With the exception of the men-of-war and tugs, the whole expedition was to be complete on board the steamer Baltic, and its success depended upon the possibility of running past batteries at night, which were distant from the center of the channel 1,300 yards. I depended upon the barbette guns of Sumter to keep the channel between Morris and Sullivan's islands clear of rebel vessels at the time of entering.Fox Report, February 24, 1865, at page 246 of the records.
As you can see, the plan was to sneak between the batteries which would then be 1,300 yards to either side, or approximately three-fourths of a mile.
Prior to the attack, homing pigeons had been obtained from the location of each battery. The plan was to release kamikaze homing pigeons with attached grenades set to go off on impact. The plan would have worked but the pigeons were not used to the sake they were given during prep for flight launch and they all lost their bearings and flew south to Pensacola. This was reported by "Fleet Admiral" Fox to be due to unexpected but successful Confederate countermeasures, but this is not true.
Of course, the tugs did not get there. These were to be armed with three batteries of guns capable of destroying the cliffs at Navarone.
This brilliant gunship tug design of "Fleet Admiral" Fox was later used to create battleships.
The 16-inch guns mounted on these tugs had remarkable range and effectiveness for a gun with a barrel that was only one-foot, four-inches long. This was aided by a computer guidance system.
The munitions were perfected during the war of 1812 when they caught an alligator and filled his mouth with cannonballs and powdered his behind. This particular method had to be abandoned because of complications. When they set the powder off, the gator lost his mind and PETA filed a complaint. However, the powder design itself was a huge success. It was lamented that these formidible fighting tugs were not available.
Thus, they were forced to consider the armed and fortified stealth rowboats. These carried three turrrets with 3 armed Viking warriors. The main battery was Hillary Clinton strapped to the forecastle emitting a banshee screech which turned enemy fighting sailors into pillars of salt. This was to disable rebel vessels in the channel. This plan was foiled by Confederates who created a Rush Limbaugh clone to drown her out.
This left the Armed Vikings with their Tomahawk missiles, and the fighting sailors shooting muskets from a rolling rowboat in stormy seas, at a target three-quarters of a mile away.
Unfortunately, nobody planned on the shore batteries being able to reduce the fort to rubble in 48 hours. It had been thought that the PATRIOT Anti-Missile system would shoot down all the Confederate SOVEREIGNTY missiles, but the system proved less than 100% effective. It was subsequently determined that insufficient funding had hampered research and development. This was addressed by implementing a huge central government, new forms of taxation such as the Income Tax, and funding research and development in every congressman's district.