The Sun.
London, England, 1859-06-30 00:00:00

THE NEW _IRON STEAM RAM.

The means by which the destruction of human
beings may be accomplished on the easiest and
largest scale is rapidly taking its place among the
applied sciences of the 19th century. Since the
days of cumbrous ordnance and old Brown Bess,
when the butt of the musket was used as effec-
tively and fatally as its bullet, Moloch has been
fruitful of suggestions how to kill, and the fields I
of Magenta and Solferino are still cumbered with
the ghastly evidences of the proficiency which has
been already attained in the new science. But
sanguinary as these contests have been they, after
all, afford but slight indications of the real pro-
gress which has been made in the destructive
branches of the art of war, and it is only when a
naval engagement takes place that maritime powers
• will see with dismay the awful effect of the weapons
which science has placed in their hands. An en-
gag, ement between two hostile fleets in the present
day would probably not last an hour, for by that
time two-thirds of all the ships engaged would be
sunk or blown up. The time when ships lay yard-
arm to yard-arm, firing into one another for a
whole day, has gone by for ever. It will be short
and sharp work now-a-days, for wooden ships as at
present built will no more withstand the tremen-
• dons armaments which all fleets carry than so much
• basket work. It is a perfect knowledge of this
fact, and a certainty that wooden ships after re-
- ceiving one or at the most two well concentrated
broadsides must sink immediately, that is leading
maritime Powers at the present moment to see if
science cannot devise some means for rendering
their ships invulnerable, at least for a time.
But while securing this object a still more awful
element is introduced into the art of naval warfare,
since these iron-cased monsters are to be used not
alone for defence, but for running down and sink-
ing by wholesale the vessels of the enemy. The
attempts to make iron shot-proof vessels have
hitherto proved downright failures both in the
French and English navies. The English floating
batteries went to pieces under a fire of solid 68-
pounders. The French boats employed in the
attack•on Binburn, though only hit by 32-pound
shot, gave unmistakeable signs of a solution of con-
tinuity, and that more knocks or heavier metal
would soon send them to the bottom. Efforts in
this direction have therefore been discontinued,
and the French Emperor has set to work to see if
he cannot case large vessels with sufficient iron to
give a fair immunity from the effects of shot, while
their prodigious strength and weight may be turned
to awful account in running down opposing first-
rates. The idea was a good one, but it went no
-further than an idea, as, instead of building ships
specially constructed for the purpose, the two yes-
.sels which the Emperor is now with such vain
secrecy having coated with iron plates are old
sailing three-deckers, which can never carry a suffi-
cient weight of iron to answer the purpose, and
which, even when fitted with machinery, will
never it is said, attain a rate of more thari four or
five knots an hour or so. The English Government
have very wisely determined to adopt a different
plan, and to build a wrought-iron vessel of im-
mense size, strength, and steam power, specially
adapted as a vessel of war, and for running down
ships of the largest kind, not even excepting the
-Great Eastern itself. The contract for this tre•
mendous engine of modern war has been taken by
the Thames Iron Shipbuilding Company, and suffi-
cient progress has been made with the ironwork to
-be used in her to make it certain that she will be
afloat and fitting for sea by June next. Her dimen-
sions will be—extreme length, 380 feet ; breadth,
58 feet ; depth, 41 feet 6 inches ; and her tonnage
no less than 6,177 tons. The weight of the
empty hull will be 5,700 tons. The engines are to
be by Penn and Sons, of 1,250-horse power, and
.of these we shall give a description on another oc-
casion. Their weight with boilers will be 950 tons ;
she will carry 950 tons of coal, and her armament,
masts, stores, &c., will amount to 1,100 tons more.
'At sea-her weight will be about 9,000 tons, which
'will be driven, when so wanted, through the water
against an enemy's ship at the rate of 16 miles an
hour. It is difficult by mere description to give an
adequate idea of the tremendous strength with
which this vessel is to be built. The keel, or rather
the portion to which the ribs are bolted, is made
of immense slabs of wrought scrap. iron, an inch
and a quarter thick, and three feet six inches deep.
'From this spring the ribs—massive wrought iron
T-shaped beams, which are made in joints about
five feet long by two deep, up to where the armour
platesis begin, five feet below the water line. These
are only 3 feet 8 inches apart, while, for a
distance of 10 feet on each side of the keel, they
are bolted in at only half this distance asunder.
Five feet below the water-line the armour plates
commence, and, to give room for these, the depth
of the rib diminishes to about half, or nine inches.
Over the ribs, and crossing transversely, are bolted
beams of teak a foot and a half thick, and outside
these again come the armour plates. Each of these
plates is to be 15 feet long by 4 feet broad and 41
inches thick. Several of them have been made by
the company of puddled iron, of annealed scrap
iron, and of scrap iron unannealed, and experi-
ments are now being made at Portsmouth with a
view of testing practically which best withstand
the tremendous attack of 68-pounders. It is almost
needless to say that each plate is the very perfec-
tion of material and manufacture. These ponderous
slabs go up to the level of the upper deck. The
orlop deck will be of wood, and 24 feet above the
keel. The main deck will be of iron, cased with
wood, and 9 feet above the orlop. The upper
deck will also be of wrought iron and 7 feet 9
inches above the main. All the decks are carried
on wrought iron beams of the most powerful de-
scription, to which both the ribs and iron decks
are bolted; while along the whole length of
the vessel from stem to stern, are immensely solid
wrought iron beams at intervals of five feet inside
the ribs, which are again crossed by diagonal
bands, tying the whole together in a perfect net-
work. The armour plates are not intended to
shield the whole vessel, only the fighting portion,
about 220 feet of the broadside being thus pro-
tected. This broadside, however, will mount 14 of
the Armstrong 100 lb. guns, which, with two broad-
side guns on the upper deck and two pivot guns of
the same kind forward and two aft, will give her
a total armament of 36 guns, each throwing a
1001 b. shot over a range of nearly six miles.
Neither the bows nor stern have any of the large
armour plates, but are coated with wrought iron
plates of nearly one inch and a half thick over two
feet of teak, which will offer sufficient resistance to
Prevent most shots from going through. But to
compensate for this apparent deficiency, both bows
and stern are so crossed and recrossed in every
direction with water-tight compartments, that it is
s matter of perfect indifference whether they get
riddled or not, and each of these ends are shut off
from the engine room and fighting portion of the
ship by continuous massive wrought iron trans-
verse bulkheads. So that, supposing it possible
that both stem and stern could be shot away, the
centre of the vessel would remain complete and
impenetrable as ever, still offering in all 24 inches
of teak coated with 5 inches of wrought iron to
every shot. But both stem and stern are built
inside of such immense strength that coating with
armour plates would be almost superfluous. The
bows, as the spot where the whole shock must be
received in running down ships, are inside a per-
fect web of ironwork, strengthened back to the
armour plates with-no less than eight wrought iron
decks an inch thick, and crossed and re-crossed in
all ways and methods with diagonal bracings and
supports. In the design sent into the Admiralty
by the Thames Shipbuilding Company the shape
of the bow; was made exactly after the out-
line of the neck and breast of a swan when
swimming. Thus the point which would strike
tui ehemy's vessel was the " breast," which
was placed under the water line. In the Admiralty
model, according to which the "rain" is to be
built, the bows form an obtuse angle, the point
of which is just level with the water, receding back
at a rather sharp slope both above and below it.
This peculiar shape, however, will be concealed
under the usual figurehead and forward gear with
a light artificial cutwater of wood, so that appa-
rently the vessel will be an ordinary frigate of the
largest size, The Admiralty, no doubt, intend by
these devices to disguise her real character, but we
need hardly point out how utterly futile such an
attempt would be. Could any naval officer be de-
ceiwd by any amount of painting about the char-
acter of a ship of 6,000 tons, nearly 400 feet long,
,rigged like a three•decker, yet only carrying a
roadside of 14 guns on her main deck? Or do the
•itioltratiralty suppose that there will not be perfect
photographs of her when finished taken for all the
bPowers, which will be reproduced and dis-
tributedtheir navies,*with strict injunctions
in case orl°llgalways to avoid such a vessel if they
can 9 The avreorfyaidea of attempting to conceal the
real purpose
afloat,
el so remarkable, and the only
one of its loud
seems absurd. Coming up
into action with other first-rates in line of battle,
no doubt she would pass muster unobserved, but
under such circumstances, even if as well known to
the enemy 11--
to the English, the knowledge would
avail nothing to the former. Once a general en-
gagement was commenced, the ram" would be able
to pursue her mission of destruction by running
into the sterns of the enemy's vessels almost with-
out hindrance. When such is avowedly
her pur-
pose it seems, to say the Least, unwise
to cumber'
her 'pith the mists and rigg:ng of a line-of-battle
ship. The shock of striking the vessel would bring
down all her masts by the board like reeds, and
leave tile ram's decks so encumbered with wreck as
might even render her almost useless for further
efforts.. The mode in which she attacks Nv4i be to