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147-639: Kōtetsu ( 甲鉄 , literally " Ironclad ") , later renamed Azuma ( 東 , " East ") , was the first ironclad warship of the Imperial Japanese Navy . She was designed as an armored ram for service in shallow waters, but also carried three guns. The ship was built in Bordeaux , France , for the Confederate States Navy under the cover name Sphinx , but was sold to Denmark after the sale of warships by French builders to

294-458: A beam of 32 feet 6 inches (9.9 m) and a draught of 14 feet 3 inches (4.3 m). The brig's composite hull was sheathed in copper to protect it from parasites and biofouling and it featured a pronounced tumblehome . She displaced 1,390 long tons (1,410  t ) and her crew numbered 135 officers and crewmen. To improve her maneuverability the ship was fitted with twin rudders . Her main battery consisted of

441-476: A torpedo , with less vulnerability to quick-firing 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

588-651: A vertical beam or overhead beam , and sometimes simply referred as a "beam", was another early adaptation of the beam engine, but its use was confined almost entirely to the United States. After its introduction, the walking beam quickly became the most popular engine type in American waters for inland waterway and coastal service, eventually making its way into American transoceanic steamships as well. The type proved to have remarkable longevity, with walking beam engines still being occasionally manufactured as late as

735-417: A beam (i.e. walking beam, side-lever or grasshopper) engine. The later definition only uses the term for engines that apply power directly to the crankshaft via the piston rod and/or connecting rod. Unless otherwise noted, this article uses the later definition. Unlike the side-lever or beam engine, a direct-acting engine could be readily adapted to power either paddlewheels or a propeller. As well as offering

882-473: 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,

1029-464: A centrally located crankshaft. Back-acting engines were another type of engine popular in both warships and commercial vessels in the mid-19th century, but like many other engine types in this era of rapidly changing technology, they were eventually abandoned for other solutions. There is only one known surviving back-acting engine—that of the TV Emery Rice (formerly USS  Ranger ), now

1176-536: A century after Newcomen, when Scottish engineer William Symington built the world's "first practical steamboat ", the Charlotte Dundas , in 1802. Rivaling inventors James Rumsey and John Fitch were the first to build steamboats in the United States. Rumsey exhibited his steamboat design in 1787 on the Potomac River; however, Fitch won the rivalry in 1790 after his successful test resulted in

1323-496: 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. By

1470-492: A common, T-shaped crosshead. The vertical arm of the crosshead extended down between the two cylinders and was attached at the bottom to both the crankshaft connecting rod and to a guide block that slid between the vertical sides of the cylinders, enabling the assembly to maintain the correct path as it moved. The Siamese engine was invented by British engineer Joseph Maudslay (son of Henry ), but although he invented it after his oscillating engine (see below), it failed to achieve

1617-553: A compound engine gave a significant increase in fuel efficiency, so allowing steamships to out-compete sail on the route from the UK to China, even before the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869. A triple-expansion engine is a compound engine that expands the steam in three stages, e.g. an engine with three cylinders at three different pressures. A quadruple-expansion engine expands the steam in four stages. However, as explained above,

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1764-468: A compound walking beam type, compound being the cylinder technology, and walking beam being the connection method. Over time, as most engines became direct-acting but cylinder technologies grew more complex, engines began to be classified solely according to cylinder technology. More commonly encountered marine steam engine types are listed in the following sections. Note that not all these terms are exclusive to marine applications. The side-lever engine

1911-430: A different design operating at only 90 psi (620 kPa). This was insufficient to fully realise the economic benefits of triple expansion. Aberdeen was fitted with two double ended Scotch type steel boilers, running at 125 psi (860 kPa). These boilers had patent corrugated furnaces that overcame the competing problems of heat transfer and sufficient strength to deal with the boiler pressure. This provided

2058-522: A disagreement over compensation from the company for cited problems and late delivery led to negotiations breaking down on 30 October, although the ship had set sail for Copenhagen , Denmark, on 25 October. The Danish government refused to relinquish the vessel, claiming confusion in regards to the negotiations. She arrived in Copenhagen on 10 November and was in the Orlogsværftet dockyard at

2205-569: 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

2352-474: A lower profile, direct-acting engines had the advantage of being smaller and weighing considerably less than beam or side-lever engines. The Royal Navy found that on average a direct-acting engine (early definition) weighed 40% less and required an engine room only two thirds the size of that for a side-lever of equivalent power. One disadvantage of such engines is that they were more prone to wear and tear and thus required more maintenance. An oscillating engine

2499-545: 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

2646-424: 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. 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,

2793-809: A passenger service on the Delaware River. In 1807, the American Robert Fulton built the world's first commercially successful steamboat, simply known as the North River Steamboat , and powered by a Watt engine. Following Fulton's success, steamboat technology developed rapidly on both sides of the Atlantic . Steamboats initially had a short range and were not particularly seaworthy due to their weight, low power, and tendency to break down, but they were employed successfully along rivers and canals, and for short journeys along

2940-618: 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. 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,

3087-678: A private audience if it would be possible for the Confederate government to build ironclad warships in France. Arming ships of war for a recognized belligerent like the Confederate States would have been illegal under French law, but Slidell and his agent, James D. Bulloch , were confident that the Emperor of France would be able to circumvent his own laws more easily than other potential secret contractors. Napoleon III agreed to

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3234-729: A ship's economy or its speed. Broadly speaking, a compound engine can refer to a steam engine with any number of different-pressure cylinders—however, the term usually refers to engines that expand steam through only two stages, i.e., those that operate cylinders at only two different pressures (or "double-expansion" engines). Note that a compound engine (including multiple-expansion engines, see below) can have more than one set of variable-pressure cylinders. For example, an engine might have two cylinders operating at pressure x and two operating at pressure y, or one cylinder operating at pressure x and three operating at pressure y. What makes it compound (or double-expansion) as opposed to multiple-expansion

3381-407: A side-rod, extended down each side of the cylinder to connect to the end of the side-lever on the same side. The far ends of the two side-levers were connected to one another by a horizontal crosstail, from which extended a single, common connecting rod which operated the crankshaft as the levers rocked up and down around the central pin. The main disadvantage of the side-lever engine was that it

3528-407: A single 300-pounder 10-inch (254 mm) Armstrong rifled muzzle-loading (RML) gun located in the bow turret in a pivot mount . The fixed turret had three or five gun ports . A pair of 70-pounder 6.4-inch (163 mm) Armstrong RML guns were positioned in the oval fixed turret abaft the mainmast , one pivot mount on each broadside firing through two gun ports. The Japanese removed one of

3675-511: A small, low-profile engine like the trunk engine to power the U.S. Federal government's monitors , a type of warship developed during the American Civil War that had very little space for a conventional powerplant. The trunk engine itself was, however, unsuitable for this purpose, because the preponderance of weight was on the side of the engine that contained the cylinder and trunk—a problem that designers could not compensate for on

3822-415: A smaller, lighter, more efficient design. In a steeple engine, the vertical oscillation of the piston is not converted to a horizontal rocking motion as in a beam engine, but is instead used to move an assembly, composed of a crosshead and two rods, through a vertical guide at the top of the engine, which in turn rotates the crankshaft connecting rod below. In early examples of the type, the crosshead assembly

3969-421: A standard pattern and designated as battleships or armored cruisers . 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

4116-412: 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

4263-414: A total of 1,200  PS (1,184  ihp ). The ship reached a maximum speed of 10.8 knots (20.0 km/h; 12.4 mph) during her sea trials on 9 October 1864. She had an estimated range of 3,000 nautical miles (5,600 km; 3,500 mi) with a full load of 227 t (223 long tons) of coal. In June 1863, John Slidell , the Confederate commissioner to France, asked Emperor Napoleon III in

4410-509: 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

4557-462: Is also an alternative name for the steeple engine (below). Many sources thus prefer to refer to it by its informal name of "square" engine to avoid confusion. Additionally, the marine crosshead or square engine described in this section should not be confused with the term " square engine " as applied to internal combustion engines , which in the latter case refers to an engine whose bore is equal to its stroke . The walking beam, technically known as

Japanese ironclad Kōtetsu - Misplaced Pages Continue

4704-481: 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. 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

4851-401: Is that the engine could be easily started from any crank position. Like the conventional side-lever engine however, grasshopper engines were disadvantaged by their weight and size. They were mainly used in small watercraft such as riverboats and tugs . The crosshead engine, also known as a square , sawmill or A-frame engine, was a type of paddlewheel engine used in the United States. It

4998-438: Is that there are only two pressures , x and y. The first compound engine believed to have been installed in a ship was that fitted to Henry Eckford by the American engineer James P. Allaire in 1824. However, many sources attribute the "invention" of the marine compound engine to Glasgow 's John Elder in the 1850s. Elder made improvements to the compound engine that made it safe and economical for ocean-crossing voyages for

5145-722: 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

5292-428: 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. The use of wrought iron instead of wood as the primary material of ships' hulls began in

5439-567: The Egyptian Navy . Prior to delivery, however, a shipyard clerk walked into the U.S. Minister's office in Paris and produced documents which revealed that Arman had fraudulently obtained authorization to arm the ships and was in contact with Confederate agents. The French government blocked the sale under pressure from the United States, but Arman was able to sell the ships to Denmark and Prussia , which were then fighting on opposite sides of

5586-584: 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

5733-693: The Saga Rebellion and the Taiwan Expedition , both in 1874. The ship ran aground later that year, but was refloated and repaired. During the Satsuma Rebellion three years later, she was little used. Azuma was stricken in 1888 and was sold for scrap the following year. Sphinx was 165 feet 9 inches (50.5 m) long between perpendiculars and had an overall length of 186 feet 9 inches (56.9 m) including her prominent pointed naval ram . The ship had

5880-561: The Second Schleswig War . Cheops was sold to Prussia as Prinz Adalbert , while Sphinx was sold to Denmark under the name Stærkodder on 31 March 1864. Manned by a Danish crew, the ship left Bordeaux for its shakedown cruise on 21 June 1864. The crew tested the vessel while final negotiations were being conducted between the Danish Naval Ministry and Arman. Intense haggling over the final price and

6027-761: The Tokugawa shogunate sent representatives to the United States in 1867, seeking to purchase surplus ships. Acting envoy to the United States Ono Tomogoro discovered Stonewall in the Washington Navy Yard in May and made a formal offer to the United States government for the purchase of the ironclad. The purchase was concluded for the price of $ 400,000 and she was turned over to the Japanese on 5 August who renamed her Kōtetsu . However, by

Japanese ironclad Kōtetsu - Misplaced Pages Continue

6174-510: The armor-piercing shell was developed. Marine steam engine The first commercially successful steam engine was developed by Thomas Newcomen in 1712. The steam engine improvements brought forth by James Watt in the later half of the 18th century greatly improved steam engine efficiency and allowed more compact engine arrangements. Successful adaptation of the steam engine to marine applications in England would have to wait until almost

6321-417: The beam engine . The typical side-lever engine had a pair of heavy horizontal iron beams, known as side-levers, each secured in the centre by a pin near the base of the engine, allowing the levers to pivot through a limited arc. The engine cylinder stood vertically between this pair of levers at one end, with the piston rod attached to a horizontal crosshead above, from each end of which a vertical rod, known as

6468-498: The monitors Monadnock and Canonicus . Page decided to turn Stonewall over to the Spanish Captain General of Cuba for the sum of $ 16,000 to pay the crew's wages. The vessel would then be turned over to United States representatives in return for reimbursement of the same amount. The Americans did not pay until 2 November and Stonewall required some repairs before she could put to sea again. Escorted by

6615-466: The paddle steamers Rhode Island and Hornet , the ironclad departed Havana on 15 November and arrived at the Washington Navy Yard on 24 November. While sailing through Chesapeake Bay on the night of 22/23 November, Stonewall accidentally rammed and sank a coal schooner off Smith Island, Maryland ; there were no deaths. She was subsequently paid off and laid up at the Washington Navy Yard. Seeking to reinforce its fleet with modern warships,

6762-471: The screw propeller , and the introduction of iron and later steel hulls to replace the traditional wooden hull allowed ships to grow ever larger, necessitating steam power plants that were increasingly complex and powerful. A wide variety of reciprocating marine steam engines were developed over the course of the 19th century. The two main methods of classifying such engines are by connection mechanism and cylinder technology . Most early marine engines had

6909-524: The 1830s and the type was perfected in the early 1840s by the Scottish shipbuilder David Napier . The steeple engine was gradually superseded by the various types of direct-acting engine. The Siamese engine, also referred to as the "double cylinder" or "twin cylinder" engine, was another early alternative to the beam or side-lever engine. This type of engine had two identical, vertical engine cylinders arranged side-by-side, whose piston rods were attached to

7056-614: 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

7203-678: 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

7350-423: 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

7497-504: The 1940s. In marine applications, the beam itself was generally reinforced with iron struts that gave it a characteristic diamond shape, although the supports on which the beam rested were often built of wood. The adjective "walking" is believed to have originated from a corruption of the technical term "working beam". Walking beam engines were a type of paddlewheel engine and were rarely used for powering propellers. They were used primarily for ships and boats working in rivers, lakes and along

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7644-473: The 70-pounder guns and added a pair of Armstrong 6-pounder guns, four 4-pounder field guns and a Gatling gun . The ship was designed to withstand hits by 15-inch (381 mm) guns. Her hull was protected by a wrought-iron armored belt that extended 2.12 meters (6 ft 11 in) below the waterline that was backed by about 15 inches of teak . The hull armor was 12 centimeters (4.7 in) amidships and tapered to 9 centimeters (3.5 in) towards

7791-538: 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

7938-590: The American flag. Kōtetsu was finally delivered to the new Meiji government in early March 1869. Before Kōtetsu was turned over to the Japanese, Tokugawa admiral Enomoto Takeaki refused to surrender his warships after the surrender of Edo Castle to the new government, and escaped to Hakodate in Hokkaido with the remainder of the Tokugawa Navy and a handful of French military advisers and their leader Jules Brunet . His fleet of eight steam warships

8085-551: 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

8232-729: 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

8379-590: The Confederacy was forbidden in 1863. The Danes refused to accept the ship and sold her to the Confederates which commissioned her as CSS Stonewall in 1865. The ship did not reach Confederate waters before the end of the American Civil War in April and was turned over to the United States. The Tokugawa shogunate of Japan bought her from the United States in 1867 and renamed her Kōtetsu , but delivery

8526-627: 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,

8673-613: 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,

8820-503: The French coast. She also used the cover name Olinde during this time. There she rendezvoused with the new British blockade runner City of Richmond , taking on supplies and ammunition, as well as more crewmen, from CSS  Rappahannock and CSS  Florida . During this time she was commissioned CSS Stonewall while still at sea and Page assumed command of the ship. High seas in the Bay of Biscay damaged her rudders while en route for

8967-478: 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. 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,

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9114-514: The United States and in Ericsson's native country of Sweden, and as they had few advantages over more conventional engines, were soon supplanted by other types. The back-acting engine, also known as the return connecting rod engine , was another engine designed to have a very low profile. The back-acting engine was in effect a modified steeple engine, laid horizontally across the keel of a ship rather than standing vertically above it. Instead of

9261-516: 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 . On

9408-412: The assembly maintained the correct path as it moved. The engine's alternative name—"A-frame"—presumably derived from the shape of the frames that supported these guides. Some crosshead engines had more than one cylinder, in which case the piston rods were usually all connected to the same crosshead. Because the cylinder was above the crankshaft in this type of engine, it had a high center of gravity, and

9555-403: 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

9702-573: 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

9849-485: The beginning of 1865. At the beginning of 1865 the Danes sold the ship to the Confederacy. On 6 January the vessel took aboard a Confederate States Navy crew at Copenhagen under the command of Lieutenant Thomas Jefferson Page , although the ship was still commanded by a Danish captain when she put to sea the following day. Heavy weather forced the ship to take refuge at Elsinore , but she set sail shortly afterward for

9996-490: The bow and stern. Above it was a strake of armor 76 millimeters (3 in) thick. The bow turret was protected with 4.5-inch-thick (114 mm) armor and the amidships turret was fitted with 4-inch (102 mm) armor plates. The power plant consisted of a pair of Mazeline horizontal two-cylinder single-expansion steam engines , each driving a four-bladed, 3.6-metre (11 ft 10 in) screw using steam provided by two Mazeline tubular boilers . The engines were rated at

10143-419: 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. 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

10290-530: The building of ironclads in France on the condition that their destination remain a secret. The following month Bulloch entered a contract with Lucien Arman , a French shipbuilder and a personal confidant of Napoleon III, to build a pair of ironclad rams capable of breaking the Union blockade . To avoid suspicion, the ships' guns were manufactured separately from the ship herself and the pair were named Cheops and Sphinx to encourage rumors that they were intended for

10437-595: 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

10584-488: The centerpiece of a display at the American Merchant Marine Museum . As steamships grew steadily in size and tonnage through the course of the 19th century, the need for low profile, low centre-of-gravity engines correspondingly declined. Freed increasingly from these design constraints, engineers were able to revert to simpler, more efficient and more easily maintained designs. The result was

10731-457: The close of the 19th century. Because they became so common, vertical engines are not usually referred to as such, but are instead referred to based upon their cylinder technology, i.e. as compound, triple-expansion, quadruple-expansion etc. The term "vertical" for this type of engine is imprecise, since technically any type of steam engine is "vertical" if the cylinder is vertically oriented. An engine someone describes as "vertical" might not be of

10878-431: The coast. The first successful transatlantic crossing by a steamship occurred in 1819 when Savannah sailed from Savannah, Georgia to Liverpool, England . The first steamship to make regular transatlantic crossings was the sidewheel steamer Great Western in 1838. As the 19th century progressed, marine steam engines and steamship technology developed alongside each other. Paddle propulsion gradually gave way to

11025-640: The coastline, but were a less popular choice for seagoing vessels because the great height of the engine made the vessel less stable in heavy seas. They were also of limited use militarily, because the engine was exposed to enemy fire and could thus be easily disabled. Their popularity in the United States was due primarily to the fact that the walking beam engine was well suited for the shallow- draft boats that operated in America's shallow coastal and inland waterways. Walking beam engines remained popular with American shipping lines and excursion operations right into

11172-435: The conservatism of American domestic shipbuilders and shipping line owners, who doggedly clung to outdated technologies like the walking beam and its associated paddlewheel long after they had been abandoned in other parts of the world. The steeple engine, sometimes referred to as a "crosshead" engine, was an early attempt to break away from the beam concept common to both the walking beam and side-lever types, and come up with

11319-424: The crankshaft rotated—hence the term, oscillating . Steam was supplied and exhausted through the trunnions. The oscillating motion of the cylinder was usually used to line up ports in the trunnions to direct the steam feed and exhaust to the cylinder at the correct times. However, separate valves were often provided, controlled by the oscillating motion. This let the timing be varied to enable expansive working (as in

11466-532: 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

11613-582: 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

11760-675: 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

11907-410: The early 20th century. Although the walking beam engine was technically obsolete in the later 19th century, it remained popular with excursion steamer passengers who expected to see the "walking beam" in motion. There were also technical reasons for retaining the walking beam engine in America, as it was easier to build, requiring less precision in its construction. Wood could be used for the main frame of

12054-431: 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

12201-692: The end of the Boshin War in August 1870, Kōtetsu was classified as a third-class warship on 15 November 1871 and was renamed Azuma on 7 December. By January 1873, her fighting ability was assessed as low. Azuma was assigned to guard Nagasaki during the Saga rebellion in February 1874 and during the Taiwan Expedition of May 1874. On 19 August she ran aground at Kagoshima during a typhoon , but

12348-412: The engine in the paddle ship PD Krippen ). This provides simplicity but still retains the advantages of compactness. The first patented oscillating engine was built by Joseph Maudslay in 1827, but the type is considered to have been perfected by John Penn . Oscillating engines remained a popular type of marine engine for much of the 19th century. The trunk engine, another type of direct-acting engine,

12495-418: The engine, at a much lower cost than typical practice of using iron castings for more modern engine designs. Fuel was also much cheaper in America than in Europe, so the lower efficiency of the walking beam engine was less of a consideration. The Philadelphia shipbuilder Charles H. Cramp blamed America's general lack of competitiveness with the British shipbuilding industry in the mid-to-late 19th century upon

12642-422: 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

12789-597: 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

12936-404: The first Royal Navy steam vessel in 1820 until 1840, 70 steam vessels entered service, the majority with side-lever engines, using boilers set to 4psi maximum pressure. The low steam pressures dictated the large cylinder sizes for the side-lever engines, though the effective pressure on the piston was the difference between the boiler pressure and the vacuum in the condenser. The side-lever engine

13083-648: 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

13230-550: The first time. To fully realise their benefits, marine compound engines required boiler pressures higher than the limit imposed by the United Kingdom 's Board of Trade , who would only allow 25 pounds per square inch (170 kPa). The shipowner and engineer Alfred Holt was able to persuade the authorisation of higher boiler pressures, launching SS  Agamemnon in 1865, with boilers running at 60 psi (410 kPa). The combination of higher boiler pressures and

13377-424: The growing dominance of the so-called "vertical" engine (more correctly known as the vertical inverted direct acting engine). In this type of engine, the cylinders are located directly above the crankshaft, with the piston rod/connecting rod assemblies forming a more or less straight line between the two. The configuration is similar to that of a modern internal combustion engine (one notable difference being that

13524-434: 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

13671-716: The gunboat type exists in the Western Australian Museum in Fremantle . After sinking in 1872, it was raised in 1985 from the SS ; Xantho and can now be turned over by hand. The engine's mode of operation, illustrating its compact nature, could be viewed on the Xantho project's website. The vibrating lever, or half-trunk engine, was a development of the conventional trunk engine conceived by Swedish - American engineer John Ericsson . Ericsson needed

13818-595: 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

13965-439: The higher boiler pressures that became prevalent in the latter half of the 19th century due to the difficulty of maintaining a steam seal around the trunk, and builders abandoned them for other solutions. Trunk engines were normally large, but a small, mass-produced, high-revolution, high-pressure version was produced for the Crimean War. In being quite effective, the type persisted in later gunboats. An original trunk engine of

14112-413: 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

14259-524: The island of Madeira , Portugal, and forced the ship to seek refuge in Ferrol, Spain . Permanent repairs took several months and provided time for the Union to be notified of the ship's location. In February and March, the Union steam frigate Niagara and steam sloop Sacramento kept watch from a distance as Stonewall lay anchored off A Coruña , waiting for Stonewall to finish her repairs. On 24 March Page put to sea, prepared to engage them, but

14406-526: 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

14553-445: 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

14700-500: The literature of the early period then, an engine can generally be assumed to be simple-expansion unless otherwise stated. Compound engines were a method of improving efficiency. Until the development of compound engines, steam engines used the steam only once before it was recycled back to the boiler. A compound engine first recycles the steam into one or more larger, lower-pressure secondary cylinders, to use more of its heat energy. Compound engines could be configured to increase either

14847-459: The location of the lever pivot and connecting rod are more or less reversed, with the pivot located at one end of the lever instead of the centre, while the connecting rod is attached to the lever between the cylinder at one end and the pivot at the other. Chief advantages of the grasshopper engine were cheapness of construction and robustness, with the type said to require less maintenance than any other type of marine steam engine. Another advantage

14994-399: 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

15141-561: 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

15288-408: 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

15435-673: The number of expansion stages defines the engine, not the number of cylinders, e.g. the RMS Titanic had four-cylinder, triple-expansion engines. The first successful commercial use was an engine built at Govan in Scotland by Alexander C. Kirk for the SS  Aberdeen in 1881. An earlier experiment with an almost identical engine in SS Propontis in 1874 had had problems with the boilers. The initial installation, running at 150 psi (1,000 kPa) had to be replaced with

15582-471: 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

15729-504: 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

15876-422: 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

16023-595: The same cylinder technology (simple expansion, see below) but a number of different methods of supplying power to the crankshaft (i.e. connection mechanism) were in use. Thus, early marine engines are classified mostly according to their connection mechanism. Some common connection mechanisms were side-lever, steeple, walking beam and direct-acting (see following sections). However, steam engines can also be classified according to cylinder technology (simple-expansion, compound, annular etc.). One can therefore find examples of engines classified under both methods. An engine can be

16170-455: The same widespread acceptance, as it was only marginally smaller and lighter than the side-lever engines it was designed to replace. It was however used on a number of mid-century warships, including the first warship fitted with a screw propeller, HMS  Rattler . There are two definitions of a direct-acting engine encountered in 19th-century literature. The earlier definition applies the term "direct-acting" to any type of engine other than

16317-421: 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

16464-475: The side-to-side motion of the connecting rod, which links a gudgeon pin at the piston head to an outside crankshaft. The walls of the trunk were either bolted to the piston or cast as one piece with it, and moved back and forth with it. The working portion of the cylinder is annular or ring-shaped, with the trunk passing through the centre of the cylinder itself. Early examples of trunk engines had vertical cylinders. However, ship builders quickly realized that

16611-526: 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

16758-406: The small monitor warships. Ericsson resolved this problem by placing two horizontal cylinders back-to-back in the middle of the engine, working two "vibrating levers", one on each side, which by means of shafts and additional levers rotated a centrally located crankshaft. Vibrating lever engines were later used in some other warships and merchant vessels, but their use was confined to ships built in

16905-449: The smaller USS  Galena . 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

17052-436: The steam engine is double acting, see below, whereas almost all internal combustion engines generate power only in the downward stroke). Vertical engines are sometimes referred to as "hammer", "forge hammer" or "steam hammer" engines, due to their roughly similar appearance to another common 19th-century steam technology, the steam hammer . Vertical engines came to supersede almost every other type of marine steam engine toward

17199-404: The technical solution that ensured that virtually all newly built ocean-going steamships were fitted with triple expansion engines within a few years of Aberdeen coming into service. Multiple-expansion engine manufacture continued well into the 20th century. All 2,700 Liberty ships built by the United States during World War II were powered by triple-expansion engines, because the capacity of

17346-418: 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

17493-677: The time of her arrival in Shinagawa harbor on 22 January 1868, the Boshin War between the shogunate and pro-Imperial forces had begun, and the United States took a neutral stance, stopping the delivery of military material, including the delivery of Kōtetsu , to the Shogunate. The ship had arrived under a Japanese flag with an American crew, but the US Resident-Minister, Robert B. Van Valkenburg , ordered her put back under

17640-411: The triangular crosshead assembly found in a typical steeple engine however, the back-acting engine generally used a set of two or more elongated, parallel piston rods terminating in a crosshead to perform the same function. The term "back-acting" or "return connecting rod" derives from the fact that the connecting rod "returns" or comes back from the side of the engine opposite the engine cylinder to rotate

17787-543: The type was compact enough to lay horizontally across the keel . In this configuration, it was very useful to navies, as it had a profile low enough to fit entirely below a ship's waterline , as safe as possible from enemy fire. The type was generally produced for military service by John Penn. Trunk engines were common on mid-19th century warships. They also powered commercial vessels, where—though valued for their compact size and low centre of gravity—they were expensive to operate. Trunk engines, however, did not work well with

17934-478: The unarmored Union ships declined to fight. Stonewall steamed for Lisbon , Portugal, to re-coal, intending to cross the Atlantic Ocean from there. Stonewall reached Nassau, Bahamas , on 6 May and then sailed on to Havana, Cuba , where Page learned of the war's end when he arrived five days later. Union ships first arrived at Havana on 15 May and were reinforced over the course of the month, to include

18081-498: The various feudal domains loyal to the new government. On 25 March 1869, during the Battle of Miyako Bay , Kōtetsu successfully repulsed a surprise night attempt at naval boarding by the rebel Kaiten (spearheaded by survivors from the Shinsengumi ), making use of a mounted Gatling gun . Kōtetsu subsequently supported the invasion of Hokkaidō and various naval engagements in the Naval Battle of Hakodate Bay . Following

18228-420: The vertical inverted direct-acting type, unless they use the term "vertical" without qualification. A simple-expansion engine is a steam engine that expands the steam through only one stage, which is to say, all its cylinders are operated at the same pressure. Since this was by far the most common type of engine in the early period of marine engine development, the term "simple expansion" is rarely encountered. In

18375-428: 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

18522-560: 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

18669-556: 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

18816-491: Was a paddlewheel engine and was not suitable for driving screw propellers . The last ship built for transatlantic service that had a side-lever engine was the Cunard Line 's paddle steamer RMS  Scotia , considered an anachronism when it entered service in 1862. The grasshopper or 'half-lever' engine was a variant of the side-lever engine. The grasshopper engine differs from the conventional side-lever in that

18963-609: 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

19110-611: 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

19257-406: Was a type of direct-acting engine that was designed to achieve further reductions in engine size and weight. Oscillating engines had the piston rods connected directly to the crankshaft, dispensing with the need for connecting rods. To achieve this, the engine cylinders were not immobile as in most engines, but secured in the middle by trunnions that let the cylinders themselves pivot back and forth as

19404-640: Was held up by the Americans until after the Imperial faction had established control over most of the country. She was finally delivered in March 1869 to the new government and had a decisive role in the Naval Battle of Hakodate Bay in May, which marked the end of the Boshin War , and the completion of the military phase of the Meiji Restoration . Renamed Azuma in 1871, she played minor roles in

19551-464: Was large and heavy. For inland waterway and coastal service, lighter and more efficient designs soon replaced it. It remained the dominant engine type for oceangoing service through much of the first half of the 19th century however, due to its relatively low centre of gravity , which gave ships more stability in heavy seas. It was also a common early engine type for warships, since its relatively low height made it less susceptible to battle damage. From

19698-463: 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

19845-404: Was originally developed as a means of reducing an engine's height while retaining a long stroke . (A long stroke was considered important at this time because it reduced the strain on components.) A trunk engine locates the connecting rod within a large-diameter hollow piston. This "trunk" carries almost no load. The interior of the trunk is open to outside air, and is wide enough to accommodate

19992-450: 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 . The Royal Navy had not been keen to sacrifice its advantage in steam ships of

20139-619: Was rectangular in shape, but over time it was refined into an elongated triangle. The triangular assembly above the engine cylinder gives the engine its characteristic "steeple" shape, hence the name. Steeple engines were tall like walking beam engines, but much narrower laterally, saving both space and weight. Because of their height and high centre of gravity, they were, like walking beams, considered less appropriate for oceangoing service, but they remained highly popular for several decades, especially in Europe, for inland waterway and coastal vessels. Steeple engines began to appear in steamships in

20286-792: Was refloated and repaired at the Yokosuka Naval Arsenal . During the Satsuma Rebellion of 1877, she was assigned to guard duties in the Seto Inland Sea . She was stricken from the navy list on 28 January 1888, and was sold for scrap on 12 December 1889. Her armor plating was reused to make the armature shafts in the electric generators in the Asakusa Thermal Power Station, built in Tokyo in 1895. Ironclad warship An ironclad

20433-409: 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

20580-440: 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

20727-418: Was the best way to sink enemy ironclads. 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

20874-427: 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

21021-474: Was the first type of steam engine widely adopted for marine use in Europe . In the early years of steam navigation (from c1815), the side-lever was the most common type of marine engine for inland waterway and coastal service in Europe, and it remained for many years the preferred engine for oceangoing service on both sides of the Atlantic . The side-lever was an adaptation of the earliest form of steam engine,

21168-406: Was the most common type of engine in the early years of American steam navigation. The crosshead engine is described as having a vertical cylinder above the crankshaft, with the piston rod secured to a horizontal crosshead, from each end of which, on opposite sides of the cylinder, extended a connecting rod that rotated its own separate crankshaft. The crosshead moved within vertical guides so that

21315-509: Was the strongest in Japan at the time. On 27 January 1869, Tokugawa loyalists declared the foundation of the Republic of Ezo and elected Enomoto as president. The Meiji government refused to accept partition of Japan and dispatched its newly formed Imperial Japanese Navy , which consisted of Kōtetsu as the flagship and a collection of various steam-powered warships that had been contributed by

21462-433: Was therefore deemed unsuitable for oceangoing service. This largely confined it to vessels built for inland waterways. As marine engines grew steadily larger and heavier through the 19th century, the high center of gravity of square crosshead engines became increasingly impractical, and by the 1840s, ship builders abandoned them in favor of the walking beam engine. The name of this engine can cause confusion, as "crosshead"

21609-423: 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

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