The naval force which went to the Crimea was largely steam-driven. The Battle of Sinope, in November, 1853, in which the Russians annihilated a Turkish fleet, proved alike the superiority of a steam war fleet over a sailing fleet, and, incidentally, the range and power of the Russian guns. The Russian squadron was more powerful in every way, but its great superiority lay in its heavy artillery; all the Russian ships of the line carried smooth-bore guns which could fire shells, and the shells, exploding, set fire to and demolished the Turks in a few minutes. This demonstration of the effectiveness of the Muscovite weapons showed the allies for what they ought to be prepared when the expected war broke out; but the Russians knew that in fighting capacity their fleets were no match for the British and French fleets, so their vessels were kept under the protection of the Russian forts, and for the most part destroyed a few at a time as the war went on. The Russians are not to be blamed for shirking a naval battle, for the British and French were the greatest naval forces in the world, splendidly equipped and ready for the fray; whereas the Russians do not take kindly to naval warfare--as events half a century later showed. Many of the Russian ships were hastily equipped; it was currently reported in this country that some of them were engined with converted railway locomotives. All the Russian ships, however, were not of this type. Some were built on the Thames, among the number being the paddle frigate _Vladimir_, which gave a good account of herself in more than one engagement. She was a wooden vessel, and at the time of her construction in 1848, was considered to display a remarkable amount of symmetry of form, and to be of very considerable magnitude. Her length between perpendiculars was 200 feet, and her burthen 1,200 tons. She carried two 10-inch pivot guns, and four 8-inch guns mounted on sliding carriages. [Illustration: H.M.S. “CENTAUR,” “BULLDOG” AND “IMPERIEUSE” ENGAGED WITH SIX RUSSIAN GUNBOATS OFF CRONSTADT, 1855.] [Illustration: SECTIONAL MODEL OF RUSSIAN MAN-OF-WAR, 1854, IN THE MUSEUM OF THE ROYAL UNITED SERVICE INSTITUTION.] The paddle frigate _Retribution_, a typical specimen of her class, launched at Chatham in 1844, was selected to proceed to Sebastopol in 1854 to demand the release of the engineers taken prisoners at the Battle of Sinope, who were in the service of the Porte. She was of about 1,641 tons and had engines on Maudslay’s Siamese pattern of 400 h.p., and carried a crew of three hundred men. Her armament consisted of twenty-eight guns of a “very persuasive size”--their persuasiveness was fully demonstrated in the subsequent proceedings in the Crimea.