Steam Rams: Crackpot Schemes or Good Ideas Badly Done p6/7

The Battle of Lissa and the American Civil War made steam rams look important, while two Cammell Laird ships gave the Royal Navy a practical reason to test the idea.

A comparison with triremes shows why ramming made sense when ships closed for boarding, but became a bad primary weapon once guns and shells could sink ships at range.

A strengthened bow or emergency ramming ability could still be useful, but it did not justify building a warship around collision with another armored ship.

A ship charging bow-first to ram gives up much of its own broadside, lets the enemy cross its T, and invites concentrated gunfire.

Successful ramming depended on confined waters, limited maneuvering control, and luck, conditions that offered no sound basis for open-water doctrine.