Napoleonic Era warships??

I don't think she is in concrete but in dry dock.

Maybe someone who has been recently can confirm this?

 

Yes, she is in dry dock.

I presume they took the decision to do that to make it easier to maintain her.

 

Age

Bear in in mind just how old Victory is. She was already fifty years old when she fought at Trafalgar. She was laid down int eh same year that Nelson was born.

 

Re: Age

True. I can understand the Brits wanting to be careful with her. CONSTITUTION has been rebuilt a couple of times, I believe, which accounts for why the US Navy keeps her in the water.

 

Re: Age

I think this is why she is in dry dock.

HMS VICTORY is the oldest commissioned warship in the world, and is still manned by Officers and Ratings of the Royal Navy. She is now the flagship of the Second Sea Lord and Commander in Chief Naval Home Command and lies in No 2 Dry Dock at Portsmouth Naval Base, Portsmouth. England.

The CinC gets sea sick.

 

Re: Age

That's ironic. Lord Nelson suffered from the same malady, although it always left him when it was time to fight.

 

Old Ironside

There were several occasions when the USS Constitution came close to being extinct. A little while afte the War of 1812, many of the older American frigates were broken up and sold for scrap. The USS Constitution was one of them, only after an outpour of public sentiment and money (especialy in Boston) that the old ironside was spared and kept as a memorial in Boston Harbor. Among the fleet of famous heavy American frigates which fought during that era, it was the only surviving ship.
The British, who until the war of 1812 rarely lost in sea actions, are still impressed to this day with the sturdy constructure and excellent sea-faring abilities of these American frigates, and especially the power of its destructive 24-pounders, which totally outclassed many of the British frigate's 12 and 18-pounders.

 

You have to remember that 1812 the war with America was very much a B campaign to the British. The Napolonic wars were still rumbling and had most of the British attention. It also wasn't just that these ships were better than their British counterparts they also had much better crews. The much larger RN could have, if it had been allowed, swallowed Britain's entire supply of experience seamen whole. So British ships had to settle for smaller crews with only a core of experienced men. The Americans by contrast could generously man their much smaller fleet with the cream of the crop without putting a dent in their over all supply.

The victories that the American Frigates had weren't militarily important but they were embarrassing for a fleet that wasn't used to loosing.

For the American's the problems began when improvements in Europe allowed the deployment of Ship of the Line. The blockade of American ports pretty much wiped out the American carrying trade but might have helped spark the American Industrial Revolution as investors looked inland.

After the war the British kept a copy of one of the American frigates on their American station to bug Americans (the original had too badly shot up for further use). The American hung on to one of the British frigates they took and used it to bug the British.

 

Good points, it was probably easier for the Americans to obtain prime seamen (from merchant ships) to man their smaller fleet. But still, the British probably had an edge when it comes to fighting seamen and commanders, afterall, their perpetual conflict with the French kept them sharp.

Also, even the British themselves conceived that for the most part, the British warships (frigates and even ships-of-the line) were generally of inferior quality when compared to the French. This was a testament to the skills of the British fighting seamen. The new American frigates, which were bigger and more robust, also possessed excellent sailing qualities that rivals the smaller European frigates. And of course, those devastating 24-pounders completely outclassed the 12 and 18-pounders on most of the British frigates. It was like a boxing match between a heavyweight and a middleweight. No wonder the British cried foul.

 

Plus the Yanks were very unsporting and used chain shot to destroy rigging & sails.
Something no English naval officer would stoop to!

 

The RN won Trafalgar with round shot so its hardly surprising they favored it.

By 1812 British ships did still carry chain shot just not very much, one or two rounds per gun. Chain shot was more difficult use, too high it simply went over the top too low and it probably wouldn't have the power to penatrate the hull. The British felt you were better off to simply hammer away at the hull killing men and knocking out guns.

Towards the end of the conflict they were starting to suffer from a serious manpower shortage. They would have had experenced officers and NCOs (or whatever they call them at sea) but the crews included alot of 'landsmen' there to make up numbers.

The same was true of smaller ships. The British needed numbers since any ship can only be one place at a time. The trade off is quality.

 

As often seen in books, in times of war the British navy was authorized to employed the "press gangs" tactics to round up landsmen and forced them into the service with minimal pay and freedoms. Many British captains also used the tactics of forcifully "borrowing" sailers from any merchant ships they encountered. Afterall, these sailers are usually prime seamen, much better than the landsmen from the pressgang.

 

Yes, and it was this habit which led up to the War of 1812. :-?

 

I believe that the idea that press gangs wandered around grabbing any Tom, Dick or Harry is a myth. If it was just warm bodies they wanted they could get them with such drastic methods. Life at sea offer oportunities that were at least no worst than those on the land. Prime seamen however were a different matter. They could take British seamen from American ships but frankly at this stage the difference between a Brit and an American was name rather than description. The main causes of the 1812 war however were economic, primarily British restrictions on trade to Europe. It was frankly the wrong war for America to fight they came dangerously close to having states break off and by 1814 were actually insolvent. It would certainly be a very different world had the USA broken down to a collection to seperate nation states

 

The interesting thing is that the War of 1812 would likely not have been fought if communications had been faster back then. Parliament repealed the law which had caused so much American anger, but the US government didn't learn of this until after war was declared. The USA did benefit in one way from this war, which I agree was unnecessary: the debacles suffered by the US Army in the war's first year showed the need for a professional officer corps, which it lacked prior to that time.

 

And the last battle of the war was fought a week after the peace treaty had been signed.

America came out of it about as well as could be hoped but they did but themselves in a position where they had more to lose than gain.

 

I think America did a lot better in the War of 1812 than they had any right to expect. Definitely gives credence to the old saying about God looking after fools and little children.

 

The Americans enjoyed the advantage of fighting close to home, which facilitates refitting/refueling. The Royal Navy, although impressive, has to be spread out to protect its global interest and had to fight thousands of miles from home, this meant communications, resupplying/refitting were inefficient.
Last but not least, the naval warfare of 1812 was primarily a frigate war. The newer American heavy frigates were bigger, sturdiers and packed more firepower than the British contempories. These factors helped to even out the British advantage of having more combat proven sailers and commanders

 

Yes the Americans could win frigate their problems really begain when improvements in the situation in Europe allowed the British to send out major ship-of-the-line. There was simply very little the Americans could do to shift such vessels once they started to blockade American ports. It also changed the situation as far as raiding British merchant traffic. It was one thing for a fast nimble frigate to run a blockade, it was anothering thing entitly to get a captured merchantman through.

 

Probably not true but it amused me.




Battles on the sea
The following is supposedly a true story relating to a United States shipping company.

THE U.S. shipping company had a new ship built. It was to be the pride of the fleet, and something special was wanted to decorate the captain's saloon, a large living room/office where the vessel's business and entertaining would take place.

Someone suggested that a set of nautical prints would lend a nice touch. He knew of a shop in London that specialized in such things, and the prints were ordered and hung in the saloon.

It was not until the trial run of the vessel, when both the builder's and the owner's representatives were aboard, that someone looked closely at the prints. Each was of an American ship being captured by, or surrendering to, a British warship during the War of 1812.