The Laird Rams Join the CSN

[Saphroneth]

Bear in mind that the turrets of the rams could only fire to the beam, they could not be trained fore or aft so there was a possibility of a faster vessel with a spar torpedo 'creeping up behind'. There is also the possibility , given the flat bottom and lack of keel, that a broadside with both turrets could cause her to roll over.

Honestly that would surprise me - I'd want to see the righting moment curves. I doubt she's more in danger than a Monitor, at least, as they too have a very low freeboard.

Being chased by a ship with a spar torpedo is a possibility, but always risky - the question is if you can close before the ram can turn, because they don't need to point their guns to the rear if they can just open broadsides.

"My conviction is, and always has been, that a large shot striking the deck quite close to the turret, with considerable force, will inevitably block the turret and prevent it from revolving."

IOW - you could disable a turret without hitting it. There is also mention of 'heavy shot' bending the spindle (of Ericsson turrets), but that would, of course depend on the 'heavy shot' used. The turrets for the Laids rams were Coles design which are very different from Ericsson turrets.

From memory, tests on a Coles-type design revealed that they could still rotate even if there had been some damage; obviously how much "some damage" is is a subjective matter. In addition I should note that it's quite hard to hit anything with a Monitor turret gun, especially the 15" (for a Passaic) and the rate of fire is dreadful.

If the Lairds are firing once every 3 minutes (for example) and a 15" armed Canonicus takes more like 15 minutes to reload (and can't do so in a seaway) then there's an advantage there.

 

[Old Soldier]

Honestly that would surprise me - I'd want to see the righting moment curves. I doubt she's more in danger than a Monitor, at least, as they too have a very low freeboard.

Being chased by a ship with a spar torpedo is a possibility, but always risky - the question is if you can close before the ram can turn, because they don't need to point their guns to the rear if they can just open broadsides.

The roll has more to do with center of gravity than freeboard. The low freeboard does not help, of course, but the turrets add top weight and one diagram I saw (which I shall endeavor to find again) also showed the center of gravity moving with the roll. As for 'chasing the ship', you keep the blighter busy on the beam while the small torpredo boat goes from the rear. Teamwork. As soon as the ram startes turning, it gives the ships to each side a shot without return fire. Thrse turrets were NOT easy to turn .

 

[RodentRevolution]

What was the experience of Huascar as she experienced combat several times including turret hits on a Coles type turret?

 

[Saphroneth]

The roll has more to do with center of gravity than freeboard. The low freeboard does not help, of course, but the turrets add top weight and one diagram I saw (which I shall endeavor to find again) also showed the center of gravity moving with the roll.

Moment of inertia and righting moment is a lot of the issue here. Presuming their 9" 12-ton RML guns, they fire a projectile of about 250 lbs at about 1,400 feet per second; this means the recoil is about 500,000 newton-seconds. Firing both guns and it's about a million newton-seconds.

That's a significant figure, of course - and the further from the actual centre of gravity, the more that turns into torque. These were ships that massed several thousand tons, though.

As for 'chasing the ship', you keep the blighter busy on the beam while the small torpredo boat goes from the rear. Teamwork. As soon as the ram startes turning, it gives the ships to each side a shot without return fire. Thrse turrets were NOT easy to turn .

This starts to demand a lot of ad-hoc coordination from people who don't necessarily know the characteristics of the ship ahead of time. This sort of thing can be very difficult to do in actual combat unless it is pre-trained doctrine.

 

[Old Soldier]

What was the experience of Huascar as she experienced combat several times including turret hits on a Coles type turret?

The only relevent action would the Battle of Pacocha against two British warships, the frigate HMS Shah and corvette HMS Amethyst, but that was minimal damage. The other battle against the Peruvians was rather one-sided as they were using armor-piecing shot.

 

[Old Soldier]

This starts to demand a lot of ad-hoc coordination from people who don't necessarily know the characteristics of the ship ahead of time. This sort of thing can be very difficult to do in actual combat unless it is pre-trained doctrine.

You learn from your mistakes and experience - the quicker, the better.

 

[Saphroneth]

The only relevent action would the Battle of Pacocha against two British warships, the frigate HMS Shah and corvette HMS Amethyst, but that was minimal damage. The other battle against the Peruvians was rather one-sided as they were using armor-piecing shot.

Minimal damage, yes, despite taking 50+ hits! Clearly the odd hit doesn't disable.

You learn from your mistakes and experience - the quicker, the better.

Sorry, but this can't simply be deployed as a panacea. If it were true then battles would be very different. Navies no less than armies fight as they train, and you can't fight in a way you have not trained for - I could certainly believe one ship trying to follow behind the ram, but others coordinating their actions in a way unprepared for?

I should also note in connection with the idea that they could roll themselves over due to firing that one of them (Scorpion?) at one point was rolling 27 degrees each way in a storm and clearly did not sink, so they have a reasonable righting curve.

 

[Old Soldier]

Minimal damage, yes, despite taking 50+ hits! Clearly the odd hit doesn't disable.


Sorry, but this can't simply be deployed as a panacea. If it were true then battles would be very different. Navies no less than armies fight as they train, and you can't fight in a way you have not trained for - I could certainly believe one ship trying to follow behind the ram, but others coordinating their actions in a way unprepared for?

I should also note in connection with the idea that they could roll themselves over due to firing that one of them (Scorpion?) at one point was rolling 27 degrees each way in a storm and clearly did not sink, so they have a reasonable righting curve.

We are not talking about 'odd hits'. I presume the US Navy would have had more vessels available to defend their own coast.

NO. They don't do that straight away, they can't. They learn from their mistakes, or see a better way around a problem. Yes, the US Army trained for their war - then came Kasserine Pass. They learned v quickly. You think the US Navy couldn't develop their tactics quick enough? First time = oh sh't!!! Thinks: we were not expecting that. How can we get around it?

It did not sink because the captain put the bow into the wind before it got beyond saving. Ever been on a rolling ship with a beam wind? I have - for 12 hours. Ain't no fun!

No, it is NOT the horizon but an incoming wave.

 

[edgeworthy]

At this point I cannot help but remember that the CSS Hunley killed 13 out of a crew of 8 in two sinkings even before she made her one and only attack. I also rather doubt the Confederacy had the monopoly on the kind of courage to put themselves in that kind of danger. I strongly suspect that wooden warships would have engaged the Laird Rams or any other ironclad if that is what it took for the United States Navy to contain their impact.

So I think the idea that the ships will magically sink or at the other extreme win the war with just the two of them looks on the face of it a tad unrealistic.

Then this would be the point to mention that two wooden ships of the Union Navy, USS Niagara & Sacramento, did in fact decline to engage the Confederate Ironclad CSS Stonewall.

As a result the senior officer, Commodore Thomas Craven, was court-martialed. (An event that wikipedia does not mention, at all)

 

[Saphroneth]

We are not talking about 'odd hits'. I presume the US Navy would have had more vessels available to defend their own coast.

To be clear, what I mean is that we know that a Coles turret ironclad can be hit by 50+ shots and it doesn't disable the turret. This means that we have evidence that a Coles turret is not easily disabled.

NO. They don't do that straight away, they can't. They learn from their mistakes, or see a better way around a problem. Yes, the US Army trained for their war - then came Kasserine Pass. They learned v quickly. You think the US Navy couldn't develop their tactics quick enough? First time = oh sh't!!! Thinks: we were not expecting that. How can we get around it?

You're very much assuming that things can be sorted out very quickly, but there are plenty of examples of armies and navies struggling to amend their tactics in an ad hoc sense. Armies and navies fight as they train - to use a new counter tactic they need to come up with it in advance of the engagement where they would do this, and train in it enough that the men know what they're doing.

It did not sink because the captain put the bow into the wind before it got beyond saving. Ever been on a rolling ship with a beam wind? I have - for 12 hours. Ain't no fun!

Sorry, I was talking about the ability of the Laird Rams to recover from firing their guns rather than capsize from recoil. How far over do you think they'd be tipped by recoil? Because if they can make a 2,000 ton ship tip over more than 25 degrees simply from firing, they just need to hit a Monitor and it'll tip over and sink....

 

[Old Soldier]

Then this would be the point to mention that two wooden ships of the Union Navy, USS Niagara & Sacramento, did in fact decline to engage the Confederate Ironclad CSS Stonewall.

As a result the senior officer, Commodore Thomas Craven, was court-martialed. (An event that wikipedia does not mention, at all)

But that may well have caused a diplomatic incident off the Portuguese coast. It was a political decision, not a tactical one. it would have broken International Maritime Law.

When Portugal Bombarded a U.S. Warship to Protect a Confederate Ironclad! - Emerging Civil War

At 10:00 am on March 28, 1865, the Confederate ironclad Stonewall weighed anchor and proceeded out of Lisbon, Portugal, seeking to cross the Atlantic. Seeing the ironclad leaving, Commodore Thomas Craven ordered USS Niagara to likewise raise its anchor. The commander at Belem Tower, the...

emergingcivilwar.com

 

[Old Soldier]

To be clear, what I mean is that we know that a Coles turret ironclad can be hit by 50+ shots and it doesn't disable the turret. This means that we have evidence that a Coles turret is not easily disabled.

Huascar's was a turret ram with one forward turret. Turret wall armour = 5.5" thick, with a 14" teak backing. The side plating was max 4.5" to 2.5" at the bow and stern, backed with teak. (slightly thicker than Scorpion class) She had a freeboard of 4.5'.

The location of all the hits were not recorded but the two ships involved were unarmored and kept clear - 1500 yards is quoted. The main armament of Shah was 2 x 9-inch (12-ton) rifled muzzle-loading (RML) guns + 8 x 64-pounder smoothbore/rifled guns plus early torpedoes - one of which was fired, but was too slow to hit. Amethyst had 12 x 64-pounders. The Huascar's gunners were pretty useless, however. The frigate's draft limited manoeverability and the fact that she was shooting towards the nearby port affected the effectiveness of the fire.

The Huascar had been struck by only one shell from the Shah's 12-ton guns. It had hit the ship's armour plating on the starboard side about 50 feet from the stern, penetrating the iron and bursting in the timber backing but causing no damage. Two 112-Ib. Pallister rounds had dented the side armour which they should have penetrated, but didn't; and one had hit the turret a direct blow but remained sticking in the armour. That was the grand total for Shah's heavy guns. The Shah and Amethyst's 64-pounders damaged the boats, funnel, bridge, and upper works but did little damage to the hull.

(You are making me work on this!!)

 

[Saphroneth]

The Huascar had been struck by only one shell from the Shah's 12-ton guns. It had hit the ship's armour plating on the starboard side about 50 feet from the stern, penetrating the iron and bursting in the timber backing but causing no damage. Two 112-Ib. Pallister rounds had dented the side armour which they should have penetrated, but didn't; and one had hit the turret a direct blow but remained sticking in the armour. That was the grand total for Shah's heavy guns. The Shah and Amethyst's 64-pounders damaged the boats, funnel, bridge, and upper works but did little damage to the hull.

Which should suggest that moderately heavy guns (64 pounders are already quite heavy) or guns more effective at AP work than basically any US ship (the 12-ton guns) didn't disable the turret from a few hits on the ship. It is by no means impossible that a lucky 15" hit could disable a turret, but to disable both turrets means that a lot of hits on the ship start to become necessary.

 

[RodentRevolution]

Huascar's was a turret ram with one forward turret. Turret wall armour = 5.5" thick, with a 14" teak backing. The side plating was max 4.5" to 2.5" at the bow and stern, backed with teak. (slightly thicker than Scorpion class) She had a freeboard of 4.5'.

The location of all the hits were not recorded but the two ships involved were unarmored and kept clear - 1500 yards is quoted. The main armament of Shah was 2 x 9-inch (12-ton) rifled muzzle-loading (RML) guns + 8 x 64-pounder smoothbore/rifled guns plus early torpedoes - one of which was fired, but was too slow to hit. Amethyst had 12 x 64-pounders. The Huascar's gunners were pretty useless, however. The frigate's draft limited manoeverability and the fact that she was shooting towards the nearby port affected the effectiveness of the fire.

The Huascar had been struck by only one shell from the Shah's 12-ton guns. It had hit the ship's armour plating on the starboard side about 50 feet from the stern, penetrating the iron and bursting in the timber backing but causing no damage. Two 112-Ib. Pallister rounds had dented the side armour which they should have penetrated, but didn't; and one had hit the turret a direct blow but remained sticking in the armour. That was the grand total for Shah's heavy guns. The Shah and Amethyst's 64-pounders damaged the boats, funnel, bridge, and upper works but did little damage to the hull.

(You are making me work on this!!)

I am glad you are putting in the work and while you are welcome to your interpretation I and others are likely to draw a very different interpretation from the results you have unearthed. You detail multiple shell hits that did not result in turret jamming or other prolonged disablement. I still think it might be worth finding more detailed accounts of other actions but we can certainly see that disablement is clearly not an automatic outcome of going into action with a Coles turret.

 

[Old Soldier]

I am glad you are putting in the work and while you are welcome to your interpretation I and others are likely to draw a very different interpretation from the results you have unearthed. You detail multiple shell hits that did not result in turret jamming or other prolonged disablement. I still think it might be worth finding more detailed accounts of other actions but we can certainly see that disablement is clearly not an automatic outcome of going into action with a Coles turret.

Trouble is, there are not many sea ironclad battles at the time, hence the research into a much later episode.

I admit that the available guns may well have been ineffective against the armour, but look what the smaller guns did to the rest of the ship. If you are off an enemy coast and your ship gets the deck items written off - including boats, funnels and rigging - you are as in as much trouble as if your turret WAS damaged. You would have to rely on your engine and use much more coal - nowhere to go and no chance of resupply! There has been no discussion on what could have happened to the crew either. Where were they all during these actions? Trapped inside an iron shelter being bombarded. There was the slight danger of being injured by splinters from the teak backing, but what state of mind would they be in? How long would the officers have lasted?

One thing I did pick up from the Ironclads book was that the US 10" Dahlgren cannon were considered more powerful than the existing British guns. If, (big 'if'), these craft had been armed, it was likely to have been French guns too. The general idea from the 'Egyptian contract' was that the ships would have been sent away to get armed, probably with French guns as the French rams were, as they were allegedly destined for Egypt and they would need the same guns. They would not have been armed in Britain. There would not have been just two of them either as the French Rams were also almost ready to go.

That's the trouble with 'what if's, there are often a number of different possibilities - including ones that you didn't think of! Would the US Navy have just stood by and let them do what they wanted? Highly unlikely.

 

[Saphroneth]

I admit that the available guns may well have been ineffective against the armour, but look what the smaller guns did to the rest of the ship. If you are off an enemy coast and your ship gets the deck items written off - including boats, funnels and rigging - you are as in as much trouble as if your turret WAS damaged. You would have to rely on your engine and use much more coal - nowhere to go and no chance of resupply! There has been no discussion on what could have happened to the crew either. Where were they all during these actions? Trapped inside an iron shelter being bombarded. There was the slight danger of being injured by splinters from the teak backing, but what state of mind would they be in? How long would the officers have lasted?

You might want to consider this question from the point of view of naval battles in other periods. Consider what happens to the ships at Trafalgar.

The Redoutable, an unarmoured French 74-gun ship-of-the-line, fought the Victory (104 guns) for about an hour and the Victory and Temeraire (98 guns) combined for half an hour. She emerged from that maelstrom with over a hundred men unwounded.

Another example is the Kaiser, another unarmoured ship of the line (this time steam) which suffers 24 killed and 37 wounded at Lissa despite being under the fire of three ironclads for a time!

One thing I did pick up from the Ironclads book was that the US 10" Dahlgren cannon were considered more powerful than the existing British guns.

By who and under what circumstances? Were they correct?

 

[Old Soldier]

You might want to consider this question from the point of view of naval battles in other periods. Consider what happens to the ships at Trafalgar.

The Redoutable, an unarmoured French 74-gun ship-of-the-line, fought the Victory (104 guns) for about an hour and the Victory and Temeraire (98 guns) combined for half an hour. She emerged from that maelstrom with over a hundred men unwounded.

Another example is the Kaiser, another unarmoured ship of the line (this time steam) which suffers 24 killed and 37 wounded at Lissa despite being under the fire of three ironclads for a time!



By who and under what circumstances? Were they correct?

1) I was not talking about physical injury.
2) "There can be little or no doubt that the American guns have greater battering power ; the real question at issue is, as before stated, the relative merits of penetration, and racking or battering." (Our Ironclad Ships page 66)

The book was written by Sir Edward James Reed (1830–1906) Chief Constructor of the Navy (Royal Navy) at the time - 1869 The book also has a whole chapter on US monitors too!

Our iron-clad ships; their qualities, performances, and cost. With chapters on turret ships, iron-clad rams, &c : Reed, Edward J. (Edward James), Sir, 1830-1906 : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

The metadata below describe the original scanning. Follow the All Files: HTTP link in the View the book box to the left to find XML files that contain more...

archive.org

 

[Saphroneth]

1) I was not talking about physical injury.

Still, ships could take fearsome punishment and the sailors involved could still be fit for combat - the Redoutable only struck after taking most of her crew as casualties!

2) "There can be little or no doubt that the American guns have greater battering power ; the real question at issue is, as before stated, the relative merits of penetration, and racking or battering." (Our Ironclad Ships page 66)

The book was written by Sir Edward James Reed (1830–1906) Chief Constructor of the Navy (Royal Navy) at the time - 1869 The book also has a whole chapter on US monitors too!

Okay, so that's not the same as the guns being more powerful because "more powerful" conflates the things; I should also note that he's talking about the 15 inch gun (and even the 20 inch), not the 10 inch gun.

Reed isn't saying that the Dahlgren 10" gun is better - he's saying that the American guns (by which he means the 15" and 20") are better at battering, but he goes to great lengths to stress that he thinks that battering is inferior to penetrating as a way of defeating an armoured ship, and that a well-constructed and carefully fastened European ironclad (which the Laird Rams would qualify as, take note) would be much more resistant to battering than the more improvised Confederate ships (and note that he doesn't think that battering was effective even against Confederate ships).

 

[Old Soldier]

Still, ships could take fearsome punishment and the sailors involved could still be fit for combat - the Redoutable only struck after taking most of her crew as casualties!


Okay, so that's not the same as the guns being more powerful because "more powerful" conflates the things; I should also note that he's talking about the 15 inch gun (and even the 20 inch), not the 10 inch gun.

View attachment 586572
Reed isn't saying that the Dahlgren 10" gun is better - he's saying that the American guns (by which he means the 15" and 20") are better at battering, but he goes to great lengths to stress that he thinks that battering is inferior to penetrating as a way of defeating an armoured ship, and that a well-constructed and carefully fastened European ironclad (which the Laird Rams would qualify as, take note) would be much more resistant to battering than the more improvised Confederate ships (and note that he doesn't think that battering was effective even against Confederate ships).

Now imagine you are in a metal box being 'battered' by guns one after the other. How would YOU feel?

 

[Saphroneth]

Now imagine you are in a metal box being 'battered' by guns one after the other. How would YOU feel?

Better than if they were punching through!

The thing about battering is that it requires a hell of a lot more energy to do the same actual damage, because it's opposing the force of the blow to the whole side of the enemy ship or its structural frame, rather than to the 20 inches or so forming the circumference of the area attacked.