Shipbucket

Ok... I guess I could maybe try and flip flop a bit with the time periods.

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Best regards,

RegiaMarina1939

The Viper and it's sister ship the Wasp were identical stern-wheel paddle steamers built for the Southern Mail Steamship Company in Baltimore, Maryland in the year 1859. They were built to a modern, progressive design that was anticipated to be the best on the water at the time. They were especially advanced in terms of machinery, using round rather than rectangular coal-fired boilers and new inclined direct-acting engines built by the Morgan iron works in New York City. They served as mail and passenger steamers in South Carolina until 1861, when they were pressed into service as armed steamers and outfitted for war at the Navy Yard there. They were rebuilt with an iron-covered bow for possible ramming attacks, and where also equipped with a 24-pound breech loading rifled Armstrong gun. After the war they were sold to private interests and disarmed, the last record of them was taken when they were slated for scrapping in Southport, North Carolina in 1878.


Specifications:
-Type: Stern-wheel paddle steamer/gunboat.
-Length: 105 feet at the waterline
-Beam: 12 feet, 3 inches
-Draught: 7 feet, 4 inches
-Machinery: 2 round coal-fired boilers, 2 inclined direct-acting engines.
-Speed: 8 knots maximum
-Armament: 1 Armstrong 24-pound quick firing rifled breech-loader.
-Armor: None, besides a 1-inch iron covering on the bow for ramming.

NEXT UP: Coastal artillery, sailing boats, armored paddle steamer!

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Best regards,

RegiaMarina1939

Note: I have a lot of free time from school coming up so I should be able to update this thread more frequently than I have been. Forgive me, high school is a lot of work, especially with all honors classes. While I intend to finish up this decade first, the next decade (1875-1885) will bring about a decided increase in naval firepower and army firepower, I intend for the navy to acquire 2 turret-ram type ironclads from the United Kingdom, as well as 2 wooden steam and sail ships for long-range cruising. Army tech is coming, as is coastal artillery.

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RegiaMarina1939

I am waiting for photobucket to finish conducting maintenance on their site to update the AU, I have completed my first sailing boat and the associated backstory/specifications. Does anyone have any idea when it will be over?

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RegiaMarina1939

Laid down as a fast pleasure yacht named the Serenity in 1858, the Hermes (named for being a messenger and for being fast) was a representative example of the fast patrol and dispatch vessels in use by the Carolinian navy during and right after the Civil War. The Hermes was laid up for repairs at the boat yard in Beaufort, North Carolina, and was seized and commissioned into the Carolinian fleet as a fast dispatch boat. She was hastily armed with 2 6-Pounder boat howitzers. Her first assignment was delivering messages from North Carolina regional naval command to the Outer Banks station. The Outer Banks housed a flotilla of 3 armed yachts, 1 armed steamer, and 2 transport boats charged with defending the entrances to the North Carolinian sounds and supporting the coastal defense artillery there. She delivered both mail to and from the mainland and official orders to the troops there. She was also sent as a support ship attached to a joint Carolinian-Confederate flotilla that included 5 Confederate and 1 Carolinian ironclad battleships. There she provided both fire support and served as a fleet packet boat. She was disarmed in 1864, her guns transferred to the coast defenses at Fort Fisher, which was under a renovation and improvement program that included the installation of 2 4-gun batteries of 6-pounder howitzers to cover the beaches from enemy amphibious assaults. From early 1864 to the end of the war, she was the harbormaster's flagship at Wilmington. While the ship was considered for the reserve service after the war, she was deemed unnecessary and too expensive for a fleet facing post-war budget reductions. She was decommissioned and returned to her original owners in 1867, when adequate replacements became available.



Specifications:
Type: Fast pleasure boat (Converted to dispatch boat/Support ship)
Crew: 25, 4 officers (1 Captain,1 Quartermaster,2 Artillery officers) 21 Sailors.
Length: 53 feet, 8 inches
Beam: 6 feet, 3 inches
Draft: 4 feet, 2 inches
Machinery: None, considered for steam propulsion with a 90-hp single screw, single cylinder, not enough space and hull was too weak.
Speed: 15 knots maximum
Armament: 2 6-pounder boat howitzers (transferred to coastal artillery in 1864)

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RegiaMarina1939

Fort Fisher, originally constructed in 1861 at the start of the war to defend the port of Wilmington, was the largest single coastal emplacement on the main North Carolina coast. Originally, the fort was armed with 4 24-pounder smoothbore muzzle loaders, 3 32-pounder howitzers, and 6 75-mm shell guns. It remained largely unchanged until 1863, when a major remodeling program began with the goal of enhancing it's defenses, especially against amphibious attacks. 2 batteries of small guns, including the Hermes' old guns, where placed both in and around the fort to provide shrapnel fire against landing craft full of infantry. The fort was totally re-armed and modernized, with 2 100-pounder Parrot rifled muzzle-loaders, 5 24-pounder rifled Armstrong breech-loaders, and 3 10-inch Rodman smoothbore muzzle-loaders. A telegraph office was built, as were furnaces for warming the shot from the guns. Heavily-protected wood and earth command bunkers were built behind the earthen ramparts for gun commanders to direct their crews. Hand-powered winches and pulleys were installed to haul up wooden boxes full of shot from the underground magazines to the gun emplacements. Telescopes were added along the ramparts, and crew quarters for the troops were remodeled or expanded. Effective heating and ventilation was added for increased comfort during both the winter and summer months. The fort was rapidly rebuilt utilizing large quantities of concrete during the early 1880's. The Parrot gun is shown here in it's 1865 form, on a turntable carriage.

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RegiaMarina1939

Organisation of the Carolinian Army, June 1866: By June of 1866, all Carolinian troops had been withdrawn from Union lands, and had been arranged to protect the borders of both North and South Carolina. I Corps and II Corps were based on the border with Virginia, I and III Mountain Corps were based in the Blue Ridge Mountains on the Border with West Virginia and Tennessee. In South Carolina, IV and VI Field Corps were arranged on the border with Georgia, and V Corps was held in reserve in central South Carolina. By this time the bulk of the Army, especially the Blue Ridge Corps and the troops on the Virginian border were well-trained in fighting and had seen plenty of combat. The army will undergo some major equipment changes and organisation changes in 1885-1895, including the addition of rapid-fire artillery, machine gun companies, and other innovations.

Organisation of the Army Corps (only the I Corps and Blue Ridge Corps):

I Corps:
-INFANTRY:
-1. Field Infantry Regiment
-2. Field Infantry Regiment
-6. Field Infantry Regiment
-17. Field Infantry Regiment
-21. Field Infantry Regiment
-4. Field Infantry Regiment
-18. Field Infantry Regiment
-MOUNTED TROOPS:
-1. Dragoon Brigade
-14. Field Cavalry Brigade
-7. Mounted Sharpshooters
-9. Dragoon Brigade
-17. Dragoon Brigade
-1. Horse Artillery Regiment (8 x 12-pounder Armstrong RBL Guns)
-3. Horse Artillery Regiment (6 x 6-pounder howitzers)
-5. Horse Artillery Regiment (8 x 12-pounder Whitworth RBL Guns)
-ARTILLERY:
-1. Field Artillery Regiment (8 x 3-Inch Ordnance Rifles)
-6. Field Artillery Regiment (8 x 3-inch Ordnance Rifles)
-12. Field Artillery Regiment (8 x 3-inch Ordnance Rifles)
-14. Light Field Artillery Regiment (16 x 6-pounder 1841 Model Napoleons)
-17. Light Bombardment Regiment (12 x 12-pounder Howitzers)
-OTHER TROOPS:
-32. State Militia
-14. State Militia
-3. State Militia
-13. Heavy Artillery Regiment (4 x 200-pounder Parrott Guns)
-1. Heavy Railway Artillery Battalion (1 x Train w/ Heavy siege mortar)
-4. Special Engineer Battalion
-13. Engineer Battalion
-5. Engineer Battalion

-Blue Ridge Mountain Corps:
-INFANTRY:
-12. Blue Ridge Sharpshooter Regiment
-15. Blue Ridge Sharpshooter Regiment
-27. Blue Ridge Sharpshooter Regiment
-7. Volunteer Ranger Battalion
-13. Volunteer Ranger Battalion
-4. State Militia
-17. State Militia
MOBILE ARTILLERY:
-1. Blue Ridge Artillery Regiment (12 x 3-Inch Ordnance Rifles)
-2. Blue Ridge Artillery Regiment (8 x 3-Inch Ordnance Rifles)
-6. Volunteer Ranger Artillery Regiment (20 x 6-pounder 1841 Napoleons)
-13. Rapid Fire Artillery Regiment (6 x 12-pounder Whitworth RBL Guns)
-17. Bombardment Group: (5 x 48 Pounder Mortars)
STATIONARY ARTILLERY PROTECTING BOONE AND ASHEVILLE:
-4. High-Powered Artillery Regiment (5 x 100-Pounder Parrott Rifles)
-5. High Powered Artillery Regiment (8 x 7-Inch Brooke Rifles)
-8. Heavy Bombardment Group (6 x 100-Pounder Mortars)

_________________
Best regards,

RegiaMarina1939

I won't comment on the backstory, but drawings are quite nice for a beginner (though You could improve a bit the masts on Hermes - esp. the parts You made 1-pixel thick, and generally add more detailing on most of the pictures).

Yea... I was thinking about that. It does look a little thin. Thanks for the tip. Besides the obvious political issues, are there any major backstory problems?

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RegiaMarina1939

Note: These vessels are my idea, but I cannot thank the other guys enough (Gunship, C. Hoefer, and Psilander) for making the baseline for my vessel.

-History: The Carolinian Navy after 1865 included just 1 ironclad. The Victory was, by this time, hopelessly outclassed by other nations ships and really was only good as a coast defense ship. She suffered from endless engine problems, leakages, and structural deficiencies. She sprung a leak while leaving Charleston Harbor in 1866, which doused one of her boiler fires and caused her to stop completely. Her engines constantly overheated despite the fitting of better ventilators. In short, she was at best a third-rate vessel was compared to the rest of the world's vessels. Luckily for the Carolinas, Great Britain was in a good position to build ships for other nations, and the Carolinian Government had received large amounts of war reparation money from the Union. So, a Carolinian design board was sent to work with the British designers to create a class of two very powerful ironclad frigates. Their design was interesting. They were named the Terror and the Defender, and were based on a mix of the French Gloire and the Dutch monitors of the Buffel-Class. But, interestingly enough, she carried not only 4 9-inch guns in 2 dual turrets (which used steam-powered rotation gear and ammunition hoists, very advanced features at the time) but she also carried a 12-gun battery of heavy 12-inch guns in broadside. This required an enormous amount of hull and deck strength, and she therefore utilized a hull not only plated in iron, but used steel beams as replacements for support timbers. Steel was a very innovative material at the time, and had not been used very much in ship construction. The turret-mounted guns fired projectiles that weighed up to 250 pounds at a muzzle velocity of up to 1,420 feet per second. They were muzzle-loading rifles. Meanwhile, the battery deck utilized the 12-inch 25-Ton gun of the 1864 Model. One of the most powerful naval ordnance pieces in the world, it fired a shell that weighed up to 600 pounds at 1,300 feet per second. 12 Nordenfelt 6-barreled 25-mm repeating guns were added for close combat actions, and she was armed with a powerful bow ram. 12 Oval-Shaped Coal-Fired boilers powered 2 Penn and Co. Direct-Acting Trunk-Type Engines that propelled her at a maximum speed of 15 knots. A maximum of 6-inches protected the ship along it's waterline belt, while 8-inches protected the battery. 10-inches of armor were applied to the turrets, all made of wrought-iron. The machinery spaces were almost entirely located below the waterline, therefore requiring little protection. They were laid down in 1869, and completed in 1870. Arriving in Wilmington for fitting-out, they were commissioned in 1871 after their trans-Atlantic journey. Terror was commissioned as flagship of the North Carolina group, while Defender was based at Charleston. They served as the most powerful vessels on the East Coast of North America, but they were not without their issues. The HMS Captain disaster did not, for some odd reason, impact the design phase greatly. There were considerable issues with stability, especially when the turrets where trained to the same side. The battery guns also caused some problems. These experiences led the Carolinian naval planners to determine that masts with sails had no place on an ironclad. From then on all Carolinian ironclads utilized the rather futuristic-looking (for the time) military pole-type masts with signaling arms. Refitted in 1889, the two vessels received 8-inch RBL guns and new pillbox-type turrets. The broadside guns were replaced by 6-inch RBL QF guns, which caused the need to equip radically new ammunition-handling gear. 8 circular high-pressure boilers were installed and equipped with Thornycroft oil-sprayers. In this form, the Terror and Defender were classified as armored cruisers, but were finally disarmed in 1894 and Defender was sold to the breakers, while Terror served as a floating depot until 1919, when it was restored and became a museum ironclad at Southport in 1925.


Specifications 1871:
-Type: Ironclad turret-broadside frigate
-Length: 245 Feet
-Beam: 25 Feet
-Draft: 13 feet
-Speed: 15 knots under combined sail and steam
-Machinery: 12 Oval-shaped coal-fired boilers. 2 Direct-acting Trunk-type engines
-Armament: 4 9-inch RML Guns, 12 12-inch RML Guns, 12 6-barreled 25mm Nordenfelt guns, 4 Hotchkiss revolving guns (37mm)
-Armour: 6-inch belt, 8-inch over battery, 10-inch turrets. All wrought-iron.
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Specifications 1889:
Type: Ironclad armored cruiser
-Length: 245 Feet
-Beam: 25 Feet
-Draft: 14 feet
-Speed: 18 knots on steam
-Machinery: 8 Circular high-pressure coal/oil boilers, 2 compound-type engines
-Armament: 4 x 8-inch RBL Guns, 12 x 6-inch RBL QF Guns, 12 x 3-pounder guns, 6 x 1-pounder guns, 4 x 7.92mm machine-guns, 6 x 37-mm Hotchkiss revolving guns, 4 x 14-inch torpedo drop-collars.
-Armour: 5-inch belt (Harvey steel) 6-inch over battery (Harvey Steel, Creusot Steel mix) 8-inch turrets (Harvey steel)

_________________
Best regards,

RegiaMarina1939