Harper's Round Table, May 14, 1895

Harper's Round Table, May 14, 1895

aval battles of the civil war have an immense importance, because they mark the line of cleavage between naval warfare under the old and naval warfare under the new conditions. From the days of the defeat of the Spanish Armada, for two centuries and a half, the fighting at sea was carried on in ships of substantially the same characterwooden sailing ships, carrying many guns mounted in broadside. Howard, Drake, Blake, Tromp, De Ruyter, Nelson, and all the other great admirals, and all the famous single-ship fighterswhose skill reached its highest expression in our own navy during the war of 1812commanded craft built and armed in a substantially similar manner, and fought with the same weapons and under much the same conditions. But in the civil war weapons and methods were introduced which caused a revolution greater even than that which divided the sailing ship from the galley. The use of steam, the casing of ships in iron armor, and the employment of the torpedo, the ram, and the gun of huge calibre, produced such radically new types that the old ships of the line became at one stroke as antiquated as the galleys of Hamilcar or Alcibiades. All of these new engines of war were for the first time tried in actual combat, and some of them were for the first time invented, during our own civil war, and the first occasion on which any of the new methods were thoroughly tested was attended by incidents which made it one of the most striking of naval battles. ......Buy Now (To Read More)

Product details

Ebook Number: 32961
Author: Various
Release Date: Jun 24, 2010
Format: eBook
Language: English