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MODERN ARMOR.

By F.R.  BRAINARD, U.S.N.

The building of a navy, which has been actively going on for the past few years, has drawn public attention to naval subjects, and recent important experiments with armor plates have attracted large attention, hence it may not be amiss to give a description of the manufacture and testing of armor.  It would be interesting to wade through the history of armor, studying each little step in its development, but we shall simply take a hasty glance at the past, and then devote our attention to modern armor and its immediate future.

Modern armor has arrived at its present state of development through a long series of experiments.  These experiments have been conducted with great care and skill, and have been varied from time to time as the improvements in the manufacture of materials have developed, and as the physical laws connected with the subject have been better understood.  There has been very little war experience to draw from, and hence about all that is now known has been acquired in peaceful experiments.

The fundamental object to be obtained by the use of armor is to keep out the enemy’s shot, and thus protect from destruction the vulnerable things that may be behind it.  The first serious effort to do this dates with the introduction of iron armor.  With this form of armor we have had a small amount of war experience.  The combat of the Monitor and Merrimac, in Hampton Roads, in May, 1862, not only marked an epoch in the development of models of fighting ships, but also marked one in the use of armor.  The Monitor’s turret was composed of nine one-inch plates of wrought iron, bolted together.  Plates built in this manner form what is known as laminated armor. (See Fig. 1.) The side armor of the hull was composed of four one-inch plates.  The Merrimac’s casemate was composed of four one-inch plates or two two-inch plates backed by oak.  The later monitors had laminated armor composed of one-inch plates.  The foregoing, with the Albemarle and Tennessee rams under the Confederate flag, are about the sum of our practical experience in the use of armor.

[Illustration:  Fig. 1.]

European nations took up the subject of armor and energetically conducted experiments which have cost large sums of money, but have given much valuable data.  For a long time wrought iron was the only material used for armor, and the resisting power depending on the thickness; and the caliber and penetration of guns rapidly increasing, it was not long before a point was reached where the requisite thickness made the load of armor so great that it was impracticable for a ship to carry it.  The question then arose as to what were the most important parts of a ship to protect.  The attempted solutions of this question brought out various systems of distributions.