I'm going to be accused of nitpicking here, but CSS Arkansas, although equipped with a ram bow was an ironclad steam gunboat or sloop according how you classify such a vessel, and that cover, whilst being dramatic (which no doubt was the intention) is terribly inaccurate in many ways.
with you on this one Rebel. I don't think there is any source documenting that Arkansas was originally intended to have a ram. The change appears to have been made about December, 1861. There is one source that states she was originally to have FOUR guns! About 8 years ago I did some research along these lines and concluded that there were three stages and categories to her development. These stages were a consequence of the changes in the threats she faced between summer of 1961 and summer of 1862. None of the designers, constructors and authorizing agencies had any idea of how she would end up. I would argue that she was an ironed sloop at the end. Her ram under the operating conditions during the period she was completed had been rendered a weapon of opportunity, not her primary threat which was her battery. Although the augmented size of her battery under Lt. Brown was formidable, it created manning problems and complexity in her powder and shell rooms. She had a composite ram, the part attaching directly to her bow appears to have been a large, heavy casting. The second projecting part of the ram was probably forged. There seem to have been two attempts to use her ram. The first was on the Yazoo in pursuit of the Carondelet. The ram attempt was called off because Carondelet had steered into shallows and the slow closing speed between Arkansas and Carondelet would have reduced its effect on the Union vessel. The second attempt was aborted when Brown directed his vessel toward the Union ram Sumter (former RDS) and called it off after his columbiad bow chasers put that opponent out of action. One penalty in her ironing was that it was light enough to not cut down on her speed, but also vulnerable to heavy Union ordnance. She was a monster in terms of the Union upper Mississippi squadron, but would have been eventually shot to pieces by Farragut's heavy sloops and frigates.
That's a nice illustration but not Arkansas - the hull shape is wrong to start with. I have a copy of the contract and specifications but it is not clear if the plough bow was to be armoured, certainly it was strengthened for use as a ram.There is a blue print which shows a basic wooden ram possibly armored. There are descriptions from my research which does seem to say that a attached armored ram was also present. I submit to you @georgew with your detailed research that it might of had both. Good info and thanks for posting. I have both the original newspaper articles of CSS Arkansas, I'll go threw them again to see if any other information is listed from those about the ram and image them for this discussion later this week.
No excuse for people one hundred years later who have supposedly done research to perpetuate the error.
May I ask the source and time-frame of this drawing? The artists impression below the drawing appears to be off a bit. The shutter system for the gun ports is wrong. Arkansas had frigate type port covers. The projecting part of the ram depicted is consistant with the measured sketch in Walke's memoirs, the extension of the bow seems to be the wrong shape and the ram is probably too high. The goal of most of the period rams was to place the impact point about 3 feet under the water line.There is a blue print which shows a basic wooden ram possibly armored. There are descriptions from my research which does seem to say that a attached armored ram was also present. I submit to you @georgew with your detailed research that it might of had both. Good info and thanks for posting. I have both the original newspaper articles of CSS Arkansas, I'll go threw them again to see if any other information is listed from those about the ram and image them for this discussion later this week.
I've seen that line drawing before, I need to dig out the contracts and spec to check. I hadn't seen that artists impression before.
Hi Rebel! In regard to the 2-piece Memphis ram, you wonder why they left it behind. They made a good job of hauling off everything else. They may not have had enough room on the former coal barge carrying equipment or iron - or it may be that they discovered that the foundry cast something that didn't fit and it wasn't worth taking. You wonder just how they were intending to attach the large casting to the bow. I'm wondering if the intention was to use a transition wooden sleeve over the bow that attached to the casting? At least one source suggests that the structures associated with Arkansas ram massed about 10 tons. The sketchs in Walke's memoirs look heavy but I'm not sure it would weigh 10 tons. I also wonder if the through bolts attaching the projecting part of the ram to the casting would actually pass through the wood of the bow at all. That part of the bow was allegedly slender and unless solid timber might have been vulnerable to solid shot. Unless sleeved, the bolt holes might have been weak points in the casting.
I can't see how it would have attached unless it was intended to bolt on a sacrificial beam. Someone said in a much earlier post it looked like something off a Greek or Roman trireme !
Hi Rebel. Just a couple of quick questions about the drawing above. What are the two off-set hatches on the casemate roof you show above broadside guns port and starboard? Have you ever figured out how they would coal this vessel? I've never seen any discussion about coaling chutes. Coaling was a nasty way to make a living under the best circumstances. If their source was individual barrels at 180 lbs per barrel it would be pretty tedious and you would want some kind of system to swing the barrels aboard. I've always assumed that they had a breakdown "tent" system for shade on the casemate deck (roof) when moored, maybe they had some kind of breakdown system for loading also.
Actually I suspect that a classical ram might have worked better. Especially the ones fitted to 6's and larger. Have you seen the illustrations of Roman rams with three blunt projecting rams? Take a hit from one of those and it opens seams for about 12-15 feet.
Yes I was reading about those quite recently. You had to get an almost absolute 90 degree impact ,otherwise you got hooked up in the target and went down with it.
Hi Rebel: this drawing was part of the specifications for Arkansas as passed on by Porter's office or ? Is the specification and/or drawing dated? If not Porter's office who did it and when was the drawing made? In many ways it corresponds well to contemporary descriptions of Arkansas as built. In particular the shape of the bow is very similar to one that appeared in a newspaper of the time if looking down down on the hull lines. What bothers me is that the drawing shows bow and stern chasers within the casemate. I don't think this feature was promoted on the armorclads under construction until late fall or early winter of 61/62. Shirley's original proposal didn't have this feature. There is reason to believe that an interim change provided for a single bow and stern chaser exposed on the fore- and aft-decks. The drawing above looks very like a bow perspective unidentified drawing found the the NA some years ago by Robert Holcombe.
Right again. Virginia and Manassas broke their rams off. Albemarle got stuck in the Southfield. And they wonder why spar torpedoes got to look so attractive until self-propelled torpedoes.
Thanks @rebelatsea for clarifying this for me.
Bringing the