Hi y'all,
Yes this is a bit of a weird question and I know it bears its share of cliché but hear me out.
Let's imagine some air power start becoming more available post-1870, either in stationary form (montgolfière) or movable (short range dirigeables). This is in line with the resources at the time, no ASB there.
Those ships could be potentially used as weapons platforms but I imagine canons would not be great as they'd be very heavy and have a lot of recoil, which light enough airships would not be able to bear.
To me rockets or torpedo would be the most adapted, especially as a complement to light ships as part of naval warfare where it could be seen as an extension to the Jeune Ecole maritime school of naval warfare.
According to the tech of the time, what type of rockets could they have? Would anything be actually useful against armoured ships?
Let me know your thoughts!