Ironclad Monitors 1863-1865

[Piedone]

Honestly, if your assessment is correct I do sort of wonder at how much the USN's planning made sense! Their not having many ships of force for funding reasons is one thing, but not having many ships of force because they don't think there's any point to having them is... risky. If the enemy has ships of force and you don't, then you don't have many options, and ships of force are also the main way of projecting power.

Theoretically you are right - but history proved them to have been right after all -
eg the Trent crisis was proof that the territorial size and economical importance of the US was all that was needed
- as long as conflicts were not completely spiralling out of control…

 

[Saphroneth]

Theoretically you are right - but history proved them to have been right after all -
eg the Trent crisis was proof that the territorial size and economical importance of the US was all that was needed
- as long as conflicts were not completely spiralling out of control…

I'm not sure that I'd say it proved them right. I'd agree that they didn't get proved wrong, but that's dependent on being okay with having the weakest power projection of the Great Powers and on having no means to contest sea control. Not having a battleline is certainly cheaper than having a battle-line, and not having an army is cheaper than having an army, but the thing about big-ticket things like navies is that it takes years to redress any lack!

Remember Trent is basically a US climbdown on the point at issue, and considering that an acceptable resolution to a similar crisis means being okay with being "pushed around". Same kind of thing happens post-Civil-War in some respects, the US doesn't bother with a battle line or even much in the way of coastal fortifications for an entire generation after the Civil War. The fact that they didn't fight a major naval war in that period is not writ in the stars - it's good luck and an inability to press any issues where having a navy would help.

The austrian ship-of-the-line "Kaiser" comes to one's mind - 1866 she bore the brunt of the action at Lissa against italian ironclads and fared reasonably well…

Exactly. Ships of the line remain useful for several years even after ironclads come along.

 

[USS ALASKA]

In January 1865, there was only one monitor left on the James River. This was the Onondaga, a twin turreted monitor. The Confederates were aware of this, so they launched an attack with their squadron. I believe Raphael Semmes was newly in charge of the squadron. They were trying to get to city point. There was a great deal of firing, and the Confederates had to retreat.

I believe there is information on this attack in volume two of Henrico county field of honor, written by Manarin.

Around June 22 or 23rd there was another battle between the opposing fleets at trench reach. John Horn has written about it and I believe it has appeared on a site called the emerging Civil War.

The Battle of Trent's Reach - Largest Confederate Ironclad Battle? | Naval War - At Sea & Along Inland Waterways

While we all know the Monitor and Virginia/Merrimack and to a lesser extent the Tennessee it's fair to say the majority of us don't know too many of the ironclads of the American Civil War, Union or Confederate. I myself admit that my general knowledge of the ironclads, especially the Southern...

civilwartalk.com

Cheers,
USS ALASKA

 

[Trooper "D"]

2. Why were no monitors sent to deal with CSS Albemarle?.

Draft?

3. Why was a lone monitor sent to California? Did San Francisco really need that extra deterrent against Confederate raiders?

Political reasons? Warning to the Brits?

Spitballing,
USS ALASKA

Fort Point was there and could bounce shells across the bay surface for quite a distance. Having an ironclad floating around out in the bay in conjunction with the fort would probably do the trick at the Golden Gate choke point. British up in Canada were close enough to attack S. F. if that nation had decided to side with the Confederacy. Not a whole lotta Confederate sentiment in Central and Northern Cali. Uprisings out there where very small and very short. There was a battery on Alcatraz Island and also the other larger island out there. Angel Island, that's it! Any wooden naval force running the forts guns would likely end up splinters and smoke with the artillery in the bay and a roving ironclad could have just picked off the invading vessels at her pleasure and leisure.
The idea of bouncing those artillery shells worked better in theory. I think that same ironclad was used for target practice post war and the fort's guns scored a bit fat zero number of hits on it.

 

[Trooper "D"]

By that do you mean that the Albermerle did not have logistical support? I would say yes.

By way of example; when a City Class ironclad of the Mississippi Flotilla steamed upstream it was quite a show.

In order to breast the 3 knot current a tug towed ahead. On either beam two or more coal barges were lashed on. The entire crew, officers included, moved a ton of coal / hour. All this effort achieved a relative motion of about the same as a furiously peddling girl on a trike.

What it required for an ironclad to go tactical for even short bursts was no mystery to USN officers.

The post war sea going Monitors were a different design from the littoral & riverine wartime Monitors.

Link to M2 USS Amphitrite seagoing Monitor.

Battleship Photo Index M-2 USS AMPHITRITE

Powder Finger

 

[Piedone]

1855 Albemarle Sound North Carolina NC Antique Coast Chart Map

Preliminary Chart of Albemarle Sound North Carolina, Genuine Antique Coast Survey Chart from 1855

mapsofantiquity.com

As this period map clearly indicates, the Albermerle was blockaded by nature. It wasn't capable of blue water sailing. It only carried enough fuel for a few day's steaming… assuming its engines could last that long.

As was demonstrated, local assets were capable of neutralizing the Albermerle.

You said she had a draft of 8´ - whereas in the map the depth is more than 10´ everywhere (as far as I could see):
why should she be blockaded then?

 

[Piedone]

Fundamentally, CSA ironclads acted independently. There was no unifying doctrine or strategy underpinning the operations. Single vessels here & there scored tactical successes. However, to USN flotillas advancing up rivers & in littoral waters they could not be anything but an annoyance strategically.

Note: it was researching gunboat quilts that alerted me to the futility of the CSA ironclads.

What is to be expected from an unifying doctrine or strategy for the CS navy?

They just tried to build ships that could resist gunfire and survive encounters with a superiour navy
(something the gunboats could not....).

Initially there were hopes that those ironclad behemoths could raise the blockade - which they most probably could have done - at least for certain amounts of time - if they had been adequately powered (which the Laird Rams would have been....) - but confederate homespun ironclads weren´t....

But even then they resembled an important element of deterrence
and provided important support to coastal fortifications:
the USN could blast away with mortar boats with impunity at those forts
(when cleverly taking advantage of the limited firing arches of static batteries) -
but had to act a lot more cautious when a (single?) confederate ironclad had to be reckoned with.

Of course all came to nothing once the USN started a well-planned amphibious operation supported by several of their own ironclads against a southern port -
but it took a LOT of effort to get such an operation underway -
and even then... some of those operations still failed.

 

[Piedone]

... deleted

 

[Piedone]

The captains of the only organized flotilla on the Mississippi did not meet even once before charging, Don Quixote style, UPRIVER AGAINST THE CURRENT AT MEMPHIS. Fifteen minutes later it was all over & like Nashville, the city fell to a few men in a rowboat.

You mean the "River Defense Fleet"?
Weren´t these mostly civilian riverboats that regularly operated on the Mississippi [upstream and downstream] before?

 

[Old Soldier]

You said she had a draft of 8´ - whereas in the map the depth is more than 10´ everywhere (as far as I could see):
why should she be blockaded then?

Two points
1) the depths are in FATHOMS (6 feet) the smaller number suffix is feet. Plenty of room, BUT...
2) the freeboard is just 2 feet. Open water has waves and the turret race leaks like a sieve. They are INSHORE craft. They stick close to the shore - IN GOOD WEATHER and CALM WATERS

 

[Saphroneth]

Two points
1) the depths are in FATHOMS (6 feet) the smaller number suffix is feet. Plenty of room, BUT...
2) the freeboard is just 2 feet. Open water has waves and the turret race leaks like a sieve. They are INSHORE craft. They stick close to the shore - IN GOOD WEATHER and CALM WATERS

The ironclad under discussion is Albemarle, which had no turret.

 

[Old Soldier]

The ironclad under discussion is Albemarle, which had no turret.

True, but the freeboard was still rather .. low. And there is no alternative to steam power - and little space to put the coal.

 

[Saphroneth]

True, but the freeboard was still rather .. low. And there is no alternative to steam power - and little space to put the coal.

Oh, naturally. The question of range is a vexing one, but slow movement means coal lasts a surprisingly long time.

 

[Old Soldier]

Oh, naturally. The question of range is a vexing one, but slow movement means coal lasts a surprisingly long time.

And makes you a much easier target.

 

[Saphroneth]

And makes you a much easier target.

I mean more that hydrodynamic resistance increases nonlinearly with velocity. The Virginia, which was quite sizeable, could manage about four nautical miles per ton of coal.

 

[Rhea Cole]

Fort Point was there and could bounce shells across the bay surface for quite a distance. Having an ironclad floating around out in the bay in conjunction with the fort would probably do the trick at the Golden Gate choke point. British up in Canada were close enough to attack S. F. if that nation had decided to side with the Confederacy. Not a whole lotta Confederate sentiment in Central and Northern Cali. Uprisings out there where very small and very short. There was a battery on Alcatraz Island and also the other larger island out there. Angel Island, that's it! Any wooden naval force running the forts guns would likely end up splinters and smoke with the artillery in the bay and a roving ironclad could have just picked off the invading vessels at her pleasure and leisure.
The idea of bouncing those artillery shells worked better in theory. I think that same ironclad was used for target practice post war and the fort's guns scored a bit fat zero number of hits on it.

"Hug yourself lest ye crack a rib in hilarity…"

It is difficult for us to fathom the psychological impact Monitors had. The mere threat of the existence of one of them was enough to cause panic. That is not hyperbole or hypothetical.

Motto of USS Black Terror:

DELUDED PEOPLE CAVE IN

As Mark Twain liked to say, the difference between fiction & history is that fiction has to make sense. A rumor ran like a wildfire in dried grass through the defenders of Vicksburg. A Yankee Monitor had arrived! Nothing could stand before it. The invincible warship passed the mighty Vicksburg batteries unscathed. The Black Terror was both a name & an effect.

JPK Huson 1863 posted here on CWT one of the most preposterous incidents of the Civil War.

Admiral Porter's Ironclad Hoax | Naval War - At Sea & Along Inland Waterways

I had a chance to spend some time browsing, this time had a GREAT time with a few things! Pretty sure folks who frequent this part of the forum knew this, but it was the first I'd heard anything about Porter's hoax, his 'Quaker Ironclad'. Some accounts have the Confederates a little annoyed with...

civilwartalk.com

After the fall of Fort Henry a flotilla of timber clads went up the Tennessee River as far as Bridgeport AL.

Nothing about the black painted slab-sided barn looking gunboats huffing & chuffing against the current, billowing clouds of smoke is anything but comical to us. The panic they sowed in February 1862 was equilivant to that of Orson Welles' War of the World's radio invasion from Mars.

Timberclads Attack up the Tennessee

In a daring al-Navy attack in February 1862, Flag Officer Andrew Hull Foote seized Confederate Fort Henry even before Union Army forces arrived.

www.usni.org

As the contemporary record vividly demonstrates, a Monitor or the mere rumor of a Monitor, stationed at San Francisco would have been enough to prevent an attack.

 

[Piedone]

As the contemporary record vividly demonstrates, a Monitor or the mere rumor of a Monitor, stationed at San Francisco would have been enough to prevent an attack.

I deem a tendency of civilians to stampede at the slightest occasion in those times quite remarkable -
It might have been caused by the unusual combination of a war of colossal size and weapons unseen and unheard before (submarines, torpedoes, ironclads).
Ironclad craze was a rather typical symptom -
some people could neatly cash in on it -
for example those who came up with the idea that S.F. needed an ironclad to defend against - of all navies - the confederate navy…

 

[Saphroneth]

I deem a tendency of civilians to stampede at the slightest occasion in those times quite remarkable -

There's nothing particular about the time period, I think - hysteria is common in matters of war. There's a reason why the Greeks considered "panic" to be a divinely bestowed feature, and the god Phobos to represent the fear that came in the midst of battle.

Though one I particularly like is the reporting on the Miantonomoh's visit to Europe. The British newspapers declared "The wolf is in our fold; the whole flock at its mercy"; a British naval officer who'd accompanied the journey opined that the turret could be put out of action by two men with hammers and wedges, and the RN had ships then in service that could shoot right through the turret armour at battle range.

 

[gary]

Fun fact. HMS Warrior had the first shipboard flush toilet in the captain's cabin. I've been aboard the Warrior but didn't think to check out the water closet. The USS Monitor had the first underwater flush toilet (I'm not a plumber/engineer so don't ask me how they figured that worked) in its captain cabin. Most sailors slung their hinnies overboard and there's a photo of a monitor with a framed canvas thingy to which offered backside privacy when one discharged.

 

[edgeworthy]

It should be noted that the first practical* Interrupted Screw Breech the de Bange Obturator, by Charles Ragon de Bange, a French Artillery Officer, was not invented until 1872, and did not enter service until 1877. A little late for the ACW.
(* Lord Armstrong himself pointed out that his screwblock design was unsuited to large calibre guns)

The revolutionary Welin Breech block was not invented by Axel Welin, in Britain, until 1889. It is a little difficult to criticise not using something that does not even exist?
(Welin sold the patent to Vickers to concentrate on his true passion Lifeboat Davits)

[The modern Krupps Sliding Block is based on an 1891 patent. Earlier versions had the same sealing problems as the Sharps Rifle and the Needle Gun]