 The Civil War provided a testing ground for numerous innovations in warfare, and Mallory was in position to provide support for many of them. His advocacy of armored vessels has been described and is the development most closely associated with his name, but he encouraged the development of several other weapons. For example, he favored the use of rifled guns, as opposed to the smoothbore muzzle loaders used in the Union Navy. The favored gun was a rifle designed by the head of his Office of Ordnance and Hydrography, Lieutenant John Mercer Brooke. The Brooke rifle gave Rebel gunners a qualitative advantage over their Yankee counterparts that persisted to the end of the war.
