If they will not meet us on the open sea (a Trent TL)

[Saphroneth]

Since so far as I can tell the Stafford Projectile was never successfully used from a ship (being impossible to fire workably from the 150-lber Parrott), and the 150-lber Dahlgren never saw service, I feel I can be fairly justified in giving it no more attention than I gave the Winans Steam Gun or the other machine guns invented and worked on by the Confederacy.

 

[Derek Pullem]

well sarcasm aside, good luck with that

I would suggest possibly checking out the Civwar Forum I mentioned to the thread I mentioned, where you can find a link to a book on all tests using that period ordinance carried out by the US and Royal Navies

but as you didn't even indicate you had started there (wikipedia) perhaps less sarcasm is called for

a recent post on that thread provided this source, which seems like a pretty exhaustive look at the various tests conducted in the era in question

https://books.google.com/books?id=jx1ZbfEtWW8C&printsec=frontcover&dq=subject:"ordnance"+inauthor:holley&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjwk569mvXPAhUJfiYKHZh5B0oQ6AEIJzAA#v=onepage&q&f=false

So do you have an actual conclusion from the link you posted that aids the discussion as to whether a 150 lber rifled Dahlgren gun actually was ever deployed or considered for deployment?

Because spending 15 minutes reviewing that reference the only mention of Dahlgren guns is in association with smoothbore guns.

Otherwise it is "napkin-cannon" just as the 1946 Nazi aircraft designs are "napkinwaffe"

 

[Saphroneth]

Were I a vindictive sort I'd include the Stafford Projectile being tested, enthusiastically adopted, and used by the US in their next war only for it to turn out to be almost completely useless.
But I'm not.


Anyway, next update projected to be the Outrage Over Charleston and the Confederacy trying to sort out how to react to this.
Also the start of a political career, and a reminder that Confederate elections are off-cycle to Union ones.

 

[cerebropetrologist]

So do you have an actual conclusion from the link you posted that aids the discussion as to whether a 150 lber rifled Dahlgren gun actually was ever deployed or considered for deployment?

As it doesn't look like you're going to get an answer, I looked it up for you. The only mention of a 150pdr Dahlgren rifle in the Official Record is on board USS Keystone State in June 1863. Of course, it's more likely to be a misidentified 150pdr Parrott rifle, or a misprint for the 50pdr Dahlgren rifle. I favour the latter conclusion, given the ship's subsequent armament:

2 June 1863, 1 150pdr Dahlgren rifle, 6 8in Dalhgren SB, 2 32pdr, 2 30pdr rifles
27 June 1864, 1 50pdr Dahlgren rifle, 2 8in Dalhgren SB, 2 32pdr, 1 30pdr rifle

 

[Saphroneth]

22 June

News of the Charleston Incident reaches Richmond, and all the newspapers of the Confederacy. There are three broad strands of opinion - one of them is that this is terrible because they have seriously annoyed the British, another that this is only right and proper, and a third that the actions of Bythesea were beyond the pale and that honour demanded satisfaction (though this is a view somewhat tempered by the matching view that the capture of Richard Nelson was also outrageous).
The first strand is distinctly more common outside South Carolina.
The old argument of King Cotton makes a reappearance as well.

23 June

The Union has no idea what to make of this.

24 June

Archer makes Bermuda, and Bythesea submits a full and detailed report of the events. Milne pointedly does not ask questions about the nearly one hundred black slaves (now ex slaves) on board - the official report explains that there was no time to check for Richard Nelson's RN tattoo and that therefore all those who might have been Richard Nelson had to be taken for inspection on board Archer - and sends his fastest vessel to London to inform the government of the situation.
He also sends the Landrail to Gosport to inform the British Ambassador to the Confederacy (Derby) of the Archer version of events.

26 June
Robert E. Lee, driven to frustration by the persistent difficulties he has had over clearing Arlington of unneeded fortifications and troubled by the events in Charleston (and the way that South Carolina may have gotten the entire Confederacy into a war) formally declares his interest in election to the Confederate Congress. The elections are later this year (Confederate elections take place in odd-numbered years, partly because the Confederacy declared independence in 1861 and partly because it's not what the Union does) though there is not a Senate seat currently available so Lee will run for the House.
This is quite well received by local Virginians, who remember Lee as a skilled general.


27 June

Derby formally requests an apology from the Confederate government in general, the State of South Carolina specifically, and Charleston in particular. He gets the first one of these, and in light of this hints that the British government may be inclined to pursue a policy of specific responsibility over this issue not related to the national government but to one of the states.

29 June

Bulloch reports on the state of the Confederate Navy.
Bluntly, they have not much of a chance against the Royal Navy, even if all their ironclads participate, unless the British essentially let them win - the amount of force deployed against the Union shows this. He feels confident that commerce raiding and keeping a port open is possible, but it would take the concentration of most or all of the Confederate navy to be sure as too many ships are still building. (The Laird Rams have been purchased by the British, at quite a good price, and the new Confederate ships such as the re-armoured Charleston or the "three Presidents" are still at Gosport.)

Charlestonians feel that their city's extensive defences, and their own locally-built ironclads (Chicora, Palmetto State and the under-construction Berkeley), will allow them to give the Royal Navy a bloody nose. There is also a general if slow mobilization taking place in South Carolina.
Other states of the Confederacy are being extremely reluctant to match this, and privately the Confederate States Navy has decided that it will only risk their other ironclads - much less those under construction - if ordered by the national government.


2 July
News of the incident arrives in Britain (from both Halifax and Bermuda at almost the same time due to which ships were sent from where) - to widespread outrage, shock from Mason at the stupidity of his countrymen and a certain sense of deja vu from more than one public figure.
Palmerston makes a speech in which he describes the capture of Richard Nelson as a public outrage, and meanwhile Cabinet determines to send an ultimatum in accordance with Derby's stated intentions.
At the same time, the HMS Great Eastern is made ready to travel to South Carolina as a support ship, along with a fleet including the Royal Oak and Pisces as ironclads. Superb is also ordered to make ready for sea.
Notably, the fleet is equipped across the board with Palliser shells for their most powerful guns.

4 July
With the formal rejection of the British demands, the small China Station fleet in Yokohama is instructed to enforce compliance on the Japanese Government and on Satsuma Domain by seizing their merchant ships as security. Satsuma Domain is picked as the first target to try and encourage the Bakufu to agree.

 

[RPW@Cy]

22 June


2 July
News of the incident arrives in Britain (from both Halifax and Bermuda at almost the same time due to which ships were sent from where) - to widespread outrage, shock from Mason at the stupidity of his countrymen and a certain sense of deja vu from more than one public figure.
Palmerston makes a speech in which he describes the capture of Richard Nelson as a public outrage, and meanwhile Cabinet determines to send an ultimatum in accordance with Derby's stated intentions.

I therefore fearlessly challenge the verdict which this House, as representing a political, a commercial, a constitutional country, is to give on the question now brought before it; whether the principles on which the foreign policy of Her Majesty's Government has been conducted, and the sense of duty which has led us to think ourselves bound to afford protection to our fellow subjects abroad, are proper and fitting guides for those who are charged with the Government of England; and whether, as the Roman, in days of old, held himself free from indignity, when he could say Civis Romanus sum; so also a British subject, in whatever land he may be, shall feel confident that the watchful eye and the strong arm of England, will protect him against injustice and wrong.

I suspect Palmerston has been dusting off his notes for the speech he gave on the Don Pacifico affair...

 

[Saphroneth]

I suspect Palmerston has been dusting off his notes for the speech he gave on the Don Pacifico affair...

It's always nice to reprise the greatest hits.

 

[diestormlie]

British Reaction:... Fucking Americans. Twice in two years... Really?

 

[Saphroneth]

British Reaction:... Fucking Americans. Twice in two years... Really?

I know of US-Britain war scares every year from 1858-1862 OTL, then another one or two at least by 1866.

 

[diestormlie]

Jesus.

Think that'll change TTL though.

 

[Diego]

but, as he prepares to sail for Bermuda, Fort Sumter opens fire on his ship.

Again, very like when a brazilian fort in Honey Island (Ilha do Mel) shot against the HMS Cormorant in the first day of July, 1850, killing two british sailors after the british had taken some brazillian ships.

 

[Saphroneth]

Again, very like when a brazilian fort in Honey Island (Ilha do Mel) shot against the HMS Cormorant in the first day of July, 1850, killing two british sailors after the british had taken some brazillian ships.

In this case it draws more from when Fort Sumter fired on a Federal ship.

 

[galveston bay]

So do you have an actual conclusion from the link you posted that aids the discussion as to whether a 150 lber rifled Dahlgren gun actually was ever deployed or considered for deployment?

Because spending 15 minutes reviewing that reference the only mention of Dahlgren guns is in association with smoothbore guns.

Otherwise it is "napkin-cannon" just as the 1946 Nazi aircraft designs are "napkinwaffe"

I have no idea why you think I am pushing for the 150 lb Dahlgren... I posted two links to period tests

as far as I know, the heaviest weapon actually deployed with the 15 inch Dalhgren, although it shot a 440 lb round using 35 lbs of powder (smooth bore) and the 50 pdr rifle.

What is useful about those links is that they show the reader what the people of that era thought, how they tested ordinance (and armor) and for me the conclusion I got is that in any kind of lengthy fight both sides would beat each other to wreckage. That matches what happened in OTL naval battles actually fought from Hampton Roads to Suriago Straight. Even the hits that didn't penetrate badly damage the structures holding the armor to the ship, which means repeated hits in those locations are going to eventually penetrate

My comment was that the heaviest Dahlgren weapon would penetrate even the heaviest British armor of the day. Which implies to me at least when the other source is viewed and read that smaller (although still pretty heavy weapons) are going to inflict severe damage

 

[Incognitia]

And you still seem to ignore the point that, even if you are right, the American ships available have significantly longer reload times (that are caused by the design of the ships, not inadequacy of the crews, thus not easily solved), and many fewer guns in a broadside than RN armoured line of battle ships.

So it's not going to be an equal battering in each direction, it's going to be ten or twenty times as much shot going one way as going the other (I have seen it worked out based on actual armaments of the ships concerned, including in the last few pages of this thread, but cannot immediately find it while on my phone).

Even if the weapons mounted have equal capabilities, which I'm not sure they do, the massive disparity in weight of shot would be decisive. If you have hit your opponent's ship twice, and they have hit your smaller ship forty times, who do you think is the likely winner?

 

[Saphroneth]

So it's not going to be an equal battering in each direction, it's going to be ten or twenty times as much shot going one way as going the other (I have seen it worked out based on actual armaments of the ships concerned, including in the last few pages of this thread, but cannot immediately find it while on my phone).

Even if the weapons mounted have equal capabilities, which I'm not sure they do, the massive disparity in weight of shot would be decisive. If you have hit your opponent's ship twice, and they have hit your smaller ship forty times, who do you think is the likely winner?

Monitor one shot per fifteen minutes per gun, two guns. Warrior one shot per minute per gun, thirteen 68-lber and 5 110-lber per broadside.

So forty times for twice is actually an underestimation - it's more like (15 x 13) = 220 AP shots going one way for every two shots going the other way. You could have twenty times the shots going one way as the other if Warrior's gun crew operated their guns once every five minutes instead of once every 55 seconds.


Using a gun on Monitor with a lighter shot will reduce this disparity (as it would be easier to load), using a heavier gun will increase this. (The 20" guns intended for Puritan would have had a rate of fire of perhaps one shot per half hour per gun.)


And - again - we know that the 11" Dahlgren gun (Monitor's main armament) could not penetrate 4.5" forged iron (let alone rolled) with the muzzle pressed against the iron, from Dahlgren's experiments.
What we do not know is if the 68-lber could make a full penetration of the turret of Monitor with steel bolts and battering charges - but we do know that Monitor's armour was unusually brittle for iron armour, and we also know (see above) that the rate of fire of Warrior's guns was enormously higher in aggregate than that of the Monitor.
As such, we can reasonably extrapolate that Monitor would find her turret battered easily hard enough to rack off individual plates and jam the turret at some point during any battle she did not flee from in short order.

If the 11" batters Warrior, on the other hand, the result will be some minor damage to the plate. A cast iron cannonball (which is most of what Monitor was armed with that wasn't shell) would shatter on impact, and a forged iron projectile (Monitor had a few of these) would not but would - as we've seen - not penetrate.
Certainly it's hard to see how a non-penetrating 11" hit or two would significantly impair Warrior's fighting capability - even if Monitor's guns scored nothing but direct hits on the guns, it would still take her one and a half hours to render Warrior's port broadside unfightable.


Indeed, the RoF of Monitor is sufficiently poor that it suggests she could be defeated by three gunboats even with direct fatal hits for every shot - the gunboat which survives could just board her.

Monitor is a bold experiment, and an impressive technical achievement. But she's just not a very good warship by the standard of naval powers of the time - her one standout feature is her immunity to hot shot, and that's something all ironclads have unless they're rather poorly built.

 

[Saphroneth]

And to specifically address the issue of spall.
Again.


The Warrior's armour is 4.5 inches of rolled wrought iron, backed by 18 inches of wood in two crosswise layers, backed by the iron hull. The reason for the wooden backing is experiments performed in the 1840s and 1850s, which concluded that wooden backing was required for iron armour or the spall produced would cause heavy casualties to the crew.
Any impact transmitted to the iron hull through unpenetrated iron armour and 18" of wood (which has a dampening effect) is unlikely to be significant enough to result in a spray of high velocity spalling - the tests on the Warrior target in the UK showed no significant spall - so it can be said to be unlikely that spall would be a major factor inside Warrior from a given shot.
If it was a major factor, then it would still not be enough to disable the Warrior as - again - the rate of fire is far too low. (If the spall from every single shot Monitor fired killed or disabled a hundred people, it would still take her about half an hour of firing to render Warrior able to fight only one broadside; this is obviously a massive overexaggeration of effectiveness.)

Slightly more spall could result from a round which completely penetrated the iron and the wooden backing to directly strike the iron hull, but it would take close ranged 15" fire to do this and it's unlikely to be more effective than a complete penetration of the entire protection scheme.

Of course, the Monitor turret does not appear to have wooden backing at all (one source I have quotes the side armour as 32" iron and wood combined and the turret as 8" iron, and I can't find a source giving wooden backing for the turret) so - if spall is significant - the crew of the US ship would have been killed in very short order.

 

[Saphroneth]

I have no idea why you think I am pushing for the 150 lb Dahlgren... I posted two links to period tests

as far as I know, the heaviest weapon actually deployed with the 15 inch Dalhgren, although it shot a 440 lb round using 35 lbs of powder (smooth bore) and the 50 pdr rifle.

What is useful about those links is that they show the reader what the people of that era thought, how they tested ordinance (and armor) and for me the conclusion I got is that in any kind of lengthy fight both sides would beat each other to wreckage. That matches what happened in OTL naval battles actually fought from Hampton Roads to Suriago Straight. Even the hits that didn't penetrate badly damage the structures holding the armor to the ship, which means repeated hits in those locations are going to eventually penetrate

My comment was that the heaviest Dahlgren weapon would penetrate even the heaviest British armor of the day. Which implies to me at least when the other source is viewed and read that smaller (although still pretty heavy weapons) are going to inflict severe damage

We think you are pushing the 150-lber because it is the weapon you linked as penetrating Dahlgren's warrior target. The 11" cannot, as I have indicated, because Dahlgren's Warrior target was inferior to the real Warrior (see page one, I addressed this right at the beginning of the thread) and your source contains no mention of Dahlgren's heavier guns penetrating a Warrior target.

I mention the 15" Rodman, of which only one existed at the time of Trent - it was literally still undergoing testing, and was at Fort Monroe (and hence inaccessible after Milne shows up).
The 15" Dahlgren is certainly able to penetrate Warrior (at close range with full charges) but takes even longer to reload than the 11" and cannot be aimed in a monitor as the gun blocks the firing port. But it had not even been ordered at time of Trent - Fox requested it after the Battle of Hampton Roads OTL, and that resulted in rush production (the first such gun was deployed on the Passaic in December). As such the 15" did not exist during the timeline of this TL's naval battles, the 150-lber did not exist during the timeline of this TL's naval battles, and the heaviest Dahlgren weapon is the 11" - which literally could not 'penetrate the heaviest British armour of the day'.
Dahlgren's initial test with his 11" smoothbore, fired with an increased charge of 30 pounds against a forged 4.5 inch iron target backed by 20 inches of oak and secured against a clay bank, succeeded in merely cracking the plate - at a distance of 20 yards
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=6u1xSQKx6IkC&pg=PA176&lpg=PA176&dq=warrior+target+11"+dahlgren&source=bl&ots=PGAIgr5s9w&sig=rV-oPbD85yE1uywVS3IO_ldF7Gs&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjIgNqUi_XMAhUMKsAKHWymCokQ6AEIRDAG#v=onepage&q=warrior target 11" dahlgren&f=false
This is double the normal service charge and it is not penetrating.
Later Dahlgren tests against laminate armour of the same thickness did penetrate, and I suspect this is what you are misrepresenting as an example of a Dahlgren gun penetrating a Warrior target - all it proves is that laminate armour is distinctly inferior to the same thickness of solid armour.
n.b. Monitor had laminate armour.


Note, by the way, that in this TL I have 15" guns deployed on ships in June. I have drastically accelerated their production over OTL, and this is another example of my heavily favouring the Union - if only OTL guns were available then no shipboard gun would be able to pierce Warrior type armour until at least late year.


Given that detail, the idea that "smaller (although still pretty heavy weapons) are still going to inflict severe damage" is obviously false on the face of it. A penetration is the minimum necessary to achieve severe damage, and even then a single solid penetration is not going to do severe damage as it has no bursting charge; the irregular and sporadic fire from a single Monitor's two guns against armour they cannot penetrate is going to do very little.

As for repeated hits causing eventual penetration, recall that each single hit by Monitor is answered by roughly a hundred by Warrior assuming equal accuracy.



As such, I find your post to be merely an attempt at agnotology, addressing issues already disproved or throwing out claims without addressing the substance.

 

[galveston bay]

We think you are pushing the 150-lber because it is the weapon you linked as penetrating Dahlgren's warrior target. The 11" cannot, as I have indicated, because Dahlgren's Warrior target was inferior to the real Warrior (see page one, I addressed this right at the beginning of the thread) and your source contains no mention of Dahlgren's heavier guns penetrating a Warrior target.
.

to repeat what I said above


I have no idea why you think I am pushing for the 150 lb Dahlgren... I posted two links to period tests

as far as I know, the heaviest weapon actually deployed with the 15 inch Dalhgren, although it shot a 440 lb round using 35 lbs of powder (smooth bore) and the 50 pdr rifle.

What is useful about those links is that they show the reader what the people of that era thought, how they tested ordinance (and armor) and for me the conclusion I got is that in any kind of lengthy fight both sides would beat each other to wreckage. That matches what happened in OTL naval battles actually fought from Hampton Roads to Suriago Straight. Even the hits that didn't penetrate badly damage the structures holding the armor to the ship, which means repeated hits in those locations are going to eventually penetrate

My comment was that the heaviest Dahlgren weapon would penetrate even the heaviest British armor of the day. Which implies to me at least when the other source is viewed and read that smaller (although still pretty heavy weapons) are going to inflict severe damage


So basically you are putting words in my mouth in an effort to overinflate what I am saying to discredit what I posted in order to avoid facing the possibility that you are simply in error

 

[RodentRevolution]

to repeat what I said above


>Which you then repeat word for word ignoring the points raised<

So basically you are putting words in my mouth in an effort to overinflate what I am saying to discredit what I posted in order to avoid facing the possibility that you are simply in error

Except that he is not over-inflating what you have said but putting forwards some of the not inconsiderable evidence that he is not in error. To which you only come back is to keep on repeating yourself...even to the extent of copy and pasting which makes this look like solely an exercise in trying to someone else's thread because you have no valid argument.

 

[Incognitia]

galveston bay: Argument 1
Saphroneth: Evidence that Argument 1 is wrong
galveston bay: Argument 1.

This is pointless. What do you want, galveston? Saph to lay out the evidence that you're wrong on this question, again? I promise it's mostly going to be the same evidence as last time...