To which the Russians could only reply with eighty-one cannon and mortars, and no guns of heavier calibre than 32-pounders, while many were lower.

The great disparity in offensive power was not compensated to the works by the advantage of commanding position, the Russian fort and redoubt being upon nearly the same level with the ships' batteries, and also very deficient in proper strength.
On the other hand, the depth of water did not allow the liners to approach nearer than one mile; and thus their fire was by no means so intense as it would have been at shorter range." "This was the sole occasion in which the floating batteries had an opportunity of proving their endurance; which was the question of most importance, as no one could doubt the effect of long 50-pounders, or 68-pounders, when brought within a few hundred yards of masonry, and able to retain the steadiness indispensable to a breaching fire." "No siege operation had ever embraced batteries of such power, for though the English had employed long 68-pounders at Sebastopol, yet the distance from the objects exceeded a thousand yards; and the concentration of fire, so far as any opinion can be formed from the published statements, was far inferior to that of the thirty-six 50-pounders, in the broadsides of the three batteries anchored in close order." "They were hulled repeatedly by shot; one of them (the _Devastation_), it is said, sixty-seven times, without any other effect on the stout iron plates than to dint them, at the most, one and a half inches,--still, there were ten men killed and wounded in this battery by shot and shell which entered the ports,--and the majority of damage to the French personnel (twenty-seven men) occurred in the three floating-batteries." Major Barnard, in commenting upon this affair, says that it "proves nothing, unless it be, that dilapidated, and ill-designed, and ill-constructed works, armed with inferior calibres, cannot contend against such an overwhelming array of force as was here displayed.

* * * The Fort of Kinburn surrendered, _not because_ it was breached--not because the defenders were so far diminished by their losses as to be unable to protract the contest,--but simply because the guns and gunners, exposed in all possible ways, were put hors-du-combat, and the calibres (of the guns in Kinburn) were incapable of doing any great damage to the vessels, at the distance they were stationed." The guns in the low _open_ batteries were exposed to a ricochet and vertical fire, to which latter the French admiral attributed, in good part, the surrender of the place.

The buildings behind the batteries, built of wood, "slightly constructed and plastered over," were set on fire, and the heat and smoke must have rendered the service of the guns almost impracticable.

Nevertheless, out of a garrison of 1,400, only 157 were killed and wounded--a very small loss under all the circumstances.
If the works had been well-constructed casemates, covering the men from the ricochet and vertical fires and the sharpshooters of the troops who invested the land fronts, the loss of the garrison would have been still less; and if they had been armed with heavier projectiles, much greater damage would have been inflicted upon the attacking force.
With respect to the use of floating-batteries in this case, Commander Dahlgren very judiciously remarks:-- "The use that can be made of floating-batteries, as auxiliaries in attacking shore-works, must depend on further confirmation of their asserted invulnerability.