Stretching Sculpts: SGN103 1773 Amazon 12-pounder 32's

Bad news: 1773 Amazon appears to be the ONLY 32-gun frigate design by Williams.

Can work for or released as	Minor mod	Maybe	New Sculpt	Unknown
1757 Southampton 32 (Slade) 1758 Niger 32 (Slade, repeat Southampton) 1757 Venus 36 (Slade, 4' stretch Southampton) 1773 Amazon 32	1773 Enterprise 28 (Williams)	1779 Active 32 (Hunt, leaning Yellow) 1782 Hermione 32 (Hunt, ditto) 1778 Flora 36 (Williams, leaning Red)		Grouped by known development families... 1757 Richmond 32 (Bately) 1804 Circe/Thames 32 (repeat Richmond) 1747-capt FR privateer Tygre 1748 Lyme 28 1756 Lowestoffe 28 (Slade; 9#) 1756 Coventry 28 (Slade; 9#) 1759 Tweed 32 (Slade; stretch and upgun) capt FR Abenakise 1761 one-off Lowestoffe 32 (Slade) 1773 Mod Lowestoffe 32 (Slade) Uncertain origins... 1783 one-off Heroine 32 (Adams) 1795 Maidstone 32 (Henslow) 1796 one-off Triton 32 (Gambier)

I'm confining this to only 12-pounder 32's, 36's (frequently evolved from 32's and only about 5' longer) and 28's (several 32's were similarly stretched versions of 28 designs) at first--we'll look outward, both in time/armament and in number of guns, later--this table is just a starting point.
For the sake of post length, I will be linking drawings in a separate post in this thread.

As always, starting with the drawings of the parent sculpt. (In this case, specifically 1779 Cleopatra.)
http://collections.rmg.co.uk/mediaLi...3932/large.jpg

Slade's Southampton family: Top = 1757 Southampton 32, middle = 1758 Niger 32, bottom = 1757 Venus 36
https://collections.rmg.co.uk/mediaL.../710/j5951.jpg
http://collections.rmg.co.uk/mediaLi...2653/large.jpg
https://collections.rmg.co.uk/mediaL.../495/j5303.jpg

Bately's Richmond/Thames design: (top = 1762 Boston of Richmond-cl., bottom = 1804 Thames
https://collections.rmg.co.uk/mediaL.../635/j5841.jpg
https://collections.rmg.co.uk/mediaL.../643/j5865.jpg

Building from French Tygre up to a 32...
1747-capt FR privateer Tygre - no drawing found
1748 Lyme 28:
http://collections.rmg.co.uk/mediaLi...3540/large.jpg
1756 Lowestoffe 28 (Slade; 9#):
https://collections.rmg.co.uk/mediaL.../816/j6391.jpg
1756 Coventry 28 (Slade; 9#)
http://collections.rmg.co.uk/mediaLi...2155/large.jpg
1759 Tweed 32 (Slade; stretch and upgun) - no drawing found

capt FR Abenakise - no drawing found
1761 one-off Lowestoffe 32 (Slade) - drawing at http://collections.rmg.co.uk/collect...ts/386177.html when available
1773 Mod Lowestoffe 32 (Slade, drawing is Orpheus)
https://collections.rmg.co.uk/mediaL.../922/j6593.jpg

Uncertain origins...
1779 Active 32 (Hunt)
https://collections.rmg.co.uk/mediaL.../277/j5985.jpg
1782 Hermione 32 (Hunt) - plan is specifically 1784 Andromeda
http://collections.rmg.co.uk/mediaLi...2871/large.jpg

1783 one-off Heroine 32 (Adams)
https://collections.rmg.co.uk/mediaL.../689/j5924.jpg

1795 Maidstone 32 (Henslow)
http://collections.rmg.co.uk/mediaLi...4329/large.jpg

1796 one-off Triton 32 (Gambier)
https://collections.rmg.co.uk/mediaL.../584/j6030.jpg

So, I've been comparing some stats... Hunt's 1779 Active is statistically near identical, and the only other Williams frigates I've found are the 1771 Enterprise 28's and 1778 Flora 36's. Could these three form a progressive series of growth in the same basic line? (Going by dates, doesn't look like it--the middle size came first--but maybe a possible fork both up and down?)

Top to bottom: Enterprise (sorry, this interior view is only elevation presently available), Amazon (again, Cleopatra), Flora, Hermione (again, Andromeda)
http://collections.rmg.co.uk/mediaLi...7635/large.jpg
http://collections.rmg.co.uk/mediaLi...3932/large.jpg
http://collections.rmg.co.uk/mediaLi...5049/large.jpg
http://collections.rmg.co.uk/mediaLi...2871/large.jpg

Data:

Class	1773 Enterprise 28 as-built	1773 Enterprise 1780 rearms	1773 Amazon 32	1778 Flora 36 as-built	1778 Flora 1805 rearms	1779 Active 32	1782 Hermione 32
Designer	Williams	Williams	Williams	Williams	Williams	Hunt	Hunt
Gundeck	120' 6"	120' 6"	126'	137'	137'	126'	129'
Keel	99' 6"	99' 6"	104'	113' 1"	113' 1"	103' 9 5/8"	107'
Breadth	33' 6"	33' 6"	35'	38'	38'	35' 4"	35' 4"
Burthen	593 89/94 bm	593 89/94 bm	677 62/94 bm	868 53/94 bm	868 53/94 bm	689 35/94 bm	710 48/94 bm
Armanent: Gundeck	24x9# 12x 1/2#swivel	24x9#	26x12#	26x18# 12x1/2# swivel	26x18#	26x12#	26x12#
Armament: Quarterdeck	4x3#	4x6# 4x18#crde	4x6# 4x18#crde	8x9# 4x18#crde	8x32#crde	4x6# 4x24#crde	4x6# 4x18#crde
Armament: Forecastle	none	2x18#crde	2x6# 2x18#crde	4x9# 2x18#crde	2x9# 2x32#crde	2x6# 2x24#crde	2x6# 2x18#crde
Reflags	USA: 1776-77 USS Fox	France: 1781-86 Crescent 1795-96 Nemesis	France: two, both released	none	none	none	Spain: 1797-99 Santa Cecilia

Right now, my gut feels like give Enterprise a Green or Yellow Light, Flora an Orange leaning Red, and the Active/Hermione family an Orange leaning Yellow. Anyone care to cross-check me here?

Why would Active be Orange/Yellow? If I'm reading the chart correctly, it seems to match up extremely closely to Amazon in all particulars (?)

Flora is certainly bigger/heavier, but it would still only be about 1/10 inch longer of a model I believe. Playing devil's advocate, I'll suggest that these are all pretty close to green, i.e. hard to tell apart at 1:1000 scale and hard to justify doing a different model for.

But maybe I'm missing some important distinctions?

Fred, I'm looking at not just the stats but the physical shape. I'm going back to a used-to-death comparison here from aviation, but... In pure numbers and even general description, the F-14 Tomcat, F-15 Eagle, MiG-29 Fulcrum, MiG-31 Foxhound, Su-27 Flanker and Su-35 Super Flanker all look about the same: twin engine, twin-tail, delta-wing fighters. It's when you look past words, to drawings, models or actual aircraft, that differences stand out... and then they stand out like a two-by-four to the back of the head. I'm erring conservative so far, but that's mainly because as an "accurate models first" guy, my bias is "When In Doubt, Don't".

I'm also not the best at picking out detail differences on these old draughts without hours more to study and a heckuva lot better understanding of naval architecture than I presently have, so... perhaps I'm overcompensating.

I mean, Ares lumped HMS Ville de Paris and HMS Hibernia (identical to one another other than an 11' midship splice-in added to Hibernia) not just into a shared sculpt but the same sculpt as Victory, but the crowd seems to believe that the Humphreys 44's and their downscaled 38-gun relatives should be two different sculpts despite being far less difference than the First Rates... I guess that I'm trying to make sure anything I put into my "suggested stretches" document I'm assembling really DOES look pretty close to what it's standing in for.

Another worry: Put either an Amazon and Enterprise or an Amazon and Flora alongside one another and it may not look like much... put an Enterprise and Flora side-by-side and things get a lot more pronounced between the extremes of the family.

I guess that's what I'd like to know--what are the differences that are really visible at this scale, and of those, which ones require a jewelers lens and/or specialized technical knowledge to pick out. Personally, the latter two categories don't concern me all that much :happy:

With the WW2 ships you didn't need to be an expert on the technology to see that a Sheffield looked a lot different than a Brooklyn.

I perceive sailing ships quite differently. Landlubber that I am, when I look at the elevation views (granted it's a bit tricky since the images are sometimes scaled slightly differently) I see--roughly the same horizonal spacing of masts (check), from an above-the-waterline perspective roughly the same curve on the hull (check), same number of gunports (check), same curvy thing on the front (check), three windows on the back (check). They're the same!

What are the elements that people "in the know" are looking at as important visual differences?

I'm not really in the know, but I start looking by three design variables: Time, Designer and Existing Expert Commentary. For example, two classes built by the same country at the same time to the same nominal spec (say, 12-pound 32-gun like these) will generally be fairly similar. Design, as a general rule unless it was considered a total failure most designers preferred to start from altering existing designs rather than start over from scratch out of sheer laziness--look at the long line of 74's designed by Thomas Slade for an illustration there, both of refining an existing design and also of upscaling or downscaling to fit existing good engineering into another niche like the St. Albans 64's. Expert Commentary would be things like the British Warships in the Age of Sail tomes, when they say a ship was "built to the lines of such-and-such".

That's the On Paper side, which I tend to use as a "rough cut"--the French are a little easier to proxy because their Marine Ministry was positively anal about commissioning designs from their whole stable of architects and telling everybody "you must use these exact proportions down to the most picayune detail", hence the broad stretch of the Concorde sculpt despite being the smallest population of the 1777 round of 32's. From there it's a matter of "go to the drawings" and eyeball it, and hope for the best... at least, that's my process.

Some of that overconservatism may be a remnant of my former career, too--when your very first job involves daily life-and-death decisions, it does tend to breed a certain degree of that, along with difficulty moving back out of that mindset.

Slade was the 18th-century version of "Boeing's 'Great Fuselage Machine'", then? (Old joke -- at one point, Boeing was churning out different designs based on a standard fuselage cross-section; wags commented that Boeing had a Great Fuselage Machine -- when Boeing needed a new airplane, it would run out a length of fuselage; snip it off; attach wings, tail and cockpit; and ship it out the door.)

Not quite, Chris, but having relatives and clients with Boeing I've heard that joke before. LOL Almost all the Slade Common 74s were dimensionally identical--the earlier Dublin and Hercules classes and HMS Hero being a few feet shorter and the Cullodens a foot longer and beamier; most of the tweaks were in underwater hull contours.

Thanks for the laugh, though. :)

I suppose I should see if Hunt designed any 28's that might be similarly related to Active/Hermione, too... which it turns out not--Williams kind of marks a transition with these three classes, seeing the end of the 9-pounder 28's and the first of the 18-pounder 36's.

So, as I wade through the arcana of BWAS 1714-1792, I find a claim that the Amazon design is actually a derivative of Slade's older Niger design--seems Slade was married to ripping off ex-French Abenakise/HMS Aurora for frigate designs after she was taken, which the Admiralty weren't real impressed with, while Williams drew on an older Slade design they DID like. So, if I'm reading this right that means we can add 11 Nigers and four Southamptons (and one French reflag of each), along with three Venus 36's, into the reprint pool.

Finally revisited this to catch up with Greenwich's drawings and start taking another pass! Triton appears to be a completely unique design, can neither pass for nor be passed for by anything else with that raked bow that reminds me of the later clipper ships.