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Old 09-15-2021, 09:58 AM   #11
Varyon
 
Join Date: Jun 2013
Default Re: Age of Sail Ship Stats (17th century)

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Originally Posted by Rupert View Post
Unless those musketeers were all hitting a small spot over and over to ablate the armour Victory is safe - two feet of seasoned oak should be ~DR24, which is pretty nearly immune to musket fire.

It's the much more lightly build small ships that get sunk in a few volleys.
That's the Cover DR provided by those two feet of oak, but that's not just armor, it's also the hull. I believe GURPS fairly consistently gives wooden ships DR between 2 and maybe 4, and at 4d+2 pi++ so those musket balls are going to be causing decent damage with each hit. Victory would probably be Unliving and have around 650 HP, although you could push for Homogenous and around 1300 HP (Spaceships splits the difference for its vessels, and would give a ~2,000 ton ship around 900 HP*, although I don't know if it would use the Wounding Modifiers of Unliving, Homogenous, or somewhere in-between). Assuming DR 4 and Unliving, that's an average of 12 HP (1.8%), and the ship risks becoming "nonfunctional" (0 HP) after 55 hits, risks becoming "destroyed" (-1xHP) after 109 hits, and is irrecoverably destroyed (-5xHP) at 325 hits. Assuming DR 4 and Homogenous, you're instead looking at an average of 6 HP (0.46%) per hit, roughly multiplying the above values for needed number of hits by 4. That's a lot of hits, sure, but it's far fewer than the ship could actually take, at least without them all hitting in a very small area (the above assumes being spread out over the hull).

*Away from most of my books currently, but I suspect the HMS Victory built under Spaceships rules would fair better, given I believe it would actually have DR more in line with what you indicated.
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Old 09-15-2021, 12:33 PM   #12
Kaspar
 
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Default Re: Age of Sail Ship Stats (17th century)

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Formulas to derive Tons Burthen

L = Length
B = Beam

Tons =(L x B x 1/2B)/94

This was used for the Naval vessels.

Commercial measurements were similiar but slightly different:

Tons = (L-(3/5B) x B x 1/2B)/94
Lengths would be in feet, right? What unit is the output?
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Old 09-15-2021, 01:47 PM   #13
Rupert
 
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Default Re: Age of Sail Ship Stats (17th century)

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Originally Posted by Varyon View Post
That's the Cover DR provided by those two feet of oak, but that's not just armor, it's also the hull. I believe GURPS fairly consistently gives wooden ships DR between 2 and maybe 4, and at 4d+2 pi++ so those musket balls are going to be causing decent damage with each hit.
Small ships and merchant ships. And frankly, if it did so for warships it's Doing It Wrong. Those thick hulls and were absolutely armour to protect the contents of the ship and its integrity.

Also, if you look at B558, even a chunk of wood gets increasing DR for itself and that DR happens to be DR1/inch of thickness, so Victory absolutely should be getting DR24, though if you used a detailed armour layout some areas would have lower DR.

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Victory would probably be Unliving and have around 650 HP, although you could push for Homogenous and around 1300 HP (Spaceships splits the difference for its vessels, and would give a ~2,000 ton ship around 900 HP*, although I don't know if it would use the Wounding Modifiers of Unliving, Homogenous, or somewhere in-between).
3,500 tons and unliving means 765HP, though I suspect that displacement is for fully laden, so actual empty weight and thus HP would be lower.
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Old 09-15-2021, 01:49 PM   #14
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Default Re: Age of Sail Ship Stats (17th century)

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Lengths would be in feet, right? What unit is the output?
Tons burthen, or some variant thereof. A measure of volume and rough indication of how much volume and weight you could stuff into a ship. It was mainly used as a measure of how large a ship was for taxation and fee purposes, as as a general measure of size for calculating required crews, sail area, etc.
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Old 09-17-2021, 09:20 PM   #15
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Default Re: Age of Sail Ship Stats (17th century)

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Length is hull length of main deck (bowsprit not counted) in yards. Beam is maximum hull width. Depth is keel to main deck. Min and Max Draft for unloaded and fully loaded ship. Cargo is metric tonnes, maximum safe capacity for cargo, supplies, guns, etc. Crew is the minimum number of sailors required to handle the rigging in complex maneuvers.
I don't think you mean "Depth", you mean "Draft" (B.463) which would be the distance from the keel to the waterline.
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Old 03-11-2023, 11:44 AM   #16
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Default Re: Age of Sail Ship Stats (17th century)

Hi All,
Below is a Youtube link that I think you will all enjoy.

For those who don't like to willy nilly click on links outright, simply search for:

How an 18th Century Sailing Battleship Works


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Nr1AgIfajI

The video is filled with DENSE information regarding the HMS VICTORY - what she carried aboard, the weight in tons for specific supplies, ballast, munitions, etc. It is rendered to such a degree that I think you will enjoy the video.

I know I did.

Hal
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Old 03-13-2023, 09:14 AM   #17
Pursuivant
 
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Default Re: Age of Sail Ship Stats (17th century)

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The video is filled with DENSE information regarding the HMS VICTORY - what she carried aboard, the weight in tons for specific supplies, ballast, munitions, etc.
Seconded. What made the video useful for me was the detailed descriptions of how various ship's systems worked and the 3D deck-by-deck discussion of how wooden ships were laid out.

It's perfect for fine-tuning damage or sabotage results ("A cannonball holed the elmwood pump at the orlop deck, now seawater is gushing in every time the ship rolls.") or for shipboard skulduggery ("If you want to hear our plan, come to the fore port carpenter's walk at 3 bells in the fore-noon watch.").
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