No, they could do what Tryon did during the Achill exercises
So the USN is blockaded in port and loses ... or it comes out to fight and loses. The only useful thing the USN can do is what the Imperial Russian Navy did in the Crimean war: strip the ships of their big guns and use them to supplement the very small numbers of guns available in the coastal fortifications. As TFSmith121 has recently demonstrated by reference to the ORN there are nowhere near enough guns in the armouries to fill or even partially fill empty fortifications. The naval personnel can be used to make up for the acute perhaps even catastrophic shortage of trained or indeed any kind of gunner in the coastal fortifications.
No, they could do what Tryon did during the Achill exercises; worked out pretty well, actually, at least in terms of peacetime practice - at least he didn't run two of his capital ships into each other, or (as Sotheby did with HMS
Conqueror) run aground in British territorial waters.
However bad Tryon was at ship-handling and squadron maneuvers, he had a pretty sharp insight into how to break a close blockade in the Nineteenth Century. Pretty close to how the Americans chose to get ships to sea in 1775-83 and 1812-15, of course.
And, as stated, there were plenty of guns available to thicken up the shoreside defenses in the important US ports; given the weakness of the rebels, they were never needed, but that doesn't mean they didn't exist, as per:
One of the questions that comes up in these discussions is usually along the lines of "the American harbor defense forts were not fully armed or manned during the war historically, so obviously if a European power intervened in 1862, then any city defended by these positions was vulnerable to European seapower."
Now, the problem inherent in this is, of course, that the forts were generally not armed or manned to their full extent in 1861-65
because the rebels didn't have anything approximating a navy,
not because the Lincoln Administration and the War and Navy departments were made up of drooling idiots.
Of course, the reality that every great power conflict in this period - and, generally, throughout history - comes with a short of war period is handwaved away, along with such minor realities as the communication delay between (say) London and Halifax, much less between Halifax and any ships at sea.
This usually involves the US allowing British officials to use the US telegraph system (which was, essentially, under military control from early in 1861) or something equally ridiculous; the communications lag from Europe to the Western Hemisphere is, of course, generally just ignored.
With that in mind, obviously, the reality is that any political situation that was deteriorating toward war would, in fact, result in an effort by the US to strengthen the coastal defenses in the major Atlantic embayments and harbors, including:
- naval forces on the water,
- additional artillery and fortifications and troops ashore, and
- obstacles - mines, blockships, chains, cables, rafts, booms, dams, weirs, breakwaters, etc. - in the water.
This is usually handwaved away as well, despite multiple references in the
Official Records to just such sorts of activities, including army and naval commanders at a given point working together to maximize the effectiveness of their resources.
Along those lines, there's usually some cherry-picked piece of information about unfinished fortifications, unmounted guns, or something similar, up to and including the standard remark that the guns placed in a given fortification in a war where there was no maritime threat would surely be all that was available if there was one.
What's interesting about that is in the report by the US Army Ordnance Department as of June, 1862 (note: not the Navy Department, or detailing weapons and munitions procured by the state Adjutant Generals' offices) is there is a
very complete survey of equipment of all types procured during the previous 15 months, including - wait for it - artillery.
http://ebooks.library.cornell.edu/cg...=root;size=100
The table is split between field, siege, and (separately) sea coast guns and mortars, and include those on hand when the war began in April, 1861, those purchased between April, 1861 and June, 1862, weapons issued from the arsenals, and those remaining in store and so available to be used in (say) new units for the field armies and/or reinforced fortifications.
The numbers are very interesting.
In April, 1861, there were 231 field guns, 544 siege guns, and 1,508 sea coast guns and mortars on hand; an additional 1,608 field guns, 211 siege guns, and 302 sea coast guns and mortars were procured by June, 1862, and no less than 1,373 field guns, 553 siege guns, and 1,296 sea coast guns and mortars were issued - meaning supplied to units in the field and manning fortified posts. That left no less than 466 field guns, 202 siege guns, and 604 sea coast guns and mortars in store for future use.
In other words, after putting 3,132 guns into service with active forces, there were still another 1,272 in store - including no less than 806 heavy guns (siege artillery and seacoast guns and mortars). Or, in other words, enough artillery to equip 212 additional batteries of six guns each, including 77 batteries of field artillery, 33 of siege artillery,
and 100 batteries of sea coast guns and mortars.
To put that another way, if a standard divisional artillery is estimated at three batteries of six guns each, or 18 total, that's enough field artillery for 25 infantry divisions. The siege artillery batteries would be enough for (as an example) 11 additonal separate battalions of three batteries each, while the 100 batteries of coast artillery pieces would be enough to equip eight additional full
regiments (12 companies/batteries each) of heavy artillery for fortress duty.
And in case anyone thinks that's the end of it, a year later, in June of 1863, the number of guns in store had actually increased in all three categories.
Amazing what can be found in the
Official Records when one looks at them.
Best,
