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The War of the Pacific is largely unknown outside South America (although it does sometimes get mentioned because it cost Bolivia her coastline), but at the time it attracted a great deal of interest because it was one of the first wars to involve modern ironclad warships on both sides.
We start with an account of the naval campaign. At the start the two small fleets were fairly well balanced, but the balance of power shifted towards Peru after Chile’s ironclads were temporarily knocked out of action. This left Peru’s Huascar dominant, but the balance switched permanently back to Chile once their ironclads returned and the Huascar was captured. This forced Peru into some desperate measures, including using booby trapped ships to destroy two Chilean warships.
We then move on to look at the ships themselves. Although they weren’t most powerful around, both sides had relatively modern warships with many of the most recent design features in their fleets. Most were designed and built in Britain, with some designed by Sir Edward Reed, the Chief Constructor of the Royal Navy during the 1860s. However neither side had large fleets – Chile started the war with eight major warships and Peru with six. However not all of these were modern ironclads. Chile started the war with two, both central battery ironclads designed by Reed. Peru had four ironclads, but two were outdated monitors, and the other two were starting to show their age. The better known of the two, the Huascar, was a turret ship and carried two powerful guns in her turret, but it would take 15 minutes to fully rotate the turret, far too slow in battle. The second, the Independencia, was probably more powerful, but ran aground and was lost early in the war.
Although the war contained a considered number of naval clashes, here we focus on three battles that involved ironclads. The first of these, the battle of Iquique, started as a clash between the Huascar and the Chilean corvette Esmeralda. The Peruvian Independencia and a Chilean gunboat became involved in a separate clash. The main battle demonstrated the limits and strengths of the two types of warships involved. The Huascar was slow firing, only firing ten shells in an hour and missing with them all. The Esmeralda was more rapid firing and accurate but its 40-pdr shells couldn’t damage the Huascar. The battle was decided when the ironclad moved close enough to actually hit, but even then it took three ram attacks to actually sink the Esmeralda.
The second battle, at Angamos, saw the Huascar finally trapped by the two Chilean ironclads Blanco Encalada and Almirante Cochrane. Here we see the different a few years of age could make. The Huascar of 1865 was faced with two warships launched in 1874. Although she carried two slightly larger guns (10in vs 9in Armstrongs) her armour was thinner. In the resulting battle Chilean gunfire damaged the Huascar while her return fire was ineffective.
The third battle, at Arica, saw the Huascar, now in Chilean service, clash with the Peruvian monitor Manco Capac in coastal waters that suited the monitor. Once again Peruvian accuracy was poor, which was lucky for the Chileans as the one hit from its 15in gun killed the Huascar’s captain.
Although this was a relatively small scale naval campaign, with none of the battles involving more than two ironclads on one side, the battles are of great interest as they involved clashes between different types of the new ironclad warships. We see central battery ships outclassing the early turret ship, while the limits of the Huascar was demonstrated in all of its battles. This is a useful examination of a war that was examined in great detail by the naval powers of the time, and thus played a part in the evolution of warships design over the next few years.
Chapters
Background
Chronology
The Naval Campaign
The Chilean Fleet
The Peruvian Fleet
The Ironclads in Action
Analysis and Conclusion
Author: Angus Konstam
Edition: Paperback
Pages: 48
Publisher: Osprey
Year: 2024