Menghean ironclad Ko Rang
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| History | |
|---|---|
| Namyang Government | |
| Name: | Ko Rang |
| Decommissioned: | 12 November 1902 |
| General characteristics | |
| Tons burthen: | 3,314 t |
| Length: | 62 m pp |
| Beam: | 10 m |
| Draught: | 5.4 m |
| Propulsion: |
|
| Sail plan: | Barque rig |
| Complement: | 361 |
| Armament: |
|
Ko Rang (Menghean: 고랑 / 高浪), also transliterated Gorang, was a broadside ironclad built for the Namyang Government in the late 1860s and delivered in 1871. During the 1870s and 1880s, she saw action against Sinyi forces and pirates around the coast of what is today Unsan province in the southeast of Menghe. By the time the Sinyi-Namyang conflict flared up again in the 1890s, Ko Rang was severely obsolete, and she saw no combat. She was decommissioned in 1902 and hulked for use as a storage ship, and in 1921 she was sold for scrap.
Background
On 9 April 1868, less than a year after General Kim Ryung-sŏng's forces captured the old imperial capital of Junggyŏng, the National Protection Society convened at the Namyang Palace in Sunju to proclaim the formation of the Emergency Provisional Government of Menghe. Supported by the provincial governors of Chŏllo, Ryangnam, and Hwangjŏn, the resulting Namyang Government eagerly solicited modern weapons from the Casaterran powers in the hopes of driving back the rebel forces, who had established a new dynasty in the north.
Among their first purchases were a series of modern steam and sail warships to drive back the East Sea Fleet, which had sided with the rebels and was raiding shipping in the Ryongsan region. Most of the warships purchased by the Namyang Government were last-generation screw and paddle frigates purchased secondhand from other navies, but the governor of Ryangnam Province desired a more advanced vessel to serve as the new fleet flagship. Because Menghe's shipbuilding and steelworking industries were still immature, the new ship was designed and built in -------, though the Namyang Government contributed design requirements.
Description
The Ko Rang was 62 meters long between perpendiculars, or 75.2 meters long overall. She had a beam of 10 meters at the waterline, and a full-load draft of 5.4 meters, for a displacement of 3,314 tonnes. She had a crew of 361. Her sails followed a barque rig plan, with two square sails on the fore mast, three square sails on the main mast, and one gaff rig on the mizzen mast at the stern. Because South Menghe produced no coal domestically in 1870, these sails were the ship's primary means of propulsion in peacetime and out of battle. Her steam powerplant consisted of a single-expansion steam engine, fed by steam from eight boilers, driving a screw propeller. On steam power alone, she could reach a speed of 12 knots and cruise at 10 knots for 1,400 nautical miles (2,600 kilometers).
Because she was mainly intended to combat legacy war junks with wooden hulls and small-caliber cannons, the new ship was built around a main armament of 28 cannons in broadside mounts, consisting of a 50/50 mix of 48-pounder guns concentrated around the center and 24-pounder guns at the ends. Eight swivel guns were typically arranged around the upper deck to provide protection against smaller vessels. The designers decided against the use of turrets, which were a new and unreliable technology at the time, and against casemate mounts, preferring the tried-and-true broadside cannon approach to maximize the number of guns per broadside. As a result, she was unable to fight effectively against modern armored ships, a drawback which motivated the building of the Young Choung-class ironclads in 1872.
The ship's hull was constructed from wood, and the sides were covered in cast iron plates, which were bolted to the wooden frame. These plates varied in thickness from 10 to 15 centimeters, likewise on the assumption that the ship would primarily encounter small-caliber cannon fire from obsolete sailing junks, and they extended up into armored bulwarks to protect the crew and any riflemen on the deck. A reinforced ram bow forward provided the means to engage large or disabled vessels.