Thebarbette ship was a type ofironclad warship that was built by several navies between the 1860s and 1890s. The defining characteristic was the use of armoredbarbettes to partially protect the ship'smain battery guns, rather than heavygun turrets or inflexiblebox batteries. A large number of these ships were built by many of the world's navies in the 1870s and 1880s, though they began to be replaced by the more modernpre-dreadnought battleship type by the early 1890s.
Barbette ships saw relatively little combat during their time in service, though a small number saw combat in minor actions like theBombardment of Alexandria in 1882 or theBattle of Fuzhou during theSino-French War in 1884. More significant use included two Chinese ships at theBattle of the Yalu River during theFirst Sino-Japanese War in 1894. By the 1910s, barbette ships were obsolete, but a few served on into the 1920s, usually in secondary roles. By the end of the decade, most of these remaining ships had beenscrapped.
Following the introduction ofironclad warships in the early 1860s, naval designers grappled with the problem of mounting heavy guns in the most efficient way possible. The first generation of ironclads employed the samebroadside arrangement as the oldship of the line, but it was not particularly effective for ahead or stern fire. This was particularly important to designers, since the tactic oframming was revived following its successful employment at the decisive Austrian victory at theBattle of Lissa in 1866. Ramming required a ship to steam directly at its opponent, which greatly increased the importance of end-on fire. Designers such asCowper Phipps Coles andJohn Ericsson designed the firstgun turrets in the 1860s, which gave the guns a wide field of fire. These turrets were exceedingly heavy, which required them to be placed low in the ship to reduce top-weight—and produced a dangerous tendency tocapsize in heavy seas, amply demonstrated by the loss ofHMS Captain and Coles himself with the ship in agale in 1870.[1][2][3]
In the 1870s, designers began to experiment with an en barbette type of mounting. The barbette was a fixed armored enclosure protecting the gun. The barbette could take the form of a circular or elongated ring of armor around the rotating gun mount over which the guns (possibly fitted with agun shield) fired. The barbette system reduced weight considerably, since the machinery for the rotating gun mount, along with the mount itself, was much lighter than that required for the gun house of a turret.[4] The savings in weight could then be passed on to increase armor protection for the hull, improve coal storage capacity, or to install larger, more powerful engines.[5] In addition, because barbettes were lighter, they could be placed higher in the ship without jeopardizing stability, which improved their ability to be worked in heavy seas that would have otherwise rendered turrets unusable. This also permitted a higherfreeboard, which also improvedseakeeping.[6]
Ironclads equipped with barbettes were referred to as "barbette ships" much like their contemporaries,turret ships andcentral battery ships, which mounted their heavy guns in turrets or in a central armored battery.[7] Many navies experimented with all three types in the 1870s and 1880s, including the BritishAdmiral-class battleships,[8] the FrenchMarceau-class ironclads,[9] the ItalianItalia-class ironclads,[10] and the GermanSachsen-class ironclads, all of which employed barbettes to mount their heavy guns.[11] All of these navies also built turret and or central battery ships during the same period, though none had a decisive advantage over the other.[12] The British and the Russian navies experimented with using disappearing guns afloat, including on the BritishHMS Temeraire and the Russian ironcladVice-Admiral Popov. They were not deemed particularly successful and were not repeated.[13]
In the late 1880s, the debate between barbette or turret mounts was finally settled. TheRoyal Sovereign class, mounted their guns in barbettes, but the follow-on design, theMajestic class, adopted a new mounting that combined the benefits of both kinds of mounts. A heavily armored, rotating gun house was added to the revolving platform, which kept the guns and their crews protected. The gun house was smaller and lighter than the old-style turrets, which still permitted placement higher in the ship and the corresponding benefits to stability and seakeeping. This innovation gradually became known simply as a turret, though the armored tube that held the turret substructure, which included the shell and propellant handling rooms and the ammunition hoists, was still referred to as a barbette. These ships were the prototype of the so-calledpre-dreadnought battleships, which proved to be broadly influential in all major navies over the next fifteen years.[14][15]
Ships equipped with barbette mountings did not see a great deal of combat, owing to the long period of relative peace between their appearance in the 1870s and their obsolescence in the 1890s TheOttoman Navy possessed a number of small barbette ships, which saw combat during theRusso-Turkish War of 1877–1878.[16][17] Some barbette ships saw action during the BritishBombardment of Alexandria in 1882,[18] and theFrench ironclad Triomphante participated in theBattle of Fuzhou during theSino-French War in 1884.[19] The two Chinese ironclads,Dingyuan andZhenyuan, that took part in theBattle of the Yalu River during theFirst Sino-Japanese War in 1894, carried their main battery in barbettes, though they were equipped with extensive gun shields that resembled turrets. The shields were nevertheless only proof against small-arms fire.[20] Three of their opponents at the Yalu River, the JapaneseMatsushima-class cruisers, also mounted their guns in open barbettes.[21]Zhenyuan was seized by Japan during the war and commissioned asChin Yen, seeing further action during theRusso-Japanese War of 1904–1905.[22]
Most barbette ships were discarded in the 1890s or early 1910s.[23] A pair of Ottoman barbette ships—Iclaliye andNecm-i Şevket—saw limited use providing fire support during theFirst Balkan War in 1912.[24] Those barbette ships that survived intoWorld War I were typically used only for secondary purposes. For example, the FrenchMarceau was used as a repair ship forsubmarines andtorpedo boats,[25] while the GermanWürttemberg was employed as a torpedo training ship.[11] A handful of barbette ships did see action during the war, including the BritishRevenge, which bombarded German positions inFlanders in 1914 and 1915.[26] The Italian shipItalia was stationed as aguard ship atBrindisi until 1917, though she saw no action there.[27]
Most of those ships still extant during World War I were quicklybroken up in the immediate postwar years;Revenge was sold for scrapping in 1919,[28]Württemberg was broken up in 1920,[11] andItalia was scrapped beginning in late 1921.[27] A handful of French ships, includingDévastation, three of the fourTerrible-class ironclads, andMarceau, were discarded in the 1920s.[29] The former Austro-Hungarian barbette shipKronprinz Erzherzog Rudolf, which had been ceded to theRoyal Yugoslav Navy after the war and renamedKumbor, was retained for a few years as acoastal defense ship, but was scrapped in 1926.[30] The Russian battleshipDvenadsat Apostolov, which had been reduced to secondary duties in 1911, lingered on in theSoviet Navy's inventory until 1931.[31]