Conway Maritime Press - Warship 44

ot Diadetn. CPL
worth the loss of the big gun.
The next big programme was the
Spencer one of 1893 and it included the
mighty super-cruisers Powerful and,
Terrible, designed to catch and defeat the
Russian Rurik, whic}r had been announced
as the ultimate in commerce
raiders, capable oftravelling from Kronstadt
to Vladivostock without refuelling;
destroying the British mercantile
marine (then 75 per cent of the
world's shipping) single-handed; and
eating a British cruiser for breakfast each
moming. In fact, she was developed from
a long line of armoured frigates, with her
guns disposed almost in sailing-ship
fashion, without shield or other protection.
Her waterline was protected by a low
but thick belt, with a flat deck on top of it,
and her speed was about 19 knots. Sir
William White, who had been appointed
Director of Naval Construction in 1886.
estimated that her endurance at 10 knots
would be about 8500 nautical miles, about
half that planned.
The Admiralty decided that two ships
would have to be built, both capable of
catching and fi ghtrng Rurih, which posed
much the same threat - on paper at least -
as the pocket battleship Deutschlnnd in
the 1920s. For this, a speed of 22linots on
the four-hour trial and an endurance of
11,000 "knots" was needed. This, with an
armament about equal to Edgar, meanl
a very large ship. Powerful came out at
14,200 tons legend, nearly as big as the
contemporary Majestic class battleships,
which were regarded as gigantic.
Armament was the subject of much
debate. White proposed twenty 6in guns
as a basis of discussion, arguing that
they could qweep away lhe Burik's
unprotected guns and their crews, even
though they could not penetrate her belt.
This is what the Japanese did atUlsan 11
years later, but they had 6in and 8in guns
and only succeeded after a very hard
fight. Other proposals were for twentyone
6in guns, four 8in in breastworks and
fourteen 6in and finally, on 8 June 1893,
Sir Frederick Richards, the First Naval
Lord, put forward two 9.2in in single
armoured turrets and twelve 6in,
virtually the Edgar armament. It should
be noted that the then Director of Naval
Ordnance (DNO), R-Adm Compton Domville,
suppoited the 8in armament, and
that the proposed twenty-one 6in would
have been sixteen in casemates, four in
shields fore and aft, as in the Boyal
Arthur and one in a casemate right
forward, as in the Rurik and some other
Russian ships.
Powerful and Terrible werc the Daily
S&efch ships oftheirday, always dashing
about the world, landing naval brigades
and guns (the oriein of the Field Gun
Competition at the Royal Toumament);
being the subjects of rumours about their
Belleville water-tube boilers and the
scenes of some of Sir Percy Scott's
gunnery feats. The sailor suits ofchildren
at the time usually had. Powerful or
Temible on the capbands, Nevertheless,
much service opinion was unconvinced,
regarding them as undergunned (despite
four 6in added later) and too vulnerable.
In World War I they were employed as
transports or depot ships.
Apart from them, the Spencer Pro
gramme also provided for eightfirst-class
cnuisers intermediate between them and
the nine second