Cost of British naval vessals in 1789

[wulfgar610]

This is from a table in E.H.H Archibald's - "The Fighting Ship of the Royal Navy"

These were the costs in the King's yards.

100 guns...2220 tons.....67,600 pounds sterling.

98.....1920......57,120

74.....1660......43,820

64....1390......35,920

50....1050......25,700

44....890......21,400

32...700......15,080

28...600....12,420

24...530.....10,550

20...440.....9,100

Sloop....300....6,260

This didn't include your cannon, crew and stores.

The British government revenue was 18 million pounds per annum in 1789.

Common wages were a shilling a day. A minor clerk or skilled worker got 2s. A navy lieutenant got 3s

[Didz]

So, basically you could build eleven sloops for the price of one 1st rate.

Useful stuff to know, perhaps we should alter the training costs of ships accordingly. +REP

[wulfgar610]

Well yes. The real sloops that could take perhaps 12 x 6 pdr's. Rather than ETW's mysterious sloops that can carry 18 X 18 pounders.

Those prices are an abstract of the ship built to hull, coppered, rigged. I don't know if the prices even included ballast. That was in the king's yards. No doubt you could get a cheaper sloop from a commercial builder.

I don't know what the cannon cost. Archibald pointed out in his writing that in the entire course of the 18th century. The British navy built no more than a dozen 1st rates.

[Didz]

It would actually be interesting to calculate a more balanced traing cost for the ships of each rate based upon those figures. For example: if one were to add the current build cost for one ship of each rate and them redistribute that money pro-rata according to the ratio suggested by the historical figures it ought to produce a much more accurate relative cost for each type of ship.

I might have a go at that if I can find a list of the vanilla ship costs somewhere, I'm not sure if the TROM mod I use hasn't already changed them anyway.

[wulfgar610]

Not all that much difference from what I could work out. Until you come to the brigantines and sloops. Then the ETW versions where both much more expensive and powerful.
But prices did tend to rise per ton of construction as they got heavier.

Archibald mentions Britain was facing extra problems by the Napoleonic wars. Running out of both manpower and trees. The importance of the various sloops was saving manpower. Not money however. The blockage saw Britain lift the world trade routes. The course of the war saw government revenues increase 4.5x in extra taxes and inflated pounds since they remained off the gold standard until 1821.

Indian teak solved the tree problem.

Some of those later brig sloops were getting as big as frigates. Looking at this one, the Cruizer class. They built about 60 of them.

16x 32 pounder carronades + 2 x 6 pounder. 100 feet on the gun deck. Truly of ETW proportions.

Worth doing a mod for a carronade era sloop.

I agree with you though. Best if ETW had historical number limits on the 1st and perhaps the 2nd rates. These ships were tracing the limits of what construction methods of the time and the laws of engineering would allow. So there were risks and potential trouble for a lot capital investment. This is something that is not factored in the game. The 120 gun stuff the extra British powers built, turned out to be unwieldy disasters more often than not. The Victory was an exception since it's timbers had been unusually well seasoned during construction.

The 48 got me mythed. The model is quite clearly the famed 50's. That served as line into the 7 years war. And were the biggest package you'd meet on the colonial seas for a long time. But they had 24 pounders on the gun deck and 18 pounders on the upper deck. The real thing being heavier than what ETW gives it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cruizer_class_brig-sloop

[snurresprett]

Well yes. The real sloops that could take perhaps 12 x 6 pdr's. Rather than ETW's mysterious sloops that can carry 18 X 18 pounders.

Those prices are an abstract of the ship built to hull, coppered, rigged. I don't know if the prices even included ballast. That was in the king's yards. No doubt you could get a cheaper sloop from a commercial builder.

I don't know what the cannon cost. Archibald pointed out in his writing that in the entire course of the 18th century. The British navy built no more than a dozen 1st rates.

As a rule of thumb, a full kit of iron guns would cost about the same as the rest of the hull, all included. Bronze guns would be about for times as expensive as iron ones. The bright side was that guns could last a century or more, hulls had a lifespan of about thirty-thirtyfive years unless extraordinary measures were taken. Extraordinary as in "let's put it in one of our not-so-numerous drydocks, take all the pieces apart and spend the next couple of years to see what we can reuse and what we have to replace"... reserved for exceptional vessels such as the Victory, obviously.

[wulfgar610]

As a rule of thumb, a full kit of iron guns would cost about the same as the rest of the hull

If we go by the price of the hull alone and exclude all other fittings. Which would you suggest for your "rule of thumb"? The hull alone or the price compete with other fittings?

100 guns...2220 tons.....54,390 pounds sterling.

98.....1920......45,120

74.....1660......33,530

64....1390......27,100

50....1050......18,900

44....890......15,350

32...700......10,250

28...600....8,100

24...530.....6,890

20...440.....5,670

Sloop....300....3,640

[snurresprett]

Well, if the First Rate cost 55.000 pounds to build, the cost of the guns to arm her would also be about 55.000 pounds. Simple as that really, as a rule of thumb.

Ships and guns were not built as a set so to speak, in fact the guns were not really under Navy supervision at all but rather of a branch of the Army. Separate bureacracies, separate budgets.

[chickens1127]

I believe the sloops could carry 18 guns, but 6 or 9 pdrs.

[JaM]

sloop was everything with less than 2 masts. any vessel with 3 masts was called ship. Late 3 mast sloops were called sloop-ships... armament was 10-20guns, mostly light calibers, but later they were often armed with carronades.

[Sneaking Viper]

Intresting list, it in no way match Thomas Paine's list from "Common Sense"

The charge of building a ship of each rate, and furnishing her with masts, yards, sails and rigging, together with a proportion of eight months boatswain's and carpenter's sea-stores, as calculated by Mr. Burchett, Secretary to the navy, is as follows:
For a ship of 100 guns £35,553
90 £29,886
80 £23,638
70 £17,785
60 £14,197
50 £10,606
40 £7,558
30 £5,846
20 £3,710

And from hence it is easy to sum up the value, or cost rather, of the whole British navy, which in the year 1757, when it was as its greatest glory consisted of the following ships and guns:
Ships Guns Cost of one Cost of all
6 100 £35,533 £213,318
12 90 £29,886 £358,632
12 80 £23,638 £283,656
43 70 £17,785 £746,755
35 60 £14,197 £496,895
40 50 £10,606 £424,240
45 40 £7,758 £344,110
58 20 £3,710 £215,180
85 Sloops, bombs,
and fireships, one another £2,000 £170,000

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Cost £3,266,786
Remains for guns £229,214
Total £3,500,000


But of cause it was 30 years earlier so prices could have changed.

[The Kurgan]

so if those are the prices in pounds... what should we change the prices to in ETW money . I use TROM but find the unit upkeeps and costs are not historically accurate obviously and I would like to know what if the currency in ETW is meant to be gold coins or pounds sterling £...? then with your advice I can change costs on all my land units too

[Didz]

Based on Bruce Quarries estimates in his book 'Napoleonic Campaigns in Miniature' the costs of military units would be as follows:

Equipping an Infantryman for Campaign
- If allied to Britain = £6
- if not allied to Britain = £30
Equipping a French or French Allied infantryman for Campaign
- assumming recruits are conscripted = £18

Equipping a Dragoon for Campaign (including mount)
- French or allied to France = £309
- Allied to Britain = £296
- British or unallied = £321

Equipping a Light Cavalryman (including mount)
- French or allied to France = £359
- Allied to Britain = £359
- British or unallied = £371

Equipping a Cuirassier (including mount)
- French or allied to France = £409
- Allied to Britain = £409
- British Heavy Cavalry had comparable costs to Dragoons (Note also the lack of subsisdy for european armoured cavalry by Britain)

Equipping Artillery for campaign (including limber and team but excluding ammunition train wagons)
- 3/4 Pounder = £150
- 6/7 Pounder = £180
- 8/9 Pounder = £200
- 12 Pounder = £265
- 5.5" How = £180
- 6" How = £200
- 8" How = £220

Ammunition would add a further £40 per wagon to the cost of each gun. So for example a 12 pounder typically had a train of four ammunition wagons so the total cost would be £265 + £160 = £425.

These are only rough figures but they were considered accurate enough for Napoleonic Campaign purposes.

[The Kurgan]

thank you for your help Didz. Are those costs what I should change my unit costs to in the db file to make it accurate?

[Didz]

thank you for your help Didz. Are those costs what I should change my unit costs to in the db file to make it accurate?

Well if you are changing the costs of the naval vessels to the historical costs quoted above then those would be the equivalent military unit costs to match them. So, they ought to give a more reasonable comparative cost between say a cavalry regiment and a frigate.

Of course the problem with this is that nations in ETW do not have historically accurate incomes, so there is an arguement that says that getting the costs right merely passes the problem down the line. Also some of those costs would be affected by choices in the tech tree and government type.

For example British troops are so expensive to raise mainly because Britain did not have conscription and paid a large bounty to each recruit to get them to sign their lives away. If the British player opted to become a Republic and introduced conscription then those costs would fall to something comparable with the French. And of course vice versa.

[JaM]

Didz:

For example British troops are so expensive to raise mainly because Britain did not have conscription and paid a large bounty to each recruit to get them to sign their lives away. If the British player opted to become a Republic and introduced conscription then those costs would fall to something comparable with the French. And of course vice versa.

true, but then Britain would had not have enough of money to train them to the same level they were able to with smaller force - British soldiers got about 6x more live fire training than their continental counterparts.

[Didz]

Didz:

true, but then Britain would had not have enough of money to train them to the same level they were able to with smaller force - British soldiers got about 6x more live fire training than their continental counterparts.

Probably, in which case quality would suffer.