Calling all Monitor-Ironclad (19th Century) fans

[JoeP]

Hello to those of you interested in the mid- to late-19th century world of ironclads, predecessors to the armored battleships.

I'm starting this thread to ask for references on two specific such vessels, one American Civil War, one a holdover that lasted until the Spanish American War.

1. USS Weehawken - any references on the mine-sweeping raft? I have found the Harper's picture that showed the underwater shape, 2-dimentionally, and a few vague drawings of the raft. I used to have a magazine with a photo of the actual raft when it was found some years ago, alas I cannot find that again.
Oddly, in the line drawings of her the ships boats and their davits are often not portrayed, so I wonder if they were put in the water and towed during battle? Or were the artists simply leaving out uninteresting bits?
And did she have a deck cannon? I know some of the US monitors had a wheeled cannon on deck, and I portrayed such in my model of USS Passaic.
There is some debate about whether she had a red circle on her stack for identification, which I will include as a color variation on a generally dark gray model.
Finally, would the canvas cover over the turret been painted or left in natural colors?

2. USS Ajax, one of the Canonicus class, was given to the New Jersey Naval Militia in the 1890s. I have two photos of her then from various sources, which both show her from the bow and thus don't give details of the flying bridge and boat supports.
What colors would she have? All grey, or the spar (NOT BUFF!) over white with black guns and stack scheme?
And the canvas sunshields over the foredeck and the turret - natural cloth off-white or painted?

Thanks to all of you in advance, and if you have questions I'll help from the references I've found online. Internet Archive has a few books.

Joe

[Maarten Sch�nfeld]

Hi JoeP,

I consider myself as a 'monitor fan' (note my avatar!). Although I know the term was coined in the USA in 1863, my focus is on the British monitors of the two world wars. So sorry I can't be very helpful on your request!

Maarten

[El Santo]

The very few photos I can find of Ajax during her New Jersey Naval Militia service show her definitely not painted white. They're from the Spanish-American War, so that probably means she was wearing the slate gray of the War Color scheme. I'm reluctant to claim certainty about that, however, because Ajax would have been used as a harbor defense ship. At least from 1900 on, harbor defense ships (like the ram Katahdin and the early Holland submarines) were painted the same "bottle green" as torpedo boats. ("Bottle green" in this case means something closer to a bottle of red wine than to a bottle of 7-Up.) Although every reference to the bottle green harbor defense scheme that I've seen has been from the 20th century, I don't know for a fact that it wasn't a wartime innovation. I'm still inclined to favor the slate gray, though, because that green looks practically black in most photos I've seen showing it, which isn't the case with the Ajax pics.

As for the awnings, they always look to me like they're just undyed canvas, like a sail would be. You certainly wouldn't want them much darker than that, since their use was as much about reflecting sunlight away from the decks as it was about shading them. This is admittedly speculative, but I'd go with something in the range between off-white and beige. I used Colourcoats M.S.4A gray on the molded plastic awning over the engineering hatch when I built the old Revell kit of Olympia a couple years ago.