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Swedish frigates Bellona and Hekate


Malachi

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Plan/Contemporay Paintings/Models:

 

 

Plan of Bellona from the danish archives

 

 

Sailplan of Bellona

 

 

Transom of Diana

 

 

 

 

contemporary model of Bellona (have my doubts about the colour scheme, though)

 

 

Dimensions/History

 

 

Length                                                            156' (swedish fod) /    151' 11'' (imperial)

Breadth                                                            40'                              38' 11'

Draught Aft                                                      17' 6''                           17' 1'

Displacement*                                                 1178 m³

 

Height of middle gunport above the water       7' 2''                               7'

 

L/B ratio                                                           3.9

 

Armament

 

26* 24-pounders

14* 6-pounders

 

Crew: 342

 

Ships in class:

 

Bellona          1782 - 1809 wrecked

Minerva         1782 - 1789 burnt

Diana            1783 - 1802 broken up

Venus           1783 - 1789 surrendered to a russian squadron 1789, 1808 in service of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies

Fröja             1784 - 1834 broken up

Thetis           1784 - 1818 broken up

Camillia         1784 - 1842 broken up

Galathea       1785 - 1854 broken up

Eurydice        1785 - 1858 broken up

Zemire           1785 - 1790 sunk by a swedish fireship at the Battle of Viborg

 

 

The Bellona-class was part of the shipbuilding program by Fredrik af Chapman. Ten 62-gun ships of the Gustav Adolph-class and ten 40-gun frigates were launched between 1782 and 1785 at Karlskrona, plans for the ships were drawn in 1777/1778.

As Sweden lacked capital ships, Chapman designed these frigates sturdy enough to serve in the line of battle in a 'case of emergency'**, which they did in the Battle of Hogland and Reval. Despite this rather heavy built, they were pretty fast, however:

 

The frigate with the best wind, a stiff breeze, made 14 knots, of all the sailing vessels which we have seen, in total about one hundred and fifty which have sailed in our company, none has been able to follow either sailing close-hauled or running free - the majority have been overtaken in three hours and hours later again were out of sight - if only it will blow hard because she can withstand much wind.'  (from the logbook of Diana on the way to Tangier)

 

Compared to other 24-pounder frigates like Constitution (1799, 174' 10''), La Forte/L'Egytienne (1795/1799, 170') and Endymion (1795, 159' 3''),  the Bellonas were relatively short. I suppose this had economical reasons as the swedish navy was severely underfunded and smaller ships were cheaper to built (consequently these ships were planked with pine from the keel to the whales instead of the more expensive oak).

 

 

* page 5, Systematische Untersuchung der Hydrodynamik historischer Großsegler: Bellona/Hébé , Böndel
  (for comparison, the 18-pounder frigate Hébé had a displacement of 1350 m³)

**Line of Battle, Gardiner

 

WIP pics

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

note from Bungee:

This thread is altered since Malachi has abandoned the Bellona Class until he has further information about the Player vote.

On the last page you will find his latest progress of his 18pd frigate

Edited by Malachi
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Design choice. This way Chapman could use the whole length of the upper deck for guns (including the two stern chase ports), a convential stern would have most probably added another 5 to 10 feet. And you got more space and shelter for the officers and the crew as they are on two 'levels' (Chapman has been a sailor for 3 or 4 years when he was young and was pretty concerned about this, especially considering the harsh conditions of the baltic sea).

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The Bellona class are not true frigates.

 

Instead of carrying the main battery on the upper deck like a frigate they have the main battery one deck lower in ship style. This means they have 1 less deck than either a ship or a frigate, because of this the hull can be unusually shallow, hence their speed.

 

Essentially it's a razee layout, but purpose-built instead of converted.

 

An excellent design for shallow swedish waters, but would not have served a deep water nation like the British due to low freeboard and limited room for provisions.

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Uhm, Alex, hate to disagree here, but the guns are on the upper deck, not on the gun deck:

 

 

 

And a distance of the middle gunport to the waterline of 7' combined with draught aft of 17' 6' with 4 months of provisions and two months of water isn´t that shallow, if you compare it to 18-pounder frigates of similiar size:

 

Hébé (1782): 151' 3', 18' 1'', 6' 4'' (4 months)

Amphion (1796): 144', 17' 10'', 7' 6'' (4 months)

Endymion: 159' 3'', 18' 8'', 7' 2'' (3 or 4 months)

Edited by Malachi
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Instead of carrying the main battery on the upper deck like a frigate they have the main battery one deck lower in ship style. This means they have 1 less deck than either a ship or a frigate, because of this the hull can be unusually shallow, hence their speed.

I don't get it. Aren't those air scuttles for a lower deck on the sheer plan? And she has heavy armament placed over 7 feet above the waterline. Not too low, is it?

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Bellona-class' orlop deck looks like a lot like a lower deck to me. Maybe a hybrid. It's also mostly above the waterline and accounts for the bulk of the ship's gunport freeboard. 

 

Did the crew berth down there? We are deep into technicality-land with this one, I think. If you take the orlop deck as a gundeck (lower deck), then she is just as much a frigate as an orlop-less French ship.

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I do understand your point, Alex, but if an orlop deck is required for a 'proper' frigate than a whole lot of other ships don´t meet this criteria (including Renommée and the Hvide Örn, which are usually considered as the first frigates). Interestingly, there´s no danish frigate with an orlop deck either, from the Christiansborg of 1757 to Hohlenberg´s 24-pounder Perlen of 1802. May have been a thing of the swedish/danish shipbuilders :)

 

 

 

Quote

Did the crew berth down there? We are deep into technicality-land with this one, I think. If you take the orlop deck as a gundeck (lower deck), then she is just as much a frigate as an orlop-less French ship.

 

 

 

As far as I know the sailors were supposed to sleep on the upper deck. The guns (except the first and the last on each side) were mounted on traversing slide carriages which could be moved to the side, so there was plenty of room for the crew:

 

 

Edited by Malachi
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We are getting fairly technical here  :)

 

But yeah, the deck in dispute does not run full length on Bellona (open amidships), and part is at a different height, this is characteristic of orlop platforms. Even ships like the Renommee (and danish/swedish frigates designed for shallow waters) which are missing the orlop platforms have a full length unbroken gundeck.

 

Overall Bellona's layout is exactly the same as a razeed 2 decker like Indefatigable which makes her quite different from most frigates.

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We are getting fairly technical here  :)

 

 

I´m rather enjoying such technical discussions :P

 

Here´s the weather and 'gun' deck plan for the Bellona class and a cross section model:

 

 

 

 

The 'missing' part is a huge hatchway, maybe I should have posted this pics before :P

And I´m more familiar with french and danish frigates than with british, so the lack of an orlop deck didn´t strike me as that odd. There were other weird features (vertical fashion pieces, no visible wing transom etc) that drew my attention.

 

By the way, the depth in hold is 17' 7'' (measured a la francaise, upper face of the keel to the beam of the first armed deck at the midship bent), which a bit less than the average french 18-pounder frigate had.

 

Edit: Just measured the average deck clearance (lower surface of beam to plank): poop: 6' 3'', upper deck: 6' 7'', gun deck: 5' 6''

 

Quote
This ship was posted to the "Player ship selection 1st Half 2016" topic and has a good chance of making it to the top 3. Is it reasonable starting to model it, when it might be modelled by the devs themselves?

 

 

We´ll see. I really like this ship class and it´s a nice practice, so my time wouldn´t be wasted if the devs want to make it 'in-house'

Edited by Malachi
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Added the weather deck, cut the small ports and the officers have access to their toilets now :P

 

 

 

On the original plan there are 4 small circles above the weather deck between quarterdeck and forecastle. Looks liked Chapman toyed with the idea of a continously armed deck. Crazy swedes....

 

 

EDIT:

 

Blocked out the transom, starting to look remotely like a ship...

 

 

Edited by Malachi
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erm.. with no experience whatsoever you will feel that shipmodeling or modeling in general is a 10 out of 10.

No offence intended but modeling a ship is not the hard thing (sure it is hard to get everything right)

But you first have to learn how to work with your 3d modeling program.

If you use Blender or 3DsMax. Both are extremely capable but not easy to learn in the first place.

Still. Dont be afraid to give it a shot.

Everybody started from scratch at one point.

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Transom and quarter galleries are done (but without carvings, which would look similiar to those of the Gustav Adolph)

 

 

 

The plan shows conventional quarter gallery windows, but the contemporary Bellona model (and the british Venus draught) has one circular window, so I went with that.

By the way, only the upper part is a 'real' window, the rest, like on pretty much any other frigate, would be glass on planking (or planking painted to look like glass)

Edited by Malachi
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Quote
Hey man I made 3 albums with pictures of the kronprins gustav adolf model if you are interested :)

 

 

Thanks, mate! Much easier to navigate and find stuff than on the museum page :)

Edited by Malachi
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