IRONCLADS 3

[Philippe]

The Battle of the USS Kearsarge and the CSS Alabama, Édouard Manet, 1864, Philadelphia Art Museum.

Contemporary French painters lined up on the beaches of Cherbourg to paint the battle.  Manet was no exception, though I think this painting is inspired by the battle rather than a slavish depiction of it.

[totemgam]

Steam-sailing ships like Alabama and Kearsarge were limited by coal supplies and inefficient steam boilers and machinery. Most of the time they operated as sailboats. But if maximum speed was needed, then they used the energy of both movers - steam and wind. Alabama (according to eyewitnesses) was a fast ship. Her speed under sail was 11 knots, and if the steam engine was running at the same time, then 14 knots.

I saw on the net a scientific work about this painting by Edouard Manet. It was said there that this is the most realistic picture of this artist and in general it can be trusted.

[MengJiao]

Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa! The link to the video in the first message was fixed.

The wind blows into the stern of the ship, inflates the sails, unfurls the flag and blows the smoke towards the bow of the CSS Alabama. We're using a game engine and it handles physics well (okay, almost well). We check the visuals by photographs and videos of the steamers.

I'd be interested in seeing videos of steamers showing that. That is, moving forward at speed with smoke from the stacks blowing over the bow. I totally believe you that it's accurate...it just looks so odd.

It may be a bit of a challege to actually find a video of that.  However, this clip shows a painting of the French "Napoleon" with that aspect of smoke and sail:
https://youtu.be/IWPUloWz7gA?t=1295

I googled too and came up with that same video, but it is hard to tell how much forward momentum there is of the vessel. In some of the stills, it looks like none.

There are a couple of dynamics going on.  One is the direction of the relative wind, ie, the summation of the two vectors of wind speed / direction combined with the ship speed and direction.  For instance, if the relative wind is 0, the smoke from the stack will initially go straight up, until the wind vector predominates, and then it will blow in the direction of the wind.  This will make the stack smoke appear as a "dog leg".  If the ship is running with the wind, the  stack smoke will appear to blow forward, and the sails will be out.  When running with the wind on a broad reach, and the wind speed greater than the ship speed,  the stack smoke will blow to the port/starboard bow, and the sails will be billowed out in generally the same direction (depending on how they have the sails set).

From my understanding of the steam and sail ships, they usually cruised with sails, only lighting fires when they were either in low wind conditions or about to enter in restricted maneuverability conditions (entering/leaving harbor, high traffic areas, etc) and/or combat.  Because of this, it will likely be difficult to find photographs of both sails set and smoke.  However, it also takes time to bring a boiler up to pressure, so there may be instances where there were fires lit, and hence smoke, yet the vessel is still under sail.

   These videos of yours are quite fine and I think extremely accurate.  Smoke is going to move with the wind and (assuming the ship is going slower than the wind), the direction of the smoke relative to the ship is going to be the direction of the wind.  This is true whether there are sails or not.  I also like seeing the two big Dalgren guns on the USN ship.  These seem to have decided the battle.

[Philippe]

An impressionist painter will always give you the most realistic portrayal of what looking at the battle actually felt like, even if they aren't slavish prisoners of actual detail. 
I'd take Manet over a photograph any day, and the painting two posts above would make great cover art if you can get the Philly Art Museum's permission to use it (at a reasonable price).

I asked this question somewhere on Facebook but I can't remember where: is this going to be available on Steam (no pun intended) ?

[Tripoli]

Here are a couple drawings.  As an aside, JH, I agree that seeing a ship under sail with the stack smoke oriented forward looks strange, I suspect that as a general rule, that would be how they frequently appeared.  Only if the ship were either moving faster than the wind or the wind was from the bow would the stack smoke stream aft.  I suspect that this happened relatively infrequently in those cases where both fires were lit, and the ship was under sail, as either the fires were lit but insufficient pressure in the boiler required the ship to remain under sail, in which case the relative wind vector would generally be towards the bow of the ship, or the ship was in restricted maneuvering situation, where its relatively slow speed would tend to make the relative wind vector towards the bow of the ship.  Only on the open ocean, when trying to make maximum speed would a ship have both full or nearly full sail and stack smoke stream aft.
Savannah under steam and sail (https://www.britannica.com/technology/ship/Commercial-steam-navigation)

[Philippe]

I would have thought that if the smoke were streaming aft, the ship would be at risk of being taken aback.

[Tripoli]

   These videos of yours are quite fine and I think extremely accurate.  Smoke is going to move with the wind and (assuming the ship is going slower than the wind), the direction of the smoke relative to the ship is going to be the direction of the wind.  This is true whether there are sails or not.  I also like seeing the two big Dalgren guns on the USN ship.  These seem to have decided the battle.

I'm not an expert on the Kearsarge v. Alabama battle, but my guess is that as the Alabama was a raider and  designed or speed and endurance, and not designed to go head to head with a warship, it had neither the firepower, nor the "armor"/combat resiliency that a warship had.  The two 11" Dahlgrens carried by the Kearsarge fired a 166 lb shell, compared to the single 100 lb gun carried by the Alabama also gave the Kearsarge the advantage in heavy firepower.  Interestingly, the Kearsarge had some chain armor placed around the machinery spaces, which defeated several hits by some of the Alabama's 32 lb shells

[Tripoli]

I would have thought that if the smoke were streaming aft, the ship would be at risk of being taken aback.

I'm not an expert on sailing, but I would agree if the ship were running, it could be taken aback.  If she is on a broad reach, but still going slightly faster than the wind, I'm not sure that is the case.  Modern sailboats can go faster than the wind. https://www.sciencefocus.com/planet-earth/can-boats-sail-faster-than-the-wind-propelling-them/#:~:text=Yes%2C%20although%20it%20sounds%20implausible,and%20that%20of%20the%20wind.&text=So%2C%20with%20clever%20streamlined%20hull,sail%20faster%20than%20the%20wind.  However, I don't know if a 19th century design could approach wind speed. 

[MengJiao]

   These videos of yours are quite fine and I think extremely accurate.  Smoke is going to move with the wind and (assuming the ship is going slower than the wind), the direction of the smoke relative to the ship is going to be the direction of the wind.  This is true whether there are sails or not.  I also like seeing the two big Dalgren guns on the USN ship.  These seem to have decided the battle.

I'm not an expert on the Kearsarge v. Alabama battle, but my guess is that as the Alabama was a raider and  designed or speed and endurance, and not designed to go head to head with a warship, it had neither the firepower, nor the "armor"/combat resiliency that a warship had.  The two 11" Dahlgrens carried by the Kearsarge fired a 166 lb shell, compared to the single 100 lb gun carried by the Alabama also gave the Kearsarge the advantage in heavy firepower.  Interestingly, the Kearsarge had some chain armor placed around the machinery spaces, which defeated several hits by some of the Alabama's 32 lb shells

  Yep.  The Dahlgrens apparently also had the advantage of actually hitting the Alabama...apparently something of a feat at about 1000 yds with both ships turning under full power.  Of course the shells would have weighed 133 lbs (the explosive charge being lighter than the solid shot's sold iron) according to Wikipedia.  The solid shot would have been 166 lbs and two hits like that at the waterline seems to have been what sank the Alabama.

Oh actually wikipedia says:  Prior to this, she had her steering gear compromised by shell hits, but the fatal shot came later when one of Kearsarge's 11-inch (280 mm) shells tore open a midsection of Alabama's starboard waterline.

[JasonPratt]

Heh, I came here specifically to post that video! Ah well, better for the devs to get here first. 


Relatedly to the discussion, for a few seconds at 1:25, you can see the stack smoke doglegging off about 10 degrees left of the bow relative to the path of travel -- and the sails partly reefed, too. (My guess is that the sails are being used more to help steerage here, and the screw is doing most of the thrust work.)

[totemgam]

I found a monograph about the artist Manet that I was writing about.

https://www.metmuseum.org/art/metpublications/Manet_and_the_American_Civil_War_The_Battle_of_USS_Kearsarge_and_CSS_Alabama

[Philippe]

I remember seeing the show.  Those were happier times.

The monograph is wonderful, and I especially like that you can download the pdf for free.  Is that because it is out of print?

[totemgam]

I don't know, but of course I prefer paper to screen. But sometimes you don't have to choose.

[MengJiao]

I don't know, but of course I prefer paper to screen. But sometimes you don't have to choose.

  The French Ironclad super frigate Gloire was near the duel between the two American ships.  I suppose she could have blown them both out of the water if she could catch them (I'm not sure how fast she was).  In search of big frigates I ran a Caroline War battle or two.  The only thing really close included two Spanish ironclad stream frigates and two torpedo boats sinking 4 German gunboats at Palau:

[totemgam]

Yes, the French armored figate had to make sure that the battle would take place outside the territorial waters of France. Another reason was to prevent an incident similar to the capture of a Confederate cruiser in a Brazilian port.

The Gloire could catch up with the American sloops.