Written by Frederick Engels about October 5, 1857, and published unsigned in The New American Cyclopædia (New York: D. Appleton and Company), vol. III, 1858, p. 453. Text of the Cyclopædia, from the public-domain scans in the Internet Archive (newamericancycl21danagoog), with the OCR corrected against the page images; collated with the German version in Marx/Engels, Werke, vol. 14 (Berlin, 1961), p. 147, and found complete. Misprints of the Cyclopædia are kept and pointed out in the notes of the translation. Traducción al español
BOMB VESSEL, or Mortar Boat, is the expression in use for the more modern class of ships constructed to carry mortars. Up to the Russian war, those built for the British service drew 8 or 9 feet water, and carried, beside their 2 10-inch mortars, 4 68-pounders, and 6 18 lb. carronades. When the Russian war made naval warfare in shallow waters and intricate channels a necessity, and mortar boats were required on account of the strong sea-fronts of the Russian fortresses, which defied any direct attack by ships, a new class of bomb vessels had to be devised. The new boats thus built are about 60 feet long, with great breadth of beam, round bows like a Dutch galliot, flat bottoms, drawing 6 or 7 feet water, and propelled by steam. They carry 2 mortars, 10 or 13-inch calibre, and a few field-guns or carronades to repel boarding parties by grape, but no heavy guns. They were used with great effect at Sweaborg, which place they bombarded from a distance of 4,000 yards.