The Sun.
London, England, 1860-01-14 00:00:00

LAW INTE.

-E WARRIO.R.

TEE IRON-CASED FRIGAT

Some few years past, when there was no alliance,
offensive or defensive, between this country and
France, but when, on the contrary, the two empires
very often drifte 1 into exceedingly hostile relations,
the army and navy of England were frequently at
their lowest ebb. Now, however, that the two coma-
tries are bound together in ties of strict amity and
peace, the whole country bristles with warlike pre-
parations. Each part of the coast asserts its defence-
lessness and claims additional batteries; colossal
three-deckers are launched each month; and not a
town or county but has its corps of volunteers. The
note of preparation seems even to have penetrated
that loneliest and dreariest of islets—:he Isle of
Dogs, where building yards, hitherto sacred to the
West Indiamen or opium clippers, are cumbered
with the fragments of little gunboats, or entirely.
occupied by steam rams, with their monstrous iron
sides and hooked beaks—the rhinoceri of the deep.
When the contract far the first of these tremen-
dous engines of warfare was accepted, nine months
back, by the Thames Iron Ship Building Company,
we gave our readers the chief features of the in-
tended structure. Since that time the work of
building the monster at Blackwell has progressed
considerably. Since that time other contracts for
vessels of an almost similar kind have been issued
and taken up ; and, above all, since that time the
opinions of the Admiralty on iron-cased ships of war
in general would appear to have undergone some
considerable modification. The vessel now building
at Blackwall, and of the progress made with which
we propose now to inform our readers, was origi-
nally intended for an iron-cased steam ram; that is
to say, a vessel built as nearly shot proof as possible,
and not only intended to engage, but especially to
run into and sink others. From this design, how-
ever, she has been altered, and is now to be built
merely as a shot proof heavy armed frigate of per-
haps 36, or perhaps 70 guns, as the Admiralty may
eventually decide. She is to be named the Warrior,
and will be at once fire and shot proof—the largest,
strongest, and swiftest man-of-war afloat in the
world. But, as we have already said, since the draw-
ings for this noble ship were made the Admiraltyhave,
in their more recent plans for genuine steam rams,
accepted much which theyhad formerly condemned,
and, on the other hand, condemned a good deal of
work on which they formerly insisted. Thus the
two iron-cased vessels, or steam rams proper, which
are now being built—one on the Tyne by Palmer,
and the other by Westwood and Bailey at Mill-
wall—are, though both shot proof, smaller in ton-
nage and armament, and nearly 100 feet shorter,
than this gigantic frigate, the Warrior, which is
being constructed at the Thames Shipping Com-
pany's yard. Though great progress has been made
with the Warrior, the more striking parts of the
hull, such as the beak and stern, have yet to be built
up. Now one only sees dimly through the forest
of timber which supports the midship part of the
ponderous hull, the really enormous solidity with
which it is all put together. A perfect network of
T shaped iron beams cross and recross one another
in every direction. The wrought-iron " box gir-
ders" which Tun throughout the vessel from stem
to stern are the most powerful things of their kind
that have ever yet been made; yet all these beams
and girders, angle irons, and tie-rods, of which the
whole hull is apparently built, are mere trifles to
the things which have yet to be put into her. A
whole mountain of teak, which half fills one‘part of
the yard, has to be consumed in her outer " lin-
ing," while her armour plates lie about in ponderous
slabs, weighing many tons, each from 16 to 18 feet
long, 4 feet wide, and 41 inches thick. The nose,
or cutwater of the vessel is one immense slab of
wrought iron, about 30 feet long, 10 inches thick,
and weighing upwards of 17 tons. The screw frame
is one piece of the finest forged iron, without the
slightest flaw of any kind, and weighing no less
than 44 tons. Till the present work was commenced
such masses of forgings were never thought of, even
in the construction of the Great Eastern itself.
Such an interval has elapsed since we last noticed
the plan on which this iron Warrior is to be built
that a brief recapitulation of her chief dimensions,
together with the general principle of construction,
may not be without interest to onr readers, more
especially as it will serve to make clear our descrip-
tion of the progress that has already been made.
Her dimensions, then, are :—Extreme length,
380 feet; ditto breadth, 58 feet; depth, 41 feet 6
inches; and her tonnage no less than 6,177 tons.
The engines (screw, of course) are to be by Penn
and Sons, of 1,250-horse power, and of these we
shall, on a future occasion, lay a separate and de-
tailed description before our readers. Their total
weight, with boilers, will be 950 tons. For these
she unfortunately, only be able to early 950
tons of coal, or enough for abont six days' steam-
ing. The armament (counting her only as a 36-gun
frigate), with masts and stores, will weigh 1,200
tons, and this, with the hull, which is to be no less
than 5,700 tons, will give her a total weight, when
ready for sea, of about 9,000 tons in all, or the
weight of the Great Eastern when launched.
With the fine lines and immense horse-power of
the Warrior a speed of not much less than 15 or 16
knots an hour is anticipated, so that should her
commander, in case of any emergency, choose to
use her as a steam ram, he could literally drive his
ship straight over a whole fleet of three-deckers
without a chance of being injured by their broad-
sides in closing. That the Warrior will enjoy
almost a perfect immunity from the heaviest shot
and shell will easily be understood when we briefly
point out the tremendous strength with which she
is constructed. There is no external keel, but an
inner kind of girder, which acts as a kelson. This is
formed of immense slabs of wrought scrap iron an
inch and a quarter thick, and three feet six inches
deep. To it are bolted the ribs—massive wrought
iron T-shaped beams an inch thick, and made
in joints five feet long by two deep up to five
feet below the water line, where their depth
is diminished so as to form a deep ledge or
angle, on which the armour plates and their
teak lining rest. These immense ribs, except
where the portholes intervene, are actually only 22
inches apart. Above the kelson, and inside the ribs,
aro the five box-girders we have already mentioned,
which go the whole length of the ship, from stem to
stern, and from which spring diagonal bands, tying
every rib together. The orlop deck is of wood, and
24 feet above the keel ; the main deck is of iron,
and cased with wood, and nine feet above the orlop;
the upper deck will also be of wrought iron, cased
with wood, and seven feet nine inches above the
main. All these decks are carried on wrought iron
beams of the most powerful description, to which
both decks and ribs and all are bolted as in one
piece. The "skin" of the ship, as it is termed, which
covers all these ribs ou the outside, is also of wrought
iron, an inch and a quarter thick, under the bottom,
to nearly one inch thick up to the spar deck. From
five feet below the water line up to the upper deck
comes, in addition to this, the great armour of teak
and iron over all. This is formed of a double casing
of the hardest teak,lB inches thick, with the beams
laid at right angles to one another. Over these
again come the plates of iron we have already men-
tioned, so as in all to case the broadside of the ves-
sel with 20 inches of solid teak and five inches of
the very finest wrought iron. This tremendous coat
of armour, however, is of course not intended to
cover the whole of the vessel. Indeed, with such an
entire casing it could scarcely float at all. Only the
broadside, or about 220 feet of the whole length, is
so protected. The stem and stern have •no armour
plates, but are covered with iron plates 1 inch
thick, and lined with 24 inches of teak. To com-
pensate for the armour both the stem and stern are
crossed and recrossed in every direction with water-
tight compartments, so that it is almost a matter of
perfect indifference to those on board the Warrior
in action whether they get riddled with shot or
not. It is, of course, needless to say that the whole
vessel is subdivided into some 20 places:by wrought-
iron water-tight bulkheads of the most solid de-
scription. Those which cut off the stem and stern
from the armour-coated portion of the ship are
cased with teak and armour plates below the
water line, exactly like the broadside of the
vessel. Thus supposing it possible: that both
stem and stern could be shot away completely, the
fighting portion of the vessel would remain as com-
plete and as impenetrable as ever, still opposing 20
inches of teak with 5 inches of wrought iron to
every shot. The bows, as the spot where the whole
force of the shock must be received in case of the
vessel over being used to run down an enemy's ship
of war, are strengthened inside with a perfect
web
of ironwork. No less that eight wrought-iron
part
tto
decks, an inch thick, stretch back from this p
the armour plates, as well as supports
dcesni
design
sent indiagonal
bracings innumerable. In the first
to the Admiralty by the Thames Shipbuioldfil
ghe
Com-
pany the shape proposed for the bows
ves-
sel was exactly after the outline of the swan's
neck and breast when swimming, and thus the
point or beak intended to strike an enemy's vessel
was the " breast" which was placed under the
water line in the ship's bows. In the Admiralty
model, and of course that on which the Warrior is
built, the bows form an obtuse angle, the point of
which is just level with the water and called the
" nose."
This peculiar shape, however, it is in-
tended to conceal under the usual cutwater, though
the Admiralty have very wisely abandoned the
idea which they at first entertained of concealing
the true character of the vessel by such a stale de-
vice. In the "rams" proper which have since been
ordered at Millwall and Newcastle the form of the
swan's breast is adopted, but both these vessels are,
unlike the Warrior, more especially designed for
running down vessels than for fighting them:
Through the entire length of the Warrior run