British Cruisers of the Victorian Era. Norman Friedman
expertise (and also torpedo and mine expertise, until the foundation of HMS Vernon). Her CO was in many ways the Royal Navy’s senior armament expert, and his opinions were sought when ships were designed. Future Admiral Sir John Fisher was CO of Excellent at a crucial time in the 1880s.
The other major new development was rifling, which considerably increased maximum accurate range. The Royal Navy adopted the Lancaster rifled cast-iron muzzle-loader in 1855. It imparted spin to its elongated shell using a twisted bore of elliptical cross-section. The Lancaster gun proved unreliable during the Crimean War. William Armstrong, later Lord Armstrong, was far more successful. In 1854 he proposed a built-up breech-loader to the Minister of War. It was tested in 1856, and adopted in 1859 on the 1858 recommendation of the Committee on Rifled Cannon. Types were 7in (110pdr), 40-, 20-, 12-, 9-, and 6pdrs. From 1861 on the 7in replaced the 68pdr as the standard navy chaser. The Armstrong guns can be recognized by the handle used to rotate the breech. There was no means of withdrawing the breech without removing it entirely from the gun, and the process of breech-loading and reloading was cumbersome. Unfortunately there was no way to be certain that the breech was fully closed, and there were serious accidents (Armstrong also produced rifled muzzle-loaders). In competition with Armstrong, Whitworth produced a muzzle-loader with a hexagonal cross-section. Armstrong’s guns beat out Whitworth’s in an 1863 trial, and in 1864 the British forces formally adopted rifled guns. Armstrong received the ordnance contract for both the Royal Navy and for the British army. However, a series of disasters showed that the adoption of breech-loading was premature. Armstrong was dismissed, but under the contract negotiated with him when he was hired, he retained the factory built for him. He turned to the export market, and began building cruisers as well as guns. Armstrong’s cruisers figure prominently in this book.
Gun construction for both army and navy was then concentrated in the Royal Gun Factory at Woolwich Arsenal. Woolwich argued that only muzzle-loaders were safe. Its muzzle-loading rifles (MLR) were adopted about 1865. Other navies, such as the French, continued to use breech-loaders, and some Royal Navy officers wondered whether they had not taken the better decision. For example, Controller Rear Admiral Robinson visited the 1867 Paris world’s fair, together with Reed and with the Admiralty’s gunnery experts Admiral Cooper Key (DNO) and Captain Hood (Captain of HMS Excellent).32 The naval exhibits provided by the Admiralty and by the French made it relatively easy to compare practices in the two navies. Robinson was clearly impressed with the French breech-loaders, which seemed (to him) to be well adapted to firing longer and therefore more accurate shells. Key took pains to claim that the British muzzle-loaders were superior, in part because they could be fired more rapidly. He pointed out that with their higher-powered powder, the British guns could be lighter than the French for the same penetrating power (which he measured by muzzle energy per inch of calibre).
As a means of quickly producing rifled guns, in the mid- 1860s (i.e., as Armstrong was rejected) the Royal Navy adopted the Palliser system of inserting a steel inner tube into an existing cast-iron gun. The guns involved were the 32pdr 56 and 58cwt, the 8in 65cwt shell gun, and the 10in 95cwt shell gun. They survived into the 1870s. During that period they were extensively mounted on board cruisers and smaller ships. Prior to conversion they had flintlocks and muzzle notch fore sights, but upon conversion they were given friction tubes and drop fore sights, with rear sights modified for the new trajectories and greater ranges. Carriages were not changed. Note that the name Palliser was also associated with chilled iron armour-piercing shot, which the Royal Navy used into the 1890s.
Much more powerful (hence heavier) guns appeared as the Royal Navy adopted (and faced) ironclads. They could hardly be manhandled on wheeled trucks. Instead, they were mounted on slides, which could be moved about a ship’s decks along racers, curved tracks let into the wooden deck. Some racers were laid in intersecting patterns, so that a gun could fire out of any of several ports cut in the ship’s side. The gun recoiled along the slide, which was slightly inclined (so that the weight of the gun would return it to battery after it recoiled). When the Royal Navy reverted to breech-loaders, its first cruiser mountings were Vavasseurs (named after their inventor and manufacturer, Charles Vavasseur), which were, in effect, developed slides. Typically a Vavasseur was anchored at one end by a fixed pivot in the deck. The other end was wheeled, so the entire mounting could swing back and forth. The main part of the mounting was the steeply angled track up which the gun recoiled after it fired, gravity returning the gun to position. These were powerful guns, and they needed more than gravity to absorb the energy of firing. Vavasseur therefore provided a friction brake. Later centre-pivot and pedestal mountings were more compact.
As of 1875, British unarmoured ships mounted six types of gun.33 The most powerful was the 9in 12½- ton MLR, essentially a capital ship weapon, which armed the armoured cruisers or second-class ironclads of the Shannon and Nelson classes. It fired a 250lb shell and was mounted on an iron slide. One step down were 7in 6½-ton and 4½-ton MLRs firing a 120lb shell, on a wooden or iron slide (these guns were often characterized as 110pdrs). The standard broadside gun was the 6.3in 64pdr 64cwt, firing a 64lb shell; there was also a 71cwt version. Two breech-loaders survived: the 4.75 in 35cwt firing a 40lb shell and the 3.75 in 15cwt firing a 20lb shell. Both were Armstrong types with screw breeches.
As of 1885, with rearmament with breech-loaders beginning, the heaviest MLR guns on board British cruisers were 10in of 18 tons (Mk I) or 20 tons (Mk II), 13 ft long (i.e., 15.6 calibre). They fired a 410lb projectile at 1370ft/sec. There were five Marks of 9in 12-ton MLR (initially described as 12½-ton), 12ft long (16 calibre). A typical 9in gun fired a 256lb projectile at 1440ft/sec. There were three Marks of 8in 9-ton gun, 11ft long (16.5 calibre), firing a 18lb projectile at 138 ft/sec (or a 181lb shell with a 17.7lb burster). There were three Marks of 7in 6½ tons, 11ft long (18.9 calibre), firing a 115lb projectile at 1525ft/sec. In 1885 these wrought iron guns were restricted to target practice. The newer 7in 90cwt gun (4.5 tons) was 10ft 11in long (18.7 calibre) and fired a 115lb projectile at 1361ft/sec or a 159lb shell (13.4lb burster) at 1161ft/sec. The smallest major guns then in use were 64pdrs. There were three Marks of 64pdr 64cwt guns (3.2 tons), about 10ft long (19.3 calibres); the latest Mk III fired a 6.22in projectile (65lbs) at 1200ft/sec. The 64pdr 71cwt gun (3.55 tons) fired a similar projectile at 1125ft/sec. There were also small-calibre 9pdrs and 7pdrs.
These guns were all short because they used high-explosive powder. Its energy was quickly exhausted, so making the barrel longer than necessary merely slowed the projectile by friction. The barrel lengths quoted are somewhat deceptive: they refer to the overall length of the gun, including considerable metal at the breech end to contain the explosion. Thus the 8in gun was 16.5 calibres long overall, but 14.8 long internally.
Given Woolwich’s insistence that only its muzzle-loaders were safe, it was ironic that the Royal Navy abandoned muzzle-loading due to a major accident. The heavy muzzle-loaders of the 1870s demanded power-loading; typically a turret gun was depressed to line it up with a power rammer operating from below decks. HMS Thunderer was the first ship with such power-loading. On 2 January 1879 she accidentally double-loaded a gun (it was impossible to see whether a charge and projectile were in place). The gun could not possibly survive the resulting explosion. Neither could reliance on Woolwich and its muzzle-loaders. There was already considerable sentiment favouring a return to breech-loaders, and Woolwich itself was designing one. The return to breech-loaders was associated with the adoption of slower-burning powder. In 1878 Sir Andrew Noble began experimenting with the longer guns (which had to be breech-loaders) which could fully exploit slow-burning powder. Armstrong (Elswick) was already making such guns for export.
The Royal Navy found itself relying on commercial suppliers again. Both services joined in an Ordnance Committee formed in 1881 to determine which guns should be developed and which designs to adopt. Designs for 16.25in, 13.5in, 9.2in, and 8in guns were approved that year. The rearmament of the fleet began, but it was a lengthy process (according to the 1885 official gunnery handbook, it was expected to take fifteen years). Adoption of breech-loaders increased the rate of fire about five-fold in guns of the same weight. Because a breech-loader was heavier than a muzzle-loader (it needed much more material around its breech), the weight of fire for roughly comparable ships trebled. Rearmament of existing cruisers began in 1884. At this time the army continued to buy guns for the Royal Navy, a practice which ended in 1888.
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