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USS ''Tecumseh'' was a built for the United States Navy during the American Civil War. Although intended for forthcoming operations against Confederate fortifications guarding Mobile Bay with Rear Admiral David Farragut's West Gulf Blockading Squadron, ''Tecumseh'' was temporarily assigned to the James River Flotilla in April 1864. The ship helped to plant obstacles in the river and engaged Confederate artillery batteries in June. ''Tecumseh'' was sunk on 5 August during the Battle of Mobile Bay when she struck a mine. The ship capsized and rests upside down northwest of Fort Morgan. The Smithsonian Institution surveyed her wreck in 1967 with the intent of raising it, but ultimately decided against the project when proffered funding was withdrawn. Several other plans to raise the wreck have been made, but all have fallen through. ==Description and construction== The ship was long overall, had a beam of and had a maximum draft of . ''Tecumseh'' had a tonnage of 1,034 tons burthen and displaced .〔Silverstone, p. 7〕 Her crew consisted of 100 officers and enlisted men.〔 ''Tecumseh'' was powered by a two-cylinder horizontal vibrating-lever steam engine〔 that drove one propeller using steam generated by two Stimers horizontal fire-tube boilers.〔Canney, p. 85〕 The engine gave the ship a top speed of . She carried of coal.〔Chesneau & Kolesnik, p. 122〕 ''Tecumseh''s main armament consisted of two smoothbore, muzzle-loading, Dahlgren guns mounted in a single gun turret.〔 Each gun weighed approximately . They could fire a shell up to a range of at an elevation of +7°.〔Olmstead, et al, p. 94〕 The exposed sides of the hull were protected by five layers of wrought iron plates, backed by wood. The armor of the gun turret and the pilot house consisted of ten layers of one-inch plates. The ship's deck was protected by armor thick. A soft iron band was fitted around the base of the turret to prevent shells and fragments from jamming the turret as had happened to the older s during the First Battle of Charleston Harbor in April 1863.〔 The base of the funnel (ship) was protected to a height of by of armor. A "rifle screen" of armor high was installed on the top of the turret to protected the crew against Confederate snipers based on a suggestion by Commander Tunis A. M. Craven.〔West, pp. 15–16〕 The contract for ''Tecumseh'', named after the Indian chief,〔 was awarded to Charles Secor & Co.; the ship was laid down in 1862〔 by the primary subcontractor Joseph Colwell at his Jersey City, New Jersey shipyard.〔West, p. 14〕 She was launched on 12 September 1863 and commissioned on 19 April 1864 with Craven in command.〔 The ship's construction was delayed by multiple changes ordered while she was being built that reflected battle experience with earlier monitors. This included the rebuilding of the turrets and pilot houses to increase their armor thickness from to 10 inches and to replace the bolts that secured their armor plates together with rivets to prevent them from being knocked loose by the shock of impact from shells striking the turret. Other changes included deepening the hull by to increase the ship's buoyancy, moving the position of the turret to balance the ship's trim and replacing all of the ship's deck armor.〔Roberts, pp. 75–76, 80, 118–19〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「USS Tecumseh (1863)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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