1. Sea Power and
Maritime Affairs
Lesson 8: Developments in Naval
Technology and its Impact on Strategy
and Policy, 1865-1890
2. Learning Objectives:
• Know the status of the U.S. Navy after the Civil War.
• Know the principal changes in warship hull design,
propulsion, and armaments during the period 1865-
1890.
• Know the principal milestones in the evolution of
warship armament during the period.
• Know principal naval weapons systems conceived or
adopted by nations desiring inexpensive methods to
overcome or neutralize expensive naval hardware, such
as the capital ship.
3. Learning Objectives:
• Know the technological responses of the major naval
powers to counter the threats of low cost weapons.
• Know the reasons H.M.S. Warrior marks the beginning
and end of this period as a major step in the evolution
of the principal weapons of naval might.
• Know congressional attitudes toward the Navy in this
postwar period. Comprehend the changes in naval
technology prior to World War I.
4. Learning Objectives:
• Comprehend (explain) the difficulty in maintaining
technological leadership and the debate over whether to
remain technologically current.
• Comprehend the reasons for the rebuilding of the U.S.
Navy and the historical conditions accounting for the
emergence and success of Captain Alfred Thayer
Mahan's lectures and book.
5. Remember our Themes:
• The Navy as an Instrument of Foreign
Policy
• Interaction between Congress and the
Navy
• Interservice Relations
• Technology
• Leadership
• Strategy and Tactics
• Evolution of Naval Doctrine
6. International Affairs (Late 19th Century):
• “Pax Britannica”
• Era of peace continues - British Empire dominates the seas.
• Japan - Meiji Restoration
• Continued increase in foreign trade.
• Rapid modernization begins.
• German and Italian unifications - 1870-71.
• Austro-Hungarian Empire’s “Dual Monarchy” - 1867.
• Continued collapse of Ottoman Empire through 1800’s.
• Balkan Peninsula: Independence of European states.
• New era of European imperialism:
• European powers vigorously compete to establish colonies
on remaining world territories.
9. Evolution of Warship Construction:
• Construction materials:
• Steel hulls replace iron hulls.
• Steel has higher strength and less weight than iron.
• Compartmentation.
• Protective decks.
• Armor protection.
• Iron to steel-plated iron to steel.
• Location of armor:
• Vulnerable areas get more armor.
• Unable to armor the entire ship due to weight of
armor.
• Rams
12. Battle of Lissa – 1866:
• First battle between ironclad fleets.
• Adriatic Sea off Dalmatian coast (present-day
Croatia).
• Italians attempt amphibious assault of the
island of Lissa without command of the sea.
• Austrian Fleet takes “V” formation.
• Breaks the Italian line.
• Ferdinand Maximilian sinks Re d’Italia with the
ram.
• Rams in warship design:
• Remain prominent until late into the nineteenth
century.
18. Evolution of Armament:
• Muzzle loaders to breech loaders.
• Safety and rate of fire increases.
• Rifled guns.
• Increased accuracy and ranges.
• Mounting of guns.
• Hydraulic recoil mechanisms.
• Cartridge shells.
• Round and charge are combined.
• Rate of fire increases.
• Greater penetrating power and range.
• Self-propelled torpedo:
• Invented by Englishman Robert Whitehead in 1866.
19. Ship Propulsion Innovations
• More efficient steam engines developed.
• Increases in speed.
• Longer ranges.
• Coaling stations required at regular
intervals while transiting overseas.
• Further incentive to acquire overseas colonies.
• Many ships still use sail as alternate
means of propulsion.
• Hybrids with stacks and sails.
22. Low Cost Weapons vs “Capital” Ships:
• Capital ships:
• Large ships with heavy guns - core of a battle fleet.
• Battleships (Heavily armored).
• Cruisers (Faster but less heavily armored than
battleships).
• New low cost weapons:
• Self-propelled torpedoes launched from “torpedo
boats”.
• Mines - Stationary torpedoes to protect coastlines
and ports.
23. Countermeasures
• Continued advances in compartmentation.
• New ship types:
• “Torpedo boat destroyer” shortened to just
“destroyer” used to screen capital ships from
torpedo attacks.
• Minesweepers used to clear minefields.
28. Post-Civil War U.S. Navy:
• 1865-1870 -- Decline of the Navy.
• Large reductions in naval appropriations: 700 to
52 ships.
• Isolationism due to the need for:
• Reconstruction of the South.
• Continued westward expansion.
• Primary mission: Protection of maritime
trade overseas.
29. Post-Civil War U.S. Navy
• Naval Doctrine
• Commerce raiding and coastal defense still
emphasized.
• Alabama Claims -- 1871-1872
• International arbitration at Geneva.
• Great Britain pays United States large award.
• Based on Union merchant ships captured by
Confederate commerce raiders which were built in
Great Britain.
30. Rebirth of the U.S. Navy:
•Naval funding begins to increase in 1880.
•ABCD ships - construction begins in 1883.
•Steam (Sail used as secondary means of propulsion).
•Steel hulls and heavy armor.
•Rifled breech-loading guns.
•Battleships - construction begins in 1889.
31. Rebirth of the U.S. Navy:
• Naval Institute established by naval
officers - 1873.
• Proceedings - professional journal for naval
personnel.
• Office of Naval Intelligence established -
1882.
• Naval War College established - 1884.
• Engineering Duty Officers enter the Line -
- 1899.
• Increased importance of technical knowledge
is apparent.
32. Naval War College:
• Commerce raiding and coastal defense were
the accepted strategies of the U.S. Navy after
the Civil War.
• Strategies seemed obsolete to an influential
group of American naval leaders.
• Commodore Stephen B. Luce
• Establishes Naval War College in 1885 at
Newport, Rhode Island to:
• “Apply modern scientific methods to the study and
raise naval warfare from the empirical stage to the
dignity of a science.”
• Captain Alfred Thayer Mahan is one of the
first instructors to serve under Luce.
33.
34. Alfred Thayer Mahan
“An untroubled assurance of peace
is no guarantee that war
will not come.”
35. “Historians
generally have
been unfamiliar
with the conditions
of the sea, having
as to it neither
special interest nor
special knowledge;
and the profound
determining
influence of
maritime strength
upon great issues
has consequently
been overlooked.”
36. The Influence of Sea Power Upon
History: 1660-1783
• Published in 1890 - Mahan’s first book.
• Based on series of Naval War College lectures.
• Strong arguments for the U.S.:
• Maintaining naval strength during peacetime.
• Building a fleet of capital ships.
• Acquiring colonies abroad for secure coaling
stations.
• Ideas strongly appeals to:
- Industrialists - Merchants
- Nationalists - Imperialists
37. Learning Objectives:
• Know the status of the U.S. Navy after the Civil War.
• Know the principal changes in warship hull design,
propulsion, and armaments during the period 1865-
1890.
• Know the principal milestones in the evolution of
warship armament during the period.
• Know principal naval weapons systems conceived or
adopted by nations desiring inexpensive methods to
overcome or neutralize expensive naval hardware, such
as the capital ship.
38. Learning Objectives:
• Know the technological responses of the major naval
powers to counter the threats of low cost weapons.
• Know the reasons HMS Warrior marks the beginning
and end of this period as a major step in the evolution
of the principal weapons of naval might.
• Know congressional attitudes toward the Navy in this
postwar period. Comprehend the changes in naval
technology prior to World War I.
39. Learning Objectives:
• Comprehend (explain) the difficulty in maintaining
technological leadership and the debate over whether to
remain technologically current.
• Comprehend the reasons for the rebuilding of the U.S.
Navy and the historical conditions accounting for the
emergence and success of Captain Alfred Thayer
Mahan's lectures and book.
1868 - Meiji - Emperor Matsuhito- beginning of Japanese modernization - now will be another player on world power scene
1871 - Prussia succeeds in unifying Germany
1870 - Modern Italy unified
Old Hapsburg Empire now in decline - Dual Mon
Ottoman collapse - N Africa, Balkans and Greece
- remember Crimean War and also a Russo-Turkish War - slowly losing territory outside of Asia Minor
- Newscramble for colonial possessions - more when we talk about Mahan
German principalities;
Otto von Bismarck
- starts war with France and Napoleon III
- starts war with Austria
shrewd diplomacy of Bismarck kept European powers at bay
- the monkey wrench in European balance that leads to two world wars
McKinder’s Theory?
His successors are not so smart
Ind Revolution now in full swing - changes in technology happening faster and faster
The end of 19th Cent is the culmination of decades worth of experimentation
Age of Sail to the Modern Age of Warships
*** Wood, Iron, Steel
*** Torpedoes/Mines damage shows need for compartmentalization - saves the ship from sinking - knee knockers
Underwater protection
*** Protective decks - plunging fire
*** Shell -- need for armor: iron, steel plated iron, then steel
Location: guns, magazines, waterline, machinery
Rams: after the Battle of Lissa and the Virginia sinking the Cumberland, the ram has a new lease on life in modern steamship tactics
Launched in 1860
The first modern battle ship
all-iron hull- not one of iron sheathing over wood
impervious to the shot and shell of the day
Commissioned February 25, 1862
Battle of Hampton Roads
Not in the reading, so pay attention
1866 Prussia and Italy attacked Austria
Prussia: German unification
Italy: wanted Venetia back
Venetia: a historic area in NE Italy and NW Yugoslavia (former), bounded by the Alps, Po River N and E to the valleys of the Carnic and Julian Alps
Admiral Count Carlo di Persano
Rear Admiral Baron Wilhelm von Tegethoff
Rams, rams, rams
Sunk by the Ferdinand Maximilian
1866 - p. 156
Italy - recently unified except for the Veneto - still Austrian Empire
Prussia leading the unification of Germany
Italian Admiral Persano - Italy - 12 Ironclads - poor leadership and training
Austrian Tegetthoff - 7 Ironclads - outgunned
Persano prodded by King - starts an amphibious landing without first neutralizing Austrian fleet -
Tegethoff can’t believe this - forms Vs for ramming - remember these came back into use - Am Civil War
Not at a total disadvantage - he’s got many more fi\orward firing guns on his fleet and Italians unprepared
Ferdinand Maximillian and Kaiser
Italians unready, had shot off a lot of ammo at fortifications on Lissa ***
Persano shifts his flag from Re d’Italia to Affondatore
Re - El Primo ???
So a gap in Italian line !!!
Teggethoff breaks the line and presto ***
Melee ensues
Both sides equipped with underwater rams - attempts at ramming
Re d’ Italia sunk by the ram of Ferdinand Max
So - the need for rams ??? This turns out to be BS, but all capital ships built in the next thirty years were equipped
Also - need for forward firing guns
*** Increases rate of fire
*** Different mixes of gunpowder = longer guns = increased muzzle velocity
*** Rifled guns - no knucklers
*** Hydraulics allow better recoil - so bigger guns mounted
*** Shells improved in penetrating power
- bunker busters
***Steam - improvements in boilers mean more efficiency and speed
*** Changes from coal to oil beginning
Turret on the USS Monitor
Civil War - south would put torpedoes on a spar
Capt Ericsson’s new Torpedo Boat
Secretary of Navy William E. Chandler
Rear Admiral Robert W. Shufeldt- Naval Advisory Board
Asked Congress for five ships (predecessor asked for 68 and got sacked)- prudent
March 1883- bill approved appropriating funds for four warships built completely of American steel:
Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Dolphin
Still guerre de course philosophy- couldn’t hold up against British ships
Battleship Construction: capital ship philosophy- SECNAV Benjamin F. Tracy
Indiana class
October 1873- Naval Institude organized to advance “professional and scientific knowledge in the Navy.”
United States Naval Institute Proceedings
ONI- 1882- Naval attaches in worldwide consult to collect intelligence info
Naval War College - 1884- Stephen B. Luce- a foundation of tactical knowledge
*** From 1865 to 1885 commerce raiding and coastal defense were the accepted strategies of the U.S. Navy.
In an age of technological change, these ideas began to seem obsolete to an influential group of American naval leaders.
*** Naval War College established in 1885 - became highly successful and eventually copied by European powers
- there were army war colleges in Britain and Germany, but the only naval war college in Br only had technical courses, so this was a first in the world
Luce - commandant of midshipmen at Academy after it returned to Annapolis from Newport, RI after Civil War - raised academic standards and implemented honor system
- re-established training ships - instead of A school like now-a days
MC Perry had attempted this before the war due to a mutiny and hangings
Luce liked what he saw of Mahan’s analysis of the Civil War
so when Luce takes over the Atlantic Fleet, Mahan becomes second President of the War College in 1886 - his lectures become well known and eventually published as books
- Alfred Thayer Mahan The Influence of Sea Power Upon History 1660-1783
Analyzed Gr Br and how she used sea power to come to dominate world wide trade and build colonial empires
Later books analyzed other time periods and then compared the US to Britain
The book brought Mahan fame in his lifetime and ever since.
In the context of late 19th-century peacetime America, Mahan provided a powerful argument for achieving and preserving sea power during times of peace as well as war.
This had understandable appeal to industrialists, merchants interested in overseas trade, investors, nationalists, and imperialists.
Conclusions
1. The U.S. Navy reached an apotheosis during the Civil War that was lost shortly after 1865, not to be regained until the 20th century.
2. In the intervening decades, Great Britain led the world in promoting the development of modern naval technology.
3. The decline of the U.S. Navy ended about 1880, and by 1890, a renaissance was in full swing.
a. Dominant evidence was Captain Alfred Thayer Mahan's book, The Influence of Sea Power upon History, 1660-1763 (1890).
b. Equally significant were the new battleships utilizing Mahan’s strategy of command of the sea and clearly displaying the industrial maturation of the United States.