SHOT-PROOF MEN-OF-WAR.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume II, Issue 34, 20 February 1862, Page 3

SHOT-PROOF MEN-OF-WAR.

We shall get hye-and-byc to a strange model of a man-of-war. Hitherto, notwithstanding all the modern inventions, there has been no great deviation from the old conventional type. A line-of-battle ship has still its masts and sails, its towering hull, its chequered broadside, and its tiers of gnus. Excepting in length and power, there is no difference between the Dulce'qf WeUinc/ton and the old Vidor’’’. Even the Warrior, the latest specimen of all, simply looks like a larger frigate than was ever seen before, and the visitor, indeed, feels inclined to wonder that so entirely now a design should retain so much of tho old lorm.

If the experiments recently conducted at Portsmouth should be sustained in their results by further trials, the old bulwark's of Britain; will disappear from the seas and give place to fabrics of unprecedented shape. Our men-of-war will hardly be risible on the surface of the water. A first-rate, instead of frowning in strength and majesty, will lie almost invisibly upon tho sea, cleaving the waves without sads or spars, and scarcely distinguishable m the distance from'a sen serpent or a bank of sea-weed. Tins is what we sha ll come to if the new principle of defence can be established, and the re-

suit seems by no means improbable. It is some lime since the theory of a sloping or “ angulated” target was first broached, and the idea, indeed, though new in its present application, is based on a principle which has always been understood. If a shield of any kind is struck at an angle, or on a slant the sword or bullet glances olf, and the blow is destroyed. Targets in all times have been sloped accordingly. Shields were mr.de convex, either tapering to a point in the centre, or rounded off at the sides in the form of semi-cylinders. Curiasses took away the same form, sloping away from the middle like the breast of a fowl, so that no shot could strike full upon the plate, it is this obvious principle which is illustrated in the scheme of ship’s armor devised by Mr. .1 ones. The armor itself is of the ordinary character, consisting of iron plate fixed upon a stout timber backing, hut instead of being placed vertically, so as to present an upright wall of metal it is placed at an angle, so that a sloped face only is seen, like the slant of a parapet. This was the device which was recently tested. A target which had already been practised upon in previous experiments was stripped of its old plates to receive the plates prepared by Mr. Jones. It had originally been 13J- inches thick in the woodwork but an inch and a-half of this was dubbed off io fit the surface for the new' plating, sc that only' a foot of thickness remained. On this the fresh plates were fixed, consisting of four iron slabs, two being of four and a-half inches and two of s*. The target thus completed was set up on the deck of an old Arctic vessel, the Griper, in such a way as to present a slope of about fifty degrees, and was then towed out to sea to be tried against the powers of an Armstrong gun. It happened that everything was favorable to the accurpey of the experiment. The gun was one of the heavest in use, throwing a bolt of 110 pounds—the very kind of projectile which had smashed the Shoehmyness butts into fragments. The firing took place at 200 yards’ distance, and the practice was most perfect. The shots hit the target so truly that if it could have been penetrated at all they must have pLrccd it. Six bolts actually struck the armour within a spree of 21 inches by 12, and three of these fell within an inch or two of the same spot. Thus the critical test of a succession of blows at the same point was thoroughly applied and it did not seem indeed as if any shield could ever have been battered with more tremendous force. The effect produced, however, was comparatively' insignificant. The last shot of all, though lighting just ou the track of the others and giving as it were the last blow to the work, failed to penetrate the armour, and as a general result it was found that, though no fewer than sixteen shots hrd been planted more closely together than could ever have been expected under ordinary conditions of practice, the plates were not pierced nor was the woodwork materially injured. The final shot, says the report, fell “ on Nos. 15 and 3, carrying away the armour plates in irregular pieces between shots 15 22, 3, 21, 11, 7, crushing the surface of the 12-inch wooden backing but not in any' way breaking through ths same or damaging the shell of the vesselinthe sl'ghtcstdcgvee.” Such resists certainly seem to open a new system of ship-building, for we do not see how it is possible to qualny them or explain them away. The att ck had the fairest possible chance. The shots of the most powerful piece of ordnance in use wore delivered one after the other with extrjorclinaiy accuracy, and yet we are assured that they failed in reaching the woodwork through the iron plating. It follows therefore that if thou should be no other objection to Mr. Jones’s principle we have found a nay of making meu-of-war shotproof.— Times.