When the nineteenth century began, batteries of ships were composed
of two principal classes of guns: the long gun and the short gun, or
carronade. The difference between these lay in the way the weight of
metal allowed for each was utilized. The long gun, as its name implies,
was comparatively long and thick, and threw a small ball with a heavy
charge of powder. The ball, therefore, flew swiftly, and had a long
range. A carronade of the same weight was short and comparatively thin,
could use only a small charge of powder, lest it burst, and threw a
large ball. Its shot, therefore, moved slowly and had short range.
Fired at a target—a ship’s side—within range of both guns, the shot
from the long gun penetrated quickly, the wood had not time to splinter
badly, and a clean hole was the result. The carronade’s shot, on the
contrary, being both larger and slower, penetrated with difficulty,
all the surrounding wood felt the strain and broke up into splinters,
leaving a large jagged hole, if the shot got through. These effects
were called respectively piercing and smashing, and are reproduced,
in measure, upon targets representing the side of a modern ironclad.
They have been likened familiarly to the effect of a pistol-ball and
of a stone upon a window pane: the one goes through clean, the other
crashes.
The smashing of the carronades, when fully realized, was worse than
penetration, and was greatly dreaded; but, on the other hand, a ship
which feared them in an opponent might keep out of their range. This
expedient was so effective that carronades, which did great damage
until their tactics were understood, gradually fell into disfavor.
Nevertheless, they remained in use till after the peace of 1815. In
1814 the battery of the U. S. S. _Essex_ was chiefly carronades, and
their inadequate range was a large factor in her defeat.
At the period in question guns of all sorts fired only non-explosive
projectiles, solid or hollow shot. The destructive shell of the present
day was used only by pieces called mortars, in vertical firing, which
will be spoken of farther on. Such were not mounted on the ships of
the fleet generally, nor used against shipping, except when packed in
a small harbor. They did not enter into naval warfare proper. The ram
and the torpedo of present warfare were unknown. On the other hand,
there was practised a form of fighting which is thought now to have
disappeared forever, namely, boarding and fighting hand-to-hand on the
deck. Even then, however, boarding did not decide the main issue of a
sea-fight, except occasionally in very small vessels. The deck of a
large and fresh ship was not to be reached easily. Boarding was like
the cavalry charge that routs a wavering line; the ship had been beaten
at the guns before it occurred.
The real fighting was done by the long guns and carronades disposed
in the broadsides. Besides rapidity and precision of fire, always
invaluable, the two opponents sought advantage of position by
manœuvring. They closed, or they kept apart, according to their
understanding of the other’s weight and kind of battery. Each tried,
when possible, to lie across the bow or the stern of the enemy, for
then his guns ranged from end to end of the hostile ship, while the
latter’s broadside could not reply. Failing this extreme advantage
of position, the effort was made so to place one’s self that the
opponent’s guns could not bear—for they swept only a few degrees
before and abaft the broadside—while your own could. If this also
was impossible, the contestants lay side to side at a greater or less
distance, and the affair became an artillery duel.