Slitherine

quote:

ORIGINAL: Gil R.

And as I mentioned elsewhere, you can modify the start file so that each CSA ship unit has a strength of 1, which will take nine turns sitting in a shipyard to get up to full strength. It's a way of hamstringing the CSA navy initially.

The South entered upon the war without any naval preparation, and with very limited resources by which its deficiencies could be promptly supplied. Indeed, it would hardly be possible to imagine a great maritime country more destitute of the means for carrying on a naval war than the Confederate States in 1861. No naval vessels, properly speaking, came into their possession, except the Fulton, an old side-wheeler built in 1837, and at this time laid up at Pensacola, and the sunken and half-destroyed hulks at Norfolk, of which only one, the Merrimac, could be made available for service. The seizures of other United States vessels included six revenue-cutters, the Duane at Norfolk, the William Aiken at Charleston, the Lewis Cass at Mobile, the Robert McClelland and the Washington at New Orleans, and the Henry Dodge at Galveston; ## three coast-survey vessels, the schooners Petrel and Twilight, and the steam-tender Firefly; and six or eight light-house tenders. As all of these were small, and most of them were sailing vessels, they were of little value.
       Several coasting or river steamers belonging to private owners, which were lying in Southern waters when the war broke out, were taken or purchased by the Confederate Government.

##The James C. Dobbin was also seized at Savannah, but was soon afterward released.-J. R. S.

       The most important were the Jamestown and the Yorktown (afterward the Patrick Henry) at Richmond; the Selden at Norfolk; the Beaufort, Raleigh, Winslow, and Ellis, screw-tugs plying on the Chesapeake and Albemarle Canal; the side-wheel passenger boats Seabird and Curlew, in the North Carolina Sounds; the Nashville at Charleston, and the Everglade at Savannah.
       The Star of the West, whose name had been on everybody's lips after the attack made upon her in January, 1861, while she was attempting to relieve Fort Sumter, had subsequently sailed on transport service to Indianola, Texas, where she was seized in April by a party of Texas volunteers. In the Confederate navy she became the St. Philip. She was stationed at New Orleans as a receiving-ship when Farragut passed the forts, and fled with other vessels up the Mississippi River, taking refuge finally in the Yazoo. In March, 1863, when the ships of the Yazoo Pass expedition descended the windings of the Tallahatchie to attack Fort Pemberton, they found the river barricaded by the hull of a sunken vessel, which was no other than the once-famous Star of the West.
       The purchases and seizures made at New Orleans enabled the Confederate Government to equip at that point its only considerable fleet. The vessels fitted out successively by Commodores Rousseau and Hollins included the Habana, afterward the Sumter, in which Semmes made his first commerce-destroying cruise; the Enoch Train, which was altered into a ram and called the Manassas; the Florida and Pamlico, employed on Lake Pontchartrain; the Marques de la Habama (Mr. Rae), the Webb, Yankee (Jackson), Gros-tete (Maurepas), Lizzie Simmons (Pontchartrain), Ivy, General Polk, and a few others of smaller size. The State of Louisiana and the citizens of New Orleans also made purchases of vessels on their own account. Thus the Governor Moore and the General Quitman, which took part in the action at the forts, were State vessels; and the Enoch Train was originally purchased by private subscription. There were also a large number of flat-boats or coal-barges, destined for use as fire-ships, upon which Commodore George N. Hollins placed great reliance.

(http://www.civilwarhome.com/unionconfednavies.htm)

quote:

ORIGINAL: jimwinsor

Yes but did you read when I said this:

"Of course, you could correctly point out that many (if not most) of these ships were in not first line modern fighting ships...but if you read the description of the 90 vessel Union navy in the same article, you'll see that comment can easily be made for them as well."

quote:

ORIGINAL: jimwinsor

Um...when the article says 50 of the Union ships "were now as obsolete as the galleys of Themistocles" then, yeah, I do kinda feel they should be in the same 2nd rate catagory as the converted CSA revenue cutters and the like.  At least, that seems to be the opinion of the author who wrote this article.  The phrase "they were of no more use than if they did not exist" leads me to believe the coverted CSA revenue cutter would NOT be pounded into kindling in a fair fight...in fact if the revenue cutter be a steam ship, my money would be on the revenue cutter.

Can you cite a contrary source?

quote:

ORIGINAL: Mr. Z

I would like to briefly note that in general we were comfortable including both state navies and revenue cutters in CSA "fleets"--though I would agree that it is unfortunate that the game must currently treat them as full-fledged oceangoing warships. We may try to have a look at the naval OOBs to see what could be adjusted--though personally I think it would feel equally wrong to give the CSA *no* naval forces whatsoever.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Joram

I was wondering about this too because one of the things that give you victory points is blockading at least half the ports (and more VPs if you blockade them all). I couldn't for the life of me figure out how the Union was ever supposed to accomplish this with what they start with. Especially compared to the confederate navy. Plus the ships being fantastically expensive, I was wondering if it was ever even possible to build enough ships to do it.

quote:

ORIGINAL: jimwinsor

I dunno...a few longer range guns mounted on a steamer, it seems to me, could make short work of an obsolete sailing sloop or brig (which is what the vast majority of the 50 Union sail ships were...not ships-of-the-line) with short range Napoleonic cannon.  But like I said, if you can find a battle or another source claiming otherwise I'd cheerfully reevaluate that opinion. Check out the weights of those new longer-ranged guns and the size of the average "Revenue Cutter" (designed to stop smugglers, not mount heavy armament)

I think this does point to a useful change that can be made to starting navies, and that in it's Quality ratings.  As things stand all starting ships are somewhat unimaginitively given "4" morale ratings (FoF calls this Quality now, IIRC).  I think it's fair to say the CSA Navy ships should all be lower...a LOT lower...with 1s and 1.5s predominating....maybe a 2.

Same with the 50 ships of the Union sail navy...1s and 2s I'd say.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Director

The Union Navy comprised different ships for different jobs, using deep-water frigates and sloops for heavy combat power (New Orleans, Mobile Bay) and everything from heavily-armed ferryboats to purpose-built shallow-draft double-enders for close-in blockade work. Some of these 'small-boys' were heavily armed for the period with 9" and 11" Dahlgrens and Parrott rifles from 20pdrs to 150 pdrs, and many of them were rapidly brought into service (the first gunboats were called '90-day' for their construction time, and the Eads river ironclads took little longer).

So it really isn't possible to say 'a ship is a ship' if you are comparing a 50-gun 'Merrimack'-class frigate to the gunboat 'Commodore Jones'. If you have to quantify for game terms count the big frigates and sloops as one ship each and the merchant conversions and gunboats as one-half or one-third. Given the forces off Charleston when the Confederate ironclads sortied, that's about 6 'ships'. If you add in the vessels at Port Royal, etc the number is of course higher.

Logically the solution is to give the Union several Fleet structures and allow a 'draft' of commercial vessels into military service. The same one-time 'draft' could be used to create the Confederate river squadrons that fought at Memphis and New Orleans. If that isn't possible by mechanics, then reduce the CS Navy to almost zero (allow some Virginia state ships) and allow the US several naval containers but few ships, or the ability to immediately build containers.

Three good sources: 'Arming the Fleet' by Spencer Tucker. 'The Old Steam Navy' by Donald L Canney )2 volumes), 'Confederate Shipbuilding' by William N Still, Jr.

quote:

ORIGINAL: chris0827

On april 19th, 1861 the US navy consisted of 42 ships carrying 555 guns and 7600 men. By jan 1st 1862 it had grown to 264 ships carrying 2557 guns and 22000 men.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Mike Scholl

quote:

ORIGINAL: chris0827

On april 19th, 1861 the US navy consisted of 42 ships carrying 555 guns and 7600 men. By jan 1st 1862 it had grown to 264 ships carrying 2557 guns and 22000 men.

These being vessels actually "in commission". What about those "laid up in ordinary" which could be re-commissioned in three months or so? We know the Navy had a lot of "spare guns" ashore, because that's where the Confederates got most of what they had during the war (from Norfolk and the like) and which armed many of their fortifications. Do you have equivelent numbers and arms for the South in April of 1861? Or July? or 1 January, 1862? Hard facts and a solid breakdown by ship type or tonnage and of armament afloat/ashore in the early days of the war would be of real use in this discussion.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Jonathan Palfrey

Battle Cry of Freedom:

The Confederacy began life with no navy and few facilities for building one. The South possessed no adequate shipyards except the captured naval yard at Norfolk, and not a single machine shop capable of building an engine large enough to power a respectable warship ...

... Mallory proved equal to the task of creating a navy from scratch. He bought tugboats, revenue cutters, and river steamboats to be converted into gunboats for harbor patrol. Recognizing that he could never challenge the Union navy on its own terms, Mallory decided to concentrate on a few specialized tasks that would utilize the South's limited assets to maximum advantage. He authorized the development of "torpedoes" (mines) to be planted at the mouths of harbors and rivers; by the end of the war such "infernal devices" had sunk or damaged forty-three Union warships. He encouraged the construction of "torpedo boats", small half-submerged cigar-shaped vessels carrying a contact mine on a bow-spar for attacking blockade ships ... This is exactly the point I've been trying to make..., that in game terms the South had no "Fleets" or "ships"..., and no real means to build a "blue water Navy". And that what they did have and build is better represented as "improvements" to harbor and fort defenses. Giving the South a "High Seas Fleet" destroys the Civil War "flavor" of the game and just "feels" totally wrong because nothing like "fleet actions" ever occurred during that struggle. Thanks.[/b]

The commerce raiders built in Britain represented an important part of Confederate naval strategy ... At first the South depended on privateers for this activity ... On April 17 [1861], Davis offered letters of marque to any southern shipowner who wished to turn privateer. About twenty such craft were soon cruising the sea lanes off the Atlantic coast, and by July they had captured two dozen prizes.

[By early 1862] Confederate privateers as such had disappeared from the seas ... the Union blockade made it difficult to bring prizes into Southern ports, and neutral nations closed their ports to prizes. The Confederacy thence turned to commerce raiders -- warships manned by naval personnel and designed to sink rather than to capture enemy shipping ... began in June 1861, when the five-gun steam sloop C.S.S. Sumter evaded the blockade ... During the next six months the Sumter captured or burned eighteen vessels before Union warships finally bottled her up in the harbor at Gibraltar in January 1862. Semmes sold the Sumter to the British and made his way across Europe to England, where he took command of the C.S.S. Alabama and went on to bigger achievements. "Raiders" and "Runners" were the South's "blue water naval effort", not traditional fleets..., and the game handles such efforts in other ways. "Ships" and "Fleet Containers" just don't represent the South's naval policy in any realistic way. Again, thanks.