Middletown transcript., 1898-04-23
NAyAL IMPnovRMENT.


Since war 1t is, It must necessarily
be naval war at least at the beginning
and the following brief review of the
chaRges which experiences has brought
In the style Of ships and armament will
prove interesting:
A battle between "barh" and
ncheese-box' in 1861 reyolulioniZsd
naval architec.ur The ''barn" was the
hull of the United States steam frigate
aMerrimac, nraised by the Confederates
armed with an iron beak for ramming.
and rooted over above the berth-deck
with 4 inch iron plates, supported by
massive timbers. The ''cheese-boxn
Ericsson's newly finished "Monitor,"
a war-vessel consisting of an ironclad
turret upheld by a nearly submerged
hull, driven by powerful engines. At,
nightfall, March sths sthe wooden ships
.'Congress and .Cumberland" were
beneath the waves in Hampton Roads,
rammed and shatterd by an adversary
invulneraole to their broadsides. With
the dawn of March oh, the "Merri-
macn (christened "Virginia" by the
Confederates) steamed back To destroy
the helpless minnesota" and was en-
countered by the MONITOR" which
had arrived meanwhile. Four hours"
mutual thumping with the heaviest
ordnance of the period resulted in a
drawn battle, which the retirement of
the "Merrimac" made a tactical VIC
tory for the monitor" Neither was
able to pierce or seriously injure the
others armor.
This was the first engagement bs-
tween iron-clads, and it made obso-
lete for war purposes the wooden ships
of all existing nayies. Maritime nations
at once began to rebuild and rearm. The
evolution was commenced which trans
formed the three-decker into the battle
ship-her sides armored like the "Mer-
rimac," her guns mounted in impreg-
nable turrets like the "M1nitor's.'
Steam had already doomed sail-power
for warships, and smoo.h-bore guns Were
giving place TO high-power rifles. The
close of the Civil War found the Uni
ted States with about sixty monitors in
commission on the ssaboard, while the
navigable rivers swarmed with gun
boats of the "Merrimac" type. OR
enthusiasm for iron had not been cooled
by the sinking Of the original" Monitor"
off Cape Hsttefas, in 1862, and sea-
worthiness was still secondary to shot
resisting power, when the battle Of
LISA, July 20, 1866, again put naval
architects to thinking. In that en-
gagement the Austrian wooden vessels
boldly rammed The Italian irnn-clads,
and found them to be as unstable as
floating tea-kettles. Since that time
buoyancy has been regarded as prime
requisite, and all classes OF steel yes
selsare made staunch enough to weather
a hurricane. However, there was no
satisfactory test Of the offensive aad
defensive qualities of the new con-
structions till 1898, when the Brazilian
insurrection furnished the spectacle of
contest bet ween the latest model of
battle-ship. and of Notifications. The
armor-clad "Aquidsbau'' (built in
England in 1885) engaged the hsrbor
forts day after day and suffered no in
Cruz got her range and repeatedly
struck her with prujecUles from their
10-inch rifles. These ratified harmless
ly from her 10-inch and 11-inch armor,
and did not prevent her from anchor
ing were she pleased. On the other
hand, her 9 inch and 6.inch rifles could
effect nothing against the forts, with
which the vain expenditure of the ships
ammunition and stores left the advan-
tage ultimately.
The next year, in the war betwee
Japan and China. there was more
conclusive test. Of the Yalu River,
September IL. 1894, modern tattleships
opposed each other for the FIRST time,
and the lesson was hardly less instruc-
tive than that afforded by their pro
totypes at Newport News, thir.y-three
years before. As the "M0nitor's"
commander learned too late that he
could have destroyed the "Merrimac''
by using larger powder-charge in his
11-inch Dahlgren guns, so, too, Euro
pean shipbuildeTs saw that they had,
in some cases, sacrificed efficiency to
size; that for close quarters numerous
rapid-1re gHns-each firing twenty
shells minute-are more effective
than larger guns less rapidly served. A
shell from the latter is more likely TO
pi ,rce an adversary's armor, but con-
centration of ere by enough of the
former will hinder turret from pre-
senting its PORTFOLIOS. To do so would
be to admit storm of shot and shell
strip ling gun and turret of their de.
tenders.
This closes the list OF instructive
battles, and it remains to be seen what
would be the outcome of an encounter
between evenly mat ched battle-ships or
cruisers, of1icered and manned by
Americans or Europeans.