The idea of armouring ships was, of course, not novel. Armour of sorts had been utilized from antiquity; in the days when the shields of the men-at-arms were ranged along the bulwarks of the war galleys; in the Tudor days when the waists of ships were protected by high elm “blinders,” and when Andrea Doria’s carrack was so sheathed with lead and bolted with brass that “it was impossible to sink her though all the artillery of a fleet were fired against her.” In the eighteenth century the French themselves had attempted to clothe floating batteries with armour, not indeed against shells but against red-hot shot. In 1782 they had devised, for the attack on Gibraltar, six wooden floating batteries which, with their armament, were protected by a belt of sand enclosed in cork and kept moist with sea water. But this experience had been disastrous. The sand-drenching apparatus failed to act, and the batteries were almost totally destroyed by fire. But now, although experiments with iron-plated ships had been the reverse of satisfactory, data were to hand which showed that, if used in sufficient thickness, iron plates _were_ capable of withstanding the disruptive effects of shell. At Vincennes trials had been made, between 1851 and 1854, with various thicknesses and dispositions of iron; with plates four to five and a half inches thick, with compound plates, and with plates supported on a hard wood lining eighteen inches thick; of all of which the thick simple plates had proved the most effective. So the five floating batteries ordered for work in the Crimea were covered with 4-inch iron plates backed by a thick lining. Sixty-four feet long, 42 feet in beam, drawing about 18 feet of water, armed with sixteen 56-pounder shell guns and equipped with auxiliary steam machinery for manœuvring, their construction was hastened with all possible speed. By October, ’55, three of them, the _Dévastation_, _Tonnante_, and _Lave_, had joined the allied flags, and on the 17th of that month they took a principal part in the bombardment of Kinburn. Their success was complete. Although repeatedly hit their iron plates were only dented by the Russian shot and shell. “Everything,” reported the French commander-in-chief, “may be expected from these formidable engines of war.” Once again the arguments of Paixhans for armoured war vessels had been justified; the experience gained with iron armour at Kinburn confirmed that gained with shell guns at Sinope. France at once proceeded to apply these lessons to the improvement of her navy proper.