Hello Hal,
thanks for you mails, but keep in mind that I'm increasingly departing
from history in my designs.
The steam sloop is pretty close to history, cf HMS Gorgon (1837), except
that I'm suggesting in the text that she could have come earlier. The
rules don't discriminate between 1800 and 1840 steam engines, they're
all "early steam".
The steam ship of the line is actually smaller than the first screw
battleships, being based on an 1800s third rate instead of an 1830s
first rate. Again my color text points out that the steam engine is
"plain vanilla" TL5 and available as of 1800; of course the screws are
listed as late TL5.
The next one is based on a historical design which was never launched,
and the one after that will go completely off the rails if she works out
as planned.
Hi Onno,
Sorry for the delay in responding to this. If you'd like, I'll dig up the
reference I have regarding English warships that determined the width of the
gunports for the various guns in question.
Right now I'm wondering how to GURPSify a pivot mount on the deck of a ship.
One idea was to place a carriage-mounted weapon in an open mount.
VE102: A carriage mount is not required after early TL5. Does that mean
it is still allowed?
VE12: A carriage-mounted weapon must be mounted "concealed within the
vehicle", which increases the volume, but the same applies to ranged
weapons in
a highly streamlined vehicle -- obviously the concealed mount is not
restricted to gun ports in the hull, but it sounds weird to conceal
something in an open mount.
The other idea was to assume that proper pivot mounts are a mid-TL5
development, and to GURPSify them as a muzzleloader without carriage
mount (which is not required any more, see above), mounted in an open
mount. That saves half the weight and even more volume, but it might not
be justice to the recoil mechanism.
If you are
ever in the mood to pick up a book on the HMS VICTORY, this one I picked up
from Amazon.com recently for a decent price. You'll find some interesting
information worth looking into.
http://www.haynes.co.uk/Press/Releases_contents/120402_HMSVictory.pdf
I've got the Osprey book on the British Napoleonic Ship-of-the-Line,
Brown's Warrior to Dreadnought, and Conway's Steam, Steel and Shellfire.
I'm thinking about Brown's Before the Ironclad, but the reprint is 39
EUR on amazon.de. Too much for an impulse buy.
I have a Haynes on the Millenium Falcon and was not very impressed by
that -- it feels written for a younger audience. Are the historical ones
better?
In any event, subsequent research on gunnery in that era makes me believe
that GURPS should have gone a different route when determining how much
damage is done by a cannon ball :(
4E has some problems, especially with the scaling of HP, but also the
chance to do some other things better. I wait for a new vehicle design book.
The old Vehicles 1st had (!) notation for low-velocity roundshot, not to
be confused with the (!) for Traveller meson guns. They allow low
penetration with high raw damage.
Regards,
Onno
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