Distance from deck to gun ports sills

[Haitham]

Hi all

 

Any one have a table showing the height of the gun port sills (cills) from the deck according to the cannon calibre?

for british ships

 

Hope i can find some help

 

Thanks

[russ]

According to Charles Davis's book, The Built Up Ship Model, the sill height would be 3.5 times the caliber.

 

Russ

[Haitham]

Hi Russ

U mean by calibre, the shot diameter?

Foe example the 3d pounder canon has a shot with diameter 4.3 mm so i should make the height of sill 4.3*3.5?

[russ]

Shot diameter will do. There was a slight difference between shot diameter and caliber as I recall, but it should be close enough for your modeling calculations.

 

Russ

[Haitham]

Hi

 

I need to know the dimensions of the cannon carriage and cannon in order to check if the cannon with its carriage will fit in place if i made the height of sills 3.5 times the shot diameter

 

Thanks

[russ]

Do you not have the carriage and cannon? There is a table of dimensions for carriages in Ship Modeler's Shop Notes, from the Nautical Research Guild. The table covers 4 pounders and larger.

 

Russ

[JohnE]

Height of sill; what the French did. Two numbers, the French dimension and then the corresponding, calculated, British dimension. Know this is not exactly what you asked, but there were some Brit ships built on French models, and quite a few captured vessels put into service. Doubt if things were all that different between the various naval paradigms.

 

36 pdr (Fr) .. 2’ 2” (Fr) .. 2’ ½” (Br)

18 pdr (Fr) .. 1” 9” (Fr) .. 1’ 7 ½ “ (Br)

08 pdr (Fr) .. 1’ 3” (Fr) .. 1’ 1 ¼ “ (Br)

 

Not exactly sure how these correspond to nominal bore diameters. Gonna have to slog my way through a Russian artillery reference to be sure, but given scaling and all, I think Mr Russ has the right answer for any practical application.

 

Ciao. John

[russ]

John:

There were a lot of differences between French and British guns and ships. It is apples and oranges. Even when the British "copied" French designs, they would fit them to what the British Navy wanted and used. They used British guns, different gunport spacing, British carriages, etc. As for French designs, they rarely used a French design without altering it, even if only subtly, to get a ship that they wanted from that process.

 

Russ

[JohnE]

Russ,

 

Understand completely. Just wanted to post another corner of "national technical means" info for period vessels.

 

Ciao. John

[Haitham]

Hi Russ

 

Can u please send me the link for the table showing dimensions

Or can u please just send a copy of this table

I need the dimensions of the 32, 18,9 and 6 cannon carriage

Im trying to build the ship from scratch and i appreciate your help

 

Another issue, i understood from reading that gun ports sills should be parralel to deck and the gn ports sides should be perprndicular on the water line. Is this correct?

 

Thanks

[russ]

There is no online link for those tables. I would strongly suggest you get a copy of the Ship Modeler's Shop Notes. It is available from used bookstores through sites such as ABE.com and bookfinder.com. You can also check to see if your local library can get it for you on loan from another library. I would think you can buy a new copy from the Nautical Research Guild as well.

 

I think that most gunport sills would be parallel to the keel and that the sides of the ports are penpendicular to the keel. However, that is what I can see from looking at plans of British and American frigates and ships of the line. Without knowing what vessel, nation, time period etc you are building, it is difficult to try and help.

 

Russ

[Haitham]

Hi

Thanks

Im building a british ship royal sovereign 1701

[garyshipwright]

Seems that the 1719 Establishment list may be of some help here. You can see this in the back of Peter Goodwin's book Sail Man of War, page 241. Her main gun deck ports were 2ft 4inches. The middle deck gun ports was 2 feet 2inches. Her upper gun deck ports were 1 foot 10 inches. It probably was from the top of the deck plank to the top of the cill's. The main gun deck plank was 4 inch thick, the middle deck planks were 3 inch thick and the upper deck also 3 inch thick. On the quarter deck the plank was 2 1/2 inch thick and the cill was 1 foot 7 inch's. The reason I say the 1719 establishment is what David Lyon said in his book, The Sailing Navy List. As a ship that was generally [sic] approved of her dimensions were taken for the 100 gun ships of the 1719 Establishment. Her great repair of the 1720's is counted as producing a new ship by Lavery.

Gary