Re: HMS Warrior vs. USS Monitor

On Mar 24, 3:27 pm, "Bryn" <bryn.monn...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Which is the better source? The turret turns, why not use that
feature? The description seems valid for a learning situation, turn
the gun ports away from the target to load turn back to the target to
fire.

There are several reasons the turret was fixed.

1. To turn the turret involved jacking it up (by hammering wooden
wedges under the base of the spindle), and keying it up (engaging the
giant cog of the spindle to the cog that turned it). This was a fairly
significant operation, and any hits disloging the wedges, spindle or
cogs while jacked up would cause the turret to jam. Also while jacked
up the turret was not flush to the deck (by several inches) and water
poored through the gap.

2. It was impossible to aim by turning the turret. There is no gearing
and only one speed, taking about 20 seconds to rotate 180 degrees,
this is far too quick to aim. At 1,000 yards a typical large warship
in broadside occupies about 5-7 degrees, and due to human reaction
times etc. the turret could only be aimed to about 20 degrees.

The Coles Turret OTOH was much slower (2 mins to turn 180 degrees, so
it could lay on to about 2 degrees) and hand cranked. However, this
meant it suffered from neither weakness.

In the action at Hampton Roads, the Monitors gun crews fired 41 shots.
The crews would load one gun, then the other (about 7-8 minutes each),
then fire both (she she fired about once every 15 minutes). They hit
20 times. She was using 15 pound charges (later cleared to use 25
pound charges in the rematch that never happened) and solid cast iron
shot, although she had wrought iron shot aboard (her Captain was
worried they'd damage the guns and later had them put ashore).
Interestingly, her Captain reports the cast iron shot "went straight
through her" (Virginia) in his report, something we know didn't
happen.

If interested, the Union correspondance regarding that engagement is
at:http://cdl.library.cornell.edu/cgi-bin/moa/pageviewer?root=%2Fmoa%2Fo...

This is a bad address, can you supply one that works?

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The CSS Virginia OTOH, had only 5 solid shot per gun, and so instead
concentrated her fire on USS Minnesota (with shell, hot-shot and
canister), but still hit Monitor 21 or 22 times (various different
sources say Monitor was hit either 23 or 24 times, but two of those
where shots from the Minnesota aimed at Virginia).

Sorry, you are not paying attention. The Monitor turret turned by
means of a separate steam engine. The jacking up process was done by
the Navy Yard to "fix" a non-existent problem of the fit between the
turret and its base.

The turret was hard to stop at any one point so they loaded the guns
when faced away from the target and ..."(w)hen the gun was once again
ready for firing, it was run out of the porthole, and the turret was
set in motion. Greene, with his hand on the firing lanyard and his eye
on the changing scene as seen through the porthole, would search for a
target, and when it came into view he would jerk the lanyard 'on the
fly' and let the turret continue turning until it again faced away
from the enemy. It was a tricky manuever, requiring delicate timing
and a constant awareness of the dangers of firing too close to the
pilothouse." Monitor, deKay, p. 191

"Designed by the Swedish engineer John Ericsson, the USS Monitor was
described as a "cheesbox on a raft," consisting of a heavy round
revolving iron turret on the deck, housing two large (11 inch)
Dahlgren guns, paired side by side. The original design of the ship
used a system of heavy metal shutters to protect the gun ports while
reloading. However, the operation of the shutters proved to be so
cumbersome that the crews operating the guns adopted the procedure of
simply rotating the turret away from potential hostile fire to reload
the guns. Further, the inertia of the rotating turret proved to be so
great, that a system for stopping turret to fire the guns was only
implemented on later models of ships in the Monitor class. The crew of
the USS Monitor solved the turret inertia problem by firing the guns
on the fly while the turret rotated past the target. While this
procedure resulted in a substantial loss of accuracy, given the close
range at which the USS Monitor operated, the loss of accuracy was not
critical." Wiki

"A steam donkey engine turned the turret. "

Wiki http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Monitor

.

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