"Paul Silverstone Civil War Navies books" Topic
9 Posts
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myrm11 | 15 Nov 2017 8:06 a.m. PST |
Going hunting on the subject, Paul Silverstone's ACW naval books seem to have a high reputation. Apart from the date of publication, can anyone tell me the differences between his 80s book Warships of the Civil War navies and is more recent Civil War Navies 1855-1883 I am really after ship details – tonnage, speeds, armaments etc to plug into game stats and am trying to workout which will provide me with more useable information. The older book title sounds more on topic and I can get hold of it for around 20-30GBP via international sellers but the newer one I can get on Kindle, now, for 35GBP. While I assume the newer publication has the potential for more information and more accurate information and so possibly cover more ships but does it give enough ship descriptions for my purposes. Any comments from people familiar with either or both books at all please (or better options if they exist). Thanks all! |
myrm11 | 15 Nov 2017 8:10 a.m. PST |
Not sure why the double post or what happened there on the double topic, presumably I hit the wrong thing at the wrong time. |
KSmyth | 15 Nov 2017 10:12 a.m. PST |
I have the early editon of this book, and it's okay. It's attribute is the exhaustive listing of ships. To be fair, not a ton is known about many of these ships and Silverstone's statistics tend to be pretty general. However, at least for the Union ships, I prefer Donald Canney's Old Steam Navy. It's two volumes and now out of print, but because we're talking U.S. regular navy there is simply a lot more detail available. William Still's Confederate Navy is pretty good too. |
David Manley | 15 Nov 2017 11:15 a.m. PST |
I echo K's recommendations for the extra books, also Tony Gibbon's large format book. You can never have too many books on ACW warships :) |
Master Caster | 16 Nov 2017 7:05 a.m. PST |
Tim, In the 'articles' section on my website I have a long listing of ACW naval sources. I recently updated this list with two new additions. Take a look: thoroughbredmodels.com. Click on 'Articles'. I have the Silverstone 2001 copy in my personal library and I believe it is an updated version of his earlier work that came out in the 1980's. Caution here on using tonnage of ACW vessels in rules/data. During this ere there were many varied methods of determining tonnage and not one 'standard' applied in deriving that particular piece. The tonnage of a lot of civilian type 'purchased' vessels that were upgraded to carry guns was based on cargo tonnage. So be careful is my advice if using tonnage for gaming purposes. Toby Barrett |
myrm11 | 16 Nov 2017 9:43 a.m. PST |
Thanks all. The more I look at the period the more 'not one standard' seems to crop up. What I am actually doing is trying to find as many ACW ships as I can to pack out and expand the list of ships in Hammerin' Iron. I have a big list of ships from the Steam and Sail Navies ruleset that are a place to start from as well – and that's where variables started to crop up and differences where Peter Pig stats clearly varied from SSN. So I was looking for a reference point to, I guess tie break and have raw data to hand rather than converting one rulesets stats to another. First, I looked at finding the Conways' Fighting Ships for the period and prices for that were startling and several post mentioned the Silverstone books which seemed more achievable and a big list of ships but I'll chase down the other suggestions. For a bit of a naval newbie here, on the tonnage issue, would cargo tonnage over or under estimate the values if using 'tonnage' as a surrogate marker for size and structure points? Knowing that might let me re-examine some of the conversions that I have done already. |
A C London | 17 Nov 2017 7:50 a.m. PST |
Mymr11, If your prime interest is the ACW don't fork-out for Conways. It is still the best guide there is to ironclads from around the world, but it's thin on the USN in the Civil War and only really samples the Confederates. Reason being that its focus is on sea-going vessels, which many of the Confederates weren't. If the differences in stats you've found between the rules concern armament it is worth bearing in mind that this cd change quite a bit from year to year. So it is possible that both are right, but at different times. Hope your project goes well, Alan |
EJNashIII | 18 Nov 2017 9:19 p.m. PST |
You also want to look for "The official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the rebellion Series II, Volume I. They reprint it every so often. That book is the source of allot of the base information in Silverstone. |
deephorse | 20 Nov 2017 9:05 a.m. PST |
I play ACW naval using Smoke On The Water rules. The rules give you stats for a useful number of ships, but there are many, many more that are not covered. I use Silverstone to get the stats for all the missing ships because it provides the necessary data to complete the ship forms for the game. Worth every penny to me. |
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