Ol' Remus turns out an internet magazine, roughly on a weekly basis. A quote from his latest goes right to the heart of the FakeNews equation.-
The news media never disappoints in living down to its reputation, namely: lazy, sleazy liars.
First time I saw
The Woodpile Report, I misinterpreted the title, as in wood-
shed... as in taking some miscreants out behind a building where they could get their needed whuppin. It's wood-PILE, as in the collection of stuff that the hunters & gatherers have deposited in the middle of the community space for anyone's/everyone's edification.
This most recent Woodpile features a great article on the USS Constitution (hey,
@RetiredUSNChief ), and chock full of otherwise entertaining and illuminating reportage.
The Woodpile Report. Not a lie.
Ah, yes! The USS Constitution!
Actually, 6 frigates were commissioned to be built, but with a caveat that if peace with Algiers (where the Barbary Pirates were mostly from) was declared, construction would be halted. Peace was declared two years later, before any frigates were finished…but good ole George talked Congress into letting the three nearest completion be finished.
And that’s how we ended up with only three frigates: The USS Constitution (ordered 1 March 1794, launched 21 October 1797), the USS United States (ordered 27 March 1794, launched 10 May 1797), The USS Constellation, and the USS Constellation (ordered 27 March 1794, launched 7 September 1797).
And they were FAST frigates, too: an unusual design that had a long keel and narrow beam, along with an unusual design for her ribs, which were diagonal instead of vertical. The long, narrow design gave her impressive speed, while the diagonal ribs gave the hull greater strength.
On top of that, the design specified “Live Oak”, which is an evergreen Oak. These trees don’t grow straight and tall…they’re short with low hanging branches, which lends itself to grain patterns extremely well suited to make curved structural hull members of impressive strength due to the line of grain being perpendicular to the lines of stress.
Pop quiz time: How thick do you think the hull of these ships were?
Most people will seriously underestimate the hull thickness of wooden ships like these, because we just don’t see them being built any more. The USS Constitution’s hull was 21 inches thick. That’s 21 inches of OAK. How does this compare to a first line ship like the 104 gun HMS Victory or a Spanish galleon?
Well, the HMS Victory’s hull was 24 inches thick at the waterline. A Spanish galleon might have had hull thicknesses of 36 inches. So basically, the Constitution’s hull was nearly as thick as the British’s Victory…and the Constitution was faster.
Now…imagine trying to get a cannonball to penetrate that much Oak. Yes, it was not unusual for cannonballs to literally bounce off the hull of such ships…and the British did, in fact, document just this happening when they shot at the Constitution.
As a side note…battles between such ships weren’t conducted to sink the ships. Rather the goal was to take down rigging and masts, reducing or eliminating the ship’s ability to maneuver and sail away. In effect, render them dead in the water. Without the ability to maneuver or sail away, an enemy ship could easily decimate the ship or conduct boarding operations with little, if any, consequences to themselves. They could, for example, sail across the aft end of such a ship and fire a sequential volley of cannon shots through the thinner, weaker aft hull, basically strafing the entire length of the interior of the ship with cannon fire, pretty much killing the entire crew belowdecks with the resulting wooden shrapnel (which is what “shivered timbers” is…explosive wooden shrapnel caused by a cannonball).
So, basically, the USS Constitution was faster and stronger hulled than British ships of the line and armed with some serious firepower to back it up.
