Sunday 26 July 2009

Thunder Along The Mississippi........Part 2


Once more into the research breach as I attempt to find suitable names for the ships in the collection. In this I am fortunate to have a few titles in the collection that will be of enormous help - namely Warships and Naval Battles of the Civil War by Tony Gibbons which is an absolute bible for the period. The ironclad stuff should be pretty straightforward although the Confederates suffer from having, aside from Virginia, only one type of casemate ironclad represented, or more specifically, one size. I need to identify a couple Confederate ironclads about the size of the CSS Texas (she is the named vessel that comes in the pack with the Virginia) so this should be pretty straightforward. The real difficulty will be with identifying and naming the bewildering array of various sized screw and paddle vessels of all shapes and rigs employed by both sides.


I also want to find out which, if any, of the various European ironclads in service at the time was closest in layout and design to the USS New Ironsides as i would like to have her as the Union flagship.

4 comments:

Paul O'G said...

Let me know if I can be of any assistance, I have a few titles on my shelf too.

David Crook said...

Cheers Tas! IIRC one of those was a stonking thick book acquired whilst you were over here! Ahhh, the heady aroma of Samuel Smiths bitter........;-)

Paul O'G said...

Indeed so! And dont forget the London Ale...and Spitfire too!

David Crook said...

........happy days indeed! If only I could get to Aus and visit the Man Cave in all its glory!