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{{short description|Steam-propelled warship protected by armor plates}}
{{dablink|"Ironclad" redirects here. For other uses, see ]}}
{{redirect2|Ironclad|Broadside ironclad}}
{{for|pre-modern armoured ships|Pre-industrial armoured ships}}
{{For|pre-modern armored ships|naval armour}}
]
{{Use American English|date=August 2017}}
The '''ironclad warship''' (or simply '''ironclad''') was a type of ] developed in Europe and the United States during the mid-], its chief characteristics being iron (or later steel) protective armour, steam propulsion and powerful shell-firing (self encased ammunition) guns.<ref>War at Sea in the Ironclad Age, Richard Hill, ISBN 0-304-35273-X</ref>
]]]


An '''ironclad''' was a ] ] protected by ] constructed from 1859 to the early 1890s. The ironclad was developed as a result of the vulnerability of wooden warships to explosive or ] ]. The first ironclad battleship, {{ship|French ironclad|Gloire||2}}, was launched by the ] in November 1859, narrowly preempting the British ]. However, Britain built the first completely iron-hulled warships.
The development of the ironclad meant the end of the wooden ] and ushered in a period of experimentation and development, leading to the pre-Dreadnought ] and the ].


They were first used in warfare in 1862 during the ], when ironclads operated against wooden ships and, in a historic confrontation, against each other at the ] in ]. Their performance demonstrated that the ironclad had replaced the unarmored ] as the most powerful warship afloat. ] became very successful in the American Civil War.
The development of ironclads revolutionised naval warfare, and introduced huge diversity into warship design. Naval terminology struggled to keep up with the pace of technological change: when ] was launched, she was ] merely as a ], in spite of being more powerful than any ]. <ref>War at Sea in the Ironclad Age, Richard Hill, ISBN 0-304-35273-X</ref>. Throughout the century new terms for warships were developed, including adaptations of existing classes ('''armoured frigate''', '''armoured corvette'''); descriptions based on armament ('''turret ship''', '''centre-battery ship''', '''armoured ram'''); or on particularly famous examples of a type (e.g. ]). The Royal Navy added further confusion in the 1880s by re-classifying the ''Warrior'' as a ], reflecting the late-19th Century vocabulary of battleships and cruisers.<ref>http://www.northwood.mod.uk/nwood/history/warrior/warrior.htm</ref>


Ironclads were designed for several uses, including as high-seas ]s, long-range ]s, and ] ships. Rapid development of warship design in the late 19th century transformed the ironclad from a wooden-hulled vessel that carried sails to supplement its steam engines into the steel-built, turreted battleships, and cruisers familiar in the 20th century. This change was pushed forward by the development of heavier naval guns, more sophisticated steam engines, and advances in ] that made steel shipbuilding possible.
==Origins of the Ironclad==
According to naval historian R.D. Hill, "the (ironclad) had three chief characteristics: a metal-skinned hull, steam propulsion and a main armament of guns capable of firing explosive shells. It is only when all three characteristics are present that a fighting ship can properly be called an ironclad".<ref>War at Sea in the Ironclad Age, Richard Hill, ISBN 0-304-35273-X</ref> Until the end of the 1840s, the sailing ], a large wooden warship mounting over a hundred ] and ]s, continued to hold the dominant position in naval combat which it had occupied since the 17th century. Within twenty years the series of developments made these ships obsolete.


The quick pace of change meant that many ships were obsolete almost as soon as they were finished and that naval tactics were in a state of flux. Many ironclads were built to make use of the ], the ], or sometimes ] (as in the case with smaller ships and later torpedo boats), which several naval designers considered the important weapons of naval combat. There is no clear end to the ironclad period, but toward the end of the 1890s, the term ''ironclad'' dropped out of use. New ships were increasingly constructed to a standard pattern and designated as battleships or ]s.
===Steam ships-of-the-line===


== Development ==
The first major change to the ship of the line was the introduction of ] as an auxiliary ].
The ironclad became technically feasible and tactically necessary because of developments in shipbuilding in the first half of the 19th century. According to naval historian ]: "The (ironclad) had three chief characteristics: a metal-skinned hull, steam propulsion and a main armament of guns capable of firing explosive shells. It is only when all three characteristics are present that a fighting ship can properly be called an ironclad."<ref name="Hill">Hill, p. 17</ref> Each of these developments was introduced separately in the decade before the first ironclads.{{citation needed|date=March 2024}}


=== Steam propulsion ===
The first military uses of steamships came in the 1810s, and in the 1820s a number of navies experimented with ] warships. Their use spread in the 1830s, with paddle&ndash;steamer warships participating in conflicts like the ] alongside ships of the line and frigates<ref name ="Sondhaus"/>.
]
In the 18th and early 19th centuries, fleets had relied on two types of major warship, the ] and the ]. The first major change to these types was the introduction of ] for ]. While ] warships had been used from the 1830s onward, steam propulsion only became suitable for major warships after the adoption of the ] in the 1840s.<ref name = "Screw">Lambert, "The Screw Propeller Warship", pp. 30–44</ref>


Steam-powered screw frigates were built in the mid-1840s, and at the end of the decade the ] introduced steam power to its ]. ]'s ambition to gain greater influence in Europe required a sustained challenge to the British at sea.<ref>Sondhaus, pp. 37–41</ref><ref name = "Hill 25">Hill, p. 25</ref> The first purpose-built steam battleship was the 90-gun {{ship|French ship|Napoléon|1850|2}} in 1850.<ref name = "Screw"/> ''Napoléon'' was armed as a conventional ship-of-the-line, but her steam engines could give her a speed of {{convert|12|kn|lk=in}}, regardless of the wind conditions: a potentially decisive advantage in a naval engagement.{{citation needed|date=March 2024}}
Paddle steamers, however, had major disadvantages. The paddle&ndash;wheel above the waterline was exposed to enemy fire, while itself preventing the ship for firing broadside effectively. During the 1840s, the ] emerged as the most likely method of steam propulsion, with both Britain and the USA launching screw-propelled warships in 1843. Through the 1840s, the British and French navies launched increasingly larger and more powerful screw ships, alongside sail-powered ships of the line. In 1845, ] gave an indication of the role of the new steamships in tense Anglo-French relations, describing the English Channel as a "steam bridge", rather than a barrier to French invasion. It was partly because of the fear of war with France that the Royal Navy converted several old 74&ndash;gun ships of the line into 60-gun steam-powered defensive harbour batteries, called ]s, starting in 1845<ref name ="Sondhaus"/>.
]'' (1850), the first steam battleship]]


The introduction of the steam ship-of-the-line led to a building competition between France and Britain. Eight sister ships to ''Napoléon'' were built in France over a period of ten years, but the United Kingdom soon managed to take the lead in production. Altogether, France built ten new wooden steam battleships and converted 28 from older ships of the line, while the United Kingdom built 18 and converted 41.<ref name = "Screw"/>
The ], however, developed the first purpose-built steam battleship, with the 90&ndash;gun ] in 1850.<ref>"Napoleon (90 guns), the first purpose-designed screw line of battleships", ''Steam, Steel and Shellfire'', Conway's History of the Ship (p39)</ref> She is also considered the first true steam battleship, and the first screw battleship ever.<ref>''"Hastened to completion Le Napoleon was launched on 16 May 1850, to become the world's first true steam battleship"'', ''Steam, Steel and Shellfire'', Conway's History of the Ship (p39)</ref> ''Napoleon'' was armed as a conventional ship-of-the-line, but her steam engines could give her a speed of 12 knots, regardless of the wind conditions: a potentially decisive advantage in a naval engagement.


=== Explosive shells ===
Eight sister-ships to ''Le Napoléon'' were built in ] over a period of ten years, as the United Kingdom soon managed to take the lead in production, in number of both purpose-built and converted units. Altogether, France built 10 new wooden steam battleships and converted 28 from older battleship units, while the United Kingdom built 18 and converted 41.<ref>''Steam, Steel and Shellfire'', Conway's History of the Ship (p.41)</ref>
{{further|Paixhans gun}}
] naval ] gun. 1860 engraving]]
The era of the wooden steam ship-of-the-line was brief, because of new, more powerful naval guns. In the 1820s and 1830s, warships began to mount increasingly heavy guns, replacing ] and ] with 32-pounders on sailing ships-of-the-line and introducing ]s on steamers. Then, the first ] guns firing explosive shells were introduced following their development by the French Général ]. By the 1840s they were part of the standard armament for naval powers including the ], ], ] and ].{{citation needed|date=March 2024}}


It is often held that the power of explosive shells to smash wooden hulls, as demonstrated by the Russian destruction of an ] squadron at the ], spelled the end of the wooden-hulled warship.<ref>Sondhaus, p. 58</ref> The more practical threat to wooden ships was from conventional cannon firing red-hot shot, which could lodge in the hull and cause a fire or ammunition explosion. Some navies even experimented with hollow shot filled with molten metal for extra incendiary power.<ref name = "Lambert">Lambert, ''Battleships in Transition'', pp. 94–95</ref>
Usually a wooden warship had to be constructed over several years, in order to allow the timber to season properly. By the end of the 1850s, the naval rivalry between the British and French navies led to speed-up ship building programmes. This forced the shipmakers to either rebuild older ships into steam vessels or to use unseasoned timber to keep up with the demand. Another significant cost increasing factor was the ceasing of timber deliveries from Russia with the ]. Unseasoned timber and damp from steam engines would also provide the ideal environment for rot. This and the large amounts of timber needed for the fleet programmes made the iron-hulled ships cheaper to build and maintain.<ref name = "Lambert"/>


===Shells and Red-Hot Shot=== === Iron armor ===
{{main|Floating battery}}
The reign of the unarmored wooden ship-of-the-line was short. During the 1850s, changes in the armament of wooden steam warships made the adoption of iron armor a necessity.
] ironclad ] {{ship|French ironclad|Lave||2}}, 1854. This ironclad, together with the similar ''Tonnante'' and ''Dévastation'', vanquished Russian land batteries at the ].]]
]
The use of ] instead of wood as the primary material of ships' hulls began in the 1830s; the first "warship" with an iron hull was the gunboat ], built by ] for the East India Company in 1839. There followed, also from Laird, the first full-sized warship with a metal hull, the 1842 steam frigate '']'' for the ].<ref name="Sandler 2004">Sandler, ''Battleships: An Illustrated History of Their Impact'', p. 20</ref><ref name="threedecks">{{cite web |title=Mexican paddle steamer 'Guadalupe' (1842) |url=https://threedecks.org/index.php?display_type=show_ship&id=11583 |website=threedecks.org |access-date=6 August 2018}}</ref> The latter ship performed well during the ], with her ] reporting that he thought that there were fewer iron splinters from ''Guadalupe''{{'}}s hull than from a wooden hull.<ref>Brown 1990, p. 87</ref>


Encouraged by the positive reports of the iron hulls of those ships in combat, the ] ordered a series of experiments to evaluate what happened when thin iron hulls were struck by projectiles, both solid shot and hollow shells, beginning in 1845 and lasting through 1851. Critics like ] Sir ] believed that the splinters from the hull were even more dangerous than those from wooden hulls and the tests partially confirmed this belief. What was ignored was that {{convert|14|in|0}} of wood backing the iron would stop most of the splinters from penetrating and that relatively thin plates of iron backed by the same thickness of wood would generally cause shells to split open and fail to detonate. One factor in the performance of wrought iron during these tests that was not understood by metallurgists of the day was that wrought iron begins to become brittle at temperatures below {{convert|20|°C}}. Many of the tests were conducted at temperatures below this while the battles were fought in tropical climates.{{citation needed|date=March 2024}}
It is commonly thought that the adoption of iron armor was forced by the introduction of ] &mdash; weapons which could fire an explosive ] over a flat trajectory. The first such guns were produced in ] and France, the United Kingdom, Russia and the United States adopted the new naval guns in the ]. (] himself, a French artillery officer of the beginning of the 19th century, was a naval theorist claiming that a few aggressively armed small units could destroy the largest naval units of the time, making him a precursor of the French '']'' school of thought.)


The early experimental results seemed to support the critics and party politics came into play as the ] ] replaced the ] ] in 1846. The new administration sided with the critics and ordered that the four iron-hulled ] ]s ordered by the Tories be converted into ]s. No iron warships would be ordered until the beginning of the ] in 1854.<ref>Brown 1990, pp. 92–101</ref>
However, this was not the only change in armament to the disadvantage of wooden ships. Existing naval cannon were increasingly adopted to fire red-hot shot, which could lodge in the hull of a wooden ship and cause a fire or ammunition explosion. Some navies even experimented with hollow shot filled with molten metal for extra incendiary power. These types of heated shot had the advantage over shells that they did not require fuses, which remained unreliable in shell guns for some time.


Following the demonstration of the power of explosive shells against wooden ships at the ], and fearing that his own ships would be vulnerable to the ] of Russian fortifications in the Crimean War, ] ] ordered the development of light-draft floating batteries, equipped with heavy guns and protected by heavy armor. Experiments made during the first half of 1854 proved highly satisfactory, and on 17 July 1854, the French communicated to the British Government that a solution had been found to make gun-proof vessels and that plans would be communicated. After tests in September 1854, the British Admiralty agreed to build five armored floating batteries on the French plans.<ref>Baxter, pp. 70, 72</ref>
Exactly which of these developments was more responsible for the end of the wooden battlefleet is a matter of debate. The ease with which the shell guns of the ]n ] annihilated the Turkish fleet at the ] in ] is often cited as the end of the wooden navy; however, other observers have argued that after six hours of firing a similar result would have been achieved with solid shot. More British and French casualties were caused in the ] by red-hot shot fired from Russian forts than by explosive shells.


The French ] were deployed in 1855 as a supplement to the wooden steam battle fleet in the ]. The role of the battery was to assist unarmored mortar and gunboats bombarding shore fortifications. The French used three of their ironclad batteries (''Lave'', ''Tonnante'' and ''Dévastation'') in 1855 against the defenses at the ] on the ], where they were effective against Russian shore defences. They would later be used again during the ] in the ] in 1859. The British floating batteries {{HMS|Glatton|1855|2}} and {{HMS|Meteor|1855|2}} arrived too late to participate to the action at Kinburn.<ref name=Baxter82>Baxter, p. 82</ref> The British planned to use theirs in the Baltic Sea against the well-fortified Russian naval base at Kronstadt.<ref name="Iron">Lambert, "Iron Hulls and Armour Plate", pp. 47–55</ref>
]
During the war, the French and ] navies collaborated on the design of armoured ] for reducing Russian defenses which had previously held off attempts at bombardment by wooden hulled battleships. The batteries were essentially mastless barges plated in iron which were towed into position prior to engaging the enemy. The French used theirs in ] against the defenses at Kinburn on the ]. The British were delayed in bringing their batteries to the ] to use against ] in ] and the war ended before they were used. But the brief success of the floating ironclad battery at Crimea convinced both Britain and France to begin construction of the first self-propelled ironclad warships.
===The first ironclads===
] (1858), the first ocean-going ] warship]]
] (1860), Britain's first ironclad warship]]
], of the ''Magenta'' class, the only two-decked broadside ironclad warship ever built]]


The batteries have a claim to the title of the first ironclad warships<ref name="Hill"/> but they were capable of only {{convert|4|kn}} under their own power: they operated under their own power at the Battle of Kinburn,<ref name=Baxter84>Baxter, p. 84</ref> but had to be towed for long-range transit.<ref>Sondhaus, p. 61</ref> They were also arguably marginal to the work of the navy. The brief success of the floating ironclad batteries convinced France to begin work on armored warships for their battlefleet.<ref name = "Iron"/>
The first ocean-going ironclad warship was the French ] of 1859. Her wooden hull was protected by a layer of thick iron armour 4.5 inches thick, and she was armed with fifty guns firing broadside. She propelled all the way from your moms butt by a steam engine, driving a single screw propeller for a speed of 13 knots, far faster than could be achieved under sail.


== Early ironclad ships and battles ==
''La Gloire'' would spark a mini-arms race when Britain constructed and launched the steam frigate ] in ], Britain's first ironclad warship. France proceeded to construct 16 ironclad warships, including two more sister ships to ''La Gloire'', and the only two-decked broadside ironclads ever built, the ''Magenta'' and the ], which were also the first warships to be equipped with a spur ram.
]


By the end of the 1850s it was clear that France was unable to match British building of steam warships, and to regain the strategic initiative a dramatic change was required. The result was the first ocean-going ironclad, {{ship|French ironclad|Gloire||2}}, begun in 1857 and launched in 1859. ''Gloire''{{'}}s wooden hull was modelled on that of a steam ship of the line, reduced to one deck, and sheathed in iron plates {{convert|4.5|in|0}} thick. She was propelled by a steam engine, driving a single ] for a speed of {{convert|13|kn|lk=in}}. She was armed with thirty-six {{convert|6.4|in|mm|adj=on}} rifled guns. France proceeded to construct 16 ironclad warships, including two ]s to ''Gloire'', and the only two-decked broadside ironclads ever built, {{ship|French ironclad|Magenta||2}} and {{ship|French ironclad|Solférino||2}}.<ref name="Sondhaus, ''Naval Warfare 1815–1914'', pp. 73–74">Sondhaus, pp. 73–74</ref>
The inefficiency of steam engines at the time, and the need for frequent coaling, limited the range of most ships under steam, and for a long time sails were still required for global reach. Many early ironclads, like ''Warrior'' had retractable screws to reduce drag while under sail; though in practice the steam engine was run at a low throttle when cruising under sail (the last British ship to be so equipped was ], which remained in service until 1899).


]
==Armament==
For much of the ironclad age the consequences of technology on tactics were unclear. While the first ironclads were ]-armed like their ship-of-the-line predecessors, the influence of ramming tactics and improvements in guns resulted in a diverse set of armaments.


The Royal Navy had not been keen to sacrifice its advantage in steam ships of the line, but was determined that the first British ironclad would outmatch the French ships in every respect, particularly speed. A fast ship would have the advantage of being able to choose a range of engagement that could make her invulnerable to enemy fire. The British specification was more a large, powerful ] than a ship-of-the-line. The requirement for speed meant a very long vessel, which had to be built from iron. The result was the construction of two {{sclass|Warrior|ironclad|2}}s; {{HMS|Warrior|1860|6}} and {{HMS|Black Prince|1861|6}}. The ships had a successful design, though there were necessarily compromises between 'sea-keeping', strategic range and armor protection. Their weapons were more effective than those of ''Gloire'', and with the largest set of steam engines yet fitted to a ship, they could steam at 14.3&nbsp;knots (26.5&nbsp;km/h).<ref name = "Iron"/> Yet the ''Gloire'' and her sisters had full iron-armor protection along the waterline and the battery itself.{{citation needed|date=March 2024}}
===The Ram versus the Gun===
In the mid 19th Century, some naval designers believed that, with steam power freeing ships from the wind, and armour making them invulnerable to shellfire, the ] was again the most important weapon in naval warfare, as it had been in the days of ]s, and a range of ships were built as 'armoured rams'. Examples include the British-built Peruvian vessel ]


The British ''Warrior'' and ''Black Prince'' (but also the smaller ] and ]) were obliged to concentrate their armor in a central "citadel" or "armoured box", leaving many main deck guns and the fore and aft sections of the vessel unprotected. The use of iron in the construction of ''Warrior ''also came with some drawbacks; iron hulls required more regular and intensive repairs than wooden hulls, and iron was more susceptible to fouling by marine life.{{citation needed|date=March 2024}}
The idea held influence for much of the 19th century. Rams like ], ] and ] engaged in the American Civil War with limited success. However, this failure gave less influence on European ship design than the spectacular but lucky success of the Austrian flagship ] sinking the Italian '']'' with a ramming action at the ] in 1866.<ref>War at Sea in the Ironclad Age, Richard Hill, ISBN 0-304-35273-X</ref>. In the Royal Navy, ] was impressed enough that he campaigned for the ram to be made the principal weapon of naval combat. While his campaign was unsuccessful, the RN was building ships designed for ramming as late as ] of 1885.


By 1862, navies across Europe had adopted ironclads. Britain and France each had sixteen either completed or under construction, though the British vessels were larger. Austria, Italy, Russia, and Spain were also building ironclads.<ref>Sondhaus, p. 76</ref> However, the first battles using the new ironclad ships took place during the American Civil War, between Union and Confederate ships in 1862. These were markedly different from the broadside-firing, masted designs of ''Gloire'' and ''Warrior''. The clash of the Italian and Austrian fleets at the ] (1866), also had an important influence on the development of ironclad design.{{citation needed|date=March 2024}}
===Development of naval guns===
In addition to the afore-mentioned Paixhans guns, improvements in metallurgy and design, with the adoption of rifling, meant ever more powerful guns could be fitted to ironclads. The transition from ] cannon to ]s and then to ]s greatly affected the design of naval vessels.
]
From ], the American ], took the ] gun, which was designed only for a shell, to develop a gun capable of firing shot and shell, and these were used during the ] (1861-1865), for instance on USS Monitor.


=== First battles between ironclads: the U.S. Civil War ===
====Rifled Muzzle-Loaders====
], 1864]]
It was well known that a ]d gun offered greater accuracy and long range. ] was equipped with a mixture of smoothbore guns and ], which were ]s. The Royal Navy continued with RML-type guns into the 1880s: HMS Inflexible used them in the bombardment of Alexandria in 1882. Muzzle-loading rifles had the disadvantage that the barrel had to be retracted inside the ship before reloading, reducing their rate of fire. They were also at the risk of explosion from double loading.
The first use of ironclads in combat came in the ]. The U.S. Navy at the time the war broke out had no ironclads, its most powerful ships being six unarmored steam-powered frigates.<ref>Sondhaus, p. 77</ref> Since the bulk of the Navy remained loyal to the Union, the Confederacy sought to gain advantage in the naval conflict by acquiring modern armored ships. In May 1861, the Confederate Congress appropriated $2&nbsp;million dollars for the purchase of ironclads from overseas, and in July and August 1861 the Confederacy started work on construction and converting wooden ships.<ref name = "ACW">Still, "The American Civil War", pp. 70–71</ref>


On 12 October 1861, {{ship|CSS|Manassas}} became the first ironclad to enter combat, when she fought Union warships on the Mississippi during the ]. She had been converted from a commercial vessel in New Orleans for river and coastal fighting. In February 1862, the larger {{ship|CSS|Virginia}} joined the Confederate Navy, having been rebuilt at ]. Constructed on the hull of {{USS|Merrimack|1855|6}}, ''Virginia'' originally was a conventional warship made of wood, but she was converted into an iron-covered ] gunship, when she entered the ]. By this time, the Union had completed seven ironclad gunboats of the {{sclass2|City|ironclad|4}}, and was about to complete {{USS|Monitor}}, an innovative design proposed by the Swedish inventor ]. The Union was also building a large armored frigate, {{USS|New Ironsides}}, and the smaller {{USS|Galena|1862|6}}.<ref>Sondhaus, p. 78</ref>
====Breech-loading Rifles====
The slowness of the rifled muzzle-loader could be overcome by loading from the breech. The French pioneered the way with the 13.4in Model 1870, the first naval ] but it took until the 1890s for the Royal Navy to adopt this type of weapon.


] in 1864–1865 after her capture by Union forces]]
====Improvements in powder====
The first battle between ironclads happened on 9 March 1862, as the armored ''Monitor'' was deployed to protect the Union's wooden fleet from the ironclad ram ''Virginia'' and other Confederate warships.<ref>Preston, pp. 12–14</ref> In this engagement, the second day of the ], the two ironclads tried to ram one another while shells bounced off their armor. The battle attracted attention worldwide, making it clear that the wooden warship was now out of date, with the ironclads destroying them easily.<ref>Sondhaus, pp. 78–81</ref>
] expanded rapidly after combustion, therefore efficient ]s had relatively short barrels, otherwise the friction of the barrel would slow down the shell after the expansion was complete. The sharpness of the black powder explosion also meant that guns were subjected to extreme material stress. One important step was to press the powder into pellets. This kept the ingredients from separating and allowed some control of combustion by choosing the pellet size. Brown powder (black powder, incorporating charcoal that was only partially carbonized) <ref>http://footguards.tripod.com/06ARTICLES/ART28_blackpowder.htm]</ref> combusted less rapidly, which allowed longer barrels, thus allowing greater accuracy. It also put less stress on the insides of the barrel, allowing guns to last longer and to be manufactured to tighter tolerances.


The Civil War saw more ironclads built by both sides, and they played an increasing role in the naval war alongside the unarmored warships, commerce raiders and blockade runners. The Union built a large fleet of fifty ] modeled on their namesake. The Confederacy built ships designed as smaller versions of ''Virginia'', many of which saw action,<ref>Sondhaus, p. 82</ref> but their attempts to buy ironclads overseas were frustrated as European nations confiscated ships being built for the Confederacy&nbsp;– especially in Russia, the only country to openly support the Union through the war. Only ] was completed, and she arrived in Cuban waters just in time for the end of the war.<ref>Sondhaus, p. 85</ref>
The development of ] by the French inventor ] in ] was a critical influence in the evolution of the modern battleship. Eliminating the smoke greatly enhanced visibility during battle. The energy content, thus the propulsion, is much greater than that of black powder, and the rate of combustion can be controlled by adjusting the mixture. Smokeless powder also resists detonation and is much less corrosive.


Through the remainder of the war, ironclads saw action in the Union's attacks on Confederate ports. Seven Union monitors, including {{USS|Montauk|1862|6}}, as well as two other ironclads, the armored frigate ''New Ironsides'' and a light-draft {{USS|Keokuk|1862|6}}, participated in the failed ]; one was sunk. Two small ironclads, {{ship|CSS|Palmetto State}} and {{ship|CSS|Chicora}} participated in the defense of the harbor. For the later attack at ], the Union assembled four monitors as well as 11 wooden ships, facing the {{ship|CSS|Tennessee|1863|6}}, the Confederacy's most powerful ironclad, and three ]s.<ref>Sondhaus, p. 81</ref>
===Positioning of Armament===
If the main weapon was to be a gun, there was question about where to place them. More modern guns were more powerful and heavier in weight, which together with the weight of armour plating meant ships could carry fewer of them. A number of experiments were made to get the best positioning of guns for their field of fire. The traditional ] armament was ill-suited to the heavier guns, because each gun was very limited in its field of fire, particularly ahead and astern - the most important directions to close the range, and particularly for ships designed with ramming in mind.


], ], during the ]}}]]
====Centre-Battery====
On the western front, the Union built a formidable force of river ironclads, beginning with several converted riverboats and then contracting engineer ] of ], ] to build the City-class ironclads. These excellent ships were built with twin engines and a central paddle wheel, all protected by an armored casemate. They had a shallow draft, allowing them to journey up smaller tributaries, and were very well suited for river operations. Eads also produced monitors for use on the rivers, the first two of which differed from the ocean-going monitors in that they contained a paddle wheel ({{USS|Neosho|1863|6}} and {{USS|Osage|1863|6}}).{{citation needed|date=March 2024}}
Another option was the ], in which the armament was placed at the centre of the ship in an armoured citadel.
The first centre-battery ship was ] of 1865. The concentration of armament amidships mean the ship could be shorter and handier than a broadside type like ''Warrior''. The disadvantage of the centre-battery was that, while more flexible than the broadside, each gun still had a relatively restricted field of fire and few guns could fire directly ahead.


The Union ironclads played an important role in the Mississippi and tributaries by providing tremendous fire upon Confederate forts, installations and vessels with relative impunity to enemy fire. They were not as heavily armored as the ocean-going monitors of the Union, but they were adequate for their intended use. More Western Flotilla Union ironclads were sunk by ] than by enemy fire, and the most damaging fire for the Union ironclads was from shore installations, not Confederate vessels.{{citation needed|date=March 2024}}
====Turrets====
]s, following the designs of John Ericsson and British inventor Captain ] helped to solve the problem. The turret also meant that a ship no longer had to turn on the beam in order to bring the greatest number of guns to bear on a target; the turret itself was turned toward the target independent of the ship's course. By allowing an arc of fire, turrets increased the potential of a relatively small number of guns, and allowed greater calibers for the same total weight and field of fire.


=== Lissa: first fleet battle ===
The turret concept became popular after the engagement of the ] in 1861. An improved version of the turret, with the weight borne on rollers around the outside of the turret rather than on a central stalk, was introduced by Coles in the Danish warship ] and in the converted ]. However, turrets were not without problems: they demanded an unobstructed field of fire, which sat badly with the need for a full sailing rig. ], designed by Coles as an example of how this circle could be squared, capsized in 1870. ] managed to survive, but was still restricted to firing from her turrets only on the port and starboard beams.
]]]
The first fleet battle, and the first ocean battle, involving ironclad warships was the ] in 1866. Waged between the ] and ] navies, the battle pitted combined fleets of wooden ]s and ]s and ironclad warships on both sides in the largest naval battle between the battles of ] and ].<ref name="Sondhaus">Sondhaus, pp. 94–96</ref>


The Italian fleet consisted of 12 ironclads and a similar number of wooden warships, escorting transports which carried troops intending to land on the Adriatic island of Lissa. Among the Italian ironclads were seven broadside ironclad frigates, four smaller ironclads, and the newly built {{ship|Italian ironclad|Affondatore||2}}&nbsp;– a double-turreted ram. Opposing them, the Austrian navy had seven ironclad frigates.<ref name="Sondhaus"/>
==U.S. Civil War==
Ironclads reached their full potential during the U.S. Civil War. As soon as the states that formed the ] broke away from the Union, one of the first acts of the new Confederate secretary of the navy, ], was to transform the few warships the Confederacy had into ironclads, despite only one foundry (], ]) capable of making iron plate in any quantity. The first of these vessels to see action was ], a turtleback ironclad ] formerly known as the steam-tug ''Enoch Train''. She was used in combat in October 1861 against the U.S. Navy and initially proved somewhat effective until U.S. ships learned to exploit her rather weak armor. Another advantage which Mallory was quick to exploit was the former U.S. Navy yard at ], of which the fleeing Federals had failed to completely destroy at the start of the war in 1861, leaving behind guns, ammunition, stores, and a drydock which would be put to use when they raised one of the vessels sunk: the steam frigate USS ''Merrimack''.


The Austrians believed their ships to have less effective guns than their enemy, so decided to engage the Italians at close range and ram them. The Austrian fleet formed into an arrowhead formation with the ironclads in the first line, charging at the Italian ironclad squadron. In the melée which followed both sides were frustrated by the lack of damage inflicted by guns, and by the difficulty of ramming—nonetheless, the effective ramming attack being made by the Austrian flagship against the Italian attracted great attention in following years.<ref name="Sondhaus"/>
===James Eads' gunboats===
]
A riverboat captain, ], proposed to the Union government a fleet of ironclad ], which essentially were civilian riverboats stripped down of their superstructures and covered with an iron-plated casemate protecting the paddlewheel and housing a dozen guns; he would further impress the government by producing 8 of these ships within 100 days. Also known as City-Class ironclads (each vessel was re-named for a city during the conversion), all of these vessels served effectively on the major rivers during the Civil War, either as support for land troops or in individual battles of their own right.


The superior Italian fleet lost its two ironclads, {{ship|Italian ironclad|Re d'Italia||2}} and {{ship|Italian ironclad|Palestro||2}}, while the Austrian unarmored screw two-decker {{SMS|Kaiser|1858|6}} remarkably survived close actions with four Italian ironclads. The battle ensured the popularity of the ram as a weapon in European ironclads for many years, and the victory won by Austria established it as the predominant naval power in the ].<ref name="Sondhaus"/>
===Other proposals===
President ] had received other designs of ironclad warships which could be contracted out for building and service in the United States Navy. One of these was a large steam frigate bearing 18 guns and plated over with six inches of iron; she would be named ]. The second was a smaller ship, the thinly-armoured '']''. A third design would reach Lincoln only after the designer, Swedish inventor ], a man who hated the Navy after he was scapegoated following a gun accident onboard USS ''Princeton'', was talked into going before the design board bearing his model of a strange little craft he called the ''Monitor''.


The battles of the American Civil War and at Lissa were very influential on the designs and tactics of the ironclad fleets that followed. In particular, it taught a generation of naval officers the (ultimately erroneous) lesson that ramming was the best way to sink enemy ironclads.{{citation needed|date=March 2024}}
===The ''Monitor'' and the ''Merrimack''===
]
<!-- Unsourced image removed: ] (formerly ]) as drawn by Clary Ray]] -->
]


== Armament and tactics ==
The ] began on March 8, 1862, when the ''Merrimack'', raised and repaired, steamed out of the former Norfolk Navy Yard to her new life as ], her masts and main deck removed and replaced with a sloping, iron-armoured casemate bearing 22 guns. ''Virginia'' steamed toward the blockading Union fleet, ramming and sinking USS ''Cumberland'', setting fire to USS ''Congress'', and causing a third, USS ''Minnesota'', to run aground as it tried to flee. The following day as ''Virginia'' returned to finish the battle, the Union ironclad USS ''Monitor'' was waiting, setting the stage for a four-hour battle that has since become legend. Although inconclusive, the news of the battle reverberated world-wide, pointing out the stark fact that every other naval warship was rendered obsolete.
The adoption of iron armor meant that the traditional naval armament of dozens of light cannon became useless, since their shot would bounce off an armored hull. To penetrate armor, increasingly heavy guns were mounted on ships; nevertheless, the view that ] was the only way to sink an ironclad became widespread. The increasing size and weight of guns also meant a movement away from the ships mounting many guns broadside, in the manner of a ship-of-the-line, towards a handful of guns in turrets for all-round fire.{{citation needed|date=March 2024}}


=== Ram craze ===
The Battle of Hampton Roads, and the later engagements, proved that warship design had irrevocably changed. ''Monitor'', with its rotating turret and extremely low profile, was a revolutionary design for a warship. The U.S. built a number of "]", as they became known; they had engaged in battles during the Civil War with Confederate ironclads which followed the casemate design of the ''Virginia''. The use of monitor ships spread quickly throughout the world after the war. John Ericsson, the designer of the ''Monitor'', returned to his native ] and constructed similar ships for the ].
]'' cartoon from May 1876 showing ] dressed in the armor of an ironclad with the word ''Inflexible'' around her collar and addressing the sea god Neptune. Note the ram sticking out of Britannia's breast plate. The caption reads: OVER-WEIGHTED. Britannia. "Look here, Father Nep! I can't stand it much longer! Who's to 'rule the waves' in ''this'' sort of thing?"]]
From the 1860s to the 1880s many naval designers believed that the ] was again a vital weapon in naval warfare. With steam power freeing ships from the wind, iron construction increasing their structural strength, and armor making them invulnerable to shellfire, the ram seemed to offer the opportunity to strike a decisive blow.<ref name="Brown WtD">Brown, ''Warrior to Dreadnought: Warship Design and Development, 1860–1905'', p. 22</ref>


The scant damage inflicted by the guns of ''Monitor'' and ''Virginia'' at ] and the spectacular but lucky success of the Austrian flagship ] sinking the Italian ] at ] gave strength to the ramming craze.<ref>Hill, p. 35</ref> From the early 1870s to early 1880s most British naval officers thought that guns were about to be replaced as the main naval armament by the ram. Those who noted the tiny number of ships that had actually been sunk by ramming struggled to be heard.<ref name = "Beeler">Beeler, pp. 106–107</ref>
For the rest of the Civil War, the Union attempted to blockade the Confederacy, while Southern ships attempted to slip the blockade and to inderdict the Union's commerce. Monitor-type vessels played an important role in the blockade, though they were often too slow and too unseaworthy to be able to pursue blockade-runners. Ironclads also played a part in the battle for dominance of America's rivers. The Confederate ram ], a fearsome warship in its own right (having been armoured with discarded railroad ties), had the distinction of being the first vessel sunk by a ] in October 1864 while struggling for control of the ].


The revival of ramming had a significant effect on naval tactics. Since the 17th century the predominant tactic of naval warfare had been the ], where a fleet formed a long line to give it the best fire from its ] guns. This tactic was totally unsuited to ramming, and the ram threw fleet tactics into disarray. The question of how an ironclad fleet should deploy in battle to make best use of the ram was never tested in battle, and if it had been, combat might have shown that rams could only be used against ships which were already stopped dead in the water.<ref>Beeler, p. 107</ref>
Ironclads were deployed by the Union for naval attacks on Southern ports. Seven Union monitors, including ], participated in the failed attack on ]; one was sunk. Two small ironclads, ] and ] participated in the defence of the harbour. For the later attack ], the Union assembled four monitors as well as eleven wooden ships, facing the ], the Confederacy's most powerful ironclad.


The ram finally fell out of favor in the 1880s, as the same effect could be achieved with a ], with less vulnerability to quick-firing guns.<ref>Beeler, p. 146</ref>
==Other Ironclad engagements==
While ironclads spread rapidly in navies worldwide, there were few pitched naval battles involving ironclads. For most of the 19th century, there were few naval conflicts. Most European nations settled differences on land, and the ] dominated the sea to the extent that no rival power could take Britain on. The naval engagements involving ironclads normally involved second-rate naval powers.


===Chincha Islands War === === Development of naval guns ===
] on HMS ''Warrior'']]
Both sides used ironclads in the ] between ] and ] and ] in the early 1860s. The powerful Spanish ] was instrumental in destroying the fortress at El Callao in the ]. However, Peru was able to deploy two Richmond-class monitors based on American Civil War Designs, the ''Loa'' and the ''Victoria'', as well as two British-built ironclads; ''Independencia'', a centre-battery ship, and the turret ship '']''. <ref>http://members.lycos.co.uk/Juan39/THE_WAR_WITH_SPAIN.html</ref>
]
] invented by de Bange allowed the effective sealing of breeches in breech-loading guns]]
The armament of ironclads tended to become concentrated in a small number of powerful guns capable of penetrating the armor of enemy ships at range; ] and weight of guns increased markedly to achieve greater penetration. Throughout the ironclad era navies also grappled with the complexities of ] versus ] guns and ] versus ].{{citation needed|date=March 2024}}


{{HMS|Warrior|1860|6}} carried a mixture of ] and more traditional ] smoothbore guns. ''Warrior'' highlighted the challenges of picking the right armament; the breech-loaders she carried, designed by ], were intended to be the next generation of heavy armament for the Royal Navy, but were shortly withdrawn from service.<ref name="Beeler-71">Beeler, p. 71</ref>
''Numancia'' was the first ironclad to circumnavigate the world (arriving in ] on ], ], and earning the motto: "Enloricata navis que primo terram circuivit").


Breech-loading guns seemed to offer important advantages. A breech-loader could be reloaded without moving the gun, a lengthy process particularly if the gun then needed to be re-aimed. ''Warrior''{{'}}s ]s also had the virtue of being lighter than an equivalent smoothbore and, because of their rifling, more accurate.<ref name="Beeler-71"/> Nonetheless, the design was rejected because of problems which plagued breech-loaders for decades.{{citation needed|date=March 2024}}
===Battle of Lissa===
The largest battle involving ironclads was the ], in ]. Waged between the ] and ] navies, the battle pitted combined fleets of wooden ]s and ]s and ironclad warships on both sides in the largest European naval battle since the ]. The superior Italian fleet lost its two most powerful ironclads, ] and ], while the Austrian wooden-built ''Kaiser'' remarkably survived close actions with four Italian ironclads. The battle ensured the popularity of the ram as a weapon in European ironclads for many years, and the victory won by Austria-Hungary established it briefly as the predominant naval power in the ].


The weakness of the breech-loader was the obvious problem of sealing the breech. All guns are powered by the explosive conversion of a solid ] into gas. This explosion propels the shot or shell out of the front of the gun, but also imposes great stresses on the gun-barrel. If the breech—which experiences some of the greatest forces in the gun—is not entirely secure, then there is a risk that either gas will discharge through the breech or that the breech will break. This in turn reduces the ] of the weapon and can also endanger the gun crew. ''Warrior''{{'}}s Armstrong guns suffered from both problems; the shells were unable to penetrate the {{convert|4.5|in|adj=on|0}} armor of ''Gloire'', while sometimes the screw which closed the breech flew backwards out of the gun on firing. Similar problems were experienced with the breech-loading guns which became standard in the French and German navies.<ref>Beeler, pp. 72–73</ref>
===Boshin war (Japan)===
]'s first ironclad, the French-built ], in ].]]
During the 1868-1869 ] in ], ] (Japanese: 甲鉄, literally "Ironclad", later renamed ''Azuma'' 東, "East") was employed as the first ironclad warship of the ]. Built in ] in ], and acquired from the ] in February 1869, she was an ironclad ] warship. She had a decisive role in the ] in May 1869, which marked the end of the ], and the complete establishment of the ].


These problems influenced the British to equip ships with muzzle-loading weapons of increasing power until the 1880s. After a brief introduction of the 100-pounder or {{convert|9.2|in|adj=on}} smoothbore ], which weighed {{convert|6.5|LT|t}}, the Admiralty introduced 7-inch (178&nbsp;mm) rifled guns, weighing {{convert|7|LT|t|0}}. These were followed by a series of increasingly mammoth weapons—guns weighing {{convert|12|LT|t|0}}, {{convert|18|LT|t|0}}, {{convert|25|LT|t}}, {{convert|38|LT|t}} and finally {{convert|81|LT|t|0}}, with ] increasing from 8 inches (203&nbsp;mm) to 16 inches (406&nbsp;mm).{{citation needed|date=March 2024}}
===War of the Pacific===
In the ] in ], both Peru and Chile had ironclad warships, including some of those used a few years previously against Spain. While the ''Independencia'' ran aground early on, the Peruvian ironclad '']'' made an impact against Chilean shipping. She was eventually caught by two more modern Chilean centre-battery ironclads, the '']'' and the '']'' at the ].


The decision to retain muzzle-loaders until the 1880s has been criticized by historians. However, at least until the late 1870s, the British muzzle-loaders had superior performance in terms of both range and rate of fire than the French and Prussian breech-loaders, which suffered from the same problems as the first Armstrong guns.<ref>Beeler, pp. 73–75</ref>
===Bombardment of Alexandria===
The Royal Navy lead the way for most of the century in the number of ironclads in commission, but had few opportunities to test them in equal engagements. The largest engagement of ] ironclads took place with the ] in 1882. Defending British interests against ]'s Egyptian revolt, a British fleet opened fire on the fortifications around the port of Alexandria. A mixture of centre-battery and turret ships bombarded Egyption positions for most of a day, forcing the Egyptians to retreat; return fire from Egyptian guns was heavy at first, but inflicted little damage, killing only five British sailors.


From 1875 onwards, the balance between breech- and muzzle-loading changed. Captain ] invented a method of reliably sealing a breech, adopted by the French in 1873. Just as compellingly, the growing size of naval guns and consequently, their ammunition, made muzzle-loading much more complicated. With guns of such size there was no prospect of hauling in the gun for reloading, or even reloading by hand, and complicated hydraulic systems were required for reloading the gun outside the turret without exposing the crew to enemy fire. In 1882, the 81-ton, 16-inch guns of {{HMS|Inflexible|1876|6}} fired only once every 11&nbsp;minutes while bombarding ] during the ].<ref>Beeler, pp. 77–78</ref> The {{convert|102|LT|t|adj=on}}, 450&nbsp;mm (17.72&nbsp;inch) guns of the {{sclass|Duilio|ironclad|4}} could each fire a round every 15 minutes.<ref>Brown, "The Era of Uncertainty", p. 85</ref>
===The Sino-Japanese War===
The ], since its inception, had been keen to establish a modern Navy, and the ] commissioned a number of warships from British and European shipyards, first ironclads and later ]s. This force engaged a ] which was superior on paper at least at the ]. Thanks to superior short-range firepower, the Japanese fleet came off better, sinking or severely damaging eight ships and receiving serious damage to only four. The naval war was concluded the next year at the ], where the strongest remaining Chinese ships were surrendered to the Japanese.


In the Royal Navy, the switch to breech-loaders was finally made in 1879; as well as the significant advantages in terms of performance, opinion was swayed by an explosion on board {{HMS|Thunderer|1872|6}} caused by a gun being double-loaded, a problem which could only happen with a muzzle-loading gun.<ref name="Roberts">Roberts, "Warships of Steel 1879–1889", p. 98</ref>
==Use of steel==
] (1876), the first battleship to use steel as the main building material]]
Up until the 1870s navies used mixed iron and wood construction alongside pure iron. ] of 1876 used teak-backed iron for its hull in the same way as the ''Warrior''.<ref>War at Sea in the Ironclad Age, Richard Hill, ISBN 0-304-35273-X</ref>. Iron and wood were largely interchangeable: the Japanese ''Kongo'' and ''Hiei'' ordered in 1875 were sister-ships, but one was built of iron and the other of composite construction.<ref>Warships of the Imperial Japanese Navy, Jenschura Jung & Mickel, ISBN 0-85368-151-1</ref>


The caliber and weight of guns could only increase so far. The larger the gun, the slower it would be to load, the greater the stresses on the ship's hull, and the less the stability of the ship. The size of the gun peaked in the 1880s, with some of the heaviest calibers of gun ever used at sea. {{HMS|Benbow|1885|6}} carried two ], each weighing {{convert|110|LT|t|0}}. A few years afterwards, the Italians used 450&nbsp;mm (17.72&nbsp;inch) muzzle-loading guns on the ''Duilio'' class ships.{{refn|The Royal Navy did build {{convert|18|in|mm|adj=on|0}} guns for the light ] {{HMS|Furious|47|6}} though she was completed as an aircraft carrier and her guns were fitted to the {{sclass|Lord Clive|monitor|2}}s, seeing service in World War I.<ref>Parkes, p. 633</ref>|group=Note}} One consideration which became more acute was that even from the original Armstrong models, following the Crimean War, range and hitting power far exceeded simple accuracy, especially at sea where the slightest roll or pitch of the vessel as 'floating weapons-platform' could negate the advantage of rifling. American ordnance experts accordingly preferred smoothbore monsters whose round shot could at least 'skip' along the surface of the water. Actual effective combat ranges, they had learned during the Civil War, were comparable to those in the Age of Sail—though a vessel could now be smashed to pieces in only a few rounds. Smoke and the general chaos of battle only added to the problem. As a result, many naval engagements in the 'Age of the Ironclad' were still fought at ranges within easy eyesight of their targets, and well below the maximum reach of their ships' guns.{{citation needed|date=March 2024}}
By the end of the century, the advantages of steel construction were becoming apparent. Compared to ], ] allows for greater structural strength for a lower weight. ] was the first country to manufacture steel in large quantities, using the ] process. The French Navy's ], laid down in 1873 and launched in 1876 was a central ] and ] warship which became the first battleship in the world to use steel as the principal building material.<ref>Conway Marine, ''Steam, Steel and Shellfire'' (p96)</ref> At that time, steel plates still had some defects, and the outer bottom plating of the ship was made of ].


Another method of increasing firepower was to vary the projectile fired or the nature of the propellant. Early ironclads used ], which expanded rapidly after combustion; this meant ]s had relatively short barrels, to prevent the barrel itself slowing the shell. The sharpness of the black powder explosion also meant that guns were subjected to extreme stress. One important step was to press the powder into pellets, allowing a slower, more controlled explosion and a longer barrel. A further step forward was the introduction of chemically different ] which combusted more slowly again. It also put less stress on the insides of the barrel, allowing guns to last longer and to be manufactured to tighter tolerances.<ref name="Campbell">Campbell, pp. 158–169</ref>
Warships with all-steel constructions were later built by the ], with the dispatch vessels ''Iris'' and ''Mercury'', laid down in 1875 and 1876. For these, the United Kingdom initially adopted the ], but then shifted to the more economical ] steel manufacturing process, so that all subsequent ships were all-steel, other than some cruisers with composite hulls (iron/steel framing and wood planking).


The development of ], based on nitroglycerine or nitrocellulose, by the French inventor ] in 1884 was a further step allowing smaller charges of propellant with longer barrels. The guns of the ]s of the 1890s tended to be smaller in caliber compared to the ships of the 1880s, most often 12&nbsp;in (305&nbsp;mm), but progressively grew in length of barrel, making use of improved propellants to gain greater muzzle velocity.<ref name="Campbell"/>
Steel armour also allowed experiments with ] armour, for instance ].


The nature of the projectiles also changed during the ironclad period. Initially, the best armor-piercing projectile was a solid cast-iron shot. Later, shot of ], a harder iron alloy, gave better armor-piercing qualities. Eventually the ] was developed.<ref name="Campbell" />
Ironclad construction also prefigured the later debate in battleship design between tapering and 'all-or-nothing' armour design. ''Inflexible'''s armour protection was largely limited to the central citadel amidships, protecting boilers and engines , turrets and magazines, and little else.


==End of the ironclad== === Positioning of armament ===
''Main Article: ]''


==== Broadside ironclads ====
The ironclad continued to be the dominant style of warship and developed into what is sometimes called the "old" ] before being replaced by more advanced, far more seaworthy vessels known to history as ]s. Among the types of ironclad were ] (patterned after the ]), ]s, ]s and armored ]s.
{{anchor|Broadside}}
] of ]s on {{HMS|Warrior|1860|6}} of 1860]]
The first British, French and Russian ironclads, in a logical development of warship design from the long preceding era of wooden ], carried their weapons in a single line along their sides and so were called "] ironclads".<ref>Reed, pp. 4, 45–50, 68, 139, 217–221, 224–226, 228, 233</ref><ref name=ConwaysBroadside>''Conways's All the World's Fighting Ships 1860–1905'' pp. 7–11, 118–119, 173, 267–268, 286–287, 301, 337–339, 389</ref> Both {{ship|French ironclad|Gloire||2}} and {{HMS|Warrior|1860|6}} were examples of this type. Because their armor was so heavy, they could only carry a single row of guns along the main deck on each side rather than a row on each deck.{{citation needed|date=March 2024}}


A significant number of broadside ironclads were built in the 1860s, principally in Britain and France, but in smaller numbers by other powers including Italy, Austria, Russia and the United States.<ref name=ConwaysBroadside/> The advantages of mounting guns on both broadsides was that the ship could engage more than one adversary at a time, and the rigging did not impede the field of fire.<ref name="Beeler-91">Beeler, pp. 91–93</ref>
While the ironclad warship suffered from numerous flaws, the fact that it became the prominent naval weapon of its era and inspired nearly a century of progressively heavier armored warships can be ascribed to its massive advantage over the previous ] in terms of protection. While a ship of the line could resist some damage, it was terribly vulnerable to fire and found itself completely outclassed by the new developments in naval armament beginning in the middle of the ]. Combined with ] propeller propulsion, the ironclad warship could outfight, outgun, and eventually outrun even the most powerful three decker.


Broadside armament also had disadvantages, which became more serious as ironclad technology developed. Heavier guns to penetrate ever-thicker armor meant that fewer guns could be carried. Furthermore, the adoption of ramming as an important tactic meant the need for ahead and all-round fire.<ref>Noel, ''et al.''</ref> These problems led to broadside designs being superseded by designs that gave greater all-round fire, which included central-battery, turret, and barbette designs.<ref name="Beeler-91"/>
The age of the ironclad as a main line battle craft came to an end around ], as iron- or steel-hulled ] battleships were developed and deployed.


==== Turrets, batteries, and barbettes ====
==Ironclads today==
] of {{ship|French ironclad|Redoutable||2}}]]
HMS ''Warrior'' is today a fully-restored museum ship in ]. ''Huáscar'', after her capture from Peru was commissioned into the navy of Chile and is berthed at the port of Talcahuano, on display for visitors. . The Eads gunboat USS ''Cairo'' was sunk by a mine in the Yazoo River during the U.S. Civil War; she has since been raised and restored as much as possible, and is currently on display in ]. Only pieces remain of both USS ''Monitor'' and CSS ''Virginia''. ''Virginia'' was destroyed near the end of 1862 to prevent capture off Norfolk. ''Monitor'' sank in a gale off ], ] in December, 1862; her wreck was discovered in 1973. Remains from both ships, including ''Monitor's'' gun turret, are on display at the ] in ].
]


There were two main design alternatives to the broadside. In one design, the guns were placed in an armored casemate amidships: this arrangement was called the 'box-battery' or 'center-battery'. In the other, the guns could be placed on a rotating platform to give them a broad field of fire; when fully armored, this arrangement was called a ] and when partially armored or unarmored, a ].{{citation needed|date=March 2024}}
Currently, Northrup-Grumman in Newport News is constructing a full-scale replica of USS ''Monitor''. ]


The ] was the simpler and, during the 1860s and 1870s, the more popular method. Concentrating guns amidships meant the ship could be shorter and handier than a broadside type. The first full-scale center-battery ship was {{HMS|Bellerophon|1865|6}} of 1865; the French laid down centre-battery ironclads in 1865 which were not completed until 1870. Centre-battery ships often, but not always, had a recessed freeboard enabling some of their guns to fire directly ahead.<ref>Sondhaus, p. 87</ref>
==Ironclads in fiction==
*] featured the fictitious ironclad ] in ] and also used ironclads as the inspiration for the story '']''. Wells took the idea of ironclads and used it to create what were effectively proto-]s, years before they came to be used in actual warfare.


The turret was first used in naval combat on {{USS|Monitor||6}} in 1862, with a type of turret designed by the Swedish engineer ]. A competing turret design was proposed by the British inventor ] with a prototype of this installed on {{HMS|Trusty|1855|6}} in 1861 for testing and evaluation purposes. Ericsson's turret turned on a central spindle, and Coles's turned on a ring of bearings.<ref name = "Campbell"/> Turrets offered the maximum ] for the guns, but there were significant problems with their use in the 1860s. The fire arc of a turret would be considerably limited by masts and rigging, so they were unsuited to use on the earlier ocean-going ironclads. The second problem was that turrets were extremely heavy. Ericsson was able to offer the heaviest possible turret (guns and armor protection) by deliberately designing a ship with very low ]. The weight thus saved from having a high broadside above the waterline was diverted to actual guns and armor. Low freeboard, however, also meant a smaller hull and therefore a smaller capacity for coal storage—and therefore range of the vessel. In many respects, the turreted, low-freeboard ''Monitor'' and the broadside sailor HMS ''Warrior'' represented two opposite extremes in what an 'Ironclad' was all about. The most dramatic attempt to compromise these two extremes, or 'squaring this circle', was designed by Captain Cowper Phipps Coles: {{HMS|Captain|1869|6}}. It was a dangerously low freeboard turret ship, which nevertheless carried a full rig of sail and subsequently capsized not long after her launch in 1870. Her half-sister {{HMS|Monarch|1868|6}} was restricted to firing from her turrets only on the port and starboard beams. The third Royal Navy ship to combine turrets and masts was {{HMS|Inflexible|1876|6}} of 1876, which carried two turrets on either side of the center-line, allowing both to fire fore, aft and broadside.<ref>Beeler, p. 122</ref>
*] featured several ironclads — namely ] — in his novel ] which was made into a ].


A lighter alternative to the turret, particularly popular with the French navy, was the barbette. These were fixed armored towers which held a gun on a turntable. The crew was sheltered from direct fire, but vulnerable to ], for instance from shore emplacements. The barbette was lighter than the turret, needing less machinery and no roof armor. Some barbettes were stripped of their armor plate to reduce the top-weight of their ships. The barbette became widely adopted in the 1880s, and with the addition of an armored 'gun-house', transformed into the turrets of the pre-dreadnought battleships.<ref name = "Campbell"/>
*In ], Ironclads comprise the main naval force of the ].


==References== === Torpedoes ===
The ironclad age saw the development of explosive ]es as naval weapons, which helped complicate the design and tactics of ironclad fleets. The first torpedoes were static ], used extensively in the American Civil War. That conflict also saw the development of the ], an explosive charge pushed against the hull of a warship by a small boat. For the first time, a large warship faced a serious threat from a smaller one—and given the relative inefficiency of shellfire against ironclads, the threat from the spar torpedo was taken seriously. The U.S. Navy converted four of its monitors to become turretless armored spar-torpedo vessels while under construction in 1864–1865, but these vessels never saw action.<ref>Sondhaus, p. 83</ref> Another proposal, the towed or 'Harvey' torpedo, involved an explosive on a line or outrigger; either to deter a ship from ramming or to make a torpedo attack by a boat less suicidal.{{citation needed|date=March 2024}}
{{wikisourcepar|Littell's Living Age/Volume 129/Issue 1661/Crinoline for Ironclads|a description of defensive measures used by ironclads against torpedos, from Littell's Living Age, 1876}}
* {{cite book
| author= Greene, Jack and Massignani, Alessandro
| title=Ironclads At War
| publisher=Combined Publishing
| year=1998
| id=ISBN 0-938289-58-6}}
*{{cite book
| last =
| first =
| author = Gardiner, Robert and Lambert, Andrew
| coauthors =
| title = Steam, Steel and Shellfire: The Steam Warship, 1815-1905
| publisher = Book Sales
| date = 2001
| pages =
| id = ISBN 0-7858-1413-2 }}
* Brown, DK (2003). ''Warrior to Dreadnought: Warship Development 1860-1905''. Caxton Editions. ISBN 1-84067-529-2.
* Archibald, EHH (1984). ''The Fighting Ship in the Royal Navy 1897-1984''. Blandford. ISBN 0-7137-1348-8.


A more practical and influential weapon was the self-propelled or ]. Invented in 1868 and deployed in the 1870s, it formed part of the armament of ironclads of the 1880s like HMS ''Inflexible'' and the Italian {{sclass|Duilio|ironclad|4}}. The ironclad's vulnerability to the torpedo was a key part of the critique of armored warships made by the {{lang|fr|]}} school of naval thought; it appeared that any ship armored enough to prevent destruction by gunfire would be slow enough to be easily caught by torpedo. In practice, however, the ''Jeune Ecole'' was only briefly influential and the torpedo formed part of the confusing mixture of weapons possessed by ironclads.<ref>Sondhaus, p. 156</ref>
==Notes==
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<references /></div>
</div>


== Armor and construction ==
==External links==
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The first ironclads were built on wooden or iron hulls, and protected by wrought iron armor backed by thick wooden planking. Ironclads were still being built with wooden hulls into the 1870s.{{citation needed|date=March 2024}}
]


=== Hulls: iron, wood, and steel ===
]
Using ] construction for warships offered advantages for the engineering of the hull. However, unarmored iron had many military disadvantages, and offered technical problems which kept wooden hulls in use for many years, particularly for long-range cruising warships.{{citation needed|date=March 2024}}
]

]
Iron ships had first been proposed for military use in the 1820s. In the 1830s and 1840s, France, Britain and the United States had all experimented with iron-hulled but unarmored gunboats and frigates. However, the iron-hulled frigate was abandoned by the end of the 1840s, because iron hulls were more vulnerable to solid shot; iron was more brittle than wood, and iron frames more likely to fall out of shape than wood.<ref>Lambert, ''Battleships in Transition'', p. 19</ref>
]

]
The unsuitability of unarmored iron for warship hulls meant that iron was only adopted as a building material for battleships when protected by armor. However, iron gave the naval architect many advantages. Iron allowed larger ships and more flexible design, for instance the use of watertight bulkheads on the lower decks. ''Warrior'', built of iron, was longer and faster than the wooden-hulled ''Gloire''. Iron could be produced to order and used immediately, in contrast to the need to give wood a long period of ]. And, given the large quantities of wood required to build a steam warship and the falling cost of iron, iron hulls were increasingly cost-effective. The main reason for the French use of wooden hulls for the ironclad fleet built in the 1860s was that the French iron industry could not supply enough, and the main reason why Britain built its handful of wooden-hulled ironclads was to make best use of hulls already started and wood already bought.<ref>Beeler, pp. 30–36</ref>
]

]
Wooden hulls continued to be used for long-range and smaller ironclads, because iron nevertheless had a significant disadvantage. Iron hulls suffered quick ] by marine life, slowing the ships down—manageable for a European battlefleet close to ]s, but a difficulty for long-range ships. The only solution was to sheath the iron hull first in wood and then in copper, a laborious and expensive process which made wooden construction remain attractive.<ref>Beeler, pp. 32–33</ref> Iron and wood were to some extent interchangeable: the Japanese {{ship|Japanese ironclad|Kongō||2}} and {{ship|Japanese ironclad|Hiei||2}} ordered in 1875 were ], but one was built of iron and the other of composite construction.<ref>Jenschura, Jung & Mickel, p. 13</ref>
]

]
After 1872, steel started to be introduced as a material for construction. Compared to iron, ] allows for greater structural strength for a lower weight. The French Navy led the way with the use of steel in its fleet, starting with the {{ship|French ironclad|Redoutable||2}}, laid down in 1873 and launched in 1876.<ref>Roberts, "Warships of Steel 1879–1889", p. 96</ref> ''Redoutable'' nonetheless had wrought iron armor plate, and part of her exterior hull was iron rather than steel.{{citation needed|date=March 2024}}

Even though Britain led the world in steel production, the Royal Navy was slow to adopt steel warships. The ] for steel manufacture produced too many imperfections for large-scale use on ships. French manufacturers used the ] to produce adequate steel, but British technology lagged behind.<ref>Beeler, pp. 37–41</ref> The first all-steel warships built by the ] were the dispatch vessels ], laid down in 1875 and 1876.{{citation needed|date=March 2024}}

=== Armor and protection schemes ===
]

Iron-built ships used wood as part of their protection scheme. HMS ''Warrior'' was protected by 4.5&nbsp;in (114&nbsp;mm) of ] backed by 15&nbsp;in (381&nbsp;mm) of ], the strongest shipbuilding wood. The wood played two roles, preventing ] and also preventing the shock of a hit damaging the structure of the ship. Later, wood and iron were combined in 'sandwich' armor, for instance in HMS ''Inflexible''.<ref>Hill, p. 39</ref>

Steel was also an obvious material for armor. It was tested in the 1860s, but the steel of the time was too ] and disintegrated when struck by shells. Steel became practical to use when a way was found to fuse steel onto wrought iron plates, giving a form of ]. This compound armor was used by the British in ships built from the late 1870s, first for turret armor (starting with HMS ''Inflexible'') and then for all armor (starting with {{HMS|Colossus|1882|6}} of 1882).<ref>Beeler, p. 45</ref> The French and German navies adopted the innovation almost immediately, with licenses being given for the use of the 'Wilson System' of producing fused armor.<ref name = "Sondhaus 164-5">Sondhaus, pp. 164–165</ref>

The first ironclads to have all-steel armor were the two ships of the ''Duilio'' class. Though the ships were laid down in 1873 their armor was not purchased from France until 1877. The French navy decided in 1880 to adopt compound armor for its fleet, but found it limited in supply, so from 1884 the French navy was using steel armor.<ref name = "Sondhaus 164-5" /> Britain stuck to compound armor until 1889.{{citation needed|date=March 2024}}

The ultimate ironclad armor was ] nickel-steel. In 1890, the U.S. Navy tested steel armor hardened by the ] and found it superior to compound armor. For several years 'Harvey steel' was the state of the art, produced in the U.S., France, Germany, Britain, Austria and Italy. In 1894, the German firm ] developed ], which further hardened steel armor. The German {{SMS|Kaiser Friedrich III||2}}, laid down in 1895, was the first ship to benefit from the new 'Krupp armor' and the new armor was quickly adopted; the Royal Navy using it from {{HMS|Canopus|1897|6}}, laid down in 1896. By 1901 almost all new battleships used Krupp armor, though the U.S. continued to use Harvey armor alongside until the end of the decade.{{citation needed|date=March 2024}}

The equivalent strengths of the different armor plates was as follows: 15&nbsp;in (381&nbsp;mm) of wrought iron was equivalent to 12&nbsp;in (305&nbsp;mm) of either plain steel or compound iron and steel armor, and to 7.75&nbsp;in (197&nbsp;mm) of Harvey armor or 5.75&nbsp;in (146&nbsp;mm) of Krupp armor.<ref>Sondhaus, p. 166</ref>

Ironclad construction also prefigured the later debate in battleship design between tapering and 'all-or-nothing' armor design. ''Warrior'' was only semi-armored, and could have been disabled by hits on the bow and stern.<ref>Reed, pp. 45–47</ref> As the thickness of armor grew to protect ships from the increasingly heavy guns, the area of the ship which could be fully protected diminished. ''Inflexible''{{'}}s armor protection was largely limited to the central citadel amidships, protecting boilers and engines, turrets and magazines, and little else. An ingenious arrangement of cork-filled compartments and watertight bulkheads was intended to keep her stable and afloat in the event of damage to her un-armored sections.<ref>Beeler, pp. 133–134</ref>

== Propulsion: steam and sail ==
]
The first ocean-going ironclads carried masts and sails like their wooden predecessors, and these features were only gradually abandoned. Early steam engines were inefficient; the wooden steam fleet of the Royal Navy could only carry "5 to 9 days coal",<ref name="Beeler-54">Beeler, p. 54</ref> and the situation was similar with the early ironclads. ''Warrior'' also illustrates two design features which aided hybrid propulsion; she had retractable screws to reduce drag while under sail (though in practice the steam engine was run at a low throttle), and a telescopic funnel which could be folded down to the deck level.<ref>Hill, p. 44</ref>

] {{ship|French ship|Arrogante|1864|3}}]]
Ships designed for coastal warfare, like the floating batteries of the Crimea, or {{USS|Monitor}} and her sisters, dispensed with masts from the beginning. The British {{HMS|Devastation|1871|6}}, started in 1869, was the first large, ocean-going ironclad to dispense with masts. Her principal role was for combat in the English Channel and other European waters; while her coal supplies gave her enough range to cross the Atlantic, she would have had little endurance on the other side of the ocean. The ''Devastation'' and the similar ships commissioned by the British and Russian navies in the 1870s were the exception rather than the rule. Most ironclads of the 1870s retained masts, and only the Italian navy, which during that decade was focused on short-range operations in the Adriatic,<ref>Sondhaus, pp. 111–112</ref> built consistently mastless ironclads.<ref>Beeler, pp. 63–64</ref>

During the 1860s, steam engines improved with the adoption of ] steam engines, which used 30–40% less coal than earlier models. The Royal Navy decided to switch to the double-expansion engine in 1871, and by 1875 they were widespread. However, this development alone was not enough to herald the end of the mast. Whether this was due to a conservative desire to retain sails, or was a rational response to the operational and strategic situation, is a matter of debate. A steam-only fleet would require a network of coaling stations worldwide, which would need to be fortified at great expense to stop them falling into enemy hands. Just as significantly, because of unsolved problems with the technology of the boilers which provided steam for the engines, the performance of double-expansion engines was rarely as good in practice as it was in theory.<ref>Beeler, pp. 57–62</ref>
]s]]

During the 1870s the distinction grew between 'first-class ironclads' or 'battleships' on the one hand, and 'cruising ironclads' designed for long-range work on the other. The demands on first-class ironclads for very heavy armor and armament meant increasing displacement, which reduced speed under sail; and the fashion for turrets and barbettes made a sailing rig increasingly inconvenient. {{HMS|Inflexible|1876|6}}, launched in 1876 but not commissioned until 1881, was the last British battleship to carry masts, and these were widely seen as a mistake. The start of the 1880s saw the end of sailing rig on ironclad battleships.<ref name="Beeler-54"/>

Sails persisted on 'cruising ironclads' for much longer. During the 1860s, the French navy had produced the {{sclass|Alma|ironclad|5}} and {{sclass|La Galissonnière|ironclad|4}}es as small, long-range ironclads as overseas cruisers<ref>Sondhaus, p. 88</ref> and the British had responded with ships like {{HMS|Swiftsure|1870|6}} of 1870. The Russian ship {{ship|Russian cruiser|General-Admiral||2}}, laid down in 1870 and completed in 1875, was a model of a fast, long-range ironclad which was likely to be able to outrun and outfight ships like ''Swiftsure''. Even the later {{HMS|Shannon|1875|6}}, often described as the first British armored cruiser, would have been too slow to outrun ''General-Admiral''. While ''Shannon'' was the last British ship with a retractable propeller, later armored cruisers of the 1870s retained sailing rig, sacrificing speed under steam in consequence. It took until 1881 for the Royal Navy to lay down a long-range armored warship capable of catching enemy commerce raiders, {{HMS|Warspite|1884|6}}, which was completed in 1888.<ref>Beeler, p. 194</ref> While sailing rigs were obsolescent for all purposes by the end of the 1880s, rigged ships were in service until the early years of the 20th century.{{citation needed|date=March 2024}}

The final evolution of ironclad propulsion was the adoption of the triple-expansion steam engine, a further refinement which was first adopted in {{HMS|Sans Pareil|1887|6}}, laid down in 1885 and commissioned in 1891. Many ships also used a ] to get additional power from their engines, and this system was widely used until the introduction of the ] in the middle of the first decade of the Twentieth Century.<ref name="Machinery">Griffiths, pp. 176–178</ref>

== Fleets ==
While ironclads spread rapidly in navies worldwide, there were few pitched naval battles involving ironclads. Most European nations settled differences on land, and the ] struggled to maintain a deterrent parity with at least France, while providing suitable protection to Britain's commerce and colonial outposts worldwide. Ironclads remained, for the British Royal Navy, a matter of defending the British Isles first and projecting power abroad second. Those naval engagements of the latter half of the 19th century which involved ironclads normally involved colonial actions or clashes between second-rate naval powers. But these encounters were often enough to convince British policy-makers of the increasing hazards of strictly naval foreign intervention, from Hampton Roads in the American Civil War to the hardening combined defences of naval arsenals such as Kronstadt and Cherbourg.{{citation needed|date=March 2024}}

There were many types of ironclads:<ref>Conway, ''All the World's Fighting Ships 1860–1905'', Conway Maritime Press, 1979. {{ISBN|0-8317-0302-4}}.</ref>
* Seagoing ships intended to "stand in the line of battle"; the precursors of the ]{{refn|This term was still in use in the 1860s and 1870s for what we would now call 'battleships'.<ref>See Noel, ''et al''.</ref>|group=Note}}
* Coastal service and riverine vessels, including ] and ]
* Vessels intended for ] or protection of commerce, called ]

=== Navies ===
The United Kingdom possessed the largest navy in the world for the whole of the ironclad period. The ] was the second to adopt ironclad warships, and it applied them worldwide in their whole range of roles. In the age of sail, the British strategy for war depended on the Royal Navy mounting a blockade of the ports of the enemy. Because of the limited endurance of steamships, this was no longer possible, so the British at times considered the risk-laden plan of engaging an enemy fleet in harbor as soon as war broke out. To this end, the Royal Navy developed a series of 'coast-defense battleships', starting with the ''Devastation'' class. These ']' were markedly different from the other high-seas ironclads of the period and were an important precursor of the modern battleship.<ref>Beeler, p. 204</ref> As long-range monitors they could reach Bermuda unescorted, for example. However, they were still armed with only four heavy guns and were as vulnerable to mines and obstructions (and enemy monitors) as the original monitors of the Union Navy proved to be during the Civil War.{{citation needed|date=March 2024}}

The British prepared for an overwhelming mortar bombardment of Kronstadt by the close of the ], but never considered running the smoke-ridden, shallow-water gauntlet straight to St. Petersburg with ironclads. Likewise, monitors proved acutely unable to 'overwhelm' enemy fortifications single-handed during the American conflict, though their low-profile and heavy armor protection made them ideal for running artillery gauntlets. Mines and obstructions negated these advantages—a problem the British Admiralty frequently acknowledged but never countered throughout the period. The British never laid down enough ] 'battleships' to instantly overwhelm Cherbourg, Kronstadt or even New York City with gunfire. Although throughout the 1860s and 1870s the Royal Navy was still in many respects superior to its potential rivals, by the early 1880s widespread concern about the threat from France and Germany culminated in the ], which promulgated the idea of a 'two-power standard', that Britain should possess as many ships as the next two navies combined. This standard provoked aggressive shipbuilding in the 1880s and 1890s.<ref name="Kennedy">Kennedy, pp. 178–179</ref>

British ships did not participate in any major wars in the ironclad period. The Royal Navy's ironclads only saw action as part of colonial battles or one-sided engagements like the ] in 1882. Defending British interests against ]'s ], a British fleet opened fire on the fortifications around the port of Alexandria. A mixture of centre-battery and turret ships bombarded Egyptian positions for most of a day, forcing the ] to retreat; return fire from Egyptian guns was heavy at first, but inflicted little damage, killing only five British sailors.<ref>Hill, p. 185</ref> Few Egyptian guns were actually dismounted, on the other hand, and the fortifications themselves were typically left intact. Had the Egyptians actually utilised the heavy mortars that were at their disposal, they might have quickly turned the tide, for the attacking British ironclads found it easy (for accuracy's sake) to simply anchor whilst firing—perfect targets for high-angle fire upon their thinly armored topdecks.<ref>Wilson, p. 78; Brook, ''et al'', p. 332</ref>

The French navy built the first ironclad to try to gain a strategic advantage over the British, but were consistently out-built by the British. Despite taking the lead with a number of innovations like ]s and steel construction, the French navy could never match the size of the Royal Navy. In the 1870s, the construction of ironclads ceased for a while in France as the ] school of naval thought took prominence, suggesting that ]s and unarmored ] would be the future of warships. Like the British, the French navy saw little action with its ironclads; the French blockade of Germany in the ] was ineffective, as the war was settled entirely on land.<ref>Sondhaus, p. 101</ref>

Russia built a number of ironclads, generally copies of British or French designs. Nonetheless, there were real innovations from Russia; the first true type of ironclad ], ''General-Admiral'' of the 1870s, and a set of unusual but moderately-successful ] referred to as "popovkas" (for ], who conceived the design). The Russian Navy pioneered the wide-scale use of torpedo boats during the ], mainly out of necessity because of the superior numbers and quality of ironclads used by the Turkish navy.<ref>Sondhaus, pp. 122–126</ref> Russia expanded her navy in the 1880s and 1890s with modern armored cruisers and battleships, but the ships were manned by inexperienced crews and politically appointed leadership, which enhanced their defeat in the ] on 27 May 1905.<ref>Sondhaus, pp. 187–191</ref>

], where Peruvian ironclad {{ship||Huáscar|ironclad|2}} sunk the Chilean wooden corvette ]]]
The US Navy ended the Civil War with about fifty ]-type coastal ironclads; by the 1870s most of these were laid up in reserve, leaving the United States virtually without an ironclad fleet. Another five large monitors were ordered in the 1870s. The limitations of the monitor type effectively prevented the US from projecting power overseas, and until the 1890s the United States would have come off badly in a conflict with even Spain or the Latin American powers. The 1890s saw the beginning of what became the ], and it was the modern pre-Dreadnoughts and armored cruisers built in the 1890s which defeated the Spanish fleet in the ] of 1898. This started a new era of naval warfare.<ref>Sondhaus, pp. 126–128, 173–179</ref>

] being fitted after its conversion in the Callao harbour, 1864]]
Ironclads were widely used in South America. Both sides used ironclads in the ] between Spain and the combined forces of ] and ] in the early 1860s. The powerful Spanish {{ship|Spanish ironclad|Numancia||2}} participated in the ] but was unable to inflict significant damage upon the Callao defences. Besides, Peru was able to deploy two locally built ironclads based on American Civil War designs,<ref>Historia naval del Perú. Tomo IV, Valdizán Gamio, José.</ref> ''Loa'' (a wooden ship converted into a casemate ironclad) and {{ship|BAP|Victoria||2}} (a small monitor armed with a single 68-pdr gun), as well as two British-built ironclads: {{ship|Peruvian ironclad|Independencia||2}}, a centre-battery ship, and the turret ship {{ship||Huáscar|ironclad|2}}. ''Numancia'', was the first ironclad to circumnavigate the world under the command of ], arriving in ] on 20 September 1867, and earning the motto: "Enloricata navis que primo terram circuivit" ).<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Antequera Becerra |first1=Luis |date=October 2023 |title=Juan Bautista Antequera y Boadila. El héroe de la Numancia que fundó la Revista General de Marina y previó el desastre del 98 |url=https://armada.defensa.gob.es/ArmadaPortal/page/Portal/ArmadaEspannola/mardigitalrevistas/prefLang-es/02revistaGenMarina--02catalogoRGM--2023--202310-es?_pageAction=selectItem&_selectedNodeID=5817220&paramNo=000000 |journal=Revista General de Marina |volume= |issue= |pages=321–336 |doi= |access-date=}}</ref> In the ] in 1879, both Peru and Chile had ironclad warships, including some of those used a few years previously against Spain. While ''Independencia'' ran aground early on, the Peruvian ironclad {{ship||Huáscar|ironclad|2}} made a great impact against Chilean shipping, delaying Chilean ground invasion by six months. She was eventually caught by two more modern Chilean centre-battery ironclads, {{ship|Chilean ironclad|Blanco Encalada||2}} and {{ship|Chilean ironclad|Almirante Cochrane||2}} at the ] Point.<ref>Sondhaus, pp. 97–99, 127–132</ref>
]]]

Ironclads were also used from the inception of the ] (IJN). {{ship|Japanese ironclad|Kōtetsu||2}} (Japanese: 甲鉄, literally "Ironclad", later renamed Azuma 東, "East") had a decisive role in the ] in May 1869, which marked the end of the ], and the complete establishment of the ]. The IJN continued to develop its strength and commissioned a number of warships from British and European shipyards, first ironclads and later ]s. These ships engaged the Chinese ] which was superior on paper at least at the ]. Thanks to superior short-range firepower, the Japanese fleet came off better, sinking or severely damaging eight ships and receiving serious damage to only four. The naval war was concluded the next year at the ], where the strongest remaining Chinese ships were surrendered to the Japanese.<ref>Hill, p. 191</ref>

== End of the ironclad warship ==
{{main|Battleship}}
There is no clearly defined end to the ironclad, besides the transition from wood hulls to all-metal. Ironclads continued to be used in World War I. Towards the end of the 19th century, the descriptions ']' and ']' came to replace the term 'ironclad'.<ref>Beeler, p. 154, states that {{HMS|Edinburgh|1882|6}} was the first British capital ship to be routinely called a battleship.</ref>

The proliferation of ironclad battleship designs came to an end in the 1890s as navies reached a consensus on the design of battleships, producing the type known as the ]. These ships are sometimes covered in treatments of the ironclad warship. The next evolution of battleship design, the ], is never referred to as an 'ironclad'.<ref>Hill, p. 18</ref>

=== Legacy ===
]' December 1903 '']'', showing huge armored land vessels, equipped with Pedrail wheels.]]
] coined the term '']'' in a short story published in 1903, to describe fictional large ] moving on ]s.<ref></ref>

A number of ironclads have been preserved or reconstructed as museum ships.{{citation needed|date=March 2024}}
* Parts of {{USS|Monitor}} have been recovered and are being conserved and displayed at the ] in ].
* {{HMS|Warrior|1860|6}} is today a fully restored museum ship in ], England
* {{ship||Huáscar|ironclad|2}} is berthed at the port of Talcahuano, Chile, on display for visitors.
* The {{sclass2|City|ironclad|2}} {{USS|Cairo}} is currently on display in ], ].
* ] in Newport News constructed a full-scale replica of {{USS|Monitor}}. The replica was laid down in February 2005 and completed just two months later.<ref>{{Cite web |author=Northrop Grumman Newport News |title=Northrop Grumman Employees Reconstruct History with USS Monitor Replica |url=http://www.nn.northropgrumman.com/news/2005/050226_news.html |access-date=2007-05-21 |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20070219052656/http://www.nn.northropgrumman.com/news/2005/050226_news.html |archive-date = February 19, 2007|url-status=dead}}</ref>
* The Dutch ''Ramtorenschip'' (coastal ram) {{HNLMS|Buffel}} is currently under display in the ].
* The Dutch ''Ramtorenschip'' (coastal ram) {{HNLMS|Schorpioen}} is a museum ship at ].
* The complete, recovered wooden hull of {{ship|CSS|Neuse}}, a casemate ram ironclad, is on view in ], and, in another part of town on the ], the recreated ship, named CSS ''Neuse II'', is nearly built and can be visited.
* The hull of the casemate ironclad {{ship|CSS|Jackson||6}} can be seen in the ] in ].
* A replica of the {{ship|Chinese ironclad|Dingyuan}} was rebuilt in 2003 as a floating museum at Weihai.
* ], built 1867, has been partially sunk as a breakwater in Victoria, Australia, but is not preserved and is deteriorating in the elements.

==See also==

* ]

== Notes ==
{{reflist|group=Note}}

==Citations==
{{reflist|30em}}

== Bibliography ==
{{wikisource|Littell's Living Age/Volume 129/Issue 1661/Miscellany|A description of defensive measures used by ironclads against torpedoes, from Littell's Living Age, 1876}}
* Archibald, E.H.H. (1984). ''The Fighting Ship in the Royal Navy 1897–1984''. Blandford. {{ISBN|0-7137-1348-8}}.
* {{cite book|last=Ballard |first=G. A. |title=The Black Battlefleet |year=1980 |publisher=Naval Institute Press |location=Annapolis, Maryland |isbn=0-87021-924-3|author-link=George Alexander Ballard|url=https://archive.org/details/blackbattlefleet00unse|url-access=registration }}
*{{cite book |last1=Baxter |first1=James Phinney III|title=The Introduction of the Ironclad Warship |date=2001 |publisher=Naval Institute Press |location=Annapolis, Maryland |isbn=1-55750-218-8|orig-year=1933|series=Classics of Naval Literature|author-link=James Phinney Baxter III}}
* Beeler, John (2003). ''Birth of the Battleship: British Capital Ship Design 1870–1881''. London: Caxton. {{ISBN|1-84067-534-9}}. {{OCLC|52358324}}.
* {{cite journal |last1=Brook |first1=Peter |last2=Beasecker |first2=Robert |last3=Lee |first3=Anthony J. |last4=Millar|first4=Steve |title=Question 39/00: British Bombardment of Alexandria|journal=Warship International |date=2001 |volume=XXXVIII |issue=4 |pages=331–332 |issn=0043-0374|name-list-style=amp}}
*{{cite book|last1=Brown|first1=David K.|title=Before the Ironclad: Warship Design and Development 1815–1860 |date=2015 |publisher=Naval Institute Press |location=Annapolis, Maryland |isbn=978-1-59114-605-6|author-link=David K. Brown}}
* {{cite book|editor1-last=Gardiner|editor1-first= Robert|title=Steam, Steel and Shellfire: The Steam Warship 1815–1905 |series=Conway's History of the Ship|year=1992|publisher=Conway Maritime Press |location=London |isbn=1-55750-774-0|chapter=The Era of Uncertainty|author-last=Brown|author-first=David K.|pages=75–94}}
*{{cite book |last1=Brown |first1=David K. |title=''Warrior'' to ''Dreadnought'': Warship Development, 1860–1905 |date=1997 |publisher=Chatham Publishing |location=London |isbn=1-86176-022-1}}
* {{cite book|editor1-last=Gardiner|editor1-first= Robert|title=Steam, Steel and Shellfire: The Steam Warship 1815–1905 |series=Conway's History of the Ship|year=1992|publisher=Conway Maritime Press |location=London |isbn=1-55750-774-0|chapter=Naval Armaments and Armour|author-last=Campbell|author-first=John|pages=158–169}}
*{{cite book|last1=Canney|first1=Donald L.|title=The Confederate Steam Navy 1861–1865 |date=2015 |publisher=Schiffer Publishing|location=Atglen, Pennsylvania |isbn=978-0-7643-4824-2}}
* {{cite book |last=Canney |first=Donald L. |title=The Old Steam Navy |publisher=Naval Institute Press |location=Annapolis, Maryland |year=1993 |volume=2: The Ironclads, 1842–1885 |isbn=0-87021-586-8}}
* Fuller, Howard J. (2008). ''Clad in Iron: The American Civil War and the Challenge of British Naval Power''. Westport, Connecticut: Praeger Security International. {{ISBN|0-313-34590-2}}. {{OCLC|171549041}}.
*{{cite book |last1=Fuller|first1=Howard J.|title=Turret Versus Broadside: An Anatomy of British Naval Prestige, Revolution and Disaster 1860–1870|date=2020|location=Warwick, UK |isbn=978-1-913336-22-6 |publisher=Helion|series=Wolverhampton Military Studies}}
*{{cite book|last1=Greene|first1=Jack|last2=Massignani|first2=Alessandro|title=Ironclads at War: The Origin and Development of the Armored Warship, 1854–1891|year=1998|publisher=Combined Publishing |location=Conshohocken, Pennsylvania|isbn=0-938289-58-6|name-list-style=amp}}
* {{cite book|editor1-last=Gardiner|editor1-first= Robert|title=Steam, Steel and Shellfire: The Steam Warship 1815–1905 |series=Conway's History of the Ship|year=1992|publisher=Conway Maritime Press |location=London |isbn=1-55750-774-0|chapter=Warship Machinery|author-last=Griffiths|author-first=Denis|pages=170–178}}
*{{cite book |last1=Hill |first1=J. Richard, Rear Admiral |title=War at Sea in the Ironclad age |date=2000 |publisher=Cassell |location=London |isbn=0-304-35273-X|author-link=J. Richard Hill |url=https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780304352739 |url-access=registration }}
*{{cite book|last1=Jentschura|first1=Hansgeorg|first2=Dieter|last2=Jung|first3=Peter|last3= Mickel|year=1977 |title=Warships of the Imperial Japanese Navy, 1869–1945|publisher=United States Naval Institute|location=Annapolis, Maryland|isbn=0-87021-893-X|name-list-style=amp}}
*{{cite book |last1=Kennedy|first1=Paul M.|title=The Rise and Fall of British Naval Mastery |date=1985 |publisher=Macmillan |location=Houndmills, UK |isbn=0-333-35094-4|author-link=Paul Kennedy |url=https://archive.org/details/blackbattlefleet00unse |url-access=registration }}
*{{Cite book |title=Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships 1860–1905 |date=1979 |publisher=Mayflower Books |others=Roger Chesneau, Eugène M. Koleśnik, N. J. M. Campbell |isbn=0-8317-0302-4 |edition=1st American |location=New York |oclc=4775646}}
* ] (1984). ''Battleships in Transition: The Creation of the Steam Battlefleet 1815–1860''. London: Conway Maritime Press. {{ISBN|0-85177-315-X}}.
* {{cite book|editor1-last=Gardiner|editor1-first= Robert|title=Steam, Steel and Shellfire: The Steam Warship 1815–1905 |series=Conway's History of the Ship|year=1992|publisher=Conway Maritime Press |location=London |isbn=1-55750-774-0|chapter=Iron Hulls and Armour Plate|author-last=Lambert|author-first=Andrew|pages=47–60}}
* {{cite book|editor1-last=Gardiner|editor1-first= Robert|title=Steam, Steel and Shellfire: The Steam Warship 1815–1905 |series=Conway's History of the Ship|year=1992|publisher=Conway Maritime Press |location=London |isbn=1-55750-774-0|chapter=The Screw Propeller Warship|author-last=Lambert|author-first=Andrew|pages=30–46}}
* {{cite book
|last1=Langensiepen
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|last2=Güleryüz
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|year=1995
|title=The Ottoman Steam Navy 1828–1923
|publisher=Conway Maritime Press
|location=London
|isbn=978-0-85177-610-1
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* ] ''et al''. ''The Gun, Ram and Torpedo, Manoeuvres and Tactics of a Naval Battle of the Present Day''. 2nd edition, pub. Griffin 1885. {{OCLC|57209664}}.
* Northrop Grumman Newport News, . Retrieved 2007-05-21.
*{{cite book |last=Parkes |first=Oscar |title=British Battleships |publisher=Naval Institute Press |location=Annapolis, Maryland |year=1990|orig-year=1957 |isbn=1-55750-075-4|author-link=Oscar Parkes}}
*{{cite book |last1=Quarstein|first1=John V.|title=A History of Ironclads: The Power of Iron Over Wood |date=2006 |publisher=History Press |location=Charleston, South Carolina |isbn=978-1-59629-118-8}}
* ] (1869). ''Our Ironclad Ships, their Qualities, Performance and Cost''. John Murray.
* {{cite book|editor1-last=Gardiner|editor1-first= Robert|title=Steam, Steel and Shellfire: The Steam Warship 1815–1905 |series=Conway's History of the Ship|year=1992|publisher=Conway Maritime Press |location=London |isbn=1-55750-774-0|chapter=Warships of Steel 1879–1889|author-last=Roberts|author-first=John|pages=95–111}}
* {{cite book
|last=Roberts
|first=Stephen
|title=French Warships in the Age of Steam 1859–1914
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*{{cite book |last1=Sandler |first1=Stanley |title=Battleships: An Illustrated History of Their Impact |date=2004 |publisher=ABC-CLIO |isbn=1-8510-9410-5}}
* Sandler, Stanley (1979). ''Emergence of the Modern Capital Ship''. Newark, Delaware: Associated University Presses. {{ISBN|0-87413-119-7}}. {{OCLC|4498820}}.
* {{cite book|last=Silverstone|first=Paul H.|title=Directory of the World's Capital Ships|year=1984 |publisher=Hippocrene Books|location=New York|isbn=0-88254-979-0}}
* Sondhaus, Lawrence (2001). ''Naval Warfare 1815–1914''. London: Routledge. {{ISBN|0-415-21478-5}}.
* {{cite book|editor1-last=Gardiner|editor1-first= Robert|title=Steam, Steel and Shellfire: The Steam Warship 1815–1905 |series=Conway's History of the Ship|year=1992|publisher=Conway Maritime Press |location=London |isbn=1-55750-774-0|chapter=The American Civil War|author-last=Still|author-first=William N.|pages=61–74|author-link=William N. Still Jr.}}
*{{cite book |last1=Wilson |first1=H. W. |title=Battleships in Action |date=1995 |publisher=Naval Institute Press |location=Annapolis, Maryland |isbn=1-55750-061-4|volume=1|orig-year=1926}}
* {{cite book |title= The Sail and Steam Navy List: All the Ships of the Royal Navy 1815–1889|last1= Winfield |first1=Rif | last2 = Lyon|first2= David | year = 2004 | publisher = Chatham Publishing |location=London | isbn = 978-1-86176-032-6 | oclc = 52620555|name-list-style=amp }}

== External links ==
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Latest revision as of 23:22, 15 December 2024

Steam-propelled warship protected by armor plates "Ironclad" and "Broadside ironclad" redirect here. For other uses, see Ironclad (disambiguation). For pre-modern armored ships, see naval armour.

The first battle between ironclads: CSS Virginia (left) vs. USS Monitor, in the March 1862 Battle of Hampton Roads

An ironclad was a steam-propelled warship protected by steel or iron armor constructed from 1859 to the early 1890s. The ironclad was developed as a result of the vulnerability of wooden warships to explosive or incendiary shells. The first ironclad battleship, Gloire, was launched by the French Navy in November 1859, narrowly preempting the British Royal Navy. However, Britain built the first completely iron-hulled warships.

They were first used in warfare in 1862 during the American Civil War, when ironclads operated against wooden ships and, in a historic confrontation, against each other at the Battle of Hampton Roads in Virginia. Their performance demonstrated that the ironclad had replaced the unarmored ship of the line as the most powerful warship afloat. Ironclad gunboats became very successful in the American Civil War.

Ironclads were designed for several uses, including as high-seas battleships, long-range cruisers, and coastal defense ships. Rapid development of warship design in the late 19th century transformed the ironclad from a wooden-hulled vessel that carried sails to supplement its steam engines into the steel-built, turreted battleships, and cruisers familiar in the 20th century. This change was pushed forward by the development of heavier naval guns, more sophisticated steam engines, and advances in ferrous metallurgy that made steel shipbuilding possible.

The quick pace of change meant that many ships were obsolete almost as soon as they were finished and that naval tactics were in a state of flux. Many ironclads were built to make use of the naval ram, the torpedo, or sometimes both (as in the case with smaller ships and later torpedo boats), which several naval designers considered the important weapons of naval combat. There is no clear end to the ironclad period, but toward the end of the 1890s, the term ironclad dropped out of use. New ships were increasingly constructed to a standard pattern and designated as battleships or armored cruisers.

Development

The ironclad became technically feasible and tactically necessary because of developments in shipbuilding in the first half of the 19th century. According to naval historian J. Richard Hill: "The (ironclad) had three chief characteristics: a metal-skinned hull, steam propulsion and a main armament of guns capable of firing explosive shells. It is only when all three characteristics are present that a fighting ship can properly be called an ironclad." Each of these developments was introduced separately in the decade before the first ironclads.

Steam propulsion

Napoléon (1850), the first steam battleship

In the 18th and early 19th centuries, fleets had relied on two types of major warship, the ship of the line and the frigate. The first major change to these types was the introduction of steam power for propulsion. While paddle steamer warships had been used from the 1830s onward, steam propulsion only became suitable for major warships after the adoption of the screw propeller in the 1840s.

Steam-powered screw frigates were built in the mid-1840s, and at the end of the decade the French Navy introduced steam power to its line of battle. Napoleon III's ambition to gain greater influence in Europe required a sustained challenge to the British at sea. The first purpose-built steam battleship was the 90-gun Napoléon in 1850. Napoléon was armed as a conventional ship-of-the-line, but her steam engines could give her a speed of 12 knots (22 km/h; 14 mph), regardless of the wind conditions: a potentially decisive advantage in a naval engagement.

The introduction of the steam ship-of-the-line led to a building competition between France and Britain. Eight sister ships to Napoléon were built in France over a period of ten years, but the United Kingdom soon managed to take the lead in production. Altogether, France built ten new wooden steam battleships and converted 28 from older ships of the line, while the United Kingdom built 18 and converted 41.

Explosive shells

Further information: Paixhans gun
A Paixhans naval shell gun. 1860 engraving

The era of the wooden steam ship-of-the-line was brief, because of new, more powerful naval guns. In the 1820s and 1830s, warships began to mount increasingly heavy guns, replacing 18- and 24-pounder guns with 32-pounders on sailing ships-of-the-line and introducing 68-pounders on steamers. Then, the first shell guns firing explosive shells were introduced following their development by the French Général Henri-Joseph Paixhans. By the 1840s they were part of the standard armament for naval powers including the French Navy, Royal Navy, Imperial Russian Navy and United States Navy.

It is often held that the power of explosive shells to smash wooden hulls, as demonstrated by the Russian destruction of an Ottoman squadron at the Battle of Sinop, spelled the end of the wooden-hulled warship. The more practical threat to wooden ships was from conventional cannon firing red-hot shot, which could lodge in the hull and cause a fire or ammunition explosion. Some navies even experimented with hollow shot filled with molten metal for extra incendiary power.

Iron armor

Main article: Floating battery
French Navy ironclad floating battery Lave, 1854. This ironclad, together with the similar Tonnante and Dévastation, vanquished Russian land batteries at the Battle of Kinburn (1855).
Mexican frigate Guadalupe 1842

The use of wrought iron instead of wood as the primary material of ships' hulls began in the 1830s; the first "warship" with an iron hull was the gunboat Nemesis, built by Jonathan Laird of Birkenhead for the East India Company in 1839. There followed, also from Laird, the first full-sized warship with a metal hull, the 1842 steam frigate Guadalupe for the Mexican Navy. The latter ship performed well during the Naval Battle of Campeche, with her captain reporting that he thought that there were fewer iron splinters from Guadalupe's hull than from a wooden hull.

Encouraged by the positive reports of the iron hulls of those ships in combat, the Admiralty ordered a series of experiments to evaluate what happened when thin iron hulls were struck by projectiles, both solid shot and hollow shells, beginning in 1845 and lasting through 1851. Critics like Lieutenant-general Sir Howard Douglas believed that the splinters from the hull were even more dangerous than those from wooden hulls and the tests partially confirmed this belief. What was ignored was that 14 inches (356 mm) of wood backing the iron would stop most of the splinters from penetrating and that relatively thin plates of iron backed by the same thickness of wood would generally cause shells to split open and fail to detonate. One factor in the performance of wrought iron during these tests that was not understood by metallurgists of the day was that wrought iron begins to become brittle at temperatures below 20 °C (68 °F). Many of the tests were conducted at temperatures below this while the battles were fought in tropical climates.

The early experimental results seemed to support the critics and party politics came into play as the Whig First Russell ministry replaced the Tory Second Peel Ministry in 1846. The new administration sided with the critics and ordered that the four iron-hulled propeller frigates ordered by the Tories be converted into troopships. No iron warships would be ordered until the beginning of the Crimean War in 1854.

Following the demonstration of the power of explosive shells against wooden ships at the Battle of Sinop, and fearing that his own ships would be vulnerable to the Paixhans guns of Russian fortifications in the Crimean War, Emperor Napoleon III ordered the development of light-draft floating batteries, equipped with heavy guns and protected by heavy armor. Experiments made during the first half of 1854 proved highly satisfactory, and on 17 July 1854, the French communicated to the British Government that a solution had been found to make gun-proof vessels and that plans would be communicated. After tests in September 1854, the British Admiralty agreed to build five armored floating batteries on the French plans.

The French floating batteries were deployed in 1855 as a supplement to the wooden steam battle fleet in the Crimean War. The role of the battery was to assist unarmored mortar and gunboats bombarding shore fortifications. The French used three of their ironclad batteries (Lave, Tonnante and Dévastation) in 1855 against the defenses at the Battle of Kinburn on the Black Sea, where they were effective against Russian shore defences. They would later be used again during the Italian war in the Adriatic in 1859. The British floating batteries Glatton and Meteor arrived too late to participate to the action at Kinburn. The British planned to use theirs in the Baltic Sea against the well-fortified Russian naval base at Kronstadt.

The batteries have a claim to the title of the first ironclad warships but they were capable of only 4 knots (7.4 km/h; 4.6 mph) under their own power: they operated under their own power at the Battle of Kinburn, but had to be towed for long-range transit. They were also arguably marginal to the work of the navy. The brief success of the floating ironclad batteries convinced France to begin work on armored warships for their battlefleet.

Early ironclad ships and battles

Model of the French Gloire (1858), the first ocean-going ironclad

By the end of the 1850s it was clear that France was unable to match British building of steam warships, and to regain the strategic initiative a dramatic change was required. The result was the first ocean-going ironclad, Gloire, begun in 1857 and launched in 1859. Gloire's wooden hull was modelled on that of a steam ship of the line, reduced to one deck, and sheathed in iron plates 4.5 inches (114 mm) thick. She was propelled by a steam engine, driving a single screw propeller for a speed of 13 knots (24 km/h; 15 mph). She was armed with thirty-six 6.4-inch (160 mm) rifled guns. France proceeded to construct 16 ironclad warships, including two sister ships to Gloire, and the only two-decked broadside ironclads ever built, Magenta and Solférino.

HMS Warrior (1860), Britain's first seagoing ironclad warship

The Royal Navy had not been keen to sacrifice its advantage in steam ships of the line, but was determined that the first British ironclad would outmatch the French ships in every respect, particularly speed. A fast ship would have the advantage of being able to choose a range of engagement that could make her invulnerable to enemy fire. The British specification was more a large, powerful frigate than a ship-of-the-line. The requirement for speed meant a very long vessel, which had to be built from iron. The result was the construction of two Warrior-class ironclads; HMS Warrior and HMS Black Prince. The ships had a successful design, though there were necessarily compromises between 'sea-keeping', strategic range and armor protection. Their weapons were more effective than those of Gloire, and with the largest set of steam engines yet fitted to a ship, they could steam at 14.3 knots (26.5 km/h). Yet the Gloire and her sisters had full iron-armor protection along the waterline and the battery itself.

The British Warrior and Black Prince (but also the smaller Defence and Resistance) were obliged to concentrate their armor in a central "citadel" or "armoured box", leaving many main deck guns and the fore and aft sections of the vessel unprotected. The use of iron in the construction of Warrior also came with some drawbacks; iron hulls required more regular and intensive repairs than wooden hulls, and iron was more susceptible to fouling by marine life.

By 1862, navies across Europe had adopted ironclads. Britain and France each had sixteen either completed or under construction, though the British vessels were larger. Austria, Italy, Russia, and Spain were also building ironclads. However, the first battles using the new ironclad ships took place during the American Civil War, between Union and Confederate ships in 1862. These were markedly different from the broadside-firing, masted designs of Gloire and Warrior. The clash of the Italian and Austrian fleets at the Battle of Lissa (1866), also had an important influence on the development of ironclad design.

First battles between ironclads: the U.S. Civil War

Canonicus-class monitor USS Mahopac on the Appomattox River, 1864

The first use of ironclads in combat came in the U.S. Civil War. The U.S. Navy at the time the war broke out had no ironclads, its most powerful ships being six unarmored steam-powered frigates. Since the bulk of the Navy remained loyal to the Union, the Confederacy sought to gain advantage in the naval conflict by acquiring modern armored ships. In May 1861, the Confederate Congress appropriated $2 million dollars for the purchase of ironclads from overseas, and in July and August 1861 the Confederacy started work on construction and converting wooden ships.

On 12 October 1861, CSS Manassas became the first ironclad to enter combat, when she fought Union warships on the Mississippi during the Battle of the Head of Passes. She had been converted from a commercial vessel in New Orleans for river and coastal fighting. In February 1862, the larger CSS Virginia joined the Confederate Navy, having been rebuilt at Norfolk. Constructed on the hull of USS Merrimack, Virginia originally was a conventional warship made of wood, but she was converted into an iron-covered casemate ironclad gunship, when she entered the Confederate Navy. By this time, the Union had completed seven ironclad gunboats of the City class, and was about to complete USS Monitor, an innovative design proposed by the Swedish inventor John Ericsson. The Union was also building a large armored frigate, USS New Ironsides, and the smaller USS Galena.

The Confederate ironclad Atlanta on the James River in 1864–1865 after her capture by Union forces

The first battle between ironclads happened on 9 March 1862, as the armored Monitor was deployed to protect the Union's wooden fleet from the ironclad ram Virginia and other Confederate warships. In this engagement, the second day of the Battle of Hampton Roads, the two ironclads tried to ram one another while shells bounced off their armor. The battle attracted attention worldwide, making it clear that the wooden warship was now out of date, with the ironclads destroying them easily.

The Civil War saw more ironclads built by both sides, and they played an increasing role in the naval war alongside the unarmored warships, commerce raiders and blockade runners. The Union built a large fleet of fifty monitors modeled on their namesake. The Confederacy built ships designed as smaller versions of Virginia, many of which saw action, but their attempts to buy ironclads overseas were frustrated as European nations confiscated ships being built for the Confederacy – especially in Russia, the only country to openly support the Union through the war. Only CSS Stonewall was completed, and she arrived in Cuban waters just in time for the end of the war.

Through the remainder of the war, ironclads saw action in the Union's attacks on Confederate ports. Seven Union monitors, including USS Montauk, as well as two other ironclads, the armored frigate New Ironsides and a light-draft USS Keokuk, participated in the failed attack on Charleston; one was sunk. Two small ironclads, CSS Palmetto State and CSS Chicora participated in the defense of the harbor. For the later attack at Mobile Bay, the Union assembled four monitors as well as 11 wooden ships, facing the CSS Tennessee, the Confederacy's most powerful ironclad, and three gunboats.

City-class ironclads off Cairo, Illinois, during the American Civil War

On the western front, the Union built a formidable force of river ironclads, beginning with several converted riverboats and then contracting engineer James Eads of St. Louis, Missouri to build the City-class ironclads. These excellent ships were built with twin engines and a central paddle wheel, all protected by an armored casemate. They had a shallow draft, allowing them to journey up smaller tributaries, and were very well suited for river operations. Eads also produced monitors for use on the rivers, the first two of which differed from the ocean-going monitors in that they contained a paddle wheel (USS Neosho and USS Osage).

The Union ironclads played an important role in the Mississippi and tributaries by providing tremendous fire upon Confederate forts, installations and vessels with relative impunity to enemy fire. They were not as heavily armored as the ocean-going monitors of the Union, but they were adequate for their intended use. More Western Flotilla Union ironclads were sunk by torpedoes (mines) than by enemy fire, and the most damaging fire for the Union ironclads was from shore installations, not Confederate vessels.

Lissa: first fleet battle

The fleets engaging for the Battle of Lissa

The first fleet battle, and the first ocean battle, involving ironclad warships was the Battle of Lissa in 1866. Waged between the Austrian and Italian navies, the battle pitted combined fleets of wooden frigates and corvettes and ironclad warships on both sides in the largest naval battle between the battles of Navarino and Tsushima.

The Italian fleet consisted of 12 ironclads and a similar number of wooden warships, escorting transports which carried troops intending to land on the Adriatic island of Lissa. Among the Italian ironclads were seven broadside ironclad frigates, four smaller ironclads, and the newly built Affondatore – a double-turreted ram. Opposing them, the Austrian navy had seven ironclad frigates.

The Austrians believed their ships to have less effective guns than their enemy, so decided to engage the Italians at close range and ram them. The Austrian fleet formed into an arrowhead formation with the ironclads in the first line, charging at the Italian ironclad squadron. In the melée which followed both sides were frustrated by the lack of damage inflicted by guns, and by the difficulty of ramming—nonetheless, the effective ramming attack being made by the Austrian flagship against the Italian attracted great attention in following years.

The superior Italian fleet lost its two ironclads, Re d'Italia and Palestro, while the Austrian unarmored screw two-decker SMS Kaiser remarkably survived close actions with four Italian ironclads. The battle ensured the popularity of the ram as a weapon in European ironclads for many years, and the victory won by Austria established it as the predominant naval power in the Adriatic.

The battles of the American Civil War and at Lissa were very influential on the designs and tactics of the ironclad fleets that followed. In particular, it taught a generation of naval officers the (ultimately erroneous) lesson that ramming was the best way to sink enemy ironclads.

Armament and tactics

The adoption of iron armor meant that the traditional naval armament of dozens of light cannon became useless, since their shot would bounce off an armored hull. To penetrate armor, increasingly heavy guns were mounted on ships; nevertheless, the view that ramming was the only way to sink an ironclad became widespread. The increasing size and weight of guns also meant a movement away from the ships mounting many guns broadside, in the manner of a ship-of-the-line, towards a handful of guns in turrets for all-round fire.

Ram craze

Punch cartoon from May 1876 showing Britannia dressed in the armor of an ironclad with the word Inflexible around her collar and addressing the sea god Neptune. Note the ram sticking out of Britannia's breast plate. The caption reads: OVER-WEIGHTED. Britannia. "Look here, Father Nep! I can't stand it much longer! Who's to 'rule the waves' in this sort of thing?"

From the 1860s to the 1880s many naval designers believed that the ram was again a vital weapon in naval warfare. With steam power freeing ships from the wind, iron construction increasing their structural strength, and armor making them invulnerable to shellfire, the ram seemed to offer the opportunity to strike a decisive blow.

The scant damage inflicted by the guns of Monitor and Virginia at Hampton Roads and the spectacular but lucky success of the Austrian flagship SMS Erzherzog Ferdinand Max sinking the Italian Re d'Italia at Lissa gave strength to the ramming craze. From the early 1870s to early 1880s most British naval officers thought that guns were about to be replaced as the main naval armament by the ram. Those who noted the tiny number of ships that had actually been sunk by ramming struggled to be heard.

The revival of ramming had a significant effect on naval tactics. Since the 17th century the predominant tactic of naval warfare had been the line of battle, where a fleet formed a long line to give it the best fire from its broadside guns. This tactic was totally unsuited to ramming, and the ram threw fleet tactics into disarray. The question of how an ironclad fleet should deploy in battle to make best use of the ram was never tested in battle, and if it had been, combat might have shown that rams could only be used against ships which were already stopped dead in the water.

The ram finally fell out of favor in the 1880s, as the same effect could be achieved with a torpedo, with less vulnerability to quick-firing guns.

Development of naval guns

Breech-loading 110-pounder Armstrong gun on HMS Warrior
The reloading mechanism onboard HMS Inflexible
The obturator invented by de Bange allowed the effective sealing of breeches in breech-loading guns

The armament of ironclads tended to become concentrated in a small number of powerful guns capable of penetrating the armor of enemy ships at range; calibre and weight of guns increased markedly to achieve greater penetration. Throughout the ironclad era navies also grappled with the complexities of rifled versus smoothbore guns and breech-loading versus muzzle-loading.

HMS Warrior carried a mixture of 110-pounder 7-inch (178 mm) breech-loading rifles and more traditional 68-pounder smoothbore guns. Warrior highlighted the challenges of picking the right armament; the breech-loaders she carried, designed by Sir William Armstrong, were intended to be the next generation of heavy armament for the Royal Navy, but were shortly withdrawn from service.

Breech-loading guns seemed to offer important advantages. A breech-loader could be reloaded without moving the gun, a lengthy process particularly if the gun then needed to be re-aimed. Warrior's Armstrong guns also had the virtue of being lighter than an equivalent smoothbore and, because of their rifling, more accurate. Nonetheless, the design was rejected because of problems which plagued breech-loaders for decades.

The weakness of the breech-loader was the obvious problem of sealing the breech. All guns are powered by the explosive conversion of a solid propellant into gas. This explosion propels the shot or shell out of the front of the gun, but also imposes great stresses on the gun-barrel. If the breech—which experiences some of the greatest forces in the gun—is not entirely secure, then there is a risk that either gas will discharge through the breech or that the breech will break. This in turn reduces the muzzle velocity of the weapon and can also endanger the gun crew. Warrior's Armstrong guns suffered from both problems; the shells were unable to penetrate the 4.5-inch (114 mm) armor of Gloire, while sometimes the screw which closed the breech flew backwards out of the gun on firing. Similar problems were experienced with the breech-loading guns which became standard in the French and German navies.

These problems influenced the British to equip ships with muzzle-loading weapons of increasing power until the 1880s. After a brief introduction of the 100-pounder or 9.2-inch (230 mm) smoothbore Somerset Gun, which weighed 6.5 long tons (6.6 t), the Admiralty introduced 7-inch (178 mm) rifled guns, weighing 7 long tons (7 t). These were followed by a series of increasingly mammoth weapons—guns weighing 12 long tons (12 t), 18 long tons (18 t), 25 long tons (25 t), 38 long tons (39 t) and finally 81 long tons (82 t), with caliber increasing from 8 inches (203 mm) to 16 inches (406 mm).

The decision to retain muzzle-loaders until the 1880s has been criticized by historians. However, at least until the late 1870s, the British muzzle-loaders had superior performance in terms of both range and rate of fire than the French and Prussian breech-loaders, which suffered from the same problems as the first Armstrong guns.

From 1875 onwards, the balance between breech- and muzzle-loading changed. Captain de Bange invented a method of reliably sealing a breech, adopted by the French in 1873. Just as compellingly, the growing size of naval guns and consequently, their ammunition, made muzzle-loading much more complicated. With guns of such size there was no prospect of hauling in the gun for reloading, or even reloading by hand, and complicated hydraulic systems were required for reloading the gun outside the turret without exposing the crew to enemy fire. In 1882, the 81-ton, 16-inch guns of HMS Inflexible fired only once every 11 minutes while bombarding Alexandria during the Urabi Revolt. The 102-long-ton (104 t), 450 mm (17.72 inch) guns of the Duilio class could each fire a round every 15 minutes.

In the Royal Navy, the switch to breech-loaders was finally made in 1879; as well as the significant advantages in terms of performance, opinion was swayed by an explosion on board HMS Thunderer caused by a gun being double-loaded, a problem which could only happen with a muzzle-loading gun.

The caliber and weight of guns could only increase so far. The larger the gun, the slower it would be to load, the greater the stresses on the ship's hull, and the less the stability of the ship. The size of the gun peaked in the 1880s, with some of the heaviest calibers of gun ever used at sea. HMS Benbow carried two 16.25-inch (413 mm) breech-loading guns, each weighing 110 long tons (112 t). A few years afterwards, the Italians used 450 mm (17.72 inch) muzzle-loading guns on the Duilio class ships. One consideration which became more acute was that even from the original Armstrong models, following the Crimean War, range and hitting power far exceeded simple accuracy, especially at sea where the slightest roll or pitch of the vessel as 'floating weapons-platform' could negate the advantage of rifling. American ordnance experts accordingly preferred smoothbore monsters whose round shot could at least 'skip' along the surface of the water. Actual effective combat ranges, they had learned during the Civil War, were comparable to those in the Age of Sail—though a vessel could now be smashed to pieces in only a few rounds. Smoke and the general chaos of battle only added to the problem. As a result, many naval engagements in the 'Age of the Ironclad' were still fought at ranges within easy eyesight of their targets, and well below the maximum reach of their ships' guns.

Another method of increasing firepower was to vary the projectile fired or the nature of the propellant. Early ironclads used black powder, which expanded rapidly after combustion; this meant cannons had relatively short barrels, to prevent the barrel itself slowing the shell. The sharpness of the black powder explosion also meant that guns were subjected to extreme stress. One important step was to press the powder into pellets, allowing a slower, more controlled explosion and a longer barrel. A further step forward was the introduction of chemically different brown powder which combusted more slowly again. It also put less stress on the insides of the barrel, allowing guns to last longer and to be manufactured to tighter tolerances.

The development of smokeless powder, based on nitroglycerine or nitrocellulose, by the French inventor Paul Vielle in 1884 was a further step allowing smaller charges of propellant with longer barrels. The guns of the pre-Dreadnought battleships of the 1890s tended to be smaller in caliber compared to the ships of the 1880s, most often 12 in (305 mm), but progressively grew in length of barrel, making use of improved propellants to gain greater muzzle velocity.

The nature of the projectiles also changed during the ironclad period. Initially, the best armor-piercing projectile was a solid cast-iron shot. Later, shot of chilled iron, a harder iron alloy, gave better armor-piercing qualities. Eventually the armor-piercing shell was developed.

Positioning of armament

Broadside ironclads

The conventional broadside of 68-pounders on HMS Warrior of 1860

The first British, French and Russian ironclads, in a logical development of warship design from the long preceding era of wooden ships of the line, carried their weapons in a single line along their sides and so were called "broadside ironclads". Both Gloire and HMS Warrior were examples of this type. Because their armor was so heavy, they could only carry a single row of guns along the main deck on each side rather than a row on each deck.

A significant number of broadside ironclads were built in the 1860s, principally in Britain and France, but in smaller numbers by other powers including Italy, Austria, Russia and the United States. The advantages of mounting guns on both broadsides was that the ship could engage more than one adversary at a time, and the rigging did not impede the field of fire.

Broadside armament also had disadvantages, which became more serious as ironclad technology developed. Heavier guns to penetrate ever-thicker armor meant that fewer guns could be carried. Furthermore, the adoption of ramming as an important tactic meant the need for ahead and all-round fire. These problems led to broadside designs being superseded by designs that gave greater all-round fire, which included central-battery, turret, and barbette designs.

Turrets, batteries, and barbettes

A barbette of Redoutable
Barbette of the Vauban

There were two main design alternatives to the broadside. In one design, the guns were placed in an armored casemate amidships: this arrangement was called the 'box-battery' or 'center-battery'. In the other, the guns could be placed on a rotating platform to give them a broad field of fire; when fully armored, this arrangement was called a turret and when partially armored or unarmored, a barbette.

The centre-battery was the simpler and, during the 1860s and 1870s, the more popular method. Concentrating guns amidships meant the ship could be shorter and handier than a broadside type. The first full-scale center-battery ship was HMS Bellerophon of 1865; the French laid down centre-battery ironclads in 1865 which were not completed until 1870. Centre-battery ships often, but not always, had a recessed freeboard enabling some of their guns to fire directly ahead.

The turret was first used in naval combat on USS Monitor in 1862, with a type of turret designed by the Swedish engineer John Ericsson. A competing turret design was proposed by the British inventor Cowper Coles with a prototype of this installed on HMS Trusty in 1861 for testing and evaluation purposes. Ericsson's turret turned on a central spindle, and Coles's turned on a ring of bearings. Turrets offered the maximum arc of fire for the guns, but there were significant problems with their use in the 1860s. The fire arc of a turret would be considerably limited by masts and rigging, so they were unsuited to use on the earlier ocean-going ironclads. The second problem was that turrets were extremely heavy. Ericsson was able to offer the heaviest possible turret (guns and armor protection) by deliberately designing a ship with very low freeboard. The weight thus saved from having a high broadside above the waterline was diverted to actual guns and armor. Low freeboard, however, also meant a smaller hull and therefore a smaller capacity for coal storage—and therefore range of the vessel. In many respects, the turreted, low-freeboard Monitor and the broadside sailor HMS Warrior represented two opposite extremes in what an 'Ironclad' was all about. The most dramatic attempt to compromise these two extremes, or 'squaring this circle', was designed by Captain Cowper Phipps Coles: HMS Captain. It was a dangerously low freeboard turret ship, which nevertheless carried a full rig of sail and subsequently capsized not long after her launch in 1870. Her half-sister HMS Monarch was restricted to firing from her turrets only on the port and starboard beams. The third Royal Navy ship to combine turrets and masts was HMS Inflexible of 1876, which carried two turrets on either side of the center-line, allowing both to fire fore, aft and broadside.

A lighter alternative to the turret, particularly popular with the French navy, was the barbette. These were fixed armored towers which held a gun on a turntable. The crew was sheltered from direct fire, but vulnerable to plunging fire, for instance from shore emplacements. The barbette was lighter than the turret, needing less machinery and no roof armor. Some barbettes were stripped of their armor plate to reduce the top-weight of their ships. The barbette became widely adopted in the 1880s, and with the addition of an armored 'gun-house', transformed into the turrets of the pre-dreadnought battleships.

Torpedoes

The ironclad age saw the development of explosive torpedoes as naval weapons, which helped complicate the design and tactics of ironclad fleets. The first torpedoes were static mines, used extensively in the American Civil War. That conflict also saw the development of the spar torpedo, an explosive charge pushed against the hull of a warship by a small boat. For the first time, a large warship faced a serious threat from a smaller one—and given the relative inefficiency of shellfire against ironclads, the threat from the spar torpedo was taken seriously. The U.S. Navy converted four of its monitors to become turretless armored spar-torpedo vessels while under construction in 1864–1865, but these vessels never saw action. Another proposal, the towed or 'Harvey' torpedo, involved an explosive on a line or outrigger; either to deter a ship from ramming or to make a torpedo attack by a boat less suicidal.

A more practical and influential weapon was the self-propelled or Whitehead torpedo. Invented in 1868 and deployed in the 1870s, it formed part of the armament of ironclads of the 1880s like HMS Inflexible and the Italian Duilio class. The ironclad's vulnerability to the torpedo was a key part of the critique of armored warships made by the Jeune Ecole school of naval thought; it appeared that any ship armored enough to prevent destruction by gunfire would be slow enough to be easily caught by torpedo. In practice, however, the Jeune Ecole was only briefly influential and the torpedo formed part of the confusing mixture of weapons possessed by ironclads.

Armor and construction

The French Redoutable (1876), the first battleship to use steel as the main building material

The first ironclads were built on wooden or iron hulls, and protected by wrought iron armor backed by thick wooden planking. Ironclads were still being built with wooden hulls into the 1870s.

Hulls: iron, wood, and steel

Using wrought iron construction for warships offered advantages for the engineering of the hull. However, unarmored iron had many military disadvantages, and offered technical problems which kept wooden hulls in use for many years, particularly for long-range cruising warships.

Iron ships had first been proposed for military use in the 1820s. In the 1830s and 1840s, France, Britain and the United States had all experimented with iron-hulled but unarmored gunboats and frigates. However, the iron-hulled frigate was abandoned by the end of the 1840s, because iron hulls were more vulnerable to solid shot; iron was more brittle than wood, and iron frames more likely to fall out of shape than wood.

The unsuitability of unarmored iron for warship hulls meant that iron was only adopted as a building material for battleships when protected by armor. However, iron gave the naval architect many advantages. Iron allowed larger ships and more flexible design, for instance the use of watertight bulkheads on the lower decks. Warrior, built of iron, was longer and faster than the wooden-hulled Gloire. Iron could be produced to order and used immediately, in contrast to the need to give wood a long period of seasoning. And, given the large quantities of wood required to build a steam warship and the falling cost of iron, iron hulls were increasingly cost-effective. The main reason for the French use of wooden hulls for the ironclad fleet built in the 1860s was that the French iron industry could not supply enough, and the main reason why Britain built its handful of wooden-hulled ironclads was to make best use of hulls already started and wood already bought.

Wooden hulls continued to be used for long-range and smaller ironclads, because iron nevertheless had a significant disadvantage. Iron hulls suffered quick fouling by marine life, slowing the ships down—manageable for a European battlefleet close to dry docks, but a difficulty for long-range ships. The only solution was to sheath the iron hull first in wood and then in copper, a laborious and expensive process which made wooden construction remain attractive. Iron and wood were to some extent interchangeable: the Japanese Kongō and Hiei ordered in 1875 were sister-ships, but one was built of iron and the other of composite construction.

After 1872, steel started to be introduced as a material for construction. Compared to iron, steel allows for greater structural strength for a lower weight. The French Navy led the way with the use of steel in its fleet, starting with the Redoutable, laid down in 1873 and launched in 1876. Redoutable nonetheless had wrought iron armor plate, and part of her exterior hull was iron rather than steel.

Even though Britain led the world in steel production, the Royal Navy was slow to adopt steel warships. The Bessemer process for steel manufacture produced too many imperfections for large-scale use on ships. French manufacturers used the Siemens-Martin process to produce adequate steel, but British technology lagged behind. The first all-steel warships built by the Royal Navy were the dispatch vessels Iris and Mercury, laid down in 1875 and 1876.

Armor and protection schemes

The iron-and-wood armor of Warrior

Iron-built ships used wood as part of their protection scheme. HMS Warrior was protected by 4.5 in (114 mm) of wrought iron backed by 15 in (381 mm) of teak, the strongest shipbuilding wood. The wood played two roles, preventing spalling and also preventing the shock of a hit damaging the structure of the ship. Later, wood and iron were combined in 'sandwich' armor, for instance in HMS Inflexible.

Steel was also an obvious material for armor. It was tested in the 1860s, but the steel of the time was too brittle and disintegrated when struck by shells. Steel became practical to use when a way was found to fuse steel onto wrought iron plates, giving a form of compound armor. This compound armor was used by the British in ships built from the late 1870s, first for turret armor (starting with HMS Inflexible) and then for all armor (starting with HMS Colossus of 1882). The French and German navies adopted the innovation almost immediately, with licenses being given for the use of the 'Wilson System' of producing fused armor.

The first ironclads to have all-steel armor were the two ships of the Duilio class. Though the ships were laid down in 1873 their armor was not purchased from France until 1877. The French navy decided in 1880 to adopt compound armor for its fleet, but found it limited in supply, so from 1884 the French navy was using steel armor. Britain stuck to compound armor until 1889.

The ultimate ironclad armor was case hardened nickel-steel. In 1890, the U.S. Navy tested steel armor hardened by the Harvey process and found it superior to compound armor. For several years 'Harvey steel' was the state of the art, produced in the U.S., France, Germany, Britain, Austria and Italy. In 1894, the German firm Krupp developed gas cementing, which further hardened steel armor. The German Kaiser Friedrich III, laid down in 1895, was the first ship to benefit from the new 'Krupp armor' and the new armor was quickly adopted; the Royal Navy using it from HMS Canopus, laid down in 1896. By 1901 almost all new battleships used Krupp armor, though the U.S. continued to use Harvey armor alongside until the end of the decade.

The equivalent strengths of the different armor plates was as follows: 15 in (381 mm) of wrought iron was equivalent to 12 in (305 mm) of either plain steel or compound iron and steel armor, and to 7.75 in (197 mm) of Harvey armor or 5.75 in (146 mm) of Krupp armor.

Ironclad construction also prefigured the later debate in battleship design between tapering and 'all-or-nothing' armor design. Warrior was only semi-armored, and could have been disabled by hits on the bow and stern. As the thickness of armor grew to protect ships from the increasingly heavy guns, the area of the ship which could be fully protected diminished. Inflexible's armor protection was largely limited to the central citadel amidships, protecting boilers and engines, turrets and magazines, and little else. An ingenious arrangement of cork-filled compartments and watertight bulkheads was intended to keep her stable and afloat in the event of damage to her un-armored sections.

Propulsion: steam and sail

Gloire under sail

The first ocean-going ironclads carried masts and sails like their wooden predecessors, and these features were only gradually abandoned. Early steam engines were inefficient; the wooden steam fleet of the Royal Navy could only carry "5 to 9 days coal", and the situation was similar with the early ironclads. Warrior also illustrates two design features which aided hybrid propulsion; she had retractable screws to reduce drag while under sail (though in practice the steam engine was run at a low throttle), and a telescopic funnel which could be folded down to the deck level.

French armored floating battery Arrogante (1864)

Ships designed for coastal warfare, like the floating batteries of the Crimea, or USS Monitor and her sisters, dispensed with masts from the beginning. The British HMS Devastation, started in 1869, was the first large, ocean-going ironclad to dispense with masts. Her principal role was for combat in the English Channel and other European waters; while her coal supplies gave her enough range to cross the Atlantic, she would have had little endurance on the other side of the ocean. The Devastation and the similar ships commissioned by the British and Russian navies in the 1870s were the exception rather than the rule. Most ironclads of the 1870s retained masts, and only the Italian navy, which during that decade was focused on short-range operations in the Adriatic, built consistently mastless ironclads.

During the 1860s, steam engines improved with the adoption of double-expansion steam engines, which used 30–40% less coal than earlier models. The Royal Navy decided to switch to the double-expansion engine in 1871, and by 1875 they were widespread. However, this development alone was not enough to herald the end of the mast. Whether this was due to a conservative desire to retain sails, or was a rational response to the operational and strategic situation, is a matter of debate. A steam-only fleet would require a network of coaling stations worldwide, which would need to be fortified at great expense to stop them falling into enemy hands. Just as significantly, because of unsolved problems with the technology of the boilers which provided steam for the engines, the performance of double-expansion engines was rarely as good in practice as it was in theory.

HMS Inflexible, after the replacement of her sailing masts with military masts

During the 1870s the distinction grew between 'first-class ironclads' or 'battleships' on the one hand, and 'cruising ironclads' designed for long-range work on the other. The demands on first-class ironclads for very heavy armor and armament meant increasing displacement, which reduced speed under sail; and the fashion for turrets and barbettes made a sailing rig increasingly inconvenient. HMS Inflexible, launched in 1876 but not commissioned until 1881, was the last British battleship to carry masts, and these were widely seen as a mistake. The start of the 1880s saw the end of sailing rig on ironclad battleships.

Sails persisted on 'cruising ironclads' for much longer. During the 1860s, the French navy had produced the Alma and La Galissonnière classes as small, long-range ironclads as overseas cruisers and the British had responded with ships like HMS Swiftsure of 1870. The Russian ship General-Admiral, laid down in 1870 and completed in 1875, was a model of a fast, long-range ironclad which was likely to be able to outrun and outfight ships like Swiftsure. Even the later HMS Shannon, often described as the first British armored cruiser, would have been too slow to outrun General-Admiral. While Shannon was the last British ship with a retractable propeller, later armored cruisers of the 1870s retained sailing rig, sacrificing speed under steam in consequence. It took until 1881 for the Royal Navy to lay down a long-range armored warship capable of catching enemy commerce raiders, HMS Warspite, which was completed in 1888. While sailing rigs were obsolescent for all purposes by the end of the 1880s, rigged ships were in service until the early years of the 20th century.

The final evolution of ironclad propulsion was the adoption of the triple-expansion steam engine, a further refinement which was first adopted in HMS Sans Pareil, laid down in 1885 and commissioned in 1891. Many ships also used a forced draught to get additional power from their engines, and this system was widely used until the introduction of the steam turbine in the middle of the first decade of the Twentieth Century.

Fleets

While ironclads spread rapidly in navies worldwide, there were few pitched naval battles involving ironclads. Most European nations settled differences on land, and the Royal Navy struggled to maintain a deterrent parity with at least France, while providing suitable protection to Britain's commerce and colonial outposts worldwide. Ironclads remained, for the British Royal Navy, a matter of defending the British Isles first and projecting power abroad second. Those naval engagements of the latter half of the 19th century which involved ironclads normally involved colonial actions or clashes between second-rate naval powers. But these encounters were often enough to convince British policy-makers of the increasing hazards of strictly naval foreign intervention, from Hampton Roads in the American Civil War to the hardening combined defences of naval arsenals such as Kronstadt and Cherbourg.

There were many types of ironclads:

Navies

The United Kingdom possessed the largest navy in the world for the whole of the ironclad period. The Royal Navy was the second to adopt ironclad warships, and it applied them worldwide in their whole range of roles. In the age of sail, the British strategy for war depended on the Royal Navy mounting a blockade of the ports of the enemy. Because of the limited endurance of steamships, this was no longer possible, so the British at times considered the risk-laden plan of engaging an enemy fleet in harbor as soon as war broke out. To this end, the Royal Navy developed a series of 'coast-defense battleships', starting with the Devastation class. These 'breastwork monitors' were markedly different from the other high-seas ironclads of the period and were an important precursor of the modern battleship. As long-range monitors they could reach Bermuda unescorted, for example. However, they were still armed with only four heavy guns and were as vulnerable to mines and obstructions (and enemy monitors) as the original monitors of the Union Navy proved to be during the Civil War.

The British prepared for an overwhelming mortar bombardment of Kronstadt by the close of the Crimean War, but never considered running the smoke-ridden, shallow-water gauntlet straight to St. Petersburg with ironclads. Likewise, monitors proved acutely unable to 'overwhelm' enemy fortifications single-handed during the American conflict, though their low-profile and heavy armor protection made them ideal for running artillery gauntlets. Mines and obstructions negated these advantages—a problem the British Admiralty frequently acknowledged but never countered throughout the period. The British never laid down enough Devastation-class 'battleships' to instantly overwhelm Cherbourg, Kronstadt or even New York City with gunfire. Although throughout the 1860s and 1870s the Royal Navy was still in many respects superior to its potential rivals, by the early 1880s widespread concern about the threat from France and Germany culminated in the Naval Defence Act, which promulgated the idea of a 'two-power standard', that Britain should possess as many ships as the next two navies combined. This standard provoked aggressive shipbuilding in the 1880s and 1890s.

British ships did not participate in any major wars in the ironclad period. The Royal Navy's ironclads only saw action as part of colonial battles or one-sided engagements like the bombardment of Alexandria in 1882. Defending British interests against Ahmed 'Urabi's Egyptian revolt, a British fleet opened fire on the fortifications around the port of Alexandria. A mixture of centre-battery and turret ships bombarded Egyptian positions for most of a day, forcing the Egyptians to retreat; return fire from Egyptian guns was heavy at first, but inflicted little damage, killing only five British sailors. Few Egyptian guns were actually dismounted, on the other hand, and the fortifications themselves were typically left intact. Had the Egyptians actually utilised the heavy mortars that were at their disposal, they might have quickly turned the tide, for the attacking British ironclads found it easy (for accuracy's sake) to simply anchor whilst firing—perfect targets for high-angle fire upon their thinly armored topdecks.

The French navy built the first ironclad to try to gain a strategic advantage over the British, but were consistently out-built by the British. Despite taking the lead with a number of innovations like breech-loading weapons and steel construction, the French navy could never match the size of the Royal Navy. In the 1870s, the construction of ironclads ceased for a while in France as the Jeune Ecole school of naval thought took prominence, suggesting that torpedo boats and unarmored cruisers would be the future of warships. Like the British, the French navy saw little action with its ironclads; the French blockade of Germany in the Franco-Prussian War was ineffective, as the war was settled entirely on land.

Russia built a number of ironclads, generally copies of British or French designs. Nonetheless, there were real innovations from Russia; the first true type of ironclad armored cruiser, General-Admiral of the 1870s, and a set of unusual but moderately-successful circular battleships referred to as "popovkas" (for Admiral Popov, who conceived the design). The Russian Navy pioneered the wide-scale use of torpedo boats during the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–1878, mainly out of necessity because of the superior numbers and quality of ironclads used by the Turkish navy. Russia expanded her navy in the 1880s and 1890s with modern armored cruisers and battleships, but the ships were manned by inexperienced crews and politically appointed leadership, which enhanced their defeat in the Battle of Tsushima on 27 May 1905.

The Battle of Iquique, where Peruvian ironclad Huáscar sunk the Chilean wooden corvette Esmeralda

The US Navy ended the Civil War with about fifty monitor-type coastal ironclads; by the 1870s most of these were laid up in reserve, leaving the United States virtually without an ironclad fleet. Another five large monitors were ordered in the 1870s. The limitations of the monitor type effectively prevented the US from projecting power overseas, and until the 1890s the United States would have come off badly in a conflict with even Spain or the Latin American powers. The 1890s saw the beginning of what became the Great White Fleet, and it was the modern pre-Dreadnoughts and armored cruisers built in the 1890s which defeated the Spanish fleet in the Spanish–American War of 1898. This started a new era of naval warfare.

Loa being fitted after its conversion in the Callao harbour, 1864

Ironclads were widely used in South America. Both sides used ironclads in the Chincha Islands War between Spain and the combined forces of Peru and Chile in the early 1860s. The powerful Spanish Numancia participated in the Battle of Callao but was unable to inflict significant damage upon the Callao defences. Besides, Peru was able to deploy two locally built ironclads based on American Civil War designs, Loa (a wooden ship converted into a casemate ironclad) and Victoria (a small monitor armed with a single 68-pdr gun), as well as two British-built ironclads: Independencia, a centre-battery ship, and the turret ship Huáscar. Numancia, was the first ironclad to circumnavigate the world under the command of Juan Bautista Antequera y Bobadilla de Eslava, arriving in Cádiz on 20 September 1867, and earning the motto: "Enloricata navis que primo terram circuivit" ). In the War of the Pacific in 1879, both Peru and Chile had ironclad warships, including some of those used a few years previously against Spain. While Independencia ran aground early on, the Peruvian ironclad Huáscar made a great impact against Chilean shipping, delaying Chilean ground invasion by six months. She was eventually caught by two more modern Chilean centre-battery ironclads, Blanco Encalada and Almirante Cochrane at the Battle of Angamos Point.

The Confederacy's French-built last ironclad was also Japan's first: Stonewall was later renamed Kōtetsu

Ironclads were also used from the inception of the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN). Kōtetsu (Japanese: 甲鉄, literally "Ironclad", later renamed Azuma 東, "East") had a decisive role in the Naval Battle of Hakodate Bay in May 1869, which marked the end of the Boshin War, and the complete establishment of the Meiji Restoration. The IJN continued to develop its strength and commissioned a number of warships from British and European shipyards, first ironclads and later armored cruisers. These ships engaged the Chinese Beiyang fleet which was superior on paper at least at the Battle of the Yalu River. Thanks to superior short-range firepower, the Japanese fleet came off better, sinking or severely damaging eight ships and receiving serious damage to only four. The naval war was concluded the next year at the Battle of Weihaiwei, where the strongest remaining Chinese ships were surrendered to the Japanese.

End of the ironclad warship

Main article: Battleship

There is no clearly defined end to the ironclad, besides the transition from wood hulls to all-metal. Ironclads continued to be used in World War I. Towards the end of the 19th century, the descriptions 'battleship' and 'armored cruiser' came to replace the term 'ironclad'.

The proliferation of ironclad battleship designs came to an end in the 1890s as navies reached a consensus on the design of battleships, producing the type known as the pre-dreadnought. These ships are sometimes covered in treatments of the ironclad warship. The next evolution of battleship design, the dreadnought, is never referred to as an 'ironclad'.

Legacy

1904 illustration of H.G. Wells' December 1903 The Land Ironclads, showing huge armored land vessels, equipped with Pedrail wheels.

H. G. Wells coined the term The Land Ironclads in a short story published in 1903, to describe fictional large armored fighting vehicles moving on pedrail wheels.

A number of ironclads have been preserved or reconstructed as museum ships.

See also

Notes

  1. The Royal Navy did build 18-inch (457 mm) guns for the light battlecruiser HMS Furious though she was completed as an aircraft carrier and her guns were fitted to the Lord Clive-class monitors, seeing service in World War I.
  2. This term was still in use in the 1860s and 1870s for what we would now call 'battleships'.

Citations

  1. ^ Hill, p. 17
  2. ^ Lambert, "The Screw Propeller Warship", pp. 30–44
  3. Sondhaus, pp. 37–41
  4. Hill, p. 25
  5. Sondhaus, p. 58
  6. Lambert, Battleships in Transition, pp. 94–95
  7. Sandler, Battleships: An Illustrated History of Their Impact, p. 20
  8. "Mexican paddle steamer 'Guadalupe' (1842)". threedecks.org. Retrieved 6 August 2018.
  9. Brown 1990, p. 87
  10. Brown 1990, pp. 92–101
  11. Baxter, pp. 70, 72
  12. Baxter, p. 82
  13. ^ Lambert, "Iron Hulls and Armour Plate", pp. 47–55
  14. Baxter, p. 84
  15. Sondhaus, p. 61
  16. Sondhaus, pp. 73–74
  17. Sondhaus, p. 76
  18. Sondhaus, p. 77
  19. Still, "The American Civil War", pp. 70–71
  20. Sondhaus, p. 78
  21. Preston, pp. 12–14
  22. Sondhaus, pp. 78–81
  23. Sondhaus, p. 82
  24. Sondhaus, p. 85
  25. Sondhaus, p. 81
  26. ^ Sondhaus, pp. 94–96
  27. Brown, Warrior to Dreadnought: Warship Design and Development, 1860–1905, p. 22
  28. Hill, p. 35
  29. Beeler, pp. 106–107
  30. Beeler, p. 107
  31. Beeler, p. 146
  32. ^ Beeler, p. 71
  33. Beeler, pp. 72–73
  34. Beeler, pp. 73–75
  35. Beeler, pp. 77–78
  36. Brown, "The Era of Uncertainty", p. 85
  37. Roberts, "Warships of Steel 1879–1889", p. 98
  38. Parkes, p. 633
  39. ^ Campbell, pp. 158–169
  40. Reed, pp. 4, 45–50, 68, 139, 217–221, 224–226, 228, 233
  41. ^ Conways's All the World's Fighting Ships 1860–1905 pp. 7–11, 118–119, 173, 267–268, 286–287, 301, 337–339, 389
  42. ^ Beeler, pp. 91–93
  43. Noel, et al.
  44. Sondhaus, p. 87
  45. Beeler, p. 122
  46. Sondhaus, p. 83
  47. Sondhaus, p. 156
  48. Lambert, Battleships in Transition, p. 19
  49. Beeler, pp. 30–36
  50. Beeler, pp. 32–33
  51. Jenschura, Jung & Mickel, p. 13
  52. Roberts, "Warships of Steel 1879–1889", p. 96
  53. Beeler, pp. 37–41
  54. Hill, p. 39
  55. Beeler, p. 45
  56. ^ Sondhaus, pp. 164–165
  57. Sondhaus, p. 166
  58. Reed, pp. 45–47
  59. Beeler, pp. 133–134
  60. ^ Beeler, p. 54
  61. Hill, p. 44
  62. Sondhaus, pp. 111–112
  63. Beeler, pp. 63–64
  64. Beeler, pp. 57–62
  65. Sondhaus, p. 88
  66. Beeler, p. 194
  67. Griffiths, pp. 176–178
  68. Conway, All the World's Fighting Ships 1860–1905, Conway Maritime Press, 1979. ISBN 0-8317-0302-4.
  69. See Noel, et al.
  70. Beeler, p. 204
  71. Kennedy, pp. 178–179
  72. Hill, p. 185
  73. Wilson, p. 78; Brook, et al, p. 332
  74. Sondhaus, p. 101
  75. Sondhaus, pp. 122–126
  76. Sondhaus, pp. 187–191
  77. Sondhaus, pp. 126–128, 173–179
  78. Historia naval del Perú. Tomo IV, Valdizán Gamio, José.
  79. Antequera Becerra, Luis (October 2023). "Juan Bautista Antequera y Boadila. El héroe de la Numancia que fundó la Revista General de Marina y previó el desastre del 98". Revista General de Marina: 321–336.
  80. Sondhaus, pp. 97–99, 127–132
  81. Hill, p. 191
  82. Beeler, p. 154, states that HMS Edinburgh was the first British capital ship to be routinely called a battleship.
  83. Hill, p. 18
  84. War and the Future by H.G. Wells, p. 93
  85. Northrop Grumman Newport News. "Northrop Grumman Employees Reconstruct History with USS Monitor Replica". Archived from the original on February 19, 2007. Retrieved 2007-05-21.

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