The phrase "crossing the T" dates, I believe, more from the pre-dreadnaught era, post-1870, and refers more to line-ahead formations of battleships than to single ships. That is, it's a rake on a larger scale, but with the additional feature that the fire from the line crossing the other's "T" can all be concentrated on the lead ships of the line that has been crossed.

(/military geekness)

Carry on.

It's fascinating to learn that Congressional pork-barreling began as early as 1794. I wonder if our current defense contractors know how far back the tradition goes.

Meanwhile, the target knew its own speed, and most of the change it was trying to measure was the bearing rate.

Both sides had to deal with estimating the enemy's relative heading (this is why dazzle painting was worthwhile), but once you started getting reliable range measurements with radar, these estimates were less critical.

Incidentally, one of the big advantages US submarines had in the Pacific was the TDC, a mechanical analogue computer which took range and bearing measurements, and estimates of target speed and heading, to calculate the firing solution for torpedoes.

(It was awkward that it took so long for the torpedo experts to believe the submariners about their infernal engines not going bang. I recall an article on a Geocities web-page which explained some of the weaknesses. Not just the poorly-designed pistol, but tests of the torpedo that didn't allow for the effects of water flow on the apparent water pressure used to set running depth.)

Dave is correct. Roughly speaking, raking fire occurs when you're dealing with sailing ships that have fixed guns pointing out of gun ports in the side. (Compare/contrast broadside fire.) Crossing the T is what happens when you have guns in turrets, which means the guns can rotate, so that you can concentrate your fire on the line of the T and fire all your guns at the same time, rather than having to point the ship's side to aim the guns.

Interesting - I never thought of it this way before, but ship-to-ship combat increased in intensity when the guns could be aimed separately from the ship, while one of the first innovations in plane-to-plane combat was eliminating a separate gunner and having the pilot fire directly along the axis of the plane. (Then you get fighters, and bombers, and you get some of each configuration, and once whatever you're firing starts aiming itself, it gets all confusing, but hey.)

(/military geekiness)

Thank you, Jim! This is as skillful an exposition as I've ever seen of this material, and I'm a grad student in military history, although I don't do American stuff much.

Even aircraft used a version of it, but with the boot on the other foot, so to speak. Torpedo-bombers would ideally attack in waves from both sides, 45 degrees off the bow, so that no matter which way the target turned, he crossed the T - of the tinfish.

It didn't hurt that live oak was an impressively good material for the job. Under normal circumstances, though, shipyards would probably have used local wood instead of hauling oak logs all the way up from Georgia.

When the Constitution underwent a major refit and restoration back in the early '90s, the timber came from historic live oaks in the city of Charleston that had been blown down by Hurricane Hugo. We visited the Constitution in Boston Harbor around that time, and saw the logs piled up on the pier . . . honking great pieces of wood, they were.

Presumably she went down with all hands. In pre-radio days this was a distressingly common event.

(Even in post-radio days... the MOVREP system wasn't instituted until after the loss of USS Indianapolis near the end of WWII.)

Still, the politics of the matter, it seems to me, are interesting in themselves.

Love, C.

By the time the gun action started, the Japanese force comprised one battleship, one heavy cruiser, and one destroyer. The USS West Virginia, using radar, made contact at a range of 42,000 yards, had a firing solution at a range of 30,000 yards, and opened fire at a range of 22,800 yards, getting a hit with the first salvo.

There's a fairly detailed analysis of the engagement at this page, taking into account the differences between the Mark 3 and the Mark 8 radar. On the same site, gives more detail of the fire control system.

And all done with mechanical analogue computing.

(Just as I was reading about them here, my other screen background had changed to a shot of family members paddling small boats on Winan's Creek, near Bandera, TX, with a big live oak in the foreground. I miss Winan's Creek, too.)

Do you recall the scene from Master and Commander when one of the sailors shows Jack the rib model that's supposedly of the French frigate? That's actually a model of USS Constitution.

(And Constitution could have totally cleaned Aubrey's clock, under almost any of her captains.)

Speaking of Constitution, after her simultaneous victories over HMS Cyane and HMS Levant, Captains Douglas and Falcon, having been taken aboard Constitution, fell to quarreling over which of them had lost the battle. Captain Decatur listened for a while, then allegedly said, "Gentlemen, if you wish, I can put you back on your ships and we can try again."

Oh, yeah. The pork barrel is as old as the republic, if not older. On the featurish side of the bug, though, it does provide a crude but effective method of insuring that governmental functions and largesse aren't concentrated in a single area.

The other thing about live oaks is that it takes about 200 years for one to grow big enough to be used in building a ship the size of Constitution.

The account by Constitution's captain of that action makes for brisk and interesting reading:

At 2.10. P.M, Commenced The Action within good grape and Canister distance. The enemy to windward (but much farther than I wished).
At 2,30. P.M, our wheel was shot entirely away
At 2.40. determined to close with the Enemy, notwithstanding her rakeing, set the Fore sail & Luff'd up close to him.
At 2,50, The Enemies Jib boom got foul of our Mizen Rigging
At 3 The Head of the enemies Bowsprit & Jib boom shot away by us
At 3.5 Shot away the enemies foremast by the board
At 3.15 Shot away The enemies Main Top mast just above the Cap
At 3.40 Shot away Gafft and Spunker boom
At 3.55 Shot his mizen mast nearly by the board
At 4.5 Having silenced the fire of the enemy completely and his colours in main Rigging being [down] Supposed he had Struck, Then hawl'd about the Courses to shoot ahead to repair our rigging, which was extremely cut, leaving the enemy a complete wreck, soon after discovered that The enemies flag was still flying hove too to repair Some of our damages.
At 4.20. The Enemies Main Mast went by the board.
At 4.50 [Wore] ship and stood for the Enemy
At 5.25 Got very close to the enemy in a very [effective] rakeing position, athwart his bows & was at the very instance of rakeing him, when he most prudently Struck his Flag.

Clearly, Bainbridge had a flair for narrative as well as for shiphandling.

Live oaks are quite impressive trees, especially when festooned with old man's beard.

Seriously, thanks for whiling away my lunch hour so delightfully today.

As for the live oaks, I was in Mystic Seaport last month and live oaks felled in Galveston during Hurricane Ike were donated to be used in the restoration of the whaling ship Charles W. Morgan.

I grew up with them - there's one in my parents' yard that's still young, though it was sturdy enough to climb twenty or thirty years ago (we guessed it at perhaps thirty or forty years old then - about fifteen inches diameter at the base; the house and its surrounding suburb were built in the early 60's and the tree was likely planted then.)

The ones at New Orleans' Audubon Zoo, though, they were majestic, as were the ones lining the parade ground on the LSU campus in Baton Rouge. And some of them probably still are, hurricanes notwithstanding. The zoo had trees a good five feet thick at the base, their crowns breaking low, ten or twelve feet up, great limbs thicker than the thickest trunks of any other tree I'd seen.

Live oaks are not tall trees, maybe forty feet, but broad and spreading; their limbs arch up and then back down again, all the way to the ground, then rising at the tips - they grow like great slow vines, up and down and up, in centuries not seasons, and the space beneath them is cool and dark in the heat of summer, like a cave, or a cathedral.

There are amazing things in other places, but nothing quite like live oaks.

Yeah. You find it surprising that there might be one?

In this case, the senior officer on the courts-martial board tried to recuse himself on the grounds that he was irreconcilably prejudiced against the defendant, but the convening authority refused to allow him to stand aside. And the chief witness for the prosecution was obviously lying, and obviously stood to benefit from the conviction that his testimony supported.

The reaction from everyone who hears about the verdict in case is, universally, "Say what?!" or words to that effect.

It was, in short, a mess.

The court martial of Midshipman Cox. I may expand on this someday.

It is commemorated in the great Barbara Tuchman's very last book "The First Salute".

Patricia, in light your obvious love of US Naval history, you might want to read it.

Also, if you haven't read any other Tuchman books, I commend them all to you.

Rick York (LTJG, USN Retired - in 1969)

Sharpe was sorry he missed that gig, but his 95th Rifles were on tour in Spain.

The boat had not reached the shore when the Chesapeake was seen underway, sailing out of the harbour. She was flying three American ensigns and a large white flag at the foremast inscribed 'Free Trade and Sailor's Rights'...Observing the Chesapeake’s many flags, a sailor had questioned Broke: "Mayn't we have three ensigns, sir, like she has?" "No," said Broke, "we've always been an unassuming ship."

> The account by Constitution's captain of that
> action makes for brisk and interesting reading:

Fascinating. The Aubrey&Maturin companion/glossary A Sea of Words includes the account of the Java's captain. Which as I recall is slightly more detailed, but pretty similar.

There is a faction that holds that it really is the same ship. There is a book on the subject, which I have not read, making this claim. My guess is that they mean it has the same keel, or some such.

They give a nice tour. I recommend it to anyone who finds themselves in Baltimore with a couple of hours to spare.

Sharpe was sorry he missed that gig, but his 95th Rifles were on tour in Spain.

Clearly Flashman weaseled out and Jack Crabb was Out West.

Flashman had to weasel out, he was two generations later.

Those ships of the line were inherently astonishing though. Up to a thousand men packed into a space less than 60 by 15 metres - many of them actually slightly shorter than the Constitution, Constellation and Chesapeake were, though higher out of the water - and perhaps 100 or more guns. And they lived on them for years at sea. Nelson himself once went for two years without setting foot on land at all.

And then someone shoots cannon at you for four hours from a range of less than 10 metres while you have to shoot back.

Also, while the thick live oak planking of Constitution's hull was useful, what was far more valuable was the highly trained and motivated crew. In her various battles with RN ships, Constitution's crew consistently outfought and outshot their opponent time and time again.

Live oaks, by the 1800's, were becoming so scarce that the US Government made them federal resources, perhaps the first instance of a government protecting a plant from overuse.

Of all the variants of the idea that wikipedia lists, I think I like Locke's socks the best.

(Incidentally, English philosophers appear to be obsessed with socks)

I also heard accounts of how the ships that were here this past weekend were used in that film, as well as in Pirates of the Caribbean.

Back to the War of 1812 now and the state's accountancy of Baltimore built and state licensed privateers 8though this isn't really the mission for da Book, but still, how can I resist? It's all right here.

Love, C.

So, how does a ship get prigged in the first place? It's not as if you could just slip it in your rucksack and scurry off on a moonless night.

though this isn't really the mission for da Book, but still, how can I resist? It's all right here.

It's like handing a knitter an "all you can grab" certificate in a yarn store, isn't it? Or letting me into Xopher's kitchen when he's been confectionizing.

(I'm envious. SAIL Amsterdam was too crowded, and too much in Dutch, and (in my case) too accompanied by children for me to do that kind of thing. But I certainly felt the call.)

BTW, the "Captain Swift" referred to in "Mauling Live Oak" (the song) may likely be Captain Frank Swift of Camden, Maine.

I have this vision of TexAnne in such a situation, wielding her knitting needles against the competing yarn grabbers as if she were a ninja.

I can't grasp it, Mr. Locke, sir.
This sock can not be the same, sir!
Send it back to whence it came, sir!

[Link and email removed. If Jennifer is real, she can post again. Perhaps with a nice triolet about 18th century navies. -- JDM]