AHC: Naval Ram primary Weapon

Quoted for truth. If I recall correctly, only one ship was ever sunk with a ram. Accidently.
A few submarines bit it by rams though, either accidentally or deliberately.

If you can slow down torpedo development, you might get a situation where small boat ram battleships and the like, equipped with spar torpedoes (hanging over the bows, rather than affixed to them). Even that though would be rather situational and only tried by desperate nations.
 
IMO the one they put on the Virginia/Merrimack looked pretty secondary, it looked extremely tacked on.

If I remember correctly, the Point of the Ram was because they feared the Virginia's Guns might not be able to harm the Upcoming Union Ironclad.

that sounds more like something they needed out of Desperation.
 
Quoted for truth. If I recall correctly, only one ship was ever sunk with a ram. Accidently.

Sorry, but there are at least four instances of successful ramming attacks during the nineteenth century:

1) At Plum Run Bend (1862) the Confederate river fleet ambushed and sank two Union ironclads by ramming; these were refloated and repaired.

2) The naval battle of Memphis (1862) featured ramming attacks by Union ships which sank at least two Confederate vessels.

3) When the Confederate ironclad Virginia (to give her her proper name) attacked the Union fleet at Hampton Roads (1862) she sank the Cumberland by ramming.

4) At the battle of Lissa (1866) the Italian flagship was rammed and sunk by an Austrian vessel.

Ramming, although fashionable during the period in question, was never done in practice because naval battles were decided by gunfire long before the opposing fleets got close enough to ram. By the time of the Victoria-Camperdown accident rams were as outdated as sail power or banks of oars.
 
IMO the one they put on the Virginia/Merrimack looked pretty secondary, it looked extremely tacked on.

That's because it was tacked on; one of the modifications made to the Merrimack to turn it into an ironclad. That it was poorly made was proven when it broke off after its first use.
 
I would consider, tho not very seriously, that had USS Katahdin been used far more agressively, or at least got into action, the US Navy may considered a larger steam ram successor.

Perhaps mounting a pneumatic dynamite gun also.
 
The Battle of Lissa 1866 was a unique experience in which ramming was effective where guns were almost useless. After it until ww1 or so, most nations placed rams on thier heavier vessels.

If you delay smokeless powder and the interrupted screw breech, and perhaps also speed up the development of face-hardened armour and the steam turbine (allowing enough speed to avoid the fire of big guns) you can perhaps get a time-frame 1865-1900 when the ram is the primary weapon of high seas naval vessels.
 
Thanks to her March 1915 ramming U-29 has the dual distinction of being the only submarine sunk by a battleship and being the only ship HMS Dreadnought sank.

Made particularly ironic since the Dreadnought has been the first Royal Navy capital ship in a generation without a purpose-built ram.

When ironclads started becoming the primary type of capital ships, their armor generally significantly outclassed the guns, so they were often able to come to close quarter with each other. Confederate ship designers put rams on most of their ironclads looking to take advantage of the strong construction, the ability to withstand fire and close with enemy ships, and the manueverability from using steam propulsion. And in other navies, ramming was attempted as a despartion move at least once or twice (e.g. the Battle of Lissa in 1866). This lead to a prevailing view among ship designers that designing ships with ramming in mind was at the very least a useful way to give captains more tactical options.

When Jackie Fisher was reevaluating Royal Navy ship design, he concluded that since 1) no ironclad or later capital ship had ever been sunk by being rammed, and 2) powerful guns and accurate long-range gunnery had made it extremely foolish for a capital ship to try to close to ramming range with an enemy capital ship, not to mention that torpedos were shaping up to be a much more promising knife-range weapon than rams. And so the ram was abandoned.
 
Anti Merchant Vessels Rammers

How about an early form of low silluette motor boat with a ram designed to sink wooden cargo ships as part of a blockade force? This vessels could be steam powered and partially iron build, be carried/towed by larger vessels. There were attack boats armed with an explosive charge on the tip of a long pole before the torpedo got practical. This would be a variation of that theme.
 
The Battle of Lissa 1866 was a unique experience in which ramming was effective where guns were almost useless.

Actually... not so much. During the battle there were 13 ramming attempts. Only 2 connected and of those only 1 had the intended effect. And about guns - the smoothbores were ineffective - the Afforondatore's 9-inch riffled guns, IIRC, managed to hit enemy vessels 5 times, out of which 3 penetrated the armor.
 
How about an early form of low silluette motor boat with a ram designed to sink wooden cargo ships as part of a blockade force? This vessels could be steam powered and partially iron build, be carried/towed by larger vessels. There were attack boats armed with an explosive charge on the tip of a long pole before the torpedo got practical. This would be a variation of that theme.

Such craft, while they could be effective, would be impractical because they are not sufficiently seaworthy to maintain station in poor weather, unlike their parent ships. And rather than carry such craft the parent ship could just carry more guns, which would be more effective.

That's not to say that small craft have no place in a navy; they certainly do. But prior to the development of torpedos blockade duty is not a practical use for them.
 
And so the ram was abandoned.
Only partially true. Dreadnought initially had no ram and a hull form based on tests at Haslar, but when Fisher- who had previously argued that the ram was outdated- saw the proposed design he asked to see a version with a ram. On testing the two models, the ram acted as a bulbous bow and gave a marginal improvement in speed (though making the ship wetter) and was retained.

As I've got Warrior to Dreadnought out now, I may as well add that DK Brown collected details of 74 incidents of ramming in the period: the only occasions when ships were disabled were when they had narrow water rather than searoom, and there was almost as much chance for the rammer to be disabled as the victim (one rammer, two victims in the 74 incidents).
 
Such craft, while they could be effective, would be impractical because they are not sufficiently seaworthy to maintain station in poor weather, unlike their parent ships. And rather than carry such craft the parent ship could just carry more guns, which would be more effective.

That's not to say that small craft have no place in a navy; they certainly do. But prior to the development of torpedos blockade duty is not a practical use for them.

A Ramming boat is basically a manned torpedo. It would be used to attack targets in confined waters without risking the parent ship (coastal defences, rocks, etc) It would be, of course, a small step above a sucicide weapon. The main problem would be the considerable cost, at the time, of the propulsion systhem, that would be wasted, since this boats would be, much like fire boats, an expendable weapon. They could also be deployed as anti monitor weapons, since the monitors operated only in inner, calmer waters. The advent of the torpedo would make them obsolete overnight.
 
What if someone designed a long ram-shaped cannon?

You can get a late-era galley to ram a ship and then light the fuse.

Combine that with explosive cannonballs and you'll get an early suicide ship.

If it's effective or manages to sink a few ships, then galleys could potentially last a few more decades or early ironclads adopting such a weapon. The torpedo ram idea sounds plausible as well.
 

mats

Banned
Maybe the japanese develop and use their suicide torpedoes earlier. those were essentially ships with an explosive ram...
 
I would consider, tho not very seriously, that had USS Katahdin been used far more agressively, or at least got into action, the US Navy may considered a larger steam ram successor.

Perhaps mounting a pneumatic dynamite gun also.

The US Navy did actually commission a vessel (USS Vesuvius; a singularly appropriate name) to use the Zalinski Dynamite Gun, which was indeed a pneumatic gun. They even successfully tested it in New York Harbor. But they did not go further with it.

Two reasons; first, the maximum range of the pneumatic gun was only 4,000 yards, which was pitiful compared to conventional naval guns. Second, it would be an intrepid soul indeed who would venture to take a ship loaded with dynamite into a naval battle!:eek:
 
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Only partially true. Dreadnought initially had no ram and a hull form based on tests at Haslar, but when Fisher- who had previously argued that the ram was outdated- saw the proposed design he asked to see a version with a ram. On testing the two models, the ram acted as a bulbous bow and gave a marginal improvement in speed (though making the ship wetter) and was retained.

Interesting, thank you. I was going off recollections from reading Massie's Dreadnoughtand Castles of Steel a few years ago. Either Massie missed that part of the story, or I misread or misremembered it.
 
The US Navy did actually commission a vessel (USS Vesuvius; a singularly appropriate name) to use the Zalinski Dynamite Gun, which was indeed a pneumatic gun. They even successfully tested it in New York Harbor. But they did not go further with it.

Two reasons; first, the maximum range of the pneumatic gun was only 4,000 yards, which was pitiful compared to conventional naval guns. Second, it would be an intrepid soul indeed who would venture to take a ship loaded with dynamite into a naval battle!:eek:

The Vesuvius is a fascinating warship, however it did voyage down to Cuba and I believe it was used in the siege of Santiago. One or two early Holland submarines also a mounted small dynamite gun.
 
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