These types of ships known as ironclads had very big effects on the civil war and today. The Union Army used them by sending them out to attack and destroy Confederate naval bases. The Confederate Army used them very differently, they used their ironclad ships to protect their harbors and forts. I the present ironclad ships efficiency and effectively ended the age of large wooden ships by making them very ineffective and weak. These ships also are the predecessors to the more modern ships like the battleships and destroyers. They may have also even allowed the Union Army to win the Civil War because they had so many more ships than the Confederate Army.