Monitors seemed to have been mainly a British ship type although I have seen pictures of an Italian Barge thing with an open turret with a parosol/hat affair but WHat if other nations had designed them what would they have looked like or even better improvised monitors how feasible would have been a rail gun mounted on a train ferry what would have been the largest gun you could have got away ewith before the recoil and impact sank the ship. Or how about a LCT packed with M40 self propelled guns or other armour
Any thought on Monitors the Royal Navoes cinderella ships although looks wise they were more ugly sisters.
HMS Sarcen by Douglas Reeman is a good example of a fictional WHIF monitor.
http://www.dieselpunks.org/profiles/blogs/faa-di-bruno-a
IIRC the US Army had 105mm howitzers mounted on landing craft during the Vietnam War.
To support ops in the Mekong Delta
Monitors usually come about 'cause a Navy has a specific problem with needing to bombard shore positions in usually shallow estuaries and has excess gun tubes and mounts which can be utilised fairly cheaply on a shallow-draft hull which can get close inshore to shell the enemy. Most RN monitors were quite small, armed with excess 6 and 8 inch guns. There were a few with guns up to 14 inch but most were much smaller. They carried some armour but not too much.
The most effective use I can think of where monitors worked well are in the East Africa campaign in WWI. Fascinating campaign, with real mobility, fractious natives (and white colonists!), pioneering use of aircraft for scouting and attacking naval craft, large naval ships, monitors and even the movement of an entire flotilla of small attack craft over 1500 miles to take control of Lake Tanganyika from a lone enemy steamer (the movie "African Queen" was loosely based on this).
There were some RN monitors with guns of 15" and even 18" too.
The Erebus and Roberts class monitors certainly both had 15-inch guns.
Edit: Ouch! Just read up on the Lord Clive class. Wouldn't want to end up on the receiving end of one of those!
AFAIK the US invented monitors, and the first one was called 'Monitor'...... ;D
That was the 'ship' that sunk, or severely damaged the 'Merrimac' in Chesapeake Bay, and it was little more than a big gun turret mounted on top of a VERY low freeboard hull.
I'm sure our US friends will put me right if I have warped the history of this episode somewhat....... ;D
I think that Monitors only have a real role in coastal bombardment. Not sure you would want to get in a fire fight even if you had 15in guns - they're not manoeuvrable, fast or that well armoured. IMO river monitors are quite good. The Austrians had quite a fleet. If a retreating army blew a bridge over a large river to stop an enemy advance and then deployed river monitors, I'm sure they would certainly slow down/pin down an advancing army.
I have a book in the stash somewhere called 'Armed with Stings'. It's all about these coastal battery ships which could be called Monitors.
Quick Amazon search found it:
http://www.amazon.ca/Armed-Stings-Saga-Gunboat-Flotilla/dp/0450027376/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1316179129&sr=1-1
Quote from: PR19_Kit on September 16, 2011, 05:29:45 AM
AFAIK the US invented monitors, and the first one was called 'Monitor'...... ;D
That was the 'ship' that sunk, or severely damaged the 'Merrimac' in Chesapeake Bay, and it was little more than a big gun turret mounted on top of a VERY low freeboard hull.
I'm sure our US friends will put me right if I have warped the history of this episode somewhat....... ;D
Kit is correct. The Monitor was described as a "Cheesebox on a raft" and I think, although I'm not sure, that the Confederacy altered the Merrimac's name to the "CSS Virginia"
The Breastwork Monitors were the precursor of the modern battleship
Cerberus and ships of her type were described by Admiral George Alexander Ballard as being like "full-armoured knights riding on donkeys, easy to avoid but bad to close with
so no one fancies mounting a rail gun aboard a ship evil grin.
I think you can get quite an overlap between Monitors and River Gun Boats. Monitors however tend to have heavier (much heavier) armament then river gun boats. The RN used a lot of gun boats on the Tigris/Euphrates in WWI. Off the top of my head the heaviest guns were about 6". Monitors have normally been used to mount heavy guns that are currently without a ship, they tend to be fairly quick to produce.
In the Burma campaign the army mounted 25pdrs on landing craft as support ships. There are even rumours of a 4.5" being mounted on one such contraption.
For a modern river monitor, one of those AMOS twin-barrelled, rapid-fire 120mm mortars would be an excellent weapon.
First off, the "Merrimack" was the Union warship upon whose hull the "CSS Virginia" was made for the epic ironclad dual off Hampton Roads in the American Civil War.
Right after the American Civil War, all the world's navies built warships resembling the original "Monitor", but they were not particularly seaworthy, having very little freeboard. But the rotatable "turret" first introduced on the USS Monitor became the standard naval method of mounting main batteries on warships.
"Monitors" of the 20th century are more-or-less "floating batteries" that can power themselves. My favorite is the HMS "Terror". Almost a laughable name for such a pipsqueak (ONE dual 15" turret), I still would be wary if I had to go up against it with merely a cruiser's battery. Terror was sunk by air attack off Tobruk.
"Turrets" I think you'll find came significantly later to most navies. Barbettes, either covered or open (more often open) consisting of a high, armoured wall which the gun fired over were more common until the 1890s IIRC.
Quote from: rickshaw on September 17, 2011, 07:18:35 PM
"Turrets" I think you'll find came significantly later to most navies. Barbettes, either covered or open (more often open) consisting of a high, armoured wall which the gun fired over were more common until the 1890s IIRC.
Yup Barbettes were more common until the 1890's. Probably due to the extra weight and mechanical needs of multiple turrets. The idea had to wait for the technology to improve.
Quote from: NARSES2 on September 18, 2011, 01:59:21 AM
Quote from: rickshaw on September 17, 2011, 07:18:35 PM
"Turrets" I think you'll find came significantly later to most navies. Barbettes, either covered or open (more often open) consisting of a high, armoured wall which the gun fired over were more common until the 1890s IIRC.
Yup Barbettes were more common until the 1890's. Probably due to the extra weight and mechanical needs of multiple turrets. The idea had to wait for the technology to improve.
I think the problem may have been the difficulties in traversing such large masses of metal. Until the invention and perfection of modern Hydraulics utilising oils, the only means to rotate the turret mass (the armoured gun house plus the gun, plus the loading apparatus) was mechanical and was easily and often jammed.
Quote from: rickshaw on September 18, 2011, 04:42:57 AM
I think the problem may have been the difficulties in traversing such large masses of metal. Until the invention and perfection of modern Hydraulics utilising oils, the only means to rotate the turret mass (the armoured gun house plus the gun, plus the loading apparatus) was mechanical and was easily and often jammed.
Even the use direct acting hydraulic rams would have only been of limited use as they'd have limited the traverse angle of the turret. It may have needed the invention of the hydrulic motor by Hallet in the early 1800s to be of real value here, as then the rotation could have been total.
I must admit some interest here as I was involved in the turret training system of the 'egg' Mk 8 turrets fitted to many RN ships, which used hydraulics. Bizarrely the elevation was electric powered, and the later, more angular version, uses electric power exclusively. Phillistines! :wacko:
Quote from: sequoiaranger on September 17, 2011, 01:18:36 PM
... HMS "Terror". Almost a laughable name for such a pipsqueak (ONE dual 15" turret), I still would be wary if I had to go up against it with merely a cruiser's battery. Terror was sunk by air attack off Tobruk.
I suspect the Italians she bombarded in North Africa thought the name highly appropriate!
I wonder if there were any restrictions on Monitors for the German Navy. They did have lots of guns that ended up in coastal defence batteries plus they captured various navies which might have provided suitable armament.
I could see them proving useful in the baltic and in the invasion of Scandinavia although not sure after that.
Monitor as commerce raider ? They would need to be designed with a fair turn of speed but I suppose thats not without the bounds of possibility. If they varied the hull design from the traditional Monitor type
Quote from: tigercat on September 18, 2011, 11:36:56 PM
I wonder if there were any restrictions on Monitors for the German Navy.
Do you mean in terms of Versailles ? All gets complicated but Germany was severly restricted to what it could have and was only allowed 6 ships over 10,000 tons.
The Naval sections of the Treaty can be found here http://www.firstworldwar.com/source/versailles159-213.htm (http://www.firstworldwar.com/source/versailles159-213.htm)
Monitors may have been useful in the Baltic but no where else other then perhaps guard ships at Wilhemshaven, Keil etc. Freeboards far to low for anything other then a calm sea and you wouldn't want to take them into anything like the Atlantic.
Perhaps they might have squeezed some "coastal battleships" out of the Treaty. I know the Dutch and Scandanavian's had a few of these.
Chris
But in a WHIF universe they could have built them suitable for the Atlantic although at some point they stop being monitors and start being single turreted kamikaze commerce raiders as they'd have enough of a punch to maul a convoy but not enough to fight off any major enemy warship and would run aground if you tried to use them as monitors.
Quote from: tigercat on September 19, 2011, 07:58:52 AM
But in a WHIF universe they could have built them suitable for the Atlantic although at some point they stop being monitors and start being single turreted kamikaze commerce raiders as they'd have enough of a punch to maul a convoy but not enough to fight off any major enemy warship and would run aground if you tried to use them as monitors.
You mean like the so-called "Pocket" Battleships were? ;D
Different breed of catfish, that.... ;) Monitors? Never heard of 'em...
(https://www.whatifmodellers.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Ffarm7.static.flickr.com%2F6196%2F6047948946_937d02a0eb_z.jpg&hash=8365485151b22ce1891ee3d3b331d32868915b0c)
Quote from: Doc Yo on September 19, 2011, 07:33:34 PM
Different breed of catfish, that.... ;) Monitors? Never heard of 'em...
(https://www.whatifmodellers.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Ffarm7.static.flickr.com%2F6196%2F6047948946_937d02a0eb_z.jpg&hash=8365485151b22ce1891ee3d3b331d32868915b0c)
Ummm... interesting, veeeery interesting. :thumbsup:
Monitors have changed their designs and roles over the years.
The Germans in WW2 might have used one of the triple-barreled 11" turrets from Scharnhorst/Gniesenau, or one of the twin 15" from Tirpitz, to travel the coast of the Baltic.
They also used their WW1-era pre-dreadnoughts early in the war; those were slow and old, with only 4 main guns, so not much use in combat but good enough to carry large caliber guns to battles within range of the sea.
QuoteYou mean like the so-called "Pocket" Battleships were?
;D
parallel evolution
and of course they would have been useful in Operation Seelowe
Quote Joe P "They also used their WW1-era pre-dreadnoughts early in the war; those were slow and old, with only 4 main guns, so not much use in combat but good enough to carry large caliber guns to battles within range of the sea."
Indeed Joe and one fired the first shots of WWII at Danzig
Quote from: tigercat on September 19, 2011, 07:58:52 AM
But in a WHIF universe they could have built them suitable for the Atlantic although at some point they stop being monitors and start being single turreted kamikaze commerce raiders as they'd have enough of a punch to maul a convoy but not enough to fight off any major enemy warship and would run aground if you tried to use them as monitors.
Yup when does a Monitor become a Coastal Battleship or even a Pocket Battleship ?
I suppose the origional plans for HMS Furious and Glorious with their 18" guns could almost describe your "sea going monitor"
"More than 600 special vessels would be required, including landing craft, minesweepers, destroyers, light cruisers, monitors, and some heavy shallow draft support ships . The latter were built in the form of the three "battlecruisers"; HMS Glorious, HMS Furious, and HMS Courageous.[1][2]"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baltic_Project
heavy shallow draft support ships that would seem to sum up the philosophy of Monitors to a tee
I wonder what other ships they would have had in mind.
I think speed and armour (or lack thereof) are very important. Monitors were generally very slow, as they weren't supposed to be anything other than a mobile gun battery, and weren't meant to fight other ships so weren't very well protected.
HMS Glorious, HMS Furious, and HMS Courageous. As planed they were very stange ships. Unique one could even say. Definately not monitors IMHO, a unique class
They were supposed to be "light battlecruisers", or "large light cruisers" as they were officially termed. Basically capital ship guns on a cruiser hull. And yes, definitely not monitors. They're probably closer to the later German Panzerschiffs (pocket battleships) than anything else.
QuoteYup when does a Monitor become a Coastal Battleship or even a Pocket Battleship ?
mused NARSES2 Usually, but not aways, its the second turret.* But any discussion of the class is going to involve a lot of 'Except for...' and
'unless...' . For the US Navy, during their period of most active employment (our Civil War ) they were the equivalent of a
conventional fleet-intended for offensive operations against the enemy navy. Only the terrain, riverine and costal areas,
differed, as the only Confederate ships on the High Seas were the commerce raiders, and even the scattering of sea-going
US ironclads (
New Ironsides and, perhaps,
Galena ) weren't nearly fast enough to catch them. They also saw
considerable employment in South America, mainly in Riverine actions during the war of the Triple alliance. The French
clearly liked the idea, as they actively built Monitors for close to a generation after 1861, but they began going to more sea-worthy
'Coast Defence' ships. ( Anybody notice that "Littoral Combat" is pretty much the same thing? ;D)
The real difference, though,
is freeboard-the height of the main deck above the water. In the case of some US monitors, this could be measured in inches,
and was seldom more than six feet. With less mass above water, less flotation was needed below, so Monitors were consequently
shallower in draft than a ship of similar dimensions intended for the High seas. The Monitor thus becomes a harder, smaller target,
but it carries a price. In anything other than a calm sea, the Monitor is at far greater risk-not only are all its normal holes ( Stacks, ventilators,
hatches ) closer to the water, any wave that breaks over a monitor has almost nowhere else to go but down into the hull, and as
already observed, there's less of that to fill up. A proper ship, with higher freeboard, may ship some water in a heavy sea, but there
is all that top work for it to flow over, and back out of, before it gets down to sea level. Gunnery also suffers. With a bit more height,
the guns are less affected by the weather, whereas the Monitor, in even moderately heavy seas, finds its aim frequently blocked by the
waves themselves. Monitors could, and did, cross Oceans. A couple of double- turret monitors crossed the Atlantic ( One appears to
have been the
Miantonomoh-I had thought it was the
Monadnock, but she seems to have made an extended cruise in South American
waters ) in the late 1860's and we seemed to have used them in the Caribbean fairly extensively, right up until we stopped using them
alltogether.
The last gasp of jackie Fisher's obsession with speed above all were the "large light Cruisers" that Tigercat cites above were in no sense
Monitors. Even though their draft was shallower than comparable battleships, they were still proper sea-going vessels.
The Wikipedia article on Monitors is worth a quick look-I knew about the
Huascar but the survival of the
Solve was news to me.
One more pilgrimage to make when I get to travel again... ;D
Forgot to add the link before I left earlier-enjoy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monitor_%28warship%29
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brazilian_monitor_Parna%C3%ADba_(U17)
What I should have said is that Glorious and all were a different approach to tackling shore bombardment the philosophy behind their desing was similar to monitors but the solution was completely different.
I suppose the best illustration is that in many ways the monitors evolved from the floating battery slow and unwieldy
Whereas you could say Glorious , Furious , Courageous were more the descendants of the Bomb Ketch designed to get guns close inshore but still a ship at the end of the day.
This gets more interesting as it goes along - thanks gents :thumbsup:
Quote from: NARSES2 on September 21, 2011, 01:33:32 AM
This gets more interesting as it goes along - thanks gents :thumbsup:
I agree! The quality and quantity of erudition displayed on this site is remarkable. Together, we probably know the answer, no matter what the question!
Quote from: Rheged on September 21, 2011, 01:55:01 AM
Quote from: NARSES2 on September 21, 2011, 01:33:32 AM
This gets more interesting as it goes along - thanks gents :thumbsup:
I agree! The quality and quantity of erudition displayed on this site is remarkable. Together, we probably know the answer, no matter what the question!
Yup we probably have the answer if we can remember what the origional question was ;D
What's more to the point, we can probably supply a question for any answer you care to think of, not to mention those you may not care to think of...... ;)
;D
WHIFF jeopardy
The modern day sucessors of the monitors are probably in many ways the ballstic missile submarines or the US's proposed Arsenal ship
Quote from: tigercat on September 22, 2011, 04:32:21 AM
The modern day sucessors of the monitors are probably in many ways the ballstic missile submarines or the US's proposed Arsenal ship
As pointed out earlier, the Littoral Combat Ship concept is almost a direct descendent. Designed for inshore, shallow waters and with a lot of launchers as a replacement for big guns.
I'd missed that. Interesting not a type I was previously aware of.
Quote from: rickshaw on September 22, 2011, 05:09:44 AM
As pointed out earlier, the Littoral Combat Ship concept is almost a direct descendent. Designed for inshore, shallow waters and with a lot of launchers as a replacement for big guns.
Pity they didn't call them monitors, at least we mere mortals might have understood what the devil they were for then...... :unsure:
>I suppose the best illustration is that in many ways the monitors evolved from the floating battery slow and unwieldy<
In much the same way modern-day "torpedoes" evolved. In the American Civil War, for instance, "torpedoes" were simply static mines (as in Admiral Farragut's "Damn the Torpedoes; Full speed ahead!" saying at the mined entrance to Mobile Bay). Then, motors were added to propell them toward the enemy instead of just lying there, and they became "motor torpedoes". So a "motor torpedo boat" is less a "motorboat with torpedoes", but rather a "boat" loaded with "motor-torpedoes"!!
I just thought of a bio-whif-----The ancient gun turret mounted in the back of a large reptile--becoming a "Monitor Lizard"!
(https://www.whatifmodellers.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi681.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fvv173%2Fsequoiaranger%2FMonitorLizardBioWhif.jpg&hash=3674963d87a5cedff5fa4a41eb46ff82931c4d55)
Shouldn't that be a "lizard monitor"?
Ed
Brilliant, Ranger! I wonder how much the old "Endangered Species: Komodo Dragon" kit is going for these days :unsure: :wacko:
wouldant a "lizard monitor" come round an count how meny are left after class has finished?
Shouldn't that be the Commando Dragon