Fortunately, the wheel of history always goes forward. The ugly duckling will become a proud white swan one day, and the future days belong to them.
The change seems to have happened overnight. Facing the brand-new technology, ship designers from all over the world are at a loss. Now they must learn to constantly update their knowledge to meet this unprecedented challenge or competition. There is no precedent for this competition. Everyone is groping for progress, exerting their creativity and imagination as much as possible and competing with each other. Occasionally there may be some "piracy" and "plagiarism". Perhaps because of these reasons, people today will feel a little strange when they look back on the warships in transition. It is no exaggeration to describe the warship design of this era in many ways. It is in this ugly duckling era of exploration, development and accumulation of experience and technology that the warship design ideas of various countries gradually matured and unified at the beginning of the 20th century.
Coincidentally, the construction of China's navy started from this ugly duckling era, and the era when the world's navy updated its warships with great fanfare was the era when China's navy was pregnant. Like all the warships of that era, the warships of China's modern navy have a deep brand of the times, and some of them are specially designed, which can serve as a model in the history of the development of warships in the world. However, looking at China's works, research and even the discussion of ordinary enthusiasts about modern naval history, a large part of them are still using the knowledge of warships in the 20th century to measure the warships of19th century, and using the classification standard of swans to make ugly ducklings queue up for classification, which often leads to some unreasonable conclusions.
To understand the China navy in19th century and the naval battle in19th century, we must first understand the warships of that era. Therefore, based on the historical materials, documents and research works about warships at home and abroad in the middle and late19th century, this paper briefly introduces the types and characteristics of world warships in this period, as well as the development vein of representative warships and naval tactics, hoping to be beneficial to the popularization of modern naval knowledge. In this paper, the classification method and category names of warships refer to Xu Jingcheng's "Foreign Teachers' Ships Map". Here, I hope you don't forget the early engineers and technicians who made unremitting efforts for the development of modern China navy. In today's unimaginable closed environment, they try their best to acquire scientific knowledge from the West. Although their achievements are limited, their achievements are of great significance if considering their environment. Their enthusiasm for science and loyalty to the country are still worth learning.
First, armored ships
At that time, the armored ship was undoubtedly the overlord at sea. This armored warship, developed from the battleship of the sail warship era, plays the role of the main battle warship in the navy and is used to participate in conventional large-scale maritime operations. It is the backbone of the navies of various countries and a symbol of national strength. According to the simple classification standards at that time, armored ships can be divided into: first-class armored ships (with a displacement of more than 56,000 tons). Later, China's Dingyuan was called "the first-class armored ship all over the earth" and was the ancestor of future battleships; Another type of armored ship is smaller, called the second-class armored ship (with a displacement of 34,000 tons). Japanese armored ships "Fusang" and "Bi Rui" belong to this category, and they were used to being called "small armored ships" in the historical materials of China at that time.
Author: Cockroach Stewed Tofu 2006-11-815: 08 Reply to this speech.
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Seven 65438+ World Warships in the Middle and Late Period of 2009.
The first time I saw five different types of armored ships, I understood the origin of the bow against the enemy. The following will introduce another main ship type at that time-cruisers and clippers.
Second, cruisers.
Cruiser is another important ship in the navy in the19th century, which was developed from the single-deck gun-deck warship in the sail warship era. At first, this kind of warship has a remarkable feature, that is, the naval guns are generally arranged side by side, distributed on both sides of the warship, not paying attention to the caliber size, but emphasizing the quantity, which is the so-called "how many guns are not huge". Therefore, in that era of advocating giant naval guns, such warships were generally not used to directly participate in conventional naval battles, but usually only used as assistants of armored ships to perform some scattered work of guarding merchant ships and reconnaissance and communication. /kloc-After the mid-9th century, especially after the Battle of Lisa, the design ideas of cruisers have changed to some extent. Some warships began to have large-caliber guns that were not inferior to armored ships, such as Mitsui Ship in Japan during the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895. Although there are many design problems, we can also see the change of cruiser design idea.
For a naval power, because of its strong national strength and a large number of warships with complete categories, it can be extravagant to design special warships for special tasks. All kinds of warships have different uses and will never be confused (this situation still exists today in the 2 1 century. A naval power can design and build a special command ship for command, while a destroyer in a small navy may play multiple roles such as command ship, destroyer and training ship at the same time, regardless of wealth. At that time, the armored ship was a fighter in naval battle, and all its designs were considered for large-scale naval battle. To this end, thick armor and heavy artillery were used; Cruisers are usually used to defend business travel, patrol and guard overseas colonies. In wartime, they are used to cooperate with armored ships, conduct reconnaissance and communication, and destroy enemy maritime transport lines and attack merchant ships. Therefore, the design of cruisers was originally focused on its mission. In order to cruise to distant overseas colonies, the capacity of coal cabin is designed to be very large; In order to play the role of reconnaissance communication and sneak attack, its speed is very high. Large endurance and high speed are the characteristics of cruisers of that era. In the historical records of China, this kind of warship was given an apt name-Clipper.
A big naval power can allocate special warships for special purposes, but a small naval power is overwhelmed. National strength is limited, and the number of warships is small. Considering the cost, a warship cannot serve only one purpose. Cruisers, once used as auxiliary ships, are sometimes forced to fight with armored ships in the navies of these countries. However, the design of early cruisers was not suitable for large-scale naval battles at all, so some of them were modified and equipped with armor and large-caliber artillery similar to armored ships. Cruisers with the advantages of "clippers and armored ships" came into being and became the treasure of small naval countries. At first, these cruisers, which were designed to participate in naval battles, were not favored by mainstream naval powers. It was not until September 1894 that the Yellow Sea naval battle broke out between China and Japan, and dozens of cruisers from both sides fought against armored ships, which began to prove the value of cruisers to naval battles, and the history of cruisers entered a new stage.
The following is the cruiser category of 19 century. Like contemporary armored ships, cruisers at this time are also in the transitional stage of exploration and evolution.
First of all, cruise ships
Inconstant, a British first-class ocean clipper, was built in 1869, with a displacement of 5,780 tons, a speed of 16.2 knots, a length of 102.8 1, a width of 15.3 1 and a draft of 7. Rory and Shah are ships of the same class.
When the ship was built, it was the fastest warship in the world and a veritable "clipper". However, the hull size and displacement are too large, and public opinion thinks that these are somewhat wasteful and useless for cruisers. Since "impermanence", the clippers patrolling the sea have suddenly lost a lot of weight. This warship, which occupies an important position in the history of cruiser development, did not bid farewell to the sea until 1956. Her sister ship "Raleigh" once accepted China's early naval cadet Liu.
This kind of warship is now generally called an unprotected cruiser. Along the way from the single-deck gunship in the sail warship era, this kind of warship is at the forefront in the development of cruisers and was first built by Britain. For example, the early armored ships used naval guns alongside the ships, and the fast ships patrolling at sea used naval guns alongside the ships, and the naval guns were arranged on both sides of the warships. Different from armored ships, in order to reduce their own weight and pursue high speed, cruise clippers have no armor, but are later wrapped in copper skin to prevent corrosion. This kind of warship used wooden hull in the early days, that is, the hull bone (called hull in Chinese historical materials) and hull are all made of wood, and then it gradually developed into iron hull, iron hull and so on, and the Wu Yang was produced by Fuzhou Waterway Administration in China in the early days.
Author: Cockroach Stewed Tofu 2006-11-815: 08 Reply to this speech.
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101World Warships in the Middle and Late 9th Century
The red area in the picture is the armor of this warship. It can be seen that this warship is equipped with waterline armor extending to the bow and stern, which is very similar to the early armored ships.
For Britain, the maritime overlord with a large number of armored ships, it is really of little value to add a cruiser protected by armored ships. However, for naval countries with a small number of warships, this means that armored cruisers with lower cost can be used as armored ships, which is convenient for expanding naval strength at a lower cost. Russians who are full of ambitions for the ocean but suffer from insufficient national strength and cannot build a large number of armored ships first understand this. 1870, Russia began to build the world's earliest armored cruiser "Admiral". In appearance, this class of warships is very similar to the early sea patrol clippers. The only difference is that it is equipped with armored ships along the waterline. Shortly after the birth of the waterline armored cruiser for exploring technology, the Russians introduced the design of armored fortresses on subsequent warships and began to build a large number of them. "In order to attend classes, they often cruise the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea." "Britain and Russia have been jealous for a long time, and once they break up, they will rob the cruiser and trap their business." They are going to use this warship against cruisers and even armored ships of the British navy.
Britain naturally didn't want to be controlled by others, and soon its own armored cruiser was built in the British shipyard. Like Russia, the design of British armored cruisers has changed from waterline armor to armored fortress. At that time, there was a great shock in the world ship design field. At first, cruisers were only auxiliary ships, but now they are equipped with armor similar to armored ships, and the ships are getting bigger and bigger. Some have a displacement of nearly 10,000 tons, which is no different from armored ships except that the armor is slightly thinner.
Compared with armored cruisers, armored cruisers have high cost and low speed, but they have strong survivability similar to armored ships. While designing their own armored cruisers and armored cruisers, the admiralty departments of various countries have a great debate about which is better or worse. This period happened to be the time when the China administration made the decision to "reorganize the navy", and China diplomats who went to Europe to purchase warships were also involved in this big debate. On the one hand, they insist that "armored ships and clippers are completely different, and they should never be good at this." They think that cruisers should look like cruisers, and speed is its real value. Armoring cruisers will only backfire. The warships built at that time could only be ships with less armor than armor. The other side thinks that armored cruisers are more valuable and cost-effective, and warships similar to armored ships can be obtained with cheaper money. Why not? The reason for the result is that we can't reach an agreement. Disturbed by the noise, the government of China finally decided to buy two dome armored cruisers and two armored cruisers. After that, the argument continued. Which is better, dome armor or armored cruiser? Only for future history to test, although the design purposes of the two warships are not the same.
China armored cruiser "Yuan Jing". This is a first-class armored cruiser owned by China and even Asian countries, and it is also a first-class armored cruiser built by German shipbuilding industry.
The German shipyard, which has always insisted on the design of armored cruisers, finally got an order from China to build two new armored cruisers, Jingyuan and Laiyuan, of China Beiyang Navy. This is a brand-new challenge for the Germans. Prior to this, Germany only tested the waterline armor on the mosquito ship "Vespe", and this is the first time to actually design and manufacture an armored cruiser. Like the first dome armored cruiser in Germany, the first armored cruiser in Germany was paid by China people. It is precisely because of these two experiences of building new warships for China that the German shipbuilding industry has reached a new height.
The above cruise clippers, dome clippers and armored clippers cover the main categories of world cruisers in the middle and late19th century. In addition, there is a torpedo clipper in the middle of 19 century, which will be introduced in the future torpedo weapon article.