Your points are well made. From the ORN's I get the impression that the Laird Rams were initially intended for use against Port Royal (Hilton Head). A successful strike there would have destroyed the logistics and repair depot for the Federal vessels off Charleston and Savannah. There is some reason to believe that the French rams were intended for the Gulf. They drew some serious water too. At least 12 feet, as the Stonewall could not enter Galveston because her draft was too deep for the bar (10-11 feet). My thinking about isolating a monitor had Port Royal in mind. Apparently it was common to send monitors up for repairs and maintenance singly with a wooden vessel as an escort and emergency towboat. You also wonder what kind of blockade could be maintained if you essentially had to leave monitors in place to protect the wooden vessels. Consider what might have happened off Galveston in January, 1863, if the Confederate vessel had been a Laird ram in place of the Alabama. It would have rolled up the whole coast to Calcasieu or Barataria Bay. The problem I see is the one you mentioned. Where do you home port vessels like the Laird Rams? How do you keep them from being boxed in port once they enter? You could probably run them out in bad weather or dark nights like the runners, but it would be a tough way to make a living. I just don't see them operating as cruisers, lifting screw or not. As for breech versus muzzle loaders, the largest usable breech loader of the period I've heard of were those at Fort Fisher, NC. Apparently they could be pulled by horse teams along the beach and on several occasions their rifled shells outranged those of the blockaders trying to destroy or take possession of beached runners. I don't remember their caliber, but they were not in the same class as naval heavy artillery. Your are right about the rate of fire. They would have been similar. But perhaps the goal would be to interdict the transports, coal schooners and supply ships supporting the monitors? Sort of blockading the blockaders. On the other hand, Webb in New York was already building a pair of deep-sea armor-clads for the Italians about this time as well as the Dunderberg. Even if the French and British had released the southern ironclads, their window of opportunity was limited.