Marshal Ney with her turret trained on the broadside, probably on gunnery trials. Blast bags are fitted to each gun to prevent the blast entering the turret through the gun ports.
A close-up of Marshal Soult’s turret, showing the raised axis of the 15in guns permitting 30 degrees elevation. Ammunitioning is in progress at Dunkirk, with cordite cases lying on deck, each holding two 107lb quarter charges. The two 4in visible and the two 2pdr on platforms aft date the photograph as the spring of 1918. The conning tower has ceased to be used, the original searchlight platform being expanded instead. The chequer pattern was intended to confuse German rangefinders ashore and to blend into the ML’s protective smokescreens.
The protection of the Marshals was basically similar to that of the 14in monitors, except for the turret and the hump necessitated by the height of the diesel engines. The sloping main deck forward, visible in the photograph on the previous spread, saved a little weight compared with a closing vertical bulkhead.
Marshal Soult as completed; the ugliest of all the monitors with a disproportioned profile. The later 14ft increase in Soult’s funnel height worsened an already bizarre appearance. The tall barbette was necessary owing to the minimum length of the turret ammunition trunk. Marshal Ney was almost indistinguishable from her sister as completed, although after removal of the 15in turret her later armaments of 9.2in and then 6in guns readily distinguished the two vessels.
As with the first of the 12in monitors, the original plan
for sending Marshal Ney out to the Dardanelles had been cancelled and she had
been allocated to the Dover Squadron. Her maiden voyage from the Tyne was an
exciting one, as engine trouble continued to plague her. More often than not
one or other of her engines was out of action. Her difficulties were
accentuated by underpowered steering gear and poor response to the helm, so
that, despite tug assistance, she was continually sheering off course, at times
even making a complete 360-degree turn before control was regained. She
eventually arrived at Sheerness on 3 September, going straight on to calibrate
her guns on the Shoeburyness range, to adjust the sights so that both guns
fired to the required distance. It had been discovered by this time that the
12in monitors were outranged by the Tirpitz battery. Bacon was therefore
anxious to get Ney into service as soon as possible to use her longer-range
guns, so she was prepared for her first operation. She was to steam inshore
between Dunkirk and Nieuport, where it was thought that the Tirpitz guns could
not bear. After waddling across to Dunkirk she joined the other monitors on 19
September in attempting to smother the fire of the coastal batteries. About
midday Ney opened fire on Westende from 15,000yd, but she received no spotting
reports as the only spotting station ashore could not obtain proper bearings
from its acute angle to the line of fire. Tirpitz’s guns soon showed that Ney was
still within their arc of fire, so she was forced to withdraw out of range after
only seven rounds. She returned later in the afternoon even closer off the
beaches of La Panne and obtained rather better results, one hit being signalled
out of sixteen rounds and the Germans being forced to evacuate temporarily the
Aachen battery of four 150mm guns. Unfortunately the heavy blast from her guns
blew the securing slip off the port anchor and the cable ran out while the ship
was under way, bringing her to a complete halt. It proved impossible to heave
the cable back in; neither could the starboard engine be started. Under power
of the port engine she grounded lightly while, to add to her discomfort,
Tirpitz had now found her range and proceeded to surround her with
uncomfortably close shell bursts. She soon got off the sandbank, only to find
that her rudders had jammed and that the only motion possible was slow
circling. Tweedie dared not stop his one remaining engine, so the destroyer
Viking was ordered to tow her out of danger. This was successfully achieved
under cover of a smokescreen, the passage back to Dunkirk being made at twice
her normal speed.
She was back in action again on 25 September, supporting the
big Army offensive. This time the Westende batteries were her target, receiving
seventeen rounds before Viking again had to tow her away. A week later both
engines again broke down before another bombardment. It was now abundantly
clear that, if her great firepower was to be properly exploited, considerable
modifications would be needed to her engines and steering gear to obtain reliable
performance. So on 20 October she was drydocked at Southampton, where her
rudders were modified and new steering gear was fitted. She then went across to
Cowes to give her engine builders a chance to improve the starting and
reversing characteristics of her diesels; of course no advice was available
from the German designers.
Meanwhile, Marshal Soult had arrived at Dover on 6 November
but had been despatched immediately to Portsmouth for a new set of propellers
and to have her mine-wires removed. On her new trials she managed 6½kts without
any trouble from her Vickers engines. She joined the Dover Squadron as an
effective unit on 28 November and saw her first action on 23 December, when she
bombarded the area around Westende Casino with six rounds. Two more similar
sorties were made in late December, while on 15 and 26 January she again
bombarded Westende, on the latter occasion in company with four of the 12in
monitors.
Ney had arrived back at Dover on 13 December, as Bacon
wanted her for supporting his planned attacks on Zeebrugge and Ostende. But the
next few weeks showed that her troubles had not really been cured. She remained
as unmanageable as ever and her engines could never be relied upon, either to
start or, once started, to continue running. Finally the ever-optimistic Swan
had to admit defeat when a cylinder exploded, blowing parts of the engine
through the deckhead. As Soult had shown herself a much more satisfactory
performer, the Admiralty decided to cut their losses with Ney. By transferring
her turret to one of the new fast monitors then building, they hoped to get her
powerful armament back into service quickly. Accordingly Ney was despatched to
the Tyne under tow, arriving at Elswick on 29 January 1916, where her turret
was removed for transfer to Terror, under construction at Belfast. In April she
returned to Portsmouth, where she was fitted with a reduced armament consisting
of a single 9.2in and four single 6in. She was back in commission on 16 June,
and new trials were undertaken with a moderate degree of success, so she
returned hopefully to Dover. But her performance in service proved as bad as
ever; her engines and steering prevented her from becoming an effective unit of
the Squadron. She was sent back to Portsmouth, paying off for the second time
on 15 August.
General patrol work occupied most of Soults time during
1916, involving occasional brushes with enemy aircraft and destroyers. It was
September before she again used her 15in guns in earnest, supporting Haig’s
Somme offensive. Between 8 and 13 September she fired thirty-seven rounds of
CPC, mostly at enemy 150mm coastal batteries. By firing from behind a
smokescreen the safe firing range could be brought down to about 22,000yd.
Shortly afterwards she was hit by a bomb while alongside at Dunkirk. By this
time both Erebus and Terror had entered service, so Soult could be spared to
have her gun mounting altered to give 10 degrees extra elevation up to 30
degrees, similar to the two new ships. She left for Elswick, arriving on 6
November, and returned to Dover on 12 March 1917 with her guns now capable of
about 30,000yd range.
Meanwhile, further modifications had been made to Ney at
Portsmouth. White’s had another go at her engines, which performed quite well
in basin trials at Portsmouth in December. But these were too late to save her
from being relegated to a stationary role as a guardship. Merchant traffic
along the south and east coast of England all passed through the special
anchorage at the Downs off Ramsgate, where examination of vessels for
blockade-running cargoes took place. Vessels also used the anchorage to lay up
overnight or when enemy sorties or unswept minefields presented temporary
dangers. Such a collection of ships formed a tempting target, which had to be
well protected by destroyers and drifters, backed up by a 12in monitor when
necessary. The need for strong protection was borne out when German destroyers
raided the Downs in February and March 1917. Rather than employ one of his more
active monitors, Bacon decided to convert Ney to a full-time guardship at the
Downs, fitting her with six 6in guns. Her good underwater protection made her
almost immune from U-boat attack, while her armament was still strong enough to
drive off destroyers. She took up her station at the north end of the Downs on
5 April 1917, and was soon in action. On the morning of the 19th six German
seaplanes appeared over the Goodwin Sands and two, which were carrying
torpedoes, calmly circled Ney amidst a barrage of AA fire. One torpedo was
dropped from low level but fortunately missed Ney, passed under a nearby
dredger and embedded itself in the mud of Ramsgate Harbour. Ney’s chance came
on 27 April, when she returned the fire of several destroyers shelling
Ramsgate, who retired in the face of this strong opposition. Thereafter things
became rather quieter as German destroyer raids virtually ceased, but she often
used her HA guns against the night-time aircraft and Zeppelin raids. Not until
after the Armistice did she leave her anchorage, where she had performed a dull
but important service, being towed round to Sheerness on 12 December 1918.
In contrast, Soult saw considerable action over the next 18
months, as Bacon was determined to make full use of his three 15in monitors. From
early February 1917 he had been making detailed plans to bombard the lock gates
of the Bruges Canal, which if damaged would seriously restrict the use of the
important naval base at Bruges. It is worth describing the operation in some
detail, as it well illustrates the difficulties the monitors faced in
bombarding small targets on strongly defended coastlines. First the target: to
put the lock out of action both gates needed to be hit, as otherwise passage
could be made using only one gate, which could be opened for about two hours
around high water. Each gate was only about 90ft x 30ft in size and invisible
from the sea. Bacon calculated the chances of hitting such a target from 13
miles as one in sixty-three, but he halved the chances to allow for the difficulty
of accurately laying a gun subject to all the motions of a ship. About 250
rounds would thus be required to hit both main lock gates, even before any
consideration could be given to the spare gate kept nearby. Second the
opportunity: to fire 250 rounds would take about 1½hr with three monitors each
firing one round per minute. Such a rate was not difficult for the ships, but
would be quite a strain on the spotters. But conditions had to be just right; a
calm sea to prevent excessive rolling, no cloud or mist over the target so that
the spotting aircraft would have a clear view, and the tide running along the
coast to allow the ships to anchor broadside-on to the target. Third and most
important of all, opposition: the monitors would have to fire from within the
41,000yd range of the Kaiser Wilhelm battery. This meant that an onshore wind
was required so that the ML’s smokescreen would continue to shield the monitors
from view; that a dawn operation was desirable to achieve surprise before the
enemy could retaliate seriously, jam the spotting wireless or cover the target
with defensive smokescreens; that strong air patrols would be needed to prevent
enemy aircraft or observation balloons spotting for their return fire, and to
guard the British spotters. All in all, the chances of getting exactly the
right conditions and then actually hitting the targets were slight, but Bacon
judged the risks worthwhile to curb the U-boats by sealing one of their bases,
despite the shortage of reliable 15in ammunition and spare guns post-Jutland.
His plan was to anchor the three 15in monitors near to a predetermined position
off Zeebrugge and for them to use a 12in monitor as a back-aiming mark. To keep
their approach within the hours of darkness, a speed of at least 9kts was
required of the fleet, so each fast monitor would have to tow one of the slow
ones.
All was ready by 25 March, but mist came down, forcing a
postponement of the operation. A fortnight elapsed before the tides were once
more suitable, but again on 8 April the weather proved too bad. On 18 April the
start was delayed by Erebus fouling her propeller at Dunkirk and then, after
the flotilla had got under way, Soult sheered off while being towed by Terror,
breaking her towline. Further attempts during April were frustrated by the
weather or other factors. Not until 11 May did everything again appear
promising, when the 41-ship flotilla set off from Dover at about 18.00; Terror
flying Bacon’s flag and towing Soult at 10kts, Erebus towing Sir John Moore,
followed by M.24 and M.26, ten destroyers, six paddle minesweepers and nineteen
MLs. They anchored in the firing position at about 04.20 on the 12th, but poor
visibility forced Moore to anchor only 4,200yd off instead of the planned
12,000yd, thus seriously multiplying any errors of bearing. Of the three
spotting aircraft, two had reported mechanical trouble and had been forced to
land again, while the third had arrived as early as 03.00 and was running short
of fuel by the time the monitors were in position.
Fire was opened at 04.45 from about 26,000yd, Soult and
Terror taking the south gate as their target while Erebus took the north. The
first ranging shots fell short but were soon corrected, and shooting settled
down to a steady 20sec rhythm. Not all of the rounds could be spotted after
their 54sec flight, as several did not burst, but the spotter reported hits
with Soult’s twelfth round and Erebus’s twenty-sixth. The Germans put up smoke
to screen the locks, but fortunately it was wrongly placed and did not hamper
the British fire. By now Kaiser Wilhelm had begun to open fire, but the British
smokescreen and strong air patrols prevented any worthwhile spotting, so after
four rounds the Germans gave up. The thick white screen completely covered the
ships from the shore, even hiding the red-brown cordite puffs and the occasional
black smoke from their funnels. The spotting aircraft stayed as long as
possible, but had to leave at 05.30, having run seriously short of fuel.
There-after the monitors estimated their own corrections and ceased fire at
06.00, when the wind changed direction, but before a relief spotter could take
over. The flotilla then retired to Dover, feeling that a good morning’s work
had been done: 175 rounds fired of which Soult had contributed fifty-one.
Decorations awarded included five DSOs and ten DSMs. Subsequent reports and
aerial photographs were disappointing as they showed that, although several
shells had fallen very close, twenty-one of them within 50yd, no damage had
been inflicted on the actual gates or pumphouses. The only results of this
major effort were three enemy killed, four wounded, temporary damage to the
lock pumphouse and some churned-up roads and railways, plus confirmation that
the chances of hitting such small targets from long range in the face of a host
of practical difficulties were slim indeed.
The summer months of 1917 were spent on patrol, particularly
from July while the 12in monitors were preparing for the Great Landing. This
‘BO Patrol’ consisted of one of the 15in monitors, two small monitors, a light
cruiser and about nine destroyers. Arrangements were made for MLs and spotting
aircraft to be on hand if conditions were favourable for bombardment. Soult ’s
first opportunity came on 4 September, when she put twenty-eight rounds into
Ostende Dockyard, firing at maximum range while under way. She had another go
at Ostende on 21 October, firing nineteen rounds and damaging some ships and
exploding the magazine of a nearby AA battery, before the thickness of the
enemy smokescreen prevented further shooting. For a short period at the end of
October she was the only large monitor available for service, the other eight
all being in dockyard hands. Favourable conditions for bombardment had largely
disappeared with the onset of winter, so with the return of the other monitors
Soult could be spared for a long refit at Portsmouth, which lasted from January
to April 1918.
Soult’s role in the forthcoming Zeebrugge raid was a
relatively minor one of diversionary bombardment with three of the 12in
monitors. While waiting for the operation to take place she went out on the
night of 17/18 April to fire on coastal batteries west of Ostende with Erebus,
Terror and Prince Eugene, using M.26 as an aiming mark. Following up the
Zeebrugge raid, a bombardment was made on 9 June by Soult and Terror with M.21
to harass enemy dredgers and salvage craft attempting to remove the blockships.
The monitors opened fire from 27,000yd at 13.08 but, as the wind direction was
unfavourable, no smokescreen could shield them. The enemy return fire soon
became uncomfortably accurate, so after twenty-five rounds each the monitors
retired to Dunkirk. Soult’s last bombardment of the war came on 29 July, when
she and Gorgon, again with M.21 as aiming mark, took on the Tirpitz battery in
cooperation with Allied artillery ashore. Although the target was only 28,500yd
off, her guns had fired 210efc (equivalent full charges) each and could only
reach this distance by heeling the ship. Flooding the bulges increased the effective
gun elevation to 33 degrees, and she was able to fire ten rounds before a
combination of inadequate stern anchor, faulty firing mechanisms and about
thirty retaliatory rounds from Tirpitz forced her to retire.
The next few weeks were mainly spent on the Dover Barrage
patrol, guarding the deep anti-submarine minefields. She was back at Portsmouth
for docking on 13 September, and thus missed the heaviest bombardment of the
war. By the time she was back at Dunkirk the Germans had evacuated the Belgian Coast,
so she was sent round to Chatham to await a decision on her future, where she
arrived on 25 October 1918.
Performance and Modifications
The news of Marshal Ney’s trials had come as a great
disappointment to the Admiralty. Here was a ship, carrying two of the most
powerful guns afloat, which was not only even slower than the earlier 7kt
monitors, with machinery incapable of continuous running, but which was not
even able to steer a defined course. As early as September 1915, Tudor, a
gunnery specialist, had suggested removing her turret and installing it in a
new monitor. Admiral H.B. Jackson, the new First Sea Lord, was in agreement
about removing Ney’s turret, but suggested rearming both Ney and Soult with the
12in twin mountings from the pre-dreadnoughts Caesar or Illustrious. The
alternative solution of re-engining Ney with steam reciprocating machinery was
also considered. The existing engine and boiler rooms could accommodate a
twin-screw installation of about 3,600ihp, but even this roughly doubled power
would give at most 8kts.
However, Bacon’s urgent need for ships with guns of longer
range than the existing 12in overrode these plans for modifying the Marshals.
Ney was temporarily reprieved, while it was appreciated that Soult’s different
engines might turn out to be more satisfactory. In service, however, Ney’s
performance was quite as bad as her trials had foreshadowed. She could neither
steam nor steer with any degree of certainty. The steering problems arose
largely from the bluff lines aft, which produced a deadness of flow around the
rudders and propellers. As a result she possessed neither directional stability
nor any ability to correct a swing once it had been induced by excessive use of
the helm. She excelled herself on 15 October, when entering Dunkirk harbour.
Her steering gear failed, her engines refused to go astern and even dropping
both anchors failed to stop her. She punched a neat semicircular hole 90ft
across in the wooden pier, although she herself rebounded undamaged.
Despite their unsatisfactory performance in service, her MAN
engines had run faultlessly on their 96hr testbed trials at Cowes in December
1914. The starboard engine had developed 752bhp at 190.5rpm, burning 0.487lb of
oil per horsepower per hour, with a mechanical efficiency of 62 per cent. This
was a good specific fuel consumption compared with steam reciprocators, but
slightly higher than some other designs of diesel, partly owing to the power
absorption of the shaft-driven air compressors and the large scavenge pumps
below the pistons needed to work the four-stroke cycle efficiently. In service
there was found to be a fault in the design of the reversing gear, which partly
accounted for the engines’ erratic performance. Various modifications were
tried, but the engines never proved sufficiently reliable for regular service.
Tweedie remained cheerful in the face of all these
difficulties, but his crew were bitterly disappointed. They had had such high
hopes of achievement and were disgusted at the failure of the ship due to no
fault of their own. Their Lordships were not prepared to recognise that any of
the blame was theirs in insisting on diesels and in not permitting any changes
to an unsatisfactory hull form. Thus, even though the two primarily
responsible, Churchill and Fisher, were no longer in office, it was ruled that
none of Ney’s officers or men would receive any official recognition of their
time of service in her; ‘a damnable injustice’, as Lt Morgan later wrote.
Tweedie proved a popular commanding officer. On occasion he
himself would take the helm under tricky conditions, such was his feel for the
ship. Life aboard Ney during her brief offensive career was certainly hectic,
but there was time to entertain visiting French officers while based at
Dunkirk. On spotting the framed wardroom picture of Marshal Ney they would leap
to their feet, don their kepis and stand to attention in front of the portrait,
saluting and solemnly intoning ‘Le Maréchal Ney, le brave des braves’. On the
first occasion the British officers were somewhat disconcerted, but scrambled
to their feet, hunted for their own caps and sheepishly mumbled ‘Le brave des
braves’ in their best French accents. Thereafter the picture was usually
removed temporarily while French officers were aboard.
The modifications that were eventually made to Ney in 1916
were not as extensive as originally envisaged. Although her turret was
transferred to Terror, her diesel machinery was retained. In place of the 15in
twin mounting a much lighter mounting was fitted; one of the two single 9.2in
Mk VIII 40cal guns recently removed from the old first-class cruiser Terrible,
the other being earmarked for Soult, although never fitted. Four single 6in QF
were also transferred from Terrible and sited two on either side abreast the
funnel. The director and topmast were removed, but a modest bridge structure
was added to improve navigational facilities. She did not remain long in this
state, and another extensive refit took place during 1916-17. The 9.2in was
removed and mounted ashore in France, and Ney was given a uniform armament of
six single 6in BL XI removed from the pre-dreadnought Hibernia. Two were sited
on the centreline, one forward and one aft, while the other four were placed
abreast the mast; each gun had one hundred rounds of ammunition. A fully
enclosed bridge structure was provided, no doubt much appreciated by the cold
and bored watchkeepers during the long months she lay at the Downs. The 12pdrs
were removed and two new 3in HA fitted aft to augment her existing 2pdr. The
only other noticeable change was the emergence of the bulge above the
waterline, as the removal of some 1,100 tons net reduced her displacement to
about 5,780 tons deep and her drafts to 7ft forward and 10ft aft.
Soult’s service performance was an improvement on Ney’s,
though hardly spectacular. A cruising speed of only 5½kts, in waters where
tidal currents reached 3kts and gales were frequent, meant that sometimes the
quickest progress could be made by anchoring and waiting for better conditions,
as otherwise she was inclined to be driven astern, or at least sideways. The
two Marshals were often bracketed together when maligning diesel propulsion,
but in fact Soult’s Vickers engines proved extremely reliable, quiet and free
from vibration. Indeed, the replacements fitted in Trefoil in 1917 likewise
gave excellent service, confirming the suitability of solid injection in
four-stroke engines. The engines were usually supplied with either shale oil or
Texas fuel oil, as used in submarine diesels. Endurance under ideal conditions
was about 2,000 miles, but making allowance for oil for her boilers, weather,
hull fouling and unusable fuel, the official figure was reduced to 1,490 miles.
In practice, Soult never made a voyage of more than 200 miles without tug
assistance, so this figure was never put to the test.
Soult’s visible modifications during 1916-17 were relatively
few: two 6in QF II (one from Ney) and a 3in HA added on the forecastle deck,
and the topmast struck. A better navigational position was built on the tripod
mast above the turret level, painted in distinctive grey-and-white chequers.
The main modification was not readily apparent; the raising of the axis of the
15in guns about 2ft to permit them to elevate to 30 degrees. 1918 saw further
modifications; first, four single 4in BL IX replaced the 6in. The 4in not only
had a longer range than the 6in, but a much faster rate of fire. Then later in
the year came the really startling changes which transformed her from being
merely bizarre in appearance into what must surely have been the RN’s ugliest
ship. The most offending feature was a funnel doubled in height yet of the
original diameter. Its proportions were thus those of a 30ft-long cigarette,
totally disproportionate to the size of ship. Two 36in searchlights were added
on tall lattice platforms abaft the funnel to replace the two 24in on the
tripod mast. A control position was fitted aft and the conning tower removed.
The latter was replaced by a platform carrying the two 12pdr, now converted to
HA. The secondary armament was increased to eight single 4in distributed along
the sides of the forecastle deck. Two single 2pdrs were retained on their
platform aft, as well as two 3in HA at the break of the forecastle.
The problems of Marshal Ney formed one of the elements of
the Churchill-Balfour controversy in the House of Commons in March 1916.
Returning from France to make a speech in the Navy Estimates debate, Churchill
attacked Balfour and the new Board of the Admiralty for the slowing down in the
rate of construction. He compared the rapidity with which the monitor fleet had
been completed with the subsequent delays in battleship construction. While he
stretched a point when he claimed that the monitors had been finished in six
months (the average time was eight months), there was some substance in his
accusation. None of the five Royal Sovereigns had been completed, although
contract completion dates had all been at the end of 1915. Balfour was stung to
reply at length the next day, 8 March. He ridiculed Churchill for claiming
credit for the speedy construction of the monitors while in the same breath
criticising the delay with the battleships, pointing out that the former had
only been achieved by using guns and mountings ordered for the latter.
Balfour’s excuse about diversions of gun mountings was a bit thin, as it only
applied to two out of the fourteen big-gun monitors, the Marshals, and he was
quickly taken up on this point by Sir A. Markham, Liberal MP for Mansfield, who
pointed out that the monitor guns had come from America. Yes, conceded Balfour,
but not all of them. No mention was made of the fact that only one shipbuilder
had a battleship in hand at the same time as monitors, namely Palmer. It is of
course quite possible that Churchill had forgotten, or indeed had never been informed,
that it had been two of Ramillies’ turrets which had been used, rather than
those from Renown and Repulse, because in The World Crisis he describes the
turrets as coming from the ‘furthest off battleships (now converted into
battlecruisers)’. Ramillies’ completion was delayed for a year, but this was
partly due to the fitting of bulges.
Although his case was scarcely any stronger than
Churchill’s, Balfour proceeded to wade in with further criticism of the monitor
fleet. Although they were doing good service, they added nothing to the
strength of the Grand Fleet and, furthermore, they had design faults.
So hastily was the design of some of these vessels and so
ill were they contrived to carry out their purpose that even now it has not
been found possible to use some of them for the purpose for which they were
originally designed. They are in process of being remodelled or remodelled so
as to make them suitable for this amphibious warfare. The design was hasty, the
execution was hasty and the result is therefore as might easily be expected not
always satisfactory.’
To speak of ‘some’ of the monitors having to be remodelled
was quite unfair, as such a description could only be applied with any accuracy
to but one vessel, Marshal Ney. Markham again came to Churchill’s rescue,
saying that although alterations had been made, they were not due in any way to
the latter’s ‘hasty action’ but rather to ‘another cause’, which he did not
specify. Presumably he meant that it would be unfair to blame Churchill for not
foreseeing the failure of Ney’s diesels. However, it could reasonably be argued
that it was rather foolhardy of Churchill and Fisher to authorise such an
untried form of prime mover for a combatant ship in wartime, especially a
design with no previous operational experience. There was no overriding
necessity to have taken engines already under construction, as steam
reciprocators could easily have been built in the time available, as witnessed
by McKie & Baxter’s completion of Prince Rupert’s machinery in three
months.
Of course, few of the MPs present could follow the
significance of the allusions and vague accusations in the speeches, as the
details of the construction programme of the battleships and monitors had not
been made public and no ships’ names were mentioned during the debate. The
outcome of this particular aspect of the debate was inconclusive, but at least
1916 did see the completion of six more capital ships.
