Armored Ship Thursday

for Armored Ship Thursday this week we have the USN monitor USS Onondaga. a double turreted monitor with a 15" Dahlgren smoothbore and an 8" Parrott rifle in each turret she was one of the most powerful armored vessels of the American Civil War. the Dahlgren shot a solid iron shot of around 480lb. the gunners actually skipped the balls across the water into the target. they could also fire shells or exploding shot. the Parrott rifles shot a 150lb iron bolt. designed by George W. Quintard and constructed at Continental Iron Works the Onondaga was commissioned into the USN in March of 1864. Onondaga was powered by 2 horizontal return connecting rod steam engines developing 640IHP and 4 boilers. her top speed was 7kts. she was 228ft long, the armor on the turrets and pilot house was 113/4" thick. she did her entire service in the James River below Richmond, VA. the Confederate ironclads could never quite manage to get down river to fight her and thusly she controlled the situation on the James. after service in the American Civil War she was sold to the French Navy. she crossed the Atlantic under her own power which was pretty good for a monitor as they were not really sea going ships, rather they were riverine and coastal warships. the French kept the name Onondaga and rearmed her with 9.4" rifles. she served the French Navy as a coastal defence ship until 1903 and was broken up and scrapped in 1904. all in all a very successful early iron armored ship. the first picture is a lithograph of civil war vintage showing Onondaga at sea. the second picture is a model of Onondaga which shows her hull form. the third is Onondaga on station in the James River below Richmond notice how close to the water her deck is. only 14" of freeboard. the last picture is Onondaga in the French Navy sometime in the late 1860's in the after turret her new 9.4" rifles can be seen.