What if the United States had built ironclads before the american civil war

Well, it's not really ASB, because it is perfectly possible. Just, hard to see a reason why anyone would. Sort of like saying "What if the US navy in the 1950s built a fleet of sail powered muzzle loading battleships?". They /could/ of course, but why on earth would they.

The question really should be, "Can anyone come up with a logical reason for pre ACW US ironclads. Maybe if "fifty four forty or fight" actually came to fight, and spilled on for a few years ? UK raiders from Canada and the British Caribbean making trouble along the American seacoast. An Ironclad fleet could be a response to that . Personally I think the US would stick with its " honking big frigates" policy, but iron clads wouldn't be illogical.
 
Didn't stop the US screw frigates.

Were not they full masted ships with an auxiliary steam engine ? TBH I'm not really sure on the definition of "ironclad". Does it mean any ship with iron armour ? Or iron built ships ? Is there an assumption of steam power ?


There were steam packet boats in (I think) the 1820s. But the fuel required increases heavily with greater mass. Packet boats in the 1830s, frigates in the 1850s , and ironclad line of battle ships in the 1870s seems to be an attractive progression. As engines became more powerful and economical, the size of vessel that could be adapted to steam and iron became greater.
 
Were not they full masted ships with an auxiliary steam engine ?

HMS Warrior had a full set of sails as well. Not sure if they were any more sail dependent than she was.

TBH I'm not really sure on the definition of "ironclad". Does it mean any ship with iron armour ? Or iron built ships ? Is there an assumption of steam power ?

Me neither here. I'm assuming the former, as the latter is definitely less practical - possible, but given the US's problems here, less likely.
 
Exactly. However, the comparison was really between wooden ships and iron ships: wooden ships can't handle the vibration caused by engines. Both Gloire and Warrior have iron armour with wooden backing, but Gloire is a wooden ship with iron supports whereas Warrior is an iron ship.

The French resorted to iron plating the Gloire since their iron and shipbuilding industries were not up to producing the quantity of iron needed and they didn't, at the time, have the experience to build an iron hulled ship. The was also a question of the quality of iron and the fears, both in Britain and France, that a shell pierced iron hull would send iron shards all over the interior. Wood backing was used in absorb and strength the sides such an occurance.
 
Do you think this story would work better as an asb.
Oh, it's not ASB by any means. ASB is "why didn't Hitler just drill a tunnel to invade Britain", which I believe is the premise that got me into alternate history. It's just that there are two tendencies with technology-based WI's: the first is to neglect the train of logic behind the development, and the second is to make it work too well. Normally, I don't think you get this many people attempting to inject reality, so don't be disheartened.

I was talking more about the idea of the US embarking on construction of a new, ocean-going ironclad in the mid-1850s. Building an ironclad floating battery, less capable than New Ironsides, is more plausible. What you need is a good reason to complete the Stevens Battery in the 1840s before it's discredited. A big, unsuccessful naval attack on some Mexican coastal fortifications might fit the bill in the same way that the Crimea did historically. However, once the war's over, the navy runs into the problem I highlighted- the ship doesn't fit into their plans and, most likely, ends up in ordinary in the same way that the battleships did. Provided it hasn't been broken up by the Civil War, it will see some limited service bombarding Confederate coastal forts and confronting CSS Virginia. As long as you don't make it set the world alight- which very few ships do- there's a solid TL in there somewhere.


The French resorted to iron plating the Gloire since their iron and shipbuilding industries were not up to producing the quantity of iron needed and they didn't, at the time, have the experience to build an iron hulled ship.
Not the experience, more the capacity- Couronne (ld. 1859) is iron, but they can only really build one at a time.

The was also a question of the quality of iron and the fears, both in Britain and France, that a shell pierced iron hull would send iron shards all over the interior. Wood backing was used in absorb and strength the sides such an occurance.
Based on trials on the Crimea floating batteries- HMS Meteor, made of wood, stood up to shelling far better than HMS Erebus.

Does anyone know if the "iron" being spoke of was cast iron, or wrought iron ?
By nature, it's wrought iron- the plates are invariably hammered out to a specific thickness.

Personally, by "ironclad" I mean a seagoing armoured vessel, either wooden or iron-hulled. Something like the Stevens battery would be a "floating battery"- USS New Ironsides is right on the borderline between the two. A floating battery could be steam powered only because of their limited capacity, but an ironclad would have to have sails. Engines at this point aren't efficient enough to do away with sails but any vessel without steam is at a dramatic disadvantage in any engagement.
 
Personally, by "ironclad" I mean a seagoing armoured vessel, either wooden or iron-hulled. Something like the Stevens battery would be a "floating battery"- USS New Ironsides is right on the borderline between the two. A floating battery could be steam powered only because of their limited capacity, but an ironclad would have to have sails. Engines at this point aren't efficient enough to do away with sails but any vessel without steam is at a dramatic disadvantage in any engagement.

That (bolded) brings up a thought that - at least in my experience - is never discussed when looking at early American designs.

The Confederate ironclads in the ACW were entirely steam powered, and were/are notorious for the underwhelming performance of their engines (including just ordinary mechanical failure). I wonder if that's something to chew on when contemplating their performance - they're perfect examples of the ships that even good engines would find unwieldy, and the Confederacy never did have the luxury of the kind of engineering that went into HMS Warrior and her sisters.

Instead, they were left borrowing engines from riverboats and salvaging improperly scuttled wooden screw frigates and all sorts of things far below the standard you'd want for a proper warship.
 
No reason it has to build Monitor-type ships to have ironclads - HMS Warrior and the French La Glorie come to mind.

And its always been an American tradition (so far) to want ships better than any possible peers class by class.

Still, that leaves justifying the cost to Congress, which has just finished being convinced that screw frigates are a good idea.

It has "always" been a tradition, since that tradition began ... during/after Teddy Roosevelt's presidency and the great white fleet ... before that we barely made it into the top 20 ...
 

NothingNow

Banned
HMS Warrior had a full set of sails as well. Not sure if they were any more sail dependent than she was.

You wouldn't use a steam engine for that much back in the day. It'd have been useful tactically, but for long-range operations, you would always use it along with the sails, to conserve fuel. It wasn't until the 1880s that auxiliary sails started to fall out of use for longer ranged warships, and until the 20th century to retire them completely.

IMO about the most you could convince the USN to do pre-ACW was maybe build an experimental sea going ironclad along the lines of Colorado with a couple 1" layers of iron plate, and some extra live-oak planking sandwiching the hull planks along the gun and berth decks, and a couple bulkheads, with maybe an armament of only three dozen 9-inch dahlgrens to cut weight. She'd probably have been less than satisfactory, and wouldn't have drawn attention like Glorie and Warrior.

An Ironclad floating battery OTOH, would be very useful for a few places. Maybe if the Stevens brothers aren't so enthusiastic, and go for a simpler, better protected design in the 1844 version of the Stevens Battery, so it actually gets built, and in time to actually be of use somewhere?
 
It has "always" been a tradition, since that tradition began ... during/after Teddy Roosevelt's presidency and the great white fleet ... before that we barely made it into the top 20 ...

The tradition began earlier. Look at the USS Constitution and tell me that was a standard ship of its class.

That the US navy, overall, was weak is beside the point there.
 
It has "always" been a tradition, since that tradition began ... during/after Teddy Roosevelt's presidency and the great white fleet ... before that we barely made it into the top 20 ...

I think you're misunderstanding the tradition bit here. The tradition Elfwine referred to is building better ships on a ship-for-ship basis (for example, the large US frigates built before the War of 1812) rather than having a larger navy than anybody else. The sort of ships that need to be countered either by superior numbers or new ships able to match/better their performance.
 
I think you're misunderstanding the tradition bit here. The tradition Elfwine referred to is building better ships on a ship-for-ship basis (for example, the large US frigates built before the War of 1812) rather than having a larger navy than anybody else. The sort of ships that need to be countered either by superior numbers or new ships able to match/better their performance.

Put better than I could.
 
Top