The Miantonomoh-class double-turret monitors showed that the basic type could travel far beyond a harbour. USS Miantonomoh crossed the Atlantic under steam and with towing support, while USS Monadnock rounded South America to reach San Francisco after wartime service. Their weakness was the short life of their wooden hulls, which drove later replacement by iron-hulled rebuilds. A counterfactual modernization updates their machinery, armour, and smoothbore guns instead of accepting a long gap between the Civil War ships and the New Steel Navy monitors. USS Dictator and USS Puritan become breastwork conversions that might have remained premier American capital ships into the 1880s or even the Spanish-American War. The technical possibility still runs into procurement conditions that made such long-range planning unlikely.
Notable Point · 6:53-8:57
American monitors proved mobility but aged quickly
Miantonomoh and Monadnock's long voyages support a counterfactual in which wooden-hulled monitors are rebuilt and rearmed instead of leaving a long capability gap.