You Sank my Battleship – Or Not – A History of Ships of the Line
The term battleship comes from line-of-battle-ship or ship-of-the-line.
This basically means that a battleship is a large warship designed to fight other ships, and descends directly from the sailing ship-of-the-line via the ironclad.
The modern battleship started to show up in the mid to late 19th century and was dominant until the 1940s, when somebody invented airplanes…
So, what’s the history here? What was the first ship of the line? And are they truly obsolete?
The First Warships
We aren’t entirely sure what the first warship was, but the first evidence we have of warships…ships used in warfare…comes from the eastern Mediterranean. The first warship we know of is the galley. Galleys were long, thin ships powered by lots of oarsmen working together, and their primary weapon was a bow ram. They would ram other vessels and sink them, or engage and board, depending on whether you wanted to kill the other ship or, well, take it as a prize…and its cargo.
But the start of the modern warship was the next generation of classical ships. We can see the ultimate ancestor of the battleship in the Hellenic period, when siege engines were mounted on ships, giving them ranged attacks. Specifically, Alexander the Great equipped his ships with ballistae to hurl projectiles at enemy ships.
Whoever his shipbuilder was is the original inventor of the battleship. But there was little improvement for a long time.
A long time indeed. All of the European warships were basically classical ships until the 1500s! Can you imagine that? The boarding action would have been primary, with ballistae and archers used to soften up opposing ships, and ramming was still a reasonable tactic.
Then somebody invented the cannon.
Cannons and Gunners
In the 14th century, small cannons were put on the railings of ships to help repel boarders. But in the 1500s the cannon replaced Alexander’s ballistae.
These cannons were designed to fight other ships. And their weight necessitated ships built to be able to carry them. In other words, as the Age of Sail began, the co-evolution of the gun and the ship began.
Cannons were not easy to fire. First of all, you had to send a powder monkey to the magazine to get the powder. The magazine was below the waterline for very good reasons. These poor powder monkeys were young boys, 10 to 14 years of age. You then mopped the barrel with a wet swab to make sure there were no embers from the last firing. You placed gunpowder in the barrel, then a cloth wad was rammed home with a rammer, then the shot, then another swab. Then you ran out the gun…you slid it until the front of carriage was at the edge of the ship and the barrel was out the port. Btw, that could be as much as two tons. Then everyone got out of the way and the gunner primed the touch hole with priming powder, then fired it. Everyone got out of the way because the gun would run back to its original position with the recoil.
Gunners were often killed by recoil until they invented the gunlock, which allowed the gunner to stand out of range, sight along the barrel, and fire.
Cannons could carry balls (to put holes in hulls), bar shot (to damage rigging) and grape shot (to turn the cannon into a giant shotgun to kill men).
Ships of the line would have a lot of guns on each side and would fire a broadside. They would also have a smaller gun at the bow and the stern. All of their guns fired at once would have made a tremendous war.
These ships were built around their guns, and most of their sailors were on the gun crew.
Steam and Iron
The next revolution of the battleship was in the 19th century when the Age of Sail came to an end. Steam-powered ships-of-the-line were easier to maneuver, although the earliest retained sails as a backup…in case anything went wrong with their early and not hugely reliable engines.
At about the same time the broadside ceased to exist. Why? Because we invented the turret. In a sailing ship-of-the-line the helmsman aimed by steering the entire ship and the gunners’ job was about timing. With turrets the gunners did all the aiming, and had an arc of fire. This reduced the number of guns and increased their size.
By this point guns were breech loaded. It all became much more efficient.
But there was also the first rumor of obsolescence: The torpedo and the torpedo boat.
And at the same time, we started to see the development of armored ships. The first armored ships were the ironclads. The most famous ironclad is undoubtedly the USS Monitor. Ironclads were used in the Civil War, but had all kinds of problems. They were still built with rams in some cases…some had rams and torpedo tubes.
The term “ironclad” referred to a ship that had armor, steam propulsion, and guns that could fire explosive shells. These shells obsoleted wooden steam ships-of-the-line, but the ironclads themselves were obsolete almost as soon as they hit the water. Iron was also heavier, more expensive, needed more repairs, and was very prone to fouling. One of the reasons the Confederacy lost the war was because nobody would sell them ironclads and the ones they built were pretty, uh, bad. One didn’t have a copper sheath on its hull and eventually just fell apart.
The weight of the armor reduced the number of guns that could be carried and while some early ironclads were “broadside” ironclads with traditional cannons, most had turrets and similar devices to allow the gunners to aim.
Solving all of these problems would require a new material: Steel
The Dreadnought Comes
In the 1880s sea-going steel-hulled battleships replaced the ironclads. They carried one main battery and one or more secondary batteries. This was also the era of the destroyer and cruiser.
The pattern of arming battleships did not change, but most of the pre-dreadnought battleships are gone. There is one surviving example, the Mikasa, preserved at Mikasa Park in Yokosuka. Not only is she the last surviving pre-dreadnought but she is the last surviving British-built battleship and the only battleship on display that isn’t American. Now I want to fly to Japan just to see her.
Then in 1906, the Royal Navy launched Dreadnought. Dreadnought was so revolutionary that everyone had to copy her. A “dreadnought” became a subset of battleship. She had a uniform main battery rather than a few large guns and heavy secondary armament. At the time of construction, she was also the fastest battleship in the world.
Dreadnought sparked an arms race…yet despite that she achieved nothing in her career. She barely fought in World War I, her only significant action was sinking a U-Boat…by ramming it. Unfortunately, she was scrapped in 1921.
But she started a trend, although it wasn’t always followed. Another key development at the time was fuel oil propulsion rather than coal. In 1904, the Royal Navy tested the torpedo-boat Spiteful, the first warship powered by fuel oil.
Then somebody invented the airplane.
Obsolete As Soon As She Hits the Water
The Dreadnought’s fate might well have been a signal. In the U.S.A., the North Carolina class of fast battleships were launched in the 1940s, just in time for World War II…
…and just in time for the end of the battleship. The USS North Carolina, now berthed at Wilmington, NC, was the class lead ship and was launched in 1940…and retired in 1947. She sat idle for a while before being restored as a museum ship in the early 1960s.
She represented the height of battleship technology. She was powered by fuel oil steam turbines…yes, she was a steamship, but one powered by fuel oil or “bunker” oil as it’s referred to in the navy. Her main battery consisted of 9 16 in guns, and she also carried 20 5 in gun and specialist anti-aircraft weaponry. She also carried three Kingfisher floatplanes, which were catapult-launched from her fantail and then landed on the water for recovery. Oh, and, incidentally, of her 2,300 complement, about half worked the guns. About half. Over a thousand men to fire guns.
She carried the primary seed of her own obsolescence…in the form of the seaplanes and early radar. “Showboat,” as her sailors proudly called her, was designed to carry a flag and to lead a task force.
She carried a flag once and she never led a task force, although it was considered. Because the writing was on the wall.
Never again would a ship of the line carry a flag. Their role would be taken by something completely new: The aircraft carrier.
Carrier warfare relegated the North Carolina to a supporting role.
She was the height of technology.
She was obsolete as soon as she hit the water.
By the late 1940s, the era of the ship of the line that started in the 1500s was well and truly over.
My question now is what weapon of war we now use will soon be obsolete in the same way. What is now being built that will never see its true use?
And what I’m going to say is that it’s probably bombers. The era of the guided rocket that also started in the 1940s is now approaching dominance.
Why risk a crew to bomb a target when you can just use a drone?
Warfare will always change until it becomes obsolete…and as much as I wish that could happen, I don’t see it. It’s too inherent to who we are.