Re: My New Fleet

WW1 (some survived to WW2) coastal monitors were smallish craft with big

guns - either a battleship turret (2 x 12" - 16") or smaller ones had 2 
x 8" in a cruiser turret. Can't remember coming across a twin-turreted 
one but I could quite easily be wrong. Turrets were often taken from 
stricken battleships rather than built specifically. The hulls were 
very, very simple with the minimum of features to keep them seaworthy - 
I came across one the other day (going through Janes in search of 
Aeronef names of all things) that had a hull that was literally a 
flat-bottomed box with blunt ends - I'm not even sure it had any 
engines. Later British ones OTOH were virtually single-ended 
mini-capital ships with high decks (some were at the Normandy landings).

Doug Evans wrote:

>>I thought that monitors were light craft with BIG guns and generally
not
>>    
>>
>as fast as normal warships but faster than the bulk freight carrier,
>
>I'm pretty certain the term goes back to Napoleonic, if not earlier,
but
>the meaning has definitely shifted over time. Natch, the titular
'Monitor'
>for ACW was a single gun ship, and the ACW  tended to classify monitor
as
>low deck with turret(s). I think the sail monitors were smaller ships
with
>single mortars; I thought the Great War (if you follow my thinking that
WWI
>and WWII was one war with a long haitus) monitors were often freighter
>hulls with a large gun slung on.
>
>Strangely enough, if I am right, these tended NOT to have turrets.
>
>Of course, I could be full of, er, beans on any of these points, so you
>know I'll STILL be googleing...
>
>Point taken on SFB, but it's not dead yet... (damn, MORE Monty Python)
>
>However, weren't we talking about monitors vis a vis Starfire?
>
>I'm so tired, it's been such a long exposition...
>
>The_Beast
>
>
>  
>