General Beauregard's Torpedoes

One of the most well known stories of the American Civil War is that of the H.L. Hunley, the first submarine (called a Torpedo-ram) to ever sink and enemy ship. This ship was designed and built during General P.G.T. Beauregard's time as commander of the department of South Carolina, Georgia and Florida and he was excited by the prospect of this new weapon.

General Beauregard encouraged the development of such new weapons and devised ways to use them while he was in exile from the major theaters. In this exile he refused to be ignored and continually sent new plans for the other theaters of the War to the Confederate congress, championed by his allies, and one of his plans involved using Torpedo-rams like the H.L Hunley

He devised a plan to reinforce the Western armies at the expense of Robert E. Lee's army in Virginia and destroy the Federal army in Tennessee which would force Ulysses S. Grant to relieve pressure on Vicksburg and maneuver his army into a place where it could be destroyed by the Confederates. The Confederate Army would continue to Ohio, and bring the war to the northern states, maybe getting some of those states to ally themselves with the Confederacy if possible. Meanwhile, a fleet of Torpedo-rams built in England could be used to recapture New Orleans, ending the war.

Of course this plan speaks entirely of Beauregard's poor planning ability but also of the overly optimistic personality of the dreamer that he was but, while Beauregard's plan for the Torpedo-rams was more of a work of fantasy, I did wonder whether or not those weapons could be used in anyway to help the Confederacy.

Any thoughs anyone?
 
Torpedo rams

I see some serious problems with using the torpedo rams...some were mentioned by other board members after I tried to look at Turtle's potentials for changing naval history.

1. Getting the torpedo rams from England to the USA. There's this blockade in place, after all. If they are all on one ship, you risk loosing them all with one unlucky capture. If in multiple ships, the odds of some getting through are better, but a capture will tell the Union what's brewing when they examine the cargo.

2. The success rate will likely be low for torpedo attacks, and the casualty rate high, just due to accidents, currents, etc.

3. You would need to sink a LOT of blockaders to make a difference...and more can be brought in from more distant locations.

4. Countermeasures are fairly simple. Have guardboats rowing around anchored ships. Keep more ships under way, and an interception becomes all but impossible.

5. Submarines can do essentially nothing about troops garisonong a city. If you want to use the torpedo rams, better to attempt to defeat a blockading squadron somewhere that's not already captured. The subs have a very short range, and the blockaded port's the logical place to launch them from.
 
I think given how the Hunley kinda sank with all hands, that the submarine idea was futile at that point. Noobishly* i ask, how about a small, fast ironclad with a spar torpedo? Go in, hit once, withdraw to be refitted. No fiddling about with worrying about CO2 levels and drifting with currents and like that, just heavy armor, low profile, and reasonably high speed.

*Noobishly as i expect that was tried by somebody, somehwere.

Another wrinkle on the sub idea, maybe if there had been a relatively effiecient battery or the like at the time, an electrically-propelled sub could have been built.
 
The problem with that idea is the availability of 'fast' engines in the South that were not already being used on blockade-runners - not to mention the size-speed ratio of engines that time. Cushing's attack on the CSS Albemarle was done with a steam launch equipped with a spar torpedo.
 
CSS David and similar craft

I think given how the Hunley kinda sank with all hands, that the submarine idea was futile at that point. Noobishly* i ask, how about a small, fast ironclad with a spar torpedo? Go in, hit once, withdraw to be refitted. No fiddling about with worrying about CO2 levels and drifting with currents and like that, just heavy armor, low profile, and reasonably high speed.

*Noobishly as i expect that was tried by somebody, somehwere.

Another wrinkle on the sub idea, maybe if there had been a relatively effiecient battery or the like at the time, an electrically-propelled sub could have been built.

This was tried; the Confederates used a type of ship called a "David" after the first of her kind. I remembered these vessels vaguely, and found some information, Like all of Wikipedia, be careful, but I know it's right in essence.
 
If the Confederacy puts more effort into torpedo-rams it will probably hurt their chances of winning. The Hunley sank multiple times during training, each time killing most or all of it's crew. It's 'success' in battle resulted in the loss of both ships, but the whole Confederate crew died, while only about a half-dozen Union sailors died.

The Union can easily afford that trade. Cool as they are, the technology just wasn't up to producing an effective submarine.

And if it was, the Union could easily out-produce the Confederacy, just like they did with ironclads.
 
Another wrinkle on the sub idea, maybe if there had been a relatively effiecient battery or the like at the time, an electrically-propelled sub could have been built.

Battery tech hadn't advanced enough yet.:( There was a way, tho. If some bright spark had known of Ericsson's screw (maybe the man himself), & had thought of flywheels, it was possible to combine them in a self-propelled torpedo not unlike the Howell...:cool: That gives the CSN, with its lead in submarines, the potential to break the USN blockade.:eek:
 
Battery tech hadn't advanced enough yet.:( There was a way, tho. If some bright spark had known of Ericsson's screw (maybe the man himself), & had thought of flywheels, it was possible to combine them in a self-propelled torpedo not unlike the Howell...:cool: That gives the CSN, with its lead in submarines, the potential to break the USN blockade.:eek:

I actually proposed something similar in another thread. Putting them on the submarines of the era would not have been practical, as the submarines themselves weren't practical. But married up to the DAVID-type boats, they could have been deadly. Something like a Howell torpedo would have been interesting in that scenario...it didn't produce a wake. It was noisy, but that is not all that useful if the defender can't actually see where the noise is coming from.
 
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