USS Dunderberg
A model of Rochambeau in the Musée de la Marine, Paris. This shows her before she was modified in French service.
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| History | |
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 United States
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| Name: | USS Dunderberg |
| Namesake: | Swedish: "thunder(ing) mountain" |
| Ordered: | 3 July 1862 |
| Builder: | William H. Webb, New York City |
| Laid down: | by 3 October 1862 |
| Launched: | 22 July 1865 |
| Fate: | Sold to France by 7 May 1867 |
 France
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| Name: | Rochambeau |
| Namesake: | Comte de Rochambeau |
| Acquired: | by 7 May 1867 |
| Commissioned: | 7 August 1867 |
| Renamed: | 7 August 1867 |
| Struck: | 15 April 1872 |
| Fate: | Scrapped, 1874 |
| General characteristics (in French service, 1868) | |
| Type: | Casemate ironclad |
| Displacement: | 7,849 metric tons (7,725 long tons) |
| Length: | 107.4 m (352 ft 4 in) (p/p) |
| Beam: | 22.15 m (72 ft 8 in) |
| Draft: | 6.5 m (21 ft 4 in) (mean) |
| Depth: | 7.078 m (23 ft 2.7 in) |
| Installed power: | |
| Propulsion: | 1 shaft, 2 Horizontal back-acting steam engines |
| Sail plan: | Brigantine rig |
| Speed: | 14.5 knots (26.9 km/h; 16.7 mph) |
| Range: | 2,200 kilometres (1,200 nmi) at 8 knots (15 km/h; 9.2 mph) |
| Complement: | 600 |
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USS Dunderberg, which is a Swedish word meaning "thunder(ing) mountain," was an ocean-going casemate ironclad of 14 guns. She resembled an enlarged, two-masted version of the Confederate casemate ironclad CSS Virginia. She was originally designed to have both gun turrets and a casemate but the turrets were deleted while the ship was still being built. Construction began in 1862, but progress was slow and she was not launched until after the end of the American Civil War in 1865.
The ship was not accepted by the Union Navy so its builder began seeking buyers elsewhere; Otto von Bismarck expressed some interest, and the thought of Prussia armed with such a vessel prompted France to purchase her and commission her in 1867 with the name Rochambeau. She was initially placed in reserve, but was mobilized in 1870 to participate in the Franco-Prussian War. The ship saw no action and was decommissioned after the end of the war. Rochambeau was stricken from the Navy List in 1872 and scrapped in 1874.
On 11 April 1862, William H. Webb, arguably the premier wooden shipbuilder in the country, sent a model of a large wooden-hulled, casemate ironclad with a displacement of about 7,000 long tons (7,100 t) to the US Navy Department. Webb signed a contract on 3 July with the Navy's Bureau of Yards and Docks for a ship that had an overall length of 350 feet (106.7 m), a beam of at least 68 feet (20.7 m) and a draft of no more than 20 feet 6 inches (6.2 m). His ship was required to make 15 knots (28 km/h; 17 mph) in still water and she was to be armed with four 15-inch (381 mm) Dahlgren guns in two gun turrets, each protected by 11 inches (279 mm) of armor, and eight 11-inch Dahlgren guns in a casemate. The ship was to be completed in 15 months at a cost of $1,250,000.
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Wikipedia