Lieste

That works if the kit parts have an appropriate size, just lacking finesse or numbers... this is sometime not at all true, being mere suggestions of 'gun'.

For the most part 6 pdr were either 7ft (heavy line ship qtr deck) or 6ft (lighter vessels and qtr decks of frigates etc). Earlier guns tended to be longer, but smaller quantities of stronger powder could get the same results from shorter pieces as older longer guns using heavier but weaker powder charges. Moreover, an excessive muzzle velocity requires a heavy gun, wasteful powder usage and makes relatively little difference to downrange performance, especially in smaller shot sizes. Even the lightest of these have quite benign recoil performance, which is the main advantage to a slightly longer/heavier piece. There is also a longer sight along the line of metal which can make consistent pointing a hair easier for a longer gun, but this is unimportant. Light Field guns are a bit shorter than the 'it doesn't matter' level, and are also too light to be controllable with full distant charges. This still doesn't matter 'very much'. For merchants and other very small vessels there are non-Ordnance board 'cutts' or light guns from various foundries which can throw a 6pdr shot with less weight on deck, and mostly this won't matter as much as the very small numbers carried, or the roughly 20 shots per gun minimum (compared to 80-110 for a fully stowed warship) of ammunition, which precludes these winning a protracted engagement. I'd plump for 6ft, if there is no additional information on the gun weights or length in the literature for your ship.

You might also find relevant figures available as STLs, which can be scaled and printed to any reasonable scale.

Windages can have a constant proportion constant values, or a scale which increases with length and/or powder proportion. Just don't assume a pattern similar to only AF with a constant fraction of the bore/shot size and a gauge gap which is also proportional. Particularly gauge interval (if such a thing even makes sense) is very much looser in the 17th, although the minimum windage of what passes for a regulated high gauge may be quite similar to or even higher than the later standards. (Vasa's 24 pdr has windage at the high/low/middle shot sizes of 1/36.5, 1/13.3, 1/19.5 - compared to AF C18th 1/31.5, 1/25.2, 1/21)

Windage ratios are not universally geometric progressions as used by the British with Bogard/Armstrong/Armstrong-Frederick. The French Manson pattern (extended by the 1820 30 livres) had quantised windage for 36/30/24/18/12/8/6/4 livre guns as 30/27/27/24/21/21/18/18 pts with 1 livre seeming to be defined a little higher. (these windages for the boulet, appear to be for the middle of the forges gauge (+/-3 pts) with the places gauge between (+3/-6) pts (same high/smaller low gauge). This is a windage proportion a little tighter than the 20/21 definition for the AF low gauge (with 1/3rd allowed for the high gauge within this interval) (roughly 24.5/25.5 mean) for the larger calibres, but significantly looser than the British stated standard for the smaller natures. It would be unusual for 'same service' windage allowances to substantially increase for smaller calibres, but I would note that the French land service pattern for shot is a tighter windage definition than the corrosion tolerant naval allowances - the same shot manufacturing techniques (and perhaps (aside from 16livre/18livre calibre differences) the same moulds) but are gauged according to use with a differing degree of hammer finishing and the same 6pt tolerance between gauges with different gauges for the two services. It would be possible to see a larger shot defined for the land service guns than in naval stores - and by inappropriate data combination see an anomalously tight windage for 'say' the 12livre gun (Land patterns are given to the high gauge, apparently, with 15pts allowance - equivalent to the naval 18pts - for 12, 8, 6, 4, 3 livre gun patterns. - the 16 livre and 24 livre patterns of siege/garrison artillery have looser gauges)

Mixing of bore and shot calibre/diameter is quite common, even in quite respected sources, such as the many works of Dr Summerfield. He has at least a few tables where the smaller guns are misreported. Even where 'a diameter' of shot is correctly stated it must also be remembered that there are national and period differences in what this 'boulet diametre' represents - It can be a mean gauge from the forges, a low gauge (with a mean and high gauge larger than the nominal), the high gauge (with the mean and low gauge smaller than the nominal) or a mean gauges of the places - the average of the high gauge and the unserviceable gauge. This can materially change the weight of the shot and the comparison of the windage proportions between different pieces - especially if you prefer to converge disparate data sets to a common standard (e.g the mean gauge of reception at places)

The frames are original, and there is evidence of bolt holes adjacent to the ports when she was stripped and being re-planked. The planks are new, and the breeching bolts cosmetic only. They would almost certainly have been through bolts when originally constructed.

A 32pdr ball from the Blomefield pattern gun at the (late) middle gauge and with the turn of the century Waltham Abbey cylinder milled powder should still be sonic at about 500m. Smaller bore guns tended to be longer, relatively and could have significantly higher muzzle velocity, but lose velocity slightly more rapidly. 24pdr 9.5ft also around 500m, and the 18pdr 9ft a bit less ~475m, while the 12pdr 9ft is sonic at about 425m. The later 58cwt gun is slightly 'more' by virtue of its lower windage, but not by enough to render the very popular 55cwt guns obsolescent. Carronades are high subsonic (and with a few of the lighter rebore patterns of guns being roughly sonic at the muzzle). Muzzle velocity is expected to be above 500m/s for all of these guns rising as the calibre falls to about 540m/s for the 12pdr. (Sonic ~340m/s) (explicit muzzle velocity measured by Navez on an electro-chronograph for the 24pdr is 1720 ft/s, using the later shot and the standard military powder made up from high quality new powder mixed with small proportions of recovered powder to moderate the velocity to provide a maximised consistency of power) French powders are weaker, especially early on, though they recover most of the deficit in power between 1827 (where they are testing with Pont de Buis hammer milled powder) and 1843 (where they have a cylinder milled powder from Ripault in their testing programmes). There is still a small deficit recorded between French powder of 1860 (noted by the French as being the same as Ripault/1843) and 70 year old Waltham Abbey powder, when tested by Lt Mordecai of the USN. French guns have a narrow spread between their high and low gauges and use a higher line of metal to get a slightly longer but-en-blanc along the metal and marginally more consistency. Even with the much weaker powders indicated from their 1808 and 1811 gunnery manual their artillery is supersonic at the muzzle and for a few hundred metres downrange. The velocity deficit by the 1840s is on the order of a few percent, and not a critical difference - pointing is also detached from the line of metal with the universal provision of tangent sights.

The energy delivered to a target by the shock/wake system is of the same order as the energy loss due to drag over a short distance... which is fairly trivial for most practical cases especially when taken over an 'edge' rather than the total loss integrated around the entire surface. OTOH the blunt trauma from a 'spent' projectile incapable of perforating a blanket or cloak was sufficient to pulverise the rib cage and internal organs of a sleeping soldier in the lines of contravallation. He was found dead with no external wound, beyond a contusion where the rolling shot had hit him, and the shot lodged neatly in the hood of his cloak. Others lost feet 'stopping' spent shot rolling slowly over the ground. There is also of course a significant concentration of momentum in the muzzle field gasses - amounting to about 35-50% of the shot momentum, so blast injuries in the immediate vicinity of the gun is probable (combination of the bulk motion of the restrained propellant gasses to muzzle exit and the 'nozzle' expansion of the gasses after the shot clears plus an amount of blow-by ~ around 10% of the additional momentum is from the losses between shot and bore, but this does reduce the 'additional' work from *after* muzzle exit... (Similar claims made about the 50 BMG can be demonstrated false by firing (from outside the muzzle field) between the triangles formed by a House of Cards - the wake/shock doesn't disturb the cards, and a hit (even a very glancing one) is required to knock them down).

Sometimes the ship is commissioned into the cruising fleet 'as is' after repair if needed - HMS surprise (ex L'Unite corvette) was still armed with her French 8 Livre and 4 Livre guns when she sailed to Jamaica in 1796. On arrival at Plymouth in 1798 she was remasted, her spardeck bulwarks were built up, French guns removed and the plan was for British equivalents to replace them (9 pdr, 4 pdr guns 12 pdr carronades... but the Admiralty was persuaded to replace them with a carronade heavy armament of 32pdr and 18pdr carronades (and either a 4pdr or 6pdr chase gun pair). Things could be similar for the French too.. 2 of the French fleet at Trafalgar were previously British ships and still carried their British guns. For rigging, even if the sticks are the original foreign materials, the rigging might be adapted towards normal national practice, during repairs or while otherwise idle.

The Manger is usually described as right forward under the fo'c'sle. Which seems to fit with the location shown.

Is that not the manger? On the upper deck, rather than the RN frigate's 'gundeck' which is the unarmed one below.

Are you sure they aren't removable, rather than hinged lids? This type could be rigged when the guns were stowed alongside the bulkhead (or have muzzle cutouts and a split cover design if the guns were stowed run-out) and usefully increase freeboard, but were stored below when cleared for action. This is also a common variant for 'open' waist ports on frigates or ships of the line where they aren't fitted with hinged ports.

I think it is an excellent idea. That was the reason I assumed for a 'throw-away' build... make sure that both options are buildable and correct/refine any problems as you make one quick'n'clean build.

Am I seeing a Hermaphrodite build? Carronades to larboard and guns to starboard?