People love the impressive examples of sinking ships, puffs of powder smoke, beautifully given orders, the heroism of some commanders and the cowardice of others. That is why the Battle of Liss made such a strong impression on contemporaries. And this despite the fact that only two ships were killed there: one from a ramming strike, the other from an explosion of ammunition caused by a fire. That is, the reasons are fifty-fifty. But the "ram" looked much "cooler", so general attention was drawn to it. However, any phenomenon in the culture of Homo sapiens goes through five stages in its existence: first, the phenomenon arises in the depths of old relations, technologies, structures; then it goes through a period of development; the third stage - "who did not know this!" (complete domination of the phenomenon, technology, relations; the fourth stage - "recession", "leaving the arena", and, finally, the last - the phenomenon, technology, process, etc. are present somewhere in the "backyard." It arose in the era of the Ancient World, then experienced a rebirth and a stage of rapid development, when all battleships acquired "ram noses", after which the ram, both technologically and as a method of waging war at sea, became a thing of the past. many readers of VO were interested in the question, and what preceded the idea of ramming "to Lissa" and besides the famous "Merrimack" / "Virginia"? After all, even the same "La Gloire" and "Warrior" did not have ram "noses"? However, the ram ships appeared not all of a sudden, and there were more than one "Virginia." And just about one such ship we will tell today …
The Weehawken monitor is firing at Atlanta.
And it so happened that when an internecine war broke out in the North American United States, the entire navy remained with the northerners, who with its help blocked the coast of the southern states. The profession of "blockade breaker" appeared (very well described in the novel by M. Mitchell "Gone with the Wind"), and, accordingly, these "breakthrough captains" also needed "breaker-ships". They were mined in Europe by hook or by crook, and it just so happened that among them was the mail steamer "Feingal" with a displacement of 700 tons, built in England, and launched in 1861. Thanks to two steam engines working on one propeller, he could develop a fairly decent speed of 13 knots, which was quite enough for transporting mail between the ports of Scotland.
In September 1861, it was bought by James Bullocks, a Confederate resident in England, to transport military supplies to the Confederacy. Then he hired an English crew, and the purpose of the voyage indicated the port of Nassau in the British Bahamas. Only when the ship was already at sea, the team announced that it was going to Savannah and, in addition, also belonged to the Confederation.
Ram "Manassas"
The Feingal arrived in Savannah on November 12, successfully breaking the blockade and delivering a large consignment of military equipment to the southerners. There and then it was possible to sail back and forth in order to quickly deliver southern cotton to the factories of Liverpool and Manchester, but it took more than a month to deliver the cotton to Savannah. Meanwhile, the northerners did not waste time and so blocked the exit from the Savannah River that it was impossible to get out to sea this way. The ship was trapped, and in January 1862 Bullocks decided to simply hand over the now useless ship to the military. And they decided to convert it into a battleship capable of fighting the ships of the northerners.
Meanwhile, the idea of hitting the enemy at sea precisely by means of a ramming strike took possession of the minds of the southern sailors. And it's clear why. They did not have ships equal to those of the northerners and they had to look for some new ways to neutralize it. And already in the first months of the war, the southerners managed to build the battleship Manassas, which had a displacement of 387 tons, a length of 44 m and a speed of 4 knots. The armament of this strange cigar-shaped vessel with two pipes sticking out of it (it is believed that there were two, although in some linocuts of the time it is depicted as a single pipe) was a single 64-pound Dahlgren bomb cannon. Moreover, it was installed in the nose so that it could only shoot straight ahead. And this ship was supposed to attack the enemy in the following way: first by firing at it while on its traverse, and then hitting the side with its ram.
The Manassas set off for its first battle on October 12, 1861 (that is, six months earlier than Virginia fought the Monitor). The ram struck the northerners' ship, but it turned out to be sliding and did no harm to the enemy. No one was killed in that battle, but seeing what a "miracle" was attacking their ships, the northerners panicked and retreated.
Virginia goes into battle …
But the battle on April 24, 1862 for "Manassas" was the second and last. In it, he had to participate in repelling the attack of the ships of the northerners on the Jenson and Saint-Philip forts on the Mississippi River near New Orleans. Together with the battleship "Louisiana", which supported it with fire, "Manassas" consistently tried to ram the sloop "Pensacola", which managed to evade the strike, and the steamer frigate "Mississippi". The latter did not succeed, but the blow turned out to be sliding and did not harm the ship. But the corvette "Brooklyn" could not dodge the ram. The cannon fired, the side of the ship was pierced with a ram, but it turned out that a coal pit was located in this place, so that the ship could stay afloat. Here the sloop "Pensokol" tried to ram the "southerner", and "Manassas", dodging the ram, ran aground. Fearing that the "superweapon" would fall on the northerners, the team burned it down.
As a result, it was decided to convert it into the battleship "Feingal". The name was given to it "Atlanta", and it was rebuilt at the factory of the Tift brothers, all in the same one in Savannah. Moreover, a significant part of the funds for the new ship was collected by patriotic women of the city. Well, how exactly such actions were carried out was described very well by Margaret Mitchell in her novel "Gone with the Wind."
The constructive alteration of the ship consisted in the following: in order to turn it into a battleship at the steamer, the freeboard was cut off to the main deck. Then a trapezoidal casemate for artillery with inclined walls was built on it. Even then, people knew that shells bounced off sloped armor. The wheelhouse was placed on his roof, in front of the only chimney.
Section of the Atlanta hull along the wheelhouse.
From all these alterations, the displacement of the Atlanta reached 1006 tons, its draft increased sharply, and its speed dropped by half. Now she could not develop more than 10 knots at all, but in reality she gave even less - something about 7 …
The artillery on the new ship was placed in a casemate, in which there were as many as eight gun ports: one in the front wall, one in the rear, and three more on each side. All of them were protected by armored shutters, reinforced so that they could be raised and lowered. Thus, immediately after the shot, when the gun was rolled back for reloading, the shutters were closed. But due to the strong slope of the walls near the casemate, the angles of horizontal shelling were only 5-7 degrees.
The guns on the battleship were Brooks' muzzle-loading systems. Cannons of 178 mm caliber were located in the front and rear of the casemate. Their weight was 6, 8 tons, and they could shoot 36-kg cylindrical shells, or 50-kg cast iron bombs. It is interesting that the rails on the deck of these guns were located so that they could fire not only forward and backward, but also on the sides, using the nearest side ports of any side for this. From the central ports, 163-mm rifled guns could be fired. Thus, there were only four guns on board, but there were eight gun ports.
On the bow of the ship, its creators installed a wrought iron ram tusk six meters long, attached to the stem and in addition held in place with steel rods. In addition, a sixth mine with a charge of 23 kilograms of gunpowder was reinforced on the nose of the Entente. In the stowed position, she was above the water, but when the ship went on the attack, she was lowered.
The cannon casemate was protected by two layers of "armor" made of rolled iron plates, 51 millimeters thick. They were made from old railway rails by rolling, so there was no question of the high quality of such "armor", although the total thickness of 102 millimeters at that time was considered quite sufficient. In addition, due to the inclination of the walls of 60 degrees, it turned out that this armor was equal to 200 mm. The armor was lined with teak 76 mm thick and two layers of pine wood, 194 mm each. The armor plates were bolted to the wood lining.
The freeboard of the ship was armored with a layer of 51 mm armor plates, but the deck was not covered with armor. The deckhouse had a booking similar to that of a casemate.
Sea trials of "Anlanta" began on July 31, 1862. Due to the high overload, the hull immediately began to leak. No one thought about the ventilation of the casemate, because of what the machines were operating in it, there was a terrible heat, and even its armor was heated in the sun. The ship was poorly obedient to the helm and kept on course. As a result, one of the officers gave him the following description:
"What an awkward, awkward, God-forgotten ship!"
The Entente was returned to the dock and the leaks began to be repaired. As a result, by November 1862, she finally entered service with the Confederate fleet. And already in January 1863, she received an order to attack the ships of the northerners blocking Savannah. Since by this time the battle on the Hampton roadstead had already taken place, it was decided to hurry and attack the northerners before their monitors approached them. But it took time (almost a month) to clear the fairway for the "Savannah", but in the meantime "court and case" two monitors came to the aid of the blocking squadron of northerners.
The device of the monitor tower of the "Passaik" type
Atlanta attempted to sail on February 3, taking advantage of the tide. But the headwind did not allow the water to rise to the required level and the vessel could not go through the shallows. On March 19, she finally got out of the river. It was planned to enter the Port Royal Strait, which played a very important role as a supply base for the armies of the northerners. The southerners seem to have chosen the right moment, since the northerners' monitors were located near Charleston. But the military secret was revealed by deserters from the Confederate army and three monitors were immediately sent to Port Royal. Then the leapfrog began with the appointment of the commanders of the squadron of the southerners. As a result, it was only on May 30 that the new commander decided to attack the northerners' fleet. But then one of the Atlanta's two engines failed, and she ran aground. They removed it from the shallow, but again time passed, and two monitors approached the ships of the blocking squadron: "Weehawken" and "Nekhent". In general, one gets the impression that no one especially among the southerners was in a hurry. Day after day, week after week, as a result, only on the evening of June 15, "Atlanta", having overcome all obstacles, safely descended the river to the sea and hid in a well-camouflaged position, preparing to attack anchored federal monitors in the morning. Commodore Webbs, who commanded the operation, decided to detonate one of the monitors with a pole mine, and sink the other either with a battering ram or with artillery fire. Moreover, he was so confident in the success of his enterprise that he called two tugs for his "future trophies".
It is quite possible that everything would have turned out that way if the "Entente" had a higher speed. Because when on June 17 at four in the morning she went to sea and rushed to the attack, the watchmen on the federal ships not only managed to notice her and raise the alarm, but the northerners also had enough time to raise pairs on both monitors. Therefore, the southerners failed to catch them by surprise. Moreover, when the distance between the ships was reduced to 2.4 km and "Atlanta" fired at the monitor "Weehawken" from its 178-mm nasal rifled gun, her gunner did not manage to hit him.
And further, further "Atlanta", poorly keeping on the course, again ran aground. Meanwhile, the Weehawken approached her 270 meters, turned its turret and fired alternately at the stationary ship with both of its heavy guns. It should be noted that at this time the northerners on their Passaic-type river monitors (to which the Weehawken belonged) used Dahlgren smoothbore cannons, of two calibers: 279-mm and 380-mm. This weapon was chosen for several reasons. First, savings. The fact is that 380-mm guns were very laborious to manufacture and expensive, but 279-mm guns are much lighter and cheaper. Second, the American sailors felt that the combination of a heavy but slow-loading 380mm cannon with a lighter, faster-firing 279mm would give their ships greater firepower. But everything turned out not at all as planned. It turned out that a faster-firing gun prevented from loading a slower-firing gun with its shots, and we had to fire them in one gulp.
Dahlgren's guns in the tower of the Passaic monitor. Drawing from Harperts Weekly, 1862
Note that Dahlgren's 380-mm smoothbore cannon was at that time the heaviest and most powerful naval gun. Its 200 kilogram steel or iron cores at a short distance could break through 100 millimeter two-layer iron armor, which has an inclination of 60 degrees to the vertical - that is, about 150 millimeters of iron armor standing vertically. The firing range was 2000 meters. In addition, it turned out, although not immediately, that the heavy cannon balls were more effective when firing at the highly inclined armor of the Southerner battleships, since they gave fewer ricochets.
Since the turrets of these monitors were an exact copy of the turret of the very first "Monitor" by Erickson, it turned out that the embrasures in them were too narrow for 380-mm guns. There was no time to expand them and they had to shoot from the guns without sticking them out of the tower, therefore, in order to avoid smoke from the tower, special chimney boxes were installed on both sides of the embrasures.
So, the battle began, the 279-mm gun of the monitor fired a shot, but the projectile flew past the target. But the second shot from the 380-millimeter gun hit the Entente casemate near the bow gun port. A terrible blow from a 200-kilogram cannonball shattered his armor and shattered the wooden lining. True, the core still did not pass through the metal and wood. But it knocked out into the casemate a whole fountain of chips so that they killed and wounded the entire gun crew of the bow gun. The southerners tried to answer, but again they did not hit.
Meanwhile, Wickohen reloaded and fired again. The 279-mm shell hit the battleship on the side, causing the armor plates on it to disperse. A leak formed, with which nothing could be done. Then a shot from a 380-mm cannon hit the starboard side of the ship right next to the gun port, which was opened at that time. And again a sheaf of fragments and debris flew into the casemate, distorting half of the gun crew. Well, when the last 380-mm shell pierced the wheelhouse armor and wounded both helmsmen, Atlanta lowered the flag and surrendered. One sailor on board was killed and sixteen seriously wounded. Moreover, it is interesting that Atlanta managed to fire seven shots, but did not hit even once, but Weehawken fired five times and hit four times, but Nekhent did not even have time to take part in the battle. The whole fight lasted only 15 minutes! For the victory over the ship of the Southerners, the US Navy awarded an award of 35,000 dollars, which was divided between the crews of two monitors and the gunboat "Cimarron", which at the time of delivery was also next to the battleship of the Southerners.
Atlanta after being repaired at the hands of northerners on the James River.
The northerners repaired the captured battleship and brought it into their own fleet under the same name. True, they replaced the guns of the southerners with Parrot's rifled guns: two 203-millimeter guns in the bow and stern, and 138-millimeter guns were placed on the sides. She had a chance to take part in battles and shoot at the southerners, but she did not do anything outstanding under the new flag.
After the war, she was taken to the reserve, and then sold to a private person for $ 25,000 in May 1869. But her further fate turned out to be both interesting and tragic at the same time. For $ 26,000, Atlanta, renamed Triumph, was sold to the government of the Republic of Haiti, which was in conflict with the neighboring Dominican Republic. The US Customs Service twice delayed its dispatch, believing that the sale of a warship in this case was a violation of neutrality, but, apparently, it was about a lot of money, because in the end, the ship with a cargo of guns and ammunition left at sea on December 18, 1869 of the year. It did, but it did not arrive at the port of destination, and it disappeared, no one knows where and where, when crossing by sea. Whether the aliens from outer space, who hastened to capture its crew, are to blame for this, or whether the design defects are to blame for everything, today we can only guess about this!
