Martes

In-game screenshots of the new ships: Russian exploration sloops in polar waters His Majesty's bomb vessels The new Colossus as 74 And as a razee.

Wow. I didn't pay enough attention, thinking that two images taken from (almost) same point are the same. And they are not. There are two other differences, the removed boom support enables us to see the horizontal positioning of the last netting support, and it is indeed on the quarter gallery (however, there are some questions as to how turn of the deck is executed there), and the image without the starboard chain shows rails on the gallery balcony that go to the aftermost gunport (they are obscured by the crown on the second image, but they are visible on the photos from the book below). And there are two more images of this model, on page 35 of Holck's catalog (1939) (PDF), one of them is side-view.

I'll give them some time to go through the storage, but if I'd ever have (or get) to do it myself, it'd be fun. Thanks for the image, I don't have it in that resolution And here is what they sent me - the image above in original and a set of photos of Prince Christian Frederick, which has different config, and is a modern interpretation, but still it's something. And just to note that I do watch your project with great interest. Prins Christian Frederik.zip ChrVII(1803)agterspejl-285-2000.zip

Oh, I did! I even explained what I needed exactly, and they found me a photo of that model (numbered 149, the black one) that was not anywhere on the net (I never encountered it, at least - see below), but they still don't know where the model is and if it exists at all. They were extremely nice and helpful, it's the disappearance of the model as a physical object that made me envy you The plans are in the Danish archives and I used them all already Thing is I needed a very specific view of that model (top projection, to verify the rail run on the roundhouse and top tier of the quarter galleries - it is very awkwardly positioned, as if stepping from the edge roundhouse onto the quarter gallery, and how exactly it is done is not drawn anywhere), and without the model it is absolutely impossible. I just wanted to see this curve from above, and the corresponding place on deck - where the roof of the roundhouse ends and where the gallery cover begins. And the fact it could be just lost because they merged two museums is very saddening. Just hope it would turn up during next inventory. I apologize for intruding here, of course, you can remove all three posts if you want to clear the thread.

Lucky you. When I asked Danish Kriegsmuseum about the model of Christian VII's stern, they told me it's not in their collection and they don't know where it is. It should have been transferred from the former Maritime museum, but apparently wasn't, or wasn't indexed, anyway, they couldn't find it.

The confusion indeed is enormous, but almost until the last moment I thought of the stripe going between the decks, as on the first picture, as a distinct possibility. However, Gardiner quotes Hayes: her appearance [is] so deceptious that any one would go down to her for a frigate, having much of the appearance of one of the American frigates; I hope more of the small 74-gun ships will be equipped in the same way, these seas requiring no other ships, it would be a great saving. and adds: "Judging by the draught, it is difficult to see much resemblance with an American frigate, although the rasees were said to carry a black-painted cloth to disguise their gangway ports." and this effectively rules out anything but the lower stripe, since black cloth applied to anything else would look totally strange. It is interesting, that despite the inconsistencies in paint schemes, all the artists that drew her from bow-on perspective, display a lower head, not built-up variant appearing on the plans. It looks better, undoubtedly, and I would likely have done it even without such confirmation, but it's still a nice detail. Additionally, using the Elephant layout, with the covered upper deck, makes it possible, with adding the second stripe, adjusting the topsides texture, and adding guns to the spar-deck, to represent a standard 74 built without roundhouse, which I might do later.

A ready hull of a 74-gun ship, however, opens an attractive venue. It can be razeed. Moreover, it can be razeed in more than one way. It is, of course, an amalgamation of designs - no ships of this class were actually cut down in this particular way, so I took the plans for razeeing the Elephant, with a fully covered upper deck, but I did not change the port configuration of the upper deck, as on earlier ships (Saturn and Majestic), and lower head, as consistent with most depictions of the Majestic. There was, however, a very puzzling question about how to paint her. Majestic is depicted as having: - single wide stripe between decks - single stripe over lower deck - single stripe over upper deck - stripes over both gun decks of which two configurations are attributed to her during a one single engagement, and two others - during the other. Owing to the quote of captain Hayes that she would be easily (?) mistaken for a large frigate, I ruled out the two-stripe configuration, and finally decided to keep the lower stripe bright, as was done on later medium-sized indiamen that were similar in hull configuration: And there is the variant cut down to fully conventional frigate, but it is still under construction:

Once again, I rebuilt the Colossus. The model retains the round bow I borrowed from the Tremendous refit of 1810, and has greatly corrected the curves forward, where simply adding plank thickness to stations do not work (I already tested this on several frigates and newer ships and while considering to reapply it to the Colossus thought I'd bring her to standard - with more vertices for the hull and higher-resolution textures): The photographs of a French 74-gun ship model by Mr. Augustine Pic were enormously helpful, as the model has cuts in the exact places that give the idea of plank thickness and difference between the outer shell and the frames (and since the Colossus/Carnatic/Ganges were a copy of Courageux of 1757, a ship very contemporary to the model, the resemblance is not completely coincidental) So as a result I have another example of my favourite principle - a ship of French design of 1750, built for Louis XV, in British Napoleonic coat, serving George III and in certain sense - Louis XVIII.

Interesting, indeed. On naval ships the sand was used in battle or during firing exercises, but it was brought from the hold in buckets.

As to changes in rigging - yes, that's the simplest solution. 1. The barrels look completely out of place there, and being not secured are certainly a hazard. Nobody in their right mind would keep powder kegs(!) above the waterline and outside powder room. It's downright recipe for explosion. Do get rid of them 2. Washed, let's say. 3. What do you think the wheel turns on a sailing ship? On a frigate the wheel turns a tiller that is under the deck (under the ceiling of the wardroom), and you simply don't see it, but the rudder can't turn without the tiller. The brig doesn't have that luxury of the space, so it works like this: 4. I am not sure I follow your train of thought regarding the deckhouses and their connection to quarter galleries, but they are present on most of the known plans. Here is a model with the inside of one, and they, as you can see above, do not impede the tiller. And they are a very handy feature to have on deck, very. 5. Same about the flying forecastles. They were introduced in 1780's at least, and feature even on earlier standard brig models, even before the mass introduction of carronades: 6. That is perfectly understandable 7. Going full Jacobite, are we?

Some additional observations. 1. What are those barrels for near the capstan? 2. The hammocks are folded to cylindrical, not rectangular packages. 3. The tiller should be visible behind the wheel, as there is no place to fit it below the deck: https://www.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/rmgc-object-84378 https://www.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/rmgc-object-84401 4. Those little deckhouses aft (one of which is, if I recall correctly, a quarter-gallery, and another either chart room or flag locker) are absent. 5. Flying forecastle (the deck cover forward) is also missing. 6. For the level of detail you aim for, the carronades miss a lot of tackle - and yes, I know it's a rabbit hole, deciding what to show and what to omit and why. 7. The flag - it should be either white, red or blue ensign, not the union jack. British ships never used the union jack as a national flag.

Very quick and visual-only comparison with the Sophie sail plan gives this: The bowsprit is definitely too long for the masts, and the spanker is too small, even if you leave the masts intact, and it leaves an acute sense of disproportion of the rig. Niagara is closer to Baltimore schooners and makes an incorrect prototype for rigging, her hull is far too different from Cruizer-class brigs and has different requirements. Also, it is possible that your ship is riding slightly too high, as if underloaded.

The game I am tweaking has a basic rule of a thumb considering lower deck ports closed at sea state that is equal to gunport height in feet. I.e. a ship with lower deck 6 feet above water would be able to keep them open in sea states 1 to 5. Roughly it corresponds to how it was done. But there is a principal difference between the habitability requirements of the lower deck of a two-decker (which was doubling as berthing deck for the crew) and the gun deck of a frigate, that was for at least half of it's length occupied only with guns, and the crew housed on the lower deck, and officer's cabins being separated by wooden bulkheads. Note that many of the upper deck (or main deck on frigates) ports did not have lids at all, it was considered that the open ports enable to drain the water entering from above at the waist. Lids began only where officer's cabins were located.

Would probably mean all gun ports open for ventilation and guns run out. At least most of the paintings I've seen represent the ships in this state in such weather. Should it be somewhat rougher, the lower deck ports will be closed with guns fixed within in some way or other (depends on alert state), but upper deck and fc/qd guns would most probably be still run out.

There was another, even more extreme option - when the gun was stored parallel to the hull, lashed sideways. It allowed more space (and thus was used on indiamen), or in very heavy weather, but it effectively disabled the gun for the foreseeable future, since you would need very favourable conditions to bring it back to firing position.

I guess this is the closest to what you were looking for

Obviously, plus the tackles.

If I recall correctly, stowing the guns lashed to the sides was almost exclusively done when expecting very heavy storm, or on indiamen, because it is a difficult, dangerous and long process of getting them back to position if needed. Later carronades and even heavier guns had pivoting mounts, but that's more into the 19th century.

One of the units that was very needed, but eluded me for some time was a sloop. Small ships should be relatively frequent, but somehow I haven't got around to making one for a long time. I looked at the Bonne Citoyenne and Fylla, then I thought I needed something that can (at least potentially) be made in both open and quarterdecked variant and turned my attention to Cyrene, but still somehow held off. Then I found a plan of a Russian corvette, the Spitzbergen of 1803: And the more I looked at the plan, the more something rang very familiar in the shape of this hull. The lines looked like something I definitely saw already. Endymion. No surprise here, the Speshny class was already in series, and highly regarded. But it definitely gave me an idea. And since scaling the design up and down was something not unknown of, I thought I might just do the same. So I took Endymion's hull, scaled it down, slightly squeezed from the sides, replaced the deck, fitted a different stern and adapted head, applied a new texture... and got a ready quarterdeck corvette. The differences between the resulting ship and the original draught of the Spitzbergen (straight rudder-post, inclined keel and slightly different shape of entry) are negligible enough and certainly a small price to pay for getting a new ship with so little effort And so, I got a neat little 110ft corvette, of sufficiently French lines and Regency finish to be able to represent a ship of this class in almost any European navy, fit for escort duty, surveying, gunboat diplomacy and exploration voyages. What else would I want? A bomb vessel, of course! Well, I did have some sort of it, restoring a shabby model of a transport from game files and utilizing an unused gun caliber to make some sort of bomb vessel capability, but looking at conversion plans for Meteor (ex-sloop Star, a ship of very similar size): I thought it perfectly possible to follow the scheme, and make a bomb vessel of my own:

It's either camera angle, or she looks somewhat undermasted. Niagara, being very different from British architecture, is hardly a suitable prototype. Check against this, : https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sophie_(1809)_RMG_J0135.png and this: https://www.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/rmgc-object-66685

On a slightly ironic side note it does look like it happened exactly overnight on January 1st, 1700. Or maybe 1697. Based on surviving plans anyway.

Yes, it looks very interesting, and I think comparing the model to the plan can give the answer to the sternpost question. I shall check it sometimes

It's not just that plan, see for example this: Or even the stern of the Sovereign of the Seas from Boston Museum: and my attempt to solve it: https://modelshipworld.com/topic/23981-early-17-th-century-pseudo-perspective/?do=findComment&comment=708359 https://modelshipworld.com/topic/23981-early-17-th-century-pseudo-perspective/?do=findComment&comment=708755 (Sorry for linking posts, it would be a little difficult to recreate the formatting again)

About that early 17th century English drawing standard, maybe you know how to interpret it. While the plan appears to be a profile with turned bulkheads, the sternpost is somewhat obscured by a part of the hull in pseudo-3d fashion: Should one assume that to recreate the real profile the sternpost and rudder should be moved slightly back?