Pre-industrial Armoured Ships - Evidence in The Far East

Evidence in The Far East

Early ship armour probably had its origins in applying thin sheets of metal to ship undersides for preservative reasons. In the Battle of Red Cliff in 207, warships were covered with wetted hides as defense against incendiary weapons. By 1130, in the battle of "Huang Tian Dang", Jin sailors built protective bulwarks of an unknown material with oar ports in them, presumably as an adoptive response against its enemies. The introduction of paddle-boats allowed the Song dynasty general Qin Shifu to build two new prototype warships. These warships were described to have its sides protected with iron plates.

In 1578, the Japanese daimyo Oda Nobunaga had made six Atakebune (大安宅船) which were called, according to one source, "Tekkōsen" (鉄甲船), literally meaning "iron ships". implying that their superstructure may have been reinforced with iron plates against cannon and fire arrows. These vessels, more floating batteries than ships, were armed with multiple cannons and large caliber arquebuses, and were described by the Italian Jesuit Organtino as being protected by iron plates two to three inches thick. No iron-covering at all, however, was mentioned in the account of the Jesuit missionary Luis Frois, who had also seen and described the ships. Nobunaga defeated the navy of his enemy Mori Terumoto with these ships at the mouth of the Kizu River, Osaka in 1578 with a successful naval blockade.

A possible usage of iron plates occurs during the 1592-1598 Imjin War when a single Japanese source mentions Korean turtle ships (Hangul:거북선, Geobukseon or Kobukson) to be "covered in iron". According to Turnbull, the Japanese responded by ordering supplies of iron plates for the building of warships, so that the turtle ship can be "countered in its own terms".

According to Hawley, however, the Japanese phrase does not necessarily mean the vessels were covered with iron plates; it could simply refer to the iron spikes protruding from their roofs. In fact, contemporary Korean sources do not support the claim that the turtle ships were ironclad: Admiral Yi Sun-Sin, the purported inventor himself, refers in his memoirs only to "iron spikes on its back to pierce the enemies feet when they tried to board", but does not mention any iron plating. Likewise Yi Pun, his nephew and war reporter, mentions in his lengthy war memoirs only "iron spikes" on the deck, and the annals of king Sonjo, a comprehensive collection of official documents of the period, are silent, too, about any ironcladding. Korean Prime Minister Yu Seong-ryong described the turtle ship explicitly as "covered by wooden planks on top".