NAVY, UNITED STATES. 



C27 



cessarily interfering with its speed and celerity 

 of movement ; and again, that since even a 

 slower ship may keep her broadside away from 

 the prow of the ram, two or more of these are 

 . much more likely to make a successful assault 

 on even a single vessel than is one. 



The means of giving sufficient speed to a 

 ram, though perhaps difficult in practice, are 

 so simple in principle as to require no further 

 remark. The means of securing celerity of 

 manoeuvring are, usually, found in the use of 

 two independent screw propellers, as, for 

 example, one under each quarter. By backing 

 one of these, and driving the other in the or- 

 dinary manner, the vessel may be rapidly 

 turned on her centre or heel. Two screws 

 have the further advantages of allowing of the 

 application of greater power, and of furnishing 

 still a means of propulsion, if one, and only 

 one, should be disabled. 



In a discussion following the reading by Mr. 

 Aston of a paper on the penetration of projec- 

 tiles, before the British Association for Advance- 

 ment of Science, 1862, Mr. Nasmyth is re- 

 ported as saying : " The steam ram was an old 

 subject with him. A plan was proposed by 

 him to the Admiralty, so long ago as 1845. 

 He thought the more destructive you can make 

 the attack on your adversary, the better. It 

 was not right to be torturing your enemy by 

 drilling numerous small holes in him ; it was 

 like taking a whole day to draw a tooth. His 

 ideawas to make one large hole and sink the ship 

 at once, with the enemy. It was a question of 

 momentum. The first practical ram was the 

 Merrimac, but the Southerners made a mistake 

 in giving her a sharp end : it should be blunt. 

 Such was the original plan of the speaker, nor 

 had he seen any reason to alter his views. The 

 vessel must present as low an angle as possible, 

 to turn shot ; but she must also have strength 

 in the direction of her length, and use the ut- 

 most possible amount of steam ; and to meet 

 the objection that the impact might destroy the 

 engines, which he did not anticipate, he would 

 place the engines on a slide, with buffer ar- 

 rangements. "With such a vessel he would 

 dash into the Warrior as into a bandbox. The 

 plates would be crashed at once. He hoped 

 the Admiralty would devote a thousand pounds 

 or two to try the effect of a ram against an 

 old hulk, the ship Trusty, and afterward upon 

 the Warrior herself." 



Coast and Harbor Defence*. To the familiar 

 modes of defence of coasts and harbors, by 

 means of forts, shore batteries, and ordinary 

 vessels of war. with the addition in case of the 

 latter of sunken obstructions, chains, &c.. the 

 recent progress of naval warfare has added 

 iron-clad ships, steam rams, cordons of sub- 

 merged torpedoes, and the imminent prospect, 

 if not yet the practice, of iron-armoring also 

 the exposed faces of fortifications. The loca- 

 tion of torpedoes and obstructions is simply the 

 work of the engineer ; but the immense im- 

 portance of this new sort of sub-aqueous " out- 



works " to harbor fortifications, as an aid in 

 embarrassing an enemy's attack upon the lat- 

 ter, and a means of preventing his running 

 them for the purpose of assault on the seaport 

 they are intended to protect, is convincingly 

 shown in the instance of the recent attack of 

 the Monitor fleet on the Charleston forts ; and 

 the subject is one of which the importance can- 

 not be over-estimated. "With reference to ar- 

 mored vessels and rams, nothing further need 

 here be added ; the points obviously to be re- 

 garded being simply that their strength, arma- 

 ment, and number be, if possible, sufficient for 

 all probable emergencies. 



In respect to forts and land batteries, the su- 

 perior certainty of aim and efficiency of fire of 

 guns placed in them, over those of the guns of 

 ships, have long been well understood ; and so 

 long as the former are supplied with ordnance 

 of the best patterns, of the largest caliber and 

 highest firing charge, a contest the best ar- 

 mored vessels with them their walls being of 

 good thickness and strength would seem to 

 remain, as heretofore with wooden ships, a 

 matter of doubtful result. This superiority in 

 damaging and destructive power of forts over 

 ships is likely, as previously intimated, to reach 

 its maximum if the former only shall be able 

 to mount and use the new 20-inch guns throwing 

 1,000-lb. shot, and more especially when the 

 endurance of the forts themselves shall be in- 

 creased by iron plating. One of the 20-inch 

 guns, munufactured at the Pittsburg foundry, 

 is to be mounted within Fort Tompkins at the 

 entrance to Xew York bay, in April, 1863. In 

 reference to protecting the walls of forts with 

 iron plating, it would appear that in this case 

 some of the difficulties experienced in armor- 

 ing ships will not be encountered; and that 

 solid plating of as large dimensions and as great 

 thickness as can be manufactured, can here be 

 successfully applied and far more securely fas- 

 tened ; so that, in simple resistance to penetra- 

 tion, forts are likely to have the advantage 

 over ships. The usual elevation of their guns, 

 often of their walls, to a considerable height 

 above the gun deck and body of the ship, give 

 them a double advantage in another way, that 

 they can aim a more direct plunging fire upon 

 the deck and sides of the ship, while the balls 

 of the latter may have of necessity to be thrown 

 upon their walls in a more or less oblique di- 

 rection. 



Conclusions. The results in the way of rid- 

 dling armor targets, in England, with the fire 

 of the latest "Whit worth and Horsfall guns have 

 shown that, even before the first large and ex- 

 pensive fleets of armored ships built by the 

 United States, France, and England, are fairly 

 brought into service, a considerable portion of 

 them all, but more especially (it would appear) 

 of those of the two countries last named, are 

 no better against guns that can now at any time 

 be brought to bear upon them, than the old 

 wooden walls ; since the former would have, as 

 certainly as the latter, to rely on speed and 



