A different 19th-century naval arms race

IOTL, the late 19th century saw a naval arms race, with rapid improvements in both weaponry and armour. During the first decade or so armour was more effective than weaponry, rendering ships practically impossible to sink using gunnery alone, although after around 1870 or so guns came to have the upper hand.

Let's assume that, instead, naval armour manages to stay ahead for at least another couple of decades or so. Let's also assume that there are a few more naval battles than IOTL, giving admirals a chance to try out new tactics. How would naval tactics develop? The obvious would be greater reliance on ramming, which was advocated IOTL, although in the few naval battles of this period it proved difficult to get a good ramming attack in. Possibly ships would try and focus their fire on their enemies' rudders and smokestacks to try and cripple them and then ram or board them. Alternatively spar torpedoes could be used, as they wouldn't need as much speed or as good an angle to damage enemy hulls. Once self-propelled torpedoes come in they'd no doubt be rapidly adopted, perhaps even becoming the main naval armament. This in turn might spur the earlier development of torpedo nets and torpedo belts, although I'm not sure how successful these would be.
 
How about the opposite scenario? With the introduction of the explosive shells, artillery proved to be so superior to the armor that a school advocating development of the lightly armored fast ships with few heavy long range guns won the day (an idea was seriously discussed and, for example, Frederic Engels seriously considered it as a future trend; well, of course his prognosises proved to be almost 100% miss but he was discussing the existing ideas). No heavy slow and expensive ironclads, except perhaps for the coastal defense. What’s the sense if they can be destroyed from a great distance by a fast moving opponent that can easily sail away? OTOH, these fast ships can effectively operate on the opponent’s naval communications cutting supplies and causing huge commercial losses. The big heavily armored vessels simply can’t catch up with them and they can chose to fight on their own conditions, blahblahblah....

Almost definitely this would result in a stress on improvement of all aspects of a naval gunnery and development of the more efficient engines and probably the naval programs would be cheaper and the ships easier to build (no need in a technology allowing production of a heavy armor plates). OTOH, more lighter ships could be built so perhaps the cost may not be lower.
 
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Until there's some improvement in Fire Control long-range firepower is going to be difficult to achieve.
 
Until there's some improvement in Fire Control long-range firepower is going to be difficult to achieve.

That’s the whole point: stress of the developments would be on that area. Of course, “long range” in this context does not mean that the ranges of WWI or WWII are immediately achieved but at Lisa the he ships had been firing at each other practically at point blank range (and as I understand still managing to miss) and had been trying to ram each other more than once.
 
If ramming remains a distinct possibility, speed and manouvrability will be prioritsed, both to achieve and avoid ramming - we might actually see guns and armour take a back seat to speed and manouvrability - guns are not that effective anyway, and armour increases the weight and reduces the speed.

We might get something like a light ramming cruiser. Then we get spar torpedoes as an improved ramming thing, and then replacable spar torpedoes, then self-propellered such.

The opposite might be a floating fortress with underwater armour or huge torpedo/ramming bulgest and/or torpedo nets - with heavy armour and such defensive measures, it is simply unsinkable. Of course, it cannot catch the quicker ramming cruisers, but it cannot be sunk by them either. It will be a vessel to protect convoys and the like.
 
If ramming remains a distinct possibility, speed and manouvrability will be prioritsed, both to achieve and avoid ramming - we might actually see guns and armour take a back seat to speed and manouvrability - guns are not that effective anyway, and armour increases the weight and reduces the speed.

We might get something like a light ramming cruiser. Then we get spar torpedoes as an improved ramming thing, and then replacable spar torpedoes, then self-propellered such.

The opposite might be a floating fortress with underwater armour or huge torpedo/ramming bulgest and/or torpedo nets - with heavy armour and such defensive measures, it is simply unsinkable. Of course, it cannot catch the quicker ramming cruisers, but it cannot be sunk by them either. It will be a vessel to protect convoys and the like.

Interesting idea but that monster is very slow by definition which means that convoy must travel slowly as well and, while you can’t sunk it, it can’t catch up with you when you are attacking the wrong end of a convoy. How useful can it be. It also has to be enormously expensive. But the coastal defense or being used as a floating battery against the coastal fortifications are a completely different issues.

But scenario of the opponent’s being unable to damage each other by definition is really intriguing. Is the answer to build something with even bigger guns (as was implied by the school of big guns, no armor) or to start developing something in the middle (big guns and armor)?
 
Interesting idea but that monster is very slow by definition which means that convoy must travel slowly as well and, while you can’t sunk it, it can’t catch up with you when you are attacking the wrong end of a convoy. How useful can it be. It also has to be enormously expensive. But the coastal defense or being used as a floating battery against the coastal fortifications are a completely different issues.

But scenario of the opponent’s being unable to damage each other by definition is really intriguing. Is the answer to build something with even bigger guns (as was implied by the school of big guns, no armor) or to start developing something in the middle (big guns and armor)?

Steam traders were sloooooow in this era, not even speaking of the many still existing sailing vessels - there were a substantial amount of sailing cargo vessels in ww1, because they were cheap and speed was not always needed for many goods. Cargo convoys of ww2 never exceeded 9-10 knots, and many of them moved at 4-7 knots. Even a floating fortress should be able to keep up with that. It does not have to be that large or expensive, only carrying enough armour and anti-ramming devices to be immune to the ramming cruiser and heavy enough guns to damage it.

Once turbines come around, I suppose the all guns, no armour ship that would be fast enough to avoid torpedoes and ramming (a gunboat destroyer type vessel?) would be plausible.
 
How about the opposite scenario? With the introduction of the explosive shells, artillery proved to be so superior to the armor that a school advocating development of the lightly armored fast ships with few heavy long range guns won the day (an idea was seriously discussed and, for example, Frederic Engels seriously considered it as a future trend; well, of course his prognosises proved to be almost 100% miss but he was discussing the existing ideas). No heavy slow and expensive ironclads, except perhaps for the coastal defense. What’s the sense if they can be destroyed from a great distance by a fast moving opponent that can easily sail away? OTOH, these fast ships can effectively operate on the opponent’s naval communications cutting supplies and causing huge commercial losses. The big heavily armored vessels simply can’t catch up with them and they can chose to fight on their own conditions, blahblahblah....

Almost definitely this would result in a stress on improvement of all aspects of a naval gunnery and development of the more efficient engines and probably the naval programs would be cheaper and the ships easier to build (no need in a technology allowing production of a heavy armor plates). OTOH, more lighter ships could be built so perhaps the cost may not be lower.
How does that follow? Explosive shells proved you needed armor as unarmored ships just got set on fire and wrecked, and early explosive shells are bad at penetrating armor. For decades to penetrate armor you needed solid shot to do it, and you weren't guaranteed to do damage without a lot of hits and often only at close range as the shot lost velocity

Meanwhile your lightly armored ship would be vulnerable to explosive shells and able to be destroyed with only a few hits. In addition explosive shells tended to be lighter, thus longer ranged than armor piercing so your lightly armed gunship is vulnerable at longer range than the ironclad. Such bigger ships would also be steadier so more accurate gunnery platforms for that longer range, and early on carry more guns. Finally the bigger ship can generally force a fight, by attacking something the other side must defend, or defending something the other side must attack

Also displacement hull physics tends to favor bigger ships, you get more bang for your buck out of your engines. In this era the largest ships in the fleet being the fastest was actually not that unusual, HMS Warrior was at commission
 
How does that follow? Explosive shells proved you needed armor as unarmored ships just got set on fire and wrecked, and early explosive shells are bad at penetrating armor. For decades to penetrate armor you needed solid shot to do it, and you weren't guaranteed to do damage without a lot of hits and often only at close range as the shot lost velocity

Seems obvious? And yet there was an argument that in competition of gun and armor the gun is going to win, which means <see what I already wrote about this school of thought>.

BTW, as far as the contemporary experience was involve, the explosive shells did not even tneed to penetrate an armor: it was protecting limited part of the early ironclads leaving a lot of exposed wood and unarmored parts to cause fires or even sink it. We are talking not WWII but the mid-/late XIX century when decades of experience were not, yet, there, the steam, armor and explosives were a relative novelty and anybody was free to make a guess. After all, an idea of a ram ship eventually proved to be impractical but the early ironclads did have rams.
 
Seems obvious? And yet there was an argument that in competition of gun and armor the gun is going to win, which means <see what I already wrote about this school of thought>.

BTW, as far as the contemporary experience was involve, the explosive shells did not even tneed to penetrate an armor: it was protecting limited part of the early ironclads leaving a lot of exposed wood and unarmored parts to cause fires or even sink it. We are talking not WWII but the mid-/late XIX century when decades of experience were not, yet, there, the steam, armor and explosives were a relative novelty and anybody was free to make a guess. After all, an idea of a ram ship eventually proved to be impractical but the early ironclads did have rams.
Gun win over armor yes. But that doesn't make armor useless. If an armored ship has to be slowly sunk by punching holes in it with solid shot while the unarmored ship can be blown apart/set ablaze with a few explosive shells, the armored ship has a big advantage

Not really, yes there is things like exposed wood on the deck, masts, funnels and such but the hull is completely sheathed in iron above the waterline in early ironclads, if not built out of it as in HMS Warrior (1860). In fact early ironclads had more of the hull armored than later ones, as guns grew more powerful they tended to concentrate armor in a central battery so that it could be thicker leaving the rest of the ship unarmored rather than armoring the whole ship as previous. Given how most hits would be to the hull, save in certain cases such as fire from shore or long range plunging fire that generally provides adequate protection. Explosive shells that had a hope of actually hitting did have to penetrate the armor given the trajectories and schemes involved to do real damage, or get stupid lucky, given the difficulty with penetrating using explosive shells of the time such was generally unfeasible
 
Gun win over armor yes. But that doesn't make armor useless. If an armored ship has to be slowly sunk by punching holes in it with solid shot while the unarmored ship can be blown apart/set ablaze with a few explosive shells, the armored ship has a big advantage

Not really, yes there is things like exposed wood on the deck, masts, funnels and such but the hull is completely sheathed in iron above the waterline in early ironclads, if not built out of it as in HMS Warrior (1860). In fact early ironclads had more of the hull armored than later ones, as guns grew more powerful they tended to concentrate armor in a central battery so that it could be thicker leaving the rest of the ship unarmored rather than armoring the whole ship as previous. Given how most hits would be to the hull, save in certain cases such as fire from shore or long range plunging fire that generally provides adequate protection. Explosive shells that had a hope of actually hitting did have to penetrate the armor given the trajectories and schemes involved to do real damage, or get stupid lucky, given the difficulty with penetrating using explosive shells of the time such was generally unfeasible

Sorry, but you seemingly did not get it. I’m not advocating in a favor guns & no armor idea. The OP was asking to the options to the OTL development and what I wrote was one of the options proposed at that time. So there is no need to keep convincing me in what’s now obvious. It is just about what would happen if the development went into that direction. Just as with the rams, this would end up as a dead end (as the main direction) but what would be the implications?
 
Sorry, but you seemingly did not get it. I’m not advocating in a favor guns & no armor idea. The OP was asking to the options to the OTL development and what I wrote was one of the options proposed at that time. So there is no need to keep convincing me in what’s now obvious. It is just about what would happen if the development went into that direction. Just as with the rams, this would end up as a dead end (as the main direction) but what would be the implications?
No you said emphasis mine
How about the opposite scenario? With the introduction of the explosive shells, artillery proved to be so superior to the armor that a school advocating development of the lightly armored fast ships with few heavy long range guns won the day (an idea was seriously discussed and, for example, Frederic Engels seriously considered it as a future trend; well, of course his prognosises proved to be almost 100% miss but he was discussing the existing ideas).
Hence why I say how does this follow and explain, because that is not an effect of explosive shells. Explosive shells won their fame on unarmored targets, not armored ones

Anyways I have not heard of this idea during the developmental phase of the Ironclad (1850-1865) from anybody serious, so is this more than just some idle speculation by dilettantes, and you can find that on almost anything
 
I wonder if the techniques used IOTL against torpedoes -- metal nets, torpedo bulges, and later spaced armour -- could be effective against shells as well if used to protect the upper parts of ships. I'm sure there are good reasons why not, else presumably they'd have been tried IOTL, but at least at first glance the idea of getting the enemy shell to detonate away from the main armour seems like a reasonable one.
 
I wonder if the techniques used IOTL against torpedoes -- metal nets, torpedo bulges, and later spaced armour -- could be effective against shells as well if used to protect the upper parts of ships. I'm sure there are good reasons why not, else presumably they'd have been tried IOTL, but at least at first glance the idea of getting the enemy shell to detonate away from the main armour seems like a reasonable one.
Spaced Armor was used in later designs, a belt to trip the fuse and another one to catch the splinters. The issue is that before AP projectiles started carrying fuses and bursting charges, 1 single plate is tougher than two separate plates of the same combined thickness, so while Armor piercing projectiles didn't explode they are a bad idea. Netting to be effective against shells would have to be heavy, and carried high up, which is bad for stability, plus would block your own guns, torpedo nets were generally for static defense not moving ships. Torpedo Bulges work by using sacrificial compartments to dissipate the explosion of the torpedo, AP shells do damage a different way
 
I wonder if the techniques used IOTL against torpedoes -- metal nets, torpedo bulges, and later spaced armour -- could be effective against shells as well if used to protect the upper parts of ships. I'm sure there are good reasons why not, else presumably they'd have been tried IOTL, but at least at first glance the idea of getting the enemy shell to detonate away from the main armour seems like a reasonable one.

As Armor became thicker, it took time to make reliable fuzes that could survive the punch thru armor, and then detonate a small bursting charge before it went all the way thru the ship

Early armor was backed by timber, and the goal was for the round to penetrate armor and detonate there in the backing, where the most splinters as well as chance of setting the timber on fire would occur.
As Armor moved to nickle steel, the wood backing was no longer needed, and armor changed from being a thick metal skin, to being inside the ship, with thinner hard plate to damage or decap the incoming round before it would impact the the main belt or protective belt, and then a splinter belt to stop most what gets thru the main belt

So in a way, that is your spaced armor
iowaarmor.jpg
 
Spaced Armor was used in later designs, a belt to trip the fuse and another one to catch the splinters. The issue is that before AP projectiles started carrying fuses and bursting charges, 1 single plate is tougher than two separate plates of the same combined thickness, so while Armor piercing projectiles didn't explode they are a bad idea. Netting to be effective against shells would have to be heavy, and carried high up, which is bad for stability, plus would block your own guns, torpedo nets were generally for static defense not moving ships. Torpedo Bulges work by using sacrificial compartments to dissipate the explosion of the torpedo, AP shells do damage a different way

To be fair, some ships seem to have carried their torpedo nets quite high anyway -- e.g., here and here.

If armor outclassed the guns so much, would boarding be possible?

If you cant destroy fhe ship, just take it.

Yeah, I expect that would be the main tactic. Maybe ramming as well.
 
I wonder if this affects other tech, like better engines (to drive the heavier ships), new weapons (a/c? torpedoes? PGMs?), & armor tech (reactive armor?).
 
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