27 SEPTEMBER 1890, Page 3

The American Navy Department have during the week been making

experiments at Annapolis with different sorts of armour-plating. The details published as yet are scanty and confused, but it would seem that a French plate compounded of steel and nickel has shown an astonishing amount of tenacity. While the ordinary steel armour was completely shattered by the shell from an 8-inch gun, the nickel-steel remained intact, the projectile sticking in the hole. If the results of the new invention are really as satisfactory as they seem, we may witness another swing of the pendulum in the great controversy between grans and armour. A year ago we were told that the days of heavy plating were numbered, and now we are presented with an unsmashable, if not an im- penetrable form of armour.