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Old 06-25-2017, 09:46 PM   #21
jason taylor
 
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Default Re: Age of Sail research material

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Originally Posted by The Colonel View Post
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.
Nelson and Brooke were in differing tactical situations. The extra sea practice meant Nelson had so much superiority that he was effectively engaged in pursuit from the beginning of battle. The American fleet had during all this time been able to get sea practice without being blockaded and they made up their small budget by extra effort in choosing manpower not to mention more careful shipbuilding. In effect the Navy Department had been bothering by the book, beefing up in ways Congress wasn't looking for(much as after the Washington Naval Treaty everyone built carriers because carriers were not battleships).

In other words no British captain could go very wrong if he laid his ship alongside that of the French. In the early part of the War of 1812 some British ships had apparently been getting sloppy and in any event I would be surprised if North America was the most prized assignment for captains just at the time when Boney was about to be strangled.

In a fleet action with the French the absolute highest priority was to seek the most engagements possible the fastest way possible even at a short term cost. The equiv would be a counterinsurgency where the government sees the rebels coming out to play; it is likely enough to take tremendous risks to bring them to battle. Americans, who were not capable of fleet actions at all were tremendously capable of winning single ship contests. Moreover Frenchmen were focused on the objective whereas provoking winning battles was the objective for British. Americans had high-strung captains who did not mind picking fights and so bringing them to battle(as long as the odds were not absurd)was not as much trouble as winning the fight.

If Brooke had tried to use his style at Trafalgar it would have been suboptimal; because the goal was to capture as many enemy as possible in a battle whose result was foreknown. With Lawrence(though his ship was itself a bit down on training and had gotten the butt end of the shipbuilding budget) there was no worry about that. Lawrence had every intention of fighting and so catching him was less important then defeating him.
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Old 10-24-2018, 04:13 PM   #22
hal
 
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Default Re: Age of Sail research material

Adding to this thread (of course, later on...)

As I work with information on ships for use with the Age of Sail (mostly 1750's on up to about 1800's), I've run into something that may or may not be useful.

When I find stats on ships, such as tonnage, length at Keel, Beam (both Length at Keel and Beam are used to determine tonnage), depth in hold, and sometimes even Draft - I find myself slightly annoyed that not all of the ships have information on draft.

One rule of thumb that may be useful is...

Draft as a function of beam. Multiply Beam x .37 to .41 (having found the bulk of my examples are hovering around .38 and .39) with precisely 1 example being at .278.

If you have a ship that has a beam of 30 feet, chances are, it has a draft of about 11 to 12 feet.

This may or may not be useful, but it is better than nothing. :)
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Old 10-25-2018, 08:30 AM   #23
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Default Re: Age of Sail research material

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Originally Posted by hal View Post
Crew requirements to handle a gun:

42 and 48 pounders: 14 men
29, 30, 32 and 36 pounders: 12 men
24 pounders: 10 men
12 and 18 pounders: 8 men
8 and 9 pounders: 6 men
4 and 6 pounders: 4 men
1/2, 1, 2 and 3 pounders: 3 men
Those numbers seem pretty large. An Elizabeth class 74-gun ship had 28x 32 pounders, 28x 18 pounders, and 18x 9 pounders. That's 668 crewmen just in the gun crews for a ship that was only supposed to have 500-700 crewmen.

The 5th rate you mention below, with 264 crew, would probably have 26x 18 pounders and 12x 9 pounders. 280 crewmen of the 264 crew to man all the guns. Even if you only man half the guns, that's 140 crewmen, leaving 124 to steer, set sails, keep watch, run messages, and act as marines, damage control parties, or reserves. Were the ship's crews really spread that thin?
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Old 10-25-2018, 10:54 AM   #24
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Default Re: Age of Sail research material

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Originally Posted by mlangsdorf View Post
Those numbers seem pretty large. An Elizabeth class 74-gun ship had 28x 32 pounders, 28x 18 pounders, and 18x 9 pounders. That's 668 crewmen just in the gun crews for a ship that was only supposed to have 500-700 crewmen.

The 5th rate you mention below, with 264 crew, would probably have 26x 18 pounders and 12x 9 pounders. 280 crewmen of the 264 crew to man all the guns. Even if you only man half the guns, that's 140 crewmen, leaving 124 to steer, set sails, keep watch, run messages, and act as marines, damage control parties, or reserves. Were the ship's crews really spread that thin?
The gun crews were not exclusively gun crews. When battle was joined men went from other duties to serving on their gun.
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Old 10-25-2018, 11:28 AM   #25
hal
 
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Default Re: Age of Sail research material

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Originally Posted by mlangsdorf View Post
Those numbers seem pretty large. An Elizabeth class 74-gun ship had 28x 32 pounders, 28x 18 pounders, and 18x 9 pounders. That's 668 crewmen just in the gun crews for a ship that was only supposed to have 500-700 crewmen.

The 5th rate you mention below, with 264 crew, would probably have 26x 18 pounders and 12x 9 pounders. 280 crewmen of the 264 crew to man all the guns. Even if you only man half the guns, that's 140 crewmen, leaving 124 to steer, set sails, keep watch, run messages, and act as marines, damage control parties, or reserves. Were the ship's crews really spread that thin?
The crews were spread that thin. Using the statistics from this WEBSITE this is what Beat to Quarters (Command Perspective version) copyright 1981 has to say...

1617 tons, required 270 crew to sail her at full functionality. The number of crew required to change from Battle sails to Full sails would require 30%. Weighing anchor would require 20%. It is specifically mentioned in the material that I have, that if the ship does not have sufficient manpower to handle the guns, the captain either had to pull crew from the sails, or man his guns with less crew. When using men to man a cannon, use of 1/2, 1/3rd, or even 1/4 of the crew is acceptable - but that the rates of fire would be increased for that duration (x2, x3, and x4 respectively). If there wasn't sufficient crew aloft, then the sailing changes would take longer (ie turning the ship how ever many points (11.25 degrees per point) required (or raising sails decreasing sails, raising anchor or affixing springs to the anchor cable, etc).

To put this in perspective? A paper strength crew of 550 was required for the Elizabeth class 74 gun ship. Often times, this crew was not at full strength. Reasons can vary including the inability to gather a full crew before setting sail for their foreign posts, or it could be disease, prior battle, or something as simple as a higher ranking officer requiring you releasing some of your crew to assist him with his shortfalls.

For me, GURPS has some issues where it comes to trying to turn it into a miniatures wargame depicting the Age of sail time period. As I've mentioned before, a 98 gun Ship of the line withstood enemy fire to the extent that 200 round shot were removed from her hull and was made ready for battle again within a fortnight. Since per Wikipedia (don't know how accurate it is!), there were only three Ships of the line matching the 98 gun reference, that leaves it to be either the HMS Queen, the HMS Impregnable, or the HMS Barfleur. All three ships sustained major damage to rigging and to masts. As I pointed out earlier, the rules of engagement of the time were such that ships of the line only fired upon Ships of the line during battles where Frigates and lesser ships were used as "signal repeaters". That implies that the second rate battle ships were being subjected to French 36 lbrs, 24 lbrs, and 12 lbrs fire. As I mentioned in yet another post earlier - the HMS Victory can be (per GURPS rules) sunk by a squad of musketeers firing volley fire into the hull - let alone by cannons of the requisite throw weights as given in GURPS. In other words - a 98 gun ship could not sustain 200 hits from 18 lbrs, let alone heavier armaments - and survive.

So - if you want to find game systems for miniatures rules that allow for GURPS to be merged in with them, see my next post...
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Old 10-25-2018, 11:45 AM   #26
hal
 
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Default Re: Age of Sail research material

Using HEART OF OAK (abbrev as HoO) rules with GURPS...

Fantasy Games Unlimited is still in operation, and still sells its HEART OF OAK miniatures rules as a single 40 page booklet. It also sells its PRIVATEERS AND GENTLEMEN rules as a single book (instead of the thee booklets it was originally released as).

The ship movement rules are REALLY nice in my opinion, and the rules work off of real life data on ships. In a nutshell, each ship gets 1 "Hull" box for each "Long Gun" it carries. Thus, a 100 gun ship would get 100 hull boxes. Each turn is 1 minute in duration, which has "two legs" of movement (thus, each leg segment is 30 seconds in duration). Each "long gun" is abstracted as being 50 lbs throw weight. So, it would take 4 x 12 lbrs to be roughly equal to 1 "long gun" in HoO. One would think "But if my players want to roll for firing their cannon at the enemy hull, I can't do that!". Funny thing about that. If your Player Character crew fires their 12 lbr cannon at the enemy and manages to secure 4 hits, that is the equal of 1 Long Gun hit in the rules. If they get a crit success on their shot - then roll on the Crit success table for HoO for the result of their critical hit, and once they get a total of 4 hits against the enemy, announce that the result from the Critical hit table now takes effect.

Since Privateers and Gentlemen comes with its own "role playing" rules, simply substitute the GURPS rules for their rules and you should be golden.

Then, if you're interested in perhaps a little different set of rules, there is POST CAPTAIN by Old Dominion Gameworks. When I purchased their hard copy game, I was also given a PDF (I don't know if this is still true or not). But the PDF is such that you can print your own "counters" in lieu of Miniatures for use with the game, and uses 12 sided dice to enact the random aspects of the rolls (and I think d6's but d12's are the primary dice used). This game is specifically a miniatures game rather than a role playing game, but like anything else - it can be adapted for use with a role playing perspective with some work.

In all? If you enjoy the age of sail to where it fires your imagination, getting the miniatures rules may be worth considering. That I've had my one set since 1981 should tell you something (that and about 10 to 15 books my wife probably wishes I had the money back from over the years). If I had to suggest getting any of the reference books out there, SEA OF WORDS is one book worth getting. The Illustrated Companion to Nelson's Navy by Nicholas Blake and Richard Lawrence is a good one with information on gunnery as well as all other aspects of life in the time period aboard the ships. Then there is the book Nelson's Navy The Ships, Men and Organization 1793 - 1815 that may be worth your while. I've a few others, but those are my top rated go to books.
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Old 10-25-2018, 11:49 AM   #27
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Default Re: Age of Sail research material

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Originally Posted by Žorkell View Post
The gun crews were not exclusively gun crews. When battle was joined men went from other duties to serving on their gun.
He's got the right of it there...

It is also why I was trying to figure out how to best determine skill sets for naval crews who had to serve a gun, without necessarily making them "Gunners Mates" or what have you.
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Old 10-25-2018, 12:03 PM   #28
hal
 
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I was figuring that on minimum crew you are not doing anything quick or complicated with the rigging anyway - I wouldn't expect a warship to travel with that sort of level of crewing except in emergencies or on a delivery voyage in safe waters.

Pace Mr Fox, but that seems like a lot of men for a prize crew - it's over half her regular crew! A quick google search for "frigate "prize crew"" got me an excerpt from Neptune's Militia: The Frigate South Carolina During the American Revolution By James A. Lewis, in which the South Carolina of ~40 guns was manned by a prize crew of 29 men, including 3 officers following her capture, who brought her in (admittedly only from the Delaware into New York) with somewhere between 60-100 prisoners below decks...

No idea if this link will get you what I was looking at or not...
Barry Fox's rule of thumb, now that I've gone back and re-read it more closely, not only implies that the prize crew of that size could handle the ship plus the extra for guarding prisoner's - but would also be the same rule for determining what size crew any ship requires for "full functionality" (my words, not his). In effect, if you allocate the proper amount of manpower to handle a task, it takes the normal amount of time. Up to 1/2 the required manpower be assigned, but the task takes twice as long. Up to 1/3rd the required manpower, and the task takes three times as long. The last possible size is 1/4 the required crew, taking 4 times longer...

So - for instance, if a 300 ton merchant were captured, the Captain would either send over 50 men to handle the sails, 25 men, 17 men, or even 12 men. He'd still want to insure that the ship couldn't be retaken by its prisoners and maintain the 1 per 50 ratio.

My apologies for taking so long to respond to this. My bad.
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