Editing Battleship (section)

=== Ironclads ===
{{Main|Ironclad warship}}
[[File:LaGloirePhotograph.jpg|thumb|{{ship|French ironclad|Gloire||2}} (1859), the first ocean-going [[ironclad warship]]]]

As amply demonstrated at the Battle of Sinope, and again during the Anglo-French [[blockade]] of [[Sevastopol]] from 1854 to 1855, wooden ships had become vulnerable to shell-firing guns. This prompted the French emperor [[Napoleon III]] to order the first [[ironclad warship]]s: the {{sclass|Dévastation|ironclad floating battery|1}}s. Three of these ships led the Anglo-French attack on the Russian fortress on the [[Kinburn Peninsula]] in the [[Battle of Kinburn (1855)|Battle of Kinburn]] in 1855, where they bore the brunt of Russian artillery fire, but were not seriously damaged. The success of these ships prompted the French and British to order several similar vessels.{{sfn|Sondhaus|2001|pp=58–61}}{{sfn|Lambert|1984|pp=92–96}}

In March 1858, the French took development of the ironclad to its next logical step: a proper, ocean-going armored warship. This vessel, another design by Dupuy de Lome, was {{ship|French ironclad|Gloire||2}}, and after her [[ceremonial ship launching|launching]] in 1859, Napoleon III ordered another five similar ships, which sparked a naval [[arms race]] with Britain. The first French ironclads had the profile of a ship of the line, cut to one deck due to weight considerations. Although made of wood and reliant on sail for most journeys, ''Gloire'' and her contemporaries were fitted with screw propellers, and their wooden hulls were protected by a layer of thick iron armor. Britain responded promptly with {{HMS|Warrior|1860|2}}, a similar but much larger ironclad with an iron hull. By the time ''Warrior'' was completed in 1861, another nine ironclads were under construction in British shipyards, some of which were conversions of screw ships of the line that were already being built.{{sfn|Gibbons|1983|pp=28–31}}{{sfn|Sondhaus|2001|pp=73–75}}

During the [[Unification of Italy]] in 1860, the [[Kingdom of Sardinia]] entered the ironclad building race by ordering the {{sclass|Formidabile|ironclad|1}}s from French shipyards; their long-term rival across the [[Adriatic Sea]], the Austrian Empire, quickly responded later that year with the two {{sclass|Drache|ironclad|1}}s. Spain and Russia ordered ironclads in 1861, as did the United States and rebel [[Confederate States of America]] after the start of the [[American Civil War]]. Construction of these large and expensive warships remained controversial until March 1862, when news of the [[Battle of Hampton Roads]], fought between the Union {{USS|Monitor}} and the Confederate {{ship|CSS|Virginia}}, firmly settled debate in favor of even larger construction programs.{{sfn|Sondhaus|2001|pp=76–78}}

From the 1860s to 1880s, navies experimented with the positioning of guns, in [[Gun turret|turrets]], [[central battery ship|central-batteries]], or [[barbette]]s; ironclads of the period also prominently used the [[naval ram|ram]] as a principal weapon. As steam technology developed, masts were gradually removed from battleship designs. The British [[Director of Naval Construction|Chief Constructor]], [[Edward Reed (naval architect)|Edward Reed]], produced the {{sclass|Devastation|ironclad|1}}s in 1869. These were mastless [[turret ship]]s, which adopted twin-screw propulsion and an arrangement of two pairs of {{convert|12|in|adj=on|0}} guns, one fore and one aft of the [[superstructure]], that prefigured the advent of the [[pre-dreadnought battleship]] some two decades later. By the mid-1870s [[steel]] was used as a construction material alongside iron and wood. The French Navy's {{ship|French ironclad|Redoutable||2}}, laid down in 1873 and launched in 1876, was a combination central battery and [[barbette ship]], which became the first capital ship in the world to use steel as the principal building material.{{sfn|Gardiner|Lambert|2001|p=96}}{{sfn|Sondhaus|2001|pp=87–89}}

The rapid pace of technological developments, particularly in terms of gun capabilities and thickness of armor to combat them, quickly rendered ships obsolescent.{{sfn|Beeler|2001|p=21}} In the continuous attempt by gun manufacturers to keep ahead of developments in armor plate, larger and larger guns were fitted to many of the later ironclads. Some of these, such as the British {{sclass|Victoria|ironclad|4}}, carried guns as large as {{convert|16.25|in}} in diameter, while the Italian {{sclass|Duilio|ironclad|1}}s were armed with colossal {{convert|17.7|in|adj=on}} guns.{{sfn|Chesneau|Kolesnik|1979|pp=30, 340}} The French experimented with very large guns in the 1870s, but after significant trouble with these guns (and the development of slower-burning [[gunpowder]]), they led the way toward smaller-caliber guns with longer barrels, which had higher [[muzzle velocity]] and thus greater penetration than the larger guns.{{sfn|Ropp|1987|pp=98–100}}