Identifier: harpersnew72various (find matches)
Title: Harper's New Monthly Magazine Volume 34 December 1886 to May 1887
Year: 1887 (1880s)
Authors: various
Subjects:
Publisher: New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers
Contributing Library: Brigham Young University-Idaho, David O. McKay Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Brigham Young University-Idaho

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viz., the power to float, and to float withneedful buoyancy and stability, all thetime the armor is unpierced. The groundof that condemnation is to be found inthe introduction into the Admirals ofa dangerous combination from which theInflexible and Agamemnon and otherlike ships are exemj^t—the combinationof long unarmored ends comprising about45 per cent, of the water-line area with soshallow a belt of armor that, Avlien theunarmored ends are injured and filled bythe sea (as they would be in action), therewould remain so little armor left abovewater that a very slight inclination of theship would put it all below water. In theAgamemnon class, small as the initial sta-bility may be (and with the unarmoredends torn open it would be nothing), thearmor is carried up to a reasonable heightabove water. But in the Admiral classall the advantage arising from a slightlylengthened citadel is more than destroyedby this lowering of the armor. So great isthe consequent danger of these ships cap-
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354 HARPER^S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. sizing, if ever called upon to engage in aserious battle, at close quarters, that thewriter can not conscientiously regardthem as armored ships, but nuist inconnnon fairness to the oflBcers and menwho are to serv^e in them, and to the nationw^iich might otherwise put its trust inthem, relegate them to the category ofships with only parts protected. It will be observed that nothing has yetbeen said about thickness of armor, al-though that is, of course, a very importantelement of a ships safety or danger. Butimportant as it is, it has to be kept scrupu-lously separated from the question justdiscussed—the limitation of the armorsextent—because no misrepresentation andno misconception can well arise concern-ing the relative power or trustworthinessof ships armored variously as to thickness,while much misrepresentation has actual-ly taken place and much consequent mis-conception has actually arisen on the oth-er matter, more than one European gov-ern

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