Читать книгу The Sea: Its Stirring Story of Adventure, Peril, & Heroism (Vol. 1-4). The History of Sea Voyages, Discovery, Piracy and Maritime Warfare онлайн

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Taking the Victory as a fair type of the best war-ships of her day (a day when there was not that painful uncertainty with regard to naval construction and armament existing now, in spite of our vaunted progress), we still know that in the presence of a powerful steam-frigate with heavy guns, or an 11,000-ton ironclad, she would be literally nowhere. She was one of the last specimens, and a very perfect specimen, too, of the wooden age. This is the age of iron and steam. One of the largest vessels of her day, she is now excelled by hundreds employed in ordinary commerce. The Royal Navy to-day possesses frigates nearly three times her tonnage, while we have ironclads of five times the same. The monster Great Eastern, which has proved a monstrous mistake, is 22,500 tons.

But size is by no means the only consideration in constructing vessels of war, and, indeed, there are good reasons to believe that, in the end, vessels of moderate dimensions will be preferred for most purposes of actual warfare. Of the advantages of steam-power there can, of course, be only one opinion; but as regards iron versus oak, there are many points which may be urged in favour of either, with a preponderance in favour of the former. A strong iron ship, strange as it may appear, is not more than half the weight of a wooden vessel of the same size and class. It will, to the unthinking, seem absurd to say that an iron ship is more buoyant than one of oak, but the fact is that the proportion of actual weight in iron and wooden vessels of ordinary construction is about six to twenty. The iron ship, therefore, stands high out of the water, and to sink it to the same line will require a greater weight on board. From this fact, and the actual thinness of its walls, its carrying capacity and stowage are so much the greater. This, which is a great point in vessels destined for commerce, would be equally important in war. But these remarks do not apply to the modern armoured vessel. We have ironclads with plates eighteen inches and upwards in thickness. What is the consequence? Their actual weight, with that of the necessary engines and monster guns employed, is so great that a vast deal of room on board has to be unemployed. Day by day we hear of fresh experiments in gunnery, which keep pace with the increased strength of the vessels. The invulnerable of to-day is the vulnerable of to-morrow, and there are many leading authorities who believe in a return to a smaller and weaker class of vessel—provided, however, with all the appliances for great speed and offensive warfare at a distance. Nelson’s preference for small, easily-worked frigates over the great ships of the line is well known, and were he alive to-day we can well believe that he would prefer a medium-sized vessel of strong construction, to steam with great speed, and carrying heavy, but, perhaps, not the heaviest guns, to one of those modern unwieldy masses of iron, which have had, so far, a most disastrous history. The former might, so to speak, act while the latter was making up her mind. Even a Nelson might hesitate to risk a vessel representing six or seven hundred thousand pounds of the nation’s money, in anything short of an assured success. We have, however, yet to learn the full value and power of our ironclad fleet. Of its cost there is not a doubt. Some time ago our leading newspaper estimated the expense of construction and maintenance of our existing ironclads at £18,000,000. Mr. Reed states that they have cost the country a million sterling per annum since the first organisation of the fleet. Warfare will soon become a luxury only for the richest nations, and, regarding it in this light, perhaps the very men who are racking their powers of invention to discover terrible engines of war are the greatest peacemakers, after all. They may succeed in making it an impossibility.