The Old Steam Navy: Frigates, Sloops and Gunboats, 1815-1885
Year: 1990 Language: english Author: Donald L. Canney Genre: History Publisher: Naval Institute Press Format: PDF Quality: Scanned pages Pages count: 227 Description: With volume one of The Old Steam Navy Donald L. Canney has done U.S. naval historians a great service. In the past, there has been a tendency to begin the story of U.S. warship design with the creation of the "New Navy," in 1883. Canney revives the memory of the older steam navy out of which that new navy grew. It was a very different organization, much less centralized than the modern U.S. Navy, with much of the design work carried out by the staffs of the individual navy yards. It also lacked any semblance of a centralized modern tactical organization like the office of the chief of naval operations (or, for that matter, the British Admiralty). The old navy also existed in what seems to us a very alien strategic environment. Both before and after the Civil War, the only recognized probable enemy was Great Britain, and the Royal Navy was so powerful that the United States could not really hope to match it. In the event of war, U.S. strategy (as in 1812) would have been commerce raiding, to which end individually powerful ships, like the big steam frigate Merrimack, were built before the Civil War. As Canney recounts, they were not altogether successful. After the Civil War, the tacit assumption seems to have been that not even war with England was likely. The navy's main mission was what might now be called Third World presence.
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The Old US Steam Navy, Volume One - Frigates, Sloops and Gunboats 1815-1885.pdf
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The Old Steam Navy: Frigates, Sloops and Gunboats, 1815-1885
Language: english
Author: Donald L. Canney
Genre: History
Publisher: Naval Institute Press
Format: PDF
Quality: Scanned pages
Pages count: 227
Description: With volume one of The Old Steam Navy Donald L. Canney has done U.S. naval historians a great service. In the past, there has been a tendency to begin the story of U.S. warship design with the creation of the "New Navy," in 1883. Canney revives the memory of the older steam navy out of which that new navy grew. It was a very different organization, much less centralized than the modern U.S. Navy, with much of the design work carried out by the staffs of the individual navy yards. It also lacked any semblance of a centralized modern tactical organization like the office of the chief of naval operations (or, for that matter, the British Admiralty).
The old navy also existed in what seems to us a very alien strategic environment. Both before and after the Civil War, the only recognized probable enemy was Great Britain, and the Royal Navy was so powerful that the United States could not really hope to match it. In the event of war, U.S. strategy (as in 1812) would have been commerce raiding, to which end individually powerful ships, like the big steam frigate Merrimack, were built before the Civil War. As Canney recounts, they were not altogether successful. After the Civil War, the tacit assumption seems to have been that not even war with England was likely. The navy's main mission was what might now be called Third World presence.
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The Old US Steam Navy, Volume One - Frigates, Sloops and Gunboats 1815-1885.pdf
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