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May 21, 2006

HMS Warrior - The Black Snake

Another famous sight at the Historic Docks in Portsmouth is the HMS Warrior, the first ship of the Royal Navy that deserves the name 'Battleship'. She was launched in 1860 and joined the Channel Squadron in 1861. Compared to HMS Victory her design is quite revolutionary.

HMS Warrior at Portsmouth

Inspired by the La Gloire a French warship of Napoleon III whose wooden hull was simply clad with iron armour-plating to offer better protection against gun fire the English did things properly and built the whole hull of iron instead of wood. Additionally her guns and machinery were protected by a long 'armoured box' (64.6 m) which was impenetrable, even at close range, by the latest guns at that time. Bow and stern of the ship were not armour-plated but the warrior was divided into watertight compartments to limit the spread of water in case of being holed. Watertight compartments were a great step forward in ship construction but only possible in iron hulls.

In contrast to the former wooden warships HMS Warrior has only one gun deck, equipped with quite a fearsome assortment of guns: 26 x 68 pounders (range 2.5 km), 10 x 110 pounders (range 2.7 miles) and 4 x 40 pounders (range 3 km). The biggest guns on HMS Victory were 32 pounders! Her crew consisted of 705 men.

The Warrior was fitted with a steam engine. But at that time the engine was not fuel efficient enough to make the sails obsolete. Burning 11 tonnes of coal an hour at full speed the Warrior's steaming range was not more than 3500 km, not even enough to let her cross the Atlantic. Therefore great distances were usually covered under sail using steam only to get her in and out of harbour. For this she could telescope down her funnels and the propeller was hoisted clear of the water. Funny enough this had to be down by manpower as the ship lacked powered machinery to perform these task. Just as on the Victory sailors did not exactly have an easy live on the Warrior either

The progress that had been made in ship design over a hundred year becomes evident if you compare a few numbers: The Victory is 69 m long, the Warrior is almost twice that size at 127 m. The beams are almost the same size with 16 and 18 meters. The displacement of the Victory is 3600 tonnes, the Warrior's more than twice as much, namely 9367 tonnes. Under full sail the Victory would reach a top speed of 8 knots compared to 13.75 knots of the Warrior under full sail. Using sail and steam the Warrior would even reach 17.5 knots which must have been quite something at the end of the 19th century.

The Warrior has had (and is probably still having) an interesting life. Being such an awe inspiring fighting machine she never had to fire a shot in anger. Serving in the Navy she entered Portmouth in 1883 and was laid up in a remote corner of Portsmouth Harbour called 'Rotten Row'. In 1929 she became a floating jetty for an oil fuel depot at Milford Haven in Wales. That probably saved her and in 1979 she was towed to Hartlepool for restoration. In June 1987 she arrived back in Portsmouth looking, I should think, as resplendent as on her first day at sea.

Posted by Mausi at May 21, 2006 12:08 PM

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Posted by: Mike at May 25, 2007 06:40 PM