The direction of immediate improvement In ordnance for iron-clad warfare
appears to be the abandonment of cast-iron, except as a barrel to be
strengthened by steel; binding an inner tube with low-steel hoops having
a successively increasing initial tension; and the use of spherical shot
at excessive velocities by means of high charges of powder in bores of
moderate diameters. The rifling of some guns is important, not so much
to secure range or accuracy, as to fire elongated shells through armor.
The direction of improvement in ironclad vessels appears to be the
concentration of armor at a few points and the protection of the
remainder of the vessel from the entrance of _water_ by a streak of
armor at the water-line and numerous bulkheads, etc., in distinction
from necessarily thin and inefficient plating over all; high speed
without great increase of weight of the driving parts, by means of
improved engines and boilers and high pressure; the production of
tenacious iron in large, thick, homogeneous masses; and the rapid
manoeuvring of heavy ordnance by machinery.
In justice to himself, the writer deems it proper to state, that within
the limits of a magazine-article it has been impossible to enter into
the details, or even to give an outline, of all the facts which have led
him to the foregoing conclusions. In a more extended work about to be
published by Van Nostrand, of New York, he has endeavored, by presenting
a detailed account of English and American experiments, a description
and numerous illustrations, derived mostly from personal observation,
of all classes of ordnance and armor and their fabrication, and of
iron-clad vessels and their machinery, and a _résumé_ of the best
professional opinions, to add something at least usefully suggestive to
the general knowledge on this subject.