Friedrich Engels

Fleet

Written about November 22, 1860.

From the English.

["The New American Cyclopædia", Volume XII]

Fleet
- a collective term for the warships of a ruler or a nation. The war fleets of antiquity were often large in number, but in respect of the size of the ships, their motive power, and their fitness for attack they were insignificant compared with those of the present day. The seagoing vessels of Phoenicia and Carthage, Greece and Rome were flat barks that could not withstand a storm; squally winds on the open sea meant their destruction; they crept along the coasts and cast anchor at night in a safe place or in a small bay. To sail from Greece to Italy or from Africa to Sicily was a dangerous undertaking. The ships could not stand the press of sail such as is usual with our modern warships, and carried only a small amount of canvas; they relied on their oars and laboured heavily through the waves. The compass had not yet been invented; degrees of latitude and longitude were unknown; landmarks and the Pole Star were the only guides for navigation. The equipment for offensive warfare was likewise inadequate. Bow and arrow, javelins, clumsy throwing engines and catapults were the only weapons that could be used at a distance. No serious damage could be inflicted on an enemy at sea as long as the two fighting ships did not come into immediate contact. Hence only two modes of naval combat were possible: to manoeuvre so that the sharp, strong, iron-clad prow of one's own ship could be driven with full force into the broadside of the enemy, in order to run him down, or else to run broadside to broadside, make the two ships fast to one another and board the enemy ship at once. After the First Punic War, which eliminated the superiority of the Carthaginians at sea, there is not a single naval engagement in the history of antiquity that merits the slightest technical interest, and Roman rule soon rendered further naval combats in the Mediterranean altogether impossible.

The true birthplace of our modern war fleets is the North Sea. At the time when the great mass of the Germanic tribes of Central Europe rose to crush the declining Roman Empire and to reconstitute Western Europe, their brothers on the northern coasts, the Frisians, Saxons, Angles, Danes and Normans, began to put to sea. Their ships were staunch, strong seagoing vessels with a prominent keel and sharply modelled lines; they relied for the most part on sails alone and had no need to fear a storm in the midst of this rough northern ocean. It was precisely with such ships that the Anglo-Saxons crossed from the mouths of the Elbe and the Eider to the coasts of Britain, and with such ships the Normans likewise undertook their raids, which extended on the one side as far as Constantinople and on the other as far as America.

With the building of ships that ventured to cross the Atlantic Ocean, navigation was completely revolutionised, and before the end of the Middle Ages the new sharp-keeled sea-boats had been adopted on all the coasts of Europe. The ships in which the Normans made their voyages were probably not very large, certainly not more than about 100 tons, and they had one or at most two masts with fore-and-aft rig.

For a long time shipbuilding and navigation seem to have stagnated; throughout the whole of the Middle Ages the ships remained small, and the bold spirit of the Normans and Frisians faded away; all the progress achieved was thanks to the Italians and the Portuguese, who now became the boldest seafarers. The Portuguese discovered the sea route to India; two Italians in foreign service, Columbus and Cabot, were the first after the Norseman Leif to cross the Atlantic Ocean.

Now long sea voyages became necessary and required large ships; at the same time the necessity of equipping warships and even merchantmen with heavy artillery led to an increase in size and tonnage.

The same causes that had produced standing armies on land now gave rise to permanent war fleets at sea; and only from this time can we properly speak of war fleets. The era of colonial enterprises, which now dawned for all seafaring nations, likewise witnessed the formation of large war fleets to protect the newly founded colonies together with their trade; a period followed richer in naval

battles and more fruitful for the development of ships' armaments than any previous one.

The foundation stone of the British war fleet was laid by Henry VII, who built as the first ship "The Great Harry". His successor created a regular permanent fleet, the property of the state, the largest ship of which was named "Henry Grace de Dieu". This ship, the largest that had been built up to that time, carried 80 guns, partly on two regular flush gun decks, partly on additional gun platforms fore and aft. She had 4 masts; her tonnage is variously given as 1,000 to 1,500 tons. The entire British fleet at the death of Henry VIII consisted of about 50 ships with an aggregate tonnage of 12,000 tons and a complement of 8,000 seamen and marines. The large ships of that period were unwieldy constructions with a deep waist, that is, they had towering fore and aft castles that made them extremely top-heavy.

The next large ship known to us is the "Sovereign of the Seas", later called "Royal Sovereign", built in 1637. It is the first ship of whose armament we have relatively precise information. She had three flush decks, a forecastle, a half-deck, a quarterdeck and a poop; on the lower deck stood 30 guns, 42- and 32-pounders; on the middle deck 30 18- and 9-pounders; on the upper deck 26 lighter guns, probably 6- and 3-pounders. Besides these she had 20 chase guns and 26 guns on the forecastle and half-deck. At home, however, this armament was usually reduced to 100 guns, as the full complement was clearly too much. As regards the smaller ships, our knowledge is very scanty.

In 1651 the war fleet was divided into 6 rates; besides these, however, there continued to be numerous other ship types such as sloops, hulks, and later bomb vessels, corvettes, fireships and yachts. From the year 1677 we have a list of the entire English navy; according to this the largest three-decker of the first rate carried 26 42-pounders, 28 24-pounders, 28 9-pounders, 14 6-pounders and 4 3-pounders; and the smallest two-decker (fifth rate) carried 18 18-pounders, 8 6-pounders and 4 4-pounders, or 30 guns in all. The whole fleet consisted of 129 ships. In 1714 there were 198 ships, in 1727 there were 178, and in 1744 only 128.

Later, as the number of ships increased, their dimensions also became larger, and with growing tonnage the ships received

a heavier armament. The first English ship corresponding to our modern frigate was built by Sir Robert Dudley as early as the end of the 16th century, but it was a full 80 years later before this class of ship, which was first used by the southern European nations, was generally adopted into the British navy. The special sailing quality of frigates, namely high speed, was for a time scarcely appreciated in England. British ships were usually over-gunned, so that their lower gun ports were only 3 feet above the water and could not be opened in a sea-way, and the sailing qualities of the ships were likewise greatly impaired. The Spaniards and the French attached value, in proportion to the number of guns, to a larger tonnage; the consequence was that their ships could carry heavier calibres and larger stores, had more carrying capacity, and were better sailers. The English frigates of the first half of the 18th century had 44 guns, 9-, 12- and some 18-pounders, with a tonnage of about 710 tons. Around the year 1780 frigates with 38 guns (mostly 18-pounders) and a tonnage of 946 tons were built; the upward trend is obvious here. The French frigates of the same period with similar armament averaged 100 tons more. At about the same time (mid-18th century) the smaller warships were more precisely classified according to new standards as corvettes, brigs, brigantines and schooners. In 1779 a heavy gun (probably invented by the British General Melville) was introduced that extensively altered the armament of most war fleets. It was a very short gun of large calibre, somewhat resembling a howitzer in shape, but designed for solid shot with small charges at short ranges. As these guns were first made by the Carron-Iron-Company in Scotland, they were called carronades. A hit with this gun, which was ineffective at long range, had dreadful effects on the timbers at short distance; through the reduced velocity of the shot (due to the smaller charge) a larger hole is made, the framework is far more destroyed, and numerous and more dangerous splinters are the result. The relatively low weight of the guns also made it easier to stow some of them on the quarterdeck and the forecastle of ships; already by 1781 429 ships of the British navy were equipped, over and above their regular armament, with 6 to 10 carronades. When reading the accounts of the naval engagements from the time of the French and American

wars, it should be borne in mind that the British never include the carronades in the number of guns stated as the ship’s armament, so that, for example, a British frigate rated as carrying 36 guns, in reality, counting the carronades, probably had 42 guns or more on board. The superiority in weight of metal which the carronades gave the British broadsides decided many a fight at close quarters that was fought during the French Revolutionary War. But for all that, the carronades were only a makeshift to increase the fighting power of the comparatively small warships of 80 years before. As soon as the size of ships for each rate was increased, the carronade was again abolished, and now they are fairly obsolete.

In the field of warship construction, the French and Spanish were decidedly ahead of the English. Their ships were larger and of far better form than the British; in particular the frigates were larger and had better sailing qualities, and for many years the English frigates were modelled on the French *Hebe*, which was captured in 1782. To the same degree that ships became longer, the height of the tower-like superstructures at bow and stern, forecastles, quarterdecks, and sterncastles, was reduced; thereby the sailing qualities of the ships were so improved that gradually the relatively elegant and fast-sailing forms of present-day warships developed. On these larger ships the number of guns was not increased, but the calibre grew, as did the weight and barrel length of each gun, so as to permit the use of full charges and to achieve the greatest range for round shot, so that fire could be opened from great distances. Calibres below 24-pounders disappeared from the larger ships, and the remaining calibres were so simplified that there were no more than 2 or at most 3 calibres on board each ship. The lower deck on line-of-battle ships, being the strongest, was mounted with guns of the same calibre as the upper decks, but of greater length and greater weight, in order to have at least one battery tier available for the greatest possible range.

Around 1820 the French General Paixhans made an invention that was of great importance for ships’ armament. He constructed a large-calibre gun provided with a narrow chamber at the breech for the powder charge, and began firing hollow projectiles with low elevation from these “bomb cannon” (canons obusiers). Until then only howitzers in coastal batteries had fired hollow projectiles at ships, although in Germany it had long been customary to fire shells horizontally from short 24-pounders and even 12-pounders against fortifications. The destructive effect of shells on ships’ wooden planking was well known to Napoleon; he mounted most of his gunboats in Boulogne for the expedition against England with howitzers and laid it down as a rule that, when attacking ships, projectiles that explode after impact must be used. Since Paixhans’ bomb cannon were fired almost horizontally, ships could now be armed with guns that, at sea, in ship-to-ship combat, were capable of shooting with almost the same accuracy as the old solid-shot guns. The new cannon was soon introduced into every navy, and after being variously improved, it now forms an essential part of the armament of all large warships.

Soon afterwards the first attempts were made to propel warships by steam power, as Fulton had already used it for merchant ships. The development from river steamer to coastal steamer and gradually to ocean steamer proceeded slowly; just as slowly proceeded the development of steam-propelled warships. As long as steamships were only paddle-wheel steamers, there was good reason for this. The paddle wheels and part of the machinery were exposed to enemy projectiles and could be rendered useless by a single lucky hit; they occupied the most advantageous section of the ship’s broadside; the weight of the machinery, paddle wheels, and coal reduced the ship’s capacity so much that a heavy armament of numerous long guns was entirely out of the question. A paddle-wheel steamer could therefore never be used as a ship of the line; yet, by its superior speed, it could match frigates, whose task it was to hang on the flanks of an opponent in order to reap the fruits of a victory or cover a retreat. Now a frigate is precisely of the size and armament that enable it to undertake a cruise fearlessly on its own, while its superior sailing qualities allow it to withdraw in time from an unequal combat. The sailing qualities of every frigate were far surpassed by the steamer, yet without good armament the steamer could not fulfil its role. A regular broadside fight was out of the question; the number of guns had to be, for lack of space, always less than on a sailing frigate. If the bomb cannon was in its right place anywhere, it was here. The reduced number of guns on board a steam frigate was compensated for by their metal weight and calibre. Originally these cannon were intended only for shell fire; but of late they have been built so heavily, especially the chase guns (at the bow and stern of the ship), that with full charges they can also fire solid shot from considerable distances. Besides this, the reduced number of guns permits revolving gun mountings and the laying of rails across the deck, by which all or most of the guns can fire in almost any direction, an arrangement by which the offensive power of a steam frigate is nearly doubled, and a steam frigate of 20 guns can bring at least as many guns into action as a sailing frigate of 40 guns, in which only 18 guns fire on each broadside. Therefore the large modern paddle-wheel steam frigate is a very formidable ship; the superior calibre and range of her guns together with her speed enable her to disable an opponent at a distance from which a sailing ship can hardly return the fire effectively, while the weight of her metal comes into play with destructive force when it is to her advantage to force the combat at last. The drawback remains, however, that her entire propulsion is exposed to direct fire and presents a large target.

For smaller ships, corvettes, avisos, and other light vessels that do not come into consideration for a naval battle but are very useful during a war, steam power was immediately felt to be very advantageous, and many such paddle-wheel steamers were built in most war fleets. The same was true of transport ships. In planned landings, steamers not only reduced the duration of the crossing to a minimum, but the time of arrival at a given place could be calculated fairly accurately. The transport of bodies of troops now became extremely simple, especially since every naval power had a large fleet of mercantile steamers that could be drawn upon as transports if necessary. On these considerations, Prince de Joinville ventured to assert in his well-known pamphlet that steam power had altered the conditions of naval war to such an extent that an invasion of England by France was no longer an impossibility. So long, however, as the ships employed for a decisive struggle, the ships of the line, remained exclusively sailing ships, the introduction of steam power could do little to alter the conditions under which great naval battles were fought.

It was the invention of the ship’s screw that was to provide the means for a complete revolutionising of naval warfare and to transform all war fleets into fleets propelled by steam power. The first step in this direction was taken a full 13 years after the invention of the screw. The French, who were always superior to the English in maritime designs and constructions, took it first. Thus, in 1849, the French engineer Dupuy de Lôme built the first screw ship of the line, the *Napoléon*, of 100 guns and 600 horse-power. This ship was not to be dependent on steam power alone; unlike paddle-wheel steamers, the screw allowed a ship to retain all the lines and rigging of a sailing vessel and to proceed at will by steam power alone, by sail alone, or by both. It could therefore always save its coal for emergencies, since it could fall back on its sails, and was thus far less dependent on the proximity of coaling stations than the old paddle-wheel steamer. For this reason, and because their steam power was too weak to attain the full speed of a paddle steamer, the *Napoléon* and other ships of this class were called auxiliary-steamers; since then, however, ships of the line have been built whose steam power could make full use of the speed possible with the screw. Through the success of the *Napoléon*, screw ships of the line were soon built in France as well as in England. The Russian war (Crimean War 1853–1856) gave a new impulse to this radical change in warship construction; when it turned out that most strongly built ships of the line could be equipped with a screw and machinery without too great difficulty, the conversion of all war fleets to steam power became only a question of time. No great naval power now thinks at all of building large sailing ships; almost all newly laid-down ships are screw steamers, apart from the few paddle-wheel steamers that are still required for particular purposes; and before 1870 sailing warships will be nearly as completely obsolete as the spinning-wheel and the smooth-bore musket today.

The Crimean War brought forth two new ship constructions. The first is the steam-powered gunboat or mortar boat, which was originally built by the English for the planned attack on Kronstadt; it is a small vessel of 4 to 7 feet draught and armed with one or two heavy long-range guns or a heavy mortar. As a gunboat it was to be used generally in shallow and difficult waters, as a mortar boat for bombarding fortified naval arsenals from a great distance. These boats fulfilled expectations exceedingly well and will no doubt play an important role in future naval wars. As was demonstrated at Sveaborg, the mortar boat completely changes the relations of attack and defence between fortresses and ships, for it gives the ships such a power to bombard the former with impunity as they never possessed before; from 3,000 yards’ distance the mortar boats with their shells can hit so large an object as a town, while they themselves are quite safe because of their small target area. Gunboats, on the other hand, when employed together with coastal batteries, will strengthen the defence, and thereby those light and mobile naval forces which have not previously existed also appear in maritime warfare.

The second innovation is the armoured, bullet-proof, floating batteries, which were first built by the French for the attack on coastal fortifications. They were tested only at Kinburn, and their success even against the dilapidated breastworks and rusty cannon of this small fortress was not very remarkable. But the French appeared so satisfied with them that they have since continued their experiments with armoured ships. They have built gunboats with a sort of bullet-proof shield of steel on the foredeck, to protect the gun and its crew. But whereas the floating batteries were unmanoeuvrable and had to be taken in tow, these gunboats lay with the forepart too deep in the water and were not at all seaworthy. The French have, however, built a heavily armoured steam frigate, the "Gloire", which is to be bullet-proof, to have a very high speed and to be so seaworthy that she can weather a storm without danger. The most exaggerated claims are made about the supposed revolution which these bullet-proof frigates will cause in naval warfare. It is said that ships of the line are obsolete and that the capacity to decide great sea battles has passed to these frigates, which have only a single battery, protected on all sides against shot, and which no wooden three-decker can withstand. We shall not dispute this question here; but we can certainly say that to invent rifled artillery heavy enough to penetrate iron or steel plates and to mount it on board a ship is much easier than to build ships whose metal armour is strong enough to withstand the shot or shell from these cannon. As regards the "Gloire", it is after all not certain whether she will remain seaworthy in a storm, and owing to her inadequate coal capacity she is said to be unable to remain at sea under steam for longer than three days. What her British counterpart, the "Warrior", will do remains to be seen. If the armament as well as the coal are reduced and the construction altered, it will without doubt be possible to build a ship that is completely bullet-proof at great and medium ranges and nevertheless a good steamship; but at a time when the science of artillery is making such rapid advances, it is very doubtful whether it serves any purpose to build such ships for the long run.

The revolution in artillery which is now being brought about by the rifled gun appears to be far more significant for the conduct of naval warfare than anything that can be achieved by armoured ships. Every rifled gun that deserves this name guarantees such accuracy at great ranges that the former inadequacy of firing at sea at such ranges will probably soon belong to the past. Moreover, through its elongated projectile and its reduced charge, the rifled gun allows the calibre and the weight of broadside guns to be considerably reduced; or else, if the calibre remains the same, far better results are obtained. The elongated projectile of a rifled 32-pounder weighing 56 cwt. will surpass the round shot from a smoothbore ten-inch gun weighing 113 cwt. not only in weight but also in penetrating power, range and accuracy. The offensive power of any ship armed with heavy rifled artillery is at least trebled. Furthermore, it was always considered urgently necessary to invent a usable percussion shell which explodes at the same moment that it penetrates the ship’s side. The rotation of the round ball made this impossible; the percussion fuse was not always in the correct position when the shell struck, and then it did not explode. But an elongated projectile from a rifled gun, rotating about its longitudinal axis, will always strike with the point of the projectile, and a simple percussion cap on the fuse head causes the shell to explode at the moment it penetrates the ship’s side. It is unlikely that any armoured ship hitherto developed can defy two such broadsides from a two-decker with impunity, quite apart from the shells that strike the ports and explode between the decks. Rifled guns must to a high degree put an end to such close actions in which carronades could be useful; manoeuvring will once more gain the upper hand, and since the fighting ships are now independent of wind and current through steam power, the conduct of naval warfare will henceforth approximate much more closely to the method and the tactical movements of land battles.

The warships composing the modern navy are divided into various classes, from the first to the sixth rate. But since these class divisions vary and are arbitrary, it will be better to divide the warships in the usual manner into ships of the line, frigates, corvettes, brigs, schooners, etc. Ships of the line are the largest warships, whose task it is to form the line of battle in a general engagement and to decide the fight by the weight of the projectiles they fire at the enemy ships. They are either three- or two-deckers, that is, they have three or two enclosed decks armed with guns. These decks are designated as the lower, middle and main or upper deck. The upper deck, which formerly was open only at the afterdeck and foredeck, is now roofed over from stem to stern by a continuous, open deck. On this open deck, which is still called the afterdeck and foredeck (the part amidships is called the gangway), artillery is likewise placed, mostly carronades, so that in reality a two-decker has 3 and a three-decker 4 battery tiers. The heaviest guns are naturally placed on the lower deck, and the higher the batteries lie above the water, the lighter the guns. Since the calibre mostly remains the same, this gradation is achieved by the reduced weight of the guns; as a result, the guns on the upper decks can only withstand small charges and can therefore be used only for shorter ranges. The sole exception to this rule are the chase guns at the bow and stern of a ship, which, even when placed on the foredeck or the afterdeck of a ship, are nevertheless as long and as heavy as possible, since they are intended for the longest conceivable ranges. That is why the bow and stern cannon of English ships of the line are either eight- or ten-inch shell guns or 56- or 68-pounders (calibre 7.7 and 8.13 inches respectively) for solid shot; one of the guns on the foredeck rests on a pivot mounting. In the English navy, a first-rate ship generally has 6 stern and 5 bow guns. The rest of the armament of such a ship is as follows:

Position

Type

Weight

Length

Number

Lower deck

eight-inch shell guns

65 cwt.

9 ft.

4

Lower deck

32-pounders

56 cwt.

9 ft.

6 in.

28

Middle deck

eight-inch shell guns

65 cwt.

9 ft.

2

Middle deck

32-pounders

50 cwt.

9 ft.

32

Upper deck

32-pounders

42 cwt.

8 ft.

34

Fore- and

32-pounders

45 cwt.

8 ft.

6 in.

6

Afterdeck

32-pdr. carronades

17 cwt.

4 ft.

14

Total:

120

The armament of the lower classes of ships of the line is built up according to the same principle. For comparison, we also give that of a corresponding French first-rate ship: Lower deck 32 long 30-pounders, middle deck four 80-pdr. shell guns and 30 short 30-pounders, upper deck thirty-four 30-pdr. shell guns, foredeck and afterdeck four 30-pdr. shell guns and sixteen 30-pdr. carronades; total 120 guns. The French 80-pdr. shell gun has a calibre 0.8 inches larger than the English eight-inch gun; the 30-pdr. shell gun and the 30-pounder have a somewhat larger calibre than the English 32-pounders, so that the advantage in weight of metal would lie with the French.

The smallest ship of the line now carries 72 guns on board, the largest frigate 61. A frigate is a ship with only one armed enclosed deck and another open deck above it (fore- and afterdeck), which is likewise armed with cannon. The armament in the English navy generally consists of 30 guns (either all shell guns or partly shell guns, partly long 32-pounders) on the gun deck and 30 short 32-pounders on the fore- and afterdeck, with one heavy pivot gun on a revolving mounting at the bow. Since frigates are mostly sent on detached service and must always reckon on fighting alone against enemy frigates despatched with the same task, it has been of great importance for most naval powers to build them as large and strong as possible. In no type of ship does the size increase so strikingly as in this one. The United States, which needed a cheap navy but one strong enough to command respect, was the first to recognise the great advantage that a fleet of large frigates afforded them if each frigate were superior to that of another nation. Advantage was likewise taken of the superiority of the American shipbuilders in constructing fast ships, and the last war against England (1812 to 1814) proved in many well-fought actions what formidable opponents these American frigates were. To this day the frigates of the United States are considered the models of this ship type, although the difference in size compared with other war fleets is by no means as considerable as it was 30 or 40 years earlier.

The next class of warships is called corvettes. They have only one battery tier on an open deck; but the larger corvettes are provided with a fore- and afterdeck (not, however, connected by a continuous deck amidships) where a few further guns stand. Such corvettes therefore correspond almost to the frigate in use 80 years ago, when the raised foremost and aftermost part of the ship was not yet connected by a flush deck. These corvettes are still strong enough to carry the same calibre of guns as the larger ships. They also have 3 masts, all with square rigging. Of the smaller vessels, the brigs and schooners have from 20 to 6 guns on board. They have only 2 masts, the brigs with square sails, the schooners with fore-and-aft sails. The calibre of their guns is necessarily smaller than that of the larger ships and generally does not exceed 18- or 24-pounders, going even down to 12- and 9-pounders. Vessels of this slight offensive strength cannot be employed where serious resistance is expected. In European waters they are gradually being generally displaced by small steamships, and they can really only be of use in such coastal waters as off South America, China, etc., where they encounter less strong opponents and serve merely to represent the flag of a strong naval power. The armament given above corresponds only to that customary at the present time; it will, however, undoubtedly be altered in every respect during the next 10 years by the general adoption of rifled naval guns.