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HMS Glatton (56 guns, trade/war ship)


Ned Loe

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HMS Glatton

56-gun ship built for the East India Company , it was purchased by the Royal Navy in 1795 and converted into a warship. His artillery was composed only of " carronades " - heavy pieces short barrel for close combat and requiring much less gunners to serve them. The " carronades " inflicted terrible damage by sweeping the deck of opposing ship . The French suffered cruelly this English innovation before adopting a few years later.

 

In 1801 HMS Glatton was commanded by Captain Bligh (future commander of the Bounty )
who distinguished himself in the eyes of Nelson.

 

HMS%20Glatton%20(11).JPG

 

HMS%20Glatton%20(1).JPG

 

HMS%20Glatton%20(12).JPG

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Glatton_%281795%29

 

 

Glatton Career (UK) 60px-Flag_of_the_British_East_India_Comp  East India Company Name: Glatton Builder: Wells & Co. of Blackwell

Launched: 29 November 1792

Fate: Sold to the Royal Navy in 1795 Career (UK) 60px-Naval_Ensign_of_the_United_Kingdom.

Name: HMS Glatton Acquired: 1795, from East India Company

Honours and awards: Naval General Service Medal with clasp "Copenhagen 1801"[1]

Fate: Sunk as breakwater, 1830 General characteristics [2] Tons burthen: 1256 2194> (bm) Sail plan: Full-rigged ship Complement: East Indiaman: 125.[3] Royal Navy: 343 Armament: East Indiaman: 26 x 12 & 6-pounder guns.[3]

 

Upgraded to:

 

RN from 1795:
Upper deck - 28 x 32-poundercarronades
Lower deck - 28 x 68-pounder carronades (later replaced by 18-pounder long guns)

RN from 1804: 44 guns

 

It does look like they added extra gun deck and upped the gun poundage. 

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WANT! We dont have any ships of this kind (with that door thing on the front, excuse my lack of knowledge plx) + me thinks it can be used as both combat and merchant ship with slight model modifications

Agree, can be a nice Trader ship for long solo journeys. Can defend and fight while hauling cargo.

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Eastindiaman modified, probably added second deck where cargo used to be stored.

Pretty much.

 

The larger East Indiamen were built with a similar internal deck layout to a 2 decker warship and would be pierced for guns on both decks, although normally they would only carry guns on the upper deck and cargo on the other (sometimes fake wooden guns on the lower deck, or even having the gunports planked over).

 

They made useful warships if circumstances demanded, you could simply change the armament and go from Indiaman to a reasonably effective 4th rate (or even 3rd rate for the largest examples)

 

I do not think that ship model is the Glatton of 1795 though, it looks like a considerably older design, perhaps mid-1600s.

 

The real Glatton with her carronade armament was formidable, she had an interesting encounter with a squadron of 7 french warships (5 frigates, one of them a razeed 74, plus a brig and cutter), ended up losing all 3 topmasts but drove off the enemy (inflicting serious damage in the process) and pursued them into a french port.

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Possibly this is the Glatton we are discussing:

hms%20glatton%20(10).jpg

https://www.modelshipmaster.com/products/tall_ships/HMS_Glatton_model.htm

Wind, you need to realize that these names were reused over and over again, so you have to be more careful / specific with image search.

I am careful with my research:

It looks like there could be 2 ship replicas based on the same hull. As you can see hull is the same on both images. Also, the stern on your suggested replica is too simple and looks like a frigate stern. East Indiamens during that that time had much more complex and more decorated sterns. We can't forget that it was purchased from a trading company and originaly it was a trading ship. Take a look :

East_Indiamen_in_a_Gale.jpg

I do not believe original ship plans were preserved, maybe just the hull plan. I think that's why ship constructors implemented their own style from 2 different nations.

HMS GLATTON

Navire de 56 canons construit pour la compagnie des indes, il fut acheté par la Royal Navy en 1795 et converti en navire de guerre. Son artillerie était uniquement composée de « carronades » - pièces lourdes à canon court destinées au combat rapproché et nécessitant beaucoup moins d'artilleurs pour les servir. Les « carronades » infligeaient de terribles dégâts en balayant le pont du navire adverse. Les Français subirent cruellement cette innovation anglaise avant de l'adopter quelques années plus tard.

https://sites.google.com/site/maquettesmarineavoile/glatton

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There were several Glattons, I spent some time looking for plans of Glatton (1795) and could only find this inboard plan, unfortunately not enough to build a model from...

 

Rss5jhq.jpg

 

However, this plan of another purchased Indiaman (Tortoise 1804) is similar in configuration and shows the overall appearance (although there are some differences, Tortoise has a moderner and uglier style of bow).

 

KcCXHGm.jpg

 

Even at a glance you can tell this is not the same ship in the original post, nor is it the second model which seems to have been built without plans and is quite inaccurate.

 

Indiamen almost always have 2 layers of stern gallery like a 3rd/4th rate, even smaller examples with only 1 gundeck will have 2 rows of cabins/windows.

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  • 1 month later...

It is a knows fact though, that repurposed trade ships were very cumbersome.

glatton raped an squadron of 7 french ships  idiamans where basicly normall warships with only the lowest gundeck removed for cargo space.

i think in this topic alot of pages are missing? specially the ones about the battles glatton made

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We cannot reasonably consider Glatton in her carronade form a trader either. 

 

Fitting her with so much artillery + the complement to crew all those guns, we're talking about proper warship levels of financial investment. 

 

Of course that doesn't mean one can't haul cargo with her, but first one has to ask what her warship refitment did to the cargo capacity, second one has to ask if it's worth going trading with it when you have to keep 500 crew on the payroll. 

 

 

(And third, one does have to feel sorry for the unwary enemy who might roll up a little too close and receives some of that epic firepower  :D )

Edited by SchurkjeBoefje
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