ABSTRACT
William Armstrong's built-up gun contributed to a fundamental change in British defensive strategy in the 1860s and in British warship development during the rest of the century. He considered foreign arms sales unpatriotic, but Stuart Rendel insisted that foreign sales benefited England, since other nations would come to depend upon her for their weapons. Armstrong adopted a method of rifling muzzle-loaders first developed by a French colonel in 1842. In September 1862, an engineering opponent burst on the scene, one with the engineering reputation, political support and newspaper backing to equal those of Armstrong. He responded immediately to the publicity over Joseph Whitworth's success in a letter to The Times, a popular forum for technical disputes among inventors. Armstrong had successfully defended his reputation as the man who made the first built-up gun, but the fact remained that the Warrior target had been penetrated by a Whitworth shell.
