Can you give me a link to either of those please?
The Lambert book is sadly OOP, but is an absolute must in this area:
http://www.amazon.com/Battleships-Transition-Creation-Battlefleet-1815-1860/dp/0870210904
An old (uncomplete and unpublished) blog post of mine gives the other:
The title is from Wayne Hughes' Fleet Tactics and Coastal Combat (Annapolis, 1986). On page 62 he points out, using a Lanchester model, the the result at Sinope was not influenced by the shell guns, since it was preordained by the huge preponderance of combat power the Russians engaged with. A historical case of too wide conclusions from too small a dataset...
In fact, the much larger Russian squadron sailed upto the Ottoman squadron, cutting them off from the open sea, dropped anchor and started firing. Checking the known armaments as best as possible it appears that only a small number of the 710 Russian guns were Paixhans guns to which the destruction of the Turkish-Egyptian squadron is usually attributed. Only the three three deckers carried them, and at most 14 each (ref). 38 the Russian guns were shell guns (ref), thus even if many times more effective than the normal guns their contribution was minor.
The Russians started firing at around 10am (some sources say 9.30am), and switched their fire from the Ottoman warships to the town at 2pm (ref), so the Ottomans were under fire for around 4 hours. Due to surprise, the Ottomans hadn't cleared for action, literally clearing the decks of all flammables, lose rope &c. that could start fires. The Russians using conventional hot-shot set many of the enemy vessel alight. The vessel that exploded (Navek-i-Bahrideliberately blew their magazine to prevent capture, rather than this being due to the shells of the Russians (ref). Most of the Ottoman vessels beached themselves, and the crews then set their own vessels on fire to avoid their capture.
The fate of the Ottoman squadron was:
Nizamieh (62) - Beached
Nessin Zafer (60) - Beached
Navek Bahri (58) - Captain blew the powder store to prevent capture
Damiat (56) - Beached
Kaid Zafer (54) - Beached
Avni Illah (44) - Beached
Fazl Illah (44) - Set afire and beached
Nejm Fishan (24) - ?
Feyz Mabud (24) - Beached
Kel Safid (22)- Exploded
Taif (12, steamer) - Escaped
Erkelye (10, steamer) -