Fluffy Fishy

They had a similar size navy to Prussia too, plus and as you can see their flag kind of looks like it has Nicholas Cage's Face on it. Here's is a Nicholas Cage Version in the spoiler I did on MS Paint for comparison.

It's not far wrong, the clue is effectively, the British advances to coppering and minimising maintenance times added onto the fact British ships tended to be a fair bit sturdier than other nations at the expense of agility and sailing quality. These various attributes meant that the Royal navy could operate a much larger fleet with lower numbers of actual ships as was apparent during the American Revolutin. It's also somewhat present during the Napoleonic era which gets reinforced by an act of parliament to maintain a navy at least as large as the two nearest rivals combined. It wasn't always the case though, generally until coppering started to become more important it was usually the French who had naval superiority in Europe with Spain, Britain and The Netherlands mostly competing for second third and fourth place. So not really the book isn't misleading it's just probably sketchy on the why. Don't read into raw ship numbers too much, sortie rate, number of guns in total and maintenance time all have very important affects on who had the largest effective navy.

Wasn't the largest the Prussian navy got during the period only about 16 small ships under 20 guns in total? I remember their navy was completely wiped out after one battle with the Swedish too... Even Frederik the Great said "I'd rather have the best army in Europe than try to build the worst navy" when he was advised to start to pour more funding towards protection on the Baltic rather than relying on strong naval allies like the Dutch or British. It's also worth noting that they toyed with the idea of adding other nations like Poland a few months ago, even though by the time the USA existed Poland was a landlocked country....

The idea of more nations would be quite beneficial to NA Legends, but for NA proper you are right. For the moment at least adding in a few more nations to NA legends (in the medium turn) would do the game a lot of good. Potentially you could see new nations such as Austria Portugal Ottoman Empire Venice Genoa Barbary States Prussia Malta Any of these could add a minor bit of depth to Legends at least, while not really taking anything away because its no more diverse than having clan matches. There are enough teams in the game though. Saying that I would very much love to see a Europe map announced.

Only 5 Nations frequently made 100+ gun ships Britain, France, Spain, Ottomans and Russia during the period. Sweden had a single 100 gun Konung Karl between 1725-71 while the Dutch had Eendracht between 1703-12. The Ottoman ships were pretty poorly made, so wouldnt be fun to sail, although it might be fun to tweak accuracy and put one in because they made some pretty goliath monsters. While the game is pretty set for 1st rates it could do with a more typical Spanish first rate such as Principe de Asturias (112) or San Jose (114) and an upper end Russian ship most likely the Ches'ma class like Rostislav The US 100+ gun projects were never completed in the time frame, over budget, sluggish to react and fairly horrible outside of a straight line, they were also plagued with major issues of rot and maintenance cost, its best to avoid them. They also don't really offer anything new to the game. Their history isn't as notable and and their structure is less advanced than the Seppings method, their style of heavy armament is also preceded by British and French designs such as the Caledonia class. The claims made in the OP seem quite far fetched, the handling like a frigate seems very difficult when comparing her length and width, at least mathematically she would have performed pretty horribly in the water, as she has quite a poor ratio, even if she was pretty fast, although 12kn isn't as fast as some other first rates, looking at her hull shape further makes this an unlikely claim, much more probably just propaganda. Lets also be honest here, those US historians need their eyes testing if they consider her beautiful, she looks like a bath tub with gun ports, probably sailed like one too, there are far more beautiful ships in the US fleet both in terms of look and performance, let alone across the world, then again maybe that's a personal thing. The USS Ohio was launched as a 74 too, not to the 102 guns specified on this thread, she gained more guns during a remodel that brought her more in line with naval thought of the period, her original armament if I remember correctly was 32 x 32lb on her main + 32 x 32lb on her upper and 10 x 32 on her quarterdeck, these guns were cast to different lengths so as to bring her in line with European naval practise of the time. She was later upgraded with more and more guns being put on the upper deck, the waist being filled in and having her main gun deck having a shorter 42lb gun replace the longer 32lb whilst adding more guns on her weatherdeck. Thank you for the post but I think the community is fed up of US ships now, there really needs to be more attention paid to the larger more potent European navies that have had no love yet, the Dutch, Portuguese, Venetians and Danish, dare I say it, even the Ottomans too.

I haven't revisited this ship nearly enough recently, she is a stunning creation sadly due to budgeting having spent the majority of her life mothballed on the slip in reserve, these are the modified plans from Austria from after she was reduced down from a 74 to a 70. Similarly to the other ships of her generation she makes a lovely point of being somewhat smaller than her contemporaries with more emphasis on agility and speed than even the French 74s. These are the plans that almost come as a bonus to the Das Erbe der Serenissima book, which mostly focuses on a model of the Fama class and like the other plans from the book they are impressively massive, almost A1 paper size. again just like the Fama plans I think my favourite part is the last one, showing the ship and rigging in its entirity, there are also some interesting dimensional drawings that are somewhat unlike most plans I have come across. I strongly beleive she would make a lovely addition to the game as either the 74 as she was originally as a reserve ship and her service in the French Italian Navy, or as her reduced state of a 70 as she served Austria.

Something I have been thinking about recently, highlighted by the recent 2017 ship polls is that there is large bunch of somewhat strange choices with regards to the make up of the game's ship roster. The current game misses some pretty obvious holes, made more apparent through the vague dismissal that fails to cover the more unique aspects of what makes national navies individualistic in comparison to their contemporaries. To look at these examples of differences between navies, you see clear trends towards total types of ships when where you compare the most written about nations of Britain and France you see a clear fashion, especially notable amongst the larger ships. Typically Britain's battle fleet favoured small 1st rates not far off 100 guns, while the vast majority of their largest ships consisted of large 2nd rates, typically from 90-98 guns, these were supported by smallish 74s, and in earlier times 64s. This compares quite dramatically to France, who favoured large 1st rates, 80s and large 74s. There is also differences nation by nation on design choices, with the French ships being designed more for speed and sailing qualities where as British ships tended to be given larger holds for longer cruise times and builds more geared towards toughness. Here is a chart I built a while baack so as to try and log size and composition of Fleets, this one specifically is the Royal Navy during the Napoleonic era; Total Ships in Service First Rates Second Rates 80 guns 74 guns 74 guns (Large) 64 Guns 50 Guns 18pdr Frigate 12pdr Frigate 9pdr Frigate 20-24 gun Post Ships Quarterdecked Sloops Flush Decked Sloops Brig Sloops 1793 5 16 1 58 3 30 12 17 44 23 12 1794 33 0 20 1795 36 1796 6 16 5 56 8 1797 30 12 47 59 23 17 45 10 36 1799 6 17 7 49 20 26 10 50 58 21 38 23 37 1801 6 16 8 50 20 27 10 69 44 11 23 34 25 45 1804 20 10 64 33 8 21 37 33 1805 7 14 6 43 24 23 1808 6 11 7 51 30 21 9 91 43 9 52 34 105 1810 12 7 35 8 56 21 169 1811 7 12 7 62 28 9 15 1812 5 107 25 3 29 51 13 145 1814 7 8 5 67 30 1 4 114 11 0 44 10 158 1815 8 7 Looking more clearly at this, there are some clear issues with the current line up and how it more seriously affects the gameplay of Naval action and now Legends too, especially amongst the larger ships. This chart fed back into the introductory paragraph leans towards exposing these real issues of composition, largely that 1st rates are far far too common, while 3rds and 2nd are really too limited in general, while no one is aware of the upper end balance of legends yet I hope the system does something to address this. Below I will attempt to break down how I see the current issues into rating and what needs to be brought in to hopefully go some way into fixing the problems. 1st Rates: The current batch of first rates seems pretty good to me, although they could probably be slightly better balanced, as Ocean is quite notably superior to Santissima and Victory, this is despite Victory being widely regarded as the best 1st rate of the Century. Perhaps eventually we could see the addition of a more typical Spanish First rate such as San Josef (112) and the addition of one of the 100 gun Russian first rates such as the Ches'ma class. 2nd Rates: I see a fairly serious issue here in general, there's a lot that could be done to improve this area, often the heaviest ships of many navies the 2nd rate category is seriously lacking, although the currently in development Christian VII will somewhat help this. Its also slightly plagued by the issue that Bucentaure is made to be an 88 in the game not her typical design as an 80, which not only breaks from the French tradition of French 80s but also, somewhat frustratingly complicates the whole rating group, even having her as the slightly larger class variants with 86 guns puts less pressure on potential ships around her although seeing her as an 80 would be a breath of fresh air. Moving on from the Bucentaure Issue the big screaming issue here is that there are no representatives from the famous British 2nd rates, the most natural fillers here are HMS Neptune (98) or HMS Barfleur (90), the more natural choice being HMS Neptune as Christian VII will nicely fit out the 90 gun ship armament slot. This rate is also the perfect there is also great reason to include some Dutch ships here such as it seems to be the natural place for them with their heavy armaments, The Wreeker class (80) would go very well here. In a perfect world with all these ships developed we would have a nice array of 5 2nd rates, which leave us in a great place. Less important additions would be perhaps the Portuguese ship Principe Real (90), HMS Fudroyant (80) and ﾠﾠKonung Gustav IV Adolf (84) 3rd Rates: Third rates are easily the most neglected group going, its almost sad to see the shameful neglect of this category, the backbone to nearly every major battle fleet of the time period. At least the problem is starting to see more acknowledgement but the lack of 3rd rate ports the current roster of 1.5 ships needs addressing seriously with the most priority. They are the most numerous battleships going, offering the best compromise between firepower, sailing qualities and cost. The reality is there should be at least some effort to include at least one example of a 74 from Britain, Spain, France, Portugal, Sweden, Denmark-Norway and The Netherlands, especially now legends is concerned too. 74s are the only gun rating I would like to see a good number of options with the same number of guns. The most obvious hole in this category is the missing Téméraire, the lack of Téméraire is just bizarre and its almost shocking that one of the 120 ships haven't made it into the game yet. The most obvious choices from Spain are between Montañés and something like San Damaso. Portugal should probably have Rainha de Portugal which, the suggestion of Göta Lejon for Sweden seems like a nice one from the ship selection poll, while I would expect to see one of the Prindsesse Sophia Frederica Class from Denmark-Norway, there is also the 18 ships of the Iaroslav Class from Russia to bear in mind too. Having these ships would leave us with some nice options. This would give us a good 7 different 74 gun ships to pick from. I'm personally not quite sure how to deal with the Dutch here, their large guns make them a little difficult to place, they also stick out quite a lot but any suggestions on how to fit in something here would be great, something like the Zeven Provincien or Prins Maurits would be nice to see though. Moving onto smaller ships it would be nice to see a 70 or two make it, Spain, Denmark and Venice most widely used ships of this size, There are also a couple of Maltese ships here too. The possible options are things like San Jose from Spain, Jyyland from Denmark, and either Laharpe or Leon Trionfante from Venice. There is also Admiraal Tromp and San Salvatore from the Dutch Republic and Malta respectively. 4th Rates: There currently seems to be two ends to the 4th rates in the game, some of these ships are more geared towards being thematic over legitimate choices. The current line up includes Constitution, Agamemnon, Wasa, Ingermanland and Wapen von Hamburg. it also covers quite a wide area of the game, realistically there are a number of 4th rates going and really the options are pretty endless. The group is about as endless as you can get, with 741 entries to pick from between 1700 and 1825 so really its a case of how thematic vs how combat assertive you want the choices to be. It would be great to see the proposed redesign of the Constitution happen, hopefully seeing her taken down to a more typical armament of 50-52 guns too. There are some fantastic choices that have been suggested for this area though, The most notable current absence from the 4th rate group is HMS Leopard (50), the most famous of the 50 gun SoLs, it would also be nice to see a couple more 64s added, perhaps Rattivisan from Sweden and Athenienne from Malta. Some other ships I would really like to see make it here are the Dutch ship Delf (56), Venetian super frigate Fama (66) but we could add all kinds of ships from elsewhere like the Portuguese Principe da Beira (54) or Princesa Real (50). The grouping has fairly endless possibilities though, its a great place to give some time and love to minor nations, you could even consider adding an Ottoman entry. These are just my suggestions, although its quite an extensive list potentially doubling the number of ships that would be in the game so I dont expect to see many, if any make it from here but having enough ships to properly give choices in each class is something that really needs to be worked on, I have done my best to keep in mind all nations too but feel free to suggest where you see holes in the current line up. As ever Thank you for reading.

Like 90% of the community here I am patiently waiting for my letter to come (and probably never arrive).

You could just adjust the rating system of the game slightly to be one that's based on poundage of broadside over number of cannons. Saying that the Dutch ships will always stick out due to them being heavily gunned whilst maintaining a shallow draft, although their rounder hulls to support the weight of these guns would mean the Dutch ships would have behaved quite a bit more tender than most SoLs and that brings it's own issues, perhaps balance it out slightly by having them roll and heel more violently than other SoLs?

I know I have been promising this for a long time but here are some shots of the plans included in Das Erbe der Serenissima, these are the massive almost A1 paper size plans that come along side the book itself, specifically these are the ones as it says in the text above them belonging to the sister ships of Fama, Stengel and Beyrand. I have also included a shot that I will leave in a spoiler below that includes Rif Winfield's French warships in the Age of sail and Brian Lavery's Ship of the Line: A History in Ship Models to show just how a little bit of scale to massive the plans are. Looking at the pictures themselves I am particularly fond of the drawings showing the internals and even more so the image showing how she was rigged, especially as I personally haven''t come across many ship plans that include rigging shots. Interestingly the Venetian rigging plan tends to be quite different to other nations, the fore and mizzen masts are located a little more to the extremities of the ship, the bowsprit is more pronounced and the masts slightly higher than examples from other navies. The comprehensive nature of the plans is incredible, I would fully recommend buying Das Erbe der Serenissima just for these plans alone. Sadly they aren't the best quality images around, I have done the best I can with the equipment I have, which is a phone camera, some pegs, a chair, a flattened cardboard box and a very heavy book in the attempt to take the best quality images I can, sadly though there is a little bit of distortion on the side of the phone camera and I also don't have the best lighting conditions available. Hopefully they have come out well enough to show off just how fantastic the plans are. Enjoy

Here is a list of the ships built in the Netherlands although the ship completed as HMS Chatham was finished in Britain the others to my knowledge served in Dutch navy after the liberation from Napoleon. There are more that were built in Antwerp but I wasn't sure if you wanted those listing too, basically the vast majority of the class was built in Antwerp, Genoa, Venice and Amsterdam while only a few were constructed in France itself here's the list Royal Holondais (completed as HMS Chatham) Audacieux Polypheme Couronne Piet Hein. Steel you could have easily done this yourself you lazy Dutchman

I have made an unofficial poll to accompany this regarding the Téméraire class, and which to put forward into the vote itself, I believe its important to establish what exactly we are voting for here with some of the classes suggested being quite open with a couple of different Variants available. I would love to hear from you guys which of the Téméraire ships you'd like to see and why you want to add it. Here is the link to the topic.

The Téméraire class of 74 is well known as the most expansive ship of the line class ever built, with over 120 ships were ordered for the French navy and a further 4 ships built from the lines of Pompee and America being built by the Royal navy. The ships themselves served as parts of the French, Spanish, Dutch, British and Italian, with the smaller variant, and while the vast majority of these ships were constructed in France, the Pluton class would be launched all over Europe in Napoleon's client states. I have for now left out the subgroups of the Téméraire from the voting as I can't see any real difference between them, perhaps someone would wish to offer a more extensive knowledge on the subject and correct me but for now at least I will start this with only the 4 main design sub classes. Téméraire: The original of the class designed by Jacques Noel Sane as part of a massive fleet expansion program between 1782 and 1813. Téméraire herself was launched in 1783 and properly completed in 1785, she was condemned in 1801 and broken up in 1803. Dimensions: Length: 55.87 metres (183.3 ft) (172 pied) Beam: 14.90 metres (48 ft 11 in) Draught: 7.26 metres (23.8 ft) (22 pied) Propulsion: Up to 2,485 m2 (26,750 sq ft) of sails Armament: Lower gundeck: 28 × 36-pounder long guns Upper gundeck: 30 × 18-pounder long guns Forecastle and Quarter deck: 16 × 8-pounder long guns 4 × 36-pounder carronades Cassard: Two ships were laid down in 1793-94 at Brest to a variant of Sané's design with the aim of carrying 24-pounder guns on the upper deck instead of the 18-pounders carried by the Téméraire. These ships were 2 feet longer than the standard 74s, and half a foot wider, however by 1816 their armament has been reduced down to 18 pounders. Dimensions: Length: 56.47 metres (185.3 ft) (174 pied) Beam: 15.05 metres (49.4 ft) Draught: 7.26 metres (23.8 ft) (22 pied) Propulsion: Up to 2,485 m2 (26,750 sq ft) of sails Armament: Lower gundeck: 28 × 36-pounder long guns Upper gundeck: 30 × 24-pounder long guns Forecastle and Quarter deck: 16 × 8-pounder long guns 4 × 36-pounder carronades Suffren: Two ships were begun in 1801 to a variation of the standard Téméraire design by Sané to meet the demands of Pierre-Alexandre Forfait. The length of these ships were reduced by 65 cm from the standard design. A third ship to this variant design begun at Brest was cancelled in 1804. After Forfait left the Ministry of the Marine in October 1801, no further vessels were ordered to this variant design. Dimensions: Length: 55.87 m (183.3 ft) (172 French feet) Beam: 14.90 m (48.9 ft) (44' 6) Draught: 7.26 m (23.8 ft) (22 French feet) Propulsion: Up to 2 485 m² of sails Armament: Lower gundeck: 28 × 36-pounder long guns Upper gundeck: 30 × 24-pounder long guns Forecastle and Quarter deck: 16 × 8-pounder long guns 4 × 36-pounder carronades Pluton: Starting with the prototypes Pluton and Borée in 1803, a smaller version of the Téméraire class, officially named petit modèle, was designed by Jacques-Noël Sané to be produced in shipyards having a lesser depth of water than the principal French shipyards, primarily those in neighbouring states under French control and in foreign ports which had been absorbed into the French Empire such as Antwerp. The revised design measured 177 feet 7 inches on the waterline, 180 feet 1 inch on the deck, and 46 feet 11 inches moulded breadth. The depth of hull was 9 inches less than that in the "regular" Téméraire design. Dimensions: Length: 55.87 metres (183.3 ft) (172 pied) Beam: 14.90 metres (48 ft 11 in) (44.5 pied) Draught: 7.26 metres (23.8 ft) (22 pied) Propulsion: Up to 2,485 m2 (26,750 sq ft) of sails Armament: 28 × 36-pounder long guns 30 × 24-pounder long guns 16 × 8-pounder long guns 4 × 36-pounder carronades Please do share and vote on which of the ships you would like to see added most of this group, I'd also like to hear if there are specific ships within any of the class you would like to see represented most out of all of them, my personal favourite has to be the Pluton variant and of those it would be Rivoli, however I'd love to hear your own opinions of what ship should make it but do keep in mind this is a totally unofficial poll, with no real authority of which to add ships to the game, as ever thank you for reading

If we are having a Téméraire class ship we really need to clear up what we are actually voting for, personally I would love to see Rivoli make it, she has an interesting history and a fantastic model. The differences between the sub classes needs to be addressed because in it's current state the vote is a little bit like asking us do we want a 74 ship of the line from 1790 without specifying which one. Although really I would prefer a non represented nation to make it, preferably more than one.

It almost sounds like you have fallen for a clever Dutch trick

Thank you for adjusting her, its much more fitting, although I'm still not sure those measurements are quite right, the length seems quite contested depending on the sources used, but ah well. Similarly to what Leboiteux said, thank you for your hard work, moderating and dev work too often goes thankless.

I'd be well up for this, you'd very much need to include @Sella22 @LeBoiteux @Surcouf and a few others in there too, given a practical small team of active participants between a group like that could create some great suggestions, it would be be of huge benefit to legends too, legends will need quite a few more ships to function properly. We could informally start a message group but then things will get lost quite quickly, perhaps a discord or something?

Thank you for pointing this out, I'm not sure why it was the wrong measurement, still at 12.86m beam she is much closer to the 50 SoLs and heavy frigates, clue being she is a Fregata Grossa, not Navi di Linea, I feel like she might be more at home with the other large frigates and SoLs, she makes much more sense as a 4th rate in this context.

This seems to be a frequent problem though, people always seem to lean towards the biggest ships available without much understanding of the ships themselves, I'm sure if there were some larger 2nd rates or 1st rates involved they would be taking a huge amount of votes too. Its also not helped by the fact that the Téméraire and Montañés probably shouldn't be in the poll at all, they should already be in development or in the game. Its further made an issue by the lack of a Dutch ship in the current state, but again the Wreker is also one of the obvious choices for development and should have been put into the game already. It all takes away from making the ship poll what it should be at least in my opinion, as an option to get some more unusual choices in that wouldn't be such obvious choices. So many of the ships here just seem like we shouldn't need be voting on them at all.

The Dutch outside the voting booths at the ongoing ship poll

Two questions; 1) Why is Fama listed with the 3rd rates? She is so tiny compared to the other 3rd rates it would be so unusual to include her with the likes of the massive 74s and 80s, she is smaller than the 50 gun SoLs in the poll, HMS Leopard for example is over 2m longer and only 0.4m thinner at the waist. Fama Sitting along side some similar sized ships: 2) Out of interest which one of the subclasses of the Téméraire-class are we voting on? That could almost make a poll on its own Téméraire (18 ships) Duquesne (46 ships) Danube (26 ships) Cassard (Large variant - 2 ships) Suffren (Short variant - 3 ships) Pluton (Small variant - 25 ships)

Is anyone aware whether this still works as way to meet girls? I'm asking for a friend of course...

Just in case the rule clarification kills off my original post suggestions in this thread the ship I most want to see created for the game, in case anyone hasn't got the message yet (which is fairly unlikely). my suggestion is Fama, she has everything you need to model her, would fit in fantastically in the game, offering something that while she is significantly more gunned than Constitution, Fama's small frame (if I understand it right how the devs calculate toughness) makes her quite a bit more vulnerable, especially to crew loss due to so many men being packed so closely together. The main advantage of Fama is that she has huge high quality plans available in Das Erbe der Serenissima. However, If my original post still stands I would love to see the possibility of La Harpe and Muiron make it in too although given the choice I would much prefer to see a true Venetian ship, completed by the Venetians, not a ship completed during the occupations. I was also hoping to get something proper done for the Palma class, sadly I haven't found any plans for her yet.

There has been a nice new video posted by Military History Visualised, this time about the Bomb Vessel. Its worth a watch, enjoy. There are also three previous videos on the same channel which have been posted here a couple of times will link in a spoiler below for those who want to see those too.

(Sorry) Another repost for the sake of having everything in one place.