[Jexl]

Heya,

I would suggest going to www.google.com and seaching for "ADnD Spelljammer"
There should be some information on some of the ships and floor plans for various spelljamming ships.

Also, if you use these ships, it will give life to your campaign, some are shaped like wasps, dragons, and other like shapes, and I had the boxed set of spelljammer - and it had floor plans for all the ships available for spelljammer.

I did a search quickly - and found this link
http://www.wizards.c...d/dnd/downloads

almost 3/4ths of the way down, there's a spelljammer section, with floor plans.

[Lyinginbedmon]

Alternatively, Wizards have just recently released some Ship plans in light of the recently released Stormwrack book

[Dthclaw]

Arise, topic of days long past!!!!

*Ahem*

With my newfound need to have ships and ship-rules hammered out, I was wondering if anyone knew anything about ships before steam power started to take things over. I'm using the Stormwrack rules for ship design, but y'know, the Viking longboat or Greek trierme (and similar, which seems to cover about *half* the ships in Stormwrack) just *don't* quite fit with a steampunk-ish setting. Particularly interested in the ships of around the time of the Spanish Empire getting a stranglehold on the Americas up to the American Revolution. The "new" ships I'll handle on my own, but I'm fuzzy on sailing ships of that historical era.

[RedSlayer]

Having grown up in a very Nautical family, I can give you a basic run-down of the sailing ships from that era, which was about 1600-1700. This was also the time of the *pirate*.

I'll get you a breif summary list in a short while. For now, I must eat!

[Raven Bloodmoon]

Firstly, they didn't use oars, despite what certain pop mvoies and Stormwrack would suggest. The best approximations in the Stormwrack are the Galley and the Greatship (less oars), but scaled to fit your needs. Essentially, most Spanish-style ships were square-rigged with at least oen main mast. In the mediteranian and off of Africa, there were a lot of latene-rigged ships, whih tended to prove smaller, faster, and more maneuverable than the lumbering hulks the Spanish adn English sailed. Ships construction was quite sturdy, and despite what DnD would have you believe, ballistae would not dent them. Remember Old Ironsides from the Revolutionary War? She got the nickname because cannon balls use to bounce off her hull. That's about all I know. Wait for Red's response for more detail, or look up the subject online (not on wikipedia. They just state popular belief as fact, not fact as fact).

[Dthclaw]

Yeah, I know real ballista wouldn't do jack to a ship, but my group is kinda loathe to go full-bore with the cannons and whatnot. As for oars, well... most of the ships I'm using now don't have oars (except for ones that would use them).

Latene, huh? I'll have to look that up. And I'll definitely make sure to check something more reputable than Wikipedia on the topic

[RedSlayer]

There are multitudes of different ship design, though there are a few things that should be established first. A vessel's hull design and sail configuration determines its sailing characteristics. In general, ships with square sails such as the Frigate or Merchantman tend to perfrom best when sailing "large" (running before the wind). Ships with triangular sails such as the Pinnace or Barque tend to perfrom best when sailing by the wind (roughly perpendicular to the wind.)

General Types of Ships:

Pinnace: picture
Until the advent of the "Sloop", pinnaces were the primary small craft. Like a sloop, a pinnace is very fast and very maneuverable, and it has a shallow draft that permts sailing in shoal waters. The fore-and-aft rigged pinnace carries oars, allowing it to move directly into the wind.
Pinnaces made extremely sucessful pirate craft in the caribban. Though small in size and unable to stand much pounding in battle, the pinnace's speed and maneuverablity (particularly in light winds) allows them to sail practical rings around bigger ships, and the shallow draft lets them sail into, well, pretty shallow water.

A more heavily armed version of the Pinnace was the "Mail runner", which was larger but also carried oars, allowing it to move directly into the wind.


Sloop: picture

The sloop was a Dutch designed small, fore-and-aft rigged vessel equipped with one or two square sails before the mast. This vessel became extremely popular in the 1630's-40's. It is extremely fast and exceptionally maneuvereable, and better than almost any other sailing ship in light winds. (In strong winds, though, a sloop can be considerably slower than a larger ship). A sloop would generally also carry oars, to move against the wind, but it is about as large as you can get for that type of activity. The sloop has a shallow draft, allowing it to move over shoals at little to no risk.
Desipite its modest size and cargo, a sloop's maneuverability is so great that manny buccaneeers perfered it to larger, more powerful craft. The English Royal Navy built a number of sloops for its own use as pirate hunters.

Military Sloops were significantly larger and carried a heavier weight of broadside.


Brig: picture

The brig is a two-masted vessel sporting a fore-and-aft mainsail and a square-rigged foremast. The brig possesses some unique sailing qualities, and a skilled master can maneuver her with great ease. Brigs were often empolyed as merchany vessels as well as warships.
The brig is medium-sized ship with fairly potent gun and crew capacity. They "have-teeth" as the saying goes.

The Brig has a small cousin the "Brigantine" as well as the "Warship Design". The brigantine was more of a merchant vessel. The "Brig of War" had an impressive 32 gun capacity (as opposed to the smaller brig, at 24 cannon (tho birgs generally only carried 10).


Barque:
Barques are shallow-draft three masted ships with one or more of the masts being fore-and-at rigged, making them slow when sailing large in comparison to other ships of their size.
The standard Barque design has been around for a very long time, and was extremely popular in the tranquil waters of the mediterranean. They were not good vessels in rough seas, and few dared to try and cross the atlantic with them. They are both slow and lightly armed, so the make best as large, shallow water transports. They do not make good warships.

Fluyt:picture

Fluyts were invented by the Dutch around 1600, then widely copied throughout northern Europe. Fluyts are cargo v essels specially designed to be cheap to operate and able to get in and out of poor anchorages. The Fluyt can be sailed with a tiny crew (12 to 15 men was not uncommon). Despite its large cargo capacity, the fluyt possesses a draft so shallow that it could enter rivers, coves, and small harbors inaccessible to craft larger or even its size. They are slow and unmanueverable and make poor warships.
The "West Indiaman" design was a variation of a large fluyt, designed specifically to survive the oceanic journeys to the other continents. They are very seaworthy, and still do not need a large crew (thus, inexpensive). They are still very lightly armed.

Merchantman: http://imagesource.a...-C10019881.jpeg

Square rigged merchantmen are well designed and seaworthy vessles. They have large cargo capacity, can carry numerous guns, and have plenty of room for crew and passengers. Furthermore, they can be sailed with a smallish crew to save money.

Often not carrying enough crew to man all guns, most merchantmen are extremely disinclined to fight. However, some merchantmen were converted into pirate ships, with stronger armament and sailed by cutthroats, causing them to be extremely dangerous.

Larger variantions, including the "East Indiaman" could carry huge amounts of cargo and cannon, and often id, especially when that cargo was valuable. Royal navies were known to provide military training on some of these ships, making them very dangerous opponents.


Frigate: picture

Square rigged frigates are excellent ships of war, fairly handy to maneuver, and faster than most square rigged ships when running by the wind. A frigate is extrodinarly useful for almost all activity. However, almost all frigates were built for the Crown as naval warships. They saw use up through the napoleonic wars and even saw some use in the mid 19th century. Frigates generally had well drilled and professional crews, and were dangerous opponents at any time.

"Ships of the Line" or large friages were extremely powerful warships. Equipped with large, powerful hulls, room to mount many cannon, and usually crewed with more than enough men to man them all, they were a match for ANY ship afloat. They were extremly expensive to build and man, and only national goverments had the wherewithal to afford them. Prvate ownership was virtually unknown.


Trade Galleons, or Royal Galleons: picture
Trade Galleons are large merchant vessels used extensively by the spanish, especially in the Caribbean. These ships are designed for stability and reliability and are well suited for the long and dangerous voyages across the North Atlantic Ocean. However, seaworthiness was achieved at the expsne of maneuverability; galleons were slow to turn and expecially slow when sailing by the wind. Heading into the wind was near impossible.

Though these vessels could carry a large number of cannon and crew, their por agility made them vulnerable to attack by a fast and maneuverable opponent, as long as they managed to keep away from its broadsides.

Larger versions were the fabled "treasure ships" the spanish were known for. They could carry incredible amounts of guns and cargo, and often had a professionally trained crew. However, they also carried a significant portion of spain's yearly budget, and as such they rarily left port without an escort of powerful warships.


War Galleons were revisions of the basic galleon ship designd, featuring a rduced uppower works and an updated sail plan, resulting in a somewhat smaller vessel that is faster in light winds and considerably more maneuverable than the orginal model. Still they suffered the main drawback of not being able to run by the wind, and they thusly adopted different strategy.

In general, the commanders would seek to bring their ships alongside the enemy, give them one impressive broadside, and then board the opposition in the confusion.

[Dthclaw]

Wow. Thanks, man.

[RedSlayer]

Heres a bunch of Info that should help in your ship design using the Rules. I've lumped in the larger and smaller versions of each base design ship in here. So if you see a range (8-12 guns, for example) The smaller or smallest version is the low, the average or larger version is the median, and the Big Version is the top end. Note that while ships could carry large number of guns, it took 3-4 men to load and fire one, so they often carried what their crews could manage. These stats were given in relative to the others listed.

Edit: Looking at some Stormwrack rules, I would suppose a small bit of conversion would help?
Size: Small=Huge, Medium=Gargantuan, Large=Colossal
Turning Radius::Manueverability: A shame they only have 3 types, I have 4 I would go V.Tight-Tight= Good, Wide= Average, Very Wide=Poor.
You can probably eyeball Seaworthyness from the descriptions
I'm not sure of the speed conversions to feet
As for ship hulls and sinking, general rule of thumb the larger the ship the more thick the hull, though warships obviously had much greater defenses.
You can probably look up space and width on wikipedia or some such. I dont have those raw statistics on me.
Complement:: Min/Max Crew. (Crew includes passangers)
Cost: The better the capability, the more costly. Can get an eyeball from descriptions, I think.

Quote

Ship Type
Size
Turning Radius
Class of Ship
Min. Crew
Max. Crew
Max Guns
Max. Cargo (Tons)
Speed
Best Point of Sailing

Quote

Pinnace
Small size
Very Tight
Merchant
6 Men
50-80 Men
8-12 Guns
20-30 Tons
V. Fast
By the Wind

Quote

Sloop
Small size
Tight
Warship
8 Men
75-125 Men
12-20 Guns
40-60 Tons
Fast
By the Wind

Quote

Brig
Medium size
Tight
Warship
12 Men
125-200 Men
20-32 Guns
60-80 Tons
Medium
Before the Wind, but proficient By the wind

Quote

Barque
Medium size
Tight
Merchant
10 Men
75-125 Men
12-16 Guns
70-80 Tons
Slow
By the wind

Quote

Fluyt
Medium size
Wide-Very Wide
Merchant
12 Men
50-100 Men
8-16 Guns
80-120 Tons
Very Slow
Before the Wind

Quote

Merchantman
Large size
Very Wide
Merchant
16 Men
125-150 Men
16-20 Guns
100-140 Tons
Slow
Before the Wind

Quote

Frigate
Large size
Wide
Warship
16 Men
200-300 Men
32-48 Guns
80-100 Tons
Fast
Before the wind, but capable By the Wind

Quote

War Galleon
Large size
Wide
Warship
16 Men
160-250 Men
24-40 Guns
80-100 Tons
Slow
Before the wind but proficient by the wind

Quote

Trade Galleon
Large Size
Very Wide
Merchant
16 Men
100-200 Men
20-40 Guns
120-140 Tons
V. Slow
Before the Wind

[Dthclaw]

Alright, this will help immensely.

However, I have to ask another question very closely related to weapon loadout given this info: I'm currently listing as a vehicle augmentation 1 ton of cargo to add a new light mount and 2 tons to add a heavy mount. (I'm using the mounts to cover both space taken and weapon weight) For possible weapon options I'm listing technological weapons (ie, cannons) as taking a heavy mount. The question: you think I should change the cargo-to-mounts ratio to something higher/lower/no change?

[RedSlayer]

Well, it's a general rule that a cannon plus standard amounts of powder and ball would generally take up one ton of cargo space. However, anything bigger than a cannon or requireing A. More room, B. Larger/More ammunitions would probably be best as a heavy mount.

I'd recommend a cannon being light. If you were using a "land sized" cannon, then go heavy. Ship to Ship cannon were generally smaller and packed a lot of short-range punch. If you want to have "Ship to Land", you'll want a longer barrel and more powder, (and thus, a heavy mount).

[Dthclaw]

Heh. Alright, fair enough.

[Raven Bloodmoon]

Another note on cannon that might be of interest. Land cannon usually had a maximum effective range of 3 miles, which is the reason state waters extend out 3 miles from the coast. That was as far as we could shoot at people who tried to bother us. Mind you, 30mile guns are really hefty. There were also shorter range land-cannon taht fired much larger shot as well as a variety of types of shot, ranging from hot shot (shotput-sized iron ball heated in a furnace before firing) to grape shot, chain shot, etc. I believe ship-based cannon also carried similar ordinance, save the hot shot, as burnign down your own ship would be a bad thing.

[RedSlayer]

On the money on that one Raven. Ya had your standard round shot, but also had chain shot and grape shot.

Chain shot, 2 small sized rounds attacked via chain, were extremely effective against sails and even masts. (which is why it is not a bad idea to draw up your sails if you are boarding, or have a few extra sets )

Grapeshot was mainly used vs. enemy crewman, and were effectively "shot guns", lots of small rounds that spread out at high velocity. Needed to be very close range for this tho.


3 mile guns were stationary and quite devestating. they also weighed an INCREDIBLE amount.

[Raven Bloodmoon]

By incredible amount, I was lucky enough to watch a reenactment of the firing of such a gun at the Castilio de San Marco in St. Augustine, FL once. THey used 8 men to drag it up to the wall of the fort. Mind you, it was on a wooden carriage that had wheels. It just wasn't about to move. Also,, even though they did not load the gun with a ball, the charge they used was sufficiently large that when ignited, it blew the cannon back up the wheel wedges about 12 inches. Furthermore, the entire procdure takes about 20 minutes because once fired, the cannon must cool or else the next charge placed in it will blow. The way they got around this was having a butt-load of cannon availbel to fire. So much so that they could fire continuously at about a rate of one shot ever couple seconds until they ran out of powder or ammunition. There was no such thing as rapid fire; just lots of guns.