British cruiser

“ It may be taken for certain that no enemy’s armed merchantman unless possessed of exceptional speed will dare to approach the area where he may encounter a British cruiser. Many of our old cruisers steam 19 knots. The number of German merchantmen which steam more is not large. As for the enemy’s warships and his few exceptionally fast vessels, they must be marked down and hunted by fast modern vessels which are concerned with nothing else but to bring them to action. ”

“ The Glasgow, Carnarvon, and Bristol were of great use in the Falklands fight, the first-named having already fought against the heavy batteries of the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau off the coast of Chile, while later on she sank the Dresden; while the Sydney won undying fame by defeating and driving on shore the notorious commerce-destroyer Emden.
Another distinctly modern type of cruiser is the "light cruiser", a fast unprotected vessel with light guns of 4-inch calibre, which has proved of immense value in the area of "liveliness" in the North Sea. ”

“ Flashes break from their sides also, and the noise of the firing swells into a steady roll of sound rising and falling on the wind. We again increase speed. Black smoke billows from our funnels, the bow wave rises higher, and now and again a cloud of spray swishes over our decks. Then "Cra—ash!" The fore-turret has spoken. The ship trembles from stem to stern. We are striking in to the assistance of our scouting cruiser. Through the glasses appears what looks like an iceberg towering over the enemy's nearest cruiser. ”

“ Thus it will be seen that of these two contemporary ships [211] the battle-cruiser is the bigger, cost £200,000 more, has two less big guns, 2 inches less protection, but steams at least 7 knots faster than the battleship. Indeed, it is hard to say whether she is or is not, on the whole, the more useful ship, even as a battleship. The Admiralty and naval constructors would seem to incline to this opinion, for, as we have seen in the latest battleship—the Queen Elizabeth—two guns have been sacrificed for the sake of 4 knots more speed than the Orion. ”

“ Every nation has its own classification of warships, and the varieties of modern warships are so numerous, and the estimates of their effectiveness so much at variance, that it is little wonder the descriptions assigned to the vessels do not agree. Thus the American Maine, sunk at Havana, was described with equal accuracy as a cruiser and as a second-class battleship. But the nations have, for the most part, adopted the British classification of cruisers, though they have not failed to modify it to suit their own views. ”

“ In war the British Navy has three prominent duties to discharge. It has to protect our maritime trade, to keep open the communications between the different parts of the empire, and to prevent invasion. If we command the sea these duties will be discharged effectually. As long as we command the sea the career of hostile cruisers sent to prey on our commerce will be precarious, because command of the sea carries with it the necessity of possessing an ample cruiser force. ”

“ We sight few vessels. A lone drifter on patrol speaks us and reports no enemy sighted in the area: an auxiliary cruiser with a destroyer escorting her passes south on the rim of the landward horizon. A drift of smoke astern of us hangs in the clear [118] air, then resolves to a fast Cunarder that speedily overhauls and passes us. As though impressed by the mail-boat's progress, our sea-mate puts a spurt on and maintains a better speed than any she has shown since morning. She draws ahead and we are left with clear water to exercise the cantrips of our zigzag. ”

“ It is of the utmost importance that his message should not be delivered; the British fleet 108is not quite ready to strike, and it does not wish the enemy to know this. Onward steams the cruiser, the fastest vessel of her class in the world. It is broad daylight, and she can be seen by our own cruisers who, unhappily, are half a knot slower than she is. British destroyers have attempted to torpedo her as she steams quickly by, but her quick-firing guns and her attendant torpedo craft have so far foiled their purpose and the daylight is against them. ”

“ He considered the essential features of a cruiser to be high speed, protection without the use of side armour, a powerful armament and minimum size and cost; and his views were adopted by the Elswick firm in a large number of cruisers built for foreign Powers down to the introduction of high explosives, when side armour was advocated in place of, or in addition to, the armour deck. The cruisers built for the British navy prior to 1880—of which the principal types were such vessels as the “Inconstant,” of 5780 tons (1866) ; the “Active,” of 3080 tons (1867) ”

“ The British Admiralty boards eventually threw aside their prejudices, and adopted long twenty-fours with sights on them in place of unsighted long eighteens. They have done even more than that, for when in these last years the swift armored cruiser New York, with her eight-inch rifles in turrets, was added to the American navy, giving us the most powerful cruiser in the world, they at once laid down four armored cruisers that were larger in displacement and carried more powerful engines, thicker turrets, and a more powerful armament than the New York. ”

“ Acting in unison with those of France and Japan, they have swept German commerce and German cruisers from the face of the ocean, and so far, except for shore bombardments and submarine attacks, have been the only war-vessels engaged on either side. At the time of writing no battleships have as yet been in action against one another, for we may regard all those ships which have been reported in action at sea as cruisers, from the big battle-cruiser Lion down to the destroyers—and even, perhaps, our submarines, which are very useful scouts. ”

“ Like ourselves, they are 'single-ship' men. They are neither concerned with serious plans of naval strategy nor overbalanced by the forms and usages of great ship routine. While 'the bridge' of a cruiser may be mildly scornful upon receipt of an objection to her signalled noon position, the destroyer captain is less assured: he is more likely to request our estimate of the course and speed. His seamanship is comparable to our own. The relatively small crew he musters has taught him to be tolerant of an apparent delay in carrying out certain operations. ”

“ The cruiser was listing perceptibly to starboard.
She was in danger of turning turtle and foundering, but even in the face of death not one of the handful of young officers showed the faintest sign of fear. If in their inmost minds the lads were a little timorous, they bravely kept their feelings to themselves. They were part and parcel of a British warship's complement. They had a reputation to maintain—the reputation of a Navy dating back for centuries. It was in safe keeping, for the Oxford's midshipmen were made of the right stuff. ”

“ Eight or nine German cruisers are believed to be at large in the Atlantic, the Pacific, and the Indian Oceans. Searching for these vessels and working in concert under the various Commanders-in-Chief are upwards of 70 British (including Australian) , Japanese, French, and Russian cruisers, not including auxiliary cruisers. Among these are a number of the fastest British cruisers. The vast expanses of sea and ocean and the many thousand islands of the archipelagos offer an almost infinite choice of movement to the enemy’s ships. ”

“ In fact the Sub had been specially reported to the Admiralty for the smart way in which on several occasions he had taken away a boat to board merchant ships during the light cruiser's patrol work in the North Sea. In these days of steam propulsion, small-boat work in the British Navy rarely gets the attention it deserves, and comparatively few officers can handle a sailing boat with any great degree of smartness. ”

“ The battle-cruiser has a great future before it, and it does not seem unlikely that, now that the enormous advantages of high speed have been so clearly demonstrated, it will altogether supersede the slower and heavier armed and armoured battleship proper. ”

“ As we do so comes the loud crackle of the electric spark. The operator is acknowledging a signal. A message has come in from a scouting cruiser. "The enemy are out. Five big cruisers, heading north-west." Another Scarborough Raid perhaps.
The ship wakes up, she is alive. The engine-room gongs clang down in her depths. A few signal flags flutter aloft. The admiral is signalling to his squadron to alter course to head off the enemy, and to increase speed by so many revolutions. The big ship gathers way. ”

“ If British cruisers of superior speed are hunting them, they cannot do much harm before they are brought to action. Very few German Town Class cruisers are assigned to foreign stations for this work. If others are detached from the North Sea, and get out safely, we shall be able to detach a larger proportion of the similar British cruisers which have been hitherto opposing them there. They cannot afford to send away many without crippling their battle fleet. ”

“ Submarine activities put an end to these meetings on the sea. Except while under ocean escort of a cruiser—when our relations by flag signal are studied and [29] impersonal—we have now little acquaintance with vessels of that class. Counter-measures of the new warfare demand the service of smaller vessels. Destroyers and sloops are now our protectors and co-workers. With them, we are drawn to a familiar intimacy; we are, perhaps, more at ease in their company, dreading no formal routine. ”

“ If space permitted, a good deal more might be written about the cruiser operations in the Atlantic, but we have now to turn our attention to the Indian Ocean. The first incident to be noticed is an adverse one to the British. The Pegasus, a small cruiser dating from 1899, after having in conjunction with the Astrea destroyed the German wireless station at [266] Dar-es-Salem, and sunk the gunboat Möwe and a floating-dock, was caught while overhauling her machinery in the harbour of Zanzibar by the German light cruiser Königsberg, a much newer vessel. ”

“ When this was added to their other troubles the submarines thought twice before risking an attack on a convoy of ships guarded by cruisers, as well as by destroyers ahead and on both sides, zig-zagging about on the hunt for submarines, much as a good sporting dog quarters likely ground for game. A "mothering" cruiser would keep station astern, where she could have her weather eye on every one. In narrow waters like the English Channel there would also be an airship overhead, a little in advance, with seaplanes on the flanks. ”

“ No British battle or battle-cruiser squadron was attacked during the night, but the Second Light Cruiser Squadron, which was disposed in the rear of the battle line, got into action at 10:20 with five enemy cruisers, and at 11:30 Birmingham sighted several heavy ships steering south or west-southwest. The Thirteenth Flotilla, which seems to have been associated with the Second Light Cruiser Squadron astern of the battle fleet, reported a large vessel half an hour after midnight, which opened fire on three of the flotilla, disabling Turbulent. ”

“ In these engagements, as far as is at present ascertained, we destroyed the great battleship Warspite, the battle-cruisers Queen Mary and Indefatigable, two armoured cruisers of the Achilles class, one small cruiser, and the new destroyer leaders Turbulent, Nestor, and Alcester. According to trustworthy evidence, a great number of British battleships suffered heavy damage from the artillery of our vessels and the attacks of our torpedo-boat flotillas, during the day battle and during the night. ”

“ But he must add a note, that the units of the Battle Cruiser Fleet were less heavily armoured than their opponents! The obsession of the defensive idea is obvious. “The enemy constantly turned away and opened the range under cover of destroyer attacks and smoke screens.” “The German Fleet appeared to rely very much on torpedo attacks, which were favoured by low visibility, and by the fact that we had arrived in the position of a ‘following’ or ‘chasing’ fleet. ”

“ Perhaps we may take the viking skuta, or fast scouting vessel, as its first prototype, scouting being one of the most important duties of a cruiser. Possibly the galleys and balingers of mediæval times may be regarded as the skuta's successors, while the low-lying Tiger and other ships of her class in Tudor reigns may be considered as the immediate precursors of the famous frigates and corvettes which figured so largely and did such yeoman service in our eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century maritime campaigns. ”

“ American and British cruisers Yet in spite of this light force, weak discipline, and unsteady management, the little American navy did some very good work in the course of the war, and it was efficiently helped by a multitude of private cruisers, just as the Continental army often got valuable aid from the militia. ”

“ The preponderance in weight of the broadside fire of the British cruisers in the North Sea as compared with that of the German cruisers in the same sea is even more marked, as Great Britain has twenty-nine cruisers, thirteen of which are armoured, as against Germany's six, only one of which is armoured. ”

“ All the other frigates were shut up in various ports by the British blockade, which extended from Cape Cod to Florida. The burden of offense during the rest of the war fell upon privateers. During the war more than five hundred fitted out in American ports. In the year 1813 they took over three hundred prizes, while the frigates took but seventy-nine. While British cruisers were blockading the coast of the United States, these craft, with their beautiful [Pg 219] lines and wonderful spread of canvas, carried consternation to all British shippers in the English Channel and in the Irish Sea. ”