re: OT History Buffs Assemble! Lets discuss the early Confederate Ironclads

So, me going back in time with a 50 cal and armor piercing bullets wouldn't stop the union iron clads at Vicksburg? gonna have to change my plan. dangit.

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We've been to the museum in Columbus Georgia who are said to have two confederate ships..

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I have not been to the museum but I have read about the ships there. They were 3rd or 4th generation Confederate ironclads. By the time they were built the Confederacy had realized that it could not build monster ironclads like it tried to do with the CSS Louisiana and CSS Mississippi. Those ironclads were built to a reasonable scale. One has to wonder how the battles of Fort Jackson and Fort St. Philip would have turned out if the south had built the CSS Louisiana and CSS Mississippi to a reasonable size. The Yankees had something like 15 warships in the river and all had to be towed over the bar at the mouth of Southwest Pass to enter the river. They would have been sitting ducks for the CSS Louisiana and CSS Mississippi if the south had just built them to a reasonable scale and the north did not have a monitor to send to their rescue like at Hampton Roads.

Not an Ironclad, it if anyone is interested, here is a video of a lecture I attended on the secret Confederate Submarine Base in Shreveport.

LINK

It’s been a few years. But essentially they’ve decided with archaeological as well as historical evidence that there in fact was a secret submarine manufacturing facility in Shreveport towards the end of the Civil War. I don’t think any of them saw action however. The Red River was blocked by the Union Army during the war.

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So I guess nobody wants to discuss what would have happened if Mallory had been sensible and built reasonable sized ironclads.

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I wonder how well laminated iron bands mixed with other materials might have done

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So I guess nobody wants to discuss what would have happened if Mallory had been sensible and built reasonable sized ironclads.

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Even if they were somewhat sensibly sized, there is no guarantee that they would have been able to provide a total deterrent to the Federal boats. Most ironclads were under powered and if the Federal fleet could have built up a head of steam, they could have potentially out maneuvered them - although there would have been some losses.

Probably the smartest thing that could have been done was to create several smaller vessels and anchor them at points along the river as floating armored batteries. This was done with the CSS Georgia at Savannah. However, it was scuttled to keep it from falling into Sherman's hands.

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So I guess nobody wants to discuss what would have happened if Mallory had been sensible and built reasonable sized ironclads.

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It would be an interesting discussion to have I'm just not knowledgeable enough on it to comment other than I seriously doubt it changed the outcome of the war

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Even if they were somewhat sensibly sized, there is no guarantee that they would have been able to provide a total deterrent to the Federal boats. Most ironclads were under powered and if the Federal fleet could have built up a head of steam, they could have potentially out maneuvered them - although there would have been some losses.

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Farragut was worried about ironclads after hearing about hearing about the damage the CSS Virginia had done against the wooden ships of the USN on the first day of the battle of Hampton Roads. According to his stepbrother and rival David Porter he preparing orders to cancel his run past the forts and have his fleet leave the Mississippi River and return to the open ocean so they would have room to maneuver when the CSS Louisiana was first spotted north of the forts. It was only after observing her from the masthead for several hours did Farragut guess correctly that she was not operable and decided to risk passing the forts.

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Most ironclads were under powered

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Yes that is true but the CSS Arkansas was not one of them. It only became underpowered when it had so many holes shot it in its smoke stack that it lost the ability draw enough air to keep its fires hot. It's biggest problem was that its engines kept stopping on dead center. They were designed and built in New Orleans and shipped to Memphis and then shipped to Yazoo City to be assembled and installed. If they could have been installed in New Orleans by the same people who designed and built them they could have fixed the problem. The CSS Louisiana had very powerful engines but their power was split between 2 paddle wheels. If they had time to remove the smaller powerwheel and connect its engines to the 7 foot steering propellers (which the engineers were working on as the federal fleet passed the forts) it possibly could have been a game changer. The CSS Mississippi had even more powerful engines but it took so long to get the driveshaft from Richmond to New Orleans that it could not be finished before the city fell and there wasn't a strong enough tug boat left in the city to tow it to Vicksburg so it had to be burned as the city fell. Farragut himself said if that ship had been finished his fleet would have been crushed.

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if the Federal fleet could have built up a head of steam, they could have potentially out maneuvered them - although there would have been some losses.

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The federal ships could not outmaneuver the confederate ships. The river channel had filled in so much during the previous year due to the lack of shipping and dredging to keep it open. The ships had to steam in 2 straight lines to pass the fort and even then some got stuck in the mud. If the CSS Louisiana could have been able to move instead of being a floating battery they would have been f**ked. If the federal fleet and tried to flee they would have gotten stuck on the sandbar at Southwest Pass. The CSS could have destroyed a lot of that fleet before it was able to be pulled across the sandbar and into the GOM.