AHC: Major Ship of The Line battle...On Lake Ontario

DANFS has a few comments on [SIZE=-1]New Orleans and Chippewa, in which the most reliable description of their armament gives them 87 guns, 63 32-pdrs, 24 32-pdr carronades. That's the same as the Atlantic built ships of the line, although they might have been more seaworthy given their greater dimensions. I remain unconvinced of this - even monsters like the Santisima Trinidad, L'Orient and Caledonia only had 32-pdrs on the lowest gun deck, and with good reason.[/SIZE]

Interesting, by that account the Americans are going for a more atypical armament, favoring a smaller number of total cannons but all of their armament being of the heaviest caliber. I wonder why the USN decided to go with an all 32 pound broadside? At 2805 tonnes these are really big warships, even for first rates (500 tonnes more than St. Lawrence) so this probably would have helped keep them stable even mounting this really heavy armament.

As to the USS Plattsburgh although it had had the tonnage and armament of a ship of the line (only 400 tonnes less then the two British battleships under construction and 2.5 times bigger than HMS Psyche), it was probably still classed as a frigate because its guns would be mounted frigate-style with the bulk of their armaments being mounted on a single deck. Still it had the size and tonnage close to a battleship, although I don't know how much of a disadvantage a frigate-style layout (if any) would affect the ships performance vs an actual battleship, but considering its size and armaments I would think it could serve a similar role as the other two US Battleships in engaging the 3 British Battleships.

One of the other US frigates, the USS Superior also seems to be exceptionally powerful for a frigate: Even though it was only slightly larger then the largest UK frigate, Prince Regent (1580 vs 1450 tonnes) it mounted 30 32 pounder long guns, 2 24 pounders and 26 42-pounder carronades compared to all the other frigates mounting only 24 pounder guns and 32 pounder carronades.

HMS Psyche was really just an over-gunned sloop rather than a frigate (USS General Pike was actually slightly larger and had a similar long gun armament of 24 pounders but lacked HMS Psyche's 28 32-pdr carronades)

So if you count USS Plattsburgh as a battleship and HMS Psyche as a sloop you get the following numbers in our ATL where the war lasts longer and where the sips under contruction are completed:

RN

3 Battleships

2 Frigates

3 Sloops (one gunned like a frigate)

3 Brigs


USN

3 Battleships (2 armed exclusively with heavy caliber guns, 1 frigate-style)

2 Frigates (one armed with a main broadside of 32 pounders)

1 Sloop

1 Corvette

3 Brigs


Looks like a very interesting battle to me :)
 

Saphroneth

Banned
Have construction rates been looked at? I ask because - to pick two examples with malice aforethought - the USS Washington took a year and a half on the slips (May 1813 - October 1814) and a further ten months to commission, whereas the HMS St Lawrence took five months from laying down to launch (April - September 1814) and seems to have commissioned fairly promptly (I don't have the date).

Unfortunately only the RN finished a ship of the line on the Lakes, so we don't have much clue of who had overall faster construction rates there.

As such, it's possible - not certain, not by any means, but possible - that the RN might be a half-build cycle ahead. This doesn't affect the outcome of a battle (assuming that this build time difference doesn't, after all, result in an extra RN battleship) but it could mitigate the effect of an inconclusive battle. (In essence the RN would have another ship able to turn up after a couple of months.)
It could also affect the willingness of the RN to accept battle on unfavourable terms - I could construe a situation where a RN commodore decides he'd rather not engage two-to-three when not only is his missing ship going to be back from wherever but he'll have an entirely new ship in a couple of months.

(The best case scenario for the RN, of course, is that their hundreds of trained and experienced shipwrights gives them a considerable advantage in build rate - if the USN can only manage the build rate they managed on the Washington then they can only build one ship for every three RN! Not bloody likely, but there it is.)
 
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Have construction rates been looked at? I ask because - to pick two examples with malice aforethought - the USS Washington took a year and a half on the slips (May 1813 - October 1814) and a further ten months to commission, whereas the HMS St Lawrence took five months from laying down to launch (April - September 1814) and seems to have commissioned fairly promptly (I don't have the date).

Unfortunately only the RN finished a ship of the line on the Lakes, so we don't have much clue of who had overall faster construction rates there.

As such, it's possible - not certain, not by any means, but possible - that the RN might be a half-build cycle ahead. This doesn't affect the outcome of a battle (assuming that this build time difference doesn't, after all, result in an extra RN battleship) but it could mitigate the effect of an inconclusive battle. (In essence the RN would have another ship able to turn up after a couple of months.)
It could also affect the willingness of the RN to accept battle on unfavourable terms - I could construe a situation where a RN commodore decides he'd rather not engage two-to-three when not only is his missing ship going to be back from wherever but he'll have an entirely new ship in a couple of months.

(The best case scenario for the RN, of course, is that their hundreds of trained and experienced shipwrights gives them a considerable advantage in build rate - if the USN can only manage the build rate they managed on the Washington then they can only build one ship for every three RN! Not bloody likely, but there it is.)


HMS St. Lawrence cut a lot of corners in construction in order to be built so fast. It was made of green wood, meaning it would only last several years before it rotted and its peculiar construction (3 flush decks with no poop-deck or quarterdeck or forecastle). These design choices are probably what allowed for the ship to be made in only 10 months.

I remember reading that USS New Orleans new Orleans was constructed using green wood (and one would assume the other USN battleships under construction at the time were as well) and the ships were not expected to function more than 5 years, so I assume their overall construction time and labour requirements would be roughly similar to the St. Lawrence. Seeing as she was laid down on December 15 1814 and in OTL construction was stopped March 1815 and in and photos of the hull (which was preserved by the USN for 69 years after the war before finally being sold for scrap) show a pretty substantial hull, expecting the ship to be operational by mid-late fall 1815 seems reasonable. The information on the construction of the other 3 battleships (HMS Wolfe, HMS Canada and USS Chippewa) is much slimmer. They appear to all have been laid down but there is little information beyond that which makes me think that their construction was in their infancy and assuming they have a similar construction time line, they likely would not have been ready before the very end of 1815 or possibly early 1816. HMS Psyche appears to have been near completion when hostilities were suspended. This would mean the earliest possible action with the fleets described as above would have been in spring 1816 (The ice on Lake Ontario in winter would have made a fleet engagement impossible).

An interesting note on HMS Psyche is that she was built using frames from Britain that were shipped to Canada and then assembled at Kingston, so this probably helped speed up construction. I don't know if the USN did something similar, with sipping frames from Atlantic harbours and then assembling them at Sacketts Harbor?

I doubt the RN building ships at a significantly faster rate then the USN on Lake Ontario, as the US side of the lake was significantly more populated (remeber because Lake Ontario at this time is functionally land-locked all ships have to be built and assembled on-site by both the RN and USN) and one would think that if their was a building speed advantage it would have been with them (probably why the USN was able to quickly commission so many schooners at the beginning of the war as they were already built as civilian vessels). I don't know how Kingston compares to Sacketts Harbor vis-a-vis shipbuilding capacity at this time though. Still the RN did have a deceive advantage in the naval arms race in September 1814 with the launch of HMS St. Lawrence and would have maintained that advantage for at least a year later in our ATL until USS New Orleans was launched (Which raises the question of whether the RN would wait until their other battleships were completed or attack Sacketts Harbor in spring or summer 1815 while they have the advantage. Yeo seemed really cautious so I am not sure on this one). I don't know how much RN (and possibly USN?) pre-fab construction of frames at blue water ports could have helped speed up the construction process as well.

Anyone have any insight on how this naval engagement would likely have been fought? With only a handful of battleships each I doubt either side would have bothered forming lines, unless they put their frigates in the lines as well? Any idea on how the constrained size of Lake Ontario (compared to a traditional blue water battle) would affect the tactics of the commanders and the conditions of the battle itself?
 

Saphroneth

Banned
Why would it necessarily be the USN having a build speed advantage (if such was available)?
The reason I ask is because the US simply hasn't built many battleships before, while the RN has been building large numbers of battleships and hence has spare skilled manpower to import.

Though the mention of skilled manpower does bring up the point that the potential engagement on Lake Ontario isn't happening in a vacuum. It's entirely possible that the US would try to ignore their parlous economy and continue putting as much effort onto Lake Ontario, but conversely it is also possible that the demands of the eastern seaboard states would draw off skilled manpower.

I concede that unchanged effort is a sensible (simplifying) assumption, but it is still an assumption.



Anyway.

The Macau Incident is a "battle" with fleets of about the right size, so that might be a model. 7 Oct 1795 also shows an example of a three-liner fleet forming line of battle.
 
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