From: phs172m@vaxc.cc.monash.edu.au (Stephen Harker)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.japan,soc.culture.china,soc.history
Subject: Re: US Ironclads (Was: Re: US colonializing )
Date: 9 Sep 92 18:43:16 +1000
Organization: Physics Department, Monash University, Australia
Followup-To: sci.military

In article <1992Sep2.053823.28489@anasaz>, briand@anasaz (Brian Douglass) writes:
> In article <1992Sep1.145046.5533@news2.cis.umn.edu> thornley@nano.cs.umn.edu (David H. Thornley) writes:
>>I hope you'll consider this as a friendly correction, but didn't the
>>British and French pioneer ironclads?  The Monitor was, I believe, the
>>first "modern" warship designed with absolutely no provision for sails,
>>but was thoroughly impractical for oceanic operations.  In any case,
>>within ten years after the Civil War, the U.S. Navy was hopelessly
>>antiquated.
> 
> I don't have my reference at hand, but the US built large number of
> ironclads during the civil war, a whole squadron of which were specifically
> designed as ocean going.  When one of them visited London it caused quite a
> stir on the continent.

	Sigh.  Take this to Sci.Military and you will get more information.
To repeat from an earlier posting:

!	Yes, the French with Gloire and British with HMS Warrior (25 
!December 1860).  I don't have dates for Gloire, however HMS Warrior was
!laid down in response to Gloire though this does not mean she was launched
!later.  There was an article on HMS Warrior in Scientific American,
!December 1987, from memory I think they quote HMS Warrior as achieving 13
!knots by sail, 14 knots by steam and 17.5 knots with both!

> Also, at the start of the war of 1812, the British publicly stated one of
> their vessels could take on and defeat 2 equivalent enemy vessels.  Many a
> French vessel lay at the bottom of the ocean as testament to this fact.
> However, by the end of the war, no British ship was to engage a like
> American vessel unless their was at LEAST a 2-1 superiority.  This owed to
> the overgunning on American vessels giving them about 40% more firepower
> than their counterparts in the British navy.  Ships with equivelant
> firepower were too slow to keep up with smaller American vessels.

	British frigates were normally 32 to 36 gun light ships.  The US
deliberately designed their frigates to outgun them, adopting a design that
was in many respects half way between traditional frigates and ships of the 
line ie with thicker sides and heavier guns.  British frigates tended to
carry carronades for close in fighting.  Since the US frigates were faster
than the British ones (no surprise, so were almost everyones) they could
hold their range and destroy the British frigates without much difficulty. 

	The British advantage over the French had been better officering
and a greater training level with their crews, especially with gunnery. 
However by 1812 complacency had already set in.  US descriptions of the
actions usually stress the poor gunnery training of the British ships.  In
contrast the Shannon which which won its battle was captained by a gunnery
fanatic, also Chesapeake was apparently the worst crewed of the US
frigates.  One of the books on Cochrane stresses the effects of British
complacency on their effectiveness post Trafalgar.

> My point is, during the 19th century the US Navy was, in fits and starts,
> leap-frogging the British in technology, and exhibiting themselves as the
> heir-apparent to British dominance of the world's oceans.

	Read a few of the earlier posts, and try sci.military.  Generally
everybody had better ship designs than the British in the early 19th
century - this was admitted at the time by the British!  I would agree with
the poster who suggested early 20th century for US advances, but generally
the late 19th century showed the British bringing new technology before the
US, though usually due to French challenges.  There was little advantage to
the British obsoleting their existing battle fleet unless someone else
threatened to do so.

-- 
Stephen Harker			phs172m@vaxc.cc.monash.edu.au
Monash University		Baloney baffles brains: Eric Frank Russell
Newsgroups: soc.culture.japan