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Talos

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  1. Talos
    This is the plans used for the American frigate Java/Guerriere/Columbia. It is a slightly upgraded version of Constitution, with six inches more beam, a brand new stern with much heavier stern firepower, and the War of 1812-era updates to bulwarks and head and all.
  2. Talos
    The real non ocean-going ship is Niagara, which isn't even designed to operate on the open ocean. With a lack of fresh water carriage (on the lake you just put a bucket over the side), she has an unrealistic advantage over other ships that have that carriage designed in. Not to mention she's overrigged for the open ocean. These corvettes should be perfectly seaworthy, even if they can't operate their guns in every sea state.
  3. Talos
    No, no, this wasn't batty about you, but how the game categorizes things. In the Royal Navy, the most prominent rating system in the English-speaking world, 6th rate in our time frame covers essentially two kinds of ships, the 28-gun frigate and the 20/22-gun post ship, the smallest vessel commanded by a Post Captain. Below that is the "unrated" ship-sloop and brig-sloop, schooners, and other miscellaneous vessels. I'll post some for this later, I was just typing that reply on my cell phone and didn't have my references on hand.
  4. Talos
    Alas I don't have that much on it, though I did look. My speciality is the Federal Navy! While I haven't found a good set of plans for that design, I did find a few other ships by him with similar dimensions, including USS Congress, made by the same shipyard at the same time, Trumbull, and Effingham. Virginia is probably the closest ship I have plans for, she has nearly identical dimensions to Congress, building at the same shipyard as Montgomery at the same time. Congress (and Virginia) are a couple feet wider than Montgomery, probably why they have 12-pdrs and she only as 9-pdrs. Also, can I just say that as a history geek, I keep gritting my teeth seeing an 18-gun flush decked sloop or corvette called a 6th rate! Driving me batty. Also on the tables I would label the total broadside weights as "pds" instead of "pdr" to avoid confusion with the cannon shot weight. I was going to suggest the Porcupines in a similar class, but Pandora covers that already, which is great because I love those. As an alternative to Phoenix, I would suggest the Banterer-class 22-gun post-ships, which can be dual nation and cover both the British ships and the American USS Cyane, taken during the war. They were built with 22 x 9-pdrs on the gun deck and a few 6-pdrs and carronades up top (those could easily be diminished). They have an upgrade route with 32-pdr carronades replacing the 9-pdrs too. Other options include the Danish Lille Belt and the French Bonne Citoyenne.
  5. Talos
    The unfortunate reality is we have ships for 150 years past the Soleil Royal (picking on it as an example) and ship design and armament improved dramatically in that time period. A 74 like the Bellona from the late 18th century is going to outgun the 104-gun French ship, much less the equivalent rating like Victory or taking into account things like dramatically improved (read: bigger) rigs, better seakeeping, etc. That is the balance mentioned and why 17th century ships don't work.
  6. Talos
    I was trying not to put too many in a wishlist! Mostly I was just leafing through my copy of Gardiner's Warships of the Napoleonic Wars too.
  7. Talos
    I didn't realize brig and naval brig were US designs. What were they based on? Prince and Rattlesnake are privateers and not US Navy ships though! Is that the Great Lakes sloop Niagara? The schooner is based off the Lynx too, if I remember correctly. The design I want to see the most is the RN's Cruizer/Snake, in both two and three-masted configurations. Second-most built wooden warship ever. Perfect counterpoint to the Wasp/Hornet too. With only one hull they could get a two-for-one deal in production costs getting it in the game. As far as others, Spain has the brig Vincenjo, which was the basis of Aubrey's HMS Sophie in the Master and Commander books, the French have the Bonne Citoyenne, and the Danes have the Fylla/Little Belt too.
  8. Talos
    If we do the Hornet/Wasp sloops from 1806, it's a good opportunity to use the stern carvings for Hornet I recently uncovered. A rare piece of information for US ships of the era. As before, fullsize images in this gallery. https://imgur.com/a/hAqE8 Wasp and Hornet 1806 Hornet Stern Carvings For comparison, Wasp/Peacock/Frolic of 1813
  9. Talos
    Responding to a PM, I threw together a gallery of plans of all the US SoLs, both proposed and built. This includes their lines and body plans and fore and aft views. https://imgur.com/a/EamQj And as it's the subject of this thread, here is Ohio from that gallery. Full size is in the gallery.
  10. Talos
    I already mentioned the first generation 74s that were in service in the 1810s. USS Franklin, Washington (which we don't have plans for), USS Independence, and USS Columbus. Only Columbus was worth anything (though she was a bad sailor, she was the first SoL that was decent), the others were horrible sailors or in the case of the Indy, had to have her lower deck gunports caulked shut because they were so low. Those are the only US 74s in service in the timeline. No, Ohio was not a 1st rate, her armament was much the same as the earlier ships (Columbus had, for instance, 68 x 32-pdrs and 24 x 42-pdr carronades), the only US 1st rate is Pennsylvania. With Ohio's case, she was launched into ordinary, her hull was completed but she wouldn't have been rigged or fitted out. I do not feel she meets the criteria. Though the ship was initially launched in 1820, she was part of a new generation of much more powerful ships and would be destabilizing. As far as representative ships go, Lynx (the schooner) is also an American ship, but Rattlesnake was a typical privateer, not a USN vessel. The most representative US ships we could include from the War of 1812 are the large ship-sloops which comprised most of the fighting ships. Essex is far from representative, she was a tiny 32-gun frigate armed entirely with carronades, something like New York or John Adams would be a more typical medium frigate for the USN. Constitution was also far from the first well-known and recognized 24-pdr frigate, that honor belongs to the French frigate Forte of 1794 which was taken in RN service along with her sister L'Egyptienne. Not only were they the start of the Royal Navy's 24-pdr frigate program, but Forte was most likely also the source of inspiration for Humphreys when he designed the American frigates.
  11. Talos
    I know, I was mostly pointing out another confirmed armament for her, mostly to point out when she got the 42-pdrs on her Lower and Spar Decks added on.
  12. Talos
    Yes, that dates back to her refit before she's comissioned into service, not from 1820 when she was launched. She wouldn't have been armed in ordinary. The 1845 information comes from a period gunnery manual that goes through the armament of every US Navy ship. It's the one where I finally confirmed USS Macedonian (ii)'s frigate armament of 42-cwt 32-pdrs after several years of looking (it was a toss-up between 42cwt and 46cwt guns. Constellation got them too, she was the only other 2nd-class frigate). It lists Ohio and all the ships of the Delaware class as having the same armament.
  13. Talos
    The 1820s is when she was commissioned into Ordinary, that is an empty, unrigged hulk. By 1845 she had 88 guns, including 42-pdrs on the Lower Deck and a few 8" guns on the Lower and Upper Decks, and 22 x 42-pdr carronades on the spar deck.
  14. Talos
    I'm not entirely sure Ohio /had/ an armament beyond her rated type as a 74, as she was launched into Ordinary. The earliest armament I've seen dates back to the 1830s when she was refit for service. That's the all-32-pdr armament too.
  15. Talos
    I like her lines a lot. So low-slung and sleek.
  16. Talos
    There actually are plenty of photos of Ohio around, both as the subject and in the background as she survived as a recieving ship until 1883. Here is another photo of her. https://www.history.navy.mil/content/history/nhhc/our-collections/photography/numerical-list-of-images/nhhc-series/nh-series/NH-60000/NH-60679/_jcr_content/mediaitem/image.img.jpg/1459472464829.jpg As far as sailing ability, most of the US ships of the line were heavily overloaded and too small for their armament. This caused both the guns to be too close to the water and they sailed horribly. Ohio was the shining exception, with a well-shaped hull big enough for her armament and a lot of sails. Even in Europe, where the British lambasted American "74s" for being too slow and clumsy for their class, they excepted Ohio herself. I've never seen her carrying more than a hundred guns, but most of the time armed with 84-88 guns (86 was her normal, then 84 again after the introduction of the 8" Paixhans Gun). Earlier she was specified as 24 32-pdrs on the spar deck, not the 32 listed in the OP. She and the other second-generation "74s" were mostly completed after the period of the game. Only Washington, Franklin, Independence, and Columbus were done in the 1810s. Only Columbus was a semi-decent sailer. I wouldn't do any of the second-gen ones. With beauty, remember that at the time Ohio's lines were hyper-modern and practically futuristic. To us looking back she's pretty ugly and plain, but to the people who saw her in person it was very different. While I would love to see a lot of other nation's ships in the game (and I particularly understand the frustration champions of them must have), there's one US ship that would do well. That would be one of the War of 1812 sloops, either the pre-war Hornet/Wasp or the war-built Wasp/Frolic/Peacock.
  17. Talos
    I wouldn't go with Independence, she was rather worthless as a SoL with the major design defect of being far too small for her armament. She couldn't use her lower deck armament in all but the calmest seas. As far as Washington, which was mentioned earlier in the thread, both of them were launched as "74s", but she was two feet longer than Independence and had a half-dozen less cannons (62 x 32-pdr + 20 x 32-pdr carronades) and was a bit more successful. A more successful one is USS Columbus (1819), which was the Mediterranean Squadron flagship in 1820-21. Still a bad sailor, but easily the best of the war-built SoLs (Independence, Washington, Franklin, and Columbus). Unlike Washington and Independence (we only have a razee hull plan and a sail plan as a SoL of Indy), we do have Franklin and Columbus' plans. The only really successful American 74s were the four Delaware class that were finished (two in the 1820s and two in the 1860s), and Ohio, which was said to sail as good as a frigate.
  18. Talos
    I recently found this stern carvings plan for USS Hornet done by Benjamin Latrobe in 1811. Very few of these survived and it's a really exciting find. It's probably pretty representative of the level of carvings they had and really paints a different picture of the smaller American ships compared to the plain, austure plans we have for them. Hornet wasn't a particularly special ship, as far as qualifying for more detailed carvings. It's something anyone modeling smaller American naval schooners/brigs/sloops should keep in mind. As Latrobe was architect of the capital at the time, I'm pretty sure the only reason this survived is that he moved to Pittsburgh during the War of 1812, so it wasn't burned with the rest of the archives when the British came, and then after the war (when he was rebuilding DC) it came back into the Architect's office's archives. Because it remained there and didn't join the rest of the naval archives, it then survived the burning of the Gosport Naval Yard in 1861 when the Confederates took it. Some time in the post-WWII era it was transferred to the Library of Congress and eventually digitized, which is how I found it. The original drawing is just half of the stern (plus two collumns from his work on the Capital building), I took it and flipped it to create a full stern. Note the 17 stars representing the states of the Union (Louisiana, #18, was admitted just a year later in 1812), and the three-dimensional eagle detailed in the center. The second image is how Chapelle depicts Wasp/Hornet's stern.
  19. Talos
    Santisima Trinidad was built in Havana, if I remember correctly. I don't know that many specifics about Russian ships, outside of my copy of "Russian Warships in the Age of Sail, 1696-1860" by Tredea and Sozaev, and coverage in books like Gardnier's "Warships of the Napoleonic Wars".
  20. Talos
    No, just that the ship is rated as a 100-gun ship, but has ports for 102. I was curious where the two extra ports came in.
  21. Talos
    Victory had 100 guns, not counting the forecastle ports. LD 30 x 32-pdrs, MD 28 x 24-pdrs, UD 30 x 12-pdrs, QD 10 x 12-pdrs, FC 2 x 12-pdrs, with various amounts of carronades being installed at different times (they didn't count as part of ratings at the time). She was reduced to a 98-gun 2nd rate for a while before being rerated as a 104-gun 1st rate. For Trekh Ierarkhov here, it's LD 26 x 36-pdrs + 2 x Edinorog , MD 26 x 18-pdrs + 2 x Edinorog, UD 30 x 8-pdrs, QM/FC 10 x 6-pdrs + 6 x 24-pdr carronades. Technically only 96 guns, plus the carronades. That's 102 with the carronades included, with a pair on the forecastle (port wasn't counted, but you can see the gap for it) and the one pair of middle deck ports empty. I was never disagreeing with you or nitpicking, I was mostly curious because it was so close, 102 versus 100.
  22. Talos
    There are 51 ports, leading to 102 broadside guns without chasers. I got curious as to why there were only 100 rated guns instead and found out the middle deck had an empty pair of ports, that is all.
  23. Talos
    Dunno, you'd have to ask the Russian admiralty back in the 18th century for that! But because it was rated as a 100-gun instead of a 102-gun, that was why I got curious and looked in the first place. It's probably the foreward-most port that's normally empty, which isn't uncommon. It would interfere with the handling of the anchors, be cramped in the narrowing bow section, and effect weight and trim.
  24. Talos
    It's in the middle deck. There are 15 pairs of ports (30 total), but they only fill 14 of them, thirteen 18-pounders and one Edinorog per side, for a total of 28. That's how we can have your 51 ports, but only 50 nominal guns.
  25. Talos
    I know, I was taking your count and bringing it to the historical rating listed on the plans. Mostly because your 51-port count piqued my interest and I wondered where that extra pair of guns on the broadside went. The armament of the ship is listed in the 3decks link in the first post.
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