Excerpt from "The
Navy and Army Illustrated, Vol 6" April 9th 1898 :
The "Polyphemus", which has just been ordered from Malta to join the flag, is a "twin screw special torpedo vessel
(protected ram)", and this description practically sets forth the
purposes to which the Polyphemus would be put in war. She is the
only vessel of her kind in our Fleet, and, speaking generally, may be said
to represent the views of certain extremists among Naval officers of
twenty years ago, who at that time were loudly proclaiming the advantages
of the ram as an almost resistless means of offence.
The idea of the ram of course goes back to the times of
the old galleys of Greece and Rome, whose principal weapon it was.
In the days of the old sailing men-of-war with which England won the
mastery of the seas, broadside to broadside fighting was the accepted
method of warfare, and there was no place for the ram. It dropped
out of memory, indeed, until early in the sixties of the present century,
when, on the advent of the steam propelled iron-clad, the ram reappeared
as a weapon of special potentialities, owing to the fact that the most
vulnerable part of the modern iron ship is below the water-line, where the
side armour ceases to afford protection. All our early iron-clads
from the "Warrior" onwards have been fitted with the ram, which
soon showed it's value under the new conditions, first in the American
Civil War, and then at the battle of Lissa, where the Italian flag-ship
was sunk by one blow from the ram of an Austrian iron-clad. Both
England and France after this paid attention to the construction of
vessels specially built for ramming, of which our own present
"Rupert" and "Hotspur" are existing specimens.
In them a big gun equipment is placed in a single turret in the fore part
of the ship for use in end on fighting, with the idea of helping to clear
the way for the onset of the attacking ship by an attack with heavy
projectiles. The advocates of the ram after that put pressure on the
Admiralty in England to build a vessel specially for ramming and without
heavy guns at all. The result was the present "Polyphemus",
begun in 1878 and completed in 1882. There was reason in building
her, for the guns of the day were slow-firers and the ships of the day
slow movers, while the "Whitehead" torpedo was still a
comparatively unknown quantity.
The leading features of the "Polyphemus'"
design, as our photographs show, are a low hull, exposing only a small
mark for an enemy's fire, the portion of the ship above water being also
turtle-back shaped and covered with thin armour to project light gun
projectiles that may strike. A high rate of speed was given the ship
from the first, between 17 and 18 knots, with a powerful ram-prow and a
torpedo equipment of five submerged tubes. These are her special
means of offence, the ship's defensive armament being confined to a few
light guns for repelling boat or torpedo attacks, mounted on the
superstructure above the hull, where the ship's boats are carried and
whence the ship is worked at sea. The "Polyphemus" is a
vessel of 2640 tons displacement, with length 240ft, beam 40 ft and mean
draught 20ft. She cost originally (according to Brassey's Annual)
£174,450, and has cost since then, owing to alterations and
reconstructions, probably a good deal more over again.
Her vulnerability below water to torpedo attack is, of
course, in common with all other ships, the "Polyphemus'" weak
point. In 1878 the self-propelling torpedo was only just coming into
use at sea, and it is, as a fact, due as much as anything to the adoption
of the "Whitehead" torpedo in all Navies since that time that no
repetition of the "Polyphemus" type of ship is found in our
Service. The "Polyphemus" has passed all her service in
the Mediterranean, where she was first sent in 1882. She is now in
commission, and ordinarily is stationed in Gibraltar Bay, whence from time
to time - at least once a year - the "Polyphemus" proceeds to
Malta to refit in dock there and to be overhauled. It was on the
occasion of the "Polyphemus'" last visit to Malta for the
purpose of docking that the photographs which are here reproduced were
taken. The peculiar shape of this unique vessel is well shown in the
above picture. The "Polyphemus" bears a name that is over
a hundred years old in the British Navy, and which was borne with credit
by one of Nelson's ships at Trafalgar.
