Naval ram
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A Naval ram was a weapon carried by ironclad battleships of the Royal Navy from the building of the Defence Class until that of the Royal Sovereign class in the early 1890's
The weapon consisted of an underwater prolongation of the bow of the ship to form an armoured beak, usually between 6 feet and twelve feet in length. In most battleships so equipped, the armour belt was prolonged to brace both sides of the ram.
The theory behind the use of the weapon derived from the fact that, in the period around 1860, armour held superiority over the ship-mounted cannon. That is to say, it was believed that an armoured warship could not be seriously damaged by the naval artillery in existence at the time. In order to achieve a decisive result in a naval engagement, therefore, alternative methods of action were believed to be necessary. As it followed, from the same belief, that a ship armed with a ram could not be seriously damaged by the gunfire of its intended victim, the ram became, for a brief period, the main armament of Royal Naval and contemporary foreign battleships.
The ram was commonly used in antiquity, and was an important part of the armament of the galleys of Imperial Rome . Its first recorded use in modern times between major warships, however, was in the American Civil War, at the battle of Hampton Roads, when the armoured Confederate warship Merrimac rammed the Union frigate Cumberland, sinking her almost immediately. The only other significant success of the ram in wartime was at the battle of Lissa, between Italy and Austria. The Italian ironclad Re d'Italia had been damaged aft by gunfire, and had no rudder. Lying helpless in the water, she was struck amidships by the Austrian Ferdinand Max, the flagship of the Austrian Commander-in-Chief Admiral Tegetthof. The Austrian ship retreated unharmed as the Italian vessel rolled over and sank.
No other ironclad was ever sunk by an enemy ship in time of war by the use of the ram, although the ram was regarded by all major navies for some thirty years as primary battleship armament. A number of ships were, however, rammed in peacetime by ships of their own navy. The most serious in terms of loss of life was the collision between HMS Victoria and HMS Camperdown, which took place in the Mediterranean in 1893. (See HMS Victoria) The only battleship over submarine victory in history occurred during World War I, when the obsolete battleship HMS Dreadnought rammed and sunk a German U-Boat.
When it became clear, towards the end of the nineteenth century, that breech-loading cannon could hit, and hit effectively, enemy ships at several thousand yards range, the ineffectiveness of the ram became clear and ships ceased to be fitted with them
