California Dreaming (3)

We have seen the unrealism that permeates the descriptions of San Francisco's defences and the troops available to man those defences. This post will consider the British plans for reducing those defences, which will hopefully lead us on to our final post dealing with the actual course of the battle.

The British squadron


Of the ships available to the Pacific Squadron, we are told that HMS Camelion and HMS Mutine are 'hunting American cruisers across the breadth of the North Pacific'. The only appropriate question is - why? For a start, convoy is a far more efficient use of a limited number of ships than hunting. Secondly, the amount of naval traffic in the North Pacific is absolutely minimal: the British ships would be better employed in the South Pacific than in the North. Thirdly, the British have a disproportionately low share of this traffic in the North Pacific, because they are no longer in the whaling trade.

TFSmith must be assuming that nothing has changed since 1812, when USS Essex (later HMS Essex) preyed on British whalers in the Pacific. In reality, by the time CSS Shenandoah was preying on the Union fleet, the British had been out of the whaling game for a while. Although specialist articles explain how  'By the late 1850s whaling attracted little interest, and, as American oil was so readily available, the trade, which since the early 1850s comprised little more than ten ships, ceased,' even Wikipedia (with which we know TFSmith is familiar) explains that 'In 1859 the last cargoes of whale oil from British vessels were landed in London' and that the last onshore station in New Zealand closed in 1844. This article adds that 'The discovery of gold in 1851 came as a blow to whaling. Seamen would desert their ships en masse and it became near impossible to recruit in Sydney. The few vessels still involved had to sail forth with a skeleton crew to the Pacific islands, where they would recruit the majority of their men they needed.' If British whalers are not coming from Britain, New Zealand or Australia, then, it is hard to work out what exactly these two ships are protecting in the North Pacific.

Moreover, TFSmith's choice of ships is telling. The main criterion for chasing down commerce raiders should surely be speed: however, HMS Camelion and HMS Mutine are the second and third slowest ships in the Pacific squadron. Nor were they picked for their armament, as the 17-gun corvettes have fewer guns than 'the 22-gun sailing sloops [USS] St. Mary's and [USS] Cyane' which the Union sends out as commerce raiders. So why were they picked?

A clue may lie in the fact that TFSmith chooses to station HMS Termagant at Callao. In fact, per Barry Gough's Britannia's Navy on the West Coast of North America 1812-1914, the southernmost ship was to be HMS Bacchante, acting as the station flagship at Panama. What do all three of these ships - HMS Camelion, HMS Mutine, and HMS Termagant - have in common? They mount mostly solid shot guns, while their fellows (HMS Clio and HMS Tartar) carry shell guns. Shell guns are designed for use against ships, and are of little use against forts. Was it pure chance that TFSmith chose to test the defences of San Francisco using a Royal Navy squadron, two-thirds of whose armament are ineffective against masonry? Given how ridiculous the plans which he has them adopt are, such an ulterior motive seems distressingly plausible.

The bombardment plans 
 
We are told specifically that 'The plan was for Knox’s brigade to attack the fort from ashore, while Maitland’s warships bombarded the position from the Bay'.  The plan, then, is only to reduce Fort Point as a preparation for capturing San Francisco. Yet we are also told that 'the warships steamed in line ahead north-about around the Point at a squadron speed of eight knots'. In order to bombard Fort Point, then, they steam into the Golden Gate and into the teeth of the American defence. One only has to envisage this plan to see how foolish it is:

However, it also shows a breathtaking lack of familiarity with the practice of bombardment, as described in widely accessible texts. At the bombardment of Odessa in the Crimean War:

The Samson (the name is uniformly misspelt Sampson in the Navy Lists) [6, paddle], Tiger [16, paddle], Vauban [French, 20], and Descartes [French, 20], forming a first division, led in, and opened a fire which was at once returned. The four vessels circled off the forts at a range of about 2000 yards... Thereupon (at 7 A.M.), the Furious [10, paddle], Terrible [16, paddle], Retribution [28, paddle], and Mogador [28, paddle] were ordered to join the three ships which remained engaged; and presently both divisions anchored, in hopes of bettering their practice

In other bombardments- at Kola, Sebastopol, Petropavlosk, Kinburn - the ships also anchored. At Sveaborg, however, the gunboats and mortar vessels steamed in a circle to make defensive fire more difficult. In no case, however, did the Royal Navy sail right into a defensive crossfire and sacrifice any advantage it might have possessed.

Sailing around the fort as the British do here is also stupid when we consider the point of a bombardment. Not only does this offer the defenders the chance to fire all their guns in turn at the attacking ships, but the Royal Navy does not need to knock the whole fort down in order to win. As we were told at the start of the chapter, the intention was prepare the force for the land assault. However, a ground assault only needs a single breach to render a stronghold indefensible. This is why garrisons were traditionally offered the opportunity to surrender with honour once a breach had been made. What they should be doing, then, is to concentrate their fire on a single face in order to demolish it.

Although TFSmith claims that the British ships 'put shot after shot into the earthworks and masonry of Fort Point', this is another lie. There were no earthworks protecting the seaward face of Fort Point, nor was it possible to throw these up. The fort was deliberately built on the very edge of the land, in order to more effectively attack ships by enabling its lowest tier of guns to skim cannonballs across the water. Every British broadside would, therefore, send iron balls battering against the stone and brick of the fort, completely unprotected by deadening and cushioning earthworks. The probability is that, like the other Third System constructions of Fort Macon, Fort Pulaski, Fort McRee, Fort Morgan and Fort Jackson, Fort Point would have been forced to surrender.

The attached map highlights the perfect location for the British vessels to anchor and reduce the fort.

 

It is around a mile (1760 yards) from Fort Point, around the distance at which Crimean ships anchored to deliver their fire. The bombarding ships are also around one and three quarter miles from the small extemporised battery at Lime Point, at the very extreme range of any guns there. This location also allows the admiral to supervise both the bombardment and the landing at the same time, and to signal the landing to take place when the fort is close to being breached. Moreover, if the bombardment does not go well, it is much easier to disengage from outside the Golden Gate than inside.

Perhaps most importantly, however, it is the location on which the fewest guns of Fort Point can be trained.

The defences (revisited)

We are told that 'the 60 guns at Fort Point were outnumbered by the 80 the ships could bring to bear'. However, these 60 guns include 24pdrs in the counterscarp gallery and 32pdrs on the land front, which could not have fired on an attacking naval force. In the interest of giving the Union the most beneficial interpretation possible, we will instead treat this armament of 60 guns as representing the 44 sea-facing guns it mounted historically at the point of a Trent War, plus the 15 42pdr smoothbore guns for which the fort had carriages. The mounted sea-facing guns were:

First tier (30 guns):
28 42pdrs in the curtains of the water fronts and bastions
2 24pdr guns in the right flank of the northeast bastion
Second tier (2 guns):
2 24pdr guns in the right flank of the northeast bastion
Third tier (2 guns):
2 24pdr guns in the right flank of the northeast bastion
Barbette tier (10 guns):
2 10in columbiads in the bastion salients
8 8in columbiads on the channel front

As for the remaining 15 42pdrs, we will once again assume the best case for the Union: that they mount as many guns in the west face as possible, and risk the British running the channel into the harbour. Only the first tier of the fort was designed to mount guns firing shot rather than shell, the justification being that the shot could ricochet off the water while shells could not. However, the M1844 8in Columbiad (124in long, 9,200lb) is similar enough to the M1845 42pdr (129in, 8,500lb) that it should be feasible to mount either gun in the same casemate or barbette.

Whether the 42pdr guns are mounted on the barbette tier or in the second tier makes little overall difference to the number of guns that can bear. Shown as best they can be on the Google Earth model of the fort, these are as follows:

14 42pdrs in the west face (green)
4 42pdrs in the west bastion's south face (yellow)
2 42pdrs in the west bastion's west face (orange)
1 10in columbiad in the west bastion salient (blue)
Total: 21 guns, 20 42pdrs and 1 10in columbiad.

Who can realistically say that they would prefer to be shot at by 60 guns instead of 21? Who would prefer 150 guns to 21? Why, then, do the Royal Navy sail round the front of the fort to present a target for its 60 guns, let alone steam into the Golden Gate to engage the rest of the Union defences? The only reason they would do this is one we have seen used before: because the author needs them to lose the battle which follows.

It is to this battle, therefore, that we must now reluctantly turn our attention.