Ship to Ship Communication

I am aware of the existence of Morse code, signal flags, semaphore, etc. but I know next to nothing about the naval aspect of the war.

If, say, during a battle, a commander wanted to have all his ships concentrate fire on a single enemy ship, how best would he communicate this?
I've asked the moderators to move your question into the naval forum.

I feel like you'll receive more feedback in there.
 
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fd00e2dad17239a4bded7db39febb8ec--signal-flags.jpg


It would usually be done with signals flags during daylight, but I'm not sure of the actual sequence. That's a fairly fine-grained order to give, unless it's "concentrate fire on enemy flagship" or something fairly basic. Especially if it were an unanticipated order, there's a high likelihood of it being either misread, or not understood at all in the smoke and confusion.

Nelson famously said that "no captain can do very wrong if he lays his ship alongside that of the enemy." That's a great quote, but Nelson's real skill in a fleet action was his tireless effort to make sure his subordinate commanders knew his thinking and his intentions going in, so that they didn't have to guess what he wanted them to do in any individual circumstance.
 
From the Code of Flotilla and Boat Squadron Signals for the United States Navy (1861) (14MB PDF):

Signal No. 3794, Concentrate fire

I'm not certain how the squadron commander would designate the target vessel, though.

Notice that the numerals assigned to the individual flags (p. 34 of the PDF) are not sequential, and written in pencil -- I think that was a security precaution that allowed the value of each flag to be changed when it was believed to code had been compromised.

Flags.jpg
 
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It would usually be done with signals flags during daylight, but I'm not sure of the actual sequence. That's a fairly fine-grained order to give, unless it's "concentrate fire on enemy flagship" or something fairly basic. Especially if it were an unanticipated order, there's a high likelihood of it being either misread, or not understood at all in the smoke and confusion.

Nelson famously said that "no captain can do very wrong if he lays his ship alongside that of the enemy." That's a great quote, but Nelson's real skill in a fleet action was his tireless effort to make sure his subordinate commanders knew his thinking and his intentions going in, so that they didn't have to guess what he wanted them to do in any individual circumstance.

Excellent thanks for the reply. So if I am understanding correctly, generally speaking two sides would go into an engagement with a plan of some sort of level of detail, possible contingencies, so on, but once the balls whistle free, so to speak, there wasn’t a whole lot of inter-ship communication?

I imagine that would put paramount importance on knowing your fellow captains and their tendencies?
 
Excellent thanks for the reply. So if I am understanding correctly, generally speaking two sides would go into an engagement with a plan of some sort of level of detail, possible contingencies, so on, but once the balls whistle free, so to speak, there wasn’t a whole lot of inter-ship communication?

Ideally, you want your side to have a well-thought through plan, and the other guy to be completely unaware.

Once the action gets hot, effective communication becomes exponentially more difficult.

I imagine that would put paramount importance on knowing your fellow captains and their tendencies?

Trafalgar captains.jpg


Absolutely. Nelson's "Band of Brothers," etc. Same principle applies up and down the line, whether you're talking about ships, a squad in a firefight, or an army corps advancing on a miles-wide front.
 
If, say, during a battle, a commander wanted to have all his ships concentrate fire on a single enemy ship, how best would he communicate this?
One thing to remember. . . to my knowledge . . . there were very few multiple ship engagements during our Civil War.

Mobile Bay, Memphis and New Orleans are the first that come to mind.

However, most of the famous engagements were single ship v. ship affairs. Think CSS Alabama & USS Kearsarge,
the CSS Virginia (
aka the Merrimack) & the The Union ironclad Monitor.

I'm sure our Naval experts can cite other examples.
 
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One thing to remember. . . to my knowledge . . . there were very few multiple ship engagements during our Civil War.

Mobile Bay, Memphis and New Orleans are the first that come to mind.

However, most of the famous engagements were single ship v. ship affairs. Think CSS Alabama & USS Kearsarge,
the CSS Virginia (
aka the Merrimack) & the The Union ironclad Monitor.

I'm sure our Naval experts can cite other examples.

Good point, and also the major engagements were largely melees, ships engaging and disengaging as they passed each other's field of fire. The mix of ramming and gunnery probably added to the confusion.

In classic battle line tactics, the common rule was for each ship to engage her opposite number, ensuring that every enemy ship was taken under fire. It's usually best not to leave an opponent undisturbed. If a fleet had superior numbers, the commander might issue guidelines for concentrating fire. At close quarters, one might also have the excess ships "double" the enemy, taking a few of his ships, often at the rear of the line, under fire from both sides.

As gun ranges increased in the late 1800s, gunners would often try to correct their aim by observing the splashes of their near-misses. Too many ships or guns firing on the same target made it difficult to tell whose splashes were whose. In the early 1900s navies developed director-controlled salvo firing with uniform caliber main batteries - the dreadnought type - which enabled considerable increases in range and accuracy.
 
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I am curious if any of you have ever played the late 70s Yaquinto Games boardgame “Ironclads”, and if so what your opinions are of its relative historical accuracy. The issue of communication has been a topic of discussion for years as none of us ever really knew how to handle it in game.
 
The issue of communication has been a topic of discussion for years as none of us ever really knew how to handle it in game.

It was difficult IRL, too. :bounce:

I've played a couple of times, and enjoyed it. I think it's generally considered to be a good game, accuracy-wise, but that comes at the price of substantial complexity -- eleventy-seven gunnery tables to be consulted, IIRC -- that makes multi-ship actions very loooong to play through.

See also:

https://civilwartalk.com/threads/naval-gaming.130798/#post-1464041
 
That is an excellent thread! Wishing I had stumbled across this board sooner.

You’re very right about multi ship actions. Generally we only played 1v1 for simplicity’s Sake. Years ago I ran an Ironclads PBEM as referee. Players said it was nice to just sit back and give orders rather than having to do all the chart references, etc. Unfortunately it ended after about half a dozen turns when the union side got two lucky crit hits and the majority of the CS side was disabled.

Back to communication, do you happen to know about how long was it before ships used Morse code via on/off flashing on deck? I’m thinking if you had a torch in a housing with slats over it you could make it happen, so the technology existed, did it not? Am I misunderestimating the smoke and confusion of battle and the ability of someone to make it out? Just curious.
 
In the CW it was rare for there to be a naval engagement in which the sides were not rather well informed of the opposition. Plans were generally loose, with a basic concept to be followed as possible. For example, the CS plan at the NO forts was -- stop the Union at the rope barrier, use fire ships to keep the night lit up and stop any ship that got past the barrier. There was a like plan for the Mobile Bay defence and for the sortie of the Richmond ironclads to City Point.

Union plans were a bit more detailed because they had more ships to put into action. The plans to run the NO forts, Mobile Bay forts, Fort Fisher x2, monitor attack on Charleston, etc. were detailed, but subject to smoke and damage.
 
Not sure about flashing lights/Morse. During the ACW there were night signals composed of arrangements of different colored lanterns and/or pyrotechnics (detailed in the signals book linked above), but those were much more basic than day signals via flag hoist.
 
From the fount of all worth knowing (Wikipedia):

The idea of flashing dots and dashes from a lantern was first put into practice by Captain, later Vice Admiral, Philip Colomb, of the British Royal Navy, in 1867. His original code, which the Navy used for seven years, was not identical with Morse's, but Morse code was eventually adopted with the addition of several special signals.
 
If, say, during a battle, a commander wanted to have all his ships concentrate fire on a single enemy ship, how best would he communicate this?

I'm not certain how the squadron commander would designate the target vessel, though.

Strictly as a landlubber here, but my guess would be that all the other ships would follow the firing and targeting of the guns of commanding vessel in their following salvo after the order is given.
 
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