"Union use of ironclads on the open seas question??" Topic

Did the Union use ocean going ironclads to hunt down CSA commerce raiders or just wooden warships?? Having trouble finding any specific info on this?? Thanks.

Wooden ships away from the coast, many of its ironclads were of rather dubious seaworthiness when in fighting trim

Most ironclads were coatal and river craft. The USN only had a few ocean going ironclads by the end of the war. The ocean going ironclads were pathetically slow as well. No way they could have caught or overtaken a commerce raider unless they found them in port somewhere.

Travis,

What David and Joe stated.

Jim

Thanks guys, thought so but saw some information on Union vessels being labeled as "ocean ironclads" and such. Not as familiar with all the classification for this period and war:)

The Union did have ocean going ironclads, New Ironsides, Galena, Roanoke was being worked on, but they were too slow for hunting commerce raiders.

Galena was a disaster, so bad that her armour was removed and she was converted into a conventional wooden sloop

The ACW Navy ironclads weren't meant to be an ocean-going navy. Although, there were several (New Ironsides, the Kalamazoo Class monitors, etc.) that were capable of deep-water operations.

As such, there were few deep water ironclads built. However, USS Denderberg (Casemate ironclad) was sold to France in 1867.

Remember, the Monitor sank in a storm when the seal between the turret and the hull proved not to be sufficiently watertight.

The designer blamed the Navy for adding 'oakum' to try to make it more watertight, which he blamed for causing the sinking!

Thanks for the info, I have my game for the advance naval section that only wooden vessels can enter commerce raiding boxes and just wanted to make sure that was/is an accurate representation to give players a reason to not just buy ironclads…..beside them being somewhat cheaper:)
In my game designs I never like to tell players "no you can't do this just because" I rather work in mechanics that say "yes you can do that but here are a bunch of reason why you may not want to" based on the history:) I feel players like that style better???

If you can, take a look at _Warships of the Civil War Navies_, by Paul H Silverstone (US Naval Institute Pqress, Annapolis, 1989). Most of the extant photographs are reproduced therein.

Note that the ironclad frigates _Re d'Italia_ and _Re di Portogallo_ were being built in NYC 1860-64 – if you want an alternate history where they got taken over by the USN …

"Galena was a disaster, so bad that her armour was removed and she was converted into a conventional wooden sloop."

Yup, armor was a very poor design. Basically railroad track rails layed over each other.

I'd not count New Ironsides for much. Her nominal 7kt speed depended on sail AND steam. In a headwind against a current she'd be almost immobile, not to mention the faster she steamed the less manageable she was due to the configuration of her stern. Being flat bottomed and shallow drafted she'd probably roll so much as to make her guns unusable.

All new and very interesting info to me guys. Thanks! Seems like there is so much focus on the "brown water" war that this part gets overlooked a lot.

It did sort of work the other way around. Although not an ironclad, Alabama did sink the armed iron steamer USS Hatteras off Galveston.