To ram or not to ram

[th'anchoriticsybarite]

I recently read an article about Grant using his ironclads to escort his men past the Vicksburg defenses and allow them to cross the river and obviate the Confederate fortifications. Let me say that of all aspect of the Civil War the topic about which I have the least amount of expertise is the naval aspect of the war. The article did spark a thought which I would like to invite comment on.

We all know the story of the initial conflict between the Monitor and the Merrimac. We know that it was essentially a draw. And that the Merrimac was unable to inflict serious damage to her opponent because of 2 factors--she had either no solid shot or not enough to inflict serious damage to her opponent and that she was so slow that she was unable to train her guns on the Monitor for any appreciable amount of time during the conflict.

I did a brief survey on Confederate ironclads and found that the overwhelming majority of them were classified as ironclad RAMS. So here is my question. WAS THIS A FATAL FLAW? In almost every account I've read about Confederate naval battles involving ironclads, I keep seeing references to their inability to keep their guns trained on their oppent.

Did the weight of the ram prevent them from being able to fight effectively?

We know just from the fact that the Monitor's crew could physically examine the places where Confederate shells had dented their armour, that the Merrimac could hit her. Could more strikes have inflicted damage severe enough to turn the battle from a draw to a Confederat victory.

 

[DaveBrt]

I recently read an article about Grant using his ironclads to escort his men past the Vicksburg defenses and allow them to cross the river and obviate the Confederate fortifications. Let me say that of all aspect of the Civil War the topic about which I have the least amount of expertise is the naval aspect of the war. The article did spark a thought which I would like to invite comment on.

We all know the story of the initial conflict between the Monitor and the Merrimac. We know that it was essentially a draw. And that the Merrimac was unable to inflict serious damage to her opponent because of 2 factors--she had either no solid shot or not enough to inflict serious damage to her opponent and that she was so slow that she was unable to train her guns on the Monitor for any appreciable amount of time during the conflict.

I did a brief survey on Confederate ironclads and found that the overwhelming majority of them were classified as ironclad RAMS. So here is my question. WAS THIS A FATAL FLAW? In almost every account I've read about Confederate naval battles involving ironclads, I keep seeing references to their inability to keep their guns trained on their oppent.

Did the weight of the ram prevent them from being able to fight effectively?

We know just from the fact that the Monitor's crew could physically examine the places where Confederate shells had dented their armour, that the Merrimac could hit her. Could more strikes have inflicted damage severe enough to turn the battle from a draw to a Confederat victory.

Sinking a ship by gunfire has always been very difficult. Remember the great sailing ship battles that lasted for hours at short range with rarely a ship lost to gunfire -- lost to fire, capture and storm damage far more often than sinking by gunfire. This is still true, with ships being far more vulnerable to mines and torpedoes than shells. In fact, during the late 1800's, ships carried many fast firing light guns to destroy an enemy's upper works and manpower, but only a couple of very heavy guns capable of doing fatal damage. The theory was that with the enemy sufficiently damaged, the victory would ram the disabled enemy to sink him.

Additional hits on Monitor, with the right ammunition, would have just led to her moving out of range. Ending the Monitor's threat required boarding and capture, a hit that penetrated the turret and killed the gun crew and/or disabled the guns, or ramming. Since Virginia could not land a ramming blow, Monitor could not be destroyed, only captured or driven off.

 

[th'anchoriticsybarite]

Sinking a ship by gunfire has always been very difficult. Remember the great sailing ship battles that lasted for hours at short range with rarely a ship lost to gunfire -- lost to fire, capture and storm damage far more often than sinking by gunfire. This is still true, with ships being far more vulnerable to mines and torpedoes than shells. In fact, during the late 1800's, ships carried many fast firing light guns to destroy an enemy's upper works and manpower, but only a couple of very heavy guns capable of doing fatal damage. The theory was that with the enemy sufficiently damaged, the victory would ram the disabled enemy to sink him.

Additional hits on Monitor, with the right ammunition, would have just led to her moving out of range. Ending the Monitor's threat required boarding and capture, a hit that penetrated the turret and killed the gun crew and/or disabled the guns, or ramming. Since Virginia could not land a ramming blow, Monitor could not be destroyed, only captured or driven off.

Let me be a little clearer. And again I'm not any kind of naval expert. But. In every instance I know of a Confederate ironclad going into action they had problems with their propulsion. I'm thinking that a basic problem was that they were too underpowered to function properly. I'm guessing that their boilers were designed to work on an all wood hull and the extra weight of the armor was too much.
In the case specifically of the Merrimac, the two ships she destroyed before the Monitor came on the scene the Cumberland was sunk by ramming, but had already suffered sufficient damage that she could have easily been sunk by guns alone. The Congress was put on fire by gunfire alone. Plus using the ram crippled the Merrimac worse than anything the Monitor and all the other ships combined.

 

[DaveBrt]

Let me be a little clearer. And again I'm not any kind of naval expert. But. In every instance I know of a Confederate ironclad going into action they had problems with their propulsion. I'm thinking that a basic problem was that they were too underpowered to function properly. I'm guessing that their boilers were designed to work on an all wood hull and the extra weight of the armor was too much.
In the case specifically of the Merrimac, the two ships she destroyed before the Monitor came on the scene the Cumberland was sunk by ramming, but had already suffered sufficient damage that she could have easily been sunk by guns alone. The Congress was put on fire by gunfire alone. Plus using the ram crippled the Merrimac worse than anything the Monitor and all the other ships combined.

I thought I had answered your question. Please state it again in one sentence and I will try again.

 

[Rhea Cole]

The class of screw schooner that the Merrimac belonged to had what we would now call maneuvering engines. The limitations of the metallurgy of that era severely limited the psi that could be produced & thus the horse power of the engines. Before the development of steam tugs, sailing ships could sometimes beat back & forth for weeks at a time waiting for favorable winds & tides to enter a harbor or channel. The steam engine allowed a screw sloop to navigate a channel, enter a harbor & dock whatever the direction of the wind. There were obvious tactical advantages, as well.

The engines could not be used for extended steaming for a couple of reasons. The leather bearings & other moving parts of the propulsion system simply wore out too quickly. The second limiting factor was small bunker capacity. As a result, the coal supply was limited.

The ram was nothing but a big chunk of metal hanging off the stem of the hull. It was nether here not there redrafting the speed of the ship. Oddly enough, capital warship design into the late 1890's included a ram. It was finally deleted for what should have been an obvious reason.

A wooden hulled vessel is astonishingly robust. The massive ribs, knees & planking of a wooden warship even more so. However, vessels of that era were not divided into watertight compartments. All it took was a single hit to pierce between wind & water to sink one. For that reason, an access was left around the inside of the hull. Wooden plugs of graduated sizes were on hand to be hammered into shot holes. Smashing trough the planking with a ram would almost certainly do fatal damage.

The chances of an RN battleship ramming an enemy vessel during combat was almost zero. What they did ram with alarming regularity was each other & cause severe damage. The ram was literally a weapon that did more harm to friends than it ever could to the enemy. Ironically, the HMS Dreadnought's only sinking of an enemy vessel occurred when she rammed a German Uboat.

 

[Harms88]

During the early operations against Vicksburg, the Confederate Ironclad CSS Arkansas ran past a Federal squadron of three vessels, causing havoc on them. Then she arrived at Vicksburg, using the protection of the river batteries to protect her. On the morning of July 22nd, three Union vessels mounted an attack. Two of them, Essex and Queen of the West tried ramming her.

Even though Arkansas had been tied up, she was able to get her boiler going and was able to slip out of her moorings at the last moment, and Essex ran herself aground where she took heavy fire until she could work herself off the bank. Queen of the West on the other hand, even though she was going downstream, mistook how fast she was going and completely missed Arkansas. So, she turned around and went for another attempt. This time she was successful, however, she had been fighting the downstream current and it reduced her speed so much that what she the ironclad was more of a love-tap than a punch.

Even though she wasn't the one who was doing the ramming, Arkansas was either completely missed or barely scratched by three succeeding ramming attempts. Now of course you have the Merrimack/Virginia that did successfully ram the Cumberland however, as she began sinking, she snagged onto the Virginia's ram and snapped off half of it, causing a leak in her bow.

Ramming enemy vessels was a really hard thing to accomplish. There's many factors that go into successfully making contact with a ship. In many ways, the stars had to align just right for it to actually happen. Even when it did happen, a ship could easily get damaged in turn, since in some ways, a ship was running into a wall, whether wood or iron.

I do not believe that rams were technically a fatal flaws, but the materials at the time could not be reinforced enough that damage to the ship itself could be avoided. I think a better question would be the practicality of a ram, especially when an actual successful ramming were so low. Or would they have been better just to use the material of the ram to reinforce the bow? We'll never know for certain.

 

[Lubliner]

It can be boiled down to Physics with the energy expended by contact with momentum and inertia. Many opportunities for the ram was to 'push' the enemy vessel into a misdirected angle and possibly to 'beach' her. The force of contact upon occurrence can start a movement against the enemy vessel that is difficult to compensate for, and if the bow swings around to expose the rudder or side-wheels, more damage by driving forward can be accomplished. Close up fire on the enemy during the ramming of it can have repercussive effects on the crew, and that alone can be disabling. (IMHO).
Lubliner.

 

[wausaubob]

Steam engines of the era, on vessels and on locomotives were primitive and hard to maintain. Getting adequate power and speed for an attempt to ram was not easy. Then the ramming vessel had to be more responsive and easier to turn than the target. That was not usually the case for either navy. Next, unless the hull of the ramming vessel was specially reinforced to transfer the shock of the collision into the entire hull, the ramming vessel was likely to be damaged by the collision also.
When a specially built ram could attack a converted boat not designed for combat, ramming could be effective. And in a situation where several vessels were closing on one enemy vessel, repeated collisions could prevent the target vessel from maneuvering.

 

[rebelatsea]

It is a misnomer and "received wisdom" that all CS ironclads were primarily designed for ramming. The only one that was was CSS Mannassas. The built on knuckle had pointed ends by reason of it's design but was intended for protection and not ramming, although the Charleston squadron tried it. A lot of vessels had separate rams attached to the bows, of which the Virginia and Albemarle were the most successful. In truth the Virginia's ram was actually an afterthought and not properly attached, as they discovered.

Once the "Pearce " knuckle was adopted which brought the knuckle above water, use of the bow as a ram became impractical, at least underwater, and late war designs didn't have any form of ram at all.

 

[Rhea Cole]

Since this thread was first posted, I have been filling my virus lockdown void by reading up on the River war. In former days, I navigated the Cumberland on a houseboat. Our home marina was in Nashville. Of course, CW pilots dealt with hazards we were spared. However, it was still the River. Still vivid on my memory is the shocking burst of speed from an eddy as we eased into a dock. It was only a leap by my brother & handy cleat that saved us from ramming the boat tied up ahead of us. We had put in there for fried chicken before, but never at that stage of the river.

Anyone who has done much riverine boat handling doesn't find it surprising that ramming was so hard to do. Current on the lower Mississippi is about 3mph. Rams were capable of speeds equivalent to a child on a bike. The overweight CSA iron clad rams risked boiler failure to achieve speeds similar to a child on a trike. Ramming was like playing tag on the in & out moving walkways at the airport while wearing skates.

 

[Fairfield]

Years ago, while in Charleston SC, I went into a museum that had a model of an early ironclad. The problem was that the ramming "spear" was not retractable--so the 1st kill was also the last. Had I been captain of that boat, I'd have avoided ramming at all costs.

 

[wausaubob]

Ram attacks were fading away, other than at the battle of Memphis. A steam powered vessel was a much more stable and maneuverable platform from which to fire a heavy gun. Because a steam powered vessel could maneuver even in light winds, even before the US Civil War, there was a shift towards range and accuracy. As ships deployed temporary and permanent armor, the weight of the biggest gun, not the number of guns became more important.

 

[Rhea Cole]

Ram attacks were fading away, other than at the battle of Memphis. A steam powered vessel was a much more stable and maneuverable platform from which to fire a heavy gun. Because a steam powered vessel could maneuver even in light winds, even before the US Civil War, there was a shift towards range and accuracy. As ships deployed temporary and permanent armor, the weight of the biggest gun, not the number of guns became more important.

After the Battle of Memphis there was nothing left to ram. The CSA Mississippi squadron was wiped out & never replaced. Even after they had refloated a powerful Union iron clad, they burnt it In a panic caused by an unmanned shack on a raft imitating a Monitor. Deluded People Cave In indeed.

 

[Mark F. Jenkins]

A lot of this is retrospect... in fact, the concept of ramming stuck around for decades. The U.S. Navy built a dedicated ram, the USS Katahdin, years after the war... even into the dreadnought era, warships were being fitted with ram bows. Strongly influencing this, on top of the experiences in the American Civil War, was the Battle of Lissa between the Italians and Austrians in 1866, where Austrian admiral Tegethoff resorted to some ramming tactics to overcome Italian gunnery, supposed to be superior (although, again, this is questionable in hindsight).

Ramming was most effective when the target was both softer than the ramming vessel and also already partly or mostly immobilized. The Cumberland at Hampton Roads was a sailing vessel, and there was no wind to move her. The Miami and Southfield were literally chained together when the Albemarle attacked, and hampered by a very narrow river. The Eads ironclads at Plum Point Bend were very inferior in speed and maneuverability to the Confederate River Defense Force (and the Cincinnati was anchored as the attack began). The Indianola was lugging two barges full of coal... and on, and on.

The Battle of Memphis really stands out as the only example of successful ramming of active opponents with room to maneuver; but even there, one can raise objections. The two ram forces were actually trying to close with one another (cooperating, as it were), and number of the Southern vessels actually fell victim to Union gunnery rather than the rams.

With all due respect to Charles Ellet, the age of the ram really had ended centuries earlier. He really should have paid more attention to the tactics, rather than just the engineering: in the age of the trireme, the usual tactic employed was to first immobilize the target by shearing off most or all of one of her banks of oars before ramming for the kill.

 

[Rhea Cole]

As Mark Jenkins has pointed out, ramming was an ancient practice. Submarines were rammed by merchantmen & destroyers during WWII. In friendly encounters, an ocean liner cut a light cruiser in half & an Iowa class battleship received near fatal damage in a collision. Ramming subs was tactical, the others accidents. Ellet & others followed a doctrine that was thousands of years old.

The war on Western rivers was a one of a kind. The last fleet on fleet war was during Nelson's time. The cannon that armed Nelson's frigates could have been pushed into the bore of the rifled guns on CW vessels& shore batteries. A crack frigate of that era would have been shot to kindling from out of range by a screw driven sloop with 100lb swivel guns & rifled 80 pdrs that could steam right into the eye of the wind with impunity.

Wooden vessels were almost impossible to sink with solid shot. Passenger packet boats that were ambushed by CSA artillery suffered dozens of hits & if their boilers were not struck, sailed on to their destination.

Even when a boat was hulled, more often than not, it settled in shallow water. Salvage boats with huge air pumps were then summoned to re-float them. Unless CSA cavalry or banditti set them afire, a Western River steamboat would live to fight another day.

Given the robust nature of wooden boat construction & the difficulty of holing one with cannon fire, ramming was a logical tactic. Of course, the Battle of Memphis was the Battle of Jutland of the Civil War. Never again would squadrons of rams go at each other. All that remained were single CSA iron clads that, like a lone knight making a forlorn hope sally, rammed & were rammed in return without effect on the course of the war.

Note:
In 1972 I was aboard the Showboat Rhododendron, Port of Clinton IA. The former stern wheel tow boat's hull was pierced by a teenager with a chipping hammer. As cast & tech crew stood wondering what to do on the Texas deck, she settled in about two feet of water on a ten degree list. Apart from the hours it took us to re-rig the curtains & lifts, the show went on without a hitch. The same would have been true during the CW.

 

[wausaubob]

A lot of this is retrospect... in fact, the concept of ramming stuck around for decades. The U.S. Navy built a dedicated ram, the USS Katahdin, years after the war... even into the dreadnought era, warships were being fitted with ram bows. Strongly influencing this, on top of the experiences in the American Civil War, was the Battle of Lissa between the Italians and Austrians in 1866, where Austrian admiral Tegethoff resorted to some ramming tactics to overcome Italian gunnery, supposed to be superior (although, again, this is questionable in hindsight).

Ramming was most effective when the target was both softer than the ramming vessel and also already partly or mostly immobilized. The Cumberland at Hampton Roads was a sailing vessel, and there was no wind to move her. The Miami and Southfield were literally chained together when the Albemarle attacked, and hampered by a very narrow river. The Eads ironclads at Plum Point Bend were very inferior in speed and maneuverability to the Confederate River Defense Force (and the Cincinnati was anchored as the attack began). The Indianola was lugging two barges full of coal... and on, and on.

The Battle of Memphis really stands out as the only example of successful ramming of active opponents with room to maneuver; but even there, one can raise objections. The two ram forces were actually trying to close with one another (cooperating, as it were), and number of the Southern vessels actually fell victim to Union gunnery rather than the rams.

With all due respect to Charles Ellet, the age of the ram really had ended centuries earlier. He really should have paid more attention to the tactics, rather than just the engineering: in the age of the trireme, the usual tactic employed was to first immobilize the target by shearing off most or all of one of her banks of oars before ramming for the kill.

Once all the vessels had steam, the aggressors all the potential to be rams. But if the opponent had steam power also, the odds of the ram striking a direct blow were poor and were influenced by gunnery during the opening phase of the engagement.
Ram tactics could work, but carried an implicit risk. A vessel that could out range and out shoot an opponent could disable the opponent's guns and possibly pierce its hull, while taking minimal risk.

 

[wausaubob]

By the time of the US Civil War, having the best mechanical engineer working for one side's navy was like having the best player in a basketball game. Knowing the science of testing, designing, building and operating the steam engines made all the other operation plans and tactical choices look better. The literature was coming out of England and France, especially France. Having an engineer with advanced language skills and familiarity with the French literature was invaluable.
The best engines often failed, and cranky engines used by inexperienced mechanics usually failed.

 

[Carronade]

Years ago, while in Charleston SC, I went into a museum that had a model of an early ironclad. The problem was that the ramming "spear" was not retractable--so the 1st kill was also the last. Had I been captain of that boat, I'd have avoided ramming at all costs.

Is it possible the "spear" was a spar torpedo? Some of the rams carried those. An actual ram should be useable more than once, unless it suffered an accident like the loss of Virginia's ram after impacting Cumberland.

Virginia/Merrimac of course had not been designed as a ram; ramming was an unlikely tactic for a sailing ship in which the bowsprit was an important component of the rig. As others have mentioned, the ram became an integral part of the hull in many 19th-century ships, as opposed to an add-on which could break off.

 

[Fairfield]

Is it possible the "spear" was a spar torpedo? Some of the rams carried those. An actual ram should be useable more than once, unless it suffered an accident like the loss of Virginia's ram after impacting Cumberland.

Virginia/Merrimac of course had not been designed as a ram; ramming was an unlikely tactic for a sailing ship in which the bowsprit was an important component of the rig. As others have mentioned, the ram became an integral part of the hull in many 19th-century ships, as opposed to an add-on which could break off.

I'm not sure what it was. It was affixed to the boat with the intention of its poking a hole into another ship--which it did. But, without a mechanism for withdrawing, the attacking boat went straight to the bottom along with its prey.

 

[trice]

The last real naval battle where ramming was featured was the 1866 Battle of Lissa (Austrian victory over the Italians off the island of Lissa in the Adriatic) during the Austro-Prussian War. The Italians outnumbered the Austrians, but only four of the Italian ironclads were engaged against seven Austrian ironclads in the main part of the battle. Two Italian ironclads were sunk. The importance of ramming in the battle is often seen as the reason naval designers continued to design rams for the next 50 years.

Also noteworthy is the case of the Austrian Kaiser (2-decker screw ship of the line, launched 1858, 5810 long tons, 2-24pdr ML rifles, 16-40pdr SB, 74-30pdr SB, wooden and unarmored, 11.5kts). With Kaiser serving as flag for the 2nd squadron (wooden ships), Anton von Petz tried to get around the main battle and at the Italian wooden ships; the Italian ironclads turned to intervene. Von Petz thrust into the ironclad melee, closing to ramming range (Kaiser actually struck one a glancing blow) while pounding the Italians with her guns and harassing small arms fire from his Marines, badly holing the deck of Affondatore. Kaiser lost 24 KIA and 37 WIA. Kaiser was the only wooden ship of the line to ever engage ironclad warships in battle.