THE WORLD'S WARSHIPS. 
151 
defence, the Belier, Boule-dogue, Cerbere, Onondaga, Taureau, Tigre, 
Impreuable, this completes the iron-clad French fleet np to the time of 
what is termed the 1872 programme—a land-mark in their ship¬ 
building policy. All these coast defenders we shall, with other 
nations, be able as land gunners to ignore. Owing to the proximity 
of the French coasts we mast take theirs alone into account. But as 
those just named are all marked as unfit for further service, wo can, 
in this instance, afford to ignore them. 
To recapitulate, out of the four groups of first-class line-of-battle- 
ships, the first are extinct, the second practically so, the third have 
four vessels, and the fourth three. 
Captain Nash shows these seven vessels under the one head of six 
inches of vertical armour, and as penetrable at 4200 yards by our 
9-inch M.L. and 3600 by the 6-inch B.L. This is correct, but only 
when read in the light of his head-line, namely, (( Iron Protecting 
Chief Armament." It is, in fact, their central battery, but it w 7 ould 
be very misleading to any one ignorant of the system of armour 
defence. In the first three ships, the Ocean, Marengo, and Sufi'ren, a 
rectangle of the length of the vessel, and three feet above the water¬ 
line and five feet below (eight feet in all), consists of iron varying 
from seven inches to eight inches; in the Friedland, of the same 
length, but only one foot nine inches above the water-line and five 
feet below (six feet nine inches in all), of a thickness from seven to 
eight inches. The Richelieu is similar, only the armour is nearly 
nine inches thick in places, while the Colbert and Trident have a belt 
three feet three inches above the line and four feet nine inches below, 
of the same thickness as the former ship. 
Thus, for instance, supposing a bombardier's cap represents the 
ship, the cap-band the iron belt, and the chevron 1 the citadel, at 4000 
yards the 10-inch M.L. and the 8-inch B.L. will penetrate the belt of 
the first four ships, i.e., the cap-band, the latter gun only in the last 
three ships. While even such pieces as the 80 and 64-prs. would do 
great damage to the bulk of the whole seven ships represented by the 
blue cloth. While on this subject—truly a gunner's question—it 
would be interesting to know on what experiments Captain Nash's 
dicta in favour of common and shrapnel shell is based, in the attack 
of unarmoured vessels and the unarmoured parts of armoured ships. 
At the battle of Alexandria the failure of the heavy R.M.L. pro¬ 
jectiles to burst was attributed, I think, to the inaction of the fuzes. 
Scores of them unexploded were to be seen, I am told, although many 
had struck solid masonry, notably the Mosque in Fort Pharos. Were 
the shell which destroyed the Turkish fleet at Sinope unfuzed ? and 
were those shell which created such havoc in the Resistance plugged 
shrapnel? See “ Brassey's Annual, 1890," page 190. It is new to 
me that a percussion fuze breaks up a shell before it has entered an 
unarmoured vessel's side. Captain Nash seems to place a low estimate 
on the combustible and concussive efiect of a large bursting charge 
between decks, as he prefers plugged shrapnel. Surely if they break 
1 The chevron is hardly large enough in scale. 
