The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1881-08-20 00:00:00

The NAVAL BATTLES of the FUTURE.

The Times, in a leader, makes the following observations
on the English navy :

The complaint that the English Navy is not large
enough has something of a conventional character. It
seems to be repeated only to furnish cccasion for a
reply which shows it to be baseless. It falls ac •ord-
ingly on listless and incredulous ears. We cannot
hope to have a navy large enough to engage on equal
terms with all the other navies in the world. It is
enough that we have the best Navy in the world, and
a supply of seamen pretty well equal to all the rest
together. We do not yet know what a naval battle
with ships of the modern build will be like. The
experiment has never yet been quite fairly
tried. When the Italian and Austrian fleets met
at Lissa the largest number of ironclads did not gain
the day. Courage and seamanship more than made
up for a very considerable disparity of numbers. It
seems certain, from the partial experiments which
have been tried, that when the floating monsters which
compose a modern navy do come together, one or the
other must suffer fatally from the encounter. The
two or three enormous guns they carry will smash any-
thing they hit. The mere contact of the vessels will
be enough, without any firing. A light touch, with the
velocity multiplied by the weight, will crush in the
sides of an opponent. When the _iron Duke ran into
the Vanguard both vessels were proceeding on the
same course and at a slow pace, but the Iron
Duke's ram struck a fatal blow even so.
How would it have been if the two vessels
had met on opposite courses in full direct shock? As
for the tremendous effect of modern heavy artillery,
we must remember that it is necessary, not only that
the gun should be fired, but that the enemy's hull
should be struck. The gun may carry four or five
miles, but at that distance the practice must be a
little uncertain. The largest guns do not most readily
lend themselves to accurate tiring. When the Shalt
and the Amethyst engaged the Peruvian ironclad
Huascar they would have been sent to the bottom if
they had been hit even once. But the hit never came.
The Huascar's guns, as far as the direction of the balls
went, might just as well have been loaded with
blank cartridge. There is uncertainty not only about
the conditions of a naval battle but about the con-
ditions of a naval war. Large ;hips are not likely to
be the most effective in the details of naval service.
They •may convoy a fleet of merchantmen; but a
swift, light-armed vessel on the other side might pick
its prey, from under their eyes just as a hawk would
out of a body of pigeons. As long as we have a first-
class navy, a first-class body of sailors to man it, and
an ample reserve to draw upon, we shall be as well off
as we can hope to be. We have got all these, and in
spite of the progress of foreign navies, we have as much
right as we ever had to deem ourselves the first naval
Power in the world. The United States always claim
to be a great naval Power, and their claim is admitted
as indisputable. It rests, however, not on their
actual, but on their potential navy. They have
the reserve of force, but it exists only as a reserve.
England has the force and the reserve, too, and this
to an extent to which no other country can show the
like or anything approaching it. If we are beaten at
sea, it will be with all the known odds in our favour.
As for the unknown odds with which modern naval
warfare abounds, we are not likely to be found want-
ing. When the trial comes, if our sailors are of the
old stuff, they will contrive to do as well in iron ship
as their predecessors ever did in wooden ones.

WHAT HE MEANT.

" LADIES turned Bicyclists?' cried SMITH to JONES,

"The very notion chills me to an icicle !"
"Don't funk !" replied his friend, in airy tones,
"A 'round of shopping' is the Lady's Buy-cycle."
—Punch.