"Langton Signal Close Action Fast Play" Topic

I have Langton's Tiller and Whipstaff rules and like them. I understand his Close Action Fast Play rules are similar with the activation rolls. However, the write-up says they are for Napoleonics only. I am more of a AWI player. Has anyone adapted the rules? I would guess the ships are a little less robust and the broadsides lighter with no carronades. Other than that not that different.

Would anyone share what they've done? Especially as Langton will probably never release rules for 18th century as hoped.

Agreed, the ships were not that different. The HMS Victory was commissioned in 1765, so the construction of the ships wasn't that different. And the French actually had (cannon) balls!
Lots of small actions and privateers roaming about.
Many other rule sets include these two periods together, for instance AH's Wooden Ships and Iron Men.
I wouldn't hesitated to include them. The only tiny problem would be getting ship stats for your ships, but it should't be too hard to reverse engineer the available stats to figure it out. After all, we are Gamers!

No carronades, few coppered bottoms until late in the AWI, higher proportion of smaller men-o-war (some 50s and 44s still around, more 64s than in Napoleonic period, more small frigates, few giant 38-40 gun frigates).

There was also an evolution in gun founding between the AWI and Napoleonic period which caused guns to get lighter for the same weight of shot. A lot of ships were "upgunned", e.g. replacing 18 pdr with 24 pdrs, replacing 12 pdrs with 18 pdrs, etc. However, guns were expensive and durable, so not all ships benefitted, so you have to pay attention to specific ships to see how their broadside weight compare in the two wars.

Some writers claim the British switch to lanyard-operated flint firing mechanisms on shipboard cannons drastically increased the British rate of fire during the AWI. I just don't know how much this really changed the effectiveness of broadside fire, nor how many ships would have benefitted from the change.

- Ix

YA has (as usual) covered the important points.

A couple of minor comments I will contribute -

> Most of the carronades in RN use during the AWI were to be found aboard small ships, especially among sloops, brigs, etc. Carronades aboard ships of the line were far less common than in the Napoleonic era. Even as late as the Battle of the Saintes, only about half the British ships present were fitted with carronades and few at that – perhaps a half-dozen per ship (18s and 24s).

> Use of firing locks was only just being pioneered by Captain Charles Douglas during the AWI and were to be found (to the best of my knowledge) aboard only two ships during that war:
HMS Duke – whose guns were so fitted at Douglas's personal expense,
HMS Formidable – which Douglas (as Rodney's flag captain) also fitted.

Both the above ships fought at the Saintes and were thought to have performed exceedingly well. Fitting of gunlocks thereafter spread through the fleet during the years between the AWI and the French Revolutionary War.

B

YA wrote – "Some writers claim the British switch to lanyard-operated flint firing mechanisms on shipboard cannons drastically increased the British rate of fire during the AWI. I just don't know how much this really changed the effectiveness of broadside fire,…"

Speaking of the Napoleonic period, I'm not sure that gunlocks per se contributed a very great deal to RATE of fire (perhaps 5-10 seconds?); IMO, the superior rate of fire displayed by RN ships can be ascribed to:
[ a ] better training, health and conditioning of the gun crews.
[ b ] substitution of felt cartridges in place of paper.
[ c ] the greater number of handier, hence faster firing carronades to be found aboard British ships.
[ d ] the lighter weight, hence easier handling of the British 32-pounder as compared to the French 36-pounder (actually equivalent to a 39 pounder by British weight standards).

- – -

The advantage of the gunlock and tube primer over the traditional linstock IMO was in relative ACCURACY of fire. The gunlock rendered the actual discharge of the gun far more certain in terms of timing. On a rolling ship, this made fire from any distance that much more accurate.

- – -

Well one last comment … during the Napoleonic war period the RN did in fact make use of several new "light weight" long gun designs by Blomfield, Gover and Congreve. They were described as medium weight guns. These guns could not employ the same full weight of powder charge that their heavier cousins could tolerate, but the range of their shot was only slightly less. Their principal advantage was their light weight, made possible by better quality iron and new scientific design techniques, which in some cases helped to extend the useful life of some older ships.

William James and Clowes (IIRC), discuss these gun in some detail.

B