The Sun.
London, England, 1854-11-17 00:00:00

SHIPS AND STONE WALLS.

Some of our contemporaries who have been loudest in
outcries because the forts of the Baltic have not been
destroyed by the stupendous flotilla intrusted to the cons-
►nand of the gallant Napier, have quite altered their tone
since the results of the combined naval attack of the out-
side forts of Sebastopol have reached this country. With
due deference, we think they were not justified in their
expectations in their first conclusions upon the destruc-
tion of the forts of Aland ; neither are they borne out in
their recent deductions by the performances of the
Black Sea Fleet. As the question is one of importance
just now, and of no small interest, we will endeavour to
show why we differ in opinion from so many. We maintain,
then, that the experiment of ships versus forts was net so
tried at Sebastopol as to justify any one, although even
present, and of whatever rank, to form a correct opinion.
The limit we define for a fair trial is under rather than
over 250 yards. We think 800 yards likely to have
been the shortest range any single ship engaged at, al-
though we see 600 stated, and the majority pounded
away at a distance considerably ever 2,000 yards, out
of point-blank range in fact. We see it stated that the
Agamemnon was so near under Fort Constantine that
the upper tier of its guns could not be sufficiently de-
pressed to injure her, and hence the small loss in that
the most daring ship. Nobody with two ideas will take
his in. IF any one be so soft, let him look at the height
of the upper guns of Fort Constantine in any of the
numerous drawings. They may be higher than the
quarter-deck guns of the Agamemnon, but probably but
little, if anything, higher than those mounted on her
poop ; and if so, even at one hundred yards, but
little depression would have been necessary, and
every yard further from the fort still less and
less. In short, at the distance talked of it would
have been all but a point blank affair, or so nearly so
as not to be worth naming with every gun in every tier
of the Constantine Battery. If the assertion had been
made in reference to batteries on the top of the cliff, we
could understand it.

Unless the enemy reduces his charge, a red hot shot
is not so likely to harass a vessel at short as at long
range. They may hit with more certainty, but the
speed of the shot makes it more likely to pass through
a ship than when spent, or more spent, plumping
into her. The Agamemnon we do not hear of having
been on fire, but most of the ships at longer
range had that mishap—a bad enough one if a shot
lodges where it cannot be got at, but if reachable it is
almost as easily cooled down, by a judicious application
of the fire engine force pump, or wet clay, as a piece of
iron out of the ship's forge. If our ships could have got
within 200 or 300 yards, and if then, after four hours'
firing, forts were not destroyed, the question might
have been considered decided, and all future repetition
of similarattacks, and waste of lives of valuable officers,
and seamen deemed wanton. But to go in at varying
distances, and to pound away for four whole hours,
more or less, at long bslls (for some of the letters we
have seen describe whole broadsides of shot as falling
short) is no critm ion. To come, too, out of action with
the enemy not merely silenced, but within sound of ex-
ulting cheers, without the loss of a single ship, and with
no more loss in killed and wounded altogether than some-
times in the last war befell single ships after an hour's ac-
tion, cannot be nailed fighting. It was, in fact, no action
of ships versus forts, but a simple attempt to occupy the
forces of the enemy while the shore guns opened the
ball.

The problem, we opine, has yet to be solved, and our
naval experience induces as to think it will one day be
solved in favour of the wooden wall, because the con-
centrated fire of 50 guns of calibre of not less than 321 b.,
and nearly half of 681 b. guns, gives the ship an incalculable
advantage over ordinary fort 3. Fort Constantine, for
instance, has nearly three faces—therefore can only
bring one third of its guns to boar in one direction
on a ship when close to the fort. The further off the
nine fort guns will come into play; and, until we hear
that four guns a minute from 50 guns, fired for a con-
tinuance of one hour even (to say nothing of four or
five)-12,000 shot, in fact—have not made holes, we
shall not consider the trial decided.

REINFORCEMENTS FOR THE CRIMEA