The end of one era

[Auld Phart]

the beginning of a new one.

 

[August West]

On that day, all of the world`s navies became pretty much worthless.

 

[martybegan]

On that day, all of the world`s navies became pretty much worthless.

The biggest next two examples of the rapid change of naval warfare would be the introduction of HMS Dreadnought rendering all previous battleships obsolete, and the sinking of the HMS Repulse and Prince of Whales by aircraft showing ships uncovered by their own aircraft had past their time.

 

[Chuz Life]

the beginning of a new one.

View attachment 1228956

 

[Mushroom]

On that day, all of the world`s navies became pretty much worthless.

Not hardly.

There had already been ironclad ships. The Glorie had been in service since 1859. And the HMS Warrior in 1860.

For decades afterwards, almost nothing changed. The Monitor and similar ships were largely restricted to coastal operation. The power plants of the era were to inefficient to operate far from shore, the shallow draft made them poorly suited to the open ocean. And even the early oceangoing ironclads still had sails.

The first ships we would even recognize as "real iron ships" did not start to enter service until around 1890.

That was simply the first engagement between two ironclads. And considering the battle between them was a draw with both damaged and neither one victorious, it is actually pretty much a "nothing burger" on reality.

 

[August West]

Not hardly.

There had already been ironclad ships. The Glorie had been in service since 1859. And the HMS Warrior in 1860.

For decades afterwards, almost nothing changed. The Monitor and similar ships were largely restricted to coastal operation. The power plants of the era were to inefficient to operate far from shore, the shallow draft made them poorly suited to the open ocean. And even the early oceangoing ironclads still had sails.

The first ships we would even recognize as "real iron ships" did not start to enter service until around 1890.

That was simply the first engagement between two ironclads. And considering the battle between them was a draw with both damaged and neither one victorious, it is actually pretty much a "nothing burger" on reality.

The "nothing burger" was worldwide news.

 

[AZrailwhale]

Not hardly.

There had already been ironclad ships. The Glorie had been in service since 1859. And the HMS Warrior in 1860.

For decades afterwards, almost nothing changed. The Monitor and similar ships were largely restricted to coastal operation. The power plants of the era were to inefficient to operate far from shore, the shallow draft made them poorly suited to the open ocean. And even the early oceangoing ironclads still had sails.

The first ships we would even recognize as "real iron ships" did not start to enter service until around 1890.

That was simply the first engagement between two ironclads. And considering the battle between them was a draw with both damaged and neither one victorious, it is actually pretty much a "nothing burger" on reality.

Monitor was still fully operational. All she had suffered was some dents in the turret and a captain blinded by shrapnel from a Confederate round hitting the pilothouse. Virginia spent two months in dock having battle damage repaired.

Something the pro-British people here disregard was how small a target Monitor was and how few of Virginia's rounds hit her. British ironclads would have not done any better. Virginia was more powerfully armed against ironclads than Warrior/Black Prince OR the steam batteries were.

 

[martybegan]

Monitor was still fully operational. All she had suffered was some dents in the turret and a captain blinded by shrapnel from a Confederate round hitting the pilothouse. Virginia spent two months in dock having battle damage repaired.

Something the pro-British people here disregard was how small a target Monitor was and how few of Virginia's rounds hit her. British ironclads would have not done any better. Virginia was more powerfully armed against ironclads than Warrior/Black Prince OR the steam batteries were.

Monitor also lead to the configuration of ships that lasts to this day, turreted guns.

The 1860's to the 1900's was a time of radical experimentation in ship design. Rams came back into vogue for a bit, then went away. Armor schemes and propulsion methods were tried then discarded, sometimes even within a single class of ships. sailing masts stayed on mostly out of concern over reliability of steam engines until the displacement of the ships made sails impractical.

We saw the same thing with tank and aircraft designs in the 1920's and 1930's between the wars, with designed heralded as the "next new thing" discarded in less than half a decade.

An example are some of the "multi-turret" tanks you saw in the 30's imitating naval vessels.

 

[Mushroom]

The "nothing burger" was worldwide news.

Does not mean that it changed "crap". There was still a hell of a lot of technology that had to advance before they became anything other than a curiosity.

 

[Mushroom]

Monitor was still fully operational.

Yes, it was.

It was also a riverine craft, that outside of rivers was pretty damned useless. You should know what happened to the first monitor, the low freeboard made them completely unsuited to anything other than use on rivers, or close to shore or on lakes where they could run to port if weather started to get rough.

And the lack of powerful steam engines meant it was decades before they were ever more than a curiosity. Not unlike the first tanks were little more than a curiosity. It took almost two decades for the tank to become anything more than a slowly moving pillbox.

I am not saying it was useless, far from it. But it was literally two decades more until the innovations really started to make changes in how ships were designed. Even the first "Ocean Ironclads" were pretty useless. Like the Kalamazoo Class, or any of the others.

Like the USS Galena, another Civil War era ironclad of the US Navy. No turret, and her main propulsion was sails.