Whatever was uncertain, it was known at least that there would be no more sea fights like those of the last century and the first half of this, when three-deck frigates and seventy-four-gun men-of-war were lashed together, while their crews fought with small arms and cutlasses for hours.  Those were the days when “hearts of oak” and “the wooden walls of England” made what romance there was in naval warfare, and the ships of the young United States won respect on every sea.  In the fights of those days the vessels would float till they were shot to pieces, and with the stimulus of close fighting the men were ready to brave any odds in boarding an enemy’s craft.  It was well understood that the changed conditions would make very different battles between the fighting machines of to-day.

That a naval battle between modern fleets, armed with modern guns, would be a terribly destructive one both to the ships and to the lives of those who manned them, was conceded by all naval authorities.  The destructiveness would come not only from the tremendous power and effectiveness of the guns, but also from the fact that the shell had replaced the solid shot in all calibers down to the one-pounder, so that to the penetrating effect of the projectile was added its explosive power and the scattering of its fragments in a destructive and death-dealing circle many feet in diameter.

Modern guns and projectiles.

The modern armor-piercing shell, made of hardened steel, and with its conical point carefully fashioned for the greatest penetrating power, has all the armor-piercing effectiveness of a solid shot of the same shape, while its explosiveness makes it infinitely more destructive.  For the modern shell does not explode when it first strikes the side or armor of an enemy’s ship, but after it has pierced the side or armor and has exhausted its penetrative effect.  The percussion fuse is in the base of the shell, and is exploded by a plunger driven against it by the force of the impact of the shell on striking.  The time between the impact of the shell and its explosion is sufficient for it to have done its full penetrative work.

It first must be understood that all modern guns on ships-of-war are breech-loading and rifled, and that the smooth bore exists only as a relic, or to be brought out in an emergency for coast defense, when modern guns are not available.  From the thirteen-inch down to the four-inch, the guns are designated by their caliber, the diameter of their bore, and the shot they throw, while from that to the one-pounder they take their name from the weight of the shot.  Everything below the one-pounder is in the machine-gun class.

The base of rapid-fire work is the bringing together in one cartridge of the primer, powder, and shell.  When the limit of weight of cartridge, easily handled by one man, is reached, the limit of rapid-fire action is also reached; and, although the quick-moving breech mechanisms have been applied abroad to guns of as large as eight-inch caliber, such guns would rank as quick, rather than rapid firing, and would require powder and shot to be loaded separately.