In the battle of the Sea of Japan it was the bursting of heavy 12-inch shells at or just below the water-line of the leading ship of the Russian line that sent her to the bottom before she had received any serious damage to her main batteries. Later in the fight, several other Russian battleships capsized from the same cause, assisted by the weight of extra supplies of coal which the Russians had stowed on the upper decks above the water-line.
[Illustration: Courtesy of _U. S. Navy Department_
Below the water line this ship is divided into 500 water-tight compartments.
In the matter of subdivision as a protection against sinking, there is this important difference between the merchant ship and the warship, that, whereas the merchant ship is sunk through accident, the warship is sunk by deliberate intention. The amount of damage done to the former ship will be great or small according to the accidental conditions of the time; but the damage to the warship is the result of a deliberately planned attack, and is wrought by powerful agencies, designed to execute the maximum amount of destruction with every blow delivered.
A large proportion of the time and money which have been expended in the development of the instruments of naval warfare has been devoted to the design and construction of weapons, whose object is to sink the enemy by destroying the integrity of the submerged portion of the hull. Chief among these weapons are the ram, the torpedo, and the mine. There can be no question that the damage inflicted by the ram of a warship would be far greater, other things being equal, than that inflicted by the bow of a merchant ship. The ram is built especially for its purpose. Not only is it an exceedingly stiff and strong construction; but it is so framed and tied into the bow of the warship, that it will tear open a long, gaping wound in the hull of the enemy before it is broken off or twisted out of place. The bow of the merchant vessel is a relatively frail structure, and many a ship that has been rammed has owed its salvation to the fact that immediately upon contact, the bow of the ramming ship is crumpled up or bent aside, and the depth of penetration into the vessel that is rammed is greatly limited. Furthermore, because of its underwater projection, the ram develops the whole force of the blow beneath the water-line, where the injury will be most fatal. Even more potent than the ram is the torpedo, which of late years has been developed to a point of efficiency in range, speed, and destructive power which has rendered it perhaps the most dreaded of all the weapons of naval warfare. The modern torpedo carries in its head a charge of over 200 pounds of guncotton and has a range of 10,000 yards. Ordinarily, it is set to run at a depth of 10 to 12 feet below the water; and should it get home against the side of a ship, it will strike her well below the armour belt and upon the relatively thin plating of the hull.