Warship Wednesday, Sept 19

Here at LSOZI, we are going to take out every Wednesday for a look at the old steampunk navies of the 1866-1938 time period and will profile a different ship each week.

- Christopher Eger

Warship Wednesday,  Sept 19

Here we have the experimental torpedo boat USS Alarm chilling out where she spent most of her time– at dock.
Built by the New York Naval Yard 1873-1874, she was one of the few warships commissioned into the very small US Navy in the post-bellum period after the Civil War. She was a short boat at just 158-feet overall. Her main armament was a very long 24-foot ram bow, drawing from the lessons of the Italian Navy at the 1866 Battle of Lissa. She also carried three spar torpedoes that hung over the side like medieval lances. The forward hatch held a fixed 15-inch smooth-bore Dahlgren gun, the largest ordnance in the Navy at the time. The entire ship had to be aimed to fire the cannon, her only one. Once she was committed to battle she would attack at full speed (10-knots) and drive herself right at her target, firing her 15-inch cannon at point blank range while waiting for her ram and spar torpedoes to finish the job. Marines with musketry and Gatling guns would cover her decks and board her victim once the ram was impaled.

Behind the hatch…this is not a torpedo tube…but a fixed 15-inch artillery piece mounted directly at the front of the USS Alarm’s bow, looking out over her ram.

The USS Alarm from the front. Note the very long ‘nose’ she had in the form of a 24-foot pointed ram that was thought capable of breaking away and still keeping the ship afloat. See the roughly square hatch over the bow ram…behind it is where the 15-inch cannon was mounted for point-blank fire.

She served for ten years, all with the Atlantic Squadron, and was decommissioned in 1885. The Navy held her in mothballs for another decade and sold her for her value in scrap, about $2900 worth, in 1898. She never had a chance to fight.

Specs:
Displacement 800 tons.
Dimensions 158′ 6″ x 28′ 0″ x 10′ 6″.
Armament 1 x 15″ fixed SB gun, small arms
3 x spar torpedo.
Speed 10 Knots on a single steam engine and boiler.