"Armament of Royal Navy Sloop of War and Brig" Topic

Gentlemen,
I'm looking to include the broadsides of three vessels in an upcoming game, and I need information on the caliber and number of the guns certain vessels would have mounted.

The intent is for the fire to be ship to shore – so treated as off table support for a besieged force on a beach head.

The three specific vessels I'm looking to use are, HM Sloop Senegal, HM Sloop Swan, and HM Brig Halifax. I believe the Swan mounted 14 guns, and the Senegal 16 to 18, and that the Halifax could have mounted between 6 and 14 guns.

Any help would be appreciated – thanks in advance.

npm

Depends upon the time period, especially since the British/English renamed their vessels repeatedly, so it is sometimes hard to tell which, is which, unless the year, or battle is given.

For the early 1700's up through about 1720, or so, 6 Pdrs. seem to be pretty standard.

I am assuming you are doing the Revolutionary War, as that is the only time three ships of those names co-existed as the types you mentioned. As Mako11 says, 6 pdrs. Halifax may even have had 4 pdrs. Too early for small carronades.

The Halifax seems to have been a small schooner with 6x 3 pounder and 8x 1/2 pounder swivel guns, (later 12 swivels) which would explain the discrepancy.
link
(She was struck off as wrecked in 1775, but a "new" Halifax appears not long after with exactly the same lines noted, suggesting either a replacement built from the same plans, or more likely a successful salvaging and refit.)

The Swan was lead ship of quite a big class; 14x 6 pounders.
link

Senegal there are a couple of candidates (both 6-pounder armed) within the AWI time-frame; what year?

14 gunner, lost in 1778:
link
18 gunner, captured in 1778 and lost in 1780:
link

Sorry, definitely AWI – these three ships were supporting Tryon's raid off Connecticut in 1777.
I did find a ship model of the Halifax [beautiful but expensive] – which shows she carried 6 guns, and another reference to Senegal carrying 14 guns.
If 6 pdrs were the correct caliber they'd have a fairly limited range – and I'm not sure they'd be able to give any effective support fire if they were anchored too far off shore.
Thanks for the info

npm

Range wasn't really calibre dependent; barrel length was much more important, and six pounders were usually "long" so would probably have a respectable reach. (Actually I seem to recall the RN long 9 pounder was favoured as a chase gun, as it out-reached 12s and 18s….)

Dom,
Well that's good news – I was thinking I might have to drop the idea all together.

So what would an estimate of the range of the 3 and 6 pdrs be, assuming maximum elevation?

Thanks in advance

npm

From some of the accounts I've read, it seems that sometimes the vessels carried fewer guns than they were rated for, either since: they were scarce, they wanted to lighten the vessel, they didn't have enough crew to man more than the reduced number of cannons, or it was an older ship, and they didn't want to stress the hull.

I've read accounts of 14 – 22 gun vessels carrying as few as 6 guns.

Mako11
From the links Don gave, which are outstanding.

The Swan was only tens years old – the Halifax, if salvaged and refitted [as seems likely] was two years old, and the Senegal, though the oldest vessel, at 16 years, was probably Tryon's flagship as I believe he used it as his headquarters for the short trip to CT.

For the game purposes, I'm assuming they carried the full complement of guns, and could at least man one broadside when necessary – Halifax, 3x3 pdrs, Swan and Senegal each with 7x6pdrs broadsides. If those guns can reach the shore, that's serious artillery support during this period.

npm

3-pounder is probably not much more than a mile, 6-pounder one and a quarter according to Rivers' notes. (He was HMS Victory's gunner, so a few years later, but his notebooks include range tables for all calibres, which were basically the same kit as in the AWI….) The longest ranges were long 9s and 12s, which topped out at about 2 miles extreme range; heavier than that and the range started dropping again.

Thanks for the link Dom Skelton!

Ted

Dom,
That's great info – thank you, now I have something hard and realistic to work with.

npm

Doing a bit of digging and coming up with similar numbers to Dom, so a couple of thousand yards tops would seem reasonable.

It was also not unusual for ships to 'aquire' long 9s for stern and bow chasing, no matter the official rating. As has been mentioned it had a long range and by smoothbore standards it was also very accurate.

Thank you all, for your help.
The plan will be to provide support fire from the ships off shore, at maximum effective range, to protect the approaches to the beach defenses. These ships will be beyond the land based field gun range, so they won't be able to be countered by shore to ship fire. The players won't be told when their troops are within range of the ship guns, and I, as GM, will control their fire.

npm

link shows ACW ranges for various smoothbores.