"Langton & Barbary Pirates" Topic

I've been looking at adding some Barbary pirates to my games. Langton has some nice Xebecs and I know the Barbary pirates also used a range of captured merchant and war vessels.

However, I'm not sure which of Langton's Renaissance Galley range might be suitable as many types lasted into the 18th Century. I was thinking that REN 3 (Galiot) and REN 4 (Large Galiot) might work and REN 19 (Saik),20 (Coaster),21 (Coaster) and 22 (Dhow) probably being ok as merchant vessels right through Napoleonic times. I've also seen reports of Spanish and Maltese (at least) using Galeasses during the Napoleonic period for Harbour Defence so maybe REN 12 might be suitable too.

Maybe even the Russian Baltic range may be better but I'm no expert on Galleys! Anyone looked at this before?

As best as I know – it's sort of "anything goes" since they built some ships themselves (Xebecs and Galliots etc…) and used some designs either captured from other powers or bought some ships here or there…

For the most part, like most pirates, they favored smaller ships for the speed and agility – and ability to get in close to shore.

I add a link where you can see some unrated ships from Langton, if you are intersted in someone, let me know and I will try to say the reference.

link

Nice work! I'm just painting some of these up myself but I don't think they'll look as good!

if you need the reference, let me know :)

I spoke with them on this topic a few years ago. Mrs. Langton said that the light galley (REN 5, I think) was the closest in size to the Tripoli galleys of the Barbary Wars period. Give me a few minutes and i can double check that.

EDIT: Yes, definitely REN5 on the galley. Also, the "28 gun schooner" is probably the Meshuda. She was the flagship of Tripoli until 1803, when she was transferred/sent to Morocco. Mark Bevis' Tripoli OOB describes her as:

"18x9pdr (waist), 6x4pdr (quarterdeck), 2x bow guns, 2x stern guns, 246 crew. Yellow hull with white side streak, green stern, red muzzles. To Morocco in 1803."

EDIT 2: Bevis' naval OOB for Tripoli can be found at Wargame Vault. link

BWW

Great, that's very helpful.

This is a very useful thread. I am looking at SUN actions against the Barbary pirates….RN too. Probably 1/600 or 700 scale I think. I tend to agree with you Starcruiser.