Richard Hill (1) (1929–)

In the introduction to this book, Richard Hill notes that it was a temptation to respond to the invitation to write a history of naval warfare in the second half of the 19th century with the pithy response “there wasn’t much.” And it’s true that there were none of the extended conflicts at sea that characterized the preceding and succeeding eras in ways familiar to students of military history. As Hill goes on to acknowledge, however, to say that there weren’t many battles at sea is different from saying that it wasn’t an important era. Indeed, the half-century of the “ironclad age” – a period extending from roughly 1855 to the launching of the HMS Dreadnought in 1906 – was one of important developments that changed the nature of naval warfare.

These developments form the heart of Hill’s book. For the most part they were technological, with the key development being the introduction of steam propulsion. Though steam engines predated the ironclad era by half a century, their inefficiency and high rate of coal consumption initially made them impractical for ocean-going travel. By the middle of the 19th century, however, improvements in design and metallurgy made it possible to develop engines capable of propelling heavy ships for extended distances against the natural elements. This made possible warships of greater size and weight, with iron hulls and cannon of increased range and penetrative power. While this gave nations such as France and Russia an opportunity to steal a march on the British through innovative designs, Hill notes that Britain’s superior industrial capacity allowed them to respond quickly to any threat to their naval dominance.

It was not just the ships that were changing during this period, either. Service aboard the ships was transforming with the changes, most notably with the rise of the engineering officer and the enlisted stokers, whose roles disrupted the traditional hierarchies aboard naval vessels. The growing importance of navies to theories of global power also increased the prestige of naval service in many Western countries, with gleaming fleets of warships seen as the ultimate sign of national stature.

Hill concludes his book with two chapters that examines the wars in which these navies were engaged. While conflicts between navies were few, sailors often found themselves seconded to expeditions designed to expand imperial control. The naval wars that were waged – between the United States and the secessionist Confederacy, the Italians and the Austrians, the United States and Spain, and the Japanese and first China and then Russia – often did as much to send naval development down blind alleys rather than confirm the prevailing ideas of the era. No event better exemplified this than the battle of Tsushima, which became like Trafalgar the epitome of the decisive clash between opposing fleets, creating a model that became an aspirational goal in the naval wars of the 20th century but one the achievement of which proved elusive.

Hill’s book provides a good overview of naval developments during an iconic era of transformation. His text is aided by an excellent selection of illustrations, as well as colorful maps that highlight the key battles of the era. Yet it is also a frustrating book in a number of respects. While Hill bases his work on secondary sources, his guide to further reading suggests that he overlooked some of the key studies of the navies of the era. His coverage of the American Civil War is especially disappointing in its superficiality, especially given all of the excellent books available about it. And he even recycles the old canard about the construction of warships with full sailing rig reflecting the innate conservatism of naval leaders, ignoring his own point later on that coal consumption and fuel storage were concerns for naval officers throughout much of the era – for all of the advantages of steam, sail still had some merit.

These issues weaken the utility of Hill’s book. While in many ways an effective introduction to an interesting era of naval development, it’s a work that is best treated as just that – an introduction only, and a somewhat flawed one at that. It’s especially advisable to look elsewhere for guidance as to further books on the subject, both for what is unaccountably missing from Hill’s bibliography (such as David Evans's and Mark Peattie's Kaigun: Strategy, Tactics, and Technology in the Imperial Japanese Navy, 1887-1941), and for the fine work that has been done about the era since his book was published two decades ago.… (mehr)

Disappointing on several levels. War at Sea in the Ironclad Age initially appealed because it is part of a Smithsonian series edited by the late John Keegan. Unfortunately, Keegan must not have had much editorial input.

First off, a book as dependent on illustrations should have been in a larger format. The small size makes a lot of the maps and action plots inscrutable, and these are not very well designed to begin with. For one thing they are inconsistent; some are conventional plots with a schematic overhead view; others are oblique views with little 3D ships; others use ship silhouettes. They do not have consistent scales or labeling, they often attempt to portray way too much action on a single plot (which results in spaghetti tangles of ship tracks with no indication of which ship was where when), and some are not consistent with accompanying text. The illustration of the Battle of the Yalu during the Sino-Japanese War is an egregious example. It is presented as two oblique 3D views with “realistic” little ships on a “realistic” ocean background. Little gray ships on a wavy gray surface do not stand out very well. Next, all the little ship models are identical; except for attached names Japanese ships are not distinguishable from Chinese ones and cruisers are shown the same as battleships. The two views apparently show the beginning and end of the battle, but there are no ship traces to show how the fleets got from the beginning to the end. The text notes that the Japanese cruiser squadron encircled the Chinese fleet, and in the first illustration part of the Japanese fleet is shown turning away from the Chinese; presumably this is the cruiser squadron and they are going to loop completely around, but none of the ships are identified as “cruisers” so that’s a guess. In the final plot the Chinese fleet is encircled, but the ships diverging in the first illustration seem to be in the same relative position to the rest of the Japanese fleet, making it puzzling how the encirclement was accomplished.

Next, the book concentrates heavily on the Royal Navy – despite the fact that the Royal Navy fought very few actions in the time period covered (1855-1905). There were some shore bombardments, but AFAIK the only ship-to-ship action fought by the RN during that period was Shah vs. Huascar (well, unless you want to count Iron Duke vs. Vanguard or Camperdown vs. Victoria). This reduces author Richard Hill to covering every land engagement involving Royal Navy shore parties; thus we have maps and text discussions of the Indian Mutiny, the Second Opium War, the Ashanti War, the Mahdi Wars, and the Second Boer War. Well enough, but it’s at the expense of actual naval actions; for example, the Second Schleswig War (involving the Danish turret ship Rolf Krake, naval actions in the Franco-Prussian War, and the Sino-French war all get only one or two lines while the land battles get pages (what is a detailed map of the siege of Ladysmith doing in a book on naval warfare?). The Battle of Lissa during the Austro-Prussian War does get adequate treatment but as usual suffers from a confusing plot; in this case that may be forgivable since the battle was fought in a thick cloud of fog and gun smoke and the participants probably didn’t have a good enough idea of where they were to describe their tracks in an after-action report. There’s also some notice of The War of the Pacific, one of my favorite little-known conflicts.

There are very few details of how ships and weapons actually operated. Royal Navy shore parties are mentioned as benefiting from having “Gardner guns”, but not that those were cranked machine guns; problems with Armstrong rifled breechloaders are mentioned but not what the problems were or how the breech worked; there is very little discussion of gunnery (other than noting that each gun in the Royal Navy Mediterranean Squadron was fired once a year, since further practice would damage the paintwork); shell handling and storage, crew accommodations, signaling, armor design, and so on all get cursory mention or none at all. There is little discussion of the importance of coaling stations and maintenance facilities (but see below). One thing I would have liked to learn more about was the “Martin shell”, used in the Warrior and her sister ironclads; it was filled with molten iron from an on-board foundry. I suspect it’s just as well it apparently never saw action.

There is, however, a good explanation of the difference between water tube and fire tube boilers and the debate over which one was better (eventually won by water tubes). One thing I didn’t realize is that early ironclads used sea water in their boilers; that required the ship to shut down and blow down boilers periodically as the water became increasing briny, which in turn meant the ships could not maintain top speed for a long time.

An interesting alternate history topic has always been a Blue-Gray-Red conflict, with the British throwing in their hand with the Confederacy. Although the book doesn’t specifically mention such a possibility, discussion of the Warrior class’ coal consumption adds some information. The Warrior burned 3 ½ tons of coal an hour at cruising speed and even more at battle speeds. Her bunker capacity was just barely enough to cross the Atlantic under steam at low speed (although she also had a full sailing rig). The only reasonable coaling station/naval yard available on the Atlantic Coast was Halifax; none of the Confederate ports had the railroad and industrial capacity to provide a naval base and coaling station for the Royal Navy. While the Warrior was certainly a formidable vessel and easily superior to a Union monitor or the New Ironsides, her fuel and maintenance requirements would have made maintaining her on the wrong side of the Atlantic against a hostile Union a difficult proposition. Interestingly, author Richard Hill seems to think French intervention in the US Civil War as likely if Farragut hadn’t quickly taken New Orleans; the French Navy, of course, would have been in even worse position to intervene than the British.

There’s one really unfortunate error of fact; Theodore Roosevelt is named as a “Democratic” president (presumably because he won the Nobel Peace Prize and British author might not realize that a Republican is allowed to have one). The index is sparse. There is no bibliography per se (i.e., cross-referenced to the text) but there’s Suggestions for Further Reading. Not really recommended unless you have a weakness for decorative but not very useful illustrations.… (mehr)