Historically, the British Empire, as a naval power, has spared no effort in the development of new warships. In 1870, when the British learned that the Russians had begun to build the armored cruiser "Admiral", they immediately began to design their own armored cruiser, and in 1873 the first British armored cruiser "Shannon" laid a keel and was launched two years later. In the following ten years, the British built a total of 17 armored cruisers of Type 4, leaving other naval powers far behind. Today I would like to introduce you to one of the most powerful armored cruisers of the "Brute" class, which was the most powerful armored cruiser in the world before 1890.
The "Brute" class uses a number of new technologies
First, the development background
After the British built the "Shannon"-class armored cruisers, they then launched the "Nelson" class (2 ships) and the "Emerald" class (6 ships) armored cruisers, but the naval guns of these three types of battleships were still early breech guns, and the main gun layout was also an early turret with a deck rotary table. When the new breech gun was invented, and the technology of the exposed battery was widely recognized, the British decided to combine these technologies to build a new armored cruiser. In order to accommodate the new breech guns, it was necessary to increase the size of the ship, so the tonnage of the new armored cruiser was significantly increased to 8500 tons. The new armored cruiser was named the "Brute" class.
In terms of appearance, the "Savage" class had the basic characteristics of later steel-armored cruisers, such as the arrangement of the main guns at the end of the ship's center line, and the elimination of the sail cable device (which was present at the beginning of the construction and later removed). Compared to its predecessor, the Firepower of the "Savage" class has been greatly improved, and its 234mm/32x diameter main gun is much more powerful than the old 254mm/15x diameter front-loading rifled gun. It has been tested to penetrate 17 inches of wrought iron and has a very strong armor-piercing ability.
The first British armored cruiser "Shannon".
2. Performance data
The main performance of the "Brute" class armored cruiser: length 96 meters, width 18.9 meters, draft 8.5 meters, open battery armor thickness 203 mm, conning tower armor thickness 229 mm, waterline armor belt thickness 254 mm, deck armor thickness 51 ~ 102 mm, standard displacement 8500 tons, crew establishment of 555 people. It is powered by two inverted Cambon steam engines, 8,000 horsepower, twin shafts, 16 knots, and a cruising range of 5,500 nautical miles / 10 knots. The standard coal carrying capacity is 1138 tons.
Equipped with four 234 mm/32 x diameter guns, single-mounted, one main turret in the bow and stern, and one main turret on each side of the amidships. 6 x 152 mm/26x breech guns, 2 on each side of the amidships, and the remaining 2 in armoured gun carriers on both sides of the lower bow deck. There were also 4 47-mm rapid-fire guns, 6 457-mm torpedo tubes. At that time, rapid-fire guns were not yet widespread, and the medium and large-caliber naval guns equipped with armored cruisers were breech-loading guns.
3. Construction
There are two ships of the same type as the armored cruisers of the "Brute" class, namely the "Brute" and the "War-weary". The name "War Weariness" is often used in the naming of large warships of the British Royal Navy, as many as 7 times in the impression, is the British Royal Navy more war-weary? Construction of both ships began in October 1881, with the "Savage" commissioned in June 1886 and the "War Wey" not commissioned until June 1888.
The "Savage" class was a first-rate warship in Asia at that time
Fourth, the state of service
After being put into service, the "Savage" class was used to protect the interests of British overseas colonies, and for a time it was sent to Asia, based in Hong Kong, and was the main warship of the British Far East Fleet at that time. The 234 mm/32 times diameter main gun of the "Brutal" class could penetrate the main armor belt of the "Dingyuan" class of the Beiyang Naval Division, not to mention a bunch of thin-skinned flatbread of the Japanese Combined Fleet, which was a first-rate warship in Asia at that time.
When the era of rapid-fire guns came, the navies of all countries began to popularize rapid-fire guns, and the main and secondary guns of newly built armored cruisers after 1890 were mainly rapid-fire guns. And the tonnage is getting bigger and bigger, the tonnage of mainstream armored cruisers is basically more than 10,000 tons, and at the same time the newly invented Harvey armor is used, so the "Barbarian" class has become outdated. When the British commissioned the Centurion-class second-class battleships, the Centurion class was sent to Asia to replace the position of the Savage class, so the Savage class was transferred back to the British Home Fleet and later used as training ships until it was decommissioned.
There is a saying that the design prototype of the "Jingyuan" class armored cruiser of the Beiyang Naval Division is the "Barbarian" class, because the two are very similar in appearance, and this possibility is not very big personally. Because the displacement of the "Jingyuan" class is only 2,900 tons, and the "Brute" class is as high as 8,500 tons, the tonnage comparison is too great. In addition, the design concept is different, the "Jingyuan" level is a horizontal formation, and the "brute" level is a firepower balance type! It can only be regarded as borrowing some experience from the "arrogant" level.