British Cruisers of the Victorian Era. Norman Friedman

as well as strong cruiser forces. Each fleet was in three groups, with six ships each in the first two, and torpedo gunboats in the third. The first group consisted of three battleships and three fast cruisers (Blenheim was in the first group of the first Red fleet). Each of the second groups consisted of six cruisers. Note the disparity between cruiser and battleship numbers. One of the Blue fleets had seven battleships in its first group, with seven cruisers in the second; the other had only cruisers and torpedo gunboats. The four-fleet situation was something like that between Britain and France in the Mediterranean. In wartime the British would try to unite the Channel and Mediterranean Fleets, and the French their Brest and Toulon Fleets. The Brest fleet was weighted heavily towards cruisers, for raiding in the Atlantic, whereas a classic battle fleet (to contest control of the Mediterranean) was based at Toulon. As in 1892, much attention was paid to the effectiveness of torpedo boats. The commander of TB 80 wrote that boats trailing a fleet in order to attack had been unable to regain position once lost due to the speed of the fleet. This may have been the first indication that high fleet speed in itself would be an important protection for a fleet passing through a narrow strait at night. It was again clear that torpedo boats had to work with cruisers which would find and report the enemy.

      The 1896 manoeuvres again examined the problem of watching a hostile fleet in a nearby port. Red Fleet A watched Blue Fleet C, while Red Fleet B mobilized in another port. As in 1894, there was also a Fleet D, which would try to join Fleet C. This was not too different from the problem of the Mediterranean Fleet (A) watching the French Toulon Fleet (C) while the British Channel Fleet (B) tried to join it, and the Russian fleet (D), newly allied to the French, tried to even the odds. C’s object was to destroy A before B could arrive or, failing that, to destroy B before the two Red fleets could join. The commander of A knew the strength of C, but not vice versa. His primary purpose was to defeat C by meeting it at sea. C did not know the strength of B, which was mobilizing, and D was also mobilizing, its strength unknown to A. Overall, A was superior to C and faster; C was superior to B; and B was faster than, and equal to, D. On meeting at sea, C would have to return to its port if it met A. Similarly, A could force D back into its port. However, C plus D were superior to A. If A met C after having defeated D, it would have to return to base. However, if it joined with B before meeting, C would have to withdraw. There would be no decisive result if B met D. ‘Meeting’ was taken to mean battleship squadrons within 3nm of each other for two hours.

      All of this was very much a scouting problem, hence a cruiser problem. Thus Fleet A consisted of five battleships, seven second-class protected cruisers, four torpedo gunboats, and ten destroyers. Fleet B was four battleships (the cruisers Blenheim, Hermione, and Charybdis played battleships), two second-class cruisers, two third-class cruisers, four torpedo gunboats, and ten destroyers. Fleet C consisted of five battleships, two armoured cruisers, five second-class cruisers, and five torpedo gunboats. Fleet D comprised four slow battleships, three second-class cruisers, a third-class cruiser, and four torpedo gunboats. C was inferior to A ‘so long as the Battle Squadron, which alone counts, is intact’. At the outset, cruisers and destroyers of Fleet A would be watching Fleet C in its base. An engagement between the cruiser Thetis and a torpedo gunboat leading a torpedo flotilla demonstrated once again that it was nearly impossible to execute a torpedo attack in daylight against a fast cruiser armed with quick-firing guns.

      C joined D as soon as possible, A being unable to prevent that. Nor were A and B able to prevent the united enemy fleet from reaching the base it sought. The umpires added that ‘with regard to the use made of cruisers and destroyers for obtaining and communicating information, nothing has reached [us] which enables us to give an opinion’. That was exactly the problem. The manoeuvres demonstrated a frightening failure of both scouting and communication.

      The search problem evidently attracted considerable interest, because the instructions for the 1897 manoeuvres (held between roughly equal forces which had been mobilized for the Diamond Jubilee) include a discussion of the curve of search on the open sea for an enemy whose speed was known, and whose position at some particular time was known. In this case a fleet put to sea before the opening of hostilities, one cruiser being left behind to bring the news that war had begun. This cruiser was to meet the fleet at a set rendezvous. She was to be intercepted by two opposing cruisers intent on finding the enemy fleet, so that it in turn could be intercepted. Without wireless, the rub was that once they saw the enemy fleet those two cruisers had to turn back to report (the instructions for the exercise assume that the cruiser, once caught, would give up the rendezvous). The cruiser carrying the news would run at 12kts on an unknown track, the intercepting cruisers at 17kts. Hence the search curve. The test failed because the fleet commander chose to send a cruiser force back to escort the cruiser carrying the news of war. This was considered a hostile act before the outbreak of war.

      British shipbuilders, particularly Armstrong, constructed many of the world’s cruisers between about 1880 and 1910. Armstrong built Ching Yuen for China. Completed on 23 July 1887, she was one of two sisters ordered for the Chinese Peiyang Fleet in October 1885. Like other Armstrong cruisers of the time, she was armed with unusually powerful guns, in this case three Krupp 8.2in (two forward, one aft), plus two 6in/36 Armstrong guns (in the waist), eight 6pdr QF, two 3pdr QF, six 1pdr QF, and four 14in torpedo tubes (two training tubes on the broadside and bow and stern tubes (the bow tube is barely visible above water). No other ships had the unusual combination of a twin mounting forward and a single mounting aft, although it featured in an abortive Armstrong design for cruisers for the Australian state of Victoria. Some of the 1pdrs are visible in the fighting tops fore and aft. She displaced only 2310 tons (250ft × 38ft × 15ft) and was designed to make 18kts under forced draught (5500 IHP). On trial she made 18.5kts on 6892 IHP. Under natural draught she made 15.26kts on 3733 IHP (she was designed to make 3300 IHP under natural draught). Here she flies an admiral’s flag.

      The 1898 manoeuvres were intended to determine the best way of employing a large cruiser force with a fleet, with secondary objectives of helping indicate the relative advantages of speed and fighting strength, and also to obtain more information about the operations of destroyers and torpedo boats.²⁴ A convoy (C) of slow ships would be escorted by a fast cruiser from Halifax (in Canada) to Milford Haven. A fast hostile squadron (A) lying in Belfast would seek to intercept and capture the convoy. At some point a slower but superior British squadron (B) would be sent to protect C, meeting it at a pre-arranged rendezvous. The coast of Ireland was considered hostile (A) territory, containing A’s torpedo boat bases. The English and Welsh coasts were B territory, including several destroyer bases. Obviously a great deal depended on intelligence available to A, and the manoeuvre instructions included special notes on the distribution of that intelligence, each fleet having its own Naval Centre with outlying despatch stations and signal stations. As yet there was no wireless, so once ships went to sea they could communicate with the land-based intelligence organization only via linking ships. Both fleets had numerous cruisers attached: Fleet A (Red) had three first-class cruisers and sixteen second- and third-class. Fleet B (Blue) had four first-class cruisers and sixteen second- and third-class. Fleet A also had torpedo boats led by torpedo gunboats; B had destroyers.

      The result was another failed search exercise. It turned out that A was searching in the wrong place; the convoy was 63nm outside the area A planned to search, and at no time was any A cruiser closer than 120nm to the convoy. B met the convoy as planned, and brought it into port. Nothing was learned of the best way to employ a large cruiser force, but it seems clear that those planning the exercise hoped that by adding cruisers they could make A’s search effective.

      Further manoeuvres in 1901, in which two fleets fought for control of the Channel, showed that neither fleet had enough cruisers for the necessary scouting and look-out duties, particularly after a cruiser action notionally sank so many on each side.²⁵ ‘This action points decisively to the great advantage either side would have obtained if supported by modern armoured cruisers.’ Further, ‘the fact of a heavy Cruiser action being fought on the first day of hostilities prevented, in a great measure, the necessary opportunities for practising one of the most important of a Cruiser’s duties, i.e., scouting and getting touch of the enemy’s Main Fleet.’ The umpires much regretted