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 mumfordlibrarian |
Gunboat utility? |
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Posts: 173 ( 5-Dec-2006 15:26:26) |
Gunboats have been utilized as a navy-on-the-cheep as in the U.S.A.s Jeffersonian navy prior to the War of 1812, and have proven useful as a power projection in brown-water conflicts against land forces, but with the possible exceptions of the Swedes v. the Russians in the Baltic, have they ever been successful attacking or defending against ocean going warships of capital size?
Paul T. Weaver mumfordlibrarian |
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hoist40 |
Re: Gunboat utility? | ||
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Posts: 1041 ( 5-Dec-2006 17:22:35) |
As far as I have read gunboats are pretty useless against anything more then small ships and even then it depends a lot on the situation, such as if the ship was aground or without wind.
Gunboats had several problems 1. Lack of fire power since they usually only had one or maybe two major guns. Also while a gunboat may have a 32 pounder and the small ship may only have 9 pounders, the 9 pounder has as much effect against the small gunboat as the 32 pounder has against the larger ship while the ship has many chances for a hit in one broadside while the gunboat only has one or maybe two. 2. Lack of concentration of fire power since it required several gunboats working together to get the firepower of even one small ship and coordinating several gunboats was very difficult in an age without radio and with low lying boats that are more subject to wind and wave then larger ships. 3. Lack of moral since the crews of several gunboats while maybe equaling the size of the crew of one ship are fragmented, while the ship crew are forced by being in one ship to be concentrated and all for one, one for all. With separate gunboats there is always the worry that the gunboat that is falling behind is bailing out of the fight(even when they are doing the best they can) 4. Lack of good commanders since while with the ship you only need to find one good captain with a dozen gunboats you need to have a dozen good captains who must also be good at working together to concentrate force against the larger ship. 5. The low height of the gunboats means that they are weak for boarding other ships and for resisting boarding since height really matters when you are trying to board. Below is a link to a drawing from Chapelles History of the American Sailing Navy which in my opinion should have been built instead of the gunboats in the US. It has a shallow draft which is important for defending the US coastline since there is a lot of shallow water. It has a powerful armament which can take on a small ocean going warship, while two can probably take on a frigate or even a small 50 gun or 64 gun. It has high sides so that it can resist boat attacks if it withdraws up into shallow water. It has a concentrated crew which helps with moral and command. They should have built and launched a few to figure out the design and then built the others but not launch them at ports around the US. Keeping them on the building way and roofing them over would preserve them until needed. They would be manned by local sailors and fisherman who knew the local waters while the militia would supply the gun crews. A few guns should be mounted in a battery to guard the blockships and which would also serve as a place to train the militia in handling heavy guns. When war broke out the blockships would be launched and fitted out, and crews organized and giving training. It was 152 feet on deck, 43 foot wide and a draft of 8 foot 6 inches and carried 32 pounders on the main deck and 42 pounder carronades. img240.imageshack.us/img2...hipdj1.jpg |
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jonnm |
Re: Gunboat utility? | ||
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Posts: 2200 ( 6-Dec-2006 19:52:52) |
There was some use of gun boats against raids during the Warof 1812 and more importantly on the lakes. They were a significant number in the battle on Lake Champlain on both sides.
Intrinsically they have huge strategic disadvantages. Their lack of ocean mobility and lack of living quarters means that they actually can only defend a limited area. That means a large number would be required to defend all potential landing areas. They pose little or no threat that the opponents navy or commerce. In addition the more mobile regular naval ships can concentrate more easily to outnumber the opposing gunboats. Gunboats are unable to maintain blockades or even releive blockages. Finally as the Americans demonstrated defence of most riverine positions can be defended by militia and shore based guns. Regards |
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Van Owen |
Gunboat utility | ||
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Posts: 777 (17-May-2007 07:43:38) |
I not too long ago read a history of RN gunboats from the Victorian Era on, and it seems that they were instrumental in dealing with the pirate menace in the pacific from the mid to late 1800s.
The closest thing I can think of to answer your question regards gunboats against oceangoing warships, are the British monitors against the SMS Konigsberg, though she wasn't a capitol class vessel. |
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robertf2 |
Re: Gunboat utility? | ||
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Posts: 332 (17-May-2007 11:44:37) |
Apparently Danish gunboats were very effective against the Royal Navy during the period 1808-1814, in concert with brigs etc. On occasion RN escorted convoys were culled, destroyed or forced to turn back. Even escorting RN frigates and SOL sometimes being severely handled and seen off. A British 64 SOL HMS Africa was nearly captured. Apart from a number of other warships listed in the following link many cargo ships were were captured.
British Warship Losses in Danish-Norwegian Waters 1807-1814 The British Wars (1801-1814) Robert
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emc |
Re: Gunboat utility? | ||
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Posts: 4030 (17-May-2007 16:59:17) |
Jefferson pushed gunboats for a number of reasons, including the desire to prevent overseas operations (this worked up to the skirmishes with the Barbary pirates), a desire to minimize federal expenditures, and a desire to prevent a professional military.
To work, the gunboats would have had to operate in concert, which would require significant planning and ongoing training. According to Chappelle's History of the American Sailing Navy, the navy did neither. |
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USS Clarence E Walsh |
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Registered Member
Posts: 13 (20-Oct-2007 02:01:29) |
No, they really were more like sea-borne artillery batteries, and that's it. They were made to lob stuff at the shore, not really anything else.
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bennett0 |
Gunboat Utility | ||
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Posts: 207 (20-Oct-2007 03:44:54) |
One of the few times the Jefferson gunboats made a major contribution was at New Orleans in 1814-15. When Andrew Jackson reached New Orleans on 11 December
1814, the British were at the entrance to Lake Borgne. If the British had moved to the Mississippi below New Orleans then, the city would have been theirs
for the taking. Jackson only had about 1,000 militia and 800 regulars. The riflemen from Tennessee and Kentucky were still on the way and LaFitte's
services had been turned down. Unfortunately for the British, on Lake Borgne was a flotilla of 5 US gunboats manned by 182 sailors commanded by Lt. Thomas Ap
Catesby Jones (obviously of Welsh descent). The British organized a force of 45 barges manned by 1,200 men. This took time, and they did not attack the
gunboats until 14 December. They defeated them in two hours of (for once for gunboats) hard fighting, but then had to go back to unload the guns and load
troops. As a result, they did not reach the Mississippi until 23 December. They did not make their main attack until 1 January 1815. By that time Jackson
had been reinforced and the result is well known (at least it used to be). The time bought by the gunboats was, in this case, critical.
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emc |
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Posts: 3229 (24-Oct-2007 03:40:44) |
I think this thread has gotten two quite distinct concepts of gunboats intertwined (I don't think anybody is confused except me).
The Jeffersonian gunboats had a very political basis, and by no means was it exclusively penury: Jefferson was opposed to professional militaries, and viewed the gunboats as a way of creating a naval militia. He also viewed merchants, a group of which he was not fond (possibly because Jefferson was, in his personal life, a spendthrift), as the sole beneficiaries of a blue-water navy. The type of gunboats ordered when Jefferson was President of the US, and by some of the Scandanavian navies, are, in my opinion, the conceptual ancestors of today's missile-armed FAC or the torpedo boats of the late 19th Century. The gunboats of the late 19th through mid-20th centuries were a pretty motley bunch, but they seem more to be more used for generic "police" work than for "defense."
Last Edited By: emc
24-Oct-2007 03:43:37.
Edited 1 times.
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