THE MONITOR
The first armoured ship to mount a turret. This is the ship that fought with the Merrimac the first battle between armoured ships.
For nearly two hundred years these heavy ships were the “battleships” of the Roman fleet. But at the Battle of Actium, in 31 B. C., Mark Antony’s ships, which were of this type, were soundly beaten by light, swift two-banked ships called the Liburnian biremes.
Thereupon these Liburnians became the most important ships of war, and later grew into the great galleys of the Middle Ages. The later development, however, tended to the use of one bank, while the oars grew longer and longer until they reached such size that several men were used on each—sometimes as many as seven men being employed on a single oar. This form of rowed war vessel was in more or less common use, principally in the Mediterranean, until the beginning of the 17th Century.
In the north of Europe the Viking influence was felt plainly for many years, but finally it was outgrown, or practically outgrown, largely, perhaps, because of the introduction of the raised forecastles and sterncastles, and the introduction of more highly developed rigging.
During the Crusades most of the fleets consisted largely of merchant ships, which were more or less converted into war vessels by the addition of raised castles. These castles were, perhaps, of Roman origin, for the old Roman ships sometimes had somewhat similar contrivances at bow and stern.
The invention of gunpowder brought about many changes in ship design. At first the guns were small and were pivoted in the rails, as they were on Columbus’s ships, but later, as larger cannon came into use, a new arrangement of them became necessary.
Galleys found it difficult to use many cannon, for they could not be mounted amidships, that part of these ships being crowded with rowers, who, by the way, were now seldom below deck. Guns, consequently, had to be mounted at bow and stern, where only a few could be installed. This, then, was one reason for the decline of galleys, for ships driven exclusively by sail were able to mount cannon on deck, where many of them could be carried and fired over the sides.
As ships increased in size it became possible to mount cannon below deck and to cut portholes through which they could fire.
It was along these lines that warships next progressed, until, at the end of the 18th Century, the line-of-battle ships were great unwieldy affairs with three gun decks below, on which were mounted a hundred guns. Earlier ships had been built which had carried even more guns than this, but the guns had been smaller and consequently less effective.