"Suggestions for ships for ACW river scenario" Topic

I'm going to conduct a battle featuring a Union river squadron escorting troop transports past Confederate fortifications. How successful they are will determine how many re-enforcements the Union player gets in a land campaign that is ongoing.

The rules are home made and I'm going to purchase some Peter Pig 1/600 ships for the game.

I'm a total rookie as regards ACW naval actions and I would appreciate any info on the "typical" type of ships you might find in a Union river squadron. Any info on ship types, classes or even particular names would be appreciated.

I figure I'll get about six warships along with about four transports for the festivities.

Persuasive guy that Good Idea Fairy. I've never had any interest in ACW naval gaming, but then a couple of days ago he came to me and said "you must run the batteries. You must get the troops through!" And he's right, I must. Wadda ya gonna do? Oh well this new wargaming tangent won't be THAT expensive…

Thanks in advance for your input.

Timberclads Lexington and Tyler were everywhere on the Mississippi. The city class Ironclads were close behind. Can't go wrong with those.

For a Union riverine squadron on the Mississippi, Tennessee, or Cumberland Rivers, you'll need Eads City-class ironclads and tin-clad steamers.

I would suggest a #5 Essex as the flagship, 2-3 #37 Cairo Eads City class ironclads, 1-2 #51 Tyler for your lighter gunboats, and a #52 Switzerland.

Jim

P.S. I see that ACWBill and I have the same ideas.

Thanks guys for the quick response. And Jim for making it "paint by the numbers" simple by adding the actual Peter Pig numbers.

That matches up with what my limited research has turned up. How appropriate or out of place would a Monitor be?

I thought PP ships were 1/1200 scale.

Mark

Says 1/600 on the PP website. I would hope a typo THAT big wouldn't escape their notice.

Not too many "monitors" on the Western rivers. Late war you have the Neosho and Osage (turret ironclads), and the Tecumseh(Canonicus class monitor) at Mobile Bay, other than that not so much.

Dances,

The Union navy without Monitors? Why that's like the Germans without Tigers or the British without red coats!

I suppose I could live without them though. Thanks.

Benton is more appropriate than a monitor. Otherwise, you've got a good representative squadron

Thanks G. I like the look of the Benton. I think I'll include her.

Peter Pig are 1/600, and very nice models as well.

Any recommendations on a good book of ACW ships on the rivers and what they did?

Jack Coombe's Thunder along the Mississippi

Rowena Reed's combined operations in the Civil War

Chester Hearns biography of Admiral David Dixon porter

Spencer Tucker's biography of Andrew Foote

Jim Miles A river unvexed.

If what you want is a book just on the ships of the war then I would recommend Paul Silverstones warships of the Civil War navies or it's updated version Civil War navies 1855 1883

I can recommend

To Retain Command of the Mississippi: The Civil War Naval Campaign for Memphis by Edward McCaul Jr. published by University of Tennessee Press 2014

The book contains both period illustrations and photographs of the vessels of the Union and Confederate River fleets and diagrams and maps of the 2 major "fleet" engagements on the Mississippi: Plum Point and Memphis.

Donald Frazier's books Thunder Across the Swamp and Blood on the Bayou (State House Press) have good information on brownwater actions along the lower Mississippi and bayou country of Louisiana and are also noteworthy for their maps/photos/illustrations.

OBW

<Not too many "monitors" on the Western rivers. Late war you have the Neosho and Osage (turret ironclads), and the Tecumseh(Canonicus class monitor) at Mobile Bay, other than that not so much.>
There was also the single-turret Ozark (later war, and none too successful.). Two others, Sandusky and Marietta, were contracted May 1862 but never finished until after the war. A nice what-if scenario, perhaps.
And I think you meant the two twin-turreted Chickasaw and Winnebago Eads river monitors at Mobile Bay (4 total built); Tecumseh and the Manhattan were the third generation single-turreted versions of the East Coast tidal namesake.

Rarely included are the Lafayette and Choctaw casemate sidewheelers, which, after their India-rubber-backed armor was swapped out for straight iron plate, did their bit in the Mississippi flotilla. Cheap knock-offs of the above, Indianola--whose career had a bit of a slapstick tone, Tuscumbia, and Chillicothe, were pretty so-so in their performance.

On the Confederate side, applying the "what-if" magical wand, the Mississippi, might have been completed if skilled workers had been available; the Eastport (uncaptured by Union forces), the Tennesee(I), sister ship to Arkansas destroyed before completion; Yazoo City (unnamed sidewheeler, "Yazoo City" sounds like a good name for her); the Mobile (destroyed to prevent capture), and the Missouri and her unbuilt sister-ship on the Red River. Who knows what might have been accomplished if the South had early on spent some more of her cotton profits and hired some of England's shipbuilding and engineering talent to supervise and train state's shipbuilding efforts? Perhaps Lord Palmerston quietly diverts some funds into covert efforts to upgrade the South's forces following the Trent Affair? Marine engines? Boiler components? Milling machines? On-the-beach RN salts to assist the operation of the ships?

Union sidewheelers. Especially USS Mississippi.