Barbette Ship
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The barbette ship was a type of
ironclad warship An ironclad was a steam-propelled warship protected by steel or iron armor constructed from 1859 to the early 1890s. The ironclad was developed as a result of the vulnerability of wooden warships to explosive or incendiary shells. The firs ...
that was built by several navies between the 1860s and 1890s. The defining characteristic was the use of armored
barbette Barbettes are several types of gun emplacement in terrestrial fortifications or on naval ships. In recent naval usage, a barbette is a protective circular armour support for a heavy gun turret. This evolved from earlier forms of gun protection ...
s to partially protect the ship's
main battery A main battery is the primary weapon or group of weapons around which a warship is designed. As such, a main battery was historically a naval gun or group of guns used in volleys, as in the broadsides of cannon on a ship of the line. Later, th ...
guns, rather than heavy
gun turret A gun turret (or simply turret) is a mounting platform from which weapons can be fired that affords protection, visibility and ability to turn and aim. A modern gun turret is generally a rotatable weapon mount that houses the crew or mechanis ...
s or inflexible box batteries. A large number of these ships were built by many of the world's navies in the 1870s and 1880s, though they began to be replaced by the more modern
pre-dreadnought battleship Pre-dreadnought battleships were sea-going battleships built from the mid- to late- 1880s to the early 1900s. Their designs were conceived before the appearance of in 1906 and their classification as "pre-dreadnought" is retrospectively appli ...
type by the early 1890s. Barbette ships saw relatively little combat during their time in service, though a small number saw combat in minor actions like the
Bombardment of Alexandria The Bombardment of Alexandria in Egypt by the British Mediterranean Fleet took place on 11–13 July 1882. Admiral Beauchamp Seymour was in command of a fleet of fifteen Royal Navy ironclad ships which had previously sailed to the harbor of Al ...
in 1882 or the
Battle of Fuzhou The Battle of Fuzhou, or Battle of Foochow, also known as the Battle of the Pagoda Anchorage (French: Combat naval de Fou-Tchéou, Chinese: , 馬江之役 or 馬尾海戰, literally Battle of Mawei), was the opening engagement of the 16-month S ...
during the
Sino-French War The Sino-French or Franco-Chinese War, also known as the Tonkin War, was a limited conflict fought from August 1884 to April 1885 between the French Third Republic and Qing China for influence in Vietnam. There was no declaration of war. The C ...
in 1884. More significant use included two Chinese ships at the Battle of the Yalu River during the
First Sino-Japanese War The First Sino-Japanese War (25 July 189417 April 1895), or the First China–Japan War, was a conflict between the Qing dynasty of China and the Empire of Japan primarily over influence in Joseon, Korea. In Chinese it is commonly known as th ...
in 1894. By the 1910s, barbette ships were obsolete, but a few served on into the 1920s, usually in secondary roles. By the end of the decade, most of these remaining ships had been
scrapped Scrap consists of recyclable Recycling is the process of converting waste materials into new materials and objects. This concept often includes the recovery of energy from waste materials. The recyclability of a material depends on i ...
.


Development

Following the introduction of
ironclad warship An ironclad was a steam-propelled warship protected by steel or iron armor constructed from 1859 to the early 1890s. The ironclad was developed as a result of the vulnerability of wooden warships to explosive or incendiary shells. The firs ...
s in the early 1860s, naval designers grappled with the problem of mounting heavy guns in the most efficient way possible. The first generation of ironclads employed the same broadside arrangement as the old
ship of the line A ship of the line was a type of naval warship constructed during the Age of Sail from the 17th century to the mid-19th century. The ship of the line was designed for the naval tactics in the Age of Sail, naval tactic known as the line of battl ...
, but it was not particularly effective for ahead or stern fire. This was particularly important to designers, since the tactic of
ramming In warfare, ramming is a technique used in air, sea, and land combat. The term originated from battering ram, a siege engine used to bring down fortifications by hitting it with the force of the ram's momentum, and ultimately from male sheep. Thus ...
was revived following its successful employment at the decisive Austrian victory at the Battle of Lissa in 1866. Ramming required a ship to steam directly at its opponent, which greatly increased the importance of end-on fire. Designers such as
Cowper Phipps Coles Captain Cowper Phipps Coles (1819 – 7 September 1870), was an English naval captain with the Royal Navy. Coles was also an inventor; in 1859, he was the first to patent a design for a revolving gun turret. Upon appealing for public support, ...
and
John Ericsson John Ericsson (born Johan Ericsson; July 31, 1803 – March 8, 1889) was a Swedish-American engineer and inventor. He was active in England and the United States. Ericsson collaborated on the design of the railroad steam locomotive Novelty (lo ...
designed the first
gun turret A gun turret (or simply turret) is a mounting platform from which weapons can be fired that affords protection, visibility and ability to turn and aim. A modern gun turret is generally a rotatable weapon mount that houses the crew or mechanis ...
s in the 1860s, which gave the guns a wide field of fire. These turrets were exceedingly heavy, which required them to be placed low in the ship to reduce top-weight—and produced a dangerous tendency to
capsize Capsizing or keeling over occurs when a boat or ship is rolled on its side or further by wave action, instability or wind force beyond the angle of positive static stability or it is Turtling (sailing), upside down in the water. The act of reco ...
in heavy seas, amply demonstrated by the loss of and Coles himself with the ship in a
gale A gale is a strong wind; the word is typically used as a descriptor in nautical contexts. The U.S. National Weather Service defines a gale as sustained surface wind moving at a speed between .
in 1870. In the 1870s, designers began to experiment with an en barbette type of mounting. The barbette was a fixed armored enclosure protecting the gun. The barbette could take the form of a circular or elongated ring of armor around the rotating gun mount over which the guns (possibly fitted with a
gun shield A U.S. Marine manning an M240 machine gun equipped with a gun shield A gun shield is a flat (or sometimes curved) piece of armor designed to be mounted on a crew-served weapon such as a machine gun, automatic grenade launcher, or artillery pie ...
) fired. The barbette system reduced weight considerably, since the machinery for the rotating gun mount, along with the mount itself, was much lighter than that required for the gun house of a turret. The savings in weight could then be passed on to increase armor protection for the hull, improve coal storage capacity, or to install larger, more powerful engines. In addition, because barbettes were lighter, they could be placed higher in the ship without jeopardizing stability, which improved their ability to be worked in heavy seas that would have otherwise rendered turrets unusable. This also permitted a higher
freeboard In sailing and boating, a vessel's freeboard is the distance from the waterline to the upper deck level, measured at the lowest point of sheer where water can enter the boat or ship. In commercial vessels, the latter criterion measured relativ ...
, which also improved
seakeeping Seakeeping ability or seaworthiness is a measure of how well-suited a watercraft is to conditions when underway. A ship or boat which has good seakeeping ability is said to be very seaworthy and is able to operate effectively even in high sea stat ...
. Ironclads equipped with barbettes were referred to as "barbette ships" much like their contemporaries,
turret ship Turret ships were a 19th-century type of warship, the earliest to have their guns mounted in a revolving gun turret, instead of a broadside arrangement. Background Before the development of large-calibre, long-range guns in the mid-19th centur ...
s and
central battery ship The central battery ship, also known as a centre battery ship in the United Kingdom and as a casemate ship in European continental navies, was a development of the (high- freeboard) broadside ironclad of the 1860s, given a substantial boost du ...
s, which mounted their heavy guns in turrets or in a central armored battery. Many navies experimented with all three types in the 1870s and 1880s, including the British Admiral-class battleships, the French s, the Italian s, and the German s, all of which employed barbettes to mount their heavy guns. All of these navies also built turret and or central battery ships during the same period, though none had a decisive advantage over the other. The British and the Russian navies experimented with using disappearing guns afloat, including on the British and the Russian ironclad . They were not deemed particularly successful and were not repeated.


Replacement

In the late 1880s, the debate between barbette or turret mounts was finally settled. The , mounted their guns in barbettes, but the follow-on design, the , adopted a new mounting that combined the benefits of both kinds of mounts. A heavily armored, rotating gun house was added to the revolving platform, which kept the guns and their crews protected. The gun house was smaller and lighter than the old-style turrets, which still permitted placement higher in the ship and the corresponding benefits to stability and seakeeping. This innovation gradually became known simply as a turret, though the armored tube that held the turret substructure, which included the shell and propellant handling rooms and the ammunition hoists, was still referred to as a barbette. These ships were the prototype of the so-called
pre-dreadnought battleship Pre-dreadnought battleships were sea-going battleships built from the mid- to late- 1880s to the early 1900s. Their designs were conceived before the appearance of in 1906 and their classification as "pre-dreadnought" is retrospectively appli ...
s, which proved to be broadly influential in all major navies over the next fifteen years.


Use in service

Ships equipped with barbette mountings did not see a great deal of combat, owing to the long period of relative peace between their appearance in the 1870s and their obsolescence in the 1890s The
Ottoman Navy The Ottoman Navy () or the Imperial Navy (), also known as the Ottoman Fleet, was the naval warfare arm of the Ottoman Empire. It was established after the Ottomans first reached the sea in 1323 by capturing Praenetos (later called Karamürsel ...
possessed a number of small barbette ships, which saw combat during the
Russo-Turkish War The Russo-Turkish wars ( ), or the Russo-Ottoman wars (), began in 1568 and continued intermittently until 1918. They consisted of twelve conflicts in total, making them one of the longest series of wars in the history of Europe. All but four of ...
of 1877–1878. Some barbette ships saw action during the British
Bombardment of Alexandria The Bombardment of Alexandria in Egypt by the British Mediterranean Fleet took place on 11–13 July 1882. Admiral Beauchamp Seymour was in command of a fleet of fifteen Royal Navy ironclad ships which had previously sailed to the harbor of Al ...
in 1882, and the participated in the
Battle of Fuzhou The Battle of Fuzhou, or Battle of Foochow, also known as the Battle of the Pagoda Anchorage (French: Combat naval de Fou-Tchéou, Chinese: , 馬江之役 or 馬尾海戰, literally Battle of Mawei), was the opening engagement of the 16-month S ...
during the
Sino-French War The Sino-French or Franco-Chinese War, also known as the Tonkin War, was a limited conflict fought from August 1884 to April 1885 between the French Third Republic and Qing China for influence in Vietnam. There was no declaration of war. The C ...
in 1884. The two Chinese ironclads, and , that took part in the Battle of the Yalu River during the
First Sino-Japanese War The First Sino-Japanese War (25 July 189417 April 1895), or the First China–Japan War, was a conflict between the Qing dynasty of China and the Empire of Japan primarily over influence in Joseon, Korea. In Chinese it is commonly known as th ...
in 1894, carried their main battery in barbettes, though they were equipped with extensive gun shields that resembled turrets. The shields were nevertheless only proof against small-arms fire. Three of their opponents at the Yalu River, the Japanese s, also mounted their guns in open barbettes. ''Zhenyuan'' was seized by Japan during the war and commissioned as ''Chin Yen'', seeing further action during the
Russo-Japanese War The Russo-Japanese War (8 February 1904 – 5 September 1905) was fought between the Russian Empire and the Empire of Japan over rival imperial ambitions in Manchuria and the Korean Empire. The major land battles of the war were fought on the ...
of 1904–1905. Most barbette ships were discarded in the 1890s or early 1910s.} A pair of Ottoman barbette ships— and —saw limited use providing fire support during the
First Balkan War The First Balkan War lasted from October 1912 to May 1913 and involved actions of the Balkan League (the Kingdoms of Kingdom of Bulgaria, Bulgaria, Kingdom of Serbia, Serbia, Kingdom of Greece, Greece and Kingdom of Montenegro, Montenegro) agai ...
in 1912. Those barbette ships that survived into
World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...
were typically used only for secondary purposes. For example, the French was used as a repair ship for
submarine A submarine (often shortened to sub) is a watercraft capable of independent operation underwater. (It differs from a submersible, which has more limited underwater capability.) The term "submarine" is also sometimes used historically or infor ...
s and
torpedo boats A torpedo boat is a relatively small and fast naval ship designed to carry torpedoes into battle. The first designs were steam-powered craft dedicated to ramming enemy ships with explosive spar torpedoes. Later evolutions launched variants of ...
, while the German was employed as a torpedo training ship. A handful of barbette ships did see action during the war, including the British , which bombarded German positions in
Flanders Flanders ( or ; ) is the Dutch language, Dutch-speaking northern portion of Belgium and one of the communities, regions and language areas of Belgium. However, there are several overlapping definitions, including ones related to culture, la ...
in 1914 and 1915. The Italian ship was stationed as a
guard ship A guard ship is a warship assigned as a stationary guard in a port or harbour, as opposed to a coastal patrol boat, which serves its protective role at sea. Royal Navy In the Royal Navy of the eighteenth century, peacetime guard ships were usual ...
at
Brindisi Brindisi ( ; ) is a city in the region of Apulia in southern Italy, the capital of the province of Brindisi, on the coast of the Adriatic Sea. Historically, the city has played an essential role in trade and culture due to its strategic position ...
until 1917, though she saw no action there. Most of those ships still extant during World War I were quickly
broken up Ship breaking (also known as ship recycling, ship demolition, ship scrapping, ship dismantling, or ship cracking) is a type of ship disposal involving the breaking up of ships either as a source of Interchangeable parts, parts, which can be sol ...
in the immediate postwar years; ''Revenge'' was sold for scrapping in 1919, ''Württemberg'' was broken up in 1920, and ''Italia'' was scrapped beginning in late 1921. A handful of French ships, including , three of the four s, and ''Marceau'', were discarded in the 1920s. The former Austro-Hungarian barbette ship , which had been ceded to the
Royal Yugoslav Navy The Royal Navy ( sh-Latn, Kraljevska mornarica; sh-Cyrl, Краљевска морнарица; КМ), commonly known as the Royal Yugoslav Navy, was the naval warfare service branch of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia (originally called the Kingdom ...
after the war and renamed ''Kumbor'', was retained for a few years as a
coastal defense ship Coastal defence ships (sometimes called coastal battleships or coast defence ships) were warships built for the purpose of coastal defence, mostly during the period from 1860 to 1920. They were small, often cruiser-sized warships that sacrifi ...
, but was scrapped in 1926. The Russian battleship , which had been reduced to secondary duties in 1911, lingered on in the
Soviet Navy The Soviet Navy was the naval warfare Military, uniform service branch of the Soviet Armed Forces. Often referred to as the Red Fleet, the Soviet Navy made up a large part of the Soviet Union's strategic planning in the event of a conflict with t ...
's inventory until 1931.


Notes


References

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