Shannon vs Chesapeake

[David Manley]

Thats a nice theory, but there's no evidence that they were built that way to resist gunfire. I posed the question to some colleagues who work or have worked at NAVSEA on various survivability projects, and who also have a deep interest in US naval history. Here's what I heard back from one of them (I got several replies all along the same lines, but this was the most comprehensive)

"I have been a student of frigates of the sailing navies for over 40 years and have a huge collection of material for the US, Britain, and French frigaes of the period. I would not agree with the overall flow of the argument at all, I do not agree that the US design was an attempt to make a mini "ship" of the line, and would never agree that the US frigates were built to resist cannon shot of any size.

Their is little doubt in my mind that the design was an attempt to make very fast frigate that better armed that the standard frigates around the world. The USN was going to get six ships - every possible opponent would have access to considerably more vessels including ships of the line. Traditionally, ships of the line could out sail frigates in rough weather. If these ships were to survive, they needed to be seaworthy enough to out sail the ships they could not fight and, at the same time, defeat any ship that might catch them. They were built to the same concept that the German armoured ships were in prior to WWII.

The large US frigates were overbuilt to ensure that could both carry the rig and sails necesary to move them at high speeds, and the weight of metal necessary to defeat any oposing frigate they might find themselves fighting. Certainly the demise of USS President to a squadron of frigates established that ships were not invulnerable to cannon balls from frigate sized guns - but of course, they were never intended to be. Rather, the design gave the ships' the structural integrity to "take a licling and keep on ticking" when in action as well as the ability to carry an then extraordinary brioadside weight of metal without that weight ultimately hampering the ship's ability to sail at high speed in even heavy weather over time.

Thus, virtually every component in the design was "overbuilt" - the hull frame and fittings, planking, deck, masts, spars, and rigging were all bigger, thicker, and tougher than those of their smaller relatives in foreign navies only because that is was was required to make the design successful while giving the vessels long lifetime, and thus justifying the considerably expense their building set back the naval appropriations and the US treasury."

So, in summary, whilst the ships sides were undoubtedly heavily built they were that way because that was what was required to support the armament, and rig, not to resist gunfire. that was a happy by-product.

[csadn]

Certainly the demise of USS President to a squadron of frigates established that ships were not invulnerable to cannon balls from frigate sized guns

Um -- this statement isn't quite correct: _President_ was not defeated in combat.

http://www.militaryhistoryonline.com...president.aspx

When _President_ was attempting to cross the bar of New York Harbor, it ran aground, and spent something like two hours getting pummeled by the winter storm which had blown up (forcing the British away from their blockade, and giving Stephen Decatur an opportunity to slip away). The result of this was severe damage to _President_ -- loss of copper from the hull bottom; masts were twisted and cracked; the hull itself was bowed ("hogged", in the parlance of the day). In short, _President_ was not the ship it had been before the accident.

That said, when the British squadron finally caught up with _President_ the next day, the first ship to engage (HMS _Endymion_, a frigate armed with 26 24-lb. guns, designed specifically as a response to US "heavy frigates", altho' based off a French design) got slapped around rather badly, losing most of its rigging to fire from _President_, as well as 11 men killed and 24 wounded; and this with _President_'s powder being mostly defective (from both the storm damage and, um, "other causes"), and being aimed away from the hull -- there is argument over what _President_ might have done had it also "aimed low". (_Endymion_'s gunners, aiming for _President_'s hull, managed to kill 24 and wound 55, including Decatur.) That's worth repeating -- with defective powder and crippling hull damage, _President_ was still able to knock out of the fight an equivalent British frigate.

Decatur, for his part, surrendered not because of the engagement with _Endymion_, but because he knew his ship was sufficiently damaged it could not outrun the British ships to begin with (as _Constitution_ had once done early in the War), and was barely able to stay afloat, much less fight (that it barely made it to the West Indies post-battle is not often mentioned). The matter was not helped when the British announced that _Endymion_ had in fact beaten _President_ in a stand-up one-on-one fight; that statement was patently untrue, and everyone involved knew it.

As to making the US frigates proof against all fire: Even its designers knew that wasn't possible -- not even a SoL could stop a 24-lb. ball at close range (and the less said about the carronades, the better); the idea was to make it proof against *other frigates*, which carried 18-lb. cannon or smaller -- if a SoL hove into view, the US frigate cracked on sail, and *ran*. So I'm guessing the whole "US frigates were cannonballproof" meme came about from the usual source -- misinterpretation of a comment (probably by a politician :) ).