The 44-Gun Frigate USS Constitution: 'Old Ironsides'

Anatomy of the Ship

by Karl Heinz Marquardt

The Constitution was one of the US Navy's first six original frigates, ordered as a counter to the Barbary corsairs in the Mediterranean. Fast and heavily built, she was nominally rated as a 44 but mounted thirty 24-pdr and twenty-two 12-pdr cannon. Her most famous encounter, after which she became nicknamed 'Old Ironsides' due to British shot being seen bouncing off her hull, involved HMS Guerriere, which she smashed; the same treatment was meted out to HMS Java four months later. Now the oldest commissioned warship afloat in thw world, she is berthed in Boston Harbor. The 'Anatomy of the Ship' series aims to provide the finest documentation of individual ships and ship types ever published. What makes the series unique is a complete set of superbly executed line drawings, both the conventional type of plan as well as explanatory views, with fully descriptive keys. These are supported by technical details and a record of the ship's service history.

Genres: Naval History, Nonfiction

120 pages, Hardcover

First published August 26, 2005

Reviews

[Bob · Rating 4 out of 5]

My favorite volume in the anatomy of the ship series. If you believed the history I was taught, "Old ironsides" was an invincible ship, and the finest on the seas. It was only many years later that I learned that this 44 gun frigate was insignifigant when compared to British ships of the line.
Nonetheless, she could outfight what she couldn't outrun, and out run whatever she couldn't out fight. This volume is worth the cost for the detailed drawings alone.

[Clement Ying · Rating 4 out of 5]

Anatomy of ship reflects its function.