Rochambeau (ship, 1867)

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The French Baltic Sea squadron with (from left) the tank frigates Océan and Surveillante as well as the ram Rochambeau
Model of the Rochambeau

The Rochambeau (ex US-American Dunderberg ) was a French battleship or Aries ship that during the Civil War in the United States for the US Navy had been, but will not be built into service. During the Franco-Prussian War it was used in the Baltic Sea in August / September 1870 . On the way back, on September 26, 1870, it made an unsuccessful advance into the mouth of the Jade and Wilhelmshaven . It was named after Count Rochambeau .

Technical specifications

  • Builder: William Henry Webb , New York City
  • Start of construction: October 3, 1862
  • Launched: July 22, 1865
  • Size: 7849 metric tons
  • Length: 107.4 m
  • Width: 22.15 m
  • Draft: 6.5 m
  • Drive: steam engine , sails
  • Masts: 2
  • Power: 4000 hp
  • Speed: 14.5 kn.
  • Crew: 600
  • Armor: 18 to 250 mm
  • Armament: 4–27.4 cm guns, 10–24.0 cm guns, ram bow

history

Image of the construction of the USS Dunderberg

The model for the Dunderberg was the CSS Virginia of the Confederate Navy . Although already piling up in 1862, construction was delayed for various reasons such as the New York Draft Riots of 1863, strikes , steel shortages or a lack of labor. After it was launched after the end of the Civil War in July 1865, it was not accepted by the Navy.

For foreign policy reasons, the Dunderberg was not sold to South America despite offers from Peru and Chile - the background was the Spanish-South American War . Apparently, the Dunderberg was acquired by France in the spring of 1867 for $ 2.5 million and arrived in Cherbourg on August 3, 1867 .

After extensive renovations, the ship was apparently taken out of service as Rochambeau by the French Navy on May 15, 1868 , but already decommissioned on August 1. In mid-July 1870 it was put back into service immediately before the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War. In the French Navy, she was the only ship of her type. Although heavily armored and armed, it had a relatively small radius of action due to its large coal consumption. In August / September 1870 she operated with the so-called Baltic Squadron together with other ironclad ships in the Baltic Sea. On September 14, she got into a severe northeast storm off Cape Arkona together with other units of the squadron, which caused the ironclad to roll violently and to think up to 40 degrees. According to a French author, if the engine had failed, it would have sunk "with man and mouse", since its weak sails would not have been sufficient to stabilize the ship.

On the way back to France, on September 26, 1870, she made an unsuccessful advance in the direction of Jadebusen or Wilhelmshaven. It was decommissioned in 1872 and scrapped in 1874.

literature

  • René de Pont-Jest: Les escadres françaises dans la Mer du Nord et la Baltique , Paris (Hachette) 1871. German edition: The campaign of 1870 in the North and Baltic Seas. With a map of the Jade-Weser and Elbe estuaries, Bremen (Heyse) 1871.
  • Albert Röhr: Handbook of German Navy History , Oldenburg / Hamburg (Gerhard Stalling) 1963.
  • Wolfgang Petter: German fleet armor from Wallenstein to Tirpitz , in: Military History Research Office (ed.): German military history in six volumes 1648–1939 , Vol. V, Herrsching 1983, pp. 3–262. ISBN 3-88199-112-3
  • Clas Broder Hansen: Germany will become a sea power. The construction of the Imperial Navy 1867–1880 , Graefelfing before Munich 1991. ISBN 3-924896-23-2
  • Geoffrey Wawro : The Franco-Prussian War. The German Conquest of France in 1870-1871 , Cambridge (Cambridge University Press) 2003. ISBN 0-521-58436-1

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ René de Pont-Jest, page 45.