If they will not meet us on the open sea (a Trent TL)
- Thread starter Saphroneth
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Saphroneth
Banned
No, though Resistance is a bit of a waste of money. She cost two thirds as much as Warrior, for a ship three knots slower and with half the broadside (and which was considered to be about 1/4 the actual effectiveness of Warrior)Resistance is futile?
Gotta love the thought process it cost more so its better. Cough...f35...cough
Saphroneth
Banned
No, the idea behind Resistance and the Defence class was to try to get more hulls for the same amount of money, so they could better match the French ironclads by number. The result was that the Defences were indeed cheaper, but they were far less economical - you got about 37% as much ship for your money, and they couldn't fight in company with the Warrior class due to their differing speeds. (Heck, they were slower than Gloire, not a good sign!)
The little devil on my shoulder is asking me what happens if the RN and CSAN accidentally end up fighting. It's not impossible that shots could go astray in a battle involving lots of manoeuvring and flags could easily be masked by smoke or the jacks shot off/damaged. That would cause some political complications.
The ships do not look alike and professional crews/captains are very unlikely not to have a battle plan that means they know where the other is likely to be ( and keep watch in case of the need to support etc. )The little devil on my shoulder is asking me what happens if the RN and CSAN accidentally end up fighting. It's not impossible that shots could go astray in a battle involving lots of manoeuvring and flags could easily be masked by smoke or the jacks shot off/damaged. That would cause some political complications.
Saphroneth
Banned
That's not a great deal more likely than a navy shelling themselves, as it happens. (It did take place, mind, but it's not common.)The little devil on my shoulder is asking me what happens if the RN and CSAN accidentally end up fighting. It's not impossible that shots could go astray in a battle involving lots of manoeuvring and flags could easily be masked by smoke or the jacks shot off/damaged. That would cause some political complications.
One of the things which helps make it unlikely is that, frankly, the Union ships look very different to those of either other navy. (All four big Union ships are ironclads of a particular design, with tilted sides and a front glacis, and by no stretch of the imagination do the straight-sided Charleston or the straight-sided British big ships look like them.)
The Old Dominion may perhaps look a bit more like the Union ironclads, but even then there's differences that are fairly major (for example, the Eads ironclads have two funnels each). The odd shot might go astray, but how do you prove it?
25 June 1862
Saphroneth
Banned
25 June
A coordinated Confederate offensive takes place in the West.
Supported by the two still-somewhat-functional ironclads the Mississippi and Louisiana, a force under Polk reaches Columbus, Kentucky and takes the town.
The threat to Buell's rear areas makes the Union general fall back to Paducah, from where he can head down the Ohio to reinforce Cairo if need be.
On the same day, Smith's corps captures Bardstown. The prospect of Confederate troops cutting the rail line (a prospect Grant is becoming depressingly familiar with) means Grant begins to head north again, entraining his troops to head to Shepherdsville.
In truth, at this point the situation in Kentucky is confused - supply lines are being switched around, some towns have been behind Confederate lines for a week without a visit from troops and the Union is scrambling to put together a string of strongpoints - even if it is starting to look like that will have to be formed on the Ohio river. If one thing is clear, however, it is that fighting deep in Kentucky is not a good sign for the Union in the West - especially as Pennefather's forces still have nothing in their way except for a single division which has been defeated three times in a row and is starting to suffer morale problems.
The Vanderbilt's raid on Fishguard ends, with the Union cruiser departing hastily to avoid facing a potentially disastrous battle. While the paddle steamer has certainly profited from their raid - they have recoaled somewhat, and replenished consumables like water and food - Fishguard is small, and indeed some of the oldest residents have already lived through a short-lived French invasion so the terror effect is not what was hoped for.
As night falls, Vanderbilt uses her superior speed to steer around the paddle frigate Dragon and heads south and west.
Her captain decides that it would perhaps make more sense to raid British commerce further from British shores, and plumps for the Mediterranean as he is aware several of the ships that sailed to expand the British blockade came from the Mediterranean.
In Mexico, French forces mount an attempt at a speedy resolution to the Siege of Pueblo. The attempt is rebuffed (albeit with difficulty) and de Lorencz determines to continue the siege while awaiting reinforcements he requested some time ago. (There are, indeed, reinforcements en route - though some 5,000 troops have been diverted to the capture of Tampico by Gloire and a small French fleet in support.)
He is also starting to attract Conservative guerillas to his (victorious) army, and French NCOs are putting them through an abbreviated form of the Vincennes rifle course to make them effective flank skirmishers and to help alleviate de Lorencz' manpower problems.
The HMS Glasgow completes at Portsmouth, the very last in a line of wooden Royal Navy frigates stretching back to the days of Oliver Cromwell (technically until just after the restoration, as the Navy is Royal!). The Ister class has already been cancelled in light of the success of the iron-hulled Warrior, and it is thought likely that future heavy ships of the Royal Navy will all be iron - clad or hull.
Glasgow and her sisters of the Bristol class were built to use up ship-class timber in the United Kingdom, but it has been decided that the timber will be of more use as backing to ironclad armour.
A coordinated Confederate offensive takes place in the West.
Supported by the two still-somewhat-functional ironclads the Mississippi and Louisiana, a force under Polk reaches Columbus, Kentucky and takes the town.
The threat to Buell's rear areas makes the Union general fall back to Paducah, from where he can head down the Ohio to reinforce Cairo if need be.
On the same day, Smith's corps captures Bardstown. The prospect of Confederate troops cutting the rail line (a prospect Grant is becoming depressingly familiar with) means Grant begins to head north again, entraining his troops to head to Shepherdsville.
In truth, at this point the situation in Kentucky is confused - supply lines are being switched around, some towns have been behind Confederate lines for a week without a visit from troops and the Union is scrambling to put together a string of strongpoints - even if it is starting to look like that will have to be formed on the Ohio river. If one thing is clear, however, it is that fighting deep in Kentucky is not a good sign for the Union in the West - especially as Pennefather's forces still have nothing in their way except for a single division which has been defeated three times in a row and is starting to suffer morale problems.
The Vanderbilt's raid on Fishguard ends, with the Union cruiser departing hastily to avoid facing a potentially disastrous battle. While the paddle steamer has certainly profited from their raid - they have recoaled somewhat, and replenished consumables like water and food - Fishguard is small, and indeed some of the oldest residents have already lived through a short-lived French invasion so the terror effect is not what was hoped for.
As night falls, Vanderbilt uses her superior speed to steer around the paddle frigate Dragon and heads south and west.
Her captain decides that it would perhaps make more sense to raid British commerce further from British shores, and plumps for the Mediterranean as he is aware several of the ships that sailed to expand the British blockade came from the Mediterranean.
In Mexico, French forces mount an attempt at a speedy resolution to the Siege of Pueblo. The attempt is rebuffed (albeit with difficulty) and de Lorencz determines to continue the siege while awaiting reinforcements he requested some time ago. (There are, indeed, reinforcements en route - though some 5,000 troops have been diverted to the capture of Tampico by Gloire and a small French fleet in support.)
He is also starting to attract Conservative guerillas to his (victorious) army, and French NCOs are putting them through an abbreviated form of the Vincennes rifle course to make them effective flank skirmishers and to help alleviate de Lorencz' manpower problems.
The HMS Glasgow completes at Portsmouth, the very last in a line of wooden Royal Navy frigates stretching back to the days of Oliver Cromwell (technically until just after the restoration, as the Navy is Royal!). The Ister class has already been cancelled in light of the success of the iron-hulled Warrior, and it is thought likely that future heavy ships of the Royal Navy will all be iron - clad or hull.
Glasgow and her sisters of the Bristol class were built to use up ship-class timber in the United Kingdom, but it has been decided that the timber will be of more use as backing to ironclad armour.
Saphroneth
Banned
Anyone suggesting so many things happened on the 25th to clear the decks for the battles of the next week or so would be accused of Doylism.
Anyway... I'm wondering if I should do something with the armies around Lake Champlain. I've pretty much kept them on "pause" for the last few months because - well, because they'd frankly meet little resistance on the way south, there's a lot of British regulars in that army and not a great deal of Americans to stop them.
Anyway... I'm wondering if I should do something with the armies around Lake Champlain. I've pretty much kept them on "pause" for the last few months because - well, because they'd frankly meet little resistance on the way south, there's a lot of British regulars in that army and not a great deal of Americans to stop them.
Presumably there's no great difficulty in supplying the troops at a stand-still, but is there enough logistical capability to support a general offensive? It's a lot easier to keep a man fed, sheltered &c close to a railway line/watercourse after all. I could believe the British commanders focussing their logistic efforts in certain areas rather than biting off more than they could chew.
Donald Reaver
Donor
Perhaps send out a large cavalry raid, with instructions to avoid battle, but to throw a another scare into the Americans. Keep the governors yelling for more troops, causing more strain on American forces.
Agreed , just sitting back and giving the Americans the initiative is not good military sense. They would want the Americans to be reacting and not massing ( as the brits do seem to be overestimating the American forces ) for an attack at a time and place of their choosing.
Saphroneth
Banned
For what it's worth, Lake Champlain is a large north-south watercourse - it was a viable invasion route back in the 1770s, in both directions.
If the British are over-estimating the USA forces, then I suspect they'd be worrying now about just where the others are and the risk of being flanked (strategically and/or tactically) if they advance too far down towards/into New York. So they are likely (in my very uninformed opinion) to stay largely where they are now, but send out quite heavily armed scouting groups in an attempt to locate the thousands of enemy forces they're sure are there somewhere.
Shows my limited understanding of the local geography, that. Fair enough.
I think this could build in. If, say, the troops who've already crossed the border were to get smacked back by the Union (e.g.) agreeing an Armistice with the Confederates and turning their armies north - unlikely as we know that is - would the troops around Lake Champlain be positioned such as to serve as reserves/form a backstop for the lead echelon to fall back on?
Saphroneth
Banned
Very roughly, Lake Champlain is one of the two routes from New York into Canada. (It comes out at about Montreal, the other comes out at about Kingston.) The Airondack mountains make it far harder to go around that, and the British have occupied the southern side of the St. Lawrence up to the Airondacks to keep Canada protected.
So the British are actually in quite a good position - they're just being paranoid, because they don't actually know that the Union Army is gasping for small arms and hence has very little in the way of trained or deployable troops not actually in a front line army. (In fact, the Union Army's been shrinking even without actual combat, as their flow of rifles is not quite able to keep pace with breakages in training or general wearing-out.)
Saphroneth
Banned
Based on their OTL use and quantities purchased and assuming that only the DuPont Purchase was from England, I plotted them still being able to keep going roughly like OTL until about the end of July. (OTL didn't involve much training anyway, mind.)
Their saltpeter production setup is taking place, but it won't be producing until about spring 1863 - there is indeed a long lead time. But yes, it's one of the things that strongly drives the need for peace - the Union is simply running out of gunpowder quite quickly by this point, to where the Ordnance Department will soon be asking for powder back from places it's been issued.
26-27 June 1862
Saphroneth
Banned
26 June
After much debate, it is decided that the United States ironclads should attack Gosport. This would, so the theory goes, aid substantially in regaining control of the Chesapeake area - and it would also destroy one of the two Confederate squadrons (the other being on the rivers).
It is also observed that, of the other options, sending ironclads up the Potomac would split force (not considered a good idea) and attacking the British would be similar to attacking the Confederacy with the additional problem that the British could retreat out to sea after a battle - good if it opens the Chesapeake, but not so good if the Confederate Navy can outflank the Union ironclads with a few fast gunboats - or bring the Virginia back down.
There are further arguments, and the matter is not settled, but the orders are cut - the US ironclad squadron is to run past or neutralize the guns of Hampton Roads, engage the Confederate navy and destroy it, and to shell Gosport.
A report of the Ordnance department is requested in Congress by Clement Vallandingham (D-OH). The report is duly read out, laying bare the state of the Union's military logistics - in summary, not good.
Gunpowder is becoming extremely scarce, with resupply not being able to be provided on time in many cases, and the Ordnance Department is starting to draw up plans to request gunpowder back from forts and magazines to which it has been distributed - thus allowing them to prioritize.
There are effectively no spare long arms in the country that are available to be issued. The greatest windfall in the last two months was a blockade-runner from Belgium which carried 4,000 new rifles, and which escaped British inspection by hiding them inside the substance of the ship itself (though this necessitated severe damage to the ship to extract the rifles).
The artillery situation is marginally better in that artillery is still being produced in quantity, though the requirements are extensive - among other things, the Army of Lake Champlain and the Army of the St Lawrence (the latter a misnomer as it is currently on the Black River some miles to the south, and is having to work hard to avoid being pushed further south) keep losing artillery to long ranged, accurate British counter-battery fire. Part of the problem for Union artillery, in turn, is that the gunners are forbidden from practicing due to the powder shortage.
Once the report has been read, Vallandingham makes the forceful point that the Union is not in a fit state to keep fighting. He has long held that the Union has no right to keep the states of the Confederacy from seceding - now he reiterates this, and adds that the Union clearly does not have the ability either.
This time, he is not shouted down - the stark facts are hard to argue with - but the mood (or hope) of Congress is that things will get better soon.
27 June
Lee's skirmishers run into McClellan's line in the early afternoon. This information is communicated back to Lee's two main wings, and he has them concentrate to prepare for an assault.
He also sends a messenger back to Leesburg, with a simple instruction - 'Launch operation as previously specified'.
Ignorant of this, McClellan abandons a plan for a division to cross the Conococheague and march south, using it as a shield against the main Confederate concentration while attempting to manoeuvre against Lee's logistics. While he has swelled his ranks with nearly every infantryman able to make it to the battlefield in time, he still wants to retain a reserve - and the Conococheague plan, while offering the chance for a fairly major victory, would mean committing his last reserves.
The Mississippi's return to the Atlantic shipping lanes nearly ends in disaster, when she fires a shot across the bows of a British paddle steamer only to be met in reply by a dozen cannonballs and shells - she has run into the HMS Great Eastern (which looked closer than it was!), and only a hasty disengagement at maximum speed (and the Great Eastern's schedule to keep) saves her from a nasty end to her encounter with the auxiliary vessel.
(Once the danger is passed, the Mississippi's captain remarks that the Great Eastern in such a configuration would make a stunning blockade runner!)
After much debate, it is decided that the United States ironclads should attack Gosport. This would, so the theory goes, aid substantially in regaining control of the Chesapeake area - and it would also destroy one of the two Confederate squadrons (the other being on the rivers).
It is also observed that, of the other options, sending ironclads up the Potomac would split force (not considered a good idea) and attacking the British would be similar to attacking the Confederacy with the additional problem that the British could retreat out to sea after a battle - good if it opens the Chesapeake, but not so good if the Confederate Navy can outflank the Union ironclads with a few fast gunboats - or bring the Virginia back down.
There are further arguments, and the matter is not settled, but the orders are cut - the US ironclad squadron is to run past or neutralize the guns of Hampton Roads, engage the Confederate navy and destroy it, and to shell Gosport.
A report of the Ordnance department is requested in Congress by Clement Vallandingham (D-OH). The report is duly read out, laying bare the state of the Union's military logistics - in summary, not good.
Gunpowder is becoming extremely scarce, with resupply not being able to be provided on time in many cases, and the Ordnance Department is starting to draw up plans to request gunpowder back from forts and magazines to which it has been distributed - thus allowing them to prioritize.
There are effectively no spare long arms in the country that are available to be issued. The greatest windfall in the last two months was a blockade-runner from Belgium which carried 4,000 new rifles, and which escaped British inspection by hiding them inside the substance of the ship itself (though this necessitated severe damage to the ship to extract the rifles).
The artillery situation is marginally better in that artillery is still being produced in quantity, though the requirements are extensive - among other things, the Army of Lake Champlain and the Army of the St Lawrence (the latter a misnomer as it is currently on the Black River some miles to the south, and is having to work hard to avoid being pushed further south) keep losing artillery to long ranged, accurate British counter-battery fire. Part of the problem for Union artillery, in turn, is that the gunners are forbidden from practicing due to the powder shortage.
Once the report has been read, Vallandingham makes the forceful point that the Union is not in a fit state to keep fighting. He has long held that the Union has no right to keep the states of the Confederacy from seceding - now he reiterates this, and adds that the Union clearly does not have the ability either.
This time, he is not shouted down - the stark facts are hard to argue with - but the mood (or hope) of Congress is that things will get better soon.
27 June
Lee's skirmishers run into McClellan's line in the early afternoon. This information is communicated back to Lee's two main wings, and he has them concentrate to prepare for an assault.
He also sends a messenger back to Leesburg, with a simple instruction - 'Launch operation as previously specified'.
Ignorant of this, McClellan abandons a plan for a division to cross the Conococheague and march south, using it as a shield against the main Confederate concentration while attempting to manoeuvre against Lee's logistics. While he has swelled his ranks with nearly every infantryman able to make it to the battlefield in time, he still wants to retain a reserve - and the Conococheague plan, while offering the chance for a fairly major victory, would mean committing his last reserves.
The Mississippi's return to the Atlantic shipping lanes nearly ends in disaster, when she fires a shot across the bows of a British paddle steamer only to be met in reply by a dozen cannonballs and shells - she has run into the HMS Great Eastern (which looked closer than it was!), and only a hasty disengagement at maximum speed (and the Great Eastern's schedule to keep) saves her from a nasty end to her encounter with the auxiliary vessel.
(Once the danger is passed, the Mississippi's captain remarks that the Great Eastern in such a configuration would make a stunning blockade runner!)