Age of Sail research material - Page 2

hal · 06-20-2014, 03:48 PM

I'm guessing mind you, but the number of 1 man per 6 tons probably is required to man the ship to its normal capabilities for turning quickly, raising and lowering sails etc. Any multiple less than that, would in turn, change the time required to raise lower sails by a ratio equal to the number not met. So, if you had half the prize crew (or half the minimum crew for the ship perhaps), it would take twice as long to do the tasks.

The number of men assigned for prisoners was to be 1 per 50 per the rules.

The 29 men for a short distance might also have been based upon the fact the ship was in friendly waters rather than having to cross an ocean. I just don't know enough.

Later on, while digging into another book so I could start listing the stats on the guns plus carriage weights - I came across a line indicating that a particular gun required 7 men, but if only one broadside was to be manned, the other crew would help man the guns. Some of the heavier guns were in excess of 8,000 lbs in weight.

As ever, I continue to dig into the various books from time to time. Having recently purchased the book in the Frigate Diana, that rekindled my interest. That, and purchasing a book with 14,000 nautical terms defined :)

That book oddly enough, contains references to obscure coinages or even nicknames for the coins. Finding ANYTHING is the devil's own task when there is so much in that book! Mind you, it is alphabetized and all that, but if you can't remember the name for the Turkish coin to begin with, you're not going to find it again unless you search from cover to cover (that's a lot of searching!)

hal · 06-21-2014, 06:54 AM

English ship Armaments:

Source: Nelson's Navy The Ships, Men and Organization 1793 - 1815

42 lbrs: (none listed)
32 lbrs: 9'6" in length, 55 cwt
24 lbrs: 9'6" in length, 50 cwt
24 lbrs: 9'0" in length, 47 cwt
18 lbrs: 9'0" in length, 42 cwt (used in ships of line)
18 lbrs: 8'0" in length, 37 cwt (used in frigates)
12 lbrs: 9'0" in length, 34 cwt
12 lbrs: 7'0" in length, 21 cwt
9 lbrs: 9'0" in length, 31
9 lbrs: 7'0" in length, 25
6 lbrs: 8'6" in length, 22
6 lbrs: 6'0" in length, 17

hal · 06-21-2014, 06:55 AM

Source: HMS VICTORY 1765-1812 (First rate ship of the line) Owner's Workshop Manual

42 lbrs: 9'6" in length, 65 cwt, carriage: 13 cwt - total weight 78 cwt (8736 lbs)

32 lbrs: 9'6" in length, 55 cwt, carriage: 10 cwt, 2 qtrs. - total weight 65 cwt, 2 qtrs. (7336 lbs)

24 lbrs: 9'6" in length, 49 cwt, 2 qtrs., 1 lb., carriage: 9 cwt, 2 qtrs. - total weight 59 cwt, 0 qtrs., 1 lbs (6609 lbs)

12 lbrs: 9'0" in length, 32 cwt, 0 qtrs., 0 lbs, carriage: 6 cwt, 1 qtr. 17 lbs. - total weight 36 cwt., 1 qtr, 17 lbs (4301 lbs)

12 lbrs: 8'6" in length, 31 cwt, 2 qtrs., 0 lbs, carriage: 6 cwt, 1 qtr. 6 lbs. - total weight 37 cwt, 3 qtrs. 6 lbs (4234 lbs)

12 lbrs: 7'6" in length, 29 cwt 1 qtr 0 lbs, carriage 5 cwt 3 qtrs. 12 lbs. - total weight 35 cwt 0 qtrs. 12 lbs (3932 lbs)

Quoted from page 85

"The larger 32 pounder guns are very powerful. Using a full charge of about 11 lb (5kg) of gunpowder, ie., 1/3 the weight of the shot being fired, the muzzle velocity (MV) of these guns firing a single 32 lb (14 kg) round shot is between 1,500ft and 1,600ft (487 m/s) per second. Because these velocities equate to between 1,023 mph and 1,091 mph (between 1,646m/h and 1,755k/h), consequently the projectiles fired from smooth bored muzzle loading guns are supersonic, the shot travelling 1.3 miles per second. At point blank range of 370yd (338.33m) a 32lb shot travelling at these velocities passes through 3ft (.9m) of oak or 6ft (1.8m) of fir or pine."

Added Information: Almost forgot! A cwt is Cannonweight, which is 20 cwt's to a ton, or 112 lbs. A qtr (Quarter) is 28 lbs. In addition, from the same paragraph, the MV of the lesser 12 and 24 lbr guns are about the same as the 32 lbr - with a lesser kinetic impact of course. Page 86 shows a "realistic" 32 lbr impact on a ship's internal timbers - which is interesting to look at in my opinion. This book is WELL worth the price paid for it, as it has a LOT of information regarding the outfitting of the HMS Victory.

hal · 06-21-2014, 07:11 AM

Gunnery practices of the Royal navy at this time, lagged behind the gunnery capabilities of the land based artillery. Apparently, Ballistics was not something that the Naval officers practiced. Against other naval forces, the British crews were superior, in part due to the constant drilling with the great guns. From what I'm reading, it appears that much of this was dry firing in the sense that the crews were not actively firing powder and shot throughout their drilling. Something as simple as estimating the range via the use of a sextant was not a common practice, although, gunners did use the estimated mast height of an enemy ship as a guide towards estimating distance to target. One passage I read indicated that the gunnery against shore targets was "appalling".

I highly recommend picking up the two books I've mentioned thus far in this thread, as it contains a lot of information useful for a GM in running a campaign set in the Age of Nelson. Other books that I've come across have indicated what the wages were for the seamen in general, and the Organization book listed above even talks about the budgets per man in the Navy so as to give the reader a feel for what expenses were being paid out. One of the books I have detailing Nelson's ships that he served upon, lists the costs of the ships as built. Ah well. This hopefully will give information to the various readers of the thread in order to get a feel for not only certain information outright, but whether or not the books themselves are worth picking up.

As a passing thought before I forget... While trying to dig up information on powder usage for various weapons, one "rule of thumb" for black powder guns is that the usage in "grains" of powder should equal about the caliber of the ball being propelled. This is NOT a hard and fast rule in that I've come across references for powder that is in excess of the caliber weight - but it at least is a starting point. Maybe Douglas Cole can track down the energy available in black powder by the grain weights, and then reverse engineer the muzzle velocity required in order to attain the damage ratings put forth in the GURPS material. Might prove interesting :)

The Colonel · 06-23-2014, 12:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by hal

Gunnery practices of the Royal navy at this time, lagged behind the gunnery capabilities of the land based artillery. Apparently, Ballistics was not something that the Naval officers practiced. Against other naval forces, the British crews were superior, in part due to the constant drilling with the great guns. From what I'm reading, it appears that much of this was dry firing in the sense that the crews were not actively firing powder and shot throughout their drilling. Something as simple as estimating the range via the use of a sextant was not a common practice, although, gunners did use the estimated mast height of an enemy ship as a guide towards estimating distance to target. One passage I read indicated that the gunnery against shore targets was "appalling".

A lot of this was probably due to the "Nelson Doctrine" of laying your ship alongside the enemy and firing as rapidly as possible at minimum range - emphasising point blank firepower rather than long range accuracy. That, and apparently better gun founding which meant a British cannon could tolerate far more rapid fire without exploding. "Playing at long bowls" with the enemy was not much regarded, but some Captains - usually of the more scientific bent - did look into it. IIRC Philip Broke - he of the Shannon/Chesapeake duel - was a proponent, to the extent of fitting sights and elevation gauges to his broadside guns.

DouglasCole · 06-23-2014, 12:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by hal

Maybe Douglas Cole can track down the energy available in black powder by the grain weights, and then reverse engineer the muzzle velocity required in order to attain the damage ratings put forth in the GURPS material. Might prove interesting :)

I found a rule of thumb that powder in cannons should not exceed half the weight of the ball, while it seems 1/12 the ball's weight for carronades was perhaps common.

hal · 06-23-2014, 03:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DouglasCole

I found a rule of thumb that powder in cannons should not exceed half the weight of the ball, while it seems 1/12 the ball's weight for carronades was perhaps common.

Based on my reference books, standard charges were 1/3rd ball weight (give or take). I also came across the reference (gotta go dig it up again) that indicated that the more the guns were fired, the less powder they used for the standard powder weight.

In addition, I've come across references to the fact that the coarser grained powder didn't burn as quickly as did the finer stuff, which might explain the 1/2 ball weight powder charge.

Agemegos · 06-23-2014, 08:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by hal

Added Information: Almost forgot! A cwt is Cannonweight, which is 20 cwt's to a ton, or 112 lbs.

In British English it's a hundredweight, known as a "long hundredweight" to distinguish it from the US "short hundredweight" of 100 pounds. See https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/hundredweight and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hundredweight. "cwt" stands for "centum weight".

I've never heard the word "cannonweight" before. It has no entry in Wikipedia or Wiktionary, and the only hit I get using Google is to this thread.

whswhs · 06-23-2014, 09:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by hal

Added Information: Almost forgot! A cwt is Cannonweight, which is 20 cwt's to a ton, or 112 lbs. A qtr (Quarter) is 28 lbs. In addition, from the same paragraph, the MV of the lesser 12 and 24 lbr guns are about the same as the 32 lbr - with a lesser kinetic impact of course. Page 86 shows a "realistic" 32 lbr impact on a ship's internal timbers - which is interesting to look at in my opinion. This book is WELL worth the price paid for it, as it has a LOT of information regarding the outfitting of the HMS Victory.

I believe that "cwt" is actually "hundredweight." The WEIGHTS table in Webster's gives it as such. It's fourteen pounds to the stone, eight stone to the hundredweight (which thus is 112 lbs.), and twenty hundredweight to the ton (which thus is 2,240 lbs.). Except that Americans stopped using the stone and made the other two 100 lbs. and 2,000 lbs., just to confuse everyone.

Bill Stoddard

hal · 06-25-2017, 04:09 PM

In keeping with trying to place research material in one thread so that readers might be able to find it later on during searches...

I came across the following URL's that might be of interest. It has some interesting comments to be made about how the damage inflicted by cannon shot.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/milita...l-armament.htm

This next URL links to ordinance that was generally used during the age of buccaneers or the Spanish Armada era.

http://www.arc.id.au/Ordnance1637.html

06-20-2014, 03:48 PM	#11
hal Join Date: Aug 2004 Location: Buffalo, New York	Re: Age of Sail research material I'm guessing mind you, but the number of 1 man per 6 tons probably is required to man the ship to its normal capabilities for turning quickly, raising and lowering sails etc. Any multiple less than that, would in turn, change the time required to raise lower sails by a ratio equal to the number not met. So, if you had half the prize crew (or half the minimum crew for the ship perhaps), it would take twice as long to do the tasks. The number of men assigned for prisoners was to be 1 per 50 per the rules. The 29 men for a short distance might also have been based upon the fact the ship was in friendly waters rather than having to cross an ocean. I just don't know enough. Later on, while digging into another book so I could start listing the stats on the guns plus carriage weights - I came across a line indicating that a particular gun required 7 men, but if only one broadside was to be manned, the other crew would help man the guns. Some of the heavier guns were in excess of 8,000 lbs in weight. As ever, I continue to dig into the various books from time to time. Having recently purchased the book in the Frigate Diana, that rekindled my interest. That, and purchasing a book with 14,000 nautical terms defined :) That book oddly enough, contains references to obscure coinages or even nicknames for the coins. Finding ANYTHING is the devil's own task when there is so much in that book! Mind you, it is alphabetized and all that, but if you can't remember the name for the Turkish coin to begin with, you're not going to find it again unless you search from cover to cover (that's a lot of searching!)

06-21-2014, 06:54 AM	#12
hal Join Date: Aug 2004 Location: Buffalo, New York	Re: Age of Sail research material English ship Armaments: Source: Nelson's Navy The Ships, Men and Organization 1793 - 1815 42 lbrs: (none listed) 32 lbrs: 9'6" in length, 55 cwt 24 lbrs: 9'6" in length, 50 cwt 24 lbrs: 9'0" in length, 47 cwt 18 lbrs: 9'0" in length, 42 cwt (used in ships of line) 18 lbrs: 8'0" in length, 37 cwt (used in frigates) 12 lbrs: 9'0" in length, 34 cwt 12 lbrs: 7'0" in length, 21 cwt 9 lbrs: 9'0" in length, 31 9 lbrs: 7'0" in length, 25 6 lbrs: 8'6" in length, 22 6 lbrs: 6'0" in length, 17

06-21-2014, 06:55 AM	#13
hal Join Date: Aug 2004 Location: Buffalo, New York	Re: Age of Sail research material Source: HMS VICTORY 1765-1812 (First rate ship of the line) Owner's Workshop Manual 42 lbrs: 9'6" in length, 65 cwt, carriage: 13 cwt - total weight 78 cwt (8736 lbs) 32 lbrs: 9'6" in length, 55 cwt, carriage: 10 cwt, 2 qtrs. - total weight 65 cwt, 2 qtrs. (7336 lbs) 24 lbrs: 9'6" in length, 49 cwt, 2 qtrs., 1 lb., carriage: 9 cwt, 2 qtrs. - total weight 59 cwt, 0 qtrs., 1 lbs (6609 lbs) 12 lbrs: 9'0" in length, 32 cwt, 0 qtrs., 0 lbs, carriage: 6 cwt, 1 qtr. 17 lbs. - total weight 36 cwt., 1 qtr, 17 lbs (4301 lbs) 12 lbrs: 8'6" in length, 31 cwt, 2 qtrs., 0 lbs, carriage: 6 cwt, 1 qtr. 6 lbs. - total weight 37 cwt, 3 qtrs. 6 lbs (4234 lbs) 12 lbrs: 7'6" in length, 29 cwt 1 qtr 0 lbs, carriage 5 cwt 3 qtrs. 12 lbs. - total weight 35 cwt 0 qtrs. 12 lbs (3932 lbs) Quoted from page 85 "The larger 32 pounder guns are very powerful. Using a full charge of about 11 lb (5kg) of gunpowder, ie., 1/3 the weight of the shot being fired, the muzzle velocity (MV) of these guns firing a single 32 lb (14 kg) round shot is between 1,500ft and 1,600ft (487 m/s) per second. Because these velocities equate to between 1,023 mph and 1,091 mph (between 1,646m/h and 1,755k/h), consequently the projectiles fired from smooth bored muzzle loading guns are supersonic, the shot travelling 1.3 miles per second. At point blank range of 370yd (338.33m) a 32lb shot travelling at these velocities passes through 3ft (.9m) of oak or 6ft (1.8m) of fir or pine." Added Information: Almost forgot! A cwt is Cannonweight, which is 20 cwt's to a ton, or 112 lbs. A qtr (Quarter) is 28 lbs. In addition, from the same paragraph, the MV of the lesser 12 and 24 lbr guns are about the same as the 32 lbr - with a lesser kinetic impact of course. Page 86 shows a "realistic" 32 lbr impact on a ship's internal timbers - which is interesting to look at in my opinion. This book is WELL worth the price paid for it, as it has a LOT of information regarding the outfitting of the HMS Victory. Last edited by hal; 06-21-2014 at 07:00 AM. Reason: Added information:

06-21-2014, 07:11 AM	#14
hal Join Date: Aug 2004 Location: Buffalo, New York	Re: Age of Sail research material Gunnery practices of the Royal navy at this time, lagged behind the gunnery capabilities of the land based artillery. Apparently, Ballistics was not something that the Naval officers practiced. Against other naval forces, the British crews were superior, in part due to the constant drilling with the great guns. From what I'm reading, it appears that much of this was dry firing in the sense that the crews were not actively firing powder and shot throughout their drilling. Something as simple as estimating the range via the use of a sextant was not a common practice, although, gunners did use the estimated mast height of an enemy ship as a guide towards estimating distance to target. One passage I read indicated that the gunnery against shore targets was "appalling". I highly recommend picking up the two books I've mentioned thus far in this thread, as it contains a lot of information useful for a GM in running a campaign set in the Age of Nelson. Other books that I've come across have indicated what the wages were for the seamen in general, and the Organization book listed above even talks about the budgets per man in the Navy so as to give the reader a feel for what expenses were being paid out. One of the books I have detailing Nelson's ships that he served upon, lists the costs of the ships as built. Ah well. This hopefully will give information to the various readers of the thread in order to get a feel for not only certain information outright, but whether or not the books themselves are worth picking up. As a passing thought before I forget... While trying to dig up information on powder usage for various weapons, one "rule of thumb" for black powder guns is that the usage in "grains" of powder should equal about the caliber of the ball being propelled. This is NOT a hard and fast rule in that I've come across references for powder that is in excess of the caliber weight - but it at least is a starting point. Maybe Douglas Cole can track down the energy available in black powder by the grain weights, and then reverse engineer the muzzle velocity required in order to attain the damage ratings put forth in the GURPS material. Might prove interesting :)

06-25-2017, 04:09 PM	#20
hal Join Date: Aug 2004 Location: Buffalo, New York	Re: Age of Sail research material In keeping with trying to place research material in one thread so that readers might be able to find it later on during searches... I came across the following URL's that might be of interest. It has some interesting comments to be made about how the damage inflicted by cannon shot. http://www.globalsecurity.org/milita...l-armament.htm This next URL links to ordinance that was generally used during the age of buccaneers or the Spanish Armada era. http://www.arc.id.au/Ordnance1637.html