ed the
possibility of protecting warships by armour, and the matter, was forced
to the front when gunmakers followed the lead of the shipbuilders and
engineers, and set themselves to see what could be done in the way of
improving ordnance, that had remained practically unchanged for hundreds
of years, saving for more accurate workmanship.

Up till this time, only solid round-shot had been used on shipboard. An
attempt had been made to get Napoleon the First to sanction the use of
shells for naval use; fortunately, for some reason or other, he declined
to do so, and thus our great struggle for naval supremacy was carried on
with the solid round-shot that had been in vogue from the earliest
introduction of cannon. The smooth-bore cannon from which they were
fired, could not be relied on to project them with accuracy to distances
greater than about 1500 yards; beyond this range, their flight became so
erratic, that it was simply a waste of ammunition to fire them.
Whitworth and Armstrong set themselves to solve the problem of how to
make cannon shoot better.

The experiments of Whitworth and Armstrong resulted in the production of
rifled guns, based on a principle that had already been tried with
success in small-arms. The rifling enabled long conical shot to be
fired with far greater accuracy than the old round-shot, and as these
conical shot were two or three times as heavy as the round-shot that
could be fired from a gun of the same bore, the guns of a given bore had
only to be rifled to be suddenly raised to a much heavier grade,
supposing them to be strong enough to stand the heavier charge of powder
required. Not only that, but their range would be much greater, and
their shot would pass through both sides of the stoutest ship in
existence. For, when fired at wooden targets identical in material and
thickness with the side of a ship, the projectiles went through them as
if they had been paper, or, if shells were used, tore them to pieces.
Even strong iron plates failed to withstand their impact. The thinner
plates they tore open; as the thickness was increased, they first buried
their heads in the metal, but stuck fast; then indented it only; and
finally glanced off, but not until the plate had been made 4 or 5 inches
thick.

Further progress was also made by the invention of breech loaders, which
gave an increased rate of fire to these already formidable weapons, and
to make matters still worse, much larger