“C’mon, we’re loading you onto a giant metal furnace that floats. You’ll put explosives in tubes and cause them to explode and expel a metal husk out of the tube filled with more volatile explosives that will hopefully wait to explode until near the enemy. Other floating furnaces will shoot explosives out of their tubes back at you while you’re doing this.”
Imagine being the first person to trust that a big metal ship would float enough to actually be willing to get on it.
“C’mon, we’re loading you onto a giant metal furnace that floats. You’ll put explosives in tubes and cause them to explode and expel a metal husk out of the tube filled with more volatile explosives that will hopefully wait to explode until near the enemy. Other floating furnaces will shoot explosives out of their tubes back at you while you’re doing this.”
“Sounds good, where do I sign?”
Given that the century before that they had the same job description but with giant wooden husks carrying explosive barrels…