CSS Manassasとは 意味・読み方・使い方

CSS Manassas, formerly the steam icebreaker Enoch Train, was built as a twin-screw towboat at Medford, Massachusetts, by James O. Curtis in 1855. A New Orleans commission merchant, Captain John A. Stevenson, acquired her for use as a privateer after she was captured by the privateer, later gunboat, CSS Ivy and fitted her out at Algiers, Louisiana as an ironclad ram of radically modern design. Covered with 1½-inch iron plating, her above-water hull was reshaped to a "turtle-back" form and projected only 2½ feet above the water. The convex shape of her plated top caused cannon shot to glance off harmlessly. She was one hundred and twenty-eight feet over all, and had twenty-six feet beam and eleven feet draught. She was given a pointed iron ram at the bow and carried a single gun that fired forward through a small opening. The iron ram was designed to stave holes through enemy vessels. Her low profile made her a difficult target, while her armor protected her against all but the most well-directed enemy gunfire. Fast moving, lying low in the water, she looked like a floating cigar or egg shell and was described by Union intelligence as a "hellish machine."^:68-9