The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1882-12-31
The Latest Phase of an Old Contest.

A"C ndSC VI uu Obu SOutCsss
We are told now that at last the armor has
beaten the guns in the contest which has
been going on between them for 80 many
years past Ever since LOUIS NAPOLEON
frightened Europe, and especially England,
with his first ocean-going ironclad La Gloire,
that battle has been kept up. And 1t has been
waged at an enormous expense for moro
than twenty years. not so much In war as on
the peaceful trial grounds Of Europe.
Indeed very little has been done by IRON
clads In actual hostilitics. II we except what
was accomplished by our monitors during the
rebellion. LOUIS NApoLEoN's pride was in
his navy and yet when the war with Prussia
occurred, his armored ships, upon which SO
many millions Of francs had been expended,
did France almost no service. They struck
no terror into his German foes, and at last
guns and sailors were taken out of them to
put into the Notifications OF Paris. In the
war between Russia and Turkey, ironclads
performed only small, almost an insgniti-
cant part. And WoLsELEY's easy conquest
OF Egypt was not much helped by the Brit
ish ironclads. Though the most powerful
armorcd ships Of England were before Alex
andria, they did scarcely better service than
the unprotected wooden vessels, and suffered
as much il not even more damage.
Yet the ironclad rage still possesses Eu-
rope, and the contest between guns and ar
NOR continues unintcrruptedly. And the
nation which is now ahead In the race, 80 far
as armor goes, is not England or France or
Germany or Russia. but Italy. Italy has
built the biggest and most heavily armored
ships, and so put those OF the rest of Europe
into the background. Now, too, we have re-
ports that at Spczia experiments have been
concluded which are likely to make obsolete
even the newest and most powerful guns In
the European navies.
These experiments seem to show that
plates can DO made hard enough to resist
perfOration by any projectile yet manufac-
tured The plates tried at Spczia are steel
faced or solid steel plates with hard faces,
| and 1t has been demonstrated that even the
1O0-ton gun cannot penetrate them. Conse-
quently the foundries must now go to work
to construct more powerful ordnance, and
that on a new system. I" If the experiments
just passed are not wrongly interpreted"
says an English expert, 1--WE shall have to
modify our present ideas, and construct
ordnance OF such dimensions that the
shot shall batter like rams rather than
pierce like arrows. That, II wo mis-
take not, was the ground taken by
Capt. ERICSSON so long ago as our own war,
in arguing in behalf of our tifteen-nch cast
iron smooth borcs-guns which seemed mon
strous then, but are now far behind the age,
both in size and power, and are utterly use
less against the armor of 1882.
UNLESS new discoveries bring with them
new opinions" says the writer from whom
we have quoted, IAN impetus which has now
been given will carry every nation in the
direction of extremely large and heavy guns,
and the decision made by almost every Gov
| eminent to confine its cxertions within GER
tain limits of size will have to be recon-
sidered." That is, If, for the time being, the
armor wins in the contest, the guns must be
made bigger until their turn to prevail comes.
| Nor is it unlikely that even the plates which
proved impenet.ablc at Speza will yet be
penetrated by ordnance manufactured at the
expense of the people of Europe. The VIC
tory OF the one only paves the way FOR the
subsequent success of the other; and so the
contest goes on, and has gone on for many
years, the people paying the bills, and the
artillerists and ship constructors enjoying
the fray.
How much longer will civilization submit
to such an absurd and preposterous tax upon
its resources?