TL4 to TL5 Cannons and Carronades
 

I'm trying to extrapolate more sizes and types of smoothbore, muzzleloading cannon from the selection in Low-Tech and High-Tech.

I'm particularly interested in three things: a) in murderers, falconets and swivel-guns of 1/2-lb to 3-lb chambering, either muzzle- or breech-loading; b) light shipboard cannon of 6-lb to 12-lb; and c) carronades of 6-lb to 36-lb chambering, light enough to be an alternative to full-sized versions of ship's cannon.

It's for a campaign set in TL4; but with access to TL0^ dragonbone, TL1+3 enhanced bronze, TL1^ orichalum, TL3^ mithril, TL4^ adamantine, TL4+1 cast iron and up to TL4+4 steel alloys made in a dragon's forge, I figure that the PCs will be able to come up with any metallurgy they need to match the simpler TL5 cannon designs, such as the carronades.

I can find pretty decent stats for the dimensions, weight, caliber and other numbers that reflect a real-world facts in fairly easily obtainable sources. Even some snippets on relative costs for brass vs. cast iron for a few examples.

But in trying to calculate Dmg and Range numbers, I find myself at a stand. Using Douglas Cole's Ballistics spreadsheet (a version from February 2011) and historical muzzle velocity*, I get much higher Dmg and Range than any of the listed TL4 cannon in Low-Tech. I even get much higher Dmg than the Napoleon 12-pounder in High-Tech.

This is a problem, especially as the main difference between TL5 cannon and carronades is that carronades have a much lower muzzle velocity, to the tune of around 750 fps vs. 1480-1760 fps of ship's cannon in the early 19th century. Obviously, this affects Dmg, but anecdotally, the increased weight of shot for carronades compared to a cannon of the same hundredweight meant that at short ranges, the carronades still did much more damage to ships and men.

In any event, I really need to be able to duplicate the Dmg for those cannon that are listed in HT or LT with the spreadsheet and then play with those numbers by shortening the barrel (enough to really hurt the burn rate), reducing chamber caliber and reducing the pressure to account for a smaller powder charge, resulting in the historical muzzle velocity I want. And if the model is right, that would give me a correct damage for a carronade of the given weight of shot.

I suspect that either my inept data entry or the version I have of Doug's spreadsheet may not be accounting for some factor that Pulver and Hans' damage calcuations include, maybe the large area of impact for a round cannonball compared to a conical bullet, which must spread out the impact energy and reduce penetration. I know that Doug's equations include such things as projectile diameter and aspect ratio, and for all I know may calculate sectional density and/or ballistic coefficient, but I may be failing to adjust some rarely used variable to get correct results with a large round ball.

Does anyone know what factor I should be using to correct the derived Dmg of cannonballs? Why does a 12-lb iron ball just under 112mm in diameter travelling at 1440 fps at the muzzle have Dmg 6dx5 pi++ in GURPS rather than the 6dx7 pi++ that Doug's spreadsheet tells me it should do?

Note, I'm assuming that the High-Tech stats of the Napoleon 12-lb were reality checked to a degree, i.e. that they are, at least to the ballpark, a fair reflection of the penetration capability of a 12-lb cannonball into RHA steel. Which means that the model I'm using or at least the way I'm using it is incorrect and I need to fix this before using it to extrapolate stats.

*Where I can find it.

Re: TL4 to TL5 Cannons and Carronades
 

Aside from the ones with stone balls (which I didn't check), some work I've done previously indicates that most of values you get using 3e Vehicles matches up pretty well with TL4 cannon, although I can't quite recall how much time I spent on that comparison (my interest being more in personal arms). If you have that book, you might want to use it for designing your weapons. I'll also note that you can simplify things greatly simply by holding TL constant (and then adding in a modifier if higher/lower TL stuff is available). Also, the multiplier for length scales linearly with the length of the barrel, so in my case I replaced that table lookup with a variable for length in calibers.

Exotic materials for the barrel are simply going to influence its weight and durability to attack - a P of 1 I believe represents the fastest the explosive used can accelerate the projectile. Exotic explosives, however, are going to influence damage (and possibly range and Malf). I think it's appropriate to scale P (and thus damage) by the square root of REF. So, if you're making TL 4 firearms, the corned powder from that time period is REF 0.4. If your firearms are instead using REF 0.8 smokepowder*, that's going to multiply P by x1.4, increasing both damage and weapon weight.

*No clue what smokepowder's actual REF is supposed to be, although I recall hearing that it was higher than gunpowder's.

Re: TL4 to TL5 Cannons and Carronades
 

Doug's calculator has a number of assumptions built into contemporary small arms. Significantly it assumes rifling, not smoothbore and nitrocelluose, not serpentine. Rifled barrels, and much faster and cleaner burns are both going to have significant impacts on muzzle velocity and projectile stability.

Re: TL4 to TL5 Cannons and Carronades
 

I suspect the problem is that the HT values are empirically determined while Doug's spreadsheet is a formula (I don't have a link to it so I don't know what that is). Realistically, the curve for how penetration varies with velocity is not linear or even particularly consistent, and can even be negative at some points.

Re: TL4 to TL5 Cannons and Carronades
 

According to the July 30, 2013 version of Doug's spreadsheet, base penetration damage is ((K^1.04)/(X^0.314))/13.3926, with K as kinetic energy in Joules and X as cross-section of the bullet in square meters. So, it's roughly kinetic energy divided by the cube root of cross section.

Re: TL4 to TL5 Cannons and Carronades
 

Anthony is talking about real life here, not how GURPS handles things. GURPS formula does work reasonably well for small arms but at higher and lower velocities things get... complicated heh.

Re: TL4 to TL5 Cannons and Carronades
 

Actually, just found it, it's ROUND(SQRT((K12^1.04)/(I17^0.314))/13.3926,1); K12 is KE and I17 is cross-section. If we clean up all the math, we wind up with KE^0.52 * (pi/4*B^2)^-0.157 / 13.3926, or KE^0.52 * B^-0.314 * 0.077554 (KE in J, B in meters, penetration in points of DR).

This is the sort of function that comes from applying a curve-fitting tool to a bunch of data points, it's grossly unlikely to have any physical basis. If it disagrees with some other source, I would simply assume that the formula is wrong. Note that there are fairly strong theoretical reasons to assert that, given constant projectile velocity, density, and shape, penetration should be linear in projectile diameter, and Doug's formula puts the exponent at 1.246 (however, many historical formulas are not precisely linear).

Re: TL4 to TL5 Cannons and Carronades
 

Doug will no doubt be along to speak for himself -- but wasn't his original purpose exactly to fit a curve to the existing GURPS small arms values, so that other reasonable values could be calculated while retaining compatibility with the original stats? So while the basic form of the equation might have a physical basis (or not), the exact coefficients and even powers would be empirical, designed to get GURPS numbers rated in dice and adds (not the most common engineering unit of measure).

Re: TL4 to TL5 Cannons and Carronades
 

Yes, but this means it should be taken with a medium to large grain of salt if applied to anything outside the range of TL 6-8 small arms with 5-15mm bore sizes.

Re: TL4 to TL5 Cannons and Carronades
 

Especially, as I said, smoothbore cannon using serpentine or corned powder, since it should be obvious that both rifling and nitrocellulose propellants have significant effect on firearm performance.

Re: TL4 to TL5 Cannons and Carronades
 

Agreed on both. Also should a question arise about real-world effects, since the fundamental starting point, and point of compatibility, was pre-existing GURPS stats. Those might well be accurate, or they might not. Regardless, Doug's spreadsheet isn't meant to be a physical simulation of kinetic energy penetrators from first principles.

Re: TL4 to TL5 Cannons and Carronades
 

If you're interested in that, Luke Campbell poked at that.

Re: TL4 to TL5 Cannons and Carronades
 

Does anyone have an idea about what factors in Doug's calculations specifically account for rifling and/or nitrocelluse propellants?

Or what to change when modelling smoothbores and an equivalent to black powder?

In any case, Doug's spreadsheet produces results that appear to be in the ballpark for High-Tech's black-power, smoothbore muzzleloading personal firearms of .45 caliber to 8-bore. If anything, Doug's spreadsheet is slightly less optimistic in terms of Max Range (and more optimistic in terms of 1/2D Range), but still within an acceptable margin of error from the published stats when I input what muzzle velocities I can find, a few from period sources, but mainly from reenactor and amateur black powder shooter sources.

It's when I get to cannon that the stats generated by the spreadsheet and the published ones stop being in the same ballpark. To some extent, of course, Low-Tech might be assuming very low velocities for its cannon, due to inferior powder, but as noted above, even the TL5 12-pounder Napoleon gets a significantly higher Dmg (6dx7 pi++) in the spreadsheet than is actually the fact in High-Tech (6dx5 pi++).

As far as I can determine, Doug's formula accounts for the diameter of the projectile and aspect ratio 1 of a round ball, and thus the comparatively larger impact area than if it were a conical ball or spitzer bullet.

Is there some other factor that makes larger and heavier round balls exhibit less of a gain in penetration than one would naively assume?

I remember that by the standard GURPS damage equation, going from .600 NE to .700 NE didn't really produce much of a performance increase. I think Hans explained it as the increase in bullet cross-section almost counteracting the higher energy. Could this be a similar issue?

Re: TL4 to TL5 Cannons and Carronades
 

In some campaigns I might just ignore the game stats, and focus on understanding the real properties of similar weapons, on the grounds that the result when a human being is shot with a cannon is "they lose whatever body part it hits" and the GURPS damage rules are not the best for simulating damage to large ships or fortifications. If I already know more or less what will happen when my galleon gives fire to those nasty English sea-dogs, no need to convert the gun side and the target side into game stats!

But the Realms have giant monsters, heroes who can take more damage than ten men, and magical armour ... so damage could be a useful stat.

Re: TL4 to TL5 Cannons and Carronades
 

Indeed. I've avoided using the RAW damage vs. HP mechanism when attacking large wooden vessels. Archers and slingers, no matter how many, are not going to destroy typical warships in a minute or two of missile fire.*

I generally just count each part of a ship as a seperate wooden structure, with DR and HP according to thickness, with maybe a slight boost to DR for the shape of the hull of later warships. Actual line of battle ships ought to rate at least DR 30 at their strongest points, not only because 2+ feet of oak are that strong, but also for there to be any need for heavier cannon, as otherwise anything higher than 3-lb will simply blow through.

Penetrating the DR and 1/4 of the HP gets through the hull, with effects varying.

*Incidentally, the DR for wooden warships is strangely low in GURPS, when compared to the stats of wooden walls. I can't really explain why the 18" oak bulkheads of a frigage should be DR 6 in GURPS, but as soon as you remove the ship and make it simply an 18" thick wall of oak, the DR triples.

Just so.

DR 30, HP 300 dragons call for pretty big swivel-guns to handle air defence.

Re: TL4 to TL5 Cannons and Carronades
 

If it helps, I'll see if I can dig up the following information for age of Napoleon cannons as far as shot diameter, shot weight, as well as powder weight and muzzle velocity. Chances are good that when you run the numbers, they won't match published GURPS values.

With powder weight, it should be possible to determine how efficient the powder burned to get muzzle velocity.

Re: TL4 to TL5 Cannons and Carronades
 

I would enjoy that.

I'm reading an excellent summary called British Smoothbore Artillery: A Technological Study to Support Identification, Acquisition, Restoration, Reproduction, and Interpretation of Artillery at National Historic Parks in Canada by David O'Connel*, which is excellent for the dimensions and weights of the guns, but I welcome as much data I can get on muzzle velocities, powder charges and suchlike.

*Obviously a man who felt titles should be very descriptive.

Artillery through the Ages:
 

http://rnzaa.org.nz/sites/all/files/...the%20Ages.pdf

. . . is a good easy-read primer on the subject; includes descriptions of guns (including odd names such as saker & minion) with bore diameters & lengths of barrels.

Should allow you to design same (or close to it) with GURPS Vehicles 3rd or its successor.

Re: TL4 to TL5 Cannons and Carronades
 

Icelander, you may find this useful: http://arc.id.au/CannonBallistics.html

Re: TL4 to TL5 Cannons and Carronades
 

Yeah, that is pretty awesome.

Thanks.

Re: Artillery through the Ages:
 

Thanks.

Unfortunately, we don't have a 4e successor to the weapon design parts of Vehicles (nor do we have a 4e GURPS Vehicles). I don't know how close the 3e system is to reality or to 4e GURPS stats.

Re: TL4 to TL5 Cannons and Carronades
 

I could kick your butt for not telling me about this too ya know. Then I'd have to buy you a dinner or something to reward you for showing that web page.

THANK YOU.


:)

;)

Too bad there isn't an icon for a happy dance thingie... If they had it, I'd be using it.

Thanks Cernig!

Re: Artillery through the Ages:
 

I've always thought that the whole is equal to the sum of its parts. The disconnect between the hitpoints calculated for a wall of oak versus a ship of oak alone shows that there is a problem with how 4E does things. Having a ball hit the one side of a hull, push through, and then hit a cannon's carriage, and come to a rest inside the other side of the hull should indicate that the stuff INSIDE the ship but not connected TO it, also has a part to play in the grand scheme of things. BEAT TO QUARTERS miniatures rules goes about it simply enough:

When damage accumulates to a given level, you detail a gun going silent. Maybe damaged, maybe crew not sufficient to handle it, or what have you, but its ability to fight is degraded. Ditto with sail damage. You might do sufficient damage to hit a mainsail on the mast, and bring the entire mast down, or you might do sufficient damage that the topgallants are dysfunctional.

I created a basic table of Sail speeds based upon sail state (how many sails are up) and the wind angle of attack - but recent reading of sailing skills indicates to me that sometimes ALL sails hoisted actually slows down the ship a little because the foresails on the foremost mast, causes the bow of the ship to dig deeper into the water as it moves forward, increasing drag and slowing the ship down.

HEART OF OAK is still available not only as a PDF, but also as an actual brand new book. At less than $10 for Heart of Oak (the book) or $18 for the trilogy (Heart of Oak, Tradition of Victory, and Promotions and Prizes). If nothing else, I would suggest making the purchase of the PRIVATEERS AND GENTLEMEN books for your library to help with creating your own method of representing hulls and damage. The ship movement rules are worth using. Having some extra background might be helpful as well.

In all, the reason I liked BEAT TO QUARTERS by Command Decision is that each gun was accounted for. A 32 lbr cannon would inflict 32 points of damage. The game uses a salvo system where you roll percentiles, multiply that by the salvo, with modifiers to the roll due to range etc, and that is how many hits score. It can easily be adopted to GURPS where you roll against the gunner's skill, and if procuring a hit - do damage.

Or, you can simply do a narrative in the tradition of Patrick Obrian and simply narrate the battle with little imput by the player characters in any real meaningful way. Either they do a critical thing and influence the battle, or they don't.

Case in point: Player characters fire their cannon three times and secure three hits. Based on the rules for the miniatures game, that is sufficient to secure a gun damage result. I'd be able to say "The first two shots don't seem to produce much in the way of results, but that third shot seems to have silenced the 64 lbr Carronade that's been dealing devastating damage to your ship. Your fellow gun crew raise a lusty cheer at your successful shot". Too bad your hearing is filled with the ringing of cannon shot after cannon shot after cannon shot, the eyes watering with cordite clouds drifting about, your sweat pouring down your body, and your voice hoarse from the shouting as you fight your enemy."

GURPS MASS COMBAT doesn't really have the feel. GURPS rules for vehicles as written doesn't even come close to that. Knowing that the British Navy had blood bounties on men killed in an enemy ship is something you don't find in many books. Knowing that it could take YEARS before any of your prize money finds its way to your hands, is sobering. Having to deal with half pay because your character was beached due to a lack of ships to man and the nations being at peace is something the GM can throw at his players. Best of all, imagine a Naval officer in his Royal Majesty's Navy, being beached, and offered a privateering commission - doing more as a privateer than as a naval officer, and finding that none of what he did matters to the navy. He wasn't technically a Royal Navy officer at the time he did his deeds worthy of song!

Granted, this doesn't entirely help with age of sail piracy a century earlier, but for me, getting your hands on a copy of ICE PIRATES! is worth the effort. RUN OUT YOUR GUNS (also by ICE might be better for your desires) - all worth adapting for use with GURPS SWASHBUCKLERS. The Maps in RUN OUT YOUR GUNS (if you can ever score a copy on eBay) is enough to make you salivate. *sigh*

Ah well, I'm not helping with this post, so I'll behave and bring my post to a close...

Re: Artillery through the Ages:
 

I'm not sure that's necessarily true. Even in a purely Age of Sail naval combat game, there exists the possibility of freakishly lucky impacts which cause mobility kills (a vital stay severed while tacking, dismasting, lost rudder, etc.) or even complete destruction (through causing a fire or an onboard explosion) out of all proportion to the ability of the shot to destroy the entire hull of the ship.

In a generic and universal game, such possibilities are even wider. Completely battering every part of an enemy ship to pieces with relatively inaccurate cannon is far from the only option for a party of adventurers with supernatural gifts and magical powers.

On the other hand, I'd prefer to handle such things with more extensive hit location tables for the vehicles in question, not deeply questionable DR and HP scores.

Certainly.

As I don't have exclusively sailing ships of similar designs and rigging*, I think I prefer to abstract the exact arrangments of sails at each time into the results of a Shiphandling skill check of the captain and Seamanship of the crew.

The Wind spell from GURPS Magic is a favourite among the wizards serving with the PCs' fleet and that usually ensures favourable winds.

*Not only are there galleys, xebecs, caravels, galleons, frigates, brigs, schooners, catamarans, single-masted cargo vessels and various boats, there are also swimming sea-monsters and water elementals, flying giant birds, dragons, griffons, hippogriffs, wyverns and wizards with magical wings.

I will consider it.

How were carronades handled? What was their damage compared to guns of the same caliber?

The campaign has been ongoing since the publication of GURPS 4e. It started with two cousins, a Fafhrd-like young warrior from a moorland clan and a Grey Mouser -esque con man from a mercantile city, joining the crew of a small privateer vessel on the Inner Sea. They have since been joined by more PCs, some lost on the way, but others bringing new allies. Points earned in play are 1,250+ and that's not even accounting for Wealth, Status, Reputation, Allies and Contacts (or Enemies) gained through in-game actions.

The PCs are now fantastically rich, powerful and supernaturally awesome. They own a fleet of some two dozen ships and control some sixty more through allegiances and contracts. As the owners of an East India Company -esque merchant house, mercenary army and privateer fleet, they have self-granted titles such as Viceroy, Admiral, General or Air Commodore* that even hostile nation-states have to pay at least lip service to.

Also, with their huge collection of magical gear collected over some ten years of gaming, they are personally powerful enough to face dragons the size of a city bus in mortal combat and prevail. One of them can hurl grown men hundreds of feet, some can fly like eagles or swim like sharks, one can shoot magical exploding or armour-piercing arrows accurately out to a mile or more with proper preparation and one owns a set of dragonbone firearms that can send magical golden bullets out to 2,000 yds with enough accuracy to hit a man in the head nine times out of ten.

If they are personally involved in a naval battle, their actions will probably determine the outcome.

*Abadas 'I Just Get These Headaches' has established a force of flying wizards and apprentices. He also controls a wing of giant albatrosses with goblin-like riders and two flying cavalry companies, one of young girls on pegasi and one of cataphracts on hippogriffs.

Agreed.

Was head money indeed paid for those enemy sailors killed during an action, not just the ones captured?

Amusingly, the PCs have managed to recruit professional captains, officers and seamen to their private navy because almost the entire navy of the city-state where they live was burned in port during a recent conflict.

They've agreed to donate an advanced galleon to the rebuilding navy and to serve as a naval militia until the rebuilding is completed, in exchange for officers with commissions from the city state being able to serve under their banners without hindrance while they do not have commands.

One such captain has grown immensely rich in their service, from the prize money of many captured ships, and several of his officers have become quite well off. This helped them a lot when they sought more experienced captains and officers to crew captured and new-build vessels.

I don't want to mess with eBay or anything that requires dealing with Customs and the post office. PDF only, for me.

You've certainly helped.

Re: TL4 to TL5 Cannons and Carronades
 

Beat to Quarters (Command Perspective) used a relatively simple approach:

Weight of the cannon ball was the damage inflicted on a hull. A ship's hull in tonnage doubled, was its "Hit points" as it were. Regardless of whether carronade or naval gun, the damage was the weight of the ball. Where carronades differed from long guns was the range and the crew required to handle the gun. If you had half the required crew to handle the guns, the reload times were doubled. If you had half the sailing crew required, your turning times were doubled.

The author of the rules in AGE OF SAIL mailing list later confessed that the casualties from the game were about double what they should have been, but overall, the game played decently. Finding a copy today is nigh impossible. Keeping an eye open might score you a copy or two somewhere down the line. Doing a saved search for the game on ebay might eventually reward you with a copy showing up eventually.


Critical hits that resulted in an entire mast falling, or two masts falling are part and parcel of both BEAT TO QUARTERS and HEART OF OAK. With HEART OF OAK, if you use too much canvas under too heavy a wind force, you risk your mask falling down as it is. What is missing is the fact that historically, the spars for the topgallants and lower, often split because they were made of less "stern" stuff (ie not oak or some of the major hard woods). Ships had to put into port looking for replacement spars, and not being able to find them when the spar parts were not available.

VICTORY BY ANY MEANS is a sort of strategic style game. How well it would mesh with GURPS MAGIC or such, I couldn't say. Truth be told, VBAM is not my cup of tea and I didn't much like it, but others might find it worth the while.

So my advice? Seriously try getting your hands on HOA (Heart of Oak). Hull hit points equals the number of guns the ships carry. Every 50 lbs of throw weight equals one Long Gun. I forget the ratio of throw weight for carronades in the game, but it is s discernible ratio of real life data. At low wind speeds, the wind may "gust" for some ships but not for others. At a steady wind, the wind can stay at that level or it might freshen, or die out. Every 100 turns I think (forgetful in my old age and not having played in a long while!), you roll against the current barometer settings to see if the weather changes strength, or direction or both. There are wind tables for most of the lattitudes on earth.

Could you adapt GURPS to it? Sure can. Could you run a game solely using the ship combat rules and GURPS CHARACTER rules? Yup. I suggested to the company the idea of having a web page devoted to the rules set and GURPS, but they got sticky about it and I backed off. So, what you do with your rules in the privacy of your home is just fine. Just don't put up a web page apparently. I'd have love to have run a GURPS CAMPAIGN using HEART OF OAK rules and GURPS. Hell, if I could only figure out how to get deck plans for the various ships, I Could even try running something over Fantasy Grounds. I'm just not all that good with maps I'm afraid. :(

Carriage Weight, Role and TL
 

I understand from what sources I can find that Royal Navy truck carriages for long guns in the late 18th century and early 19th century were about 20% of the weight of the gun.* This translates into just over 6 cwt to 13 cwt (716-1,456 lbs.) weight of naval truck carriages for guns ranging from a medium 12-lb to a short 42-lb. The sliding carriages used by carronades were about half the weight of the carronade**, except for the 68-lb carronade, which had a carriage weighing only 28% of the carronade itself.

Field artillery carriages were far heavier, proportionally. Even the famously light 'Grasshopper' 3-lb piece required a carriage of around 300 lbs., which is around 150% of the weight of the cannon itself. Field artillery 6-lb cannon usually required a carriage weighing around 900-1,200 lbs., which is from 101% to 180% of the weight of the piece itself. Heavier field artillery required carriages of 0-5-1 ton in weight, usually weighing only slightly more to slightly less than the cannons themselves (72% to 125%).*** Though not universal, there is a fairly obvious trend toward lighter carriages from the 1770s to 1815 and the carriages that were only 100% or less of gun weight nearly all date to the latter part of the Napoleonic wars.

Obviously, these are all solidly TL5 carriages, made after Gribeauval's artillery design revolution in France during the 1760s. Does anyone have a good idea of what advancements in design or manufacturing are required before a TL4 industrial base can build TL5 carriages?

Also, what would be a fair Cost for these carriages, if someone were making them with TL4 technology?****

It's obvious that they would be much more expensive than the TL4 carriages listed in Low-Tech, but how much more expensive? Three times more expensive? Four times? Five times? Ten times? Twenty times?

*I would give limited credence to the bare statement in a text that this was so, but I was able to find sources for the actual weights for the carriages for the 12-lb, 24-lb, 32-lb and 42-lb aboard the HMS Victory and they are all 20% or less of the gun weight.
**53% for the 12-lb, 45% for the 18-lb, 24-lb and 32-lb.
***Discussion of field guns and their carriages, including some weight figures, can usually be found in works on Napoleon's and Wellington's campaigns, as well as in treatments on the American Revolutionary War. Pieces from these wars, on replica carriages, can often be seen in museums.
****No factories, hand-crafting all metal screws, axles and such, etc.

Re: TL4 to TL5 Cannons and Carronades
 

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

Page 84:

Medium 12-Pounder
Length 8'6"
Caliber: 22.063
Weight of Gun: 31 cwt 2qtr 0 lb
Weight of Gun (lb): 3528 lb
Weight of Carriage: 6 cwt 1qtr 6lb
Total weight of piece and carriage: 4,234 lb
Proportional weight of shot to gun: 294
Weight of shot: 12lb
Shot diameter: 4.40 in
Bore diameter of gun: 4.64 in
Powder charge standard weight: 4lb
Range Maximum at 6 degrees: 1,320 yd
Range point blank (Gun level): 375 yd
No. of gun's crew - firing single firing one broadside of ship only: 10
No. of gun's crew - firing both broadsides of ship simultaneously: 05
Total forces exerted upon breaching rope and ship's side when gun fired: 10 tons

Re: TL4 to TL5 Cannons and Carronades
 

short 18-pounder carronade
Length: 2ft 4in
Calibre: 5.447
Weight of gun: 38cwt 1 qtr 25lb
Weight of gun (lb): 949lb
Weight of shot: 18lb
Shot diameter: 5.04in
bore diameter of gun: 5.16in
Standard powder charge weight at 1/12: 1lb 8oz
lowest powder charge weight at 1/16: 1lb 2oz
Highest powder charge weight at 1/8: 2lb 4oz
range maximum at 5 degrees using a 2 lb charge: 1,000 yd
Range point blank (gun level) using a 2 lb charge: 270 yd
No of gun's crew: 5

Re: TL4 to TL5 Cannons and Carronades
 

Quoted from page 85:

The large 32 pounder guns are very powerful. Using a full charge of about 11lb (5kg) of gunpowder, i.e., 1/3 the weight of the shot being fired, the muzzle velocity (MV) of these guns firing a single 32 lb (14.4kg) round shot is between 1500ft and 1,600ft per second (487 m/sec). Because these velocities equate to between 1,023mph and 1,091mph (between 1646m/h and 1,755km/h), consequently the projectiles fired from smooth-bored muzzle-loading guns are supersonic.

It goes on to explain that the 32 lb shot could, at those velocities, pass through 3 feet of oak (.9 meters) or 6 feet of pine. Note that this is at POINT BLANK range, not extended.

Elsewhere regarding damage from Carronades and Long guns page 86 thru 87

In comparison to the standard long guns, the carronades have a considerably lower MV. However, firing a proportionately heavier shot at a lower velocity, these guns have the advantage of creating greater damage at short range as the shot will 'churn' rather than punch its way through timber. Attempting to effect a watertight hull repair to this kind of damage is far more difficult than stopping up a clean hole produced by the standard guns.

This is one of the most enjoyable books in my collection of books where it comes to Age of Sail (Napoleon and Nelson) era ships. I cannot recommend enough this particular book, despite the fact that it is only 178 pages (seemingly a thin book!).

ISBN: 978 0 85733 085 7

Website: www.haynes.co.uk

The information contained within this book is staggering in the kind of detail that you get from it - all pertaining to the HMS VICTORY with plenty of pictures and illustrations. Need the diameter of the breeching rope for a 32 pounder cannon? 7" thick and 28ft 6in in length

Want a deck schematic? Look on page 77. Want stats on the ship's boats? Yup, it has it. :)

I gave you a taste of what was in the book by showing you the carronade and one of the guns. There are more - right down to the carriage weights and everything else.