User:The Land/Wooden steam warship

Warships made of wood and powered by steam engines were a common feature of navies in most of the 19th century. Steam engines were first adopted for tugs and gunboats in the 1820s and 1830s. Through the 1840s they became common in medium-sized ships like sloops and frigates. In the 1850s, steam-powered wooden battleships briefly dominated naval warfare. From the 1860s onwards, these wooden battleships were made obsolete by the ironclad warship, but wooden steamers continued to be important in other roles until the very end of the 19th century.

Wooden steam warships combined the new technology of steam power with very traditional wooden construction. Most of the larger steamers combined their steam engines with a saling rig.

Early steamers

The steamship first came into military use in an auxiliary capacity, where the power and their independence from wind and tide gave them the opportunity to perform tasks other ships could not.

The first military use of a steamship was as a dredger in British harbours in 1802. In the War of 1812, when a Mississippi river paddle steamer was pressed into service by the USA as a troopship.

The War of 1812 also saw the construction of the first steam-powered warship, Demologos. The ship was an innovative design, with a paddle wheel on the inside, sandwiched between two wooden hulls. She carried 26 32-pounder guns. Demologos was never used, since the war had concluded before construction finished; and there were no further ships built on her design.

The introduction of the steamer as a warship in itself was faltering. The Royal Navy came close to adopting a steamer for an expedition up the Congo river in 1816, but the ship did not suit the engines provided, and proceeded under sail instead.

Through the 1820s, steamers gradually came further into use as tugs for major navies. As a tug, a steamboat could free major warships from reliance on a favourable wind and tide to leave port. The Royal Navy built several steamers as tugs in the early 1820s, and made regular use of commercial steamers owned by the General Steam Navigation Company. By the end of the 1820s, the steamers were in regular use as despatch boats. In the same decade, steamers were built or acquired for similar purposes - despatch, tugging and transport - by the navies of France, the USA and the British East India company.

The first use of the steamer as a weapon in its own right, rather than as a utility vessel, came in the many campaigns of the adventurous naval officer Thomas Cochrane. He ordered armed steamers for a his campaigns in South America, but by the time the vessels arrived the conflcits were over. The first armed steamer to see action was the Karteria, one of the four steamers which Cochrane introduced to the Greek Revolution.

The first steamer to fire shots in anger may have been the armed transport Diana of the British East India Company in the First Burma War of 1822-28,

By the end of the 1820s, the British and French navies had commissioned steamers which were capable small warships, for instance HMS Dee, a 700-ton vessel rated as a second-class sloop and armed with two 32-pounder guns and four carronades. During the 1830s, armed steamers proliferated, with minor naval powers like the USA, Turkey, Sardinia, Spain and Naples acquiring paddle-steamer warships. Nevertheless for the rest of the decade the steamers were used solely for towing and despatch purposes, being deployed with the fleet in operations like the French invasion of Algeria in 1830, the Franco-British blockade of the Netherlands in 1833, and the deployment of the Russian fleet to the Bosporus in 1833.

In spite of the humble role occupied by the steamer, politicians and naval officers alike were alert to the potential strategic consequences of the steam warship. In the early 1820s, the French artillerist Henri Paixhans saw the steam warship, armed with his new design of shell-firing guns, as a revolutionary weapon at sea. As it happened, neither his guns nor the steamships available at the time were reliable enough to have such an impact.

Paddle Frigates: The limits of paddlewheels

The late 1830s and 1840s saw the building of ever-larger and more powerful paddle-steamer warships. HMS Cyclops, laid down in 1838, was the first vessl to be termed a 'steam frigate'. Armed with two 98-pounder and four 68-pounder guns, her armament was nowhere near that of a conventional frigate, though it illustrated the trend for steamers to be armed with a smaller number of heavier guns.

A succession of steam frigates followed through the 1840s. One trend in design, built under the administration of Sir Robert Peel, sought to make a paddle frigate more like a conventional sailing frigate by mounting guns on the gun deck, safer and less exposed than the upper deck of the ship. This resulted in ships like HMS Terrible, a 3000-ton ship mounting 19 guns, mainly 56-pounder and 68-pounder. Another trend in design saw smaller paddle frigates with a lighter armament on the upper deck.

The French Navy were quick to adopt, and to abandon, the paddle frigate. Hoping for a method of overcoming British superiority in sailing ships, the French experimented with paddle frigate designs carrying a small number of very heavy shell guns. By 1847, the problems of making a paddle-steamer into an effective warship led them to abandon their attempts in favour of screw-propelled warships.

The United Stats Navy also built a number of paddle frigates; like the French ships they were designed to fire shells over the bow, rather than broadside. Russia had paddle frigates and smaller steamers as part of her Baltic and Black Sea fleets, and Spain, Sardinia and Naples also acquired paddle steamer warships. The first navy to convert to steam in its entirety was the navy of the British East India Company; with few duties except carrying post and assisting the heavy ships of the Royal Navy, the Indian Navy was able to convert to steam in 1836.

Ultimately, the paddle-steamer warship was a dead end. The major warships of the day, the ship of the line and the frigate, had evolved to meet tactical and strategic requirements which did not change with the introduction of steam engines. Powered by sail, they were able to travel long distances. Their wooden hulls were strong and durable even against heavy fire. And, mounting dozens of guns to a broadside, they had considerable firepower. Battles were settled by ships closing and firing repeated broadsides at close range.

A paddle frigate suffered several fundamental disabilities compared to a sailing frigate. The paddlewheels themselves were above the waterline and exposed to gunfire. Much of the vital machinery had to be above the waterline and could be equally vulnerable. It would be much easier to cripple a paddle-frigate's propulsion with gunfire than to bring down a sailing frigate's masts.

The second major problem was that the paddlewheels took up a great deal of space on the broadside, reducing the number of guns which could be mounted. A partial solution was to use a smaller number of heavier guns, but the heavy guns were more unwieldy to load and aim as well as vulnerable to fire. The paddle steamer occupied the same tactical role as the oared galley had done in previous centuries; the galley had been made obsolete by the broadside warship and the introduction of steam made no fundamental change.

Thirdly, paddlesteamers were never good sailing ships. The paddlewheels themselves caused drag. Furthermore, the steam engines filled the position which was ideal for the mainmast of the ship, reducing the efficiency of sailing; and most steamers did not carry a large enough spread of sail, for reasons of space or stability, to sail fast. For a vessel meant to have long range and global reach, this was an impossible disability.

Any of these problems on its own would have made the idea of a paddlewheel ship-of-the-line an impossibility.

The paddle frigate did have an important impact; a force of paddle-steamer frigates could sortie to the English Channel and make short work of the transport of an invasion fleet in any wind. Paddle-steamers were also ideal for amphibious operations; not being tied to the wind they had much more flexibility in conducting a landing.

Royal Navy paddle steamers served with some distinction in the Crimean War. US Navy paddle frigates saw the most action, taking part in the Mexican-American War and the US Civil War as well as intimidating the Japanese in the Perry Expedition.

Introduction of screw steamers

Steam engines only became an integral part of the fleet when a way was found to integrate steam power with dominant warship forms of the time, the ship-of-the-line and the frigate. Because of the problems of masking the broadside and of paddlewheel performance under sail, this required the development of an effective screw propeller.

The screw propeller first attracted naval interest in the late 1830s, and Britain, France and the USA experimented with and then adopted screw propulsion at more or less the same time. Both the Royal Navy and U.S. Navy began experimental screw-propelled warships in 1841 and completed them in 1843; the American USS Princeton was begun a few months before and completed a few months after the British HMS Rattler. Both ships were rated as sloops and both were regarded as a success, and in 1845 the French launched the first screw frigate while the British were paving the way for larger screw warships by building screw-propelled 'blockships' for harbour defence. By the end of the decade, both Britain and France were building steam-powered versions of the ship of the line.

The first screw frigates and sloops

The inventor John Ericsson demonstrated a steam launch, Francis B Ogden to Admiralty officials, including chief designer Sir William Symonds, in 1837. Symonds took the view that while the screw could propel a ship, a propeller at the stern would cause problems for the steering of the ship. Ericsson shortly departed for the USA; he was later to persuade the US Navy of the virtue of screw propulsion, resulting in the order for the sloop USS Princeton in 1841. After an accidental explosion on board Princeton, Ericsson fell out with the U.S. Navy, who took exceptional steps to avoid having to recognise his patent on screw propulsion, which delayed the adoption of screw warships in the USA.

The next attempt to interest the British Admiralty came in 1839 from Francis Pettit Smith, who held a patent on the idea of placing a screw between the stern of the ship and the rudder. He also had financial backing from the Ship Propeller Company, which constructed the 200-ton Archimedes. The Archimedes impressed a number of naval officers, who saw the military potential in the design. She also sparked interest from civilian engineers, particularly Isembard Kingdom Brunel, who the Admiralty invited to supervise the construction of a trial screw warship. Accounts differ of the role of Symonds and Brunel in the development of the ship but the final result was the construction of the screw sloop HMS Rattler, and the purchase of the smaller HMS Dwarf.

In 1844 and 1845 the Rattler and Dwarf took part in a variety of trials, which proved the value of the screw warship and provided valuable experience for future screw ship designs. A number of races and competitions caught the public imagination, the best known of which was the trial of the Rattler against the paddle-steamer Alecto, which culminated with the Rattler winning a tug-of-war between the two ships. These theatrics, however, came after the technical utility of the screw and the military problems of the paddle-wheel were both well-known.

The French navy made the decision to convert a frigate under construction to screw propulsion in 1842, and the ship was completed in 1845 as the Pomone; she used Ericsson's patented screw design. After producing another experimental frigate, the Isly, France decided to convert a number of ships-of-the-line and frigates to steam power, putting them on the path which resulted in the first steam battleship.

The steam battleship

In 1845, a crisis in relations with France led the British to convert four old ships-of-the-line into short-range steam-powered vessels known as 'blockships'; while they were initially intended for the protection of British harbours, they were very soon adopted as part of the British 'Cherbourg Strategy', which envisaged a cross-channel assault on French ports. This was the first meeting of a wooden line-of-battle ship with a screw propeller; and the ships were regarded as a success.

The success of the blockships prompted the French Navy to begin an experiment with adding steam engines to some of its own half-built ships-of-the-line, starting in 1846. It also sparked the British Admiralty to order a newly-built steam ship-of-the-line called HMS Audacious in April 1847; however, the order was cancelled. In July 1847, the French navy placed an order for a purpose-built screw ship of the line, and the result was Le Napoleon, a 90-gun ship-of-the-line launched in 1850. Le Napoleon was finished before the French converted steam ships, which were launched in 1851 and 1852; she also preceded the first British steam ships-of-the-line, the converted Sans Pareil (begun 1848, completed 1851) and the purpose-built Agamemnon (begun 1849, launched 1852).

Screw battlefleets

For ten years from 1850 until 1860, steam ships-of-the-line represented the pinnacle of naval technology. Britain and France, the two leading naval powers, constructed fleets of dozens of such ships, which played a major role in the Crimean War. Alongside the steam ships-of-the-line served screw frigates, sloops and gunboats, as well as paddle-steamer warships and sailing vessels.

In 1850, the British Admiralty combined the two posts of 'Surveyor of the Navy' and 'Controller of Steam'; no more sailing ships would be built. In December 1852, the Surveyor persuaded the Government to commit £100,000 for machinery for the steam battlefleet.

Britain and France were the only two powers to adopt the steam battlefleet wholeheartedly. Britain's total strength in steam ships-of-the-line reached 18 new ships and 41 converted from sail; the French, despite their early lead, managed only 10 new ships and 28 converted. The Russian Navy, after the defeat of its sailing fleet in the Crimean War, built a total of nine steam ships-of-the-line; Turkey, which had suffered similarly, built four. Sweden, Naples, Denmark and Austria all built or converted one ship. The Spanish Navy built two 86-gun ships which were intended for steam, but no engines available; these ships became the last sailing ships-of-the-line.

Most steam ships-of-the-line were two-decker ships of the second rate, with 90–100 guns, though some were three-decker ships of the first rate; for instance HMS Victoria, a 121-gun ship displacing almost 7,000 tons, or the Russian Sinop of 135 guns and a displacement of 6,000 tons.

Those second-rank navies which entered the steam arms race generally built steam frigates in the 1850s, though at least early in the decade paddle-steamer frigates were still popular. The U.S. Navy ordered six very large frigates, USS Merrimack and her sisters, which were longer than most existing ships of the line. More than a match for the 51-gun steam frigates of the European navies, these ships led to a large frigate response from both Britain and France. The British response came with the Mersey and Orlando of 1858. These large frigates were longer than could efficiently be built from wood. The American ships mounted heavy Dahlgren guns.

Wooden warships in the ironclad age

The trends in construction of steam warships towards heavy battleships, massive frigates and armoured bombardment ships led to the development of the ironclad warship. Even the first ironclads, like La Gloire and Warrior, easily outmatched the steam ship-of-the-line; the ironclad was largely immune to the many medium-calibre guns of the wooden steam battleship, while the heavier guns of the ironclad, designed to pierce armor, could inflict heavy damage on a wooden structure from long range.

The superiority of the ironclad was settled after the first engagements between ironclads and wooden ships, which occurred in the U.S. Civil War. The CSS Virginia wreaked havoc amongst the Union's wooden ships on the first day of the Battle of Hampton Roads, engaging three screw frigates protected by shore batteries, and was only driven off by the arrival of the Union's own ironclad, the USS Monitor.

The only test of a screw ship-of-the-line against ironclads — or in a fleet battle at all — came at the Battle of Lissa in 1866, where both Austrian and Italian fleets included a mixture of wooden screw ships and ironclads. The sole Austrian ship-of-the-line, the Kaiser, survived a remarkable engagement, ramming Italian ironclads.