John Lenthall, Chief of the Bureau of Construction and Repair, ordered Benjamin F. Delano, naval constructor at New York City, to design a wooden-hulled ironclad that would carry her armament in two gun turrets. The deck was to be 3feet above the waterline and protected by of armor. The ship's side armor was to be 10inches thick, backed by 12inches-15inchesin (-in) of wood; it was to cover the entire ship's side, down to a depth three feet below the waterline. It should carry enough coal to steam one week at full power with "sufficient speed to make good use of its ram".[1] Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy, called them enlarged versions of the s with greater speed and "adapted to coast service", meaning more seaworthy.[2]
The Kalamazoo-class ships were 345feet long overall and had a length between perpendiculars of 332feet. They had a beam of 56inchesft8inchesin (ftin) and a draft of 17feet. The ships were designed to displace 5660LT and were 3,200 tons burthen.[3] They were the largest ships to be built in navy shipyards to date.[2]
Their unseasoned wooden hulls were massively reinforced by iron straps as well as iron stanchions to bear the enormous weight of their armor and guns. They retained the typical monitor overhang introduced by John Ericsson, designer of the, where the upper part of the hull was wider than the lower part of the hull. The Kalamazoos wrought iron side armor consisted of two layers of three-inch plates, backed by 21 inches of wood, six feet in height. The outer layer of armor extended 18inches further below the waterline. The three-inch deck armor rested on 6inches of wood and was covered in another three inches of wood.[2]
They were powered by two 2-cylinder horizontal direct-acting steam engines, each driving one 151NaN1 propellers, using steam generated by eight tubular boilers.[2] The engines were rated at 2000ihp and designed to reach a top speed of 10kn. They had a bore of 46.5inches and a stroke of 50inches. Two large funnels were positioned between the turrets to handle the combustion gases from the boilers.[2] The Kalamazoos were intended to carry 500LT of coal.
The ships' main armament consisted of four smoothbore, muzzle-loading, 15adj=onNaNadj=on Dahlgren guns mounted in two twin-gun turrets.[2] Each gun weighed approximately . They could fire a 350lb shell up to a range of at an elevation of +7°.[4] The turrets were protected by 15 inches of armor.
align=center | Ship | Builder | Namesake | Renamed | Laid down | Suspended | Scrapped | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Kalamazoo | Brooklyn Naval Shipyard, Brooklyn, New York | Kalamazoo River[5] | Colossus, 15 June 1869 | 1863 | align=center rowspan=4 | 17 November 1865 | align=center rowspan=3 | 1884 |
Passaconaway | Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, Kittery, Maine | Mount Passaconaway[6] | Thunderer, 15 June 1869; Massachusetts, 10 August 1869 | 18 November 1863 | ||||
Quinsigamond | Boston Naval Shipyard, Boston, Massachusetts | Lake Quinsigamond[7] | Hercules, 15 June 1869; Oregon, 10 August 1869 | 15 April 1864 | ||||
Shackamaxon | Philadelphia Naval Shipyard, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania | Shackamaxon[8] | Hecla, 15 June 1869; Nebraska, 10 August 1869 | late 1863 | January 1874 |
Construction of the ships began between late 1863 and early 1864 and they were still being built when the war ended in early 1865. Construction was suspended on all four on 17 November 1865; they remained on the stocks. The ships were renamed, usually twice, in 1869 to conform to several new ship naming conventions. Vice Admiral David D. Porter ordered that Colossus be rebuilt to carry 10 large broadside guns and fitted with iron masts in a ship rig, but this never happened. The unseasoned wood in their hulls quickly began to rot after construction was suspended and they were broken up beginning in 1874.[2] Unusually, Passaconaway was condemned by an Act of Congress on 5 August 1882 before she was finally broken up in 1884.[9]