Ironclad warship

This change was pushed forward by the development of heavier naval guns, more sophisticated steam engines, and advances in ferrous metallurgy that made steel shipbuilding possible.

According to naval historian J. Richard Hill: "The (ironclad) had three chief characteristics: a metal-skinned hull, steam propulsion and a main armament of guns capable of firing explosive shells.

[2] Napoléon was armed as a conventional ship-of-the-line, but her steam engines could give her a speed of 12 knots (22 km/h; 14 mph), regardless of the wind conditions: a potentially decisive advantage in a naval engagement.

[citation needed] It is often held that the power of explosive shells to smash wooden hulls, as demonstrated by the Russian destruction of an Ottoman squadron at the Battle of Sinop, spelled the end of the wooden-hulled warship.

[citation needed] The British Warrior and Black Prince (but also the smaller Defence and Resistance) were obliged to concentrate their armor in a central "citadel" or "armoured box", leaving many main deck guns and the fore and aft sections of the vessel unprotected.

In May 1861, the Confederate Congress appropriated $2 million dollars for the purchase of ironclads from overseas, and in July and August 1861 the Confederacy started work on construction and converting wooden ships.

Constructed on the hull of USS Merrimack, Virginia originally was a conventional warship made of wood, but she was converted into an iron-covered casemate ironclad gunship, when she entered the Confederate Navy.

For the later attack at Mobile Bay, the Union assembled four monitors as well as 11 wooden ships, facing the CSS Tennessee, the Confederacy's most powerful ironclad, and three gunboats.

[26] The Italian fleet consisted of 12 ironclads and a similar number of wooden warships, escorting transports which carried troops intending to land on the Adriatic island of Lissa.

In the melée which followed both sides were frustrated by the lack of damage inflicted by guns, and by the difficulty of ramming—nonetheless, the effective ramming attack being made by the Austrian flagship against the Italian attracted great attention in following years.

The battle ensured the popularity of the ram as a weapon in European ironclads for many years, and the victory won by Austria established it as the predominant naval power in the Adriatic.

With steam power freeing ships from the wind, iron construction increasing their structural strength, and armor making them invulnerable to shellfire, the ram seemed to offer the opportunity to strike a decisive blow.

[27] The scant damage inflicted by the guns of Monitor and Virginia at Hampton Roads and the spectacular but lucky success of the Austrian flagship SMS Erzherzog Ferdinand Max sinking the Italian Re d'Italia at Lissa gave strength to the ramming craze.

However, at least until the late 1870s, the British muzzle-loaders had superior performance in terms of both range and rate of fire than the French and Prussian breech-loaders, which suffered from the same problems as the first Armstrong guns.

[Note 1] One consideration which became more acute was that even from the original Armstrong models, following the Crimean War, range and hitting power far exceeded simple accuracy, especially at sea where the slightest roll or pitch of the vessel as 'floating weapons-platform' could negate the advantage of rifling.

[39] The development of smokeless powder, based on nitroglycerine or nitrocellulose, by the French inventor Paul Vielle in 1884 was a further step allowing smaller charges of propellant with longer barrels.

The guns of the pre-Dreadnought battleships of the 1890s tended to be smaller in caliber compared to the ships of the 1880s, most often 12 in (305 mm), but progressively grew in length of barrel, making use of improved propellants to gain greater muzzle velocity.

A competing turret design was proposed by the British inventor Cowper Coles with a prototype of this installed on HMS Trusty in 1861 for testing and evaluation purposes.

Warrior also illustrates two design features which aided hybrid propulsion; she had retractable screws to reduce drag while under sail (though in practice the steam engine was run at a low throttle), and a telescopic funnel which could be folded down to the deck level.

Her principal role was for combat in the English Channel and other European waters; while her coal supplies gave her enough range to cross the Atlantic, she would have had little endurance on the other side of the ocean.

During the 1860s, the French navy had produced the Alma and La Galissonnière classes as small, long-range ironclads as overseas cruisers[65] and the British had responded with ships like HMS Swiftsure of 1870.

Most European nations settled differences on land, and the Royal Navy struggled to maintain a deterrent parity with at least France, while providing suitable protection to Britain's commerce and colonial outposts worldwide.

[citation needed] The British prepared for an overwhelming mortar bombardment of Kronstadt by the close of the Crimean War, but never considered running the smoke-ridden, shallow-water gauntlet straight to St. Petersburg with ironclads.

Likewise, monitors proved acutely unable to 'overwhelm' enemy fortifications single-handed during the American conflict, though their low-profile and heavy armor protection made them ideal for running artillery gauntlets.

Had the Egyptians actually utilised the heavy mortars that were at their disposal, they might have quickly turned the tide, for the attacking British ironclads found it easy (for accuracy's sake) to simply anchor whilst firing—perfect targets for high-angle fire upon their thinly armored topdecks.

In the 1870s, the construction of ironclads ceased for a while in France as the Jeune Ecole school of naval thought took prominence, suggesting that torpedo boats and unarmored cruisers would be the future of warships.

Nonetheless, there were real innovations from Russia; the first true type of ironclad armored cruiser, General-Admiral of the 1870s, and a set of unusual but moderately-successful circular battleships referred to as "popovkas" (for Admiral Popov, who conceived the design).

[75] Russia expanded her navy in the 1880s and 1890s with modern armored cruisers and battleships, but the ships were manned by inexperienced crews and politically appointed leadership, which enhanced their defeat in the Battle of Tsushima on 27 May 1905.

Kōtetsu (Japanese: 甲鉄, literally "Ironclad", later renamed Azuma 東, "East") had a decisive role in the Naval Battle of Hakodate Bay in May 1869, which marked the end of the Boshin War, and the complete establishment of the Meiji Restoration.

[83] H. G. Wells coined the term The Land Ironclads in a short story published in 1903, to describe fictional large armored fighting vehicles moving on pedrail wheels.