"The difficulties encountered by the Royal Navy in the Baltic and Black Sea campaigns of 1854 against Russia are well documented, but details of the response are less well known. The armoured floating batteries are also well documented, but they were only one solution to the problem of waging war against an enemy who refused to leave his fortified harbours. There is also the problem of contemporary public perceptions of the war, which assumed the Crimea was the primary objective. Nor have modern historians managed to penetrate the fog, being obsessed with army tribulations in the siege of Sevastopol…"