A Guide to the Age of Sail

[P. Tackett]

The text and the illustration of Nelson's attack at Traflager worry me for the game. On the one hand you have the accepted view of tactics and naval warfare (line of battle) and other the picture clearly illustrates the greatest naval leader of the time's complete disregard for them. Nelson specifically didn't want to get into line shooting engagements, he urged his captains to get close in to batter and board as quickly as possible. In the picture his two divisions are having their "T" crossed a big no-no for naval tacticians at the time. How will the game square that circle?

I don't know about the realism of it, but in-game I'll occasionally allow the enemy fleet to cross the T of both my lines. If there's enough space between enemy ships for the lines to slip between it gives me multiple devastating close range broadsides to the ships on both sides of each line... often these broadsides hit the enemy ships in the bow or stern and damage morale and hull hugely. I -may- lose a fifth rate or two, but the pros seem to outweigh the cons in many situations.

[Alwyn]

I'm posting this here because there was a discussion on the previous page about whether Fourth Rates (using British terminology) - were historically Ships of the Line or frigates (or if some big frigates and some small ships of the line were both 4th Rates).

In patch.pack, in the units_tables, among the entries for 4th Rates, I noticed a ship class with the unit ID 4th_rate_frigate_standard and the screen name Fourth Rate Frigate. I couldn't find this ship class in the wiki here (even though the wiki lists a cancelled ship type, the civilian lugger.)

Looking in the unit_tables and the unit_stats_naval tables, the 4th_rate_frigate_standard seems to have the same statistics as a Spanish 4th Rate ship of the line - neither the guns nor the speed and agility of a frigate.

I wondered what sort of historical vessel this ship class was intended to represent (if anything) - does anyone know? I also wondered what the purpose was for including this unit in the game.

My guess was that Fourth Rate Frigates were meant to be a 'Razee/heavy frigate' class for countries which cannot recruit them (listed here) - but the statistics of the ship don't match that. (Alternatively, perhaps it the 4th_rate_frigate_standard was intended for use in a ship tutorial, the Road to Independence campaign or something like that?) Does anyone know what this unit was for? Has anyone tried making this ship recruitable, to see what happens?

If the Fourth Rate Frigate isn't being used in the game, I'm tempted to try turning it into a Razee/heavy frigate class for factions which (I believe) cannot normally recruit such ships (e.g. minor/emergent factions). I have no idea whether this is historical - does anyone know if the countries which are minor/emergent factions in the game built heavy frigates? It seems like a logical thing for them to do, when the world's navies heard of the outcomes of the battles between US heavy frigates and British frigates. If you're playing as, say, Louisiana or Quebec and intending your faction to become the major power in North America (following the path taken by the United States in our history), why shouldn't you be able to build the kind of ships which the US built in the late 18th century?

[Quintus Hortensius Hortalus]

Well the biggest Frigate I know of is a portuguese one: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_...rve_%281809%29 with even more guns then the 44gun Frigate USS Constitution.
Maybe the Minerve was the historical examlpl fora ship type which never was implemented?! is there a model related to the 4th rte Frigate?

[Alwyn]

Thank you, that's helpful - yes, your theory about the Minerve makes sense.

I'll attempt to make Fourth Rate Frigates recruitable by tweaking my mini-mods and will report back.

[Edit] Reporting back: the Fourth Rate Frigate uses the same model as the Fourth Rate Ship of the Line, the 2deck64 model. In my test, I allowed Britain to recruit Fourth Rate Frigates, because Britain starts the game with a military dockyard which is capable of building Fourth Rates. I recruited a Fourth Rate Frigate and sent it with a Fourth Rate Ship of the Line and a Fifth Rate frigate to attack a French warship, just to see what the Fourth Rate Frigate looks like in battle (probably the lamest casus belli/cause for war in history!). Images of the ships are in the spoiler.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Here is Circe, a Fourth Rate Frigate in British service:-



This is Triton, a Fourth Rate Ship of the Line:-



For comparison, here is Valiant, a Fifth Rate Admiral's flagship frigate:



In case anyone is interested, the statistics of the Fourth Rate Frigate were:



and the statistics of a Fourth Rate Ship of the Line were [Edited to add - the image above was taken on the campaign map while the image below was taken in a battle, which is why the Firepower figure below is much higher. The firepower for these two ships is actually the same. Sorry about that]:

It's worth knowing that I'm using some mods which affect how ships appear (Pdguru's Briney Ships Mod and the AUM graphics mod). I'm also using a tweaked version of my navy mod (I removed 6-lber guns). Even allowing for that, these images seem to indicate that a Fourth Rate Frigate uses the same model as a Fourth Rate Ship of the Line and that its statistics are almost identical (except that a Fourth Rate Frigate has slightly fewer crew, different recruitment and upkeep costs and a weaker hull).

If I wanted to make the Fourth Rate Frigate interesting and worth recruiting, I'd need to adjust its statistics and perhaps choose a different model (e.g. the model for the Razee).

[Quintus Hortensius Hortalus]

I created a own thread for this interesting found here:
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...5#post14091285
Seems to me to fits more there as in the historical research section^^

[Alwyn]

I am continuing a conversation from the Which is the best Empire Total War unit? thread here, since I don't want to derail that thread and I imagine that other players would be interested in the comments by Didz, below, on making the naval system more historically realistic.

In my opinion the solution to the 6th Rate problem, and to the entire ETW naval game is not to 'beef things up' but to go back to historical accuracy and get rid of all the rubbish CA threw into the game to try and artificially make it challenging for the MP community.

I've played with MoD's that do this and suddenly 6th Rates and everything else actually make sense.

Some of the issues that need correcting to make the naval system work include:

1. Nerf the pirates. Pirates did not sail around in fleets of huge galleons with massive crews, their modus operandii was to use small fast ships that could avoid trouble and catch what they wanted to catch. They were there to make money, not take on warships. Pirate crews were kept as small as possible if only because men cost money and the bigger the crew the more men you have to share the loot. Therefore, pirate fleets should normally consist of no more than three small fast ships (sloops/brigs/xebecs) but they should be fast and hard to catch and a constant nuisance and drain on your trade income unless tracked down and destroyed by small fast naval units.

2. Remove the super-heavy 6pdr cannon. This gun was artificially added to the game to provide small ships like sloops and brigs a hard hitting long range gun that could sink ships of the line. It was a sop to the MP community to try and encourage them to use smaller ships in PvP games. But it's stupid and makes small ships way too powerful. Ironically swapping the 6pdr for a 9pdr on small ships makes them less effective. It also means that brigs and sloops are a match for a 6th rate, which is stupid.

3. Get rid of the bomb-ketches and rocket ships. These were included as some sort of patriotic bollocks aimed at the US market (e.g. The star spangled banner refers to bombs and rockets fired by the British bombardment fleet at Baltimore. But there are no shore bombardments in ETW, so these ships have no legitimate purpose being in the game. They were impossible to use except when at anchor in calm water and their existence turns every naval battle into a farce.

4. Correct the movement rates of different ship classes to reflect their actual performance. Basically, ships could outrun anything capable of beating them, and beat anything capable of catching them. That's why 6th rates were important, and how they survived. They were one of the few exceptions to this rule, being able to catch brigs and sloops if the weather and sea conditions were harsh enough to prevent the smaller ships achieving their full performance, and having caught them they had larger crews and more powerful armament. They would not stand much chance against a 5th Rate, but then a 5th Rate couldn't catch them so it didn't matter. Likewise, a 4th rate could cream a 5th rate, but couldn't catch it, a 3rd rate would easily beat a 4th rate, and so on.

As I said I've played mods that make these changes and it completely changes the naval game to something that actually works and makes sense.

The other key exception in this period were the American Heavy Cruisers which you mention. These vessels had unusually large sail area's combined with armament and crews superior to a British 5th Rate, and therefore, could and did catch and beat British frigates, although to be honest the real problem was that British 4th Rates couldn't catch them and so British frigate captains were forced to take them on at a disadvantage. In the Royal Navy a 4th Rate was a small ship of the line (not a Frigate) it was usually an old obsolete 60 gun vessel that was too slow to catch a frigate and too weak to deal with a 3rd Rate, and they tended to be deployed in backwater area's like the colonies where they could still be of some use and free up the 3rd Rates for dealing with the French.

The US heavy cruisers were a compromise because at the time they were commissioned the American's needed fast frigates capable of catching and destroying French privateers and commerce raiders who were crippling their mercantile trade, but they didn't have enough trained seamen to man a huge number of frigates to give them numerical superiority over the French, or to build ships of the line, So, the idea of building a few heavy cruisers, that were fast enough to catch the french privateers but tough enough to deal with the French Frigates supporting them resulted in what was a revolutionary design which neither Britain or France had seen a need for.

To combat it the Royal Navy sacrificed a number of it's older 4th rates and 3rd Rates reducing the number of gun decks to shed weight and increasing the sail area to make them faster. In the meantime, the British frigate captains just had to try and hold the line, their only real advantage being that many of the American ships were undermanned and had inexperienced and unreliable crews so boarding sometimes worked if you could survive the heavy broadsides.

Clearly you know a lot about this subject (I noticed that you are credited for historical research on the Empire Realism mod). You make very good points. For what it's worth, my Fourth Rate Frigate Unlock mini-mod (when used with the optional Equal Navy pack) does similar things. Pirates galleons are less powerful than in vanilla, partly because I replaced overpowered 6-pounder guns in all vessels. Reduced reloading speed for galleons seems to encourage the pirates to recruit more smaller ships (although I'm still seeing the pirates using galleons). I strongly agree about bomb ketches and rocket ships causing farcical results. I vividly remember, in a vanilla campaign, spending years researching and building a fleet with decent ships of the line, only to see them spending most of their first battle on fire, sitting still with 'fire at will' turned off. So I nerfed bomb ketches and rocket ships (they have about 10 accuracy and 5 reloading. Their only use - admittedly unhistorical - would be against a fleet composed of only First Rates and/or Over First Rates. For First Rates and Over First Rates, I compensated for their better accuracy and faster reloading by making them slower, which seemed a bit more realistic). When I use the Equal Navy mini-mod, smaller ships can outrun larger ones (with the exception that Sixth Rates can outrun almost anything) which seems consistent with your thinking.

I also replaced the long range versions of all naval guns with regular versions, since it seemed unlikely that the guns of smaller ships would have a longer range than the cannon of ships of the line. Does that sound like a step in the right direction?

What do you think of steam frigates - should they be removed?

You're right, of course, that in the time period of the Grand Campaign, 4th Rates were ships of the line, not frigates. I admit (under 'known issues' in the description of the Fourth Rate Frigate Unlock mini-mod) that I'm taking liberties with history; the Royal Navy did not classify Endymion-class frigates as Fourth Rates until 1817 (if the Wikipedia page on that frigate class is accurate). As you said, the American heavy cruiser design had a decisive advantage over British 5th Rates. When the Royal Navy creates Razees and frigates like the Endymion-class to compete, that would give the American and British navies an advantage over the ships of other countries (unless other countries were already building heavy frigates - after all, Endymion herself was apparently built to the lines of a French frigate). Wouldn't other countries want to compete by building heavy frigates of their own? Sources like this one - which says of American heavy frigates that their victories "caught the imagination of the world – and spurred all navies into re-examining the class." - seem to provide support for that. Admittedly, that source refers to victories in the War of 1812, so it's outside the Grand Campaign time period. I guess it depends how accurate you want your historical realism to be. For me, a game which allows us to explore 'what-if' situations, such as what could have happened if naval design had advanced a bit more quickly, is attractive - of course, other players will have different preferences.

Does anyone know why 5th Rates have 48 guns? Looking at this list of Royal Navy frigate classes, it seemed that early 18th century 5th Rates tended to have 42 or 40 guns, while later 5th Rates normally had 32 or 36 guns. Maybe I'm making making a mistake by considering only British frigate classes - or perhaps the game's creators made a mistake by giving 5th Rates 48 guns?

[Didz]

What I do is make bomb ketches and rocket ships and any other fantasy unit I want to get rid of so ridiculously expensive that the AI can never afford them. So, I edit the data file to make them cost 100,000 or something stupidly unachieveable. You still get one or two which are included as part of the initial unit establishment, but that would happen no matter what you do.

I believe the biggest ship ever used by a pirate was Queen Annes Revenge owned briefly by the English Pirate Edward Teach. She had been the French slave ship Concord which teach captured and briefly made his flagship fitting her out with a massive armament of 26 guns. He used her to capture five enemy vessels, but eventually realised that she was too expensive to run as she needed a large crew to man the guns and sails and so he deliberately ran her aground transferred all his treasure to a smaller ship and abandoned her and most of her crew.

Other famous pirate ships include:

Adventure Galley - Captained by Scottish sailor William Kidd, the 287-ton, three-mast Adventure Galley was launched along the Thames River in 1695 and was outfitted with 34 guns and 23 oars for maneuvering the ship in calm winds.
The Fancy - Henry Avery's ship which originally boasted nearly 50 guns and a crew of 150 before is was cleaned and restructured to increase her speed.

The Whydah - Captained by Black Sam Bellamy another former slave ship. This one also ran aground on a sandbar, split, and sank. Of the ship's 146-man crew, only two survived. Highlighting the importance of a shallow draft for pirate ships as they frequently need to hug the coast and hide in shallow inlets to avoid their pursuers.

The Royal Fortune - Captained by Bartholomew Roberts. It was a captured a French brigantine outfitted the with 26 cannons, originally names Good Fortune she was later repaired and renamed the Royal Fortune. Soon after, Roberts captured a French warship operated by the Governor of Martinique, renamed her the Royal Fortune and made the ship his new flagship. Roberts then set sail for West Africa, where he captured the Onslow, renamed her the Royal Fortune, and, well, you know the rest. Roberts died, and the final Royal Fortune sank, on February 10, 1722, in an attack by the British warship HMS Swallow.

[JaM]

Game creators messed ships a lot. In game 5th rate is hardly a Frigate, but more like an early 18.century 4th rate which usually had about 50 guns and 18pdr/9pdr gun composition, which was later upgraded to 24pdr/9pdr. This game is missing several ship types to properly resemble development of ships in 18.century which is a shame as CA (the British company) had access to a lot of material, yet they completely failed to portray it. Besides, they introduced ships in completely false roles, like bomb ketches and rocket ships (as mentioned by Didz)

And the idea of small ships having more accurate guns than large vessels is just so wrong its not even funny to comment.. In reality, for long range fire, you needed long heavy guns, which would only fit on large decks with enough of space and structural strength of ship hull, which was just not possible to achieve with small ships.. Also, accurate fire was just not possible at long range, besides, one of biggest impacts on accuracy had the ship rolling on waves, where heavier ships were less impacted by waves than smaller ones.. Large ships were more stable firing platforms, therefore would be more effective at naval gunnery than small ships that were just not big enough to have long barreled guns on board, while the size of gundeck limited how fast guns could be reloaded, so heavy ships were actually capable of much higher rate of fire than small ships(besides having more space for larger guncrew per gun...)

[poa]

And the idea of small ships having more accurate guns than large vessels is just so wrong its not even funny to comment.. In reality, for long range fire, you needed long heavy guns, which would only fit on large decks with enough of space and structural strength of ship hull, which was just not possible to achieve with small ships.. Also, accurate fire was just not possible at long range, besides, one of biggest impacts on accuracy had the ship rolling on waves, where heavier ships were less impacted by waves than smaller ones.. Large ships were more stable firing platforms, therefore would be more effective at naval gunnery than small ships that were just not big enough to have long barreled guns on board, while the size of gundeck limited how fast guns could be reloaded, so heavy ships were actually capable of much higher rate of fire than small ships(besides having more space for larger guncrew per gun...)

+1

[Medina]

It is fair to say that in the seafaring world of the 18th century, in general, bigger was better.

[Didz]

It is fair to say that in the seafaring world of the 18th century, in general, bigger was better.

No! A more accurate phrase would be 'horses for courses'.

In general, big ships had the advantage of being able to carry heavier armament and that required a much larger crew (which was both a blessing and a curse). As a result they tended to be heavier, which meant they were also slower, and harder to manoeuvre requiring a much larger sail area and thus still more crew. They also had the disadvantage of only being able to be in one place at once, and of having a draft which prevented them going to some places at all.

It was also proven again and again that performance and efficiency on larger ships was often inferior to smaller ships, probably because of the problems in obtaining enough trained seamen to man them. At sea seamanship and morale often had more value than numbers and the weight of shot available.
.

[Alwyn]

In game 5th rate is hardly a Frigate, but more like an early 18.century 4th rate which usually had about 50 guns and 18pdr/9pdr gun composition, which was later upgraded to 24pdr/9pdr. This game is missing several ship types to properly resemble development of ships in 18.century which is a shame as CA (the British company) had access to a lot of material, yet they completely failed to portray it. ...

I think I see what you mean. If the 48-gun 5th rate is based on any real ship, my guess is that it's based on vessels like Assistance and Bonaventure. These were originally 17th century fourth rate frigates. In 1677 both ships were equipped with 48 guns. They were only 48-gun frigates for a short time. Assistance was rebuilt in 1687 as a 48-gun ship of the line and Bonaventure in 1683 as a 40-gun ship of the line. After early 18th century rebuilds, these ships of the line had 18-pounder and 9-pounder guns, which is what 5th rates are given in the game. (I was intrigued to note that Bonaventure was renamed Argyll; doesn't Britain start the game with a 5th rate named Argyll?)

If that's true, then we could mod 5th rates so that they are 48-gun ships of the line (I believe that Empire Realism does that or something similar.) That seems like the most realistic option. A less realistic alternative would be to keep 5th rates as frigates, seeing them as representing both the short-lived 48-gun frigates (if the class had still been used in the early 1700s) and as representing larger, early-to-mid 18th century frigates (even though the latter had fewer guns.) I wonder why 48-gun frigates of 1677 were replaced with 42 and 40 gun frigates - why fewer guns? Perhaps, as the number of guns on frigates dropped, the size of those guns increased? If that's right, then ideally we'd have a 42 or 40 gun frigate to replace the current 5th rate, but presumably that would require making a new ship model (which I don't have the know-how or the software to achieve.)

For what it's worth, I'm testing a modified version of my 'Equal Navy' mini-mod, taking into account the discussion here. If the modified version works well in tests, then I'll make it available as a 'semi-realism' optional pack, as part of my Fourth Rate Frigate Unlock mini-mod. Since I'm now imagining 5th rates as relatively heavy, cumbersome vessels for frigates, I've removed the extra speed which I gave them in previous versions of the mini-mod. (I had already reduced the size of their bow chasers, which seems a bit more realistic.) Based on JaM's point that bigger ships are more stable, accuracy is modified (10 for 'fantasy' vessels such as rocket ships, 40 for ships using outdated guns (as as galleons using demi-culverins), 50 for smaller ships (e.g. brigs and sloops), 60 for medium ships between 6th and 4th rate and 70 for larger ships, 3rd rates and above. Based on Didz' comment about lower efficiency on larger ships and problems with recruiting enough men, the reloading speed drops as the size of the ship increases (I impose extra penalties to reloading for trade ships and outdated vessels such as galleons). Reducing the reloading speed of galleons may also encourage the Pirate faction to recruit more smaller ships. I admit that this is nowhere near as realistic as the Empire Realism mod - it's more like 'semi-realism' or 'slight realism.'

[poa]

the efficiency issue sounds like taken out of thin air, what efficiency ?
it could possibly be applied to caliber, its reasonable that a heavier ball takes extra effort/time to lift,
but that could be nullified with extra manpower.
For accuracy, especially at range there is no doubt the bigger the better,
both with regards to the mass of the ship for better recoil absorption, and the caliber itself, and the length of the gun,
which shows higher efficiency the bigger you go.
Didz has a valid point in the draft of the ship, but depth is not implemented in game,
and neither is draft.

ps:

Napoleon III responded with a show of force, sending the ship of the line Charlemagne to the Black Sea. This action was a violation of the London Straits Convention.^[10]:19 However, the Ottomans knew that the Charlemagne sailed at a speed of 8½ knots and could defeat the technologically inferior Russian and Ottoman navies combined

knew, as in, knew a single 1st rate could single handed beat up both fleets of smaller ships combined

[Alwyn]

Yes, when thinking about 'efficiency' I was thinking of the heavier cannon-balls on ships of the line. You're right, ships with sufficient manpower could overcome that problem. Didz mentioned the problem of getting enough trained crew to man the guns properly. For example, in CS Forester's Ship of the Line, Captain Hornblower's 74-gun ship is a long way short of a full crew and a major issue in the book is how Hornblower responds to this.

[Didz]

Yes, when thinking about 'efficiency' I was thinking of the heavier cannon-balls on ships of the line. You're right, ships with sufficient manpower could overcome that problem. Didz mentioned the problem of getting enough trained crew to man the guns properly. For example, in CS Forester's Ship of the Line, Captain Hornblower's 74-gun ship is a long way short of a full crew and a major issue in the book is how Hornblower responds to this.

In naval terms crew efficiency has a pretty universal impact.

Efficiency in sail handling (seamanship) would make the vessels quicker to respond to changes in direction and speed, and able to respond much more effectively to any crisis such as a fallen spar or ruined sail. Whilst, efficiency in gunnery could enable the ship to fire faster and with more accuracy over longer distances.

Ships with large crews inevitably found it more difficult to find and replace their crews with trained seamen. There was also a tendency in most navies for the smaller ships to leech trained seamen from the larger ones, especially where, as was the case with the French navy, the larger ships spent a lot of their time in blockaded in harbour, so there was a priority to man the smaller ships first. Napoleon also didn't help by constantly drawing on the crews of his larger ships to make up the losses in his army.

[meme_engine]

Game creators messed ships a lot. In game 5th rate is hardly a Frigate, but more like an early 18.century 4th rate which usually had about 50 guns and 18pdr/9pdr gun composition, which was later upgraded to 24pdr/9pdr.

The developers faced a problem in that the ETW spans a period of 100 years. In that period, there were significant changes in the design of warships of all shapes and sizes. The 5th rate just happens to be one with the most significant changes. Unfortunately, the simplified nature of the TW model means that a lot of the subtleties of form and function are necessarily lost. I guess that CA took the decision that most players would not know (or care enough) about the differences to make it worth modelling the changes through the game.

Part of the problem of understanding is changes to the terminology. In the 17th century, a frigate was any fine-lined ship built for speed. There were 3rd rate ships that were described as frigates (although the term was usually "frigate-built"). Around 1700, a 5th rate may or may not have been frigate-built but, in either case, it would not have been what we now consider to be the classical "frigate" form (i.e. smaller than a ship-of-the-line with a homogeneous main battery on a single continuous deck). These 5th rates, which I suspect CA used as their graphical model, carried their main armament on two decks but were never intended to sit in the line of battle. They became obsolete because the low freeboard meant that the lower deck guns were difficult to use in anything other than calm seas. The French introduced what is now considered the classic frigate form in the 1740s with the other navies following suit fairly quickly. Over the next 60 years or so, these frigates became larger and more heavily armed, such that by the end of the century the largest weren't all that much smaller than the 3rd rates.

As I've said before in other threads, the British rating system was intended to class ships based on their logistical needs (number of crew, pay, guns, volume of stores, ammunition, etc.). It was never intended to overtly denote a ship's fighting abilities nor role nor to accurately represent the number of guns. Between 1700 and 1800, the system of rating changed several times. So a ship that survived long enough, or was altered/rebuilt, could change rating during its lifetime. So comparing a 5th rate from 1700 against a 5th rate of 1800 is pointless because you're not comparing the same beasts. That's especially true after 1780 when the introduction of carronades significantly changed the firepower of all ships, not least because the carronades were not counted as part of ship's rated guns unless they directly replaced an existing long gun. It was, therefore, quite possible for a British 5th rate which was nominally "38-guns" to be carrying 44 or even 46 guns.

After the finish of the Napoleonic wars (so after the ETW period), in 1817, the rating system was changed yet again. The most significant change was the inclusion of carronades in the rated armament. As a consequence, many of the heavy frigates became 4th rates, the 3rd rate "80s" were re-rated as second rates, and all of the 2nd rate "98s" became 1st rates.

It's also worth bearing in mind that not only did ship designs evolve, so did their cannon. Thanks to better metalurgy and casting techniques, improvements in gunpowder, the introduction of flintlocks, improvements in carriage and tackle design, the later guns would have greater range, greater muzzle velocity & a greater rate, and a wider, field of fire than their earlier counterparts. Therefore, it's not meaningful to directly equate guns of the same nominal "weight" (calibre) from 1700 with those of 1800. As a consequence, it's similarly meaningless to try to equate the firepower of a vessel from the early part of the century with one of the later part based on the calibre of their guns.

[meme_engine]

Does anyone know why 5th Rates have 48 guns? Looking at this list of Royal Navy frigate classes, it seemed that early 18th century 5th Rates tended to have 42 or 40 guns, while later 5th Rates normally had 32 or 36 guns. Maybe I'm making making a mistake by considering only British frigate classes - or perhaps the game's creators made a mistake by giving 5th Rates 48 guns?

Probably the latter. There is a ship model in the Kriegstein collection which matches the dimensions of a British 42 gun, 5th rate of the 1706 establishment. The model actually has 48 gun ports on the gun decks, as it was apparently fairly common for ships of the time to have 'spare' gun ports (presumably to allow the captain some flexibility in the placement of the guns). I suspect that someone at CA saw a similar model or ship plan and assumed that all of the ports were armed.

[Alwyn]

Thank you, meme_engine. If a 5th rate is a frigate in the 17th century sense while a 6th rate reflects the 'classic' 18th century frigate, then it seems that they should have quite different characteristics in the game. To be fair, they already do in vanilla, since the 5th rate has much heavier firepower. I've simply made 6th rates faster.

I didn't know that 42-gun British frigates (1706 establishment) had 48 gun ports. If someone could copy the model for the 5th rate and remove some of the guns, then we would have a model for a 42-gun frigate. The 48-gun frigate could become an 'early' or even 'early and obsolete' vessel. The 48-gun frigate could, perhaps, have smaller guns (9-pounders and 12-pounders?). The 42-gun frigate could be its replacement with larger guns (12-pounders and 18-pounders, as the 5th rate has in vanilla). If that was possible (I don't know how to remove guns from a copy of a ship model, does anyone know how?) that could be the starting point for developing a mod for 'early', 'middle' and 'late' period warships. That might even become a navy units sub-mod for Imperial Splendour, since Imperial Splendour is based around different units for early, middle and late periods (unless Imperial Splendour already has early, middle and late versions of navy units).

Didz mentioned the idea of increasing the cost of unhistorical units. I'm experimenting with doubling the cost of recruitment and upkeep of steam frigates while allowing factions to recruit only one of them. Rather than making them unaffordable, the idea is to make them rare. It might be better to triple the cost rather than double it. I admit that, of course, this isn't properly historical. (I quite like the idea of a wealthy, technologically advanced country spending a lot of money on an experimental steam frigate - as opposed to factions recruiting several of them, which can happen in vanilla Late Campaigns.)

[meme_engine]

Thank you, meme_engine. If a 5th rate is a frigate in the 17th century sense while a 6th rate reflects the 'classic' 18th century frigate, then it seems that they should have quite different characteristics in the game. To be fair, they already do in vanilla, since the 5th rate has much heavier firepower. I've simply made 6th rates faster.

Even from the start of the 18th century, most 6th rate ships had their main battery on a single deck so in that sense they always did reflect the form of the 'classic' 18th century frigate. However, some of the larger 28-gun 6th rates were what is termed "demi-batterie" ships with a small number of guns on the lower deck. With the change in rating system in 1714, these 28-gun ships became 5th rates before being phased out. Which illustrates the difficulty in using the rating system as a measure across the century.

I didn't know that 42-gun British frigates (1706 establishment) had 48 gun ports. That suggests that, if someone could copy the model for the 5th rate and remove some of the guns, then we would have a model for a 42-gun frigate. The 48-gun frigate could become an 'early' or even 'early and obsolete' vessel, perhaps with smaller guns (9-pounders and 12-pounders?), while the 42-gun frigate could be its replacement with larger guns (12-pounders and 18-pounders, as the 5th rate has in vanilla).

A 42-gun ship of the 1706 establishment (e.g. HMS Gosport [launched 1707]) would carry 18 x 9 pounder guns on the lower deck, 20 x 6 pounders on the upper deck and 4 x 6 pounders on the quarterdeck. In peacetime, the armament was actually reduced to 16 x 9 pounders on the lower deck, 16 x 6 pounders on the upper deck to save some strain the structure of the ship. So fitted for war, the ship's broadside was 153 pounds.

If you look at a 5th rate from the middle of the century, for example the 44-gun HMS Rainbow of the 1745 establishment [launched 1747], this still carried it's guns on two decks. The lower deck had 20 x 18 pounders, the upper deck had 22 x 9 pounders and there were 2 x 6 pounders on the forecastle. So this had a broadside weight of 285 pounds. Some of this style of two-decker 5th rates did remain in service until the end of the century but by then they were generally reduced to harbour service or used as armed transports (with the lower deck armament removed).

Then if we take a typical 5th rate from the end of the century, i.e. what most people think of when they talk about a sailing frigate, say the 38-gun HMS Leda [launched 1800]. As you would expect, this had its main armament of 28 x 18 pounders on a single deck supplemented by 10 x 9 pounder cannons and 8 x 32 pounder carronades on the upperworks (i.e. 46 guns in total), giving a broadside of 425 pounds.

While these are all 5th rates, from the simple numbers above it's clear that the later frigates were very different beasts from the earlier vessels. At first glance it would seem that there was a steady increase in firepower through the century. However, as I previously noted, the difficulty in using the lower deck guns on the earlier ships and the advances in technology meant that the superiority of the 1800 frigate was even greater than the simple weight of metal would suggest. It's also difficult to know which

As an aside, HMS Rainbow is notable because it was the first 5th rate to experiment with all-carronade armament (in 1782), with 20 x 68 pounders on the lower deck, 22 x 42 pounders on the upperdeck and 6 x 32 pounders on the upperworks for a total broadside of 1,238 pounds. In this configuration she captured the French frigate L'Hebe which became the template for the numerous British Leda-class frigates. While other ships, such as HMS Glatton and HMS Surprise, also experimented with all-carronade armament, there was never an established "carronade frigate" type in the British Royal Navy (or, to my knowledge, in any other).

[Alwyn]

Thank you - that looks very helpful for anyone developing a mod which would allow factions to recruit early, middle and later period 5th rates, if such a mod is possible. The early frigate could be based on the 1706 establishment (since 6-pounder guns are massively overpowered in vanilla, this frigate could use 9-pounder guns, unless anyone knows how to mod 6-pounder guns to give them realistic firepower). The middle period ship could use the 1745 establishment. The late period vessel could have an armament similar to the Leda. As you said, to do this properly would involve giving the middle and late period frigates a better range (perhaps this could be represented by improved accuracy, if changing the range wasn't possible). Middle and late period frigates would also need a faster rate of fire, which would be easy to edit by changing the reloading score (and a wider field of fire, if that was possible).

Edited to add: based on the discussion above, I have made a new 'SR Edition' of my Fourth Rate Frigate Unlock mini-mods. This makes the simple changes which I mentioned in this post. Thank you to everyone for your ideas. This mini-mod does not include 'early', 'middle' and 'late' versions of ships - that would be a much bigger modding project and I don't even know if what has been discussed would be possible.