Iron-clad Ships

In The vigor which will be given to the mail clothing business for the navy, by the Merrimacing among our vessels and fortified posts, and by the reported, but probably overdrawn victory of Ericsson’s Monitor, with the additional stimulus of the fifteen millions which congress has appropriated for that purpose, it is to be hoped that the Navy department will not too hastily adopt the Ericsson round tower plan for all its harbor or sea-going war vessels.

The essential quality of this tower is its invulnerability, and the only advantage we can see in it is in the lighter draft which may be secured by reducing the position which is raised above the water high enough for the guns, too small a section.  In this quality they furnish a plan for invulnerable gunboats within the capacity of our rivers.  But this is obtained at the cost of space for the guns, and fighting men; and whatever may be the improvement, guns and men will continue to be essential; and, other things being equal, the most guns and fighting men will be likely to decide the contest.

If the whole gun-deck can be made invulnerable, that of course would be vastly better than a cramped tower and only two guns.  If the Monitor has done all that is reported, the Merrimac also was a success, and it may be that she has approached nearer the true plan.  She is cut down to near the water, and a slanting iron roof built over her.  A fraction of the thickness of iron required to directly resist a shot, will make it glace off.  It is necessary that the armor should extend only about three feet below the surface.  It seem[s] possible that the vessels may be built curving outwardly from about that line to one a few feet above the surface, and then slanting inwardly to a sufficient height for a flat spar-deck over the gun-deck, so that a much lighter armor than used for the Warrior and other British and French men-of-war will turn shot at any angle at which they can possibly strike it.

This form of the hull, would greatly increase the buoyance of the ship in a seaway, and in that respect might nearly compensate for the increased width near the surface.  A light armor would protect the upper deck, and probably that of the sides could be reduced so as to obviate the objections the British and French mail-clad vessels have found.  These vessels are so heavily loaded by their armor as seriously to affect their seagoing qualities; the sea water percolates between the iron plates and must soon rust of the bolts, and the weight, which furnishes no compensating support to the vessel, strains it in a seaway.  In her recent passage to Lisbon the Warrior experienced two of these difficulties.

It seems to be thought by some that if the guns are large enough, one or two will answer; but if both sides have as large, the number of them will become as important as before.  The chances are greater for missing the mark than for hitting it, and the greater number of guns, the greater chance for making a hit.  There is nothing in the armor or armament of vessels to make the number of guns any less important now than it ever was.  Besides the importance of a great armament and crew, and plenty of fighting space, our mail-clad men-of-war must be great rams, prepared to take a tilt with their sharp beaks.  For this purpose size and weight are essential. – {Cin. Gazette.

– Published in The Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye, Burlington, Iowa, Saturday, March 15, 1862, p. 2