Destroyers and torpedo boats demanded a specialized application of boilers because of their small size and high performance demands. The steady but gradual development of high-speed engines and compact high-pressure boilers between the 1880s and 1920s makes a gratifying study. A number of competing firms provided a variety of solutions, as performance moved from 30 to 300 psi in the boiler room and engines moved rapidly from simple expansion to 2-shaft turbines and boat speeds boosted from 12 to 33 knots.
At left, where the technology rested a few years after the starter's gun: HMS Lightning of 1876, one of the first purpose-built first class torpedo boats, and appropriately denominated Torpedo Boat No. 1. Driven by a single 460-hp compound engine, the Thornycroft-built vessel achieved a speed of 18½ knots when new, and spent much of her 20-year career as a test bed for HMS Vernon, the Royal Navy torpedo school. Originally equipped to deploy her 14" torpedoes by means of frames, or drop collars, Lightning was overhauled to carry a single bow launching tube. The 'fish' were handled from their midships storage site (abreast the funnel) to the torpedo tube by means of an anchor crane installed on the foredeck.
In the closing years of the nineteenth century and the first of the twentieth, competition was keen between manufacturers and nations to claim the fastest and deadliest torpedo boats. Glittering statistics played well in the press, but the boats seldom provided such impressive performance long beyond their trials. The technology was bounding forward at such speed that a record-breaking TB of 1887 would be obsolete and all but ready for the junk heap by 1893.
A vexed issue in naval tactics was how to defend against an enemy's TB swarms. Valuable capital ships all carried steel mesh torpedo nets, which the manufacturers assured their naval customers would stop any incoming torpedoes cold. But nets could only be deployed when at anchor or going dead slow ahead. One solution was the torpedo gunboat, or 'torpedo boat catcher.' Alas, after building more than 30 of these, the Royal Navy concluded that they were too slow to catch their prey, their speed only slightly exceeding that of the Lightning. Starting in 1894 the Lords of Admiralty placed their bets on the torpedo boat destroyer, developed from the TB itself but with greater size, torpedo capacity, and speed. The turtledecked marauders of the 1890s were the ancestors of today's destroyers. These vessels presented a lucrative specialty niche to shipbuilders; competition was fierce, and new designs of boiler and engines were constantly being tried. Although the chief contenders in Britain were Yarrow and Thornycroft, a survey of the literature reveals a wide range of options available to the naval connoisseur. In addition to Britain, Spain and Japan led the way in the development of the destroyer during the 1890s. Navies around the world soon followed their lead.
In 1899, an even more momentous change took place when the Royal Navy rolled out the first two turbine-powered destroyers, HMS Viper (left) and Velox, built as special orders by Hawthorn Leslie. Although both these ships were wrecked in 1901, they had already successfully trialed their 2-shaft Parsons turbines for 36.5 knots. Destroyer propulsion would never be the same again! It will be noted that the speed achieved exactly doubled the Lightning's trial speed from 22 years earlier. The steady efficiency of the turbine and its lack of back-and-forth motion and vibration at speed, made it the ideal engine for the tin can. Other navies took note, and within a very few years Germany, Italy, and the U.S., among others, were producing turbine destroyers of their own. And along with each boat came a built-in demand for improved boilers -- for more-better-faster steam production to outpace the competition.
Starting just before the First World War, evolution of the two types of ships diverged. Turbine-powered destroyers continued to get larger and accrue more oceangoing capability, needed for their rôle as convoy escorts, screening vessels for the battle fleet, and anti-submarine vessels. The improvement in gasoline engines -- spurred by the development of the radial aircraft engine -- led to their adoption in small patrol craft, sub chasers, and the new category of motor torpedo boats. This enabled torpedo craft to operate and claim some spectacular successes despite a coal shortage that restricted the Mediterranean battle fleets to port much of the time. Compact high-performance steam technology thus withered away for smaller torpedo craft; these types evolved toward lightweight, often wooden-hulled speed boats while destroyers continued to grow, retaining still a discernible likeness to the seminal destroyers of the 1890s and early 1900s. This growth and divergence continued through the Second World War, with the numerous 19-knot destroyer escorts being diesel powered while robust oil-fired steam plants with geared turbines spurred the growth of the modern destroyer.
This page details the principal types of boiler used in smaller ships, from TBs to small cruisers. Articles are drawn from contemporary technical sources. For an in-depth look at the most common types of battleship and big cruiser boilers, visit our Boiler Types Main Page.
German crewmen refueling their destroyers at Wilhelmshaven, c. 1912. A low-floating coal barge is rafted in between two destroyers. These small ships had small fuel capacities (~200 tons for these Schichau boats, but closer to 100 on earlier models). This meant frequent refueling. Here the sailors fill sacks with coal in the hold of the coal barge and pass the sacks up to the gunwale of their own craft, or whip them aboard with the cargo boom. From there, the sacks are manhandled across the deck by a bag brigade and then dumped down hatches into the bunkers. As always, this was filthy and thankless labor, followed by several days' cleaning to restore the flotilla to proper naval spit and polish. Imagine re-coaling these tiny craft at sea! Often it was too rough to consummate the operation. This limitation saddled early destroyers with a limited range. Several actually ran out after the Battle of Jutland and had to be towed back to base.
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Pertinent Pages
- Battleship Boilers, 1860 - 1912
- The Engine Room: Triple Expansion Piston Steam Engines
- Hutton's Steam-Boiler Construction (1903) - Google Book Selection, Richly Illustrated. 247 pp
- Louis-Émile Bertin's Marine Boilers: Their Construction and Working (1898) - Google Book Selection, 437 pp
- Early Destroyers
- British Torpedo Gunboats
- U-Boats and Antisubmarine Warfare in World War I
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