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Considerations about naval designs

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Re: Considerations about naval designs
Post by John Prigent   » Wed Jan 07, 2015 9:17 am

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I remember reading somewhere that many early ironclads were built with a 'ramming bow'. Presumable it was found either to be useless or to reduce seaworthiness, so dropped. RFC might have some history references about this to share with us, perhaps?

Cheers

John
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Re: Considerations about naval designs
Post by Keith_w   » Wed Jan 07, 2015 6:41 pm

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n7axw wrote:Hi fallsfromtrees,

You are undoubtedly right on this one, although when Delthak was converted to an ironclad, she was already very heavily braced.

But given the punishment deliberate ramming would incur, even more bracing would be in order. I know I'm the one who came up with the idea, but I'm not sure it's really very practical.

Don


It was a barge - it probably doesn't have a particularly pointy front
--
A common mistake people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools.
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Re: Considerations about naval designs
Post by Castenea   » Wed Jan 07, 2015 7:14 pm

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John Prigent wrote:I remember reading somewhere that many early ironclads were built with a 'ramming bow'. Presumable it was found either to be useless or to reduce seaworthiness, so dropped. RFC might have some history references about this to share with us, perhaps?

Cheers

John

While RFC knows a lot more than I, the major reasons for not putting on rams included the mass of the ram and bracing, tactical considerations like the fact you need to cross your own T, and get close enough for boarding actions.

Just a couple of anecdotes: The CSS Virginia did more damage to itself than to the USS Monitor during a ramming attack. The only victory of the HMS Dreadnaught in WWI was when it rammed a U-boat.
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Re: Considerations about naval designs
Post by AirTech   » Thu Jan 08, 2015 8:36 am

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John Prigent wrote:I remember reading somewhere that many early ironclads were built with a 'ramming bow'. Presumable it was found either to be useless or to reduce seaworthiness, so dropped. RFC might have some history references about this to share with us, perhaps?

Cheers

John


The ramming bow improves fuel consumption under some load conditions, look up modern bulbous bows. But the benefits are specific to a particular speed, change the speed and the benefits vanish. Some modern warships have them, some don't.
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