Abbildungen der Seite
PDF
EPUB

fleet in the line of bearing E F, east and west, while the ships are steaming on N.E. courses, the intervals between the ships being 970 feet, measuring from the centre of one ship to that of the next in the line;a then the direct fire from the bow guns of either ship will cross the fire from the midship broadside guns of the next ship on the bow, at not less than 420 feet from each ship, even if that fire be perpendicular to her course. The bow-guns of ships ranged in this order should fire only solid shot, in order to avoid any risk of injury from the splinters of shells that may break in the guns. Shells may, however, be fired from the outward broadside batteries of ships, provided, to avoid the risk of injuring the nearest ships, the guns are trained so as to fire before the beam.

3. Every line-of-battle ship carries on each of her fighting decks, and on her forecastle, two bow guns, which cannot be used in line of battle ahead; while, in the échelon order of battle, the guns on the starboard bow, together with all those on the port bow, which cannot take part in broadside action, would be of efficient use in increasing the gunnery power of the ship.b

Ships steaming in this order, not being in the wake of each other, cannot get foul either by drawing ahead or lagging astern, and would, therefore, avoid any wrecks of ropes, spars, or sails, shot away from other ships, which, if in line ahead, would drift into the courses of the ships astern and foul their screws. Each ship should, it is obvious, take as much care as possible to prevent its screw from being fouled by the wrecks of its own rigging, by keeping them, as much as possible, in-board, or, at least, out of its wake,

a

This distance is given on the supposition that the distance between two ships in line ahead is 720 feet, a cable's length, measuring from the head of one to the stern of the next in front, to which is added half the length of each of two nearest ships, considered as equal to 125 feet: thus making up the space between the centres of every two ships in the line ahead.

In a fleet consisting of twenty sail of the line, two-deckers, the bow guns which may thus be brought into action may amount to 180. If there are any three-deckers in the fleet, the efficient bow guns may amount to even a greater number.

122. A number of ships disposed en échelon on any line of bearing may, therefore, be assimilated to a chain of redoubts, or a line of entrenchment en cremaillère, or to bodies of infantry in squares, with diagonals parallel to the front; and may thus, by means of their bow-guns and their broadside batteries, defend each other reciprocally-the stronger points of one ship defending the weaker points of another, as in fig. 15 above, and in fig. 18, p. 106.

123. Small steamers armed at the bow and stern should always act in pairs, whether for attack or defence. So associated, two vessels, with less expenditure in men and material, will, by the reciprocal defence which they may afford each other, and by their power of rapidly changing their positions as circumstances may require, be more formidable than one ship which is double the size of either, and, if well managed, they would be an overmatch for such a ship.

124. A line-of-battle ship fully armed at bow and stern, as well as on her broadsides, has no dead points, since she can bring guns to bear in every direction about her. The bows of such ships are armed with a 68-pounder solid-shot pivot-gun, and there are, besides, four bow guns on each deck. The trunk, or aperture through which the screw is hoisted up in order to be repaired or replaced (Art. 60), interferes with the armament of line-of-battle ships, where the free use of two guns on each deck is, on this account, greatly impeded; consequently there may be said to be only two stern guns on each deck which are wholly effective. the bow batteries of a two-decked ship consist of nine heavy guns, and those of a three-decked ship of eleven. The stern batteries of a two and a three decked ship consist, respectively, of four guns and six guns at least. Though ships of the line are thus really strong at bow and stern, these are technically called the weak points when compared with the superior strength of the

Thus

a The trunk does not interfere with the pivot guns of frigates and flushdeck vessels, the shutters of the trunk forming the deck over it. See also Art. 79, p. 67.

broadside batteries, which are therefore denominated the strong points.

125. When a fleet of ships is thrown into échelon, the bow-batteries are brought into play, and it is of the first importance that they should be as strong as possible. In the disposition shown in fig. 16, the pivot gun should be established on the port fighting point, and the unoccupied bow ports on each deck should be armed with the nearest guns, shifted into them from the starboard broadside batteries, where they are useless. All the broadside guns on the fighting side should be trained to fire as much before the beam as the width of the ports will permit, and this, with respect to the midshipguns, is at an angle of 37° 30', as shown in figure 17, but the angle is less in the after ports, on account of the tapering form of the ship towards the stern. The reason for thus training the guns is, obviously, that their fire upon enemy's ships may be less oblique, may reach him at shorter ranges, and be wider of the bows of the next following ship.

the

Fig. 17.

37° 30

When a fleet is ranged in order of battle called line ahead, not only is there no reciprocal defence, but a great amount of gunnery power in the bow-batteries is utterly out of action; this, in a fleet of twenty ships of the line, of which six may be three-deckers, will amount to 152 heavy guns, whose fire is masked by the leading ships.

The inartificial practice of forming a fleet for battle in one line of great extent, in which the ships are devoid of the power of protecting each other by reciprocal defence, and without a second line as a reserve, ought now to be abandoned, as a corresponding practice with armies in the field has been renounced in warfare on land.

126. Freed from the caprices of the wind and from the

a Great Gun Exercise, 'Excellent,' p. 46.

complicated manoeuvres of the sail, the movements of steam fleets will no longer be limited to any particular line of bearing, nor to one order of battle, in line ahead, in any particular direction; and the national interests will no longer be staked on the risks of a battle fought in that unskilful position; that is upon the chance of being able to prevent a line everywhere weak from being penetrated or doubled upon.

127. In the échelon formation the broadside fires of all the ships may be made to cross upon an enemy, whether attacking or attacked. If the obliquity of the ships to the line of bearing be less than forty-five degrees, the flanking fires from the bow-guns will be too close to the vessel flanked to be safe; if greater, they will be too open. It follows that the angle which the keel of each ship should make with the line of bearing, should be equal to half a right angle; and it may be remarked that every shot from a broadside, which takes effect, is fired directly from a ship, but is received obliquely on that of the enemy advancing perpendicularly to the line of bearing, and is, therefore, to a certain extent, a raking fire.

128. A consideration of the figure (fig. 16, p. 100) will make it evident that if the rear of the fleet were attacked on the starboard quarter, the échelon formation would afford the advantages of a reciprocal fire from 4 or 8 stern guns of each ship, and the starboard broadside batteries of the ships on its left. Since, therefore, every ship has both its broadsides and its end-on fires open, it is plain that a fleet steaming in this order has a vast degree of military strength, and is therefore in a good order of advance or of retreat: it has, besides, the advantage of lending itself easily to any ulterior evolutions.

129. Notwithstanding the great gunnery power which ships of the line possess, they, as well as other ships, are subject to such great disadvantages when exposed to an enfilading or raking fire, that an end-on position in action should be avoided as much as possible. But if the ships of a fleet are arranged in échelon order, the exposure is of little moment; since, as may be seen in

the figure, should the enemy attempt to take advantage of that position to enfilade the ships, he must necessarily put his own ships in the like order, in which position they are themselves liable to be enfiladed, and thus, cæteris paribus, the action would be continued on equal terms.

There may, perhaps, be a lingering prejudice against this novel formation for action, on the alleged ground that it is entirely theoretical. To this the author would reply that such a formation is not novel in principle, and has been often practised even with the sail, as appears by the well-known order of retreat (see fig. 12, p. 95), each wing of which, taken singly, is, in fact, an échelon formation, exactly conformable to the formation of a fleet in line of bearing, as shown in fig. 16. The order of retreat is strong on both flanks, by the reciprocal fire of the ships which compose it; and it is strong in rear, by the fire of the stern and broadside batteries crossing each other. It cannot by sailing ships be reversed so as to form an order of advance; but by steam propulsion this may be done; in which case the broadside and bow-batteries of the ships will respectively cross each other. Unless, then, it can be shown, by any who demur to the author's proposition, that the order of retreat which has so frequently been practised, successfully, by fleets of sailing ships, is unsound in principle, and so restricted in its application as not to be practicable on all occasions; it must follow that the proposed order of battle, in which the ships are ranged en échelon, is one of great strength and convenience. It It may indeed be executed by steam fleets on any lines of bearing with the utmost precision and certainty; and there can be no doubt that this formation will become of extensive use in the tactics of steam fleets.

An advantage of perhaps vital importance results from ranging ships for action in this oblique order. The sterns of steam ships, which, by the propinquity of the moving and steering powers, must be considered their most vulnerable parts, are screened from the fire of the enemy's ships, instead of being exposed to it. If formed in line ahead, the ships are exposed to a cannon

H

« ZurückWeiter »