and arrangements have been largely used in substitution of mechanical fittings and appliances, and they failed far too often.’ Tryon also complained that ships were too beamy, as a result of which they could steam well in a calm but not in even a moderate sea. He particularly cited the armoured cruiser Warspite, which he wrote had been criticized in comparison with foreign ships five years earlier.

      In September 1888 the Admiralty appointed a special committee to draw lessons from the manoeuvres, presumably ultimately for Cabinet and parliamentary consumption.²¹ The report was submitted on 21 November. The first key conclusion was that steam and torpedoes had made blockade so dangerous that a blockading