'America' American 3rd rate (1782)

[Haratik]

I finally got around to posting the only ship of the line I will personally champion.  Ladies, gentlemen, bastards, and wenches, I present to you:

 

 

USS America

 

 

Laid Down:  May 1777

 

Launched:  November 5, 1782

 

Builder:  Colonel James Hackett

 

 

Admiralty Model by: Robert Bruckner

 

General Characteristics:

 

Country of Origin: United States/13 Colonies

Operators: United States, France

Type:  Ship of the Line

Guns:  74

Crew: 626

 

Length:  182.5ft (55.63m)

Beam:  50.5ft (15.39m)

Draught:  23ft (7.01m)

Displacement:  2,014 tons

Speed:  12 knots

 

Armament:

30 x 18-pounder guns

30 x 12-pounder guns

14 x 9-pounder guns

(Source)

 

 

Plans:

 

History:

On 20 November 1776, the Continental Congress authorized the construction of three 74-gun ships of the line. One of these was America, laid down in May 1777 in the shipyard of John Langdon on Rising Castle Island (now Badger's Island) in Kittery, Maine, across the Piscataqua River from Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

However, progress on her construction was delayed by a chronic scarcity of funds and a consequent shortage of skilled craftsmen and well seasoned timber. The project dragged on for over two years under the immediate supervision of Col.James Hackett as master shipbuilder and the overall direction of John Langdon. Then, on 6 November 1779, the Marine Committee named Captain John Barry as her prospective commanding officer and ordered him to "...hasten, as much as will be in your power, the completing of that ship...."

Nevertheless, the difficulties which previously had slowed the building of the warship continued to prevail during the ensuing months, and little had been accomplished by mid-March 1780 when Barry applied for a leave of absence to begin on the 23rd. However he did perform one notable service for the ship. In November 1777, after inspecting the unfinished vessel which was slated to become his new command, he strongly recommended against a proposal, then under consideration, to reduce her to a 54-gun frigate. His arguments carried the day, and the Marine Committee decided to continue the work of construction according to the ship's original plans.

All possibility of Barry's commanding America ended on 5 September 1780 when he was ordered to Boston to take command of the 36-gun frigate Alliance which had recently arrived from Europe. Over nine months later, on 23 June 1781, Congress ordered the Continental Agent of Marine, Robert Morris, to get America ready for sea and, on the 26th, picked Captain John Paul Jones as her commanding officer. Jones reached Portsmouth on 31 August and threw himself into the task of completing the man-of-war. However, before the work was finished, Congress decided on 3 September 1782 to present the ship to King Louis XVI of France to replace the ship of the lineMagnifique, which had run aground and been destroyed on 11 August 1782 while attempting to enter Boston Harbor. The ship was also to symbolize the new nation's appreciation for France's service to and sacrifices in behalf of the cause of the American patriots.

Despite his disappointment over losing his chance to command the largest warship yet built in America, Jones remained in Portsmouth striving to finish the new ship. The home in which he boarded is now known as the John Paul Jones House and is a National Historic Landmark. His labors bore fruit on 5 November 1782 when America – held partially back by a series of ropes calculated to break in sequence to check the vessel's acceleration, lest she come to grief on the opposite bank of the river – slipped gracefully into the waters of the Piscataqua. After she had been rigged and fitted out, the ship – commanded by M. le Chevalier de Macarty Martinge (who had commanded Magnifique when she was wrecked) departed Portsmouth on 24 June 1783 and reached Brest, France, on 16 July. Armed with a main battery of 18 pounder at a time when French 74's carried 24-pdr and 36-pdr guns, America would have a relatively weak broadside compared to other French ships-of-the-line.

Little is known of her subsequent service under the French flag other than the fact it was brief. A bit over three years later, she was carefully examined by a survey committee which found her damaged by dry rot beyond economical repair, probably caused by her wartime construction from green timber. She was accordingly scrapped and a much larger America with nearly twice her weight of shot was built to take her place.  (Source)

 

There is, historically, very little information to be gleaned about the nation's very first ship of the line, other than what is readily available on Wikipedia and other public sources.  The plans were obtained from Howard Chapelle's "The American Sailing Navy", and are available in my pinned thread American Ship Collection along with other ship drafts belonging to the Continental and American Navies.

 

I'm going to extrapolate on why the armament of the USS America was so light compared to contemporary third rates of the era.  I had given the idea in a previous post in the aforementioned thread that the guns for the USS America were probably obtained from the Continental Army after there was no longer a need for it (indeed the Continental Navy was shortly disbanded after the war and some of her armament may have come from ships that were sold off).

 

American Artillery grew out of a small number of militia artillery companies in the Colonies. When war came, the members of these companies brought to the Patriot cause their expertise and their guns. Foremost among these was Henry Knox, a Boston bookseller, volunteer artilleryman and self-taught military genius, who took charge of the foundling American artillery branch and whipped it into a formidable force, probably the most effective branch of the Continental Army.

The first units to be formed were independent companies from the various colonies, such as Lamb's New York Artillery Company, the Rhode Island Train of Artillery, etc. But Knox was wide awake to the drawbacks of parochialism and in mid-1776 he re-organized the forces into four regiments of Continental Artillery. Originally, his establishment called for three regiments of twelve companies and one of eight, but this was later changed to a standard ten-company regiment. The companies varied in strength, depending upon what calibre of guns they possessed and how many of them, the usual gun strength being six to ten guns or howitzers per company.

The available guns were truly a hodge-podge. In the beginning the ordnance consisted of whatever could be "liberated" before the British Army came along and removed them - obsolete cannon from coast batteries, hand-me-down guns of volunteer companies and ships cannon. The motley collection consisted of three-pounder to 24-pounder guns, with the larger calibers most numerous. As a result of this imbalance, and because it was inevitable that this small stock of ordnance would be insufficient, gunfounding was begun in various places. The first to be produced were small one- and two-pounder swivel guns for naval use, but once the techniques had been mastered larger weapons were made. In 1776 some sixty 12-pounders and 18-pounders were cast in Pennsylvania, and shortly afterwards a standardized four-pounder light field gun was put into production. (Source)

 

It seemed my earlier hypothesis was a bit incorrect, as I assumed the guns available to the Continental Army were not much larger than 18-pounder guns.  But I do believe that most of her armament, came from the Army, and not other ships in the Navy, though I have no sources to prove this.  Little is gleaned of her history and armament after she was transferred to France.

I wish her history was a bit more fleshed out and glorious than a trans-atlantic voyage to serve in the French Navy as a gift to replace the loss of Magnifique.  Although there are other American ships of the line with longer service in the United States Navy that followed, I feel that their designs would be more out of place than the nation's first large warship.  If the devs considered giving the US player base a ship of the line, I feel there is no better proposal.

Edited April 30, 2016 by Haratik

[Vaz]

She looks beautiful!

Her armament and crew size would make her a magnificent boarder!

[Arvenski]

She's a beauty, alright. 

[OTMatt]

Maybe it will get that 12 knot speeds with guns, and the 3rd rate armor will make up for its lack of firepower.

[Cragger]

Constructed of unseasoned green timber due to wartime demand her service was uneventful and short in french service. Just three years after being taken into service she was found by survey to be rotten beyond fiscal repair and broken up and replaced by the America 1788 a Téméraire type 74 without over double her broadside weight.

Maybe it will get that 12 knot speeds with guns, and the 3rd rate armor will make up for its lack of firepower.

 

Her green timbers would make giving her more planking strength counter intuitive.