Brass Napoleon Award Were Confederate Ironclads Worth The Effort/Cost?

I've always thought that the rebs should have been trying to import steam engines and mechanics from Europe.
Most of the problems the ironclads faced was a major lack in reliable power plants and machinery.

That said, they were pretty effective as a "fleet in being", much like the Turpitz during WW2.
The yankees were constantly stalling or trying to plan around rumored rebel ironclads being built, especially during the Vicksburg Campaign.
 
The south didn't need control of the sea-lanes, think they realized that, why the only sea going ships they produced were commerce raiders......ships for sea denial to the enemy, not sea control.........

The coastal defense ironclads would seem they were trying to protect ports for the blockade runners......and think in some cases they had hoped on the CD ironclads being able to temporarily put to sea to break/lift the blockades......however the lack of adequate power plants prevented that, as the almost universal description of CSA ironclads was underpowered.......

The Arkansas was too late.....don't disagree but that construction had to be halted and delayed with the fall of Memphis certainly plays a role in its lateness......and that a sister ironclad in Memphis had to be destroyed on the works.....Wasn't another ironclad also lost in construction with the fall of New Orleans? That the facilities and time needed didn't work out, doesn't necessarily reflect no effort was being made
With all due respect to John Like Porter, the 150ft class ironclads and the following 189ft class in their original form were only suitable for harbour defence. The only suitable CDVs early on were CSS Mississippi and the Memphis pair. Both lost because the powers that be couldn't get their act together and work as a coherant whole. The evolved Columbia pointed the way, along with the Texas and possibly William Graves Virginia II but too late, and the twin citadel ship was intended to chase wooden blockaders about. Porter actually designed a suitable vessel for development but instead they all put the blinkers on and opted for casemate ships.
 
I've always thought that the rebs should have been trying to import steam engines and mechanics from Europe.
Most of the problems the ironclads faced was a major lack in reliable power plants and machinery.

That said, they were pretty effective as a "fleet in being", much like the Turpitz during WW2.
The yankees were constantly stalling or trying to plan around rumored rebel ironclads being built, especially during the Vicksburg Campaign.

tirpitz, and just between us she'd have shortened your civil war bigly :D
 
In fairness to Davis how much skilled manpower does the Confederacy have to devote to manning and maintaining these complex ships?
You've posted about that twice and it hasn't been acknowledged yet but I think that is a very good point. The Confederacy was hardly able to man the naval vessels it had,much less an expanded fleet. A Southern Naval Officer with a little more foresight,influence and time to prepare for war might've been able to assemble a fleet of smaller ironclads and other vessels for a more effective brown water navy. For any other type and combination of naval vessels for a CSN,manpower was always gonna be a problem.
 
When ironclads were used effectively, as in the Virginia and the Arkansas, they could be devastating weapons of war. If nothing else, the way the Virginia disposed of her wooden foes demonstrated that a turning point had arrived.

A big problem that the Confederacy had was constructing and then using them effectively.
 
The idea of constructing ironclads was an excellent, even brilliant idea. The South could never match the USN ship for ship, but the transition from all those wooden to iron clad vessels would have permitted the Confederacy to have been in the forefront of naval armaments technology, if they could have pulled off the actual engineering (which they were darn good at) and had the technology and infrastructure to have constructed them. The USN was pretty fortunate that it had to face only a few of these vessels and those built in backwater river ports and cornfields and often jerry rigged with whatever spare parts Confederate industry might be able to locally fabricate. The concept was excellent, the efforts heroic, the performance, better than one might have expected from the resources at hand.
 
The idea of constructing ironclads was an excellent, even brilliant idea. The South could never match the USN ship for ship, but the transition from all those wooden to iron clad vessels would have permitted the Confederacy to have been in the forefront of naval armaments technology, if they could have pulled off the actual engineering (which they were darn good at) and had the technology and infrastructure to have constructed them. The USN was pretty fortunate that it had to face only a few of these vessels and those built in backwater river ports and cornfields and often jerry rigged with whatever spare parts Confederate industry might be able to locally fabricate. The concept was excellent, the efforts heroic, the performance, better than one might have expected from the resources at hand.
The question from the OP was not whether they should have been built, but whether Mallory should have been restrained to building only ships in places that mattered? I fully agree that they were useful in some places, but in Norfolk? the NC Sounds? Columbus, Ga? Savannah after Ft. Pulaski had been lost? etc.
 
With all due respect to John Like Porter, the 150ft class ironclads and the following 189ft class in their original form were only suitable for harbour defence. The only suitable CDVs early on were CSS Mississippi and the Memphis pair. Both lost because the powers that be couldn't get their act together and work as a coherant whole. The evolved Columbia pointed the way, along with the Texas and possibly William Graves Virginia II but too late, and the twin citadel ship was intended to chase wooden blockaders about. Porter actually designed a suitable vessel for development but instead they all put the blinkers on and opted for casemate ships.
I disagree the CSS Mississippi would have been better.....From Iron Afloat-"Even if the Louisiana and Mississippi had been completed in time, it is doubtful they could have materially affected the battle. It is quite likely the ships were basically faulty. The Mississippi was designed by an individual with absolutely no experience in naval construction, and she was remarkably unorthodox from her box like structure to her power plant. Lt Minor cautioned Mallory about one particular problem, that her heavily armored ends might be too heavy. He had earlier said her "ends were drooping" which isn't surprising considering her size and weight. The CSS Columbia later broke her back because of a similar problem. All confederate ironclads were notoriously slow, and in spite of her three engines and screws, there is nothing to indicate the CSS Mississippi would have had adequate speed, it is likely she couldn't have even stemmed the current of the river and been most difficult to handle"

Not seeing how if most the 150 and 180 ft ironclads couldn't even hardly fight the tide if they put to sea, bigger ironclads were just going to be even slower...........since they were limited to existing powerplants...........

And not to imply the 150 or 180's were in any way seaworthy or all weather, just they possibly could have temporally ventured out under calm seas if they had more speed
 
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but torpedoes don't keep the enemy away from your coasts, you can't mine the whole sea front. they will still be able to mount raids and invasions knowing there are no ships to stop them.

I'm not thinking of hermetically sealing the coast with mines... I'm thinking about delay, delay, delay, and keep increasing the cost of the war to the Union in men, materiel, time, all at the lowest practicable cost to the Confederacy. Mines don't require crews, wages, or sustenance for anyone other than the minelayers.

Assumption: the Confederacy could not win in a stand-up fight without external assistance, provided the Union had the political will to see the thing through to the end.
Therefore: the Confederacy either needs external assistance, or a way to sap the Union's political will.​
 
but torpedoes don't keep the enemy away from your coasts, you can't mine the whole sea front. they will still be able to mount raids and invasions knowing there are no ships to stop them.
Did the Union Navy have any ability to clear mines? Did the Union Navy mine Confederate ports?
Thanks
Leftyhunter
 
In any case, once there were sufficient Union ironclads to have a few along, that largely neutralized the Confederate ironclad threat.
I have argued the same- that the, perhaps unintentional, mantra of the Union navy was similar to that of the English vs the French navies. The French, under-powered & under-funded, looked for new tech (think iron-clads, rifled guns, shell projectiles, submersibles, etc.) to dispose of the English, but the cunning English simply out-built the French after a technology was proven (a term I use lightly), forcing them to turn to even newer weapons.
Likewise, the South was the first to embrace iron-clad technology but they could not produce enough quickly and were soon outnumbered in that realm. In response, they looked for a new weapon. That was the torpedo- to attack at the vulnerable wooden hull of the iron-clad below the waterline. Inexpensive and (theoretically) effective.
At first there were defensive static torpedoes, then they moved to offensive torpedo boats. Blah blah blah, the point being that the South, after Virginia vs Monitor, apparently saw the futility of the iron-clad as an offensive weapon (Beauregard certainly did as evidenced by his letter to Mallory about the ineffectiveness of iron-clads) and never really embraced the iron-clad in that manner, but in a defensive one.
Even in Charleston, which never fell by sea, the Confederate iron-clads were pretty ineffective. It was the heavy fortifications and natural design of the harbor (along with the poor gun inclination capabilities of the Union iron-clads) that kept the Union navy at bay.
IMO, in hindsight, we can say the Confederate iron-clads were essentially a waste of money, but at the time it seemed the way of the future, and to a certain extent that was true, as ironclads morphed to iron ships that morphed to steel hulled vessels.
 
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It's not just sealing your coastline that was the problem. The big problem is that if you lay mines, then the blockade will just move outside the line of charges and still keep you bottled up in port.

The ideal outcome is that you break the blockade and can start goods coming and going.
 
I have argued the same- that the, perhaps unintentional, mantra of the Union navy was similar to that of the English vs the French navies. The French, under-powered & under-funded, looked for new tech (think iron-clads, rifled guns, shell projectiles, submersibles, etc.) to dispose of the English, but the cunning English simply out-built the French after a technology was proven (a term I use lightly), forcing them to turn to even newer weapons.
Likewise, the South was the first to embrace iron-clad technology but they could not produce enough quickly and were soon outnumbered in that realm. In response, they looked for a new weapon. That was the torpedo- to attack at the vulnerable wooden hull of the iron-clad below the waterline. Inexpensive and (theoretically) effective.
At first there were defensive static torpedoes, then they moved to offensive torpedo boats. Blah blah blah, the point being that the South, after Virginia vs Monitor, apparently saw the futility of the iron-clad as an offensive weapon (Beauregard certainly did as evidenced by his letter to Mallory about the ineffectiveness of iron-clads) and never really embraced the iron-clad in that manner, but in a defensive one.
Even in Charleston, which never fell by sea, the Confederate iron-clads were pretty ineffective. It was the heavy fortifications and natural design of the harbor (along with the poor gun inclination capabilities of the Union iron-clads) that kept the Union navy at bay.
IMO, in hindsight, we can say the Confederate iron-clads were essentially a waste of money, but at the time it seemed the way of the future, and to a certain extent that was true, as ironclads morphed to iron ships that morphed to steel hulled vessels.
I agree completely, but the OP is that the South should have only spent the resources to build ironclads where they could be strategically effective, not just build them anywhere they could find a pasture and a creek. Ironclads had no function in many places -- they could not effect the war's outcome, so why build them. I contend it was Davis's lack of control of his government (Mallory) that wasted very scarce resources.
 
I think the only time they materially affected the war was when the helped stall the United States offensive on the Mississippi. If they had stalled Grant and Porter long enough they could have gotten rid of Grant and made the United States start over again from Memphis. The Confederates failed. But they came close. For almost 10 months the war was stalled in the west. Then, in April of 1863 it accelerated.
 
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