Japanese Ironclad Kōtetsu
, later renamed , was the first ironclad warship of the Imperial Japanese Navy. She was designed as an armored ram for service in shallow waters, but also carried three guns. The ship was built in Bordeaux, France, for the Confederate States Navy under the cover name ''Sphinx'', but was sold to Denmark after sales of warships by French builders to the Confederacy was forbidden in 1863. The Danes refused to accept the ship and sold her to the Confederates which commissioned her as CSS ''Stonewall'' in 1865. The ship did not reach Confederate waters before the end of the American Civil War in April and was turned over to the United States. The Tokugawa shogunate of Japan bought her from the United States in 1867 and renamed her ''Kōtetsu'', but delivery was held up by the Americans until after the Imperial faction had established control over most of the country. She was finally delivered in March 1869 to the new government and had a decisive role in the Naval Battle of Hakoda ...
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Ironclad
An ironclad is a steam engine, steam-propelled warship protected by Wrought iron, iron or steel iron armor, armor plates, constructed from 1859 to the early 1890s. The ironclad was developed as a result of the vulnerability of wooden warships to explosive or incendiary shell (projectile), shells. The first ironclad battleship, , was launched by the French Navy in November 1859 - narrowly pre-empting the British Royal Navy. They were first used in warfare in 1862 during the American Civil War, when ironclads operated against wooden ships and, in a historic confrontation, against each other at the Battle of Hampton Roads in Virginia. Their performance demonstrated that the ironclad had replaced the unarmored ship of the line as the most powerful warship afloat. City-class ironclad, Ironclad gunboats became very successful in the American Civil War. Ironclads were designed for several uses, including as high seas battleships, long-range cruisers, and Littoral (military), coast ...
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