Battle at Habour ACW PT 2

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Battle at Habour ACW PT 2

Bit differant this week, attacking a Habour from land and sea, more photos on the main website.


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With the battle of Hampton Roads, naval warfare changed forever.  The ironclads could defeat wooden warships with relative ease, and brushed aside all but the heaviest (or the luckiest) artillery rounds.  Apart from piercing the sturdy armor, an artillerist fighting an ironclad could only hope to hit a smokestack or shoot through an open gunport.  Even then, it was unlikely the shot would do significant damage.  So powerful were the ironclads that they upset an ancient axiom of naval warfare that forts were stronger than ships. 


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Traditionally, forts afforded protection from enemy fire, a stable shooting platform for gunners, and the ability to mount powerful guns that were too large or heavy for ships.  These factors remained true, but the new ironclads also had defense from enemy fire.  Because they could withstand more time near a fort, groups of ironclads were able to rush past forts to enter harbors, or even – on several occasions – defeat forts in artillery duels.


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Rams

As it became clear that most cannon fire could not reliably stop ironclads, the Union and Confederate navies increasingly invested in alternative strategies. One of the responses to this problem was not really an innovation at all, but a return to the dawn of naval warfare. 


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The ram was used as the principle weapon on ancient Mediterranean warships, but had gone out of style as larger sailing-ships carrying cannon replaced oar-driven galleys. Steam engines, however, granted more maneuverability than sails, and when used in combination with heavy armor, could allow a ship to get close enough to ram and sink another ship (even an ironclad). Nevertheless, successfully ramming another ship was a difficult task that could sometimes damage the ramming vessel itself; rams once again drifted into obsolescence in the decades after the war.


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In the South, where iron was scarce and the ability to make powerful steam engines was virtually nonexistent, Confederates were also forced to seek other methods of protecting their ports from an increasingly armored Union fleet. One solution was to deploy "torpedoes" – submerged explosives (which would be called sea mines today) that could detonate under enemy ships.  Torpedoes therefore had the advantage of being able to attack an ironclad below the waterline, where its hull was most vulnerable.


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Torpedos

When torpedoes proved successful, the Confederacy designed the first "torpedo boats," which carried mines on long spars in front of the ship.  The boats sat low in the water so that they were harder to see, and presented a smaller target to cannon fire.  On multiple occasions, torpedo boats (which were quickly adopted by the Union) were able to sail up to anchored ships and detonate torpedoes against the vessels' hulls.


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Submarines

Southerners took the concept of low-profile torpedo boats one step further with the development of several submarines.  The first-ever submarine to destroy an enemy ship was the H.L. Hunley, which sank USS Housatonic near Charleston in February 1864. 


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The Hunley was essentially a submerged torpedo boat that had been plagued by bad luck and technical problems since its creation – losing almost two full crews in training exercises.  Her career was short-lived; the sub sank with all hands almost immediately after the attack, and no other submarines were able to achieve any notable success during the war.

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