The Warrior and Black Prince were faster and much more capable of handling rough seas, but from all accounts a river monitor would have had a faster rate of turn due to being much shorter. ![]() The Monitor's massive 11-inch guns weren't firing at full charge due to concerns about catastrophic failure since this battle was pretty much it's shakedown cruise, and until a lucky hit on the pilot house's viewing slats the Virginia's 6 and 9 cannons couldn't do much to the Monitor's 9 inch thick turret armor (attempts to ram the Monitor actually only damaged Virginia.) Virginia and Monitor both survived their first 4-hour engagement with overall relatively minor damage. The best analogy I can think of would be a land war where everyone is wearing full body armor but carrying a single-shot. ![]() Ironclad battles at this time were often rather anticlimactic since the abilities of iron armor usually outstripped the destructive capability of cannon technology at the time- they were limited in velocity due to using black powder rather than modern nitrocellulose propellant. "This is an incredible image and it brings up a lot of interesting what-if questions. ![]() Please tell me if this sounds right or is it utter hogwash? Who would win in a sea engagement between HMS Warrior and the USS Monitor? Why?
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