River Gunboats
Page 21
Compared with contemporary French China gunboats, this pair from Thornycroft were the first which could be described as combat vessels. Their effective armour protection however led to poor habitability, not helped by the fact that the electrical generator served only the searchlight and a few lights in the machinery spaces, and most internal lighting was by oil lamps.
The two Argus class gunboats were equipped with the Thornycroft-patented ‘Screw Turbine’ system, comprising two propellers mounted in tandem on each shaft, plus the pivoted rear flap introduced by Yarrow to ensure the propeller tunnel was always as full of water as possible. Despite the novelty of the arrangement, it was not often found on other classes. In particular, the sleeve separating the two propellers on Vigilante’s starboard shaft came apart in July 1902, less than two years after her entry into service.
Argus.
Both were divided into eleven sections following successful trials on the Thames, and sent to Hong Kong on board the P&O steamer Banca. The sections of Vigilante had been damaged on the deck of the transport by bad weather en route for Indochina, and she needed substantial repairs.
During the first gun trials of Argus following her reassembly, the deck under the fore and aft 90mm guns was found to buckle each time the guns were fired. It is probable that the design had not been sufficiently strengthened to reflect the up-arming from the standard 12-pounder and 6-pounder armament of the equivalent British vessels.
In May 1906 the boilers of Argus already needed re-tubing, and temporary repairs were effected at Hong Kong with spare parts held in store for the British Woodcock and Woodlark. In July 1907 it was the turn of Vigilante to have her boilers replaced, with new units for both gunboats being despatched from England. On arrival it was found they were of different dimensions to the originals, so further work was required to fit them! Both gunboats were subsequently fitted with radios, Argus in 1913 and her sister the following year.
Argus had an eventful service career of collisions, was damaged in one typhoon then cast ashore in a second. Both were laid up on the commencement of war in 1914, and thought was given to transferring them to the European theatre in 1917, but cancelled due to the problems involved. Despite proposals to build new vessels around their existing machinery, they were sold for scrapping on 5 February 1919.
Confusingly, a website quotes a third vessel of the same class, named ‘Lieutenant Contal’. This appears to be a misreading of the attempt by builders Thornycroft to offer a similar gunboat to France at a discounted price, following arguments in March 1902 between the builders and the French Navy Minister, over details of the ‘Screw Turbine’ system having been published in plans of the class. The actual Lieutenant Contal was a river tugboat armed by the French Navy in 1905 and renamed (see Pei-Ho below).
Launched:
Both launched 20 March 1900 by Thornycroft, London. Sent to Hong Kong for reassembly.
Dimensions:
Displ: 130 tons; L: 44.2m/145ft; B: 7.32m/24ft; D: 0.6m/2ft.
Power/Speed:
Twin shafts with 4 screws; Compound steam engines, wood or coal burners, 1,150ihp/13 knots.
Guns/Armour:
2 × 90mm Model 1877 on naval Model 1879 mountings; 4 × 37mm Model 1885 QF/4mm gun shields and superstructure.
Fate:
Sold 5 February 1919.
Argus class. (Profile drawing by Contre-amiral Bernard Estival)
Olry
In August 1901 Farnham, Boyd & Co. were completing construction of a twin-screw commercial riverboat. Admiral Pottier commanding the Far East Flotilla purchased the vessel, which on 18 September 1901 was armed and named Olry.
In view of her intended commercial service the Olry was of sturdy construction, with four watertight compartments, the bulkheads of which reached to deck level. The interior of the hull bottom was covered in a mixture of sand and cement. Despite several incidents of grounding, in 1906 the rivets of her hull were examined and pronounced in good condition. A wooden batten surrounded the complete hull at deck level, and above it rose low bulwarks 38cm (1ft 3in) in height. Probably because of her subdivided hull, the internal arrangements were cramped, with the only electrical power coming from a portable generator intended to work a hand lamp. No radio was fitted.
Her twin screws, driven by compound steam engines, operated in tunnels in the classic way, but her locomotive boilers gave constant trouble, the port boiler actually rupturing in June 1903. At one point it was planned to replace them with a water-tube type, but this was rejected on the grounds of excessive cost. By 1909 her speed was severely restricted due to various mechanical problems, and she was withdrawn from service on 1 December 1909. Olry descended the river under her own power, and was put up for sale at Shanghai. No record of her final fate has survived.
Gunboat Olry moored on the Yangtze.
Olry. (Profile drawing by Contre-amiral Bernard Estival)
Launched:
10 September 1901 by Farnham, Boyd & Co., Shanghai.
Dimensions:
Displ: 165 tons; L: 35.054m/115ft; B: 6.7m/22ft; D: 1m/3ft 3in.
Crew:
4 officers (including a doctor) + 20 crewmen.
Power/Speed:
Twin screws; coal-fired compound steam engines, 530ihp/11 knots.
Guns/Armour:
6 × 37mm Model 1885 QF.
Fate:
Stricken December 1909.
Takiang I and Takiang II
The first Takiang was a small armed river tugboat purchased on 10 September 1901 to serve as auxiliary to the new gunboat Olry which was delivered on the same day. The French were unaware that this small wooden-hulled vessel was seriously unstable as built: after she had capsized in a wind squall on a calm stretch of the river, her original purchasers had refused to pay for her. The French found to their discomfort that the only way to ensure she could arrive at Chungking (now Chongqing) was by attaching a barge to each side of her hull. By 1903 she was riddled with woodworm, so it was decided to scrap her and install her machinery in the hull of a river junk.
Takiang II was the name given to the newly-constructed junk to which the machinery and armament of its predecessor were transferred. The commander of the Argus had already criticised the plan, on the grounds that such a combination was hardly likely to impress the local Chinese. Despite this, the wooden junk was eventually launched on 22 January 1905. Although Takiang II drew only 0.60m (1ft 11½in), the upper blades of her twin propellers rose 0.23m (9in) above the surface, which is perhaps why, displacing twice the tonnage of her predecessor, she was hard put to reach a speed of 5 knots.
Takiang I.
Takiang II from an old postcard.
Takiang II. (Profile drawing by Contre-amiral Bernard Estival)
After serving as an object of ridicule for the Protestant missionaries and other foreign residents of Chungking, Takiang II was withdrawn from service on 1 December 1909. Her boiler and engines were sent in packing cases to Saigon, and the wooden hull sold for just 20 dollars.
Launched:
Takiang I: 1901 by Farnham, Boyd & Co., Shanghai; Takiang II: 22 January 1905 by local yard, Chung-King.
Dimensions:
Takiang I: Displ: 70 tons; L: 15m/49ft 2½in; B: 2.65m/8ft 8in; D: 2.6m/8ft 6in. Takiang II: Displ: 140 tons; L: 23m/75ft 5½in; B: 3.5m/11ft 6in; D: 0.6m/1ft 11½in.
Crew:
4 officers (including a doctor) + 20 crewmen.
Power/Speed:
Twin screws; 2 × compound steam engines/Takiang I: 7 knots; Takiang II: 5 knots.
Guns/Armour:
2 × 37mm Model 1885 QF.
Fate:
Takiang I dismantled December 1903; Takiang II stricken 1 December 1909.
Pei-Ho
When the French station at Pei-Ho, set up during the Boxer Uprising, was closed in 1905, it was decided to maintain a presence in the locality by means of arming one of the local river tugs, the Lieutenant Contal. Renamed Pei-Ho, she was a twin-screw vessel with a steel hull 4mm thick, divided into five
water-tight compartments. The deck was teak, and she originally carried a sailing rig, although this was rarely, if ever, deployed. The conversion for naval use, and especially the weight of her two forward revolver cannons, meant that significant ballast had to be placed in her two stern compartments to restore her fore-and-aft equilibrium and overall stability.
Armed tug Pei Ho.
Pei Ho. (Profile drawing by Contre-amiral Bernard Estival)
Laid up on blocks during the Great War, when put back in service in 1919 she was found to require a minimum of work. In June 1922 she was rearmed with two Saint-Etienne Model 1907 machine guns forward and a 47mm QF gun aft, but almost immediately afterwards a signal was received from Naval HQ ordering she be withdrawn from service. Her commander did however take the opportunity of a final sortie to test her guns! On 15 November 1922 she was sold for 20,000 Tien-Tsin Dollars to Trung-Ho & Co., doubtless to continue for many years of service as a tugboat.
Launched:
1901 by Farnham, Shanghai.
Dimensions:
Displ: 123 tons; L: 31.4m/103ft; B: 5.48m/17ft 11in; D: 2m/6ft 7in.
Crew:
2 officers (including a doctor) + 21 French crewman + 5 Chinese.
Power/Speed:
Twin screws; compound steam engines 280ihp/10 knots.
Guns/Armour:
1905: 3 × 37mm Hotchkiss revolver cannons. 1922: 1 × 47mm Hotchkiss QF; 2 × 8mm Model 1907 MG.
Fate:
Sold November 1922.
Doudart de Lagrée River Gunboat 1909
As the result of a study undertaken in 1905 into the type of gunboat needed for the Yangtze, in March 1908 the Doudart de Lagrée was ordered from a yard in Nantes, for a price of 499,000 francs, including 139,000 francs for dismantling her into her thirteen floating caisson sections, transporting her to Shanghai and reassembly there. She was given a novel spoon bow and four rudders. Her twin shafts turned in tunnels, but had only two propellers per shaft. Her long superstructure on two levels provided adequate accommodation, but initially the majority of the internal illumination was once more by oil lamps. Early in her career she suffered problems of misalignment of her shafts due to a lack of hull rigidity: in June 1910, and twice again in June 1912. Leaving the yard, part of her rudder mechanism failed.
On 12 August 1921 the slender gunboat came close to destruction. Leaving Itchang to come to the aid of a French steamer which had been fired on from the bank, she ran onto the Ku-tsé-liang rock, marked on the chart as projecting 30m (100ft) into the river whereas in fact it projected fully 80m (260ft) from the bank. Her Chinese pilot knew of the rock’s position but imagined there was sufficient depth of water to cross safely. Doudart de Lagrée suffered serious tears to her hull, but most critically, the lack of hull rigidity which was by now a well-known problem with her design, plus her dramatic inclination with over a third of the hull poised unsupported in the air, threatened to break her apart. Only by quickly lightening ship, then strapping her structure with chains was disaster averted, until she floated off on the next high tide a fortnight later. Drifting without power and not under control, she was towed by HMS Teal to a safe anchorage.
Barely visible in this view of Doudart de Lagrée are the above-deck X-bracing rods undoubtedly copied from earlier Yarrow shallow-draught gunboats. It is likely this system saved her from breaking up when she grounded in 1921.
Doudart de Lagrée. (Profile modified from an original drawing by Contre-amiral Bernard Estival)
Doudart de Lagrée poised perilously on the Ku-tsé-liang (Saw Rock) having run aground on 12 August 1921. (Photo courtesy of Contre-amiral Bernard Estival)
Laid up in 1914, on returning to service in 1918 she received a 75mm Model 1897 QF gun on her bow, machine guns on her spar deck, and bulletproof armour plating in vital areas. These additions increased her displacement by 7.1 tons and her draught by 0.20m, and reduced her speed by one knot. In December 1939 she was laid up at Shanghai, and stricken in 1941.
Launched:
4 February 1909 by La Brosse et Fouché at Nantes.
Dimensions:
Displ: 243 tons standard; L: 52.3m/171ft 7in; B: 7m/22ft 11½in; D: 1m/3ft 3in.
Crew:
4 officers (one being a doctor) plus 55 French crewmen + at least 9 Chinese.
Power/Speed:
Twin screws; 2 × compound steam engines, total 900ihp/14 knots.
Guns/Armour:
1909: 6 × 37mm Model 1885 QF. 1918: 2 × 75mm Model 1897 QF; 2 × 37mm Model 1885 QF (changed for 37mm Model 1916 QF in 1933); 4 × Model 1907 MG/(1918)/8mm bridge and gun shields; 6mm engine and boiler rooms.
Fate:
Stricken 27 June 1941.
Balny River Gunboat 1920
Intended as a sister-ship to Doudart de Lagrée, due to budgetary restraints the Balny was ordered from the same yard on 18 June 1913. Launched almost a year later, she was not sent to China because of the international situation. Her machinery was removed and used in a canal gunboat supporting the army on the Western Front.
At the end of the Great War, her machinery was reinstalled, and she was packaged for transport to Saigon on the steamer Commandant Dorise. (La Grandière II was also sent at the same time on the same ship.)
As the result of the rigidity problems encountered with her sister, the hull of Balny received longitudinal strengthening. She differed in appearance from Doudart de Lagrée by having two funnels, and two masts from the beginning (her sister received a second mast only in 1926); she also had just three rudders in place of the four on the earlier gunboat. Her foremast initially carried a crow’s nest but this was removed by 1922. The shield on the fore 75mm gun was larger than that subsequently refitted to her sister.
Balny high and dry on a bed of pebbles after running aground on 8 August 1929. (Photo courtesy of Contre-amiral Bernard Estival)
Balny. (Profile drawing by Contre-amiral Bernard Estival)
Somewhat surprisingly in view of her hull strengthening, Balny broke a shaft in December 1928, and both shafts needed re-aligning in March 1940. She ran aground on a pebble bank in August 1929 and was repaired in situ.
Laid up in September 1940, in 1944 she was ceded to the Chinese Government, and was renamed Fa Ku, remaining in service until at least 1962.
Launched:
8 June 1914 by La Brosse et Fouché at Nantes.
Dimensions:
Displ: 243 tons standard; L: 52.3m/171ft 7in; B: 7m/22ft 11½in; D: 1m/3ft 3in.
Crew:
4 officers (one being a doctor) plus 55 French crewmen + at least 9 Chinese.
Power/Speed:
Twin screws; 2 × compound steam engines, total 900ihp/14 knots.
Guns/Armour:
2 × 75mm Model 1897 QF; 2 × 37mm Model 1916 QF; 4 × Model 1907 MG/8mm bridge and gun shields; 6mm engine and boiler rooms. From 1932: 37mm QF replaced by 2 × 81mm Stokes Brandt mortars.
Fate:
Transferred to China 1944.
La Grandière (II)
The second river gunboat named La Grandière was intended as a shallow-draught light gunboat for the Upper Yangtze. In order to economise on the transport costs by sending her to Shanghai aboard the same steamer hired to carry Balny, La Grandière was launched without her machinery installed, which was bench-tested only.
Again, due to severe budget restrictions in post-Great War France, the Navy decreed that as many existing components as possible be used in constructing La Grandière. Because of the use of standard items ordered for other vessels cancelled with the end of the war, La Grandière’s planned displacement of just over 43 tons ended up almost doubled.
In place of a lightweight steam plant, she was powered by a 230bhp petrol engine taken from one of the wooden submarine chasers sold to France by the US Navy. Having just one shaft was bad enough, but to go astern in the middle of the rapids of the Upper Yangtze, the crew had to stop the petrol engine, then restart it in reverse, using up the limited compressed air supply. When this was exhausted the
little gunboat’s crew would have no option but to drift rearwards with the current until their auxiliary petrol engine-powered compressor could refill the air tanks.
La Grandière (II) from an old postcard.
La Grandière. (Profile drawing by Contre-amiral Bernard Estival)
Her manoeuvrability was therefore severely restricted, and her turning circle was also very large. One can imagine the troubles and tribulations endured by her long-suffering crew. If time had permitted for proper trials to be run before she left dockyard hands, one might have expected steps to have been taken to at least partially rectify these defects.
The petrol engine was a source of further problems: due to the lack of refuelling points on the Yangtze, La Grandière was often towed up the river by larger steam-powered gunboats. Where petrol was available, the lack of pumping facilities meant that coolies carried on board petrol cans and poured the fuel into her port-side petrol tank. When this was full she tended to list to port, so her sampan would have to be swung over to the opposite side to balance her! The vulnerability of this large petrol tank situated at the side of the gunboat was always a source of concern to her commander, and if unfriendly fire was anticipated it was usual to sling overboard a layer of hammocks, or even doors taken from the galley, to try to protect this vulnerable area.
Despite her small size, which exposed her crew and machinery to rifle fire, La Grandière was a lucky ship, and never suffered a crippling hit, or fatal injury to a member of her crew, even though she was often on the receiving end of fusillades from the banks.
One unforeseen problem due to her cramped size was the difficulty of preparing sufficient hot food on board for her crew during a lengthy deployment, as the limited galley equipment was sufficient only for re-heating previously-prepared meals.