But but but 1 good hit to the WL and they go glug glug glug.
Why not scrap the rest of the class after the first few launches, or at least heavily modify those still on the stocks???
But really the waterline problem is one shared by all monitors as they had so little reserve bouyancy. They were barely adequate against the guns in theatre at some points (Charleston 1863) but they did serve - just. (At least one US ironclad was lost there, IIRC.)
Monitor in particular is so marginal in her bouyancy post-Hampton Roads (she was up-armoured on the turret) that one joke I;'ve seen is that if Monitor fought Warrior all Warrior would need to do would be to drive past very quickly...
Incidentally, as far as I can tell in the original launch configuration the Cascos had 45 tons of reserve bouyancy. Since each Dahlgren 11" gun weighed 7.1 tons and a single shot plus powder was 84 kg, you can see how loading them up for a battle would lead to a ship able to be swamped by a duck landing nearby.
Basically I think that a lot of the US ship designs before... WW1, perhaps... are indicative that the US simply didn't have depth of experience in designing ships. From the Monitor's early steering problems, to the way New Ironsides was almost completely impossible to steer, to the Cascos, to the slowness of the Franklins compared to their designed role - and then you get into the ships of the New Navy. The cruisers were okay, but the early capital ships were... not good. (Indiana was basically awful, Texas was about normal for five years before she entered service, New York had a belt thinner than that of the Warrior and as for some of the BM- type Monitors... one US navy captain called them a "crime against the White race".
Possibly helpful - US and CS army positions, as of Trent, ignoring equipment quality.
Using Federal PFD numbers (which explicitly include extra duty, under arrest and even sick), Confederate aggregate present* (works out to be the same definition as Federal PFD) and only the number of regulars and armed militiamen in Canada and the Maritimes (awaiting additional arms shipments, Canada proper totals roughly 122,000 regulars and armed militia by 10th February 1862).
The historical numbers of extra troops the US received (assuming 700 men per regiment) were:
Jan '62: 21,000
Feb ' 62: 20,000
Mar '62: 17,000
Apr '62: 11,000
Though that does again raise the question of if I've been harsh enough on the Union. To have forces in place on the border by Feb they get 41,000 from the new troops in the first two months. I've had roughly 110,000 deployed to the Canadian border and another 40,000 or so on the coasts, which means you could do:
New Recruits - 40,000
Missouri - 40,000
West Virginia - 5,000
Army of the Potomac - 65,000
And reduce all Union forces to roughly the size of the CS forces facing them:
NM Territory
Union 4500 CS 2500 (CS deficit 2000)
Kansas + Missouri
Union 59000 CS 19000 (CS deficit 40000)
Kentucky
Union 72000 Confederacy 89000 (CS surplus 17000)
WV
Union 14000 CS 9000 (CS deficit 5000)
Potomac River
Union 118000 CS 76000 (CS deficit 42000)
So the CS has - before new troops for Jan-Feb 1862 - a deficit of 72000 to be able to face every Union army with equal numbers.
Except that with all those Union fleets smashed, the troops on the coast are available:
So as of the point the various coastal enclaves are mopped up, the CSA has superior numbers even before musket availability drops start to bite for the Union. And this still means 110,000 Union troops trying to hold a Canadian border also against superior numbers...
15 May
A Confederate attempt to cross the Mississippi at New Madrid is turned back with heavy casualties - several hundred lost. The aim had been to decoy the Eads Boats upriver and then gain a point with which to launch a raid, but the local defenders use their few cannon effectively to sink the assault boats as they cross.
16 May
Pennefather's troops reach the outskirts of Grand Rapids. His cavalry get into a skirmish, and he orders the army to close up and deploy - planning to attack the Union positions the following day.
17 May
Austin Blair is dug in on the Grand River and the Rogue River with around 20,000 troops, and plans to defend tenaciously - he knows the British supply line has to be under some strain, as his men tore up the rail line from Detroit to Grand Rapids where practical, and he believes that his 20,000 reinforcements from Missouri are en route (in actuality the number is nearer 10,000 than 20,000 given diversions to the Kentucky problem). As such he hopes to hit Pennefather from behind with the reinforcements.
For his part, Pennefather elects to begin with a long-range cannonade, making use of counter battery with his 12-lbers while bringing up his 40-lber siege train. Few Union guns are identified (perhaps partly because not a great deal are present) but any which make the mistake of firing and hence giving away their position are subjected to a counter-battery shoot at a range of considerably more than a mile.
Blair's reinforcements detrain over the course of the day at Ann Arbor, and begin a march for Detroit. They are spotted at 7 in the evening by a Canadian militia cavalry unit, which races to inform the new Detroit garrison.
Honor isn't his primary motivation, and neither is prestige. Those are rather transparent dogwhistles for power.
I'm just trying to distinguish between what people say and what people do. Honor is BS. Always has been, and always will be. Just utter nonsense. Every time someone uses the word "honor," they're only obfuscating whatever the actual motive is.
I think that argument lands you on the horns of a dilemma. If honour is merely transparent BS, then you won't be able to use it to disguise your ruthless pursuit of power, because everybody would see through it right away. Therefore, using honour as a mask for baser motivations is only in your self-interest in an environment where enough people do believe in honour for it to be a plausible motivation. But if that's the case, then it's not at all implausible that people in that environment might in fact act for motives of honour, in which case you can't assume prima facie that anybody claiming to be motivated by honour is being insincere.
At 10am, the Battle of Moulin Rouge begins in drizzling rain about halfway between Ann Arbor and Detroit proper. The Union attackers number roughly 10,000, mostly infantry - the demands of their relocation having led to a reduction in the number of cavalry - and with around two batteries of artillery totalling eleven Napoleon smoothbores.
Defending are 4,000 Canadian militia infantry and a single British battalion (the sole battalion of the 49th Regiment of Foot, Princess Charlotte of Wales' Herefordshires) plus some militia cavalry squadrons and a few guns. In command is a Canadian militia brigadier, who - unlike his Union opponent - has focused his reading not on Napoleon but on Wellington.
Accordingly, he deploys his troops behind a reverse slope. Owing to what he feels to be the superior training of his men in rifle-musketry compared to the muskets of Wellington's time, they are further behind the ridge than the soldiers were at Waterloo, with more like 150 yards between the shallow crest and the Canadians waiting in their ranks.
The 49th opens the battle, four companies deployed in extended skirmish order on the western side of the hill and the rest just behind the lip as a reserve. Their best shots begin careful firing at nearly half a mile, causing consternation from Union troops mostly ill-equipped to face this kind of ranged attack, and the Union assault force mills about for a few minutes before bringing their artillery to bear.
What follows is a slow-motion duel. The British forces are not as accurate at the long range at first, especially in the poor weather, but their dispersed formation serves very well to limit the casualties from the American artillery fire as well - though as the engagement progresses the Union commander has his infantry and artillery advance at the same time in an attempt to recreate the famous 'artillery charge'.
Over the course of about half an hour, the 49th suppress the guns and inflict further casualties on the Union for the cost of about eighty dead or wounded of their own. By this time, however, the Union infantry are close enough (about two hundred yards from the British force) that Morris - the 49th's colonel - sounds the withdrawal.
The sight of retreating British troops heartens the Union commander, who sounds the charge - producing a cheer, as his 6,000-strong assault force rush up the hill. By the time they reach the crest, however, they discover that the 49th has already reformed on their reserves - and taken a place in the line.
Roughly 2,000 rifles fire at once as the first rank of the British force opens fire.
The next few minutes are an increasingly confused, smoky engagement over less than two hundred yards of ground. Most of the infantry involved in the battle are not very experienced, many of them are aiming high, and the veterans of the 49th are soon unable to use their rifles to the fullest due to the confusion of smoke. Worse, the ground is turning to mud, and very few troops can tell what is going on beyond that they are to keep firing and reloading as fast as possible.
It is very hard to tell which units break. What is known is that at least two Canadian militia regiments are driven to fall back from their own fire, and that the Union end up retreating a hundred yards downslope before forming square in an attempt to get a grip on the situation. Once this is done, the American troops are reluctant to advance again, and it takes at least ten minutes for either side to sort out an effective response.
The Union reserves start up the slope, at which point the 49th - having extricated themselves from the still-complex situation behind the ridge - open fire. This drives the Union commander to signal a more general retreat, his reserves switching to covering this withdrawal, and the Canadian brigadier is unwilling to throw away his victory by having the 49th go off on their own (and he is well aware his own now-blooded troops will need a while to reorganize).
Late in the afternoon, as the weather worsens, the two armies have a tally of the results. The relative casualty rates have been relatively close to even, with about 1,500 Union dead or wounded and 600 British/Canadian, though the impact on the Union morale has been worse as their artillery has been all but destroyed. (The Canadian militia artillery was not involved in the battle, and two 40-lber Armstrong guns being made ready to head up to Grand Rapids have also been diverted towards the defence).
Pennefather dispatches one of his cavalry regiments to the east on hearing of the battle, sending the fastest troops he has available as reinforcement, and also removes 2,000 militia and two infantry battalions to ensure the situation at Detroit remains under control. Some of the militia will be spread out as pickets for the Detroit - Grand Rapids road, to prevent it being cut behind him.
Meanwhile, his opposite number - Blair - has discovered a serious problem. The powder stores were shipped to Grand Rapids in a tearing hurry, and several of the barrels have become damp in the rain - thus he does not have nearly as much available to defend as he had hoped.
Despite this, he is hopeful that Pennefather will not discover the weakness.
(as a mostly-green-troops battle, I drew on Waterloo for some of this. Notably the bit where the French Middle Guard and a force of British infantry exchanged volleys and then both fell back from each other!)
Come on, USA, just throw the towel. I'm always down to see them get beat up, but this is a bit depressing. Kinda cool too, to see such a large country completely helpless, but sad.
Come on, USA, just throw the towel. I'm always down to see them get beat up, but this is a bit depressing. Kinda cool too, to see such a large country completely helpless, but sad.
I have it pencilled in that they give it up sometime in July, or at least that they're negotiating at that point. The US does still have large armies, so it's hard for them to say "right, we'll give up" (and implicitly accept what they fear to be the loss of Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland, Delaware, Maine, Michigan and upstate NY - worse than the actual terms aimed for) - but the armies in question have a crippled offensive capability, so they're more-or-less reacting rather than being able to impose their own sequence on events.
The French consul at Guadeloupe respectfully informs Mississippi's captain that his ship will be unable to recoal again in Guadeloupe - it would be a breach of French neutrality to allow an American ship to recoal there so frequently when the same facility is not offered to British ships.
Of course British ships do not require recoaling at French ports - they have their own - but it is a pointed reminder to Mississippi that she is imposing overmuch on the hospitality of the French Caribbean. This is a major concern as Mississippi has already overstayed her welcome at Havana, and indeed rather unpleasant conversations have been taking place regarding her pre-Trent captures of Forest King and Empress (both British ships carrying cargoes of coffee, a substance with no particularly justifiable military value).
The captain of the Mississippi determines to sail further afield, preceding on sail alone to some suitable coaling port, and then sail back north in order to use steam strictly in a tactical sense.
20 May
With the British heavy Armstrong guns delayed to the east, Pennefather continues a waiting game approach for the most part. His riflemen occasionally pick off a Union soldier who shows himself for too long - the forward pickets are only a few hundred yards from the Union positions on the other side of the river.
Meanwhile, near Detroit, it is noticed that a substantial number of the small-arms collected from the field where the Battle of Moulin Rouge took place are clearly substandard - while some percussion rifles are present, there are many percussion smoothbores as well.
Replacement gunners arrive in Ann Arbor, granting the Union troops there use of their artillery once more - fortunately for them, the pieces were all recovered after the battle.
21 May
The Wachusett sallies from the Hudson, and engages in battle with a gunboat of the Royal Naval blockading squadron (the Sparrow). Larger and somewhat better armed, the American sloop wins the duel after about twenty minutes, though is forced to scuttle Sparrow rather than tow her in as a capture when the Princess Royal comes steaming over. After a long chase, Wachusett retires successfully upriver - though the addition of a shallow-draft corvette to the close section of the blockade suggests she will not be permitted to get away with it twice.
The victory over Sparrow is hailed as a great one in the US, which has little enough to celebrate.
Evaluation of the bombardment of Vera Cruz has been completed, and the French are quite pleased with the performance of Gloire. She took some fire and a few casualties from the many heavy guns of San Jose de Ulua, but was able to stay outside the range any of the guns could pierce her and as such suffered no major injury. As such, the conclusion of the French admiral is that Gloire is quite equal to any British ironclad.
At about the same time, in the United Kingdom, the first Palliser shells are successfully tested. Blunt nosed, chilled iron projectiles with a small gunpowder cavity inside pierce through the armour of the Warrior target at a range of 100 yards, and burst in the wooden backing.
This is the first armour-piercing shell in the world, and it is agreed that they should be rushed into service - they effectively obsolete the old shot or solid shot, and only specialized cast-steel bolts are now required (to penetrate thick armour) with everything else being shell.
A point of curiosity is that these shells have no fuze as such - the friction of penetration causes the gunpowder to explode.
(Something I can't find out is whether these Palliser tests - OTL summer 1862! - were with the 7" Armstrong gun or a 7" RML gun. The former would mean that a non-armour-piercing piece had been upgraded to AP by this new shell, the latter would mean that the RN put a completely new weapon into service in a very short space of time.
While I'm at it, the French confidence in Gloire is a little misplaced - her guns and her armour are both less potent than those of Warrior, though she's certainly a fine ship by most standards of the time.)
(Something I can't find out is whether these Palliser tests - OTL summer 1862! - were with the 7" Armstrong gun or a 7" RML gun. The former would mean that a non-armour-piercing piece had been upgraded to AP by this new shell, the latter would mean that the RN put a completely new weapon into service in a very short space of time.
Goodness, that's very early!
I also notice looking through Hansard that Armstrong were producing about 1,000 heavy (40-lber or 110-lber) Armstrong guns a year, which is really quite impressive.
Mind you, I also found this bundle of mistakes and misrepresentations:
1
The tests by the British and the US were on 4.5" of armour, but it was not the rolled wrought iron of the Warrior that was penetrated. Indeed, single-layer hammered wrought iron of 4.5" thickness proved invulnerable to the 11" gun in American tests.
2
A breech bursting out is not the destruction of the gun - the vent piece was designed to *vent* and could be replaced in minutes.
3
The 300-lber was a muzzle loading rifle, not a breech loader in the first place.
4
The Armstrong breech killed nobody, unlike - say - the Parrott rifle lauded a little further down the post.
5
The Dahlgren guns built and used included a 440-lb gun and a planned 1,080 lb gun, and the Dahlgren rifles built included a 12" rifle with a 600+ pound solid shot.
6
A projectile far larger than any used in combat is completely ridiculous as a claim since the 15" (440-lb) Dahlgren guns were used in the Civil War.
7. The first shot did get through the teak: it stopped on the 5/8in iron skin, which it cracked.
8. The breech didn't blow out: the gun 'recoiled so much as to get off its wooden platform and imbed the hind wheels of its carriage in the stiff yet watery clay' (Times, 10 April 1862). The claim that the breech blew out comes from the Mechanics' Magazine via Scientific American, but as they were still doing experiments with the gun later in the month I think somebody must have misunderstood.
EDIT: Turns out it's me. The April test was on the Warrior target; the later test described by Scientific American is on the Minotaur target
EDIT 2: 'being fired on experimental charges, it was fired with a charge of 25 lb. weight of powder, being about double the ordinary service charge' (here); 'the breech of the 12-ton gun was blown off, the cause of it being the unusual severity of the proof to which it was subjected, the charge of powder extending to 60, 70, 80, and 90 lbs. of powder. Not less than 162 rounds had been fired; and as the gun was merely an experimental one, it must be considered that it was exposed to a stronger trial than such guns were usually subjected to' (here)
I have it pencilled in that they give it up sometime in July, or at least that they're negotiating at that point. The US does still have large armies, so it's hard for them to say "right, we'll give up" (and implicitly accept what they fear to be the loss of Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland, Delaware, Maine, Michigan and upstate NY - worse than the actual terms aimed for) - but the armies in question have a crippled offensive capability, so they're more-or-less reacting rather than being able to impose their own sequence on events.
I've been following this from the beginning, and as this is my first comment, I have to say that it is great and it is hard to wait for what comes next.
As for how it is likely to go, my take is that the Union is caught between a rock and a hard place. They don't know that the British have no use for the Confederacy, but they do know that if they keep fighting, they're going to lose bad. They fear losing a lot if they sue for peace, but they also know for certain if they keep fighting, they'll lose it all and more anyways. (They have no way of knowing that the British don't want anything other than limited reparations and an apology for starting the affair. If they knew that, the war would never have started, let alone last as long as it did.) There will come a point where their fear of losing vast swathes of territory will be outweighed by their fear of having the Union destroyed outright. At that point, they'll come to the table.
I've also got a feeling that the British, who despise slavery, have something special planned for the CSA once this unpleasantness is over.
Oh, and from your last update, I take it that the Monroe Doctrine is dead? Cause of death being "the Royal Navy was too busy to enforce it"... Latin America is about to be screwed by countries other than the United States of America.
There's something of a "meta" reason for the Union to keep going - the idea, common on these boards, that the Union will never give up. (In this case it's sort of making things worse for them.)
Part of the model I'm using is the Franco-Prussian War - the French did indeed keep raising armies for a long time, just never really managing to bite hard enough to make the Prussians flinch.
Oh, and from your last update, I take it that the Monroe Doctrine is dead? Cause of death being "the Royal Navy was too busy to enforce it"... Latin America is about to be screwed by countries other than the United States of America.
Actually, the attempt to establish the Second Empire is basically on schedule. OTL the British didn't interfere with it, so the Monroe Doctrine is little altered from how things went OTL. So far, anyway.
(The big change is that the Gloire went over to show off, which isn't a huge difference to OTL.)
