Atlantic theatre, part 3
It's baaaack....
Atlantic theatre, part 3
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]Ironclad warfare[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]The United States had originally built 6 naval yards, Portsmouth NH, Boston MA, Brooklyn NY, Philadelphia PA, Washington DC, and Norfolk VA[1]. Of these, obviously Portsmouth and Boston went to New England after the War of 1812, and Brooklyn has been razed in the first month of this war. Moreover, Washington DC had been largely abandoned as an active yard[1], as the river was really too shallow. This leaves Philadelphia (in good shape, up stream behind several forts) and Norfolk. In addition to these, smaller yards had been established at Charleston, SC, Oswego NY (on Lake Ontario), Whitehall (on Lake Champlain) and Erie (on Lake Erie).[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]After the raid on Norfolk, it was obvious that the Allies could raid such an exposed port whenever they wanted, as long as they could concentrate enough ironclads there. This meant that Norfolk and Charleston (so far unharmed) were both vulnerable. Neither Norfolk or Charleston would be abandoned without a fight, so, for instance, upgrading their coastal defence batteries were made top priority, but it was also obvious that putting too much effort into building vital ships there would just be a waste of time as the would likely be destroyed by inevitable Allied attacks, destroying limited US resources. Small ships, and repair work could certainly be done in those yards, so they weren't useless. Some effort was made to reestablish the Washington yard – they might not be able to do deep draft ironclads, but they could build frigates that could be armoured at Norfolk – and the shallowness of the river, which had caused the yard to close, was a good defence against Allied ironclads. Also, a minor base was set up near Annapolis, with coast defence batteries protecting that yard from attack, and another at Baltimore, again with batteries protecting the inlet. This had the further advantage of protecting Baltimore from attack, so even if that yard wasn't terribly useful in the long run navally, the batteries went in, anyway.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]The upshot of all of this is that the only well established naval yard that's actually safe from attack is at Philadelphia. While the Southern states had demanded bases in the Chesapeake Bay and at Charleston, it quickly became obvious that Philadelphia was going to have to be the centre of the US navy for at least this war. Not only was the harbour safe from attack (being up a river, and well defensible) but it was close to the main sources of iron production in the US (eastern PA and Pittsburgh). [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]Thus most of the work on new ironclads was shifted to Philadelphia. Several new ships were laid down, but with only one yard compared to 3 major ones just in New England and the Maritimes, let alone the production of the RN in England, the US was hopelessly outclassed. The US strained to produce 1 ironclad a month while the Allies are producing 3 starting in April. Moreover, due to an iron shortage and the success of the ironfaced timberclads, the US stayed with 1-2” (2.5-5cm) of iron. (While the Cato was sunk, US looked at what the Cato did without being completed all the way, and attributed its loss to a) it being not completed and b) being outnumbered 3 to 1)[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]At the beginning of March, the Allies attack Charleston harbour, and do much damage to the port and naval yard, including burning several ships on the stocks and much of the existing naval stores in the yard. They are not able to sink the Stentor there, but neither was the US able to kill any of the ironclads in the attack. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]This March raid really brought home the need for the Allies to figure out new weapons. While new, larger cannon were already in process (as a result of the Chesapeake raid), new ideas were needed.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]One thought was to try a 'harpoon' style pointed dart – but that didn't work. Another thought was to take a leaf out of the army's book – if cono-cylindrical bullets worked so well in Norton rifles, would it work in cannon? The simple minded implementation of that didn't work much better than round balls, but someone then came up with the idea of hardening the surface of the iron. This could be done simply by cooling the mould for the projectiles, so the surface cooled faster and was quenched.[2] This worked well in proof tests on land, and was tried out in April. In the middle of that month, the Pericles sortied from Philadelphia together with the US's first designed ironclad (the Pennsylvania) to intercept an Allied force that was attacking the nearby coast. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]The new weapon proved relatively successful, in that the Pericles was sunk and the Pennsylvania was damaged. The latter returns to harbour and is up armoured, as are the new ironclads in production. However, the designs were meant for lighter armour and they can't upgrade to the full 4” armour of the Allied ships. The Stentor (the only remaining Orator class timberclad) is already top heavy and can't really be upgraded much. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]Moreover, the April attack near Philadelphia means the net US production that month is negative. In fact the US inventory of armour-clads is now 2 – the Stentor (at Charleston) and the Pennsylvania (at Philadelphia)[3]. Whereas the Allies have 7 in theatre – and the RN production hasn't even yet started to arrive. (The first 2 RN ironclads are currently undergoing trials and will soon be available.)[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]Since the cannon are smooth-bore, these shells need to be fired from relatively close distances. So the next thought is to make rifled cannon – then they have to try to make shells that will work in rifled cannon (the technique ends up being to put brass knobs on the iron shell to grip the rifle grooves). All of this takes time.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]Another thought was to put explosives in an armour-piercing shell, to gain the advantages of both sorts of projectiles, but it didn't work out. With current tech, to get a good armour-piercing shell, the shell had to be almost solid, which didn't leave enough room for enough gunpowder to do significant damage.[4][/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]Once the first RN ironclads arrive in North America, the Allies start using the Bahamas as a secondary base. It's closer to Charleston, for instance, and anywhere south of that. The RN had, of course, been using the Bahamas and Bermuda as bases for raiding the coast with conventional ships, but until the end of April, there weren't enough ironclads available to split off some and divide their forces.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]Privateers[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]In the early days of the war, before the Allies were able to impose a blockade, several US ships – smaller frigates and armed merchantmen slipped out of ports and headed to sea as commerce raiders. This tactic had worked very well for the US in the past war, and they were expecting similar results now. However, several things have changed. The first is that they can't find very many neutral harbours to sell captured ships in, or to resupply at.[5] While Britain and Portugal don't control all those ports, they have consuls/representatives in most who can remonstrate with the local officials and point out how unfortunate the consequences of trading with the US would be. Certainly, in the first couple of months the US commerce raiders find the occasional port to resupply at, either pretending to be honest merchants, or otherwise leaving the local officials plausible deniability. A couple of French and Dutch ports know that the Brits won't likely dare expand the war to their countries, and even buy captured ships. But that soon stops, due to the second point.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]The more important point is that the international opinion on 'privateers' had changed, which meant that, from day 1, many harbour masters – even ones who didn't like the League, liked privateers even less. And, the League is able to issue a declaration that any such 'privateer' will be considered a pirate.[6] Thus, by 6 months into the war, pretty much all harbours are closed to the US force, at least officially. Oh, they can raid small coastal ports, and several harbour masters turn a blind eye to them resupplying, but they can no longer sell any prizes they take hardly anywhere. One ship ventured into the Indian ocean, attacking League traffic there, but it was isolated and was eventually taken (in an ironic twist of fate) by real pirates.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]So, several of the US ships have to surrender eventually, having run out of supplies, whether food or ammunition. Some ships ran out of coal first, and were able to be captured in calm weather by steam (assisted) ships. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]Other ships were tracked down and cornered by Allied warships, or just lost battles against real armed merchantmen. This was especially a problem as British arms production ramped up even further, and some merchantmen were even armed with (smaller) shell guns.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]The British wanted a real statement made about the seriousness of the crime of piracy, while also not wanting to upset international opinion. So they held trials of the officers and crew of any commerce raider they captured. Once it was established that the ship was a 'pirate ship' (which was easy to do as the standard defence, at least early on, was that they were legitimate commerce raiders – which was a contradiction in terms for the courts), then punishment was handed out. The captain, and occasionally other senior officers, along with any crew member who could be proven to have killed anyone during the course of one of their attacks were hung. The others were handed various length sentences and thrown into prison as common criminals.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]Well. Imagine the reaction in the US. “Brave Captain Jonathan Smith, USN Murdered in British Mock Trial” and the like. The fact that most of the crewmen were spared and only sentenced to jail time seemed fair to the other international powers – but even that raised the anger of the Americans. Their brave naval men were being treated as common criminals. In some quarters, it was thought that if they had all been executed, that they could at least have been considered to have died in service to their country – but thrown in jail? As criminals?[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]The US obviously retaliated, treating any allied seaman in similar fashion, which enraged public opinion in not only Britain, but New England and Portugal, too. Even France and the other Powers were aghast.[/FONT]
–
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]1 http://www.history.navy.mil/library/online/wny1894guide.htm[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]2 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palliser_shot OTL's Palliser shot was used in rifled cannon, because the tech had advanced by then. Here they introduce the shot first, then the rifling.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]3 No, I haven't forgotten the ships on the Lakes. We just haven't covered that, yet.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]4 Note that they are working with iron shells, not steel, and gunpowder, not high explosives. Steel and TNT or equivalent were what made the explosive shells of OTL (e.g. WWII) work.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]5 Obviously, being at war with Spain, Britain and Portugual and most of the members of the NeoDelian League, that doesn't leave a lot of neutral ports. The Dutch disapprove of privateers, and while they initially turn a blind eye to the odd bit of resupply in some of their ports, they soon clamp down on that, especially after the League applies some pressure. So they end up having to deal with independent African and Caribbean states – most of whom don't have the military supplies the privateers need anyway. And who also are susceptible to League pressure.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]6 see footnote to League Deliberations, above concerning the OTL Declaration of Paris.[/FONT]
It's baaaack....
Atlantic theatre, part 3
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]Ironclad warfare[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]The United States had originally built 6 naval yards, Portsmouth NH, Boston MA, Brooklyn NY, Philadelphia PA, Washington DC, and Norfolk VA[1]. Of these, obviously Portsmouth and Boston went to New England after the War of 1812, and Brooklyn has been razed in the first month of this war. Moreover, Washington DC had been largely abandoned as an active yard[1], as the river was really too shallow. This leaves Philadelphia (in good shape, up stream behind several forts) and Norfolk. In addition to these, smaller yards had been established at Charleston, SC, Oswego NY (on Lake Ontario), Whitehall (on Lake Champlain) and Erie (on Lake Erie).[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]After the raid on Norfolk, it was obvious that the Allies could raid such an exposed port whenever they wanted, as long as they could concentrate enough ironclads there. This meant that Norfolk and Charleston (so far unharmed) were both vulnerable. Neither Norfolk or Charleston would be abandoned without a fight, so, for instance, upgrading their coastal defence batteries were made top priority, but it was also obvious that putting too much effort into building vital ships there would just be a waste of time as the would likely be destroyed by inevitable Allied attacks, destroying limited US resources. Small ships, and repair work could certainly be done in those yards, so they weren't useless. Some effort was made to reestablish the Washington yard – they might not be able to do deep draft ironclads, but they could build frigates that could be armoured at Norfolk – and the shallowness of the river, which had caused the yard to close, was a good defence against Allied ironclads. Also, a minor base was set up near Annapolis, with coast defence batteries protecting that yard from attack, and another at Baltimore, again with batteries protecting the inlet. This had the further advantage of protecting Baltimore from attack, so even if that yard wasn't terribly useful in the long run navally, the batteries went in, anyway.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]The upshot of all of this is that the only well established naval yard that's actually safe from attack is at Philadelphia. While the Southern states had demanded bases in the Chesapeake Bay and at Charleston, it quickly became obvious that Philadelphia was going to have to be the centre of the US navy for at least this war. Not only was the harbour safe from attack (being up a river, and well defensible) but it was close to the main sources of iron production in the US (eastern PA and Pittsburgh). [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]Thus most of the work on new ironclads was shifted to Philadelphia. Several new ships were laid down, but with only one yard compared to 3 major ones just in New England and the Maritimes, let alone the production of the RN in England, the US was hopelessly outclassed. The US strained to produce 1 ironclad a month while the Allies are producing 3 starting in April. Moreover, due to an iron shortage and the success of the ironfaced timberclads, the US stayed with 1-2” (2.5-5cm) of iron. (While the Cato was sunk, US looked at what the Cato did without being completed all the way, and attributed its loss to a) it being not completed and b) being outnumbered 3 to 1)[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]At the beginning of March, the Allies attack Charleston harbour, and do much damage to the port and naval yard, including burning several ships on the stocks and much of the existing naval stores in the yard. They are not able to sink the Stentor there, but neither was the US able to kill any of the ironclads in the attack. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]This March raid really brought home the need for the Allies to figure out new weapons. While new, larger cannon were already in process (as a result of the Chesapeake raid), new ideas were needed.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]One thought was to try a 'harpoon' style pointed dart – but that didn't work. Another thought was to take a leaf out of the army's book – if cono-cylindrical bullets worked so well in Norton rifles, would it work in cannon? The simple minded implementation of that didn't work much better than round balls, but someone then came up with the idea of hardening the surface of the iron. This could be done simply by cooling the mould for the projectiles, so the surface cooled faster and was quenched.[2] This worked well in proof tests on land, and was tried out in April. In the middle of that month, the Pericles sortied from Philadelphia together with the US's first designed ironclad (the Pennsylvania) to intercept an Allied force that was attacking the nearby coast. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]The new weapon proved relatively successful, in that the Pericles was sunk and the Pennsylvania was damaged. The latter returns to harbour and is up armoured, as are the new ironclads in production. However, the designs were meant for lighter armour and they can't upgrade to the full 4” armour of the Allied ships. The Stentor (the only remaining Orator class timberclad) is already top heavy and can't really be upgraded much. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]Moreover, the April attack near Philadelphia means the net US production that month is negative. In fact the US inventory of armour-clads is now 2 – the Stentor (at Charleston) and the Pennsylvania (at Philadelphia)[3]. Whereas the Allies have 7 in theatre – and the RN production hasn't even yet started to arrive. (The first 2 RN ironclads are currently undergoing trials and will soon be available.)[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]Since the cannon are smooth-bore, these shells need to be fired from relatively close distances. So the next thought is to make rifled cannon – then they have to try to make shells that will work in rifled cannon (the technique ends up being to put brass knobs on the iron shell to grip the rifle grooves). All of this takes time.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]Another thought was to put explosives in an armour-piercing shell, to gain the advantages of both sorts of projectiles, but it didn't work out. With current tech, to get a good armour-piercing shell, the shell had to be almost solid, which didn't leave enough room for enough gunpowder to do significant damage.[4][/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]Once the first RN ironclads arrive in North America, the Allies start using the Bahamas as a secondary base. It's closer to Charleston, for instance, and anywhere south of that. The RN had, of course, been using the Bahamas and Bermuda as bases for raiding the coast with conventional ships, but until the end of April, there weren't enough ironclads available to split off some and divide their forces.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]Privateers[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]In the early days of the war, before the Allies were able to impose a blockade, several US ships – smaller frigates and armed merchantmen slipped out of ports and headed to sea as commerce raiders. This tactic had worked very well for the US in the past war, and they were expecting similar results now. However, several things have changed. The first is that they can't find very many neutral harbours to sell captured ships in, or to resupply at.[5] While Britain and Portugal don't control all those ports, they have consuls/representatives in most who can remonstrate with the local officials and point out how unfortunate the consequences of trading with the US would be. Certainly, in the first couple of months the US commerce raiders find the occasional port to resupply at, either pretending to be honest merchants, or otherwise leaving the local officials plausible deniability. A couple of French and Dutch ports know that the Brits won't likely dare expand the war to their countries, and even buy captured ships. But that soon stops, due to the second point.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]The more important point is that the international opinion on 'privateers' had changed, which meant that, from day 1, many harbour masters – even ones who didn't like the League, liked privateers even less. And, the League is able to issue a declaration that any such 'privateer' will be considered a pirate.[6] Thus, by 6 months into the war, pretty much all harbours are closed to the US force, at least officially. Oh, they can raid small coastal ports, and several harbour masters turn a blind eye to them resupplying, but they can no longer sell any prizes they take hardly anywhere. One ship ventured into the Indian ocean, attacking League traffic there, but it was isolated and was eventually taken (in an ironic twist of fate) by real pirates.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]So, several of the US ships have to surrender eventually, having run out of supplies, whether food or ammunition. Some ships ran out of coal first, and were able to be captured in calm weather by steam (assisted) ships. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]Other ships were tracked down and cornered by Allied warships, or just lost battles against real armed merchantmen. This was especially a problem as British arms production ramped up even further, and some merchantmen were even armed with (smaller) shell guns.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]The British wanted a real statement made about the seriousness of the crime of piracy, while also not wanting to upset international opinion. So they held trials of the officers and crew of any commerce raider they captured. Once it was established that the ship was a 'pirate ship' (which was easy to do as the standard defence, at least early on, was that they were legitimate commerce raiders – which was a contradiction in terms for the courts), then punishment was handed out. The captain, and occasionally other senior officers, along with any crew member who could be proven to have killed anyone during the course of one of their attacks were hung. The others were handed various length sentences and thrown into prison as common criminals.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]Well. Imagine the reaction in the US. “Brave Captain Jonathan Smith, USN Murdered in British Mock Trial” and the like. The fact that most of the crewmen were spared and only sentenced to jail time seemed fair to the other international powers – but even that raised the anger of the Americans. Their brave naval men were being treated as common criminals. In some quarters, it was thought that if they had all been executed, that they could at least have been considered to have died in service to their country – but thrown in jail? As criminals?[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]The US obviously retaliated, treating any allied seaman in similar fashion, which enraged public opinion in not only Britain, but New England and Portugal, too. Even France and the other Powers were aghast.[/FONT]
–
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]1 http://www.history.navy.mil/library/online/wny1894guide.htm[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]2 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palliser_shot OTL's Palliser shot was used in rifled cannon, because the tech had advanced by then. Here they introduce the shot first, then the rifling.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]3 No, I haven't forgotten the ships on the Lakes. We just haven't covered that, yet.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]4 Note that they are working with iron shells, not steel, and gunpowder, not high explosives. Steel and TNT or equivalent were what made the explosive shells of OTL (e.g. WWII) work.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]5 Obviously, being at war with Spain, Britain and Portugual and most of the members of the NeoDelian League, that doesn't leave a lot of neutral ports. The Dutch disapprove of privateers, and while they initially turn a blind eye to the odd bit of resupply in some of their ports, they soon clamp down on that, especially after the League applies some pressure. So they end up having to deal with independent African and Caribbean states – most of whom don't have the military supplies the privateers need anyway. And who also are susceptible to League pressure.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]6 see footnote to League Deliberations, above concerning the OTL Declaration of Paris.[/FONT]
