Cruiser (ship)

“ The best type of cruiser, according to Admiral Touchard, should be a wooden ship, of greater speed than the majority of the foreign ironclads, more handy under canvas, and costing one- third or one-fourth of the price of the larger ship. ”

“ Fittings.—A deep-sea cruiser should always be flush-decked, and have an entirely detached, self-emptying cockpit. Coach roofs and immense skylights make for additional headroom below, but during bad weather are an abomination.
We did not carry davits. They look "yachty," but we were not anxious to look that way, and found it far less trouble to haul the thirteen-foot dinghy over the bulwarks with the fore halyards. If one went in for every "fitting" advertised in a yachting catalogue, the deck—which must be kept as clear as possible—would be a scrap-heap of "gadgets." ”

“ At first sight this hybrid type of vessel might seem to be an anomalous intrusion into the time-honoured hierarchy of battleship, cruiser, and small craft, which the ripe experience of many wars, battles, and campaigns had finally established in the last golden days of the sailing ship period. It is indeed held by some high authorities that the battle-cruiser is in very truth a hybrid and an anomaly, and that no adequate reason for its existence can be given. ”

“ THE 'IMPERIEUSE.'
22-ton guns and thicker armour than any of the early ironclads. It is more the service on which they are to be employed than any special form of construction which has put them in the cruiser category. No more ships of this type have been built. In this country the further development of the cruiser has been in the direction of giving up external armour, and devoting all weight we can give to protection to a steel deck for the whole length of the ship, varying in thickness according to her size. ”

“ High speed, wide radius of action and great battery strength are the characteristics of this type; and to meet these requirements the battle cruiser is planned of a size considerably larger than the battleship.
The protected cruiser is a later development of naval construction. Its distinguishing features are certain modifications in the distribution of the mass of protective armor of the ship.
Light cruisers are vessels of from 1,500 to 7,500 tons, used in scouting, as commerce destroyers, etc. They are outside the armored class. ”

“ All desirable features cannot be concentrated in any one ship; the special duty for which the vessel is to be used controls the selection. The sea-going armored cruiser is expected to keep the sea for a lengthened period: she must have large coal endurance. She may be called on to sustain more than one engagement: her supply of ammunition must be large. Her speed must equal that of the fastest sea-going vessels of similar type to enable her to pursue an equal or to avoid a superior force: hence much space and displacement must be assigned to engines and boilers. ”

“ HER LUCK DID NOT FAIL HER—HER FIGHT WITH THE BOXER—EVEN A GOOD FRIGATE COULD NOT CATCH HER.
If the reader would like to learn the story of the luckiest American naval ship let him look up the details of the career of the little cruiser Enterprise, for of all the vessels that have carried the gridiron flag on the salt seas, or on any other seas, not one has had the credit of as many victories as she. ”

“ 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. ”

“ An arrangement so complex naturally necessitated a fellow having to climb up one hatchway and go down another before he could speak to his chum in the next flat, thus causing one to go through ‘sich a getting upstairs’ like that mentioned in the celebrated negro ballad. The difference of the deck plan of a modern cruiser, as compared with that of my old ship the Active, was not the only thing I had to learn on being drafted to the Mermaid ”

“ A general order should be issued to the Fleet that no cruiser or larger vessel is to stop for the purpose of boarding or challenging any merchant ship. This work is to be invariably performed by auxiliary merchant cruisers, torpedo craft, and trawlers. Cruisers and larger vessels, wishing to turn back merchant ships, should fire a shot across their bows and make signals. ”

“ And no one was more cheery than he, as he dashed backwards and forwards from his hoist to the magazine, laughing and joking, and wiping the sweat off his face. It was very warm down there, and the smell of sweating men soon made the air heavy.
A bearded ship's corporal came down with the key of the transmitting-room, opened the thick padded wooden door in the bulkhead, and went in. The Fleet-Paymaster and the tall, depressed Fleet-Surgeon followed him down the tube. They scuttled out of the way of the trampling men. ”

“ With a reduction of displacement come reduction of initial cost and cost of upkeep, a smaller crew, a shorter time for building, and the many advantages attendant upon reduced size and draught of water. It hasThird-class cruisers. been, found possible to embody in a ship of about 2000 tons displacement many of the most important requirements of a modern cruiser, and a large number of vessels of this class have been added to the fleet. Among these may be mentioned the “Barham,” a typical small cruiser, which was built in 1889 of steel, of 1830 tons displacement; she is 280 ft. ”

“ The number of vessels composing a convoy varied, but often exceeded twenty big cargo ships, carrying some 120,000 tons of merchandise, or six liners, with 20,000 troops on board, while the escorting flotilla consisted of a light cruiser, acting as flag-ship, six destroyers, two special vessels ("P" [119] boats) towing observation airships, and some eight or ten trawlers, with possibly one or more seaplanes and several M.L.'s for the first few miles of the voyage. ”

“ Cruisers proper in our navy are now officially classed in three main divisions—"battle-cruisers", "cruisers", and "light cruisers", though a very short time ago they were subdivided into "armoured cruisers", "first-class protected cruisers", "second-class protected cruisers", "third-class protected cruisers", "unarmoured cruisers", "lightly-armoured cruisers", and "scouts".
The battle-cruiser is a hybrid and, as this war has proved, a most useful war-vessel. She is not so heavily armed or armoured as a battleship of equivalent age, but has much greater speed. ”

“ The German battle-cruisers were now close enough for their hulls to be distinguishable. The outline of each ship stood forth, clear-cut and black, against the sky-line. Each was rushing forward at its topmost speed, bearing down with inevitable precision upon the defenceless cargo ship, which, like an exhausted, hunted animal, strained every bolt, bar and rivet to save herself from unutterable disaster. Suddenly, it became apparent that, in addition to the Dreadnought cruisers, the sea was alive with a host of smaller craft--light cruisers and torpedo-boat-destroyers. ”

“ I can almost hear the noble army of schooner-, ketch-, and yawl-owners howling their execration at these remarks, but I cannot help it. I have tried most rigs, and come back to the cutter. The howlers will at least admit that she sails as close to the wind as any, and closer than most; and as for facility in handling by the smallest possible crew, we of the dream ship had no trouble on this score, for she would heave-to in a gale under single reef like a duck, and with the wind abeam would go for hours on end with the tiller pegged. ”

“ The battle-cruiser is, as its name implies, a vessel not only fitted by the nature of its armour and armament "to lie in a line," whenever occasion may require, but also exceedingly well qualified by its armour and armament, and still more by its speed, to discharge many of the functions of a cruiser either alone or in company with other cruisers. ”

“ After the battleships come the cruisers, corresponding to the frigates of olden days,—ships whose functions correspond to that of the cavalry of land forces, having to act as scouts, carry messages, intercept the enemy’s ships, and capture his mercantile ships, or protect their own merchant convoys. To perform these varied functions, one of the chief requirements is speed, rather than heavy armament, so that it can run, if need be, if it should happen to encounter a ship of greater power. Accordingly the best cruisers are given the high maximum speed of 23 to 25 knots. ”

“ It is, however, an art easily acquired, and may be wholly self-taught. There are certain rudimentary rules for finding one's way at sea by dead reckoning, that everyone starting out on a cruise should master. The instruments needful are a compass, parallel rulers, dividers, patent log, lead line, aneroid barometer, clock, and the necessary charts of the sea which it is proposed to navigate.
In a small cruiser a compass is generally carried in a portable binnacle. When steering by it take care that the lubber's point is in a direct line with the keel or stem and sternpost. ”

“ For many years the corresponding types of iron and steel vessels were known as battleships, cruisers and gunboats, but recently we have seen the power of the cruiser increased to that of the battleship, and knew types have been produced such as the torpedo boat the torpedo boat destroyer and the scout, the latter developing into the fast cruiser of continually increasing size; while the submarine torpedo boat has become a recognized sea-going vessel, and is becoming comparable in size with the gun-vessel or the small cruiser. ”

“ The vessel is a sight in herself: sensible to the smallest movement of the helm, winged horse or hippogriff that she is, she obeys the hand of the pilot as a horse does that of its rider. The grace of the masts and rigging, the nimbleness of the sailors laying out on the yards, the various aspects under which the ship displays herself, whether listing, borne down by a contrary blast, or scudding before a favourable wind, cause this intelligent machine to become one of the marvels of [Pg 193] human genius. At one time the swell and its foam break and burst against the keel ”

“ The duties of the modern cruiser are multifarious. She has to be no less a commerce protector than a commerce destroyer, and while at one end of the scale she may be little more than a glorified gunboat, she may at the other end have to be able to take her place in the line of battle and help her more powerful sisters. Whatever her duties, speed is regarded as of great importance.
The Iris, in 1878, attained a speed of eighteen and a half knots, but more than seventeen years elapsed before this speed was equalled by any of the cruisers. ”

“ Wyse!" "'Bout ship!" "Down with the helm!" "Helm a-lee!" Up comes the schooner's head to the wind, the sails flapping with the noise of thunder—blocks rattling against the deck, as if they wanted to knock their brains out—ropes dancing about in galvanised coils, like mad serpents—and everything to an inexperienced eye in inextricable confusion; till gradually she pays off on the other tack—the sails stiffen into deal-boards—the staysail sheet is let go—and heeling over on the opposite side. Again she darts forward over the sea like an arrow from the bow. "Stand by to make sail!" ”

“ One of the unique and most interesting occasions of the trip was when the famous battle cruiser, the "Queen Mary" came up about dusk one evening and ran through our lines amid great excitement. This was the battle cruiser that had not long before [9] converted the German cruiser "Emden" into a mass of twisted iron in a few minutes. As she steamed slowly by she presented one of the finest spectacles I have ever seen. Somehow nothing in the world looks as efficient for its particular job as a battle cruiser; it is the personification of power and beauty. ”

“ The incident was seized upon by those who still favoured the older methods which had done duty for so many hundreds of years, as an argument for the retention of sail power for the ships of the Royal Navy, and the modernists replied that such incidents were few and far between, and with the improvements in mechanism which science was continually making would become virtually impossible.
Naval experts do not always agree as to the differences between a battleship and a cruiser. ”

“ The Surcoup and Forbin illustrate another favorite type of cruiser. They are 311 feet 7 inches long, have 30 feet 6 inches beam, and on a mean draught of 13 feet 11 inches displace 1848 tons. The hull weighs 817 tons, and the engines (with boilers filled) 544 tons; the coal capacity is 200 tons, and the endurance 2400 miles at 10 knots. The engines are expected, with forced draft, to develop 6000 indicated horse-power and 19.5 knots. They have a four-masted schooner rig, spread 7255.5 square feet of canvas, and carry a complement of one hundred and fifty officers and men. ”

“ We crossed the steamship lanes in all directions with guns loaded and with a sharp lookout so as not to lose any opportunity to damage the enemy’s commerce.
Shortly before dinner the first merchant ship arose on the south horizon. It was a sailer, a large, full-rigged schooner, which, hard by the wind, headed towards the French coast. With majestic calm, lightly leaning to the wind, the splendid ship approached. ”