Ironclad Monitors 1863-1865

[USS ALASKA]

For a while though and throughout the American Civil War, the USN was the most powerful navy in the world. It had monitors and quite a # of them. Post war the USN was reduced drastically.

"...the USN was the most powerful littoral navy in the world." Maybe...why are we so afraid of admitting the RN was the class of the world...period.

I have always looked upon the post ACW era as a time of such great change in naval warfare that it was rather fortuitous the USN didn't continue with their ACW expansion. The US didn't spend a great deal of money progressing down various dead-ends, (And didn't have any conflicts where naval power was of the essence), so could thereby let technological advancements shake out. And when pressure was on to re-build the fleet, prior to the Spanish-American War, Congress couldn't point to all the money spent post-ACW on a fleet of obsolete ships and failed experiments. On the flip side of that, the experience gained in ship design, lessons learned during operation, and a more robust industrial base was negated.

Just my babblings,
USS ALASKA

 

[Piedone]

For good reason the USN assets in the sound were light shallow draft vessels appropriate to the existing conditions. As events show, they were able to neutralize the Albermerle.

I don´t know.... I am admittedly no professional regarding confederate ironclads...

but I read a bit about the fate of the "Albemarle"...

and found her quite combat effective:
she sank a ship (so she seems to have been mobile enough - if even barely)
and she withstood very serious bombardment from point-blank-range.
For a time she cleared and controlled the Roanoke - which was just her mission profile.

I´d say she accomplished everything that was (and could be) expected from her.

I think she was never meant to attack the blockade in a greater distance from the coast - or to even dwell on the high seas...

 

[Saphroneth]

Warrior was built in response to the French Gloire class (1858) ironclads. She was the RN's introduction to ironclads and IMO, was not meant to be a coastal defense vessel. She did patrol the channel b/c of the closest threat to Great Britain: France.

She was the introduction to battleship type ironclads - both Britain and France had had actual coastal attack ironclads since the Crimean War.

For a while though and throughout the American Civil War, the USN was the most powerful navy in the world. It had monitors and quite a # of them. Post war the USN was reduced drastically.

I'm not sure you could even describe the USN as the most powerful even if we restrict the theatre of war to the US coastline. By 1865 the RN had some very seriously tasty designs and was introducing RML guns that could go through Monitor turrets in one shot.

 

[Rhea Cole]

Warrior was built in response to the French Gloire class (1858) ironclads. She was the RN's introduction to ironclads and IMO, was not meant to be a coastal defense vessel. She did patrol the channel b/c of the closest threat to Great Britain: France.

Naval Institute Press

It was a start of a naval arms race with very many interesting designs (Barbette ships, casemate ships, offset turret configurations) that ultimately lead to the HMS Dreadnought. For a while though and throughout the American Civil War, the USN was the most powerful navy in the world. It had monitors and quite a # of them. Post war the USN was reduced drastically.

Whatever it was meant to be, its designation was coast defense. Not irrational, virtually every naval battle had been fought close to land. France is only 30 miles away, after all. It was the warship version of the Bristol Barbazon.

In 1949 the Barbazan was an ocean liner with wings. The enormous airframe accommodated a movie theater for the enjoyment of the 100 luxury class passengers. The Barbazon was a classic case of moving forward in time while facing backward.

Bristol Brabazon - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

Transitions are hard. The first British turret ships were awkward, capsized even. At Jutland German ships still had stern galleries.

It took a man with an iron will & a clear vision to throw out the deadwood & create a whole new paradigm.

How remarkable it was that on the spur of the moment that the Monitors were created & embraced. Traditionalists must have reacted like the elephants in Dumbo seeing the mouse.

 

[Rhea Cole]

"...the USN was the most powerful littoral navy in the world." Maybe...why are we so afraid of admitting the RN was the class of the world...period.

I have always looked upon the post ACW era as a time of such great change in naval warfare that it was rather fortuitous the USN didn't continue with their ACW expansion. The US didn't spend a great deal of money progressing down various dead-ends, (And didn't have any conflicts where naval power was of the essence), so could thereby let technological advancements shake out. And when pressure was on to re-build the fleet, prior to the Spanish-American War, Congress couldn't point to all the money spent post-ACW on a fleet of obsolete ships and failed experiments. On the flip side of that, the experience gained in ship design, lessons learned during operation, and a more robust industrial base was negated.

Just my babblings,
USS ALASKA

The Post-Civil War / Fin de Siècle is known as "The Old Navy Steam & Sail" by naval historians. Naval Academy Cadets were trained on civil War & post war Monitors until circa 1900. In 1922 the Old Navy relics were scrapped en mass. The last Monitor was scraped in the 1950's.

(Thanks for the chance to write Fin de Siècle.)

 

[Piedone]

its designation was coast defense.
. It was the warship version of the Bristol Barbazon.
. The first British turret ships were awkward, capsized even.
At Jutland German ships still had stern galleries.
the Monitors were created & embraced. Traditionalists must have reacted like the elephants in Dumbo seeing the mouse.

There are so many oversimplifications and some outright errors…

 

[Piedone]

The Post-Civil War / Fin de Siècle is known as "The Old Navy Steam & Sail" by naval historians. Naval Academy Cadets were trained on civil War & post war Monitors until circa 1900. In 1922 the Old Navy relics were scrapped en mass. The last Monitor was scraped in the 1950's.

The monitors were without any doubt capable units when introduced -
but I am suspecting they were retained for such an extended period just because naval expenditures were to be kept a bit low for some time -
as all earlier ironclads they very soon became obsolete -
a fate they shared with HMS "Warrior" btw…

 

[Josh The Lighthouse Guy]

but I read a bit about the fate of the "Albemarle"...

and found her quite combat effective:
she sank a ship (so she seems to have been mobile enough - if even barely)
and she withstood very serious bombardment from point-blank-range.
For a time she cleared and controlled the Roanoke - which was just her mission profile.

I´d say she accomplished everything that was (and could be) expected from her.

I think she was never meant to attack the blockade in a greater distance from the coast - or to even dwell on the high seas...

Controlled the Roanoke River for six months...to what end? What strategic value did Plymouth hold for the Confederacy?

It could have been the starting point for an operation to cut the Wilmington & Weldon RR but so was New Bern on the Neuse River. And the Union never seemed willing to launch more than an occasional minor raid from either port during the two years they held both.

If the CSS Albemarle had driven the Union Navy from Albemarle and Palmico Sounds almost all the early war gains on the NC coast would have been endangered. The Sounds could have become viable for blockade running, and the vital lighthouses at Hatteras and Lookout would have been under serious threat.

Since it couldn't do that, either due to fuel capacity and/or draft, it seems like a waste of resources.

 

[Rhea Cole]

Controlled the Roanoke River for six months...to what end? What strategic value did Plymouth hold for the Confederacy?

It could have been the starting point for an operation to cut the Wilmington & Weldon RR but so was New Bern on the Neuse River. And the Union never seemed willing to launch more than an occasional minor raid from either port during the two years they held both.

If the CSS Albemarle had driven the Union Navy from Albemarle and Palmico Sounds almost all the early war gains on the NC coast would have been endangered. The Sounds could have become viable for blockade running, and the vital lighthouses at Hatteras and Lookout would have been under serious threat.

Since it couldn't do that, either due to fuel capacity and/or draft, it seems like a waste of resources.

It was, after all, one boat firing one cannon. Anybody who has ever sailed those waters finds controlling the complexity of the sound laughable.

 

[Saphroneth]

Whatever it was meant to be, its designation was coast defense.

As per what source? I have never seen any description or designation of the Warrior as coast defence by anyone outside yourself; conversely I have seen the Warrior included in the main British battle fleets, including the one that went down to the Tagus in late 1861 to sail to fight the US in early 1862 in the event of Trent becoming a war.

The Warrior is nothing like it would be if it were for coastal defence. It has a clipper bow, is 420 feet long, and has a draft of ca. 26 feet along with full rigging and a hoisting propellor for worldwide cruising. These are features of a blue-water battleship.

If you want a coastal service ship in the Royal Navy, look at HMS Prince Albert - or Terror.

 

[Saphroneth]

If the CSS Albemarle had driven the Union Navy from Albemarle and Palmico Sounds almost all the early war gains on the NC coast would have been endangered. The Sounds could have become viable for blockade running, and the vital lighthouses at Hatteras and Lookout would have been under serious threat.

Since it couldn't do that, either due to fuel capacity and/or draft, it seems like a waste of resources.

If it couldn't do that because of Union force of arms, it prevents those Union resources being spent elsewhere. But the question that really needs to be raised is - what Confederate resources are being wasted, that could have been put to other use?

 

[Piedone]

Controlled the Roanoke River for six months...to what end? What strategic value did Plymouth hold for the Confederacy?

If the CSS Albemarle had driven the Union Navy from Albemarle and Palmico Sounds almost all the early war gains on the NC coast would have been endangered.

You are absolutely right with your remarks about the strategic situation - but that was not my point,
I just intended to say that "Albemarle" in my eyes was quite effective as a war ship in her very limited operational theatre -
even homespun and underpowered as she was.

It's another question if the Confederates really needed an ironclad there…
and it's another question if a better ironclad could have achieved more…
and it's another question if the "Albemarle" ever was more than an annoyance to the USN…
or could have been more….

 

[Talos]

Let's not let nationalistic fervor get in the way of the truth. In the 1860s, the Royal Navy was the strongest in the world in terms of both numbers and quality, enforcing the Pax Britannica until the end of World War 1. The USN in the Civil War era was second-rate at best and on the small end for a country with such large coastlines since few in Congress wanted to pay for a larger navy. This got even worse in the 1870s, when the Navy backslid heavily in a period of doldrums that is rightly called the "Dark Ages" of the US Navy.

 

[Saphroneth]

I will say that the USN's massive increase in size is impressive - it's genuinely very difficult to rapidly expand a navy to the extent that the USN did, and going down blind alleys like the Casco class is the sort of thing you expect when a nation without much experience in such matters is doing things very quickly under war emergency conditions.

It's just that that doesn't make it the strongest navy in the world. It might well mean that it had the most ships on its navy list and the most guns claimed afloat, but as I once found when looking into it this is because the navy list includes ships that were merely planned and in some cases never started, let alone finished.


What the USN actually did during the ACW is that it proved itself able to rise to the challenge of expanding by a manpower factor of ~ten (from 8,000 to about 84,000) in four years without falling apart. This is, in and of itself, impressive.

What it did not do during the ACW is build the most powerful navy in the world in those four years. It takes longer than that to grow capabilities and it takes sustained funding over a longer period of time than that to build a base of reserve manpower and ships; the Royal Navy in 1862 had a peacetime strength in manpower terms about 10% less than the USN's wartime maximum manpower (78,000), and in addition had 22,400 men in some form of pension, reserve or volunteer establishment which could be called into the navy in the event of war. And purpose-built steam warships, already built and waiting in reserve, for all of them to sail in.


That's the difference between the USN (a force which at full wartime strength consisted mostly of suitable civilian ships and gunboats built quickly for the war, manned by men who had been trained since the start of hostilities) and the RN (a force which could without any further enlistment of men not already accounted for field a fleet larger than the USN in manpower and consisting entirely of purpose-built warships, including literally dozens of the capital ships which take years to build).

 

[Rhea Cole]

Let's not let nationalistic fervor get in the way of the truth. In the 1860s, the Royal Navy was the strongest in the world in terms of both numbers and quality, enforcing the Pax Britannica until the end of World War 1. The USN in the Civil War era was second-rate at best and on the small end for a country with such large coastlines since few in Congress wanted to pay for a larger navy. This got even worse in the 1870s, when the Navy backslid heavily in a period of doldrums that is rightly called the "Dark Ages" of the US Navy.

I am curious, what external threat do you suppose a larger standing navy would have been for, exactly?

 

[Saphroneth]

I am curious, what external threat do you suppose a larger standing navy would have been for, exactly?

In the 1880s, Brazil had ironclad battleships and the USN had none. The Spanish had a pretty sizeable ironclad force in the 1860s onwards. With the advances in naval technology that the US wasn't keeping up with, most navies in that period could have been a risk.

 

[Talos]

Let's see...

There are the usual threats from the great European powers that could come with a straining of diplomatic ties, as each of them was at least as powerful if not more than the USN. That includes England, France, Spain, and the rising star of Germany. This is also the age of Imperialism, where they have to handle the increasing geopolitical power and influence of those countries as they make land grabs in Africa, Asia, South America, etc. This includes the US having to make its own grabs to maintain any kind of global power. Then there is the Monroe Doctrine and defending the Americas against that encroachment, while also dealing with the rapidly developing and equipping nations such as Chile, Argentina, and Brazil. Then there is the protection of global trade. Then there's the fact that they have to essentially have two full navies to protect the Pacific and Atlantic coasts, etc, etc. Need I go on?

A large standing navy was part of the game if you wanted to be one of the major global players and not a country on the fringe of influence. It took Mahan and his influence for the USN to pull itself out of irrelevancy.

 

[Saphroneth]

As I once saw it put, generally speaking threat rises faster than your ability to react to that threat. Tensions can spiral from nothing to war in a matter of months, which is much less time than the years or decades that it takes to build an effective navy; without the ability to fight a naval war, the US essentially has to concede on matters that it might otherwise wish to negotiate about.

As things actually developed in our history, the US profited from spending basically no money on its military for entire generations at a time - but that's not guaranteed. And indeed, if the US had had a Great Power navy and more robust army in 1860 (say, three ships of the line, ten steam frigates, twenty steam sloops and a couple of dozen steam gunboats, plus an ironclad or two) then it would have been able to blockade the CSA more completely and more effectively during the critical first year when the CSA imported hundreds of thousands of weapons from Europe; had the US had even a moderately sized army in 1860 (say, 50,000 regulars and 75,000 efficient militia split between North and South) then the early days of the Civil War would have seen the pre-war trained US army outnumber the pre-war trained CS army by a matter of about 4:1 (with the CSA having almost no regulars and the USA having half their force made up of them).

This makes the Civil War very short and very cheap.

 

[Saphroneth]

So to look at the topic of monitors in the USN versus how they were used elsewhere in the world.


The core features of USN monitors as ships, the design choices that don't simply result from technical limitations (like poor speed or armour quality/type) are:

- Low freeboard, deliberately kept low to minimize target area
- Turret mounting of weapons, instead of broadside
- The spindle turret form
- In most cases, a single turret (with Ericsson objecting to two turrets)
- The largest possible individual guns


Of these:
The low freeboard used by the USN (1-2 feet) was much lower than the low freeboard for even a low-freeboard monitor elsewhere. The Huascar (one of the ships closest in concept to a USN monitor) had five feet of freeboard, Captain had 6 feet 6 inches (and blew over in a storm) and the breastwork monitors that were the genesis of the pre-dreadnought battleship concept had a key design feature being the breastwork itself (a high freeboard section).

The turret mounting wasn't quite a USN first, though the Monitors certainly got the turret mounting good publicity. The advantages of turrets in being able to use the same weapons both sides of the ship were recognized, though the tradeoffs and complications associated meant that there was still some work to do if the turret was going to be used for cruising ships.

The spindle turret form was not widely adopted. It's more fragile than other types such as the Coles type.

Multiple turrets were preferred where possible by other powers, though in some cases single turrets were used when there wasn't the displacement for more than one. Multiple turrets offer greater redundancy and more chances of hitting, since you're not limited to just two guns and can use four (for two turrets) or more if there's additional turrets to add to the list.

While the use of a few powerful guns was not only standard but good practice, the issue here is that the USN went with large guns over powerful guns in some respects. The focus was on a kind of monstrous gigantism which led to an attempt to make a 20" gun work, which would fire a single quite effective cannonball but so rarely as to compromise the effectiveness of the weapon. Other powers going with smaller-caliber, higher-velocity weapons that could be more quickly reloaded were in some respects deviating from the path the USN had set.

 

[gary]

Silly me. I thought the HMS Warrior was either an Armoured Masted Steam Frigate or just a big boat with big guns.