Armoured ram USS Katahdin

 Armoured ram USS Katahdin - commissioned in 1897 and expended as a target ship in 1909.

A design reminiscent of HMS POLYPHEMUS I suggest, but without the primary torpedo armament

USS Katahdin—Last of the Rams

By Lieutenant Colonel Robert H. Rankin, USMC

October 1958

Proceedings

Vol. 84/10/668

The ram, as a naval weapon, first used on the galleys in ancient Greek and Roman days, reappeared several times during ensuing years. In fact the ram, in one form or another, was considered a good offensive weapon until comparatively recent times, serious consideration having been given to it as recently as the late 1890’s.

The value of ramming, wherein one vessel deliberately runs into another, was always a sadly overrated naval tactic. Serious and objective study of naval engagements throughout the years reveals for the most part that such tactics were ineffectual, particularly against a moving target and in the face of firepower of any magnitude. This was true even in the days of Greece and Rome. Nevertheless, the idea was continually revived. With the advent of steam, entirely new tactical schemes were possible, but even then the idea of the ram continued to be espoused.

It was now held that a vessel independent of the wind would, if provided with an iron beak or even reinforced bows, be an excellent weapon in itself. Going a step further, it was argued by some that there was an important place for a vessel designed solely for ramming. This particular idea was tried with but indifferent success in several foreign navies but persisted rather strongly in this country, particularly in high places. During the Civil War a spate of rams was built by both the Union and Confederate navies in their contest to win the war afloat. Some deliberate thinkers tried to point out the fallacy of the idea. Unfortunately they were in the minority. A review of the records shows that even in the confined waters of rivers and bays, where many Civil War ship actions were fought, the ram was of dubious value.

Nevertheless the idea continued to persist in one form or another in this country. While some designers clung to the idea of the ram as a vessel designed solely for ramming purposes, others conceived of the ram as a sort of adjunct weapon, reinforcing the bows or attaching an iron beak to the bows. In the latter instances warship performance was hampered. Among other things, ships had to be built shorter and wider with ramming tactics in mind, and the bows themselves were modified, to the extent that sailing qualities were impaired.

At long last, with the building of the USS Katahdin, which proved a costly failure, the idea was finally abandoned in this country.

Built at a cost of some $930,000 at the Bath Iron Works, Bath, Maine, the vessel was named for a mountain in that state. Launched in 1893 and completed two years later, the Katahdin displaced 2,155 tons. She was 250 feet long, 43½ feet wide, and had a draft of fifteen feet. Her curved deck and her sides were covered with armor varying between two and six inches in thickness. The vessel rode extremely low in the water, in the manner of most rams. Offensive weapons were her speed and her ram. For defense against torpedo attack she was armed with four 6- pounder guns.

Designated a “harbor defense ram,” Katahdin went into commission on February 2, 1896. During her trials she failed to reach her contract speed of seventeen knots, sixteen-odd knots being the best she could do. This resulted in a reduction in the contract price paid the builders.

The Kalahdin made a short experimental cruise with the North Atlantic Squadron, then with the outbreak of the Spanish-Ameri- can War was refitted and attached to Commodore Schley’s Flying Squadron. Her war service was restricted to some rather limited patrol duty off the New England coast. Following the conclusion of hostilities she was laid up and for the next ten years was in ordinary. In 1909 she was turned over to the Bureau of Ordnance for experimental purposes, a rather expensive monument to a diehard theory.

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More here:

https://www.usni.org/magazines/naval-history-magazine/1994/april/unusual-strange-ship-katahdin

Torpedo Ram HMS Polyphemus

The 2,640 ton Torpedo Ram HMS Polyphemus was built in 1891/92 she had shallow-draft, fast, low-profile vessel, and was designed to penetrate enemy harbours at speed and sink anchored ships. She had a top speed of 17 knots, which was very fast for the time, to ram and sink or badly damage ships at anchor and make a quick escape.

Designed by Nathaniel Barnaby primarily as a protected torpedo boat, the ram was provided very much as secondary armament.

Even with a shallow draft of 20ft and 6inches Polyphemus was capable of making a passage in any weather from Plymouth to Gibraltar, or from Gibraltar to Malta at 10 knots without assistance. With a ships complement of 80, she was armed with 5 × 14-inch torpedo tubes and 6 × 1-inch Nordenfelt guns. One torpedo tube ran down the center of the ram. To help with manoeuvring in tight places she had bow rudders also on the ram. She was also the first Royal Navy vessel to be fitted with 80-volt electric lighting. This was adopted by the Royal Navy in 1882 following a fatal electrocution aboard HMS Inflexible, which had an 800-volt circuit.

Polyphemus launched a simulated attack on 30th of June 1885 evading around ten torpedoes fired by 6 torpedo boats during her two-mile run-in and easily smashed through the booms and a 5-inch steel hawser holding them in place.

It has been suggested that H. G. Wells’ fictional HMS Thunder Child from his novel The War of the Worlds may have been based on this ship, in part because he described Thunder Child as an ironclad torpedo ram. When Martian invaders attack an evacuee packed ship, the ship goes to their rescue. During the intervention, the Thunder Child sacrifices herself to enable the refugee ship to escape but succeeds in destroying two alien tripods.

Polyphemus spent most of her career in the Mediterranean and was sold on July 7th 1903 and broken up.

Despite being a successful ship, no further vessels of this design were ordered by the Royal Navy, possibly because the development of much more sophisticated ships with traversing gun turrets, rendered the design of this ship obsolete. And so, Polyphemus was the only ship of this type which the Royal Navy possessed.

The wonderful names that the British came up for their ships, shows their affinity to the Greek and Roman Classical period after which they moulded their Empire. Polyphemus appears in Greek mythology as that most infamous of one-eyed giants, a Cyclops, the son of the Greek Poseidon (equivalent to the Roman Neptune), the trident bearing mythical sea god.