In Service
By the 1890s, the monitor concept was well and truly obsolete, if indeed it had ever been optimal. Monitor warships suffered a variety of well known defects, the most obvious of which was the type's poor suitability to oceangoing service, due mainly to the very low freeboard—a feature originally included as a means of reducing the vessel's exposure to enemy fire. Other problems which diminished the type's practicality for seagoing service were the low speed, and short range due to a lack of space for fuel. An additional problem was the lack of ventilation which often made for almost unbearable heat below deck (the engine room of one particular monitor once recorded a temperature of 200°F). On the positive side, monitors were considered stable gun platforms and could generally be fitted with larger guns than more conventional vessels of an equivalent tonnage.
The Amphitrite class suffered from all the usual monitor defects (as did Puritan which was eventually redesignated as a unique class due to her extra armor), and their combat limitations quickly became evident during the Spanish-American War. For example, during one sortie to Puerto Rico, USS Amphitrite had to be taken under tow as she lacked the fuel reserves to travel there under her own steam, reducing the speed of the entire fleet to a mere seven knots. Having arrived at the destination, Amphitrite's heavy guns proved effective against shore defences, but the heat within the ship was so oppressive during the 2½ hour bombardment that the crew found it almost impossible to continue manning their posts, and one of the gunners actually died of heat exhaustion.
Monadnock, meanwhile, earned the distinction of becoming one of only two U.S. Navy monitors ever to cross the Pacific Ocean when she sailed for the Philippines theater in the same year, after which she remained in the Far East for the rest of her career. The other Amphitrites were withdrawn from frontline service after the war, and became training ships. USS Amphitrite saw some service in home waters during World War I, and was the last of the Amphitrite class to be decommissioned, on 31 May 1919.
Read more about this topic: Amphitrite Class Monitor
Famous quotes containing the word service:
“We too are ashes as we watch and hear
The psalm, the sorrow, and the simple praise
Of one whose promised thoughts of other days
Were such as ours, but now wholly destroyed,
The service record of his youth wiped out,
His dream dispersed by shot, must disappear.”
—Karl Shapiro (b. 1913)
“The ruin of the human heart is self-interest, which the American merchant calls self-service. We have become a self- service populace, and all our specious comforts—the automatic elevator, the escalator, the cafeteria—are depriving us of volition and moral and physical energy.”
—Edward Dahlberg (1900–1977)