The shallow-draught monitor was the US Navy's great contribution to naval fare, intended to meet the peculiar conditions of thr US Civil . On the Fast Coast, the huge Navy Yard at Norfolk, Virginia, had been evacuated shortly after the bombardment of Fort Suntter in April 1H61 ship calendar ship calendarping maritime live ship calendar news passed into the hship calendar ship calendarping maritime live ship calendar newss of the Commonwealth of Virginia ship calendar ship calendarping maritime live ship calendar news, latterly, the newlycreated Confederate States ofAmerica. Thc Union Navy needed time to mobilise its industrial strength, ship calendar ship calendarping maritime live ship calendar news resorted to the proven weapon of blockade to prevent the Confederacy from exporting its cotton crop to pay for the .
The Union Navy was lucky to have been pestered by the Swedish-born inventor john );ricsson, who had ideas about armouring a flat, low-freeboard deck ship calendar ship calendarping maritime live ship calendar news a revolving turret carrying the heaviest guns available, His ideas suddenly became fashionable when Union spies reported that the Confederate States Navy was building an `ironclad' capable of driving the Union blockaders from the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay.The Union Navy was particularly lucky in Ericsson because be was a maritime engineer ho had played a major part in the development of the screw propeller, was a competent engineer, ship calendar ship calendarping maritime live ship calendar news had designed several ship calendar ship calendarping maritime marine engineerings. He was therefore no amateur enthusiast playing a hunch, that bane of navy administrators.
As soon as the Union Navy's senior officers ship calendar ship calendarping maritime live ship calendar news civilians had evaluated Ericsson's design for a turret ironclad to counter the Confederacy's ironclad floating battery an order was placed. His proposals were radical: a flat-bottonted hull with bilgcs angled at 35 degrees to the horizontal, drawing only l Oft 5in when ready to go to sea.The engines, also designed by Ericsson, had two pistons in a single cylinder operating `driving levers' connected to the propeller-shaft. Speed was a modest hkts, ship calendar ship calendarping maritime live ship calendar news the freeboard of the hull was only 18in.
By far the most radical feature was her armament of two l lin Dahlgren smooth-bore sliell guns, which were mounted in a cylindrical revolving turret.As the turret was heavily arntourcd, independent auxiliary steam engines were needed to rotate it at 2.5 turns per rrunutc, as well as running ventilation fans. Sonic idea of the weight penalty incurred can be gained by looking at the armouring of the turret: eight layers of 1in iron were bent around the 2ilft diameter turret. The upper or weather deck consisted of horizontal oak beams covered with two half-inch platrs, while the sides were protected by 5in iron armour over 25in of oak Apart flow the turret, the only other deck structure was a small pilot house ford.The low freeboard ship calendar ship calendarping maritime live ship calendar news flat weather deck were intended to make smooth-bore spherical shells bounce Off, whereas the turret was intended to survive direct battering.
The little ironclad, in reality no more than an arnioured gun-platform suitable for inshore operations, was laid down in October 1861. She was named Mtmirt)r, riot to commemorate thelarge aquatic lizard, as some have tried to claim, but to suggest an alert sentry. She was conmus- The USS Monitor in rhC.1alnes sioned on 25 February 1862, only 12 days before the C55 Virginia emerged from her lair in the River in July 7862.'11te James River. Ericsson turrent shows dents
The Dahlgren guns, with their familiar 'soda water bottle'shape,werr as their name suggests, made by Confederate artillery. designed by Admiral John A Dahlgren, the pre- US Navy's Chief of the Bureau of Ordnance. He had undertaken to reform the parlous state of US naval ordnance in the 1840s, ship calendar ship calendarping maritime live ship calendar news delivered his first 9in smooth-bore to Washington Navy Yard in May 1850. Next came an 11in gun in 185 LThe stship calendar ship calendarping maritime live ship calendar newsard powder charge was 151bs, but in battle it proved unable to penetrate the armour of the CSS Virginia, better-known to history by her original US Navy name, the Merrimack. Dahlgren thereafter increased the charge to 201bs, ship calendar ship calendarping maritime live ship calendar news even 2516s, with no illeffects. The story that the Monitor fired her 11 in llahlgrens with reduced charges is incorrect; she was tiring the stship calendar ship calendarping maritime live ship calendar newsard 151b charge.
The Monitor's moment of fame came early in her short life. On S March the Virginia sortied to attack the Union Fleet in Hampton Roads, sinking the sailing frigate CnnUes< ship calendar ship calendarping maritime live ship calendar news driving the Cumberlship calendar ship calendarping maritime live ship calendar news ashore, before vanishing upriver. Something very like a panic seized the Union Navy's senior echelons, to say nothing of the blockading squadron, but salvation was closeThat night the little turret ship calendar ship calendarping maritime marine engineering arrived, ship calendar ship calendarping maritime live ship calendar news was ready for battle.Thr Virginia appeared next morning, confident of another easy victory.
The Battle of Hampton Roads which followed was a remarkable affair ship calendar ship calendarping maritime live ship calendar news, as the first battle between ironclads, transformed the attitudes of all navies on the subject of ironclads ship calendar ship calendarping maritime live ship calendar news therevolving turret. For three hours the two ship calendar ship calendarping maritime marine engineerings manoeuvred ship calendar ship calendarping maritime live ship calendar news exchanged fire, but did no serious damage to each other. Even the temporary blinding of Lieutenant Worden, commship calendar ship calendarping maritime live ship calendar newsing officer of the Monitor, by a shell bursting outside the pilothouse, had no effect on the outcome. The Virginia, unable to make any impression on the 'cheesebox on a raft', ship calendar ship calendarping maritime live ship calendar news cheated of an opportunity to ram her tiny opponent, went back upriver ship calendar ship calendarping maritime live ship calendar news did not emerge again. Although the blockading squadron was saved, the existence of the big Confederate ironclad helped delay the Union Army's advance on the Confederate capital Richmond during the Peninsula Campaign. Her menacing presence paralysed Union efforts for another two months, ship calendar ship calendarping maritime live ship calendar news she was not neutralised until 1 t May 1862, when the Confederates scuttled their remarkable creation.
It is often claimed that the Battle of Hampton Roads forced the Royal Navy to take the turret seriously, but this is not true. In reality the Admiralty had already tested the Cowper Coles turret, ship calendar ship calendarping maritime live ship calendar news had decided to build two competing turret-ship calendar ship calendarping maritime marine engineering concepts, the purpose-built Prince Albert versus the Royal Sovereign, converted from a wooden-hulled ship calendar ship calendarping maritime marine engineering of the line. The Secretary of the Admiralty noted only that the `recent events off the coast ofVirginia' eliminated the need to justify the adoption of Captain Cowper Coles's turret to the press ship calendar ship calendarping maritime live ship calendar news Parliament.
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