The Sun.
London, England, 1866-06-18 00:00:00

Naval and Military Intelligence.

The armoured iron frigate Bellerophon, Captain
E. Tatham, and the turret ship Royal Sovereign,
Capt. F. A. Herbert,. both returnedinto
fPaorttesr-
mouth harbour on Saturday from Spithead,
their fight of the previous day off theDeanSli
foaul,
south-east of Spithead. Au after-consideration
ttuhrereres t
ou n Fltsorfidtahyraisesfiringem
at
nthveeßoyal
importantSover deigann's
ta
debateable questions foremost amornegweshtl damage to ehis, what
form of projectile will cause the greatest
curved iron-clothed surfaces at shot:
btwatngeee,n
twosuch
range, rather, as would possibly exist
ironclads engaged afloat, or between a turret-ship
afloat and a turret-crowned battery ashore. The three
shots fired at the Royal Sovereign on Friday were
all conoidal headed, and were all deflected. This
deflection of the shot from its true, and therefore
most destructive, line of force was apparently due
to the conoidal form of the heads of the shot, and
also to the curved surface and deflective angles of
the turret and deck where the three shot struck.
Thus, the first shot struck near the edge of the
armour-plating of the turret at the gun-port, break-
ing away a jagged piece of the outer plating, but
being afterwards deflected frcin its further straight
course by the second, or backing, plate of 4i inches,
which bent backwards and threw the shot off and
against the opposite side of the gunport, where it
spent its remaining strength and fell shattered
inside the turret, after smashing the wooden
skeleton gun. Now, would this shot have been
so easily deflected from its straight course had
it been flat-headed, or even spherical, the
weight, of course, being equal under all circum-
stances ? If the course of the second and third
shots are examined, there may be found additional
reasons against the use of conoidal-headed pro-
jectiles against iron-cased curved surfaces at short
range. The second shot struck at the junction of
two armour-plates, when the one on the left from
khe gun prized outwards from the teak backing, and
fell forward with its top eight inches out of the
line of the circle of the upper and outer xim of the
turret. This falling forward of tieplatew
having
soalvviinngg
to its bolt tails with their nut fasteningsl
flewn off from thoinner surface of the great inner

iron ring to which they were bolt3d by the impact
of the shot. This falling forward of the plate left
an opening upwards, and to this opening the conoi-
dal-headed shot, as offering the least resistance to
its progress, naturally turned. It became jammed
there between the back top edge of the plate and its
backing. Now, here again, could a flat-headed
shot have been so turned aside and rendered harm-
less? Measurement of initialvelocities of projectiles
is very useful under the majority of conditions,
but here were conditions under which the
initial force of a shot's flight was altogether ab-
sorbed, and its further power of harm destroyed. In
the third and last shot the power of deflective
surfaces and obtuse angles in throwing off the
heaviest description of conoidal-headed steel shot at
close range appears to have been still more forcibly
demonstrated. This shot struck on the upper wooden
deck of the ship, and with such tremendous force as
to fracture two beams, one of iron and the other of
wood, immediately underneath. It, however, failed
to penetrate lower than half the thickness of the
8-in. teak deck planking, running the "score" up to
the face of the turret, Bft. in length, when it glanced
upwards against the turret face, and, gouging out
an oval-shaped groove of metal 17in. long by Din.
wide, and 3iin. in depth, flew off to seaward, and fell
in the water close to the taffrail of a large schooner
yacht crowded with ladies and gentlemen who had
come out to see the turret undergo its trial. In this
instance a spheroidal shot of the same weight might
have damaged the turret more, possibly, by the ruder
and fuller force of its blow on the turret, while, un-
doubtedly, a flat-headed shot, of Whitworth make,
would have " bit" into deck or turret and buried
itself there, if it did not effect penetration. The
conoidal-headed shot had again, in fact, struck with
its " shoulder, instead of its head" point, and it,
therefore,, only delivered glancing blows. These
views are merely put forward for what they are
worth, as bearing upon a subject of very great im-
portance. The report on the testing of the Royal
Sovereign turret by Capt. A. C. Key, C. 8., now
being prepared for the information of the Lords of
Commissioners of the Admiralty,-will, however,
fully enter upon and discuss the whole subject, and
the public may therefore depend upon its receiving
the consideration its vast importonce deserves.
There are a few remarks yet necessary to make in
conclusion. The two shots fired at the turret,
although they did not effect penetration nor get
beyond the wooden backing, inflicted such an
amount of actual damage that half-a-dozen more
shots striking full on the turret must have placed it
hors de combat, leaving, however, the parts under
trial—the revolving machinery—in all probability
still undamaged. This would be the result which
might with certainty be counted upon in a contest
between the gun of 1866 and a composite iron-
clothed target of 1862. The bolt-tails and nuts
driven off from the inner skin of the turret by the
first two shots were quite sufficient to have killed or
wounded every one of the crew engaged in working
the gun had the ship been in action, and proves
again the necessity for covering all such parts with
an inner over-sheathing of wood or thin boiler-
flate. In our report of the experiment in The Sun
of Saturday, the first shot fired at the turret was
stated to have bent back and fractured " the inner

or 7i-inch plate." It should have been " the inner
or 41-inch plate," the thickness of the turret armour-
plating being a 5i-inch plate over one of 43- inches.
At the quarterly examination of candidates for
assistant clerks in the Royal Navy, just concluded
on board her Majesty's ship Victory, the following
gentlemen successfully passed :—Jago, 429 marks ;
Preston, 420 ; Gill, 418 ; King, 410 ; Bampton,
404 ; Donaldson, 402 ; Davey, 395 (the last two
gentlemen passed from Vickrey's Hope House,
Southsea, Hant) ; Drysdale, 388 ; Pearson, 381 ;
Bate, 369 ; James, 367 ; Fisher, 363.
The following appointments have been made at
the Admiralty :—F. F. Flynn, assist.-surgeon to the
Nimble; Francis Wood, assist.-paymaster in charge,
to the Griffon ; William Lovely, assist.-paymaster,
to the Donegal ; John N. Compton, second master,
to the Griffon ; and John W. Dixon, master's as-
sistant, to the Griffon.