Eugenio Luis Facchin, The Untold Story of a Fighting Ship: One Ship, Two Flags, A Thousand Battles by Michael Razer

The Northern Mariner / Le marin du nord rivalries, war scares with Russia, and occasional armed demonstrations in local affairs gave the aging ironclads continuing relevance.By 1900, the now 35-year-old armoured iron ships and their guns were clearly obsolete, even for limited coastal defence roles, and they were struck from strength.Besides the basic story of initial intrigue and later normal routine of the Laird ironclads, the book also provides considerable technical explanation in the context of changes to naval warfare and ship design, and rich descriptions of primary and secondary weapons carried on board the ships.The two ironclads, as originally conceived, were intended to operate near coastal waters and break, once and for all, the strangling Union blockade, which gave the ram a certain prominence, and reflected contemporary opinion about the importance of that weapon.The main guns housed in manually rotating turrets midships represented another notable innovation.The piercing effects of shell against armour attracted considerable attention, in which the Laird ironclads were at the start of a seesaw contest between guns versus armour based upon key industrial and ordnance improvements.Additional rapid firing guns and machine guns, such as the Nordenfelt, furnished increased firepower in close-quarter combat and an ability to ward off attacking torpedo boats.The armour-clads possessed the ability to fire their own Whitehead torpedoes, and as reconfigured, could carry their own torpedo boats for independent action.English points out, however, that any firing of the main guns was likely to damage or smash the torpedo boats kept on deck, and hoisting them out would have been very difficult in anything less than ideal sea conditions.Numerous illustrations picked by English from his own collections and the National Maritime Museum accompany the text, and are an important feature of the book and its account.The Laird Rams is a serious book with academic and popular appeal.It can be read in conjunction with Howard Fuller's Clad in Iron (2008), from which it references.The book is recommended for readers interested in the American Civil War, the Confederate Navy, afloat coastal defences, and the technical and armament aspects of naval warfare in the second half of the nineteenth century.

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