NAVY 



417 



handsomer models. But the knell of wooden 

 -ship.s had already sounded, and many of the finest 



Fig. 2. The Duke of Wellington screw line-of-battle 

 ship, 131 guns. . 



line-of-battle ships built at this time were never 

 even commissioned. 



To Napoleon III., emperor of the French, 

 belongs the idea of plating ships with iron. The 

 effect of shells on the ships at the first bombard- 

 ment of Sebastopol showed clearly that unless some 

 means of protection conld lie devised ships were 

 placed at a terrible disadvantage when attacking 

 heavy shore liatteries. The result was the laying 

 down in France and England in the year 1855 of 

 what were called floating batteries, which were, 

 however, completed too late to take any active 

 part in the war. Some ten were built in England ; 

 they were 172 feet long, 43 feet l>eain. al>out2500 tons 

 displacement, a draught of water of 7 feet 9 incites, 

 and had engine* of '200 horse -power : they were 



Cted with 4 inches of iron on 20 inches of wood 

 king ; they could only steam about 5 knots, 

 and, as they were flat-l>ottomed with no keels, were 

 very unmanageable ; but they were heavily armed, 

 <-arrying sixteen 68-pounders in their latteries. 

 Three years later, however, the first ironclad 

 frigate was laid down at Toulon, the celebrated 

 La Gloire. She was designed by M. Diipuy-de- 

 L6me, head of the constructive department of 

 the French admiralty, was built of wood and 

 plated entirely with 4J inch iron plates to 6 feet 

 1>elow the water line ; she was '2.VI feet long, 55 

 feet beam, was built with a ram-liow, and could 

 steam about I3'.~> knots. She wax launched in the 

 early part of 1860, and in December of that year 

 proceeded on a series of trials in company with the 

 . I '/ ri'rat, one of the fastest French line-of-battle 

 ships. She proved herself a good sea-boat, and 

 under all conditions steamed better than the 

 wooden ships. In England they were not idle, and 

 in January 1861 the Warrior was launched from 

 the works of the Thames Shipbuilding Company. 

 Designed by Mr Scott Russell, this ship, whicli, 

 unlike La (llmrr, is still lit for service, wax built 

 entirely of iron. She is, however, only armour- 

 plated for two-thirds of her length, her bow and 

 stern lieing unprotected ; she is 9210 tons, 420 feet 

 over all, with a ln-am of ~>0 feet, and her plating 

 4^ inches thick ; while her engines 5770 indicated 

 horse-power gave her a speed of nearly 15 knots. 

 She was thus nearly double the size and tonnage 

 of La Gloire ; but, although still a fine vessel and 

 a lioiiutiftil model, she has long been obsolete 

 as a fighting ship. She was quickly followed by 

 339 



others ships in which the armour was carried com- 

 pletely round the hull ; and in order more rapidly 

 to form a large ironclad fleet several of the new 

 line-of-battle ships were cut down, and converted 

 into armoured frigates with ram-bows, and with 

 plating from 4J to 6 inches in thickness. These 

 ships were, however, only makeshifts, as they had 

 no watertight bulkheads, and the armour soon 

 caused the wooden sides underneath to rot and 

 decay. Still they answered their purpose, and 

 filled a gap until newer and stronger ships, built 

 entirely of iron, could be designed and constructed. 

 From 1861, when the Warrior was launched, up 

 to the present day has been an unceasing era 

 of change in design to meet the ever-increasing 

 requirements of a modem ship of war, brought 



Fig. 3. The Warrior armour-pUted screw frigate, 

 32 guns. 



about by the production of guns ever growing in 

 size and power, and the corresponding necessity of 

 increased thickness of armour. In Hampton Kdad 

 during the American civil war was fought on the 

 '.nil of March 1862 the first naval action l>etween 

 armoured ships, which practically sealed the fate 

 of armoured frigates of the earlier type almost 

 before they had in many cases left the stocks. 

 When Norfolk with its dockyard was evacuated by 

 the Federal troops at the outbreak of the war 

 lietween the Northern and Southern states, the 

 Merrimac, a large 50-gun steam-frigate, was set 

 on fire to prevent her falling into the hands of the 

 Confederates. She was, however, only partly 

 burned, and the Confederates found her in all 

 essential resects uninjured. Remembering the 

 many experiments that had been made in Europe 

 to show the value of iron armour for ships, and 

 painfully conscious of their weakness at sea, they 

 appear to have thought there was one grand 

 opportunity open to them, and to have made use 

 of it with characteristic vigour and skill. They 

 built up over her deck and down upon her sides 

 to below the water-line a shot-proof covering 

 formed of sloping plates of railroad iron, and meet- 

 ing at the top like the roof of a house, through 

 which came her funnel and the only opening for 



Fig. 4. American Turret-ship, Mittntonomah. 



ventilation. She was armed with two 100-poundcr 

 Armstrong guns nnd eight 11 -inch guns, and on the 

 8th of March 1S62 she steamed out to attack the 

 blockading Federal squadron, consisting of two 



