622 



NAVY, UNITED STATES. 



onal flat-fronted shot, 13 inches long, weight 

 130 Ibs., through the armor into the wood, 

 shattering one of the angle irons, but not going 

 through. "With the same gun, a shell of 

 " homogeneous metal " (low cast steel), 17 

 inches in length, holding 3 Ibs. of powder, 

 weighing 130 Ibs., and fired with a 25-lb. charge, 

 was sent clean through the 4^-inch armor 

 plate and the wood backing, exploding as it 

 struck the inner plate, and tearing the latter 

 into fragments. The solid shot and shell from 

 this gun made clean 8-inch holes through the 

 armor; and their velocity at the moment of 

 impact was ascertained to be 1,284 ft. per sec- 

 ond. Thus, the standard English system of 

 armor was proved to be completely vulnerable 

 even to shells ; but, on the other hand, the re- 

 sult appeared to be due to the high firing 

 charge and velocity secured by the Horsfall 

 and Whitworth guns, and to the use with the 

 latter of the hardened steel shot and shell ; 

 so that the English authorities consoled 

 themselves with the conclusion that, in com- 

 parison, the French navy rifle guns, and the 

 American cast-iron Dahlgren guns are " use- 

 less against iron sides." It appears that, still 

 more recently, the Whitworth rifle, last refer- 

 red to, has thrown a 150-lb. shell, holding 5 

 Ibs. bursting charge, and fired with 27 Ibs. of 

 powder, completely through a 5J-inch armor 

 plate and 9 inches of backing, the shell explod- 

 ing in the space beyond, representing the hold 

 of the ship ! 



In respect to recent experiments in the 

 United States, as already implied, although 

 these have been now for a long time in prog- 

 ress at Washington, as well as, perhaps, else- 

 where, and, it appears, on no limited scale, 

 very little connected with the results has yet 

 been made public. It is said that the hollow 

 375-lb. shot of the 15-inch guns, their walls 3 . 

 inches in thickness, thrown against 10-inch 

 laminated armor, backed with 18 inches of 

 oak, were broken without doing serious dam- 

 age to the armor. Admiral Dahlgren speaks 

 of a new class of gun caliber not positively 

 given, though probably 15 inches which, at 

 200 yards, has sent its shot, with ease, through 

 5{ inches of iron plates and 18 inches of oak 

 backing. 



Practical Qualifications as to the JRelative 

 Efficiency of Guns and Armor. Even, how- 

 ever, the facts that the most powerful ord- 

 nance has sufficed to pierce and demolish fixed 

 targets, under a fair fire on land, do not 

 prove the actual (similar) armor of ships use- 

 less ; and many qualifications of the results 

 above found in reference to the resistance of 

 plates and the power of projectiles must, in 

 practice, come in on both sides so many, in 

 fact, that the actual trial of the two in naval 

 engagements must finally decide these ques- 

 tions, and may decide them quite differently 

 from any present anticipations. Prof. Fair- 

 bairn considers that the victory is now in favor 

 of the guns, and that it may be difficult to con- 



struct ships of sufficient power to prevent their 

 destruction by entrance of shells. Again, the 

 destructive effect of ordnance generally is 

 greatest at short range, and on account of the 

 limited number of guns usual in the new styles 

 of armament, and the known resisting power 

 of an antagonist's sides, as well as the difficul- 

 ties of aiming at sea at a distant moving ob- 

 ject, iron-clad warfare will probably be car- 

 ried on as a rule at close quarters. Still there are 

 many circumstances which will be availed of 

 on each side to delay or avert a conclusive 

 blow, until its own guns can be brought into 

 play. Thus, in favor of the armor and ship 

 (defence), there are the uncertainty of secur- 

 ing a square hit, even on vertical sides; the 

 danger with large charges of bursting of the 

 antagonist's guns, an accident but too much 

 favored by the new charges of i to ^ the weight 

 of the ball ; with certain styles of iron-clad, 

 the limited number of the guns, and in propor- 

 tion as these are of large size and heavy firing 

 charge, the necessity of longer intervals with 

 15-inch guns, not less than from 3 to 8 min- 

 utes between the discharges ; the relatively 

 small chance, where a partial damage has been 

 inflicted, of increasing or completing it by an- 

 other shot upon the same point ; and so on. It 

 would for the present appear that the 20-inch 

 1,000-pdr. guns must be confined to use in forts, 

 and from which their steady aim would enable 

 them to tell with terrible effect on vessels even 

 at a distance of 1,000 yds. or more ; so that 

 while they are obviously desirable for harbor 

 defence, they are likely at the same time to be 

 in the main or wholly excluded from naval 

 conflicts. 



On the other hand, in favor of the guns (at- 

 tack), are found such facts as, that the prac- 

 tical thickness of armor and backing must 

 always be confined within a small limit; 

 that heavy armor on a ship's sides, more espe- 

 cially when far removed from the frame and 

 proper walls of the hull by intervening thick 

 wood backing, continually exerts a strain 

 tending to break down the sides, and thus in 

 effect cooperates with the racking blows of 

 heavy projectiles ; that an enemy's portholes 

 are always exposed to the entrance of the most 

 damaging missiles at the moment of being 

 opened for firing ; that the concentration, in 

 partially protected vessels, of armor over case- 

 mates and at the water line, necessarily leaves 

 some parts vulnerable, &c. ; while to all these 

 circumstances another arising from an entirely 

 different source must be added ; namely, that 

 the targets used in the experiments made on 

 land have unquestionably possessed a greater 

 strength and resisting capacity (though this is 

 perhaps less true of laminated armor), than is 

 likely to be found in any section of an actually 

 armored ship's side, which they are intended to 

 represent. 



The Question of Inclined or of Vertical Ar- 

 mor. The principle of inclining the armor 

 from the vertical, so as to favor the glancing of 



