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

[Saphroneth]

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

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

Please indicate a specific test which shows a weapon in use during the Trent war period (up until June 30 1862) could penetrate Warrior. Remember that I have shown that the 11" Dahlgren could not penetrate Warrior by referencing Dahlgren's own tests.
I am directly quoting you so I am sure that you understand I am not putting words in your mouth.

 

[galveston bay]

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.

show me where I said what he is saying i said... I literally posted two links and said "British ironclads are not invulnerable" Did you or he read the links I posted. One is a comprehensive look at all of the 19th Century tests of both British and American ordinance and armor of the era in question, complete with criticism of the tests. The other is literally an eyewitness account of a specific test. I also cited the Battle of Charleston as an historical example of how ironclads are far from invulnerable and also stated the the Battle of Lissa in 1866, using ships built during this era, showed that close range battles are the norm.

As to his story, his assertion that Colorado for example would, in spite of being 400 miles closer to St Louis than east Texas would go Confederate, and in spite of the fact it had a Territorial Government in 1861, direct connections across flat terrain and a river trail (the Oregon Trail follows the Platte River and a fork heads to Denver) and being settled overwhelmingly by people from Free States pre war. That in itself makes this a British/Confederate Wank and severely weakens his assertion that it isn't

His pattern of posts throughout this forum make it clear he is strongly biased. That isn't a crime, and there is plenty of bias in this forum. But don't expect people to remain quite about it

 

[galveston bay]

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...

I want him to stop putting words in my mouth and address the evidence in those two sources

Saph: assertion that you are wrong and here is what I am changing your argument to say to make it more wrong

 

[galveston bay]

Please indicate a specific test which shows a weapon in use during the Trent war period (up until June 30 1862) could penetrate Warrior. Remember that I have shown that the 11" Dahlgren could not penetrate Warrior by referencing Dahlgren's own tests.
I am directly quoting you so I am sure that you understand I am not putting words in your mouth.

the source does not give one.... you and I can agree on that. We clearly disagree on the implications.

but off to work

 

[RodentRevolution]

show me where I said what he is saying i said... I literally posted two links and said "British ironclads are not invulnerable" Did you or he read the links I posted. One is a comprehensive look at all of the 19th Century tests of both British and American ordinance and armor of the era in question, complete with criticism of the tests. The other is literally an eyewitness account of a specific test.

As to his story, his assertion that Colorado for example would, in spite of being 400 miles closer to St Louis than east Texas would go Confederate, and in spite of the fact it had a Territorial Government in 1861, direct connections across flat terrain and a river trail (the Oregon Trail follows the Platte River and a fork heads to Denver) and being settled overwhelmingly by people from Free States pre war. That in itself makes this a British/Confederate Wank and severely weakens his assertion that it isn't

His pattern of posts throughout this forum make it clear he is strongly biased. That isn't a crime, and there is plenty of bias in this forum. But don't expect people to remain quite about it

You posted two links? Wow Saphroneth posted multiple in story incidents in which British ironclads took damage, despite strong evidence that they likely would have taken less damage if any in a real world engagement. He allows the US to put weapons into action faster than OTL they even managed to put them into production which is no small freebie to the US given that gun barrels are very sensitive to flaws caused by crystallisation occurring from over rapid cooling, meaning guns especially large guns always have a long minimum time it take to produce them.

Saphroneth's pattern of though represents possible incidents out of a range of probabilities. Your claim he puts words into your mouth seems to rest on the idea that he has to copy paste your words without argument or analysis. You here basically admit you have insufficient (being polite) evidence to back your contentions:

the source does not give one.... you and I can agree on that. We clearly disagree on the implications.

but off to work

But then argue that lack of evidence for your argument still means your argument should override Saphroneth's argument which has extensive evidence behind it.

To your surprise that contention strikes many as just silly.

 

[Saphroneth]

Saph: assertion that you are wrong and here is what I am changing your argument to say to make it more wrong

I want him to stop putting words in my mouth and address the evidence in those two sources

the source does not give one.... you and I can agree on that. We clearly disagree on the implications.

So your argument is that, because you have no example of a weapon which can penetrate the Warrior in your source, then I am not addressing your source when I say no weapon can penetrate the Warrior.

This is completely absurd.

It's as absurd as you simultaneously saying you agree the source gives no example of a weapon that can penetrate the Warrior while saying that the sources give examples of weapons that can penetrate the Warrior:

the source does not give one.... you and I can agree on that.

My comment was that the heaviest Dahlgren weapon would penetrate even the heaviest British armor of the day.

 

[Saphroneth]

As to his story, his assertion that Colorado for example would, in spite of being 400 miles closer to St Louis than east Texas would go Confederate, and in spite of the fact it had a Territorial Government in 1861, direct connections across flat terrain and a river trail (the Oregon Trail follows the Platte River and a fork heads to Denver) and being settled overwhelmingly by people from Free States pre war. That in itself makes this a British/Confederate Wank and severely weakens his assertion that it isn't

His pattern of posts throughout this forum make it clear he is strongly biased. That isn't a crime, and there is plenty of bias in this forum. But don't expect people to remain quite about it

To address your example of bias here, Colorado.

You are, at best, confused. There is OTL Colorado, which remains with the United States as the Colorado Territory, and there is the Confederate State of Colorado which I have made repeatedly clear is actually secessionist Southern California.

...the plan to split California into two states (California and Colorado, with Colorado being the area south of the 36th Parallel) was well advanced by the time the Unpleasantness started (Pico Act).

Southern California - State of Colorado is my impetus here.

The 37th parallel enters the discussion at Havana. It is a proposed northern border for the Confederacy in the trans-Mississippi, though if this line is extended all the way to the Pacific it is in fact slightly north of the proposed Confederate State of Colorado (southern California) which had petitioned overwhelmingly pre-war to be split into a separate state.

The proposed State of Colorado (lower California) is still under debate.

*Colorado(SoCal),

Most of the mountains over LA are trying to catch fire, become floods and roll down into the city-plain. That might be a hard thing to control for *Colorado

Southern California (an area which OTL voted to split off from California to form a pro-slave state to be named after the Colorado)

 

[Incognitia]

As to his story, his assertion that Colorado for example would, in spite of being 400 miles closer to St Louis than east Texas would go Confederate, and in spite of the fact it had a Territorial Government in 1861, direct connections across flat terrain and a river trail (the Oregon Trail follows the Platte River and a fork heads to Denver) and being settled overwhelmingly by people from Free States pre war. That in itself makes this a British/Confederate Wank and severely weakens his assertion that it isn't

His pattern of posts throughout this forum make it clear he is strongly biased. That isn't a crime, and there is plenty of bias in this forum. But don't expect people to remain quite about it

#

Are you sure you're reading the same timeline as the rest of us? The Confederates got southern California, which they have named Colorado....which I see Saphroneth has stated before I got to it.

 

[Saphroneth]

It's the funny thing about names - the Colorado is just a river, after all. It forms the eastern boundary of the new state.

Of course, that means there's double naming going on, but it's not as if that's the first time it happened - OTL Washington State has the same name as Washington, District of Columbia, and the previously considered name for Washington State was Columbia State.


(Also, the distance from the most NW town in Texas to - OTL - Colorado is less than fifty miles.)

 

[Saphroneth]

6 July

Battle some way east of Warsaw, in the ongoing Polish conflict. This battle serves as an example of a microcosm of the problems the Russians are having with the motivated, well-trained Huszaria:
- In the early stages of the battle, the Russians are unable to effectively feel out the Polish positions due to sharpshooter fire killing their scouts.
- The Russian artillery is sniped at from a long range, rendering it unable to affect the battle and letting the Polish artillery work unmolested.
- Four Russian commanders are shot down inside half an hour, leaving none of the Russian officers left willing to take command and expose themselves.
As a consequence of this, the Polish regulars present manage a victory - a combination of quick volleys of musketry and a blaze of cannister breaks their main attacking column, and there is no effective leadership to rally them.

7 July
Armstrong and Whitworth argue about who has the better rifling scheme. The Admiralty considers somewhat seriously whether it should assign two more of the older Crimean ironclads as targets and challenge them to see which can sink their ironclad with the fewest shots.


9 July
Virginian congressmen inform the Confederate Congress (including especially South Carolina congressmen) that, as the Confederacy has apologized for the Charleston events, Virginian soldiers will not be sent to South Carolina.
They also suggest (in concert with Marylanders) that the Confederate Constitution should be amended to make foreign affairs the sole and collective dealings of the Confederate government - that is, that all States would be compelled to defend one another and that the Confederacy could compel foreign-relations behaviour or apologies from States and from cities.
This is emphatically rejected by several coastal states, though one Tennessee congressman does note that Tennessee is the only state in the Confederacy that does not have a land border and also does not have a sea border.

A motion for embargoing cotton is narrowly defeated.


10 July
British ships enter the Ariake Sea - the Bacchante, Pearl, Clio and Chesapeake. The Contest, a foreign-built Japanese steam ship, is seized to attempt to compel payment of the indemnity.

11 July
The first of six battalions board ship ready to head to Bermuda, as part of pre-positioning in case of war over the Charleston Incident.

Satsuma gunners open fire on the British squadron in Kagoshima. Maitland's Bacchante is already cleared away in case of action, and returns fire almost immediately with her 110-lber and 40-lber rifles.
The range is quite long, but the Bacchante's gunners are experienced with their weapons from the American War. They score several hits, aided by the other ships as they somewhat belatedly get into action, and by the time three hours have passed have dismounted around half of the Satsuma guns.
Among the casualties is a fifteen-year old samurai youth by the name of Hiehachiro Togo, manning one of the guns hit by two 110-lber shells from Bacchante.

 

[cerebropetrologist]

You are, at best, confused. There is OTL Colorado, which remains with the United States as the Colorado Territory, and there is the Confederate State of Colorado which I have made repeatedly clear is actually secessionist Southern California.

Are you sure you're reading the same timeline as the rest of us? The Confederates got southern California, which they have named Colorado....which I see Saphroneth has stated before I got to it.

Said it before, and I'll probably end up saying it again:

It must be a relief to find out that the story people take offence at isn't the one you've actually written.

 

[Saphroneth]

Correction: I previously stated that the Monitor fired once per fifteen minutes per gun; it was actually ten. This mainly affects the ratios, which are 1:65 instead of 1:100; however, I thought I should be fair.

 

[Starfox5]

Among the casualties is a fifteen-year old samurai youth by the name of Hiehachiro Togo, manning one of the guns hit by two 110-lber shells from Bacchante.

Russia should be very grateful in 40 years or so.

 

[Saphroneth]

Russia should be very grateful in 40 years or so.

Well, that depends on a lot of factors, not least among them whether there'll be a Russo-Japanese War at about that point in history.

 

[FriendlyGhost]

Just caught up after a few days without internet.

@Saphroneth - I thought you were going to stop at the peace conference, so it's great to see this story continuing and showing the butterflies around the world - I'm always impressed with the way writers on AH.com manage to widen the scope to take these things into account.

@ everyone
All Am Civ War threads which involve British intervention seem to end up with arguments about Britwank or Ameriwank tendencies. I've written somewhere else (might even have been in this thread) something similar to this: the viewpoints tend to range from the 'the USA will win against the UK and CSA in all situations up to and including the UK having nukes' to 'the USA is doomed if the UK even frowns in its direction' (ok, I'm exaggerating a bit ), with all viewpoints in between, with the majority in the middle (yes, it's the classic 'bell curve'). The best stories are those which tread that middle ground, using not just evidence from OTL but sensibly extrapolated potential events, coupled with the occasional unlikely happening, just as OTL has. The worst stories (from an AH.com PoV) are ones which ignore the rules of plausibility and (extrapolated) evidence. Don't get me wrong - some of those stories are great fiction and fun to read, but essentially implausible.
I'm sure that there are unconscious biases at play in all writing, but my opinion is that TTL shows (a lot) less than most; essentially, if you re-read the story and have the USA do twice as well as written, the USA still loses the war at sea but sneaks a bit more past the blockade, which might enable it to hold its own on land in the north and probably let it hold its own on land in the south (but without being able to actually defeat the CSA).

Just my two cents (which I guess is worth a lot less TTL).

 

[Saphroneth]

Just my two cents (which I guess is worth a lot less TTL).

Depends. Are they these ones?

 

[FSB]

For the argument going on recently, I think everyone should take a deep breath and carefully articulate what they are actually claiming if they are going to continue it. I'm not sure _why_ Galveston bay dropped a link to a weapons test in early '63, but it was the following posts by other people that made it look like he was saying "the timeline is wrong because it does not take into account time-travelling guns". If he's just trying to say that British ironclads are not invulnerable, and a sufficient amount of even non-penetrating hits could disable them or require repairs, this is fine. I doubt that the Union is actually able to achieve sufficient volume, though, the Brits can easily afford to have a few ships undergoing repairs.

 

[Saphroneth]

If he's just trying to say that British ironclads are not invulnerable, and a sufficient amount of even non-penetrating hits could disable them or require repairs, this is fine. I doubt that the Union is actually able to achieve sufficient volume, though, the Brits can easily afford to have a few ships undergoing repairs.

If he's arguing that, though, it's actually not more nor less than what I've been showing. I've had damage taking place to plenty of British ironclads all through the TL. I've not actually described their repair schedules because that would be really overdoing it for accuracy, but in general a single ironclad is usually involved in only one major engagement where it takes damage - and that's deliberate. The exceptions are, generally speaking - Terror, who takes numerous casualties from spall, and Aetna which shows up in the Lakes as well as on the East Coast.



If his argument is that I've not been fair to the Union in any way, the fact that I have their gun development accelerated by at least a factor of two over their scrambles OTL should largely answer it.

 

[FSB]

Yea, but a lot of internet arguments are a game of telephone. I mean A, actually type B, someone reads C, gets hot under the collar and thinks I'm a moron and proceeds to type fiery D. After which we are just yelling past each other.

The whole thing with time travelling guns seems a tad silly to me, so I figured that there MIGHT be some kind of miscommunication somewhere.

Also, if he is arguing that British ironlads should take some damage, you have just answered that with specifity.

 

[cerebropetrologist]

I'm not sure _why_ Galveston bay dropped a link to a weapons test in early '63, but it was the following posts by other people that made it look like he was saying "the timeline is wrong because it does not take into account time-travelling guns". If he's just trying to say that British ironclads are not invulnerable, and a sufficient amount of even non-penetrating hits could disable them or require repairs, this is fine.

If people have been confused, it's because there are two ways to argue that non-penetrating hits could disable an ironclad.
The logical way: cite a case where non-penetrating hits disabled an ironclad in action.
The illogical way: cite a test where a gun not yet brought into service penetrated an ironclad in a test.

Anybody's welcome to make the case that non-penetrating hits would disable an ironclad, of course. However, it seems unlikely that they'd also be able to prove it'd affect the larger, better protected British ironclads more than the extemporised Union ones- particularly with that 65:1 shot ratio.

Worth understanding all this in the light of the fact that this isn't the first time this particular individual has made these kind of objections to this timeline. The effort to pour oil on troubled waters is much appreciated, though.