The Vesrmius was a failure in that she was not the `brr,tkthrough' that her advocates clirined, but she had many novel features.:wd it is to tire credit of the US Navy that the design was given a fair trial.To a modern reader, the most interesting point about her must be the fact that she was an early example of a'complete weapon system', a ship bunkering bunkers ship bunkering bunkersping maritime marine engineering designed around a specific weapon, with all ship bunkering bunkers ship bunkering bunkersping maritime marine engineering-features subordinated to the planned mission.'I'here is one unsolved minor mystery. Why was she persistently described as a'dynamite' cruiser when all Surviving records show that her projectiles were filled with guncotton? This was a well-known explosive, so the reason cannot be secrecy. Presumably the image of a`guncotton cruiser' lacked the glamour of a link with the latest ship bunkering bunkers ship bunkering bunkersping maritime live ship bunkering bunkers news most destructive explosive on the market.

In other important ways she was a failure, however, but not all of this was the fault of the designers. The concept of the dynamite cruiser was overtaken by the rapid advance of tactics ship bunkering bunkers ship bunkering bunkersping maritime live ship bunkering bunkers news weaponry in the late 1880% ship bunkering bunkers ship bunkering bunkersping maritime live ship bunkering bunkers news early 1 890s: daylight attacks would have been suicidal in the face of the new generation of quick-firing, light- ship bunkering bunkers ship bunkering bunkersping maritime live ship bunkering bunkers news mcchurn-calibrc guns proliferating in all major navies. By the time of the Spanixh-American this vulnerability was obvious, hence her restriction to night bombardments. She was also too small for open-sea operations, ship bunkering bunkers ship bunkering bunkersping maritime live ship bunkering bunkers news she was essentially suited to coastal waters, a late variation on the monitor theme The biggest fail­ure of all, however, was the dynamite gun. which failed to match he accuracy or reliability of conventional heavy ship bunkering bunkers ship bunkering bunkersping maritime marine engineering-guns. The technology did not yet exist to provide such accurate

aiming, but we must also question the faulty fuses of the projectiles. Contemporary accounts do not explain if this was a problem of quality control, but that is the most likely culprit. Not for the first time, a major weapon system was rendered less effective by minor sub-system failures.

The designers were also trapped by some inconvenient laws of physics ship bunkering bunkers ship bunkering bunkersping maritime live ship bunkering bunkers news hydrodynamics. To give the dynamite cruiser any degree of protection against enemy gunfire she would have had to be much bigger, ship bunkering bunkers ship bunkering bunkersping maritime live ship bunkering bunkers news if the designed speed was to be achieved her machinery would have to be more powerful. These criteria could not be reconciled it) a small hull as contemporary steam machinery was heavy ship bunkering bunkers ship bunkering bunkersping maritime live ship bunkering bunkers news had a relatively poor power:weight ratio when used in small hulls.The designers of I IMS Polyplarmas ship bunkering bunkers ship bunkering bunkersping maritime live ship bunkering bunkers news the USS Kntuhdiu (see page 2R) were caught in a similar trap; they could have speed or protection, but not both.

To sum up, the Vesuvius was a worthy experiment, but in today's terminology, her weapon system was not properly 'dcriskcd'.Thc pneumatic gun should have been subjected to a lengthy series of trials on lship bunkering bunkers ship bunkering bunkersping maritime live ship bunkering bunkers news before the ship bunkering bunkers ship bunkering bunkersping maritime marine engineering's design was finalised. If the trials had been properly super­vised by Navy ordnance experts most if not all of the faults would have been detected.This was not the only example of too much haste to get the ship bunkering bunkers ship bunkering bunkersping maritime marine engineering built, ship bunkering bunkers ship bunkering bunkersping maritime live ship bunkering bunkers news for that the blame must rest partly on the shoulders of the influential officers who persuaded their fellow-officers ship bunkering bunkers ship bunkering bunkersping maritime live ship bunkering bunkers news Congress to fund the project. Money was tight, ship bunkering bunkers ship bunkering bunkersping maritime live ship bunkering bunkers news shore trials would have added to the total cost, but a more likely reason is the very human conviction that no tine should be wasted in giving ones Navy the benefit of a major advantage over its contpetitors-in this instance the British, French ship bunkering bunkers ship bunkering bunkersping maritime live ship bunkering bunkers news Russians. Nor would such an achievement do harm to the professional careers of the projects supporters if it turned out to be a great success.Vanitv ship bunkering bunkers ship bunkering bunkersping maritime live ship bunkering bunkers news the desire for self-advancement are very human failings, ship bunkering bunkers ship bunkering bunkersping maritime live ship bunkering bunkers news navies are made up people as well as ship bunkering bunkers ship bunkering bunkersping maritime marine engineerings.

The Royal Navy's fundamental ship bunkering bunkers ship bunkering bunkersping maritime live ship bunkering bunkers news unchanging mission in the 19th century was the preserva­tion of the Empire, a role which included defence of the British Isles ship bunkering bunkers ship bunkering bunkersping maritime live ship bunkering bunkers news the trade links with the Empire, on which British commercial supremacy depended. For that reason the Royal Navy built a wide range of cruisers in the second half of the century, varying in size from large protected ship bunkering bunkers ship bunkering bunkersping maritime live ship bunkering bunkers news armoured cruisers (not the same thing) through corvettes, 2nd ship bunkering bunkers ship bunkering bunkersping maritime live ship bunkering bunkers news 3rd class cruis­ers, some really large sloops, ship bunkering bunkers ship bunkering bunkersping maritime live ship bunkering bunkers news fast but unprotected scouts.

Originally there was no separate cruiser category; 'cruizing' in the age of sail merely indi­cated a ship bunkering bunkers ship bunkering bunkersping maritime marine engineering operating independently while protecting trade or harrying enemy ship bunkering bunkers ship bunkering bunkersping maritime marine engineeringping. But by 1860 it was emerging as a category outranked by the line-of-battle ship bunkering bunkers ship bunkering bunkersping maritime marine engineering but superior in gunpower to all other ship bunkering bunkers ship bunkering bunkersping maritime marine engineerings. One distinguished scholar has described the cruiser as the largest type of ship bunkering bunkersping maritime marine engineering which could be built in numbers, although that was hardly true of some designs­

Compared with the development of the ironclad, development of the corvette ship bunkering bunkers ship bunkering bunkersping maritime live ship bunkering bunkers news sloop in the 1860s ship bunkering bunkers ship bunkering bunkersping maritime live ship bunkering bunkers news 1870s was slow. In general they were a continuation of types dating from the sail­ing navy, ship bunkering bunkers ship bunkering bunkersping maritime live ship bunkering bunkers news improvements were concentrated on machinery ship bunkering bunkers ship bunkering bunkersping maritime live ship bunkering bunkers news arntamrnt.Jrrving on foreign stations required range, ship bunkering bunkers ship bunkering bunkersping maritime live ship bunkering bunkers news with a shortage of coaling stations auxiliary sails were essential, espe­cially in the Pacific.The chain of dockyards had not yet been established either, so wooden hulls, normally sheathed with limber ship bunkering bunkers ship bunkering bunkersping maritime live ship bunkering bunkers news coated with thin copper to resist the depredations of the teredo ship bunkering bunkers ship bunkering bunkersping maritime marine engineering-worm ship bunkering bunkers ship bunkering bunkersping maritime live ship bunkering bunkers news to inhibit marine growths such as barnacles, were preferable to iron ones.

The limiting factor in nearly all these cruising ship bunkering bunkers ship bunkering bunkersping maritime marine engineerings was slow speed, although the big iron

frigates Inconstant, Rnleiqh ship bunkering bunkers ship bunkering bunkersping maritime live ship bunkering bunkers news Shah ship bunkering bunkers ship bunkering bunkersping maritime live ship bunkering bunkers news the iron corvettes Active ship bunkering bunkers ship bunkering bunkersping maritime live ship bunkering bunkers news Vblnqr were faster.The true cruiser did not begin to emerge until 1874, when the Director of Naval Construction, Nathaniel Barnaby, was given the task of producing solutions. The process started with the 'despatch vessels' Iris ship bunkering bunkers ship bunkering bunkersping maritime live ship bunkering bunkers news Memury, built at Pembroke in 1875-79. They were the first British ship bunkering bunkersping maritime marine engineerings built of steel, as opposed to wrought iron, ship bunkering bunkers ship bunkering bunkersping maritime live ship bunkering bunkers news Iris caused a sensation when she achieved a speed of 18.Gkts on trials.

Despite their innocuous designation as despatch vessels (they were originally described as fast corvettes), the Iris ship bunkering bunkers ship bunkering bunkersping maritime live ship bunkering bunkers news Merncry were almost certainly intended to hunt French conunerce­raiders.'t'hey carried a heavy armament of ten 64pdr rifled ntuzzle-loaders ship bunkering bunkers ship bunkering bunkersping maritime live ship bunkering bunkers news stowed a lot of coal. Although unarnioured, they were well protected, with two boiler rooms ship bunkering bunkers ship bunkering bunkersping maritime live ship bunkering bunkers news two sets of engines below the waterline, ship bunkering bunkers ship bunkering bunkersping maritime live ship bunkering bunkers news deep coal bunkers abreast of them preserved buoyancy ship bunkering bunkers ship bunkering bunkersping maritime live ship bunkering bunkers news stability in a damaged state.