Time, and the progress of artillery, were on the side of Captain Cowper Coles. He saw, and the Admiralty advisers felt, that although it was possible to work existing guns on the broadside, yet increase in the size and weight of guns would sooner or later necessitate the mounting of them on accurately balanced turntables secured by central pivots on the centre-line. Only by such a method could the largest gun be worked and the full weight of metal be poured, as required, on either broadside. In fact the turret, the original object of which was purely defensive, was now regarded from a quite different point of view: as a convenient device by which guns of the highest calibre could be carried and worked. Was complicated machinery objected to? The common winch, the rack and pinion, were in constant use on every railway turntable, nor had the American turrets ever failed in action or caused a loss of confidence in their reliability. Reliance upon a central pivot was disliked? Yet the pivot was already in use for holding the broadside guns of our ironclads--a mere bolt 4 inches in diameter and itself exposed to gunfire.[169] The Admiralty constructors were insistent on the practical difficulties which lay in the way of designing a satisfactory sea-going turret ship. The advantages which had been claimed for turrets were obvious, said Sir Edward Reed; the larger and heavier the individual gun, the greater the gain of mounting it in a turret. But enthusiastic advocates of this method lost sight of the fact that turrets were incompatible with masts and sails, and with the forecastle and high freeboard necessary for good sea-going qualities. At that time, 1865, it was possible to protect and work eight of the largest guns, mounted on the broadside, with as little expenditure of weight as would be required to mount four of the guns two in a turret on the centre-line; while in the latter case they could only fire in two different directions at the same time, whereas in the former they could fire in eight.