Abstract
AT the conclusion of their labours the “Iron Plate Committee” reported, in 1865, that the best material for the armour of war-ships was wrought iron of the softest and toughest nature. Steel, or steely iron, or combinations of iron and steel were all pronounced unsuitable for the purpose, after a long course of careful experiments. Accepting this verdict the designers of armoured ships continued to specify for soft iron armour, the makers of guns and projectiles aimed at the perforation of this kind of armour, and the manufacturers sought to secure the desired qualities of softness and toughness in the thicker and heavier plates which they were constantly being called upon to produce. All the armoured ships built from 1860 to 1876 were “ironclads,” and in that time the thicknesses of armour plates carried on the sides or batteries of completed ships had advanced from 4½ inches to 14 inches, while the weights had risen from 4 or 5 tons to 20 or 25 tons. Greater aggregate thicknesses of iron had been arranged for prior to 1876. For example, the Inflexible had been designed to carry 24 inches of iron on her sides, but this was in two layers of 12-inch plates. The adoption of the so-called “sandwichfashion” of armour plating was based upon experiments made at Shoeburyness, and it had certain advantages of a constructive character; it also enabled broader and longer plates to be produced within the fixed limits of weights with which the manufacturers could deal, and enabled them to insure excellence of quality which might not have been so certain of attainment in plates of 20 inches or upwards in thickness.
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Recent Armour-Plate Experiments . Nature 27, 405–407 (1883). https://doi.org/10.1038/027405a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/027405a0