Shipbucket

Сlarification: the PCW abbreviation means, that this ship is a part of Pacific Confederacy World - AU, where the Peru-Bolivian Confederacy won the war with Chile in 1836-1839 and became a major (relatively, of course) South American power.



The third USS "Roanoke" was ordered in 1876, as a result of the "Virginius incident" in 1873, that nearly draw the USA into the war with Spain. After that, Congress, concerned about the state of the navy, ordered at least some refit and modernization program.

In 1874, the Secretary of the Navy, S. Robson proposed a large, sea-capable "monitor-type cruiser for Western Coast", that should be capable for coastal defense and for ocean raider operation. The Congress show some interest and in 1875 finally allocated a 1,2 millions dollars for a new ship for Pacific. Due to the technical problems, the actual building started only in 1876.

Description:

The new USS "Roanoke" was laid up on the "Continental Iron Works" Burgess shipyard in Vallejo. It was a large, 6500-tonnes high freeboard ships. She has a very high bulwarks over the weather deck, and a hurricane deck above. Two smoke pipes were placed side-by-side in central part; they ejected smoke from the ten cylindcrial boilers, that prowide steam for two horizontal Compound steam machines. At 6500 ihp, the "Roanoke" was able to steam at 16,2 knots.

She was armed with four IX-inch rifled muzzle-loading guns, obtained by rifling the XI-inch Dahlgren smoothbores. All four guns were placed in open barbette mount on the centerline; the mounts wasn't the "disappearing" type, but could be lowered down for better stability in heavy seas. The barbettes didn't go through through hull to the armored deck, but simply stand on the weather desk, and only the armored elevator tubes go lower.

The secondary armament consisted of eight 60pd breech-loading rifles, four per boardside, and one 100pd bow chaser. On the hurricane deck, ten Gatling guns were placed for anti-torpedo boat defense.

The underwater armament consisted of two boardside launch systems and control station for Heyth-Lay wire-guided torpedo, bow spar torpedo tube, stern tow torpedo (against ramming attempts) and steel ram.

The armored deck of "Roanoke" was maid of 25 mm steel, with side slopes of 25 steel + 25 iron plates. The machines and boilers were additionally protected by the coal. Near the waterline, the hull was sectioned on the waterproof wooden cofferdam, designed to localize the damage. The barbettes were protected by the 250 mm steel plates.

Serviece:

Launched in 1879, the USS "Roanoke" was comissioned in 1882. At this time, she was the biggest US ship; bigger even than new monitor USS "Neptune", and smaller only than the new USS "Hyperion" large monitor, that was still on yard. The foreign guests invited to the ceremony, noted that the ship looks "impressive," and includes a number of technical innovations, such as Edison lamps and telephone for internal communication. Hovewer, they also noted that her guns looked "anachronistic".

In 1884, the USS "Roanoke" made a trans-pacific journey to China, to demonstrate the flag and present protection for the american citizens in the situation of Sino-French war. After that, in 1887, she made a great South American trip, visiting the ports of Equador, Pacific Confederacy and Chile.

In 1889, the "Roanoke" partisipated in small-scale US-german conflict over Samoa. In this "mutually inconclusive" undeclared war, she have some fighting with the german ironclad SMS "Hansa" and iron-hulled cruiser SMS "Bismark", but both sides have no loss. The "Roanoke", hovewer, was slightly damaged by german ships, that she managed to chase out of Apia, and in 1890 she was refitted in San-Francisco. In 1893, she participated in the US intervention of Hawaii, and in 1894 USS "Roanoke" was placed into reserve.

In 1898, when the Spanish-American War started, the USS "Roanoke" was recomissioned again, and sent to the Philippines, as a reinforcement against the possible spanish counterstrike. But the didn't even fire her guns in anger during the conflict, and was decomissioned in 1899. The other refit were proposed, but was considered too expensive and in 1902 the cruiser was given to the Oregon Naval militia as coastal defense floating battery.

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Serve the Nation! Be striped!

Oh... I'm sorry: I just notice that I placed not the right picture here!

I'll fix it as I return to the computer.

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Serve the Nation! Be striped!

Ok, there:

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Serve the Nation! Be striped!

And another version, modified by colleague Gromoboy from the Alternate History forum:

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Serve the Nation! Be striped!

I don't know about technical issues, but it looks original.

Thanks! I must admit - i really love unoptimal, unusuall ships.

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Serve the Nation! Be striped!

Realizing that this is an alternate universe ship I'm really hoping this version of the Roanoke was all new construction...ditching the old one entirely. This rebuild using the original modified frigate hull would have been a disaster. The engines were awful, the mass of the added turret were more than the bottom could reasonably support, and she was seriously top heavy.

If new construction, what a seriously fun build on your part!

CraigH

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In active progress
More Ships with Sails
Early Torpedo Boats in SB and FD Scales
Some railroad stuff
More random stuff that strikes me!

Well, i'm thinking about try to use the "New Hampshire" hull... She was in a good condition (on the stocks) and she is the ship-of-the-line, at least. Cut the hull down, reinforce the keel, and install the powerplant - and maybe it would be better that USS "Roanoke" (original)?

Thankee!

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Serve the Nation! Be striped!

Do what the USN did!

The late 1860's through 1870's were the "dark ages" for the USN. A war weary nation simply was in no mood to fund a navy. What the management did was to "administratively" rebuild hulls left over from the war. They cannibalized, sold off materials, and outright lied to the Congress (they were in on it too) about upgrading or repairing existing hulls. They took the funds and slowly built new ships, more or less state of the art in many ways (except in ordinance) and blew crazy amounts of money doing it. Modern guns waited till the 1880's and the "New Navy".

This way you can have a new Roanoke" with decent engines, Barbettes, a modern ram bow, and hull capable of supporting anything you desire.

Cheers!
CraigH

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In active progress
More Ships with Sails
Early Torpedo Boats in SB and FD Scales
Some railroad stuff
More random stuff that strikes me!

Colleague, i knew about Robson's machinations perfectly.

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Serve the Nation! Be striped!