"Age Of Sail" Questions

[Ozymandias]

Originally Posted by timerover51

The Norse Sagas give sailing directions that are pretty specific, so I would say that the idea of a Small Wonder would be a good idea with either the Knorr or the Cog.

Also, you might want to consider a Cast Iron Cannon Advance to go with the Ship-of-the-Line and Frigate, as cast iron was far cheaper than cast bronze and made it possible to arm large number of large ships with guns. The cost differential was between 5 to 1 and 9 to 1 over the period, and the technique of casting large amounts of iron was a specialized operation.

So Rutters/Portolans as a SW with the Knorr; Bronze Cannon to replace Metal Cannon; Cast Iron Cannon allows SOLs & Frigates.

Thank You Yet Again timerover51,

Oz

[RickFGS]

Small note: the difference between portuguese war ships and spanish/english ones of the XVI century and beyond was the loading system of the cannons, while spanish and english kept using the loading trough the mouth of the cannon, wasting time to clean the barrel between shots, the portuguese cannons had several rear parts that were replaced after each shot, the moving part contained the shot, gunpowder and "bucha" so several shots could be taken whit almost no waste of time between shots, a portuguese cannon was also trigered by the pull of a string instead of the manual lightning of the gunpowder or string. The only disadvantnage was the space occupied by all the moving parts stockpile, but then again, portuguese war ships had vast cargo hulls. Of course this also kills the modern myth that portuguese cannons were cast in Germany at the time, which is untrue, all the cannons were designed and engineered in Portugal, the iron however is another matter.

You might want to add techs for cannon building/usage techniques.

[Ozymandias]

Originally Posted by RickFGS

Small note: the difference between portuguese war ships and spanish/english ones of the XVI century and beyond was the loading system of the cannons, while spanish and english kept using the loading trough the mouth of the cannon, wasting time to clean the barrel between shots, the portuguese cannons had several rear parts that were replaced after each shot, the moving part contained the shot, gunpowder and "bucha" so several shots could be taken whit almost no waste of time between shots, a portuguese cannon was also trigered by the pull of a string instead of the manual lightning of the gunpowder or string. The only disadvantnage was the space occupied by all the moving parts stockpile, but then again, portuguese war ships had vast cargo hulls. Of course this also kills the modern myth that portuguese cannons were cast in Germany at the time, which is untrue, all the cannons were designed and engineered in Portugal, the iron however is another matter.

You might want to add techs for cannon building/usage techniques.

Good idea Aside from Bronze / Cast Iron, what would you recommend? (It almost sounds like you're describing a breech-loading system, but that would have to be a much later tech.)

Thanks Again,

Oz

[timerover51]

Originally Posted by Ozymandias

Good idea Aside from Bronze / Cast Iron, what would you recommend? (It almost sounds like you're describing a breech-loading system, but that would have to be a much later tech.)

Thanks Again,

Oz

No, a fair number of countries used that type of cannon, but it could only be used for small guns, nothing really big. I will see if I have can find drawing or picture of the type to post. Basically, the powder and shot were contained in something like a large beer stein with a handle, that was inserted into an opening in the breech of the gun, and then held in place by an iron wedge which was rammed in behind it. The container had a tapered mouth to fit into the barrel and provide a gas seal.

They found several when they raised the English warship, Mary Rose, which capsized in 1545, and raised in 1982, and there are several that I know of at a museum in Switzerland. If you run "breech loading cannon" on Yahoo images, you will find a fair number of images of them. Contrary to what RickFGS says, they were in fairly wide use throughout Europe in the late 1400s and 1500s. The problem was you could not make the guns too powerful or heavy as the container holding the powder and shot had to be easily lifted by one man, so you were looking at guns firing at most a shot weighing 1 to 2 pounds. They were widely used as breechloading swivel guns firing from the ship rail, but reloading the containers meant either bringing them all below, reloading them, and then bringing them back to the gun, or attempting to reload them on deck. Having large quantities of blackpowder exposed on a gun deck while in action is not exactly a good idea, and once all the containers were fired, the gun was useless until they were reloaded. Another problem was getting an adequate gas seal, as the tolerances were pretty wide to allow for differences in the containers. When all is said and done, the overall rate of fire was very similar.

The Portuguese did make most of their own guns, but as they used bronze rather than cast iron, the expense was pretty severe.

I will see if I can get a better picture from my files.

[scratchthepitch]

Those breech loaders were what most of the early cannons were. The early ship cannons were small, too small to sink ships, and used to kill the men on deck. They basically replaced the bows and crossbows used by the soldiers on board. These early breech loaders were also physically weak, low velocity weapons. The early iron breechloaders were often hammer forged, not cast, and could not take much presure without bursting. Early bronze castings were much stronger and could take the higher presures.

Gun powder was originally loosely mixed together. This was called serpentine powder. Later, it was mixed with liquid and poured out to dry as a sheet. This was then broken up into pieces sized for the size of weapon to use it. This was called corned powder. Corned powder is much more powerful than serpentine powder and it was found that the forged iron cannon couldn't take the higher presures it developed. Corned powder has been around almost as long as serpentine, but its high strength limited its use to small cannon and cast bronze cannon. The use of corned powder, and the high cost of bronze, provided incentive to learn how to cast iron cannons strong enough to handle the presure without bursting.

Another thing that made these early forged iron cannon less effective against ships was they used stone shot rather than iron shot. Stone shot weighs less and loses velocity faster, so has less range and striking power. But it also doesn't cause as high a presure to develop in the gun barrel. Small guns could use iron or lead shot, but the larger weapons had to use stone, or risk bursting. Cast bronze cannon could use iron shot and once iron casting were being made strong enough, they did also.

[timerover51]

Originally Posted by scratchthepitch

Another thing that made these early forged iron cannon less effective against ships was they used stone shot rather than iron shot. Stone shot weighs less and loses velocity faster, so has less range and striking power. But it also doesn't cause as high a presure to develop in the gun barrel. Small guns could use iron or lead shot, but the larger weapons had to use stone, or risk bursting. Cast bronze cannon could use iron shot and once iron casting were being made strong enough, they did also.

Actually, stone shot is about as effective against wooden ships as cast iron shot, as the lighter weight is compensated by having a higher velocity, and at the short ranges of early naval battles, loss of velocity was rarely a factor. The Carronade, used extensively during the Napoleonic Wars, also had a low velocity shot, but when you are typically engaging at ranges of 100 yards or less, the difference in effect on the target was minimal. The real problem with stone shot, as discussed by John Guilmartin in his classic work, "Gunpowder and Galleys", is the cost of producing the shot, as each one had to be manually shaped into a sphere of a given diameter, which was manpower intensive, and if you paid the workers, expensive.

Ballistics Discussion for the Really Hard Core
When a cast iron roundshot hits a wooden hole at a reasonably high velocity, it tends to simply "punch" through, leaving a slightly larger than caliber-sized hole, and expending its remaining energy behind the outer hull. If the shot penetrates the gun deck and happens to hit either a gun carriage or gun barrel, that energy is expended on the gun deck, to the detriment of the sailors manning the guns. Obviously, any sailor hit by the shot is probably not going to be around any longer. However, if the shot does not hit something, it is very likely going to either bury itself in the hull on the opposite side of the ship, or if the range is very short, simply punch another hole on exiting the hull.

When a large caliber, slow-moving shot, such as a 32 to 68 pound carronade shot, or a stone shot of lighter weight for a given diameter, hit a wooden hull, the effect is different. Much more of the energy of the impact is transferred to the wooden hull, resulting in a much larger hole, and a great number of wooden splinters. Most of the casualties in a naval engagement during the Age of Sail were caused by those wooden splinters flying about in a high velocity cloud. Since the shot lost most of its energy smashing through the hull, it also has a greater tendency to bounce around inside the ship, wreaking more havoc. The 68 pound Carronade was not called the "Smasher" by the British navy for nothing, but the large shot was hard to handle and load easily.

For an example of the difference in damage between shot fired from long guns and shot fired from large-bore carronades of equal weight (in terms of cannon barrel weight, not shot weight), compare the results of the combat between the USS Ranger, under John Paul Jones, and HMS Drake in the American Revolutionary War, and the combats between various US Navy sloops and Royal Navy brigs during the War of 1812. The Drake's bulwarks were described as being shattered, but her hull was not seriously damaged. In the combats during the War of 1812, the US ships on a regular basis sank their opponents. The difference lies in the nature of the armament: light, long guns verses large-bore carronades.

The problem of a ship with an all or almost all carronade armament is that if it encounters a ship carrying an armament of mainly long guns, that is also able to chose the engagement distance, is that the ship with the short-range carronades can be shot to pieces by the ship with the long guns, as exemplified by the engagement during the US War of 1812 between the USS Essex, equipped with forty 32-pound carronades and six 12 pound long guns, verses the HMS Phoebe, carrying twenty-six 18 pound long guns, as well as upper deck carronades.

[scratchthepitch]

Originally Posted by timerover51

Actually, stone shot is about as effective against wooden ships as cast iron shot, as the lighter weight is compensated by having a higher velocity, and at the short ranges of early naval battles, loss of velocity was rarely a factor. The Carronade, used extensively during the Napoleonic Wars, also had a low velocity shot, but when you are typically engaging at ranges of 100 yards or less, the difference in effect on the target was minimal. The real problem with stone shot, as discussed by John Guilmartin in his classic work, "Gunpowder and Galleys", is the cost of producing the shot, as each one had to be manually shaped into a sphere of a given diameter, which was manpower intensive, and if you paid the workers, expensive.

Ballistics Discussion for the Really Hard Core
When a cast iron roundshot hits a wooden hole at a reasonably high velocity, it tends to simply "punch" through, leaving a slightly larger than caliber-sized hole, and expending its remaining energy behind the outer hull. If the shot penetrates the gun deck and happens to hit either a gun carriage or gun barrel, that energy is expended on the gun deck, to the detriment of the sailors manning the guns. Obviously, any sailor hit by the shot is probably not going to be around any longer. However, if the shot does not hit something, it is very likely going to either bury itself in the hull on the opposite side of the ship, or if the range is very short, simply punch another hole on exiting the hull.

When a large caliber, slow-moving shot, such as a 32 to 68 pound carronade shot, or a stone shot of lighter weight for a given diameter, hit a wooden hull, the effect is different. Much more of the energy of the impact is transferred to the wooden hull, resulting in a much larger hole, and a great number of wooden splinters. Most of the casualties in a naval engagement during the Age of Sail were caused by those wooden splinters flying about in a high velocity cloud. Since the shot lost most of its energy smashing through the hull, it also has a greater tendency to bounce around inside the ship, wreaking more havoc. The 68 pound Carronade was not called the "Smasher" by the British navy for nothing, but the large shot was hard to handle and load easily.

For an example of the difference in damage between shot fired from long guns and shot fired from large-bore carronades of equal weight (in terms of cannon barrel weight, not shot weight), compare the results of the combat between the USS Ranger, under John Paul Jones, and HMS Drake in the American Revolutionary War, and the combats between various US Navy sloops and Royal Navy brigs during the War of 1812. The Drake's bulwarks were described as being shattered, but her hull was not seriously damaged. In the combats during the War of 1812, the US ships on a regular basis sank their opponents. The difference lies in the nature of the armament: light, long guns verses large-bore carronades.

The problem of a ship with an all or almost all carronade armament is that if it encounters a ship carrying an armament of mainly long guns, that is also able to chose the engagement distance, is that the ship with the short-range carronades can be shot to pieces by the ship with the long guns, as exemplified by the engagement during the US War of 1812 between the USS Essex, equipped with forty 32-pound carronades and six 12 pound long guns, verses the HMS Phoebe, carrying twenty-six 18 pound long guns, as well as upper deck carronades.

I'm not so sure stone shot was more expensive. Stone itself was very cheap, much less than iron, which was still a very uncommon material to use for construction. Iron had to be cast, or forged, so wood also had to be procured. The wood then had to be reduced to charcol. A foundry was then needed to cast or forge the iron. Since iron was less used than stone, there were far less iron workers around than stone workers and logic says they were probably paid higher wages. It is even possible that all told, it took more people working to make iron shot than stone because of all the other things needed to make the iron required workers as well.

The difference between iron and stone shot in ship battles if the ships were alongside each other probably wasn't great, as you note. But there is the problem of stone shattering. The planking on these early ships was not as thick as later times (on the Mary Rose, it about 4 inches thick), but the wales were thicker and there was plenty of timber behind the planking in the form of ribs, knees, ceiling, channels, deck beams, etc. Hitting a "thick spot" is at least a 50% chance, and this could shatter the stone, or cause it to fail to penetrate into the interior. Especially with the cannon of medium size and less, which were the majority. Iron shot would be more likely to make it through. Note that the difference in velocity of these early muzzle loading cannon was probably not that great and all of them should be considered as low velocity in comparison to the time carronades were invented. The breechloaders had lower still velocity. The difference between iron and stone in velocities in these respective guns was not much, either, at close range, so the splinter effect of each would also not be that different.

Then once inside the ship, the stone, having much less remaining energy than iron, would be less capable of doing further damage and would probably break up on striking anything else hard. The decks of these ships were very crowded with both men, structures and equippment (150 foot long Mary Rose had more than 500 people aboard). There is a lot of damage a shot could do bouncing around inside and the likelihood of a shot penetrating one side and exiting out the other without doing much damage in between is probably small. Iron shot was further enhanced by using grape shot. A round consisting of several smaller sized shot which would duplicate all the advantaged of stone while retaining those of iron. There was also bar and chain, neither suitable for stone. Grape and bar appeared very early on once iron was used for projectiles.

Also there is the effect when raking a ship. Stone wouldn't do nearly as much damage as iron would as it would lack the energy. It wasn't until the mid 1600's that fleets really started relying upon line ahead tactics. Before that, it was general melee, with ships facing broadside, quarter and raking actions. Sometimes all at the same time. There were also galleys to account for. These used line abreast tactics so they could ram. Iron shot raking a galley would do massively more damage than stone, even considering the lighter construction used in galleys. The velocity of the old breechloading cannons were further disadvantaged because their velocity was very low. They didn't have much damage potential to start with.

Finally, carronades are not really equivilent to the old stone shot cannon. First of all, carronades fired iron shot, not stone. The carronade was designed to fire a larger diameter, heavier shot than the regular cannon of the same weight. The stone firing cannon of old operated on a different principle. Lighter, equal diameter shot for lighter gun weight. Since the carronade fired iron shot, not stone, they were lower velocity iron shot cannon. The velocity of stone shot falls off much faster than iron shot so even with a carronade and stone shot cannon using a similar initial velocity, the iron shot of the carronade would hit harder and carry further.

Carronades were an advance on the existing cannon in a couple of things. They had less windage, so needed less gunpowder, and they used a different form of recoil damper which used friction in the carriage construction. Both of these advances lead to more modern forms of gun and mount later.

[cemo1956]

Originally Posted by Ozymandias

Okay, here's a VERY ROUGH first cut of a tech tree, without dependencies but with the techs lined up roughly chronologically in columns. I know it needs much improvement; this is just to make certain I've got the basic concepts down without, e.g., breaking it into multiple tech lines.

Critique away!

Thank You All Again,

Oz

I see you brought in the Galleass in this development picture. Not sure how you put that ship in but it was during the time of the 16th C galleys (Battle of Lepanto 1571). I read somewhere that Henry VIII liked this ship and had many of them. Perhaps they then should upgrade to more powerful Galleon.
The Spanish Armada included galleases too. In comparision to the present galley they were the first ships that could deliver a broadside. They had many more cannons than the same type of galleys (that only had cannons in the bow & stern), but perhaps they should be sinking in ocean.

I read that in the 16th C they built both Heavy and Light galleases. The heavy should upgrade to Galleons perhaps, and the light to later 17th C frigates. Both types have been made years ago as models and still hold great standard.

Not sure about this, but the issue of galleasses haven´t been talked about so I thought it would be important to bring it up, so that this ship doesn´t get left out.