Periods of warship design 1860-1945

Ironclads such as HMS Warrior and the French Gloire and their development into predreadnoughts such as the British Royal Sovereign and Majestic classes is well documented and fascinated me. However in the period of 1860-1890 a massive number of ship types exists from Armored Frigates and Corvettes, Casemate ships, Rams, Monitors, Turret and Barbette ships and my favorite the Central Battery ships. All these ships are classes as Ironclads.

In my mind this never made all that much sense. And I will readily admit that I am in no way qualified to change things, not even having any form of college degree. However if it where up to me I would add a category of ship that fit in between the Ironclad and Predreadnought. And Here is how my system would work.

Ironclad.
Encompassing everything built from the early 1860s onwards to roughly the 1880s the Ironclad is a vessel built primarily of wood with wrought Iron armor clad to the hull. These ships feature a variety of guns, armor, propulsion and design philosophy.
Ship types such as Armored Frigates and Corvettes, casemate ships, Monitors, Central Battery ships and some Turret ships all fit this category. Generally anything with a mostly wooden hull with armor added to it can be classed as a Ironclad.

Steel Battleships.
First appearing in the 1870s with ships such as HMS Devestation a Steel battleship carries either wrought Iron or Nickel-Steel armor on a hull made primarily of Iron. Ship types such as turret ships, breastwork monitors and barbette ships fit this category and the first such ships were built congruently with Ironclads.
Many steel battleships also lack sails as a means of propulsion and feature and increased reliance on coal.

Predreanought
Mounting all their guns on either barbettes or turrets the Predreadnought first appears with the Royal Sovereign class. These ships have either Nickel-Steel, Harvey armor or Krupp cemented Steel armor. All their guns are arranged in batteries with a primary battery of heavy guns, secondary battery of intermediate guns and a tertiary battery of light quick firing guns for use against torpedo boats.
 
Ironclads such as HMS Warrior and the French Gloire and their development into predreadnoughts such as the British Royal Sovereign and Majestic classes is well documented and fascinated me. However in the period of 1860-1890 a massive number of ship types exists from Armored Frigates and Corvettes, Casemate ships, Rams, Monitors, Turret and Barbette ships and my favorite the Central Battery ships. All these ships are classes as Ironclads.

In my mind this never made all that much sense.

The contemporaries did not have a benefit of the hindsight and for quite a while it was not even quite clear which line of the development is going to prevail.

The rams were not a sign of stupidity. The early ironclad battles artillery proved to be ineffective against the armor (even against the armored frigates) and there were numerous ramming attacks in the Battle of Lissa with 2 Italian ships (including the flagship) had been sunk as a result of these attacks. During the ACW CSS Virginia (Merrimack) rammed and sunk the Unionfrigate Cumberland. "During the War of the Pacific, the Peruvian ironclad Huascar repeatedly rammed the Chilean corvette Esmeralda, sinking the wooden steam- and wind-powered ship" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramming#Naval_warfare

Taking into an account that the people tend to rely on an existing experience, having a ram did not look stupid at that time.

Later, with a growing power of the naval artillery and explosive shells, it was argued that a shell will always be a winner in shell vs. armor competition and that the future belongs to the fast ships with a little or no armor and few powerful long-range guns because they can out-shot and outrun the existing (at that time) ironclads being able to chose a safe distance. It can be probably said that the battle cruisers were evolution of that line of thinking.
 
I have always been fascinated by this era in naval history; basically, we see the evolution of ships in 100 years from HMS Victory to HMS Dreadnought. The designs that came out of this era are basically RL Steampunk.
The contemporaries did not have a benefit of the hindsight and for quite a while it was not even quite clear which line of the development is going to prevail.
Remember, this was an era of rapid evolution of guns, armor and engines. Designers had to cope with these changes and how they would be integrated into the various navies at the time.

The rams were not a sign of stupidity. The early ironclad battles artillery proved to be ineffective against the armor (even against the armored frigates) and there were numerous ramming attacks in the Battle of Lissa with 2 Italian ships (including the flagship) had been sunk as a result of these attacks. During the ACW CSS Virginia (Merrimack) rammed and sunk the Unionfrigate Cumberland. "During the War of the Pacific, the Peruvian ironclad Huascar repeatedly rammed the Chilean corvette Esmeralda, sinking the wooden steam- and wind-powered ship" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramming#Naval_warfare

Taking into an account that the people tend to rely on an existing experience, having a ram did not look stupid at that time.
During the ACW, both US and CS navies built specialized rams for use in the battles fought on US rivers like the Mississippi; the First Battle of Memphis is a perfect example of Ram combat. In fact many Ironclad ships were built with rams during this period; unfortunately this made collisions more lethal (HMS Victoria for example).

Later, with a growing power of the naval artillery and explosive shells, it was argued that a shell will always be a winner in shell vs. armor competition and that the future belongs to the fast ships with a little or no armor and few powerful long-range guns because they can out-shot and outrun the existing (at that time) ironclads being able to chose a safe distance. It can be probably said that the battle cruisers were evolution of that line of thinking.
The Battle of Tsushima was seen as vindication of this line of thought.

BTW here's an article on Ironclads with a lot of gorgeous pics of various designs, some of which are rather....unusual.....and here's a blog of vintage ship photographs. While most pics are of WW1-2 era ships, there are a number of Pre-Dreadnought era ships pics here.
 
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The Battle of Tsushima was seen as vindication of this line of thought.

Not sure in which way: both sides had the armored battleships and the Russian lack of speed was not due to the armor but because of their travel almost around the world without an ability to stop for the repairs. Another factor was faulty Russian shells for the main caliber: they were new model armor-piercing shells which did not pass through the necessary testing before being adopted and more often then not simply failed to explode inside the enemy's ship.
 
Not sure in which way: both sides had the armored battleships and the Russian lack of speed was not due to the armor but because of their travel almost around the world without an ability to stop for the repairs. Another factor was faulty Russian shells for the main caliber: they were new model armor-piercing shells which did not pass through the necessary testing before being adopted and more often then not simply failed to explode inside the enemy's ship.
For Naval observers, the Japanese success confirmed that long range guns and high speed would be determining factors for future naval battles (and would eventually lead to the construction of Dreadnoughts).
For the Russians.....considering the circumstances of their journey, (Read about it here. ), the fact they actually arrived to fight the Japanese was practically a borderline ASB event.
 
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