Hal replied to me:
Pine when used as a building material for the hull, resulted in hulls whose
life time was less than 10 years, sometimes less than 5. This implies a
lower HT rating for the ship on a whole.
Pine was used for spars and the like because it was flexible enough to
handle the stresses without cracking.
I'm thinking about wooden-hulled steam ships. For screw ships, this
flexibility was a real problem because it would warp the shafts. Paddle
wheels were easier, but they took room away from the broadsides.
Hull design was such that a man could look at a hull and know right off the
bat what the ship was designed to carry by weight of gun, because the
distances between gunports were of a specific size for specific guns.
Were things really that clear? ISTR the difference between large and
common 74 was on the upper gun deck, which implies that the lower gun
deck of a large 74 was less cramped than that of a common 74. Also,
relatively small cannon would be swapped for larger carronades.
According to 3E Vehicles, a late TL5 18-pounder needs 305 cf for the
carriage mount and cramped standing room, a 32-pounder needs 445 cf, but
if the 18-pounder goes to roomy standing room it needs 405 cf.
In 1784, a British 98 gun ship of the line extracted 200 roundballs from its
hull after the battle of the Glorious First of June, and was ready for
battle a fortnight later. These ships could take a major pounding and still
remain afloat.
According to the 3E Vehicles, a 32-pounder does about 6d*8, on average
168 points of damage. Subtract somewhere between DR 50-100 from the hull
armor and 200 hits will cost a second rate around half the total HPs. No
single hit comes even close to 10% of HP, so flooding is not an issue.
The problem with this rules interpretation is that few shots will simply
"bounce". Even 9-pounders can wear the HP down given enough hits.
If you need specific dimensions on ships as recorded in history, I have a
few that I can give to you for some English ships. Also, do a search on my
name at the Forums where it comes to masts on age of sail ships. You'll
find some entries on mast heights and how they were figured for various
masts and even for various specific portions of the mast. This information
is more historically accurate than was the information given in GURPS
VEHICLES 2nd edition.
Feel free to contact me via email if you want specifics - I might be able to
get them for you, or I'll say I don't have access to that information. At
one point, I was able to find the cost of ball and shot because I contacted
the curator in charge of the HMS VICTORY.
I'm working on early steampunk fictional ships, but they might encounter
historical sailing ships. The first ones are built specifically to
out-steam or out-fight sailing ships, so I wanted an idea about the
"proper historical baseline".
Thanks,
Onno
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