Alex Connor

I think Ingermanland has been upgunned to make the ship more competitive with the Constitution. Should be reduced, perhaps even to 24/12/6lb, the 30 pdrs she carried were a lighter version not equivalent to the 32lb long gun. Constitution in turn might be made a lot more expensive, rarer blueprint, less dura. Agamemnon could be cheaper than the Bellona, more agile and require less crew (let's say new rank introduced with 500 crew between the current 350 -> 650 ranks). Perhaps more dura too, doesn't have to be strictly tied to rating.

akd, on 29 Aug 2016 - 05:45 AM, said: Against other frigates and 3rd rates. Agamemnon stood in line of battle at Trafalgar, the RN might have stopped building 64s but they remained SoL. akd, on 29 Aug 2016 - 05:45 AM, said: Constitution was standing in for a more conventional 4th rate, now that we've got the Ingermanland there is no reason to keep the Constitution as a stepping stone to 3rd rates when real "44s" are as large as a 74, much rarer and considerably more expensive. Constitution should be an endgame ship closer to a 1st/2nd rate in price and availability, the frigate to beat all frigates. akd, on 29 Aug 2016 - 05:45 AM, said:id: Unlike the 18 pdr long gun, carronades were historically quite limited in usefulness against SoL, which only carried carronades on the weather deck as a substitute for small cannon that would have been even less effective in line of battle.

You wouldn't put the Constitution into a line of battle. What separates Napoleonic era 3rd rates from 4th rates (apart from pure guncount) is that 3rd rates have 2 heavy gundecks (18lb and up) where 4th rates only have 1 heavy gundeck. Even if Agamemnon is smaller than the Constitution and carries less guns per deck (as does the Bellona), this is still a distinctly more powerful ship.

Ships grew considerably in size and firepower over the 18th century, the result is that a 3rd rate built in 1715 like Ingermanland (151ft, 24/12/6lb gundecks) is more closely comparable to a 4th rate like HMS Leopard (146ft 5in, 24/12/6lb gundecks) than something like the 74 gun Bellona (168ft, 32/18/9lb gundecks). Agamemnon though is a 64 built towards the end of the 18th century, may be at the low end of 3rd rates but this ship is still 160ft with 24/18/9lb gundecks, considered a SoL and capable of standing in line during a fleet battle. Ingermanland is justifiably classed as a 4th rate but the larger and more modern Agamemnon is a 3rd rate.

The concept of the American 74s was sound enough, a large two decker with full length spar weatherdeck in the style of Humphreys frigates. Rivals to the French 80s, although not quite as big as a Tonnant or Bucentaure. Intended armament was a uniform calibre battery, 32lb long guns on the gundeck, 32lb colombaids on the upper deck (short light pattern cannon) and 32lb carronades on the weather deck. In practise this turned out to be far too much weight, with 90 guns and full stores Independence's gundeck ports were submerged, and hasty steps had to be made just to allow the ship to sail. The carronades were reduced in number, 32lb long guns swapped for Constitution's lighter 24s, and Independence sailed for the Mediterranean with half stores and the gundeck ports tarred shut. All blame for the Independence lay with Bainbridge as he had supervised construction and made changes to the Humphreys design (increasing length and breadth without depth of hull to compensate). Due to the ship being almost useless as a SoL, Independence had only a brief career showing the American flag before being decommissioned as better SoL became available.

I started building a Roebuck-class model, didn't get much beyond the base hull form. Strangely competitive during their lifespans, you wouldn't think such a small 2 decker could be fast, and yet Roebucks and HMS Rainbow have distinguished track records of chasing down and defeating frigates that should on paper have been quicker. I suppose the Royal Navy being the only ones with coppered hulls during this period helped.

Indeed, and while the french captain initially (and correctly) identified the Rainbow as a small 44 or 50 gun ship, this was before carronades were known to the french and a 2 decker with 32lb guns would ordinarily be a 74. Hard to tell scale at sea.

By all means, include the useless 1814 Independence whose maindeck gunports were submerged when the ship was fitted with it's design armament. I mean, if you don't mind the devs wasting time and effort modeling a ship no one will sail. The razee is an 1836 design that falls well outside NAs period and would completely obsolete much more historically significant and interesting vessels.

A ship built in 1820 that is identical in overall design and capabilities to any one of hundreds of napoleonic era brig-sloops. Mercury fits well with existing ships and although only built right at the very end of NAs period merits inclusion due to a distinguished combat history.

Sure, let's just go ahead and obsolete the Constitution in favour of a 1836 design that never fired a shot in anger and can best be summed up as an expensive mistake. While we're at it, screw all these boring Napoleonic era vessels, why not throw in steam ships and exploding shells, that would be great fun... /sarcasm

That's Saturn, an Arrogant class 74 razeed at the same time as the Majestic. Could use as a guide for cutting down Majestic though.

As far as I'm concerned corvettes are flush-decked ships with a single battery. l'Unite is better described as a light frigate.

The redeeming factor as far as speed goes for an East Indiamen is that they may be boxy, but its a surprisingly long and narrow box. With no need for broad decks to carry heavy guns, the larger Indiamen such as Farquharson have a length to beam ratio of just over 4-to-1, only the longest and finest beamed frigates even approach this and most are nearer 3.75-to-1.

The reason Constitution and the North Carolina look so similar is that they are both based on the same design. One is Humphreys' design for a 74 (frigate version) and the other is Humpheys' design for a 74 (enlarged version). And of course North Carolina isn't a 74 at all but rather a 94 gun ship the size of the Santisima, the US rating system was absurdly conservative.

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.

Compare with a true frigate. hold, orlop platforms/deck, gundeck, upper deck, weather deck. Bellona only has hold, orlop platforms/deck, gundeck and weather deck, there is no upper deck.

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.

Think you are describing the razeed 74s (Majestic etc) rather than the Leander or Newcastle, which were normal British frigates with plenty of freeboard and good all round performance. The razees were impressive vessels, certainly outmatching the Constitution with 32s on the lower deck and a full battery of 42lb carronades, but their speed suffered somewhat from their rig having been reduced during conversion, they made only 11-12kts (Majestic slightly faster). With the original 74 rig they might have been fast enough to give the Constitution trouble. That said, the razees weren't slow, Majestic in particular lead the early pursuit of President, only dropping back as the wind fell. Majestic also engaged a French squadron of 2 44 gun frigates (who were escorting 2 storeships), running down and capturing one of the frigates and driving the other off, which illustrates both her power and speed.

Not impossible, fir ships were well known for speed in close-haul, and Newcastle/Leander are the largest examples of the type. And even if that was a typo to say 14kts large and 12 close-haul, Newcastle would still run down any other frigate ingame at any angle (except Endymion going downwind in 18pdr configuration). Considering the late arrival and limited service of these 2 ships (at least, limited service before the end of War of 1812), I wouldn't really like to see them dominating open world PvP.

Newcastle lines in better quality. I don't think of Newcastle and Leander as ugly, the second row of cabins is of course a later addition when the pair were serving as flagships, and before that they looked much like any other British frigate of the period, only larger and with an unbroken row of upper deck ports. Only worry about putting these ships in Naval Action is that they are very quick (Newcastle 14kts large and 13kts!! close-hauled), more heavily armed than even the Constitution and such a ship could easily destroy balance.

Soleil Royal is likely this ship, built in 1749, 80 guns. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_ship_Soleil-Royal_(1749) Victory is the older Victory (1737) which sunk in 1744. Distinctive for having 4 rows of stern lights compared to the normal 3 for a 3 decker.

The period of Naval Action ends at 1820, correct? From 1820s onwards there was a revolution in naval gunnery, led by men such as Captain Broke of the Shannon. From this point formal training of naval gunners was introduced (beyond simply how to fire the gun), along with significant changes to equipment such as dispart sights for cannon, director fire, flintlocks for all guns (making firing delay more reliable) and the practice of marking elevation/range on the mechanism of the gun. So although the basic weaponry and ships did not hugely change, the standard of gunnery was massively improved compared to War of 1812, Napoleonic era and earlier. In addition, as other people have mentioned, firing a single aimed gun and firing a broadside is quite different. With a broadside the first guns to fire will blind the rest, then you have timing with guns in the same broadside firing at different parts of the roll etc. So the upper limit of effective broadside fire in Napoleonic era is probably about 400 yards, at this range you might have 25% accuracy or so against an enemy hull due to vertical dispersion. At 800 yards to hit the enemy at all would be good shooting (or lucky). The Royal Navy (with one of the best gunnery standards at the time) liked to fight at 100 yards or closer, at this sort of range a broadside aimed at the weatherdeck of a SoL would roll down so that the last shots hit the enemy's waterline. Or if you fire on the uproll like the French the last shots would hit a fair way up the lower masts. Only this close was it possible to make every shot count. To give some hard figures, 10m vertical dispersion at 100m range and 45m dispersion at 400m would be fairly realistic for broadside fire (and single fire should reset aiming arcs so people cannot game the system by spamming individual shots). Horizontal dispersion is not as bad as vertical dispersion, for a gunner it's much easier to get bearing right than range, perhaps 2-3 times current values would be correct. I know changes like this would be a big shock, but 1) this is realistic, and 2) this would solve the longstanding problem of balancing fleet actions and small battles, because reduced effective range would greatly reduce the number of ships that can be doing damage to the same target. Instead of 8-12 ships in line firing on one enemy you'd have 3-4 maximum, which is much easier to balance with 1v1 and 2v2s etc.

Much higher dispersion at range and limited ammo... I'd love to try this, would bring a very interesting dynamic to battles. Get close or go home. No point even trying to wear people down from beyond effective range, waste too much shot in this fashion and you won't be able to finish them off even if you have the advantage in ships/numbers. Close, brutal fighting relying on skill in tactics and maneuver.

Gunnery is way too accurate as it stands... The players with most practiced aim can fire an entire 1st rate broadside into a 10ft x 10ft target at over 1000m using rolling fire (such that the shot appears to be passing in a concentrated stream through your rigging), and even a fairly mediocre shot like myself can land an entire broadside on an enemy hull at that range with little difficulty. There should be much higher dispersion at range.

Plans These are from another member of the Porcupine class (Amphitrite) rather than Pandora herself, but close enough ​ The later specified armament will be from other members of the class who survived longer.