Armored Frigates

[Zoetermeer]

After the new patch (1.06), armored frigates have been removed from my reinforcements screen (playing as the Union). I've only built 3 or 4 of these, so I don't think I've exhausted my force pool...anyone else experienced this?

[Director]

The Union never built many ocean-going armored frgates. The 'New Ironsides', the sloop 'Galena' and perghaps the 'Dunderberg' pretty much exhaust the list of new construction. The steam frigate 'Roanoke' was cut down and converted to a triple-turret monitor type but was unsuccessful (the hull and timbers were too weak for the weight of armor) and was never used for any important missions. For large ships the Union concentrated on fast, but conventional (unarmored) steam ships and on large, ocean-going monitors. None of the latter were really needed so they were not in service during the war.

Without a doubt the Union could have built large armored frigates, or finished the big seagoing monitors at an early date, but they weren't needed and so were not constructed. If I remember correctly, Cramp Shipyards in Philadelphia built a pair of armored frigates for Italy during this time, indicating there was plenty of surplus materials, yard space and labor as well as design talent.

[Adam the VIth]

.....and therefore the Union player should be able to build them......I like some historical limits, but imagine the game with European intervention.....USA would have suddenly concentrated on ships like that.

I just like having some relatively historical options available....within reason.....not totally unlimited.

[Winfield S. Hancock]

I agree with Adam. If there is European intervention, the Union will need the armored frigates to take on the HMS Warrior and similar ships. Inclusion of the ability to build armored frigates is entirely historical. Just because it wasnt the path chosen by the Union historically should not foreclose the ability to make these builds.

[Gabriel]

The Union never built many ocean-going armored frgates. The 'New Ironsides', the sloop 'Galena' and perghaps the 'Dunderberg' pretty much exhaust the list of new construction. The steam frigate 'Roanoke' was cut down and converted to a triple-turret monitor type but was unsuccessful (the hull and timbers were too weak for the weight of armor) and was never used for any important missions. For large ships the Union concentrated on fast, but conventional (unarmored) steam ships and on large, ocean-going monitors. None of the latter were really needed so they were not in service during the war.

The blame falls entirely on the unfortunate Monitor-mania that swept the nation after Hampton roads. Galena was a dissapointment, while New Ironsides was by any metric a more successful ship (and design) than the Monitors. Fully sea worthy, exponentionally more firepower, well armored, sail capable, etc. Not to disparage the Monitor type too much, they certainly served a purpose. Still, the U.S would not have a real ocean going navy until the 1880s.

In the context of the game, they should certainly be an option for the Union. It could represent Sec. Welles choosing to invest in large sea going 'coventional' iron clads. Perhaps for the Confederate player, once he reaches a certain level of intervention, he should be able to 'purchase' and construct a limited number of armored cruisers from the British or French.

Having only played the recently played the demo and found this game, I have a question or two, the answers for which if they were in the manual, tutorial, or FAQ, I couldn't find.

- How does speed coefficient represent speed? and - does speed play into combat at all or is that rolled into the patrol/evade vales? I also noticed sail frigates have a speed coefficient of 120% (except for foreign sail frigates) while all other ships have it at 100%.

Edit - On second thought, I suppose the initiative values would represent 'speed' and manuever. That seems consistent with the values I see - 5 for transports, 7 for riverines and the sail brigs and frigates, and 8 + for the steam frigate and ironclade frigate. I guess that makes me wonder how important initiative is for determining if a battle takes place.

- Lastly, how do the number of ships available for construction get determined? In the Jul 1861 scenario the U.S has 33 or so Steam Frigates available for construction, while the C.S has slightly more than 20. Not that the C.S can construct near that number due to war supply limitaitons. I suppose the lack of war supplies is a way of abstracting the limited, almost negligible shipyard facilities in the south outside of Norfolk. I guess then ship buildling capability for Steam Frigates and the such isn't tied directly to large Harbors (which tie together ports and shipyards?) but instead a fixed figure, like infantry brigades.

[Zoetermeer]

No offense intended to anyone here, but why does it seem like every thread posted on this forum degenerates into a historical debate? I wasn't really asking about the historical reasons why the Union didn't build many armored frigates - just curious why they disappeared from my reinforcements screen when it said I had a ton in my force pool.

[Gabriel]

No offense intended to anyone here, but why does it seem like every thread posted on this forum degenerates into a historical debate? I wasn't really asking about the historical reasons why the Union didn't build many armored frigates - just curious why they disappeared from my reinforcements screen when it said I had a ton in my force pool.

I. A bug/oversight.

II. Intentional.

Those are the only two viable possibilities. The offerings about the history was in the case of the second possibility being the reason.

[Mike]

No offense intended to anyone here, but why does it seem like every thread posted on this forum degenerates into a historical debate? I wasn't really asking about the historical reasons why the Union didn't build many armored frigates - just curious why they disappeared from my reinforcements screen when it said I had a ton in my force pool.

We love our history

[Winfield S. Hancock]

We love our history indeed. I don't want any game to necessarily hard wire a historical result, but what I want is a game that produces results that are historically plausible. While it may not be historical that the Union built a bunch of armored frigates, it is historically plausible that they could have. Thus, I would want that as an option for the Union player.

Overall, I think that AGEODs design for AACW is excellent, and comes the closest to anything I have seen in over two decades of historical computer wargaming to producing historically plausible results. You wont find Mexico conquering all of North America in this game. For example, while I love and support Paradox and have purchased all of their products, I have found that most all of their games, without significant modding, produce ahistorical results, from Romania conquering the world in HOI to the current version of EUIII where Wurrtemburg can cover half the world in its colonies before 1650. These are not historically plausible results, and are why most Paradox games play much better with heavy mods such as the HIP, VIP, and Magna Mundi.

[Director]

I did not have any insight into the reasons the game may not support ships the Union did not actually build, except to say that the force pool may be limited to the actual construction plus/minus a few percent.

'New Ironsides' was intended to be a shallow-draft armored ship and as such was almost useless, being neither shallow-draft enough for coastal and riverine work nor manueverable in such circumstances. She was a powerful addition to a blockade in the sense of out-classing most Confederate ironclads but was not a match for a European ironclad frigate on the high seas. Her armor was stout but her ends were completely unarmored. Her engines were very slow (6 to 8 kts versus 14 for HMS Warrior). She was known to be almost unmanageable in shallow water, at slow speed or in a cross-current (see accounts of the attack on Charleston harbor).

The 'unfortunate' Monitor-mania was a realistic response to a successful design. Monitors were small, cheap, well-protected and powerfully armed (albeit with a small number of guns). Most simulations (such as Yaquinto's Ironclads) will give the edge to a double-turreted monitor like the Onondaga against the Warrior class, whose guns aren't effective against strong armor and whose armor protection is limited by their vast size. (I have gamed out HMS Warrior and Black Prince against Onondaga in Chesapeake Bay many times and it is not unusual for the monitor's 15-inch Dahlgren explosive shells to rip the two bigger ships. The key is using the monitor's manueverability and all-around-fire arc to stay out of the big ships' broadsides... not that hard).

Within five years of the prototype, Monitor-class ships were able to cross the Atlantic and sail the Pacific under their own power. They were not intended for warfare on the high seas - not that many naval battles of the day were fought outside coastal waters. European aversion to Monitor-type ships was rooted in two objections: the inability to carry sail and the inability to fight the guns in a seaway. Both are valid and true. But for coastal 'brown-water' fighting the Monitor type was cheaper, could be built faster, and represented the most bang for the buck of any contemporary design.

[Gabriel]

'New Ironsides' was intended to be a shallow-draft armored ship

It was a shallow-draft armored ship, shallow for an ocean going warship. You compare NI in in some aspects against the Monitors, and in still others against foreign vessels. Her reputation, also seeing those accounts of her actions at Charleston, also included being able to withstand hits with less damage than any other Union vessels of the time. Not to gloss over the fact that N.I wasn't required to be towed anywhere. Of course, as a shallow draft armored battery, it's not going to compare to a Monitor. But the Monitor isn't going to compare to NI as a ship.

As for the rest - you are defending the Monitor type when I clearly stated I wasn't attacking the ship type itself, which proved useful, but the fact that because of it's popularity, the U.S delayed for too long the construction of a viable armored fleet capable of projecting it's power, which NI, for all it's faults, represented.

As for Onondaga vs. Warrior. That is an interesting pairing. I would think Monitor itself would be more contemporary with Warrior - why not Onondaga versus Bellerophon? Bellerophon or even Warrior would completely dictate the terms of the combat with clear advantage in speed, it could engage, or not, at it's leisure. While one class was in combat operations confined to being effective only really in one sphere, the latter was more versatile and capable of power projection. Again though - if all you want is a raft, with a couple guns, and some armor, then the Monitor is sufficient, as it was during the ACW.

[McNaughton]

It is a game limitation, otherwize you end up with wacky results (the USN being superior to the Royal Navy, for example). In reality, if the French and British were to side with the South, the USN would find itself in major trouble, they themselves having to run their navy like the CSN (raiders).

Most of the game represents 'reality' of the situation, that the USN didn't need ocean-going ironclads in significant numbers because their fleet was a local-based fleet, and its goal was blockade. Even with French/British intervention, I don't see the construction of a mass ironclad navy a viable option at this point in time, as the construction and use of ironclads was limited to relatively small numbers (the greatest ocean-going ironclad battle, Lissia, between Austria and Italy was indecisive, as Austria defeated Italy, even though they had fewer ironclads, and the numbers were at just over a dozen for both sides).

This was a transition time, where Ironclads were being developed, you will still find that most ships would, and still should be, wooden. As it goes, you can build ocean ironclads, in good enouh numbers to relate to foreign contemporaries.

[Gabriel]

Further

The second experimental Ironclad, the New Ironsides, was the least revolutionary of the three in design and yet, in almost everey respect, by far the most successful. Strangely, the New Ironsides has always been over-shadowed by the Monitor. Despite the fact that thsi type offered a considerable tactical advantage in offensive firepower, the New Ironsides was the only broadsides ironclad in the Union Navy during the war. It proved its worth in sixteen months of service with the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron off Charleston.

Launched in May 1862 and commissioned that August, the New Ironsides was designed by Barnabas Bartol for Merrick and Sons of Philadelphia. It was much more conventional in appearance with an extreme length-to-beam ratio to ensure a draft of 15 feet, 8 inches, for coastal operations. To a considerable extent patterened after the French Gloire, the N.I displaced 3,500 tons and 170 feet of its length was protected by 4.5 inches of iron belt. The N.I boasted an iron ram on its prow and mounted a formidble battery of two eight inch parrott rifles and fourteen XI-inch Dahlgren smoothboores.

The N.I was the most powerful warship of the U.S navy during the civil war. It was slow - only seven knots instead of the design specified ten knots - bu this was in consequence of its buikly hull. In combat, the ship proved virtually indestructible to enemy fire. It was far superior to the Monitor and its successors in seaworthiness, armament, rate of fire, and even in armor. The Monitor had laminated armor, which Ericsson chose because of the need for speedy construction, bu the N.I utilized superior solid plate. The only advatages of the monitors over this type were their shallower draft and small target area.

Off Charleston, the "guardian of the blockade", as the NI came to be know, proved an effetive detterent to COndredrate irconald attacks against wooden Union blockading ships. Clearly its service at Charleston was unmatched by any other Union warship. Always the priamry target for return fire during Union bombardments of Confeerate shroe positions, the NI came off with only minor damage, whereas the monitors often suffered severely and in even, in some cases, fatally.

The NI could palce at least ten times the firepower on target per hour as the Monitor, and five times as the later Passaic class of monitors, and this fire coudl be concentrated on a particular point. While the XV inch guns of the Passaic class were much more powerful individually than the XI inchers of the NI, the monitors were at a severe disadvantage in fighting at sea. The earliest monitors had only 1-2 feet of freeboard, and even the "sea going" monitors had only 2 feet 7 inches. The NI had a full 13 feet of freeboard, putting the bores of her guns 9-10 feet above the water, where there was no fear of interference by th e sea. Its higher freeboard also enabled the NI to keep its speed in a seaway, which the Monitor could not. The NI also enjoyed the advantage of there being no possbility of a jammed turret. Its most serious weakness was that its armor did not extend to the ends of the vseel.

Although smaller than the French La Gloire or the British Warrior, the NI was their equal in armor protection and was superior to them in armament. The European ships had the advantage only in sepeed. The NI also had signicant advantages with compared to the Virginia. These pluses would have been critical had the Confederacy been able to acquire the "Laird Rams" building in Britiain.

[Director]

Some good points, Gabriel. I apologize if I sounded confrontational - I've been on a four-day recovery from flu and I am a little tired and cranky yet.

For the money I still think monitors are a better investment for coastal operations. NI is just too big, too deep-draft (despite her broad beam), too unhandy and above all too expensive. For a blue-water strategy you would need actual armored frigates, or large sea-going ships like Dunderberg, Dictator, Puritan and the late-war double-turreted types (Monadnock and Kalamazoo classes). NI did have a higher freeboard than a monitor but wasn't able to use it - her broad beam and flat bottom made her a heavy roller in any sort of sea. Personally I think the ability to serve guns in a seaway is somewhat over-rated; almost every naval engagement before Tsushima took place in sight of land.

NI had a nice battery of 11" Dahlgrens, but against armored targets a smaller number of more powerful weapons is 'generally' the best way to go. The 15" Dahlgrens (also 150-pdr and 200-pdr Parrot rifles and the 7" and 8" Blakely rifles) hit harder than the 11" Dahlgren and thus I think are preferable to that gun. An 11" won't penetrate late-war armor like the 6" plate on the CSS Tennessee (see the Battle of Mobile Bay); a 15" will penetrate any armor of the period (see CSS Atlanta, CSS Tennessee). For total poundage of shot per broadside NI beats a monitor... but by 1863-64 the 11" is no longer a premium weapon. The 15" was developed to replace it, and a single 15" that cracks the armor is superior to any number of 11" that bounce off.

It is true that the 11" Dahlgren is superior in striking power (at close range) to any European gun of the period. But the 70-pdr Armstrong rifles on HMS Warrior will accurately hit and can penetrate New Ironsides at a range that makes her smoothbore Dahlgrens unlikely to score. And NI doesn't have the speed to close the range or open it at will, either... she has to let the enemy pick his optimum range. If your opponent has longer reach and better legs it is hard to win.

All I can say is I have gamed out NI versus European ironclads like Warrior and Gloire and, barring a major critical hit, NI always loses. She isn't fast enough, manueverable enough or well-enough armored to go toe-to-toe and win (if she had another 6 kts of speed and deeper lines she would be fine). A monitor like Onondaga can duke it out (the Monitor or a Passaic class lacks the firepower of a double-turret ship and will lose) mainly because it is manueverable enough to stay out of a frigate's broadside arc. Going 'broadside-to-broadside' with a big European warship is a bad idea for New Ironsides or a monitor; the critical point is that a monitor can rotate its turrets and fire at angles a broadside ship cannot, and is low enough in the water to be a difficult target at even moderate ranges. No matter how much armor you pack, preventing the enemy from firing and hitting are the best defenses.

All that said, the Union needed coastal warships and struggled continually to try to produce armored ships with shallower and shallower draft. Had sea-going armored warships been needed, the cut-down Roanoke, the Monadnock and Kalamazoo classes and the new Dunderberg were the models that would have been copied. New Ironsides was in theory a good idea but the principles of ironclad design were not well-enough understood for her to be a successful design. Virginia, Monitor, Keokuk, Galena and others also suffered from this pioneering - NI was not alone in being less than perfect.

[Gabriel]

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