Ericsson's other ironclad designs.

vikingbear

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Reading about those ironclads from south america reminded me of this.
In Church's Bio of J. Ericsson, he records that JE said that " if the US was threatened by a outside war he would design a ironclad gunboat (1862?) that would operate in sq's that would drive away any attacking force."

Futher searching reveled a lot of coast defense proposals to the Union (from RR transported steam gunboats to Monitor turrets mounted on land) but nothing further about these armored gunboats. However later in the book it is reported that JE told Sweden the same thing,

So........a review of Swedish Mon's showed that all (execpt a smaller river ironclad gunboat and that might be a Swedish version of the orginal design) of these early monitors JE had a hand in the designing of them. The 10 Russian monitors were modifications of the orginal USN design and it is not known what the Denmark version or South American version specks were.

The theory is, that these Swedish designs would be similar to USN versions if built. So................
The 3 Swedish John Ericsson & 3 Skorplonen (Norway built) classes were USN types.

The smaller Monitors are the ones am interested in.
The coast defense class "Berserk " 130'x26x8; 1 fixed casemate with 1 9.4 mlr. (one has gun fixer aft).
(the hull of one of these is still in Sweden)
and the smaller river/canal gb's; Garmer ; Skold,' Fenris,

There is also a crew powered design of which have a profile of''.
There also seems to b e a Erie canal Monitor, 1-15'' sb.

So does any one know about the designs for the USN?
and (probally a John question) about those 10 similar fixed turret monitors from sweden?

GRIZZ
 
Grizz ,

The Russian and Swedish /Norwegian ships were direct copies of USN ships. Peru bought two USN monitors. I will; have to dig some stuff about the fixed case mate ships. Note that the Great Isambard Kingdom Brunel also designed ironclad gun vessels for the Crimea, which the Admiralty didn't take up.
 
One of the never-built Ericsson designs that I find interesting (just because of its general weirdness) was the original version of what later became the Casco class. As designed by Ericsson, it was sort of an oblong metal box with a turret on top, surrounded by a solid wooden raft in the shape of a ship... something along these lines (pardon my rudimentary illustration, but I think it conveys the idea):

Casco1.jpg
 
The first danish ironclad was the Rolf Krake. Denmark received it in summer 1863 and It fought in the 1864 war and was effective at shelling Prussian infantry.
(anyone having a ironclad with four 60 pounders laying 200m from you firing canister at your is having a bad day)
It was designed by Cowper Phipps Coles. and build in Glasgow.
201305060834040.Rolf%20Krake%20Orlogsmuseum%20Copenhagen.jpg


Dannebrog was a 82gun ship of the line that was rebuild into an ironclad.
Dannebrog(1850)-94-1963-n.jpg


So none was designed by Ericson.
 
One of the never-built Ericsson designs that I find interesting (just because of its general weirdness) was the original version of what later became the Casco class. As designed by Ericsson, it was sort of an oblong metal box with a turret on top, surrounded by a solid wooden raft in the shape of a ship... something along these lines (pardon my rudimentary illustration, but I think it conveys the idea):

View attachment 58288
That might have floated better than the real thing !
Interesting that he reverted to a near equivalent of Cowper Coles armoured raft of nearly 10 years before.
 
Thanks guys!
A lot of new info!
John,
Talk about different /interesting designs, one of the smaller designs was half steam powered people powered. (later removed because the Swedish sailors complained about all that cranking! This system was designed during the CW at NYC.
Even though the tonnage ranged from 250+ TO ca 400 tones all carried the same 9.4 '' MLR.
In at least some of the designs it was the captains' job to not only man the wheel but also to replace the cannon fuse after firing and then aim and fire the gun!
Have a crude profile, from a Russian web site, of the larger coastal def version and a front view of one of the smaller river/canal version (from wink.) but little else.
So Brunel designed a Crimean war ironclad..........interesting..the earlest small British ironclad design so far found is of a 1862 1 gun ironclad. It is a simple design, a bateau type hull, a stack in the center and a fixed pie piece shaped casemate, open at the rear.
So that is what Coles armored raft looked like....so far have not found a picture. Was his steam powered armored raft similar? Where did they stick the boiler/engine? Have the verbal discription of both only.

Mark,
Your right! what a crazy design! Love it! Well the one that I have seen must be early design #2,( from Roberts cw ironclads) That also proves that you never know what ship plans might pop up "hidden" on a shelf somewhere or in some rich sob's hidden collection. Keep your fingers crossed guys.
Thomas,
Thanks for the great pictures. Have always been interested in the great row fleets that were created through out that area. When Thomas Jefferson established his policy for the GB navy he studied all those craft. Always felt that his plans were changed for the worst. Denmark, I believe, was the last country to build and use the row gunboats in a war.1864. These GB were armed with shell guns. Do you know if they were considered effective? were any converted to steam?
Sorry, got carried away.....a Russian book once said that the coasts of the Baltic countries were similar to the east coast of the US (in Defense problems and needs) so have always been interested in the Dutch, Danish/Norway & Swedish Navies
as a way to define what could have been done..........for example converting ships to steam or concepts of coast defense.

Thanks all, more food for thought..........

GRIZZ
 
Hi John & guys,
Just dug out my file on JE's Erie Monitor and boy did I have a suprise. Just filed the info about the vessel, the various sizes of the locks throughout the years and a quick non scaled rendering of what I thought the vessel would look like with notes.
Which was a Monitor I design of a little under 150' ,pilot house on top of turret, 1-15'' gun with one gun-port, a double spindle inside the turret so the one gun is on the center line a stack, steam pipe reduced overhang and a 12 pounder on deck. Well it turns out that this is a piece of fiction because looked at the wrong date so wrong size, (sounded good though).
It seems that the locks of 1862 were 110' x 18' x7' and could fit a canal boat of 98'' x 17.5 x 6.5! Seems like a small size to carry a 15'' gun! This must be the orginal fixed turret design.
Just doing general outline (will look up gun dim's later). Ericsson said the ship was designed to be towed through the canal completely empty. No crew, coal, ammo anything! (Wounder about the main gun though... that is one of the main pieces of heavy weight). So it appears that JE used depth of hull to make up for other limiting factors. If OA design was like a typical canal boat she would would have a bluff bow, slab sides straight stern. Wounder what the stern lines would be like? Will have to check other designs. This strange design would most likely have two props to help keep them nearer to the sides (then center) to help with the underwater design problems.
There couldn't be any sides over hangs because of the slab sides. This thing would be slow...4-5kts, top heavy (would need a lot of ballest or like Simson's design water ballest tanks. In some things sounds similar to the Swedish river/canal design.


GRIZZ
 
Thanks guys!
A lot of new info!
John,
Talk about different /interesting designs, one of the smaller designs was half steam powered people powered. (later removed because the Swedish sailors complained about all that cranking! This system was designed during the CW at NYC.
Even though the tonnage ranged from 250+ TO ca 400 tones all carried the same 9.4 '' MLR.
In at least some of the designs it was the captains' job to not only man the wheel but also to replace the cannon fuse after firing and then aim and fire the gun!
Have a crude profile, from a Russian web site, of the larger coastal def version and a front view of one of the smaller river/canal version (from wink.) but little else.
So Brunel designed a Crimean war ironclad..........interesting..the earlest small British ironclad design so far found is of a 1862 1 gun ironclad. It is a simple design, a bateau type hull, a stack in the center and a fixed pie piece shaped casemate, open at the rear.
So that is what Coles armored raft looked like....so far have not found a picture. Was his steam powered armored raft similar? Where did they stick the boiler/engine? Have the verbal discription of both only.

Mark,
Your right! what a crazy design! Love it! Well the one that I have seen must be early design #2,( from Roberts cw ironclads) That also proves that you never know what ship plans might pop up "hidden" on a shelf somewhere or in some rich sob's hidden collection. Keep your fingers crossed guys.
Thomas,
Thanks for the great pictures. Have always been interested in the great row fleets that were created through out that area. When Thomas Jefferson established his policy for the GB navy he studied all those craft. Always felt that his plans were changed for the worst. Denmark, I believe, was the last country to build and use the row gunboats in a war.1864. These GB were armed with shell guns. Do you know if they were considered effective? were any converted to steam?
Sorry, got carried away.....a Russian book once said that the coasts of the Baltic countries were similar to the east coast of the US (in Defense problems and needs) so have always been interested in the Dutch, Danish/Norway & Swedish Navies
as a way to define what could have been done..........for example converting ships to steam or concepts of coast defense.

Thanks all, more food for thought..........

GRIZZ
I put an illustration of Coles Raft on a thread somewhere, can't find it at the moment. Found it !
Coles armoured self propelled raft.jpg
 
Thanks John,

Now I know why both sides felt that the other had copied their own design. Guess I took the name raft to much to heart because always felt the ends would be square,

Believe know why fixed turret, went back through Church's book and found several answer. He wanted a 15'' SB on a 140 ton gunboat. at that size and price a larger number could be built ( Kind of like a US version of a flat iron GB) and be used like a row gunboat (carry a heavy cannon into shallow water where most warships cannon enter)> Also his suggested way of using a Monitor in combat was bow forward to the target. That way , the vessel would be showing a smaller target to returning cannon fire, to keep from being run over by a larger vessel and to keep the beak (ram) towards any potential target.

Was thinking about the Erie canal Monitor design. Thought I saw a similar design before and as luck would have it..Found it! HMS Congo built 1816-17 to explore the congo river. As it turns out that design was of a type that Funton was building in his steamboat designs. Well maybe not as cracy as I thought...

Found 2 pictures of Swedish Mom's but not much ship details but it did confirm That JE was the designer of these small Monitors.


GRIZZ
 
Denmark, I believe, was the last country to build and use the row gunboats in a war.1864. These GB were armed with shell guns. Do you know if they were considered effective? were any converted to steam?
Denmark did have a number of rowboats with 1 or 2 large guns on them. I don't remember reading any case of them being used in action in 1864.
The better range of breachloaded rifles compared to the mostly smooth bore muskets of the 3 year war might be the reason.
A boat is a less stable platform so I would guess that they need to be much closer to the target to actually hit anything.
But Iam just guessing.

I also don't know of any that had added steam engines.

But a good number was engaged in the 3 year war in 1848-50 and where very effective in a number of land battles that took place close to the coast.(the geography and road network of Jylland made sure that this was often the case)
 
Thanks John,

Now I know why both sides felt that the other had copied their own design. Guess I took the name raft to much to heart because always felt the ends would be square,

Believe know why fixed turret, went back through Church's book and found several answer. He wanted a 15'' SB on a 140 ton gunboat. at that size and price a larger number could be built ( Kind of like a US version of a flat iron GB) and be used like a row gunboat (carry a heavy cannon into shallow water where most warships cannon enter)> Also his suggested way of using a Monitor in combat was bow forward to the target. That way , the vessel would be showing a smaller target to returning cannon fire, to keep from being run over by a larger vessel and to keep the beak (ram) towards any potential target.

Was thinking about the Erie canal Monitor design. Thought I saw a similar design before and as luck would have it..Found it! HMS Congo built 1816-17 to explore the congo river. As it turns out that design was of a type that Funton was building in his steamboat designs. Well maybe not as cracy as I thought...

Found 2 pictures of Swedish Mom's but not much ship details but it did confirm That JE was the designer of these small Monitors.


GRIZZ
Griozz ,sorry I don't know of any books on the Swedish Navy ,but I'm sure there are some, The answers are there if anywhere.
 
Grizz, while looking for something else entirely, I came across a short article in Warship International, Volume 23 , No 2 1986, page 167. This confirms that the Swedish monitors and armoured gunboats were not designed by Ericson. Some did use his design of engine ,and of course the 2 x 15" guns were a gift from him the the Swedish Navy.
In July 1862 it was decided that Lt Jaques D'ailly ( Swedish despite the name), Ist lieutenant of the Navy Mechanical Corps,
Should go to study the design and construction of monitors under Ericsons tutelage.
In 1864 D'ailly returned to Sweden and the first ship to his design was laid down, This being John Ericson launched on 21st April 1865. Two more followed but they were half or three quarter sisters, each one incorporating improvements and Loke being somewhat larger than the others.
He also designed all the smaller monitors and armoured gunboats .
Whilst Ericson in style, it appears the monitors were much better vessels than his ,and all made their design speeds.
The Navy was not enamoured with the 15" sb however, so Thordon and Tirfing were fitted with 9" sb m/66 Von Feiltitzen construction. In 1869 -1872 they were all equipped with the French M64 24cm, being manufactured by Finspong.
 
Hi John.
The strange thing is that in different sites I have been finding 3 different answers to that question. Some say JE was the designer, others say they were co designers and again others say that that other guy was the designer (should also say that have read articles that do not list who did the work!). As a matter of fact even saw two different sited about the remaining Monitors of the world. Both had the same pictures and most of the info was the same. The major difference was who the designer was. Another said the early designs were JE's while a later one was based on his concepts. Do not understand why the confusion of who did what?
Guess will have to keep score. two chances out of three is not bad. Still believe they were co designers. Church describes it as 1862 with that Swedish designer sitting working at a table in JE's office with JE working on other projects.
Did find a book that is all about Swedish Monitors and coast defense ships, with line drawings and much more. The only problem is that it is in Swedish.

GRIZZ
 
Denmark did have a number of rowboats with 1 or 2 large guns on them. I don't remember reading any case of them being used in action in 1864.
The better range of breachloaded rifles compared to the mostly smooth bore muskets of the 3 year war might be the reason.
A boat is a less stable platform so I would guess that they need to be much closer to the target to actually hit anything.
But Iam just guessing.

I also don't know of any that had added steam engines.

But a good number was engaged in the 3 year war in 1848-50 and where very effective in a number of land battles that took place close to the coast.(the geography and road network of Jylland made sure that this was often the case)

Hi Thomas,
Thanks for the info. Have been reading the reports sent to congress by the Army about coastal defense plans. Could not believe the number of forts that they planned to build, over a 100+. Some of the plans talk about building row gunboats & floating batteries ( powered/un-powered) . The general in charge of the east coast wanted to build floating batteries that carried 200 guns! Anyways it was around the time of the 3 year war so was just thinking about how effective the row gunboats would be. (In 1788 a Russian flotilla destroyed a Turkish fleet by using shell firing gunboats.)
About the steam part, in the 1870's Norway was building 3 classes of gunboats, to save money they converted some old row gunboats into 1 gun steam gunboat. Was lucky enough to find this book on line that showed a number of ship plans of sailing & steam warships of Norway. One of these showed a half center line profile of such a converted gunboat.
,showing the engine ect.
Have a printed article about Danish Row gunboats used in that 1864 conflict, wish I could post it but most of my files ate in storage.

GRIZZ
 
Just rememberd that small rowed gunboats was used in the "Wadden Sea" on the west coast...
A danish officer did very well in defending the islands with a few gunboats and few troops.

I was focusing too much on the operations of the (main) danish army. Where I don't belive they where used in direct support... like in the 3 year war.

3 articles about danish ironclads in 1864:
The Armoured Ram Stærkodder - (later sold til the CSA as Stonewall)
http://milhist.dk/vabnet/the-armoured-ram-staerkodder/
Danish Warship Procurement in the Early Steamship Age 1824-1862 -
http://milhist.dk/vabnet/1922/
The war in 1864 and armoured battery ROLF KRAKE
http://milhist.dk/slaget/panserbatteriet-rolf-krake-og-krigen-i-1864/ -
(I belive the first two are written in english, the 3rd is translated by the page)
 
I put an illustration of Coles Raft on( a thread somewhere, can't find it at the moment. Found it !View attachment 58464

Hi John and other "history Nuts",
Just thought of this, with this latest adventure into John E's other designs/ideas's (well this might be more "what if/Coastal def/what other countries did/used-1816 t0 1870's", rather than" Civil War ships/concepts, 1860 to 1865". Other projects include "the new navy 1880 to Roosevelt naval program of ca 1903. the sailing navy, ca 16 something to 1815, and the development of the galley (no wounder my computer filled up so fast!) that 5 major projects am working on! Never looked at it that way before, but do love digging, you never know what you may find. Guess have learned somthing from you guys after all.
# Enough of the blabbing have to go out to move the white stuff, it is getting deep. Was rereading Baxter's "the intro of the ironclad warship".....Must have skipped through it the 1st time because what a ton of info there (thanks for posting coles raft),
But what is bugging me starts on page 226 talking about Porter's 1846 design. .........According with his son's state- ment in 1892: ......"this plan of 1846........a iron vessel of 19' draft and 40' beam, whose sides slope inwards at 45% fron thr nuckle, which was 2' below the wl. Three inches of incline armor covering ''all of the vessel above the WL and 3' below it." The ends beyond the shield were....... of the same incline (as to their sides) as the shield...............(This is the confusion part)..........And the DECK FORWARD AND AFT of THE SHIELD was protected with armor plate.......................(than further)
Mr Porter (John L.) transferred them (ship plans) to his book of naval designs. which he retained, "and STILL HAS IN HIS POSSESSION". #1
#1 says "John W H Porter, op. cit., pp. 327-328.


Now, have seen Porter's draft of his "floating battery" of 1861, there are no "deck s forward and aft of the shield" in that design! Porter jr should have known what the 1846 ironclad was like. as he must have seen Porter sr's ""book of naval design". Read on line some where before (on line) that this book surrived the war , but never could locate the site again,

So.................could it be that the 1846 design was like a Richmond class with the fore and afy decks more like Loa? Or do yoy feel that jr is doing a "tall tail" thing to protect SR's reputation as the VA's designer?

And WHERE did those other designs go? We know there is a handful left, what happened to the rest of them?
 
I have Baxter, and I didn't pick that up either. I think young Mr Porter may have been defending his father re CSS Virginia, despite it being on record that it was John M Brooke's vessel that Mallory ordered J.L. to adapt to the Merrimack hull.
Porter's plan book has disappeared, I don't doubt that it existed. It's probably in private hands somewhere ,like CSS Nashville's plans which were stolen.
Who would want to steal something like that if it wasn't for their own collection ?
 
Hi John,
Yes kinda of feel the same way, that it is still around in some one's private collection. To me it looks like some one kept a few designs (Va design, Wilmington TB design, a ocean ironclad design and a couple of designs of the configurations of the iron plate shapes needed for ironclads. You can only wounder what else could be in this book....................

Well guess we cannot do much about that.........so if you do not mind have another question about Cole's designs.

Design #1: Lady Nancy, built on kegs, 1 32 pdr.
Design #2:1855: a raft with 1 68-pdr ,
Design #3: powered version with no draft more than 5 feet.
Design#4?..........???????????

Was looking up JE's "Erie Monitor" in Clad in Iron and spotted this...........P27. "After several years Coles Returned with a new submission.... He had reversed his opinion that turning the ship itself was acceptable, once he discovered that the armored protected guns themselves could be mounted on a turntable............

This was 1859, before proposing to mount turrets on ironclads. Believe he was talking about his first turred design,,,,,,,,:shot proof hemispherical screen", the same type, I believe that was mounted on the Floating battery Trusty.''

It almost sounds that he made a 4th raft design , was there such a design?

Thanks
GRIZZ

PS almost forded, when I conform one more point,will be able to post some thing about JE's other Moniter designs.
 
Grizz,

The turret on Trusty was a true turret timber built, and seeing the drawings, I could easily see CSN constructors building these. They would fit a casemate ironclad nicely.
There is/was apparently a 4th design, but it is missing, the next design there is a copy of is the first of his seagong ships, a single turret job.
british_floating_battery_hms_trusty_1854_1864_by_roodbaard1958-d73xeki.jpg
british_floating_battery_hms_trusty_1854_1864_by_roodbaard1958-d73xesm.jpg
british_floating_battery_hms_trusty_1854_1864_by_roodbaard1958-d73xeuu.jpg
 
Thanks John,
You can well see where Coles's type, like above, with a lower center of gravity, would be a better design atop a casemate, than an Ericsson type turret. Any lowering of weight would be a help.........Like for design #1 of the "Thunder Mountain"...........(Dunderberg).
Which also reminds me, will have to re read Baxter's specks on the 1861 Union navy 2 gun twin ironclad (Monitor type) design...as they were to be fitted with Coles turrets......to check for which type.

Should say am a great believer in Murphy's Law....it always seems that I discover what am looking for after asking someone else.........anyways.

" John Ericsson's other Monitor designs"
As most people who visit this site well know, the naval part of the CW is not well known. The best known naval battle seems to be between the Monitor and the Merrimack (sorry guys, but in our generation that was what they drilled into our heads for 12 years or so, and even now hearing that with the right name seems wrong some how). This is a simple basic review of a few Monitor designs not usually thought of having anything to do with American defense.

1854 Monitor design: This is JE's #1 Monitor design. A 1 gun ironclad design that the French refused to build. Most people do not know that this ironclad was not designed for the French but, was a simple version of the original design. This 1 gun version was larger than the 1861-62 2 gun Monitor, and you might ask why?
Ericsson was building a advanced weapons carrier to protect his country (the US) against foreign invading navies. In the plans giver to the French, the under water cannon firing torpedo and the air torpedo designs were removed.

These were among the weapons he told Wells he would develop if the US was invaded by a foreign power.

The Monitor first built for the USN was designed as one that could be built in a short amount of time and carry two of the largest guns then in the USN. JE later said that this design, if modified with heaver supports and thicker plates for the gun mounts, it would be able to carry two 15'' SB in a harbor defense role.

In 1862, Ericsson had a meeting with Port Defense groups from NY, Philie. and Boston. Feeling forts were outdated they were seeking advice about "several light ironclads (JE called them Monitors) carrying 15'' guns. Almost sound like design #1 modified as suggested above.
JE wrote Fox a day or two later saying that he had shot down their choice because better designs were on the drawing board.

Oh well duty calls (should say Nana) Will write part II when I get back.


GRIZZ






to the French
 
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