Ancient Battleship Ideas Revived 



Bv Percival Hislam 



The "Finis Belli," built in 1585, the first armored battleship, 

 and precursor of the "Merrimac" and all armed ships 



MOST people imagine that the first 

 armored ship was the "iron- 

 cased frigate" Gloire, launched 

 for the French navy in 1857; yet the 

 Dutch 

 built an 

 armor- 

 plated 

 vessel near- 

 ly three 

 hundred 

 years ear- 

 lier. That 

 was in 

 1585, when 

 Antwerp 

 was besieg- 

 ed by the 

 Spaniards. 

 The Dutch 

 took one of 

 their big- 

 gest ships, cut her down and erected on 

 the deck a battery with armored and 

 sloping sides, within 

 which they mounted 

 eight of the heaviest 

 guns the factories of 

 the day could pro- 

 duce. The roof of 

 the battery formed 

 an armored breast- 

 work for men armed 

 with cross-bows and 

 shot-guns, and there 

 were gratings in the 

 roof to provide ven- 

 tilation for the bat- 

 tery below. A re- 

 drawn contempora- 

 ry picture of the 

 Finis Belli, as she 

 was called, is repro- 

 duced herewith ; and 

 notwithstanding the 

 lapse of time, she 

 bears a striking re- 

 semblance to the Merrimac of the Civil 

 War, which was designed and built on 

 precisely the same principles. 



More than sixty years before the first 

 dreadnought was designed, the famous 



A circular warship of Russian design with 



six propellers. Two were built, but 



proved utterly unmanageable at sea 



American engineer Stevens laid down 

 at Brooklyn an "armored battery" 

 which had five gun-positions out of 

 seven on the middle line. In order 



to save 



length, the 

 other two 

 guns were 

 placed 

 slightly en 

 echelon — 

 a system 

 of mount- 

 ing found 

 in many 

 British and 

 German 

 d r e a d - 

 noughts 

 to-day. 

 The Stev- 

 ens b a t - 

 tery would have been able to fire all 

 her guns on either broadside. Unfortu- 

 nately, she was 

 never completed, 

 and after being on 

 the stocks for over 

 forty years was sold 

 as scrap-iron. 



The other illus- 

 tration depicts a re- 

 markable type of 

 ship built for the 

 Russian Navy in the 

 seventies. They 

 were absolutely cir- 

 cular and fitted 

 with six screws 

 apiece, the arma- 

 ment consisting of 

 two t wel\e - i nc h 

 guns in a revolving 

 barbette in the cen- 

 ter. Two of these 

 vessels were built, 

 the Vice - Admiral 

 Popoff (after the designer) and the 

 Novoorod. They proved absolutely un- 

 manageable in anything but a mill- 

 pond, though the idea might have some 

 practical use for coast defense. 



737 



