USS Keokuk was one of the several experimental ironclads built during the war. If you have seen the records of some of the other experimental ironclads, you know they usually don’t end well… Anyway, Keokuk was one of the first warships to be constructed completely out of iron. wood was used in for her decks and as part of her armor. Her armor was a special type made up of alternating pine and iron bands 4″ thick with overlapping 1/2″ iron sheet laid over that. Once she was launched and commissioned, she left New York bound for Charleston. Once reaching the Yankee blockade, she took part in Du Pont’s colossal failure to attack Charleston. Bringing up the rear of the attack, she soon found herself extremely close to the guns of Fort Sumter where she would have to weather the fire for over half an hour. She was hit over 90 times, her armor doing basically nothing. Despite all this, her pilot Robert Smalls of CSS Planter fame, was able to skillfully maneuver her out of harms way under her own power and anchor well out of range. Her crew would fight desperately to keep her afloat through the night but when the wind picked up the next morning all attempts to save the ship were abandoned and she sank after only a month of service. A survey of the wreck was done soon after the battle to determine if the ship was salvageable. It was found to be almost completely full of sand and was deemed a total loss. The Confederates however, saw it as an almost total loss and secretly salvaged her XI-inch Dahlgren guns for use as shore defense artillery. One of her guns remains in Charleston at White Point Garden, the other was presumed destroyed when the city was evacuated.
This ship is modeled in 1/600 scale and can be printed using any resin or FDM printer. Ship comes with and without base.
When printing in FDM, some details may be too small to print with a stock 0.4mm nozzle.
Included with this purchase is:
USS Keokuk
USS Keokuk with base
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