Stevens Battery
The Stevens Battery design as of 1874 | |
| History | |
|---|---|
| United States | |
| Name | Stevens Battery |
| Namesake | Its designers and builders, Robert L. Stevens and Edwin Augustus Stevens, who proposed the ship in 1841 |
| Ordered | By Stevens Battery Act of 1841 |
| Awarded | 1842 |
| Builder |
|
| Cost | Approximately $2,500,000 (USD) spent between 1841 and 1874; approximately $450,000 (USD) additional estimated to be required for launching ship when work ended in 1874 |
| Laid down | 1854 |
| Launched | Never |
| Completed | Never |
| Commissioned | Never |
| Fate | Scrapped incomplete 1881 |
| General characteristics (1844 design) | |
| Type | Semisubmersible ironclad |
| Displacement | 1,500 tons |
| Length | 250 ft (76.2 m) |
| Beam | 40 ft (12.2 m) |
| Installed power | 900 ihp (671 kW) |
| Propulsion | Steam engine; screw-propelled |
| Speed | 18 knots (estimated) |
| Armament | 6 x large muzzle-loading cannons |
| Armor | |
| General characteristics (1854 design) | |
| Type | Semisubmersible ironclad |
| Displacement | 4,683 tons |
| Length | 420 ft (128.0 m) |
| Beam | 53 ft 0 in (16.2 m) |
| Installed power | 8,624 ihp (6,431 kW) |
| Propulsion | Eight steam engines, two screws, 1,000 tons coal |
| Speed | 20 knots (estimated) |
| Armament |
|
| Armor | 6.75 in (17.1 cm) iron plate |
| General characteristics (1869 design) | |
| Type | Ironclad ram |
| Propulsion | Ten large-diameter boilers, two Maudsley and Field vertical overhead-crosshead steam engines, two screws |
| Speed | 15 knots (estimated) |
| Armament | Never determined |
| Armor | 10 in (25.4 cm) iron plate |
The Stevens Battery was an early design for a type of ironclad, first proposed in 1841 for use by the United States Navy. A revolutionary design with potential capabilities far beyond the norm for her times, she might have set a new standard in naval design for the time if she had put to sea in the 1840s, 1850s, or 1860s. One full-sized example was begun, but attempts in the following decades to complete the ship to three different designs all failed thanks to extensive construction delays and a lack of funding. Construction finally was abandoned in 1874, and she was sold for scrapping in 1881 without ever being launched.