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Coog
01-20-2012, 18:59
I've played several Napoleonic era naval games and it seems that the British 38 gun frigate is always given poor game stats, particulary when compared to the United States 38 gun frigate. Both frigates were almost identical in size and armament. I can see where the US frigate is given better stats on the damage it can take due to documentation on its better construction, but the firepower difference puzzles me. The crew quality is usually applied as a modifier and not a factor to the basic stats. I think I once read something about a difference in ammunition, the US having a better type of ammunition. The only other thing I can think of is that the British frigate's stats are based on an earlier period where the frigate had small long guns instead of carronades on its forecastle and quarterdeck. Can anyone explain why the British 38 gets slighted in games?

Mark Barker
01-21-2012, 06:14
Can anyone explain why the British 38 gets slighted in games?

Coog,

Which games are you referring to - I've had a quick check of my 'standards' - WS&IM, Close Action and Serpents of the Seas and the ships seem fairly rated with equivalent firepower ? Mind you I'd hope so for Serpents, I did the stats for the designer !

As you say, you not only have to be careful to represent the particular design (there were many variations on the British '38' and no standard design, also many 38s were captures with various degrees of refit before they were put back into service) but also the year of a particular action. That's why in Flying Colors/Serpents some ships have -a and -b counters - in a few cases the change of armament was that significant.

Much has been made of the ammunition differences, US ships being credited with carrying much more 'dismantling' shot in a variety of exotic designs. It is a mistake to assume (as some games do), that the British navy did not use some shot designed to target rigging when the occasion demanded - in fact a small allocation of 'double headed hammered shot' - more commonly referred to as bar shot - for each gun was standard issue throughout our period. When things got up close and personal I'm not sure it made that much of a difference (look at the carpenter's returns from the Shannon/Chesapeake action) but when looking for reasons why the British lost the chain of single ship actions up to that point it was fashionable at the time to point to the unfair use of 'infernal devices' as dashed unsporting.

Some things never change - remember the rumpus over the 'winged keel' in the Americas Cup some years back ?

You will also come across discussion of the differences in shot weight (French 36-pdr actually coming in at 39 lbs English) but this difference was more than compensated for in differences in the quality of gun casting and gunpowder. We did not enjoy these technical and qualatative differences over the US.

In basic game terms, a 'standard' British 38 was expected to routinely engage and defeat enemy frigates up to and including 44-gun 24-pdr vessels as happened several times against the French. That's why the results against the Humphreys 44 came as such a shock to the British public - it was just another frigate - where's the problem ?

Answer, the US ships has crews just as good as ours, they were bigger and better armed.

Having stood on the decks of the Constitution and both surviving British 38s I can say that any British captain engaging one of those monsters deserved an award for bravery.

Could a truly exceptional captain and crew like Broke and the Shannon have beaten the odds and defeated one ? Well, isn't that why we play wargames ?

Best regards,

Mark Barker
The Inshore Squadron

David Manley
01-21-2012, 11:45
I'd echo Mark's comments. Looking through my many and varied collection of AoS rules I can't see much in the way of a difference between them in the way they handle 38s.

Coog
01-21-2012, 17:04
First of all, let me say my opinion of the British 38 is that it was a very good ship. That's why I posed the question. I've pulled out WS&IM real quick since it seems to be a standard and well known to everyone. I've found some inconsistencies in the ship data. In the "design your own charts" the British and American 38s have identical stats with a gun rating of 3 for each broadside and a carronade rating of 3 for each broadside. But when I looked at the scenerio chart, Guerrriere and Macedonian have carronade ratings of just 2 for each broadside while Java and Shannon carronade ratings are 3. It doesn't seem like much, but when using such small values, one point can make a big difference. From what I've read there was no significant difference in the armament of the four frigates. Macedonian was particularly a very fine ship. On another note, not related to the British frigates, what I found to really be odd was when looking at ship data was that Constellation had a gun rating of 2 and and a carronade rating of 3 in the scenarios that she fought against the French ships during the Quasi War. At that time she had 24 pounders on her gun deck instead of 18s.

Another game I have is Fighting Sail, a miniatures game. It uses higher values to represent firepower. The British 38 is given firepower values of 44-39-28-0, the four different numbers reflecting an increase in range. The American 38 is given firepower values of 57-52-28-0.

Mark Barker
01-23-2012, 14:27
In the WS&IM "design your own charts" the British and American 38s have identical stats with a gun rating of 3 for each broadside and a carronade rating of 3 for each broadside. But when I looked at the scenerio chart, Guerrriere and Macedonian have carronade ratings of just 2 for each broadside while Java and Shannon carronade ratings are 3. It doesn't seem like much, but when using such small values, one point can make a big difference. From what I've read there was no significant difference in the armament of the four frigates. Macedonian was particularly a very fine ship. On another note, not related to the British frigates, what I found to really be odd was when looking at ship data was that Constellation had a gun rating of 2 and and a carronade rating of 3 in the scenarios that she fought against the French ships during the Quasi War. At that time she had 24 pounders on her gun deck instead of 18s.

Another game I have is Fighting Sail, a miniatures game. It uses higher values to represent firepower. The British 38 is given firepower values of 44-39-28-0, the four different numbers reflecting an increase in range. The American 38 is given firepower values of 57-52-28-0.

Looking deeper into the reserve collection I found a copy of that game I picked up when visiting Boston in 2006 ! Never played it but like most people on the forum I kind of hoover up Age of Sail rules wherever I go. I see that Simulation Canada's Man o' War does the same with the factors. I've got a copy of S Craig Taylor's baseline Ship o' the Line miniatures rules as well (which gave rise to WS&IM) - I'll have to see if this has the same difference.

Anyway, I agree with you - you will find that Flying Colors/Serpents of the Seas (which has the same feel as WS&IM but plays more quickly) shows no difference in gunnery values with the late war 38s with a full battery of 32-pdr carronades.


On another note, not related to the British frigates, what I found to really be odd was when looking at ship data was that Constellation had a gun rating of 2 and and a carronade rating of 3 in the scenarios that she fought against the French ships during the Quasi War. At that time she had 24 pounders on her gun deck instead of 18s.

It's a bit more complicated than that, Constellation swapped her 24-pdrs for 18 pdrs between the two battles ! - hence we had to allocate Constellation two different counters with two different firepower values in Serpents of the Seas. I presume this was to lessen the strain of the heavier guns on the hull - for similar reasons arming the full spar deck of the big 44s would also progressively fall out of favour.

Best regards,

Mark Barker
The Inshore Squadron

csadn
01-23-2012, 15:24
I presume this was to lessen the strain of the heavier guns on the hull - for similar reasons arming the full spar deck of the big 44s would also progressively fall out of favour.

[nod] The museum for USS _Constitution_ has an entire wall dedicated to the procedures required to unhog the ship after years of overgunning:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hogging_and_sagging .

Ships were designed around a certain number of guns of a certain type in a certain location; USS _Essex_ was an example of how altering the gun array could screw up the handling of a ship (it was designed for 26 long-12s on its main deck, and 16 24-lb. carronades on its spar; it ended up with six long-12s, 16 short-24s, and 24 short-32s).

Berthier
01-24-2012, 05:26
"Fire as she bears" rules : Comabat factor is 3D6 + or - the ships current hull factor eg A British 130 gun ship rolls 3D6 and adds 12 (hull factor if undamaged)

Comparing undamaged 38's then assuming an "average" roll of say 4+3+4=11
British 38 3D6+1 Inflicts 3hull hits
French 38 3D6-1 Inflicts 2hull hits
Spanish 38 3D6 -1
US 38 - no details given

Action Under Sail 4th edition
Uses long gun batteries (LGS) x gunnery factor, plus carronades x gunnery factor. Ignoring the bow chasers for the sake of argument
US 38 1777-1785 LGS 6 x5
US 38 after 1797 LGS 5 x6 C 3 x10
US 38 after 1813 LGS 5 x5.5 C 2 x10

British 38 after 1779 LGS 6 x3.5
British 38 after 1794 LGS 6 x5.5 C 2 x8.5
British 38 after 1810 LGS 6 x6.5 C 3 x10.5

Danish 38 (any year) LGS 6 x6

Dutch none, only lists 36's

French 38 1785/1798 LGS 6 x5.5
French 38 1790/1801 LGS 6 x7.5 C 1x13

Russian 38 1776/1799 LGS 6 x4.5
Russian 38 1798/1815 LGS 6 x6

Spanish 38 None, only lists 36's

Swedish 38 None only lists 36's

Portuguese 38 none only lists 36's

Turkish None only lists 40's

Berthier
01-24-2012, 05:41
Note with the Action under sail,
a US 38 in 1797 puts out firepower of 30 from long guns and 30 from carronades, a similar British ship of the period puts out 33LGS and 17 carronades
in 1813 we get US 27.5 LGS and 20 carronades to british 39 LGS and 31.5 carronades....that's interesting!