Age of Sail: reload times
TVspace
I want to play as historically as possible and am a bit confused by the
reload choices: 3 minutes is NORMAL and 5 minutes is HISTORICAL. Is that
to say history is abnormal?!?
What do you play at? 5 minutes seems very slow. Did it really average
this long historically to reload guns? I thought I'd read somebody post
that some navies could reload in 2 minutes flat. Thanks.
Patrick
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Gentlemen! You can't fight in here, this is the war room.-Dr. Stranglelove
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Wayne Ko
I don't have time figures, but the reloading process is painfully slow.
If my memory is correct, the process goes something like this in fairly
crammed quarters: a powder cartridge is loaded into the cannon, some
wadding is then added, the cannon ball is rammed down, a person then
pricks the cartridge so the spark can ignite it, and finally the flint
lock is set and the cannon is positioned to fire. Also, in order for the
broadside to be effective it must be coordinated with that of other
cannons. Not too bad, but other factors must be considered. The powder
cartridges are brought up from the magazine only as needed to minimize
the ship's own chances of blowing up. These people (sometimes boys,
called powder monkeys or something like that) need to run over dead
bodies, manouevre in tight quarters etc. The loudness of the cannons
supposedly makes the crew deaf after a few rounds and communication is by
hand signals. Of course, as crew members get killed or wounded, there
will be fewer people involved in the process. Add to these mix, the
smoke and confusion of battle and all the carnage and hazards of flying
splinters, fires etc.and I'd say that 5 minutes sounds reasonable and may
even be a little generous.
Wayne
Marc Maier
TVspace wrote:
>
> I want to play as historically as possible and am a bit confused by the
> reload choices: 3 minutes is NORMAL and 5 minutes is HISTORICAL. Is that
> to say history is abnormal?!?
I don't have the game yet, but if reload time refers to broadsides,
then both of these times are somewhat slow, especially for the British.
Crack British crews could get off three broadsides in under six minutes;
average crews might take three minutes per broadside, but five is right
out, except for the greenest crews.
Gunnery speed varied by nationality. For instance, French gunnery was
not as quick as that of the British, in general. The average French
crew could usually manage only two broadsides for every three British.
The Spanish were even slower.
--M2
Ståle Sannerud
tvs...@aol.com (TVspace) wrote:
>I want to play as historically as possible and am a bit confused by the
>reload choices: 3 minutes is NORMAL and 5 minutes is HISTORICAL. Is that
>to say history is abnormal?!?
>What do you play at? 5 minutes seems very slow. Did it really average
>this long historically to reload guns? I thought I'd read somebody post
>that some navies could reload in 2 minutes flat. Thanks.
Remember that the biggest guns could weigh three tons or more, and
were handled by a crew of up to twenty men!
The bore first had to be claned with a wet rammer to extinguish any
smouldering particles from the previous shot. The gunpowder cartridge
then had to be inserted into the bore and rammed down. Then the ball
(or chain, or bag of grapeshot, or barshot, and so on) had to be
inserted and rammed down, followed by the wad that kept it all in
place until it was time to fire. Now, the gun-captain had to stick a
steel prod down through the vent-hole of the gun, piercing the
gunpowder cartrige, before he poured priming powder into the
vent-hole. The priming (fine-ground gun-powder) then had to be poured
into the vent-hole.
The gun had to be hauled out - a very heavy task on a heaving deck.
When the gun was finally run out, it had to be pointed at the enemy -
this was done by budging the rear end of the gun carriage with heavy
iron crowbar - a back-breaking task. Finally, the gun-lock was cocked,
and everybody had to stand clear. Then - and only then - could the gun
fire (if it was a broadside, they'd have to wait until everybody else
was ready as well, of course - but in battle they often just kept
firing each individual gun as fast as they could once close action was
joined)
Now, you get fifteen or so of your friends together and try doing all
that to a 36-pounder gun in five minutes.. :-)
Collingwood (I think it was) had a crew that could fire three
broadsides in five minutes. It took lots and lots and LOTS of practice
to achieve that speed!
One broadside in three minutes was actually considered quite a good
speed. One in five seems more like the common, "non-English" standard
among normal, well-trained Continental navies at the time.
Incidentally, this was one of the advantages of carronades; being
smaller and lighter, they were much quicker to reload than the big
guns, and required a smaller crew.
---
Ståle Sannerud - Computer Programmer - Scan-Fact A/S
sst...@sn.no
---
My employer should in no way be held accountable
for any silly idea that I might be expressing
in this posting...
---
Iceburg
Marc Maier <ml...@columbia.edu> bestowed upon the world this tidbit of
information:
>I don't have the game yet, but if reload time refers to broadsides,
>then both of these times are somewhat slow, especially for the British.
>Crack British crews could get off three broadsides in under six minutes;
>average crews might take three minutes per broadside, but five is right
>out, except for the greenest crews.
Are these times you mention actually during a battle or when the crew were
practicing and there was no one returning fire and causing all kinds of chaos?
-Greg
Jose Gonzales
Wayne Ko <Herm...@mindlink.bc.ca> wrote:
>I don't have time figures, but the reloading process is painfully slow.
>If my memory is correct, the process goes something like this in fairly
>crammed quarters: a powder cartridge is loaded into the cannon, some
>wadding is then added, the cannon ball is rammed down, a person then
>pricks the cartridge so the spark can ignite it, and finally the flint
>lock is set and the cannon is positioned to fire. Also, in order for the
>broadside to be effective it must be coordinated with that of other
>cannons. Not too bad, but other factors must be considered. The powder
>cartridges are brought up from the magazine only as needed to minimize
>the ship's own chances of blowing up. These people (sometimes boys,
>called powder monkeys or something like that) need to run over dead
>bodies, manouevre in tight quarters etc. The loudness of the cannons
>supposedly makes the crew deaf after a few rounds and communication is by
>hand signals. Of course, as crew members get killed or wounded, there
>will be fewer people involved in the process. Add to these mix, the
>smoke and confusion of battle and all the carnage and hazards of flying
>splinters, fires etc.and I'd say that 5 minutes sounds reasonable and may
>even be a little generous.
>Wayne
Not only that, the French and Spanish did not even have flintlocks
until much after the British - they used wicks lit with torches. Sure
affected accuracy at Trafalgar, where the swell hitting the French and
Spanish from the side rocked the ships such that aiming high or low
was next to impossible.
Roger Deal
sst...@sn.no (Ståle Sannerud) wrote:
>tvs...@aol.com (TVspace) wrote:
>
>>I want to play as historically as possible and am a bit confused by the
>>reload choices: 3 minutes is NORMAL and 5 minutes is HISTORICAL. Is that
>>to say history is abnormal?!?
>
>
>
Good post, but what I want to know is this. The various tools used in
the bore of the piece, rammer, spong, worm etc, have to be somewhat
longer than the length of the bore. I would think that ramming a 32lb
shot down the 8' or so of the bore is not an easy task. The ball
doesn't just roll down the tube, or does it. When the piece is run in
it is snubbed up by the breaching ropes that hold it to the bulwarks
of the ship. These have to be short enough so that two back-to-back
guns cannot collide with one another if both sides are firing at the
same time. There also has to be some room so that the gun captain can
get behind his gun so that he can point it. So there is a limit to how
far inboard the gun is allowed to travel when it recoils.
So my question is this-do the crewmen operating the rammers have to
stand outside the bulwarks to do their work or do they push the end of
the rammer outside of the gunport then into the muzzle of the gun?
Maybe doing all of this is not as difficult as it I think it is?
Roger Deal
I
John Beaderstadt
Roger Deal wrote:
> So my question is this-do the crewmen operating the rammers have to
> stand outside the bulwarks to do their work or do they push the end of
> the rammer outside of the gunport then into the muzzle of the gun?
> Maybe doing all of this is not as difficult as it I think it is?
Your second guess is correct. This was aided by the fact that,
frequently, the rammers were not made out of wood, but of
thickly-braided rope, and were *somewhat* flexible (probably about as
flexible as a Q-Tip(tm)). There are many, many books on the subject
(try the Naval Institute Press, for one), and you'd probably find a
visit to the USS Constitution, in Boston, or the Victory, in Portsmouth,
to be invaluable.
--
"The fortunate man knows how much he can safely leave to chance."
-- Lady Barbara Hornblower
Roger Deal
John Beaderstadt <beady*@together.net> wrote:
> for one), and you'd probably find a
>visit to the USS Constitution, in Boston, or the Victory, in Portsmouth,
>to be invaluable.
>
>--
>"The fortunate man knows how much he can safely leave to chance."
> -- Lady Barbara Hornblower
Have visited both but had not considered how they load the guns and so
did not ask any questions. Also I found that the guides on board
Victory, when I visited her, knew a lot less that I did, at least
about how the ship was worked.
If you want a real treat visit the USS North Carollina. You are able
to see every bit of how those guns work, from powder magazine to
turret. You are able to walk through everything.
Roger Deal
John Beaderstadt
Roger Deal wrote:
> If you want a real treat visit the USS North Carollina. You are able
> to see every bit of how those guns work, from powder magazine to
> turret. You are able to walk through everything.
I've been through the USS Massachussetts at Battleship Cove, Fall River,
MA. There are several turrets you can wander through, and even play
with if there are enough people with you to man all the controls.
Bruce Poon
Marc Maier <ml...@columbia.edu> wrote:
>I don't have the game yet, but if reload time refers to broadsides,
>then both of these times are somewhat slow, especially for the British.
>Crack British crews could get off three broadsides in under six minutes;
>average crews might take three minutes per broadside, but five is right
>out, except for the greenest crews.
There seems to be an implication here (and in the post by Stale leter
i n the thread) that 3 broadsides in 6 minutes is faster than 3
minutes per broadside. By my logic they are the same. Ie:
Time 0 mins Broadside 1
Time 3 mins Broadside 2
Time 6 mins Broadside 3
I'm not a naval war expert, just following the logic here.
Bruce
--
The Hunter
38% of Statistics are made up on the spot.
Roger Deal
John Beaderstadt <beady*@together.net> wrote:
Been through the Massachussetts also and believe me the North Carolina
is much better preserved and you can go from the turret all the way
from deck level to the keel and see how the whole thing works. In
several places where only vertical ladders were provided then the ship
was in service they have provided spriral starways. Otherwise they
would not be able to allow folks to see all of this stuff. Another
nice thing about the NC is that they have screened off the parts
where people have a tendancy to break off things, knobs and such. I
recall on the Mass that that was evident throughout the ship.
Roger Deal
Ståle Sannerud
bp...@connexus.apana.org.au (Bruce Poon) wrote:
>Time 0 mins Broadside 1
>Time 3 mins Broadside 2
>Time 6 mins Broadside 3
>I'm not a naval war expert, just following the logic here.
The term 'three in six minutes' implies that you can _load _and_fire_
three broadsides in that time - ie you can actually shoot four times
in six minutes and one second, so to speak :-)
JD
>There seems to be an implication here (and in the post by Stale leter
>i n the thread) that 3 broadsides in 6 minutes is faster than 3
>minutes per broadside. By my logic they are the same. Ie:
>
>Time 0 mins Broadside 1
>Time 3 mins Broadside 2
>Time 6 mins Broadside 3
>
>I'm not a naval war expert, just following the logic here.
Yes, you are right. The standard made "famous" by Cuthbert Collingwood
was 3 broadsides in 5 minutes... fire/reload/fire/reload/fire. After
that it would be very difficult to maintain any sort of coordinated
broadside fire during an engagement. The idea was that those first 3
broadsides, fired accurately at close range and in rapid succession,
would create such discomfort and consternation on the receiving end as
to secure a decisive advantage for the duration of the fight. This
standard should not be taken to mean that such a rate of fire could or
would be sustained beyond those first 3 broadsides. I think this is
why some are confused by the 5 minute "historical" rating in AoS. I
know that was my first reaction as well.
Unfortunately, AoS does not account for the fact that, unlike the
movies, broadside fire was not maintained throughout the course of an
engagement. "Fire at will" <ie, when ready> and "fire as you bear"
<which, under controlled conditions, usually resulted in a sort of
"ripple fire"> were actually the common modes employed.
Regards, JD
<j...@nai.net>