"What If: Seaworthy Confederate Ironclads" Topic

After the initial clash of ironclads at Hampton Roads, the Confederate Naval Secretary Mallory commissioned the construction of four ironclads at Memphis and New Orleans with instructions that they were to be capable of operating on the high seas, in order to "traverse the entire coast of the United States . . . and encounter, with a fair prospect of success, their entire Navy." In short, Mallory envisioned a small fleet of ironclads able to operate on the offensive, not only to lift the Union blockade of southern ports in detail, but also in theory to threaten northern ports and fleets at sea. From history, we know that the confederate shipbuilders were not up to the task.

But imagine the wide variety of "what if" scenarios that could be created if they had been. My mind goes toward a commerce raid up the Chesapeake on Baltimore pitting confederate clads against the gauntlet of five defensive forts that comprised Baltimore's harbor defenses, culminating with Fort McHenry, which was serving double-duty as a military prison. Or how about confederate naval operations against Fort Monroe, which would have disrupted critical Union supply lines up the James River during both McClellan's and Grant's campaigns.

Yes but as always with "what if?" you assume the Union stay pat and doesn't counter the New look Confederate Navy.

Don't get wrong I like Ironclad warfare but to make it a game you have to total hand tie the Union.

Something tells me that if faced with that threat, there would have been a sizeable increase in Union production. A squadron of New Ironsides, perhaps?

Look at some of the European ocean going Ironclads for guidance on what a similar type of ship for a Union fleet might look like. Scorpion and Wyvern for example (which were originally built for the Confederacy but taken over by the Royal Navy). Or Warrior if looking for a more "traditional" cruiser design

As noted, the Confederacy had no capacity to build large ocean-going armored cruisers and turned to foreign yards to build them, so we can look at the actual Confederate ironclads built abroad for exactly this purpose: link

As Mr. Manley says, mostly traditional cruiser designs with armor layered on, and a few turreted exceptions.

The US Navy had already foreseen this possibility and had its own ships to counter the threat:

USS New Ironsides was fully intended to be an ironclad cruiser, and only had her masts replaced by poles because she never left the coast.

USS Dictator and the four Miantonomohs were designed as "ocean going" monitors, and a couple Minatonomohs did later cross the oceans (Monadnock even rounded the Cape under her own power!). Though they were all pretty poor sea boats, they were big enough to deal with normal pelagic swells and winds, and were powerful units near the ports where they would have encountered Confederate raiders.

The four Kalamzoos and USS Puritan were even bigger (Puritan was supposed to get XX-inch Dahlgrens!), but they rotted on the stocks incomplete because the Confederate ironclad cruisers never materialized and Confederate littoral and riverine ironclads never grew big or dangerous enough to need expensive super-sized monitors to deal with them. Those five ships would almost certainly have been completed if the Confederate armored cruisers actually did become a real threat. They might all have been compromised designs, but they were specifically meant to defeat thinly-armored European-style designs that Union intelligence indicated were under construction, so they would have been very dangerous opponents.

Let's also not forget that while the "real" oceanic US Navy was mostly sloops, corvettes, and frigates, there was an ever-growing number of very large Dahlgrens (IX inch, XI inch and XV inch) in Navy possession, and these could have been shipped aboard wooden warships as a quick stop-gap meausre. A squadron of multiple wooden steam warships armed with huge armor-piercing guns is still a danger to a lone ironclad with thin armor and no safe ports nearby.

- Ix

BTW, I'm not dismissing the gaming potential here. If someone is going to run a bunch of scenarios with Wyvern and Scorpion and maybe the CSS Stonewall all steaming up and down the North American coast wreaking havoc and fighting US monitors and wooden blockaders, I want to play.

I already have a lot of the miniatures to do this myself, they're just on the backmost part of the workbench because of a severe painting accident. I'll get around to this nightmare scenario myself, one of these days.

- Ix

Well done, YA. Thank you.

I don't think its as big a stretch as some people think. When New Orleans fell there were two very large ironclads being built. Louisiana was poorly designed and may never have been sea worthy. Mississippi was still being built.

Set a scenario where New Orleans isn't attack/repels the October 1861 attack and you have the nucleus of a fleet. Add some wooden ships, Sumpter and McRae maybe and you have a scenario. Add in that the Federals were still gearing up, the Monitor was the first finished and wasn't ready until March of 1862 and add in the other ships originally built to counteract CSS Virginia, Ironsides and Keokuk, and you're ready to go.

The other ocean going monitors weren't designed until the war was well underway and the monitor concept had been proven. Sounds like you could have a good time.

If I had an interested opponent I could do a combined British/Confederate armored/wooden fleet descending on the east coast scenario circa 1865.

Years ago when I visited Portsmouth the flew a different period flag from HMS Warrior each day. Somewhere I have a photo of her displaying the Confederate flag.

"BTW, I'm not dismissing the gaming potential here. If someone is going to run a bunch of scenarios with Wyvern and Scorpion and maybe the CSS Stonewall all steaming up and down the North American coast wreaking havoc and fighting US monitors and wooden blockaders, I want to play. grin"

That's the spirit! I am currently inspired by David Manley's latest rules to get into ACW (riverine) naval, but the dearth of historical scenarios has me thinking about made up and what if scenarios.

Note that the ironclad frigates _Re d'Italia_ and _Re d'Portogallo_ were under construction in Brooklyn. One suspects that the USN was keeping track of their progress, and ready to invoke 'right of angary' whenever necessary.

Parkes' _British Battleships_ records several ships begun in British yards for foreign navies, and 'impressed' into the British fleet. The Turkish battleships of 1914 were probably the most notable.

Salutations, again, gentlefolk !

(Allright, I've got Chapelle's _The American Sailing Navy_ open on desk looking up stuf for another project – am not _just_ trying to be pedantic.)

The 74-gun sailing ships-of-the-line USS Virginia and USS Alabama were 'on the stocks', under construction (since 1820) in Boston and Portsmouth in 1862. Whether they could have been 'kitbashed' with engine, armor, and 1860's guns, thus finished as ironclads … ??? The British and the French did this sort of conversion of wooden ships under construction, but ???

Your further speculations are invited (which does not necessarily mean I'm actually going to _read_ them !)

For some actual historical scenarios, contact Phil Ireson of Pithead miniatures. He's been writing up scenarios of actual fights along the Mississippi basin to have games to play with the 1/1200 ACW naval miniatures Pithead is making.

- Ix