Ship Types in the Age of Sail - Sloops, Brigs, Frigates and Ships of the Line
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- Опубликовано: 19 сен 2023
- Today we look at the classifications of ships in the Age of Sail in the Royal Navy, a system that has become shorthand for the whole era, at least in the English speaking world.
Sources:
www.amazon.co.uk/British-Wars...
www.amazon.co.uk/British-Wars...
www.amazon.co.uk/British-Wars...
www.amazon.co.uk/Ship-Line-De...
Naval History books, use code 'DRACH' for 25% off - www.usni.org/press/books?f%5B...
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'Legionnaire' by Scott Buckley - released under CC-BY 4.0. www.scottbuckley.com.au
Pinned post for Q&A :)
Which group of “ships built at the worst possible time” proved to be the most useful, or at least the least wasteful and pointless: the various wooden ships-of-the-line commissioned during the rise of steampower and ironclads, the predreadnoughts that were built during or after the first generation of dreadnoughts, or the 29 battleships to enter service during/after the dawn of the carrier era?
Will you be doing any more age of sail content? I love it I have actually been waiting for a video on this topic for a very long time
Was there a design for a unified battery warship? In other words a ship carrying all of one certain pound of gun shot? And if not why?
In 1937, a volcanic eruption effectively destroyed Rabaul. The Australian government had plans to rebuild it but never got around to it before Japans invasion.
Looking at Rabaul now, 19 years after the last eruption, it isn't exactly impressive. A couple of small piers, a dozen blocks of buildings, and a population of under 4000.
What was it about Rabaul in 1942, only 5 years after it's destruction, that made the Japanese decide to make it as important to their war as it eventually became?
did the British ever consider handing off any of their obsolete/obsolecent vessels to the navies of their colonies (ie pre-dreadnoughts or aging 4th and 3rd rates to colonies like Canada and Australia) as a way to both strengthen their regional holds and still get ussage out of hulls no longer needed for frontline service but who still had some usefulness should the war breakout? and if they had chosen this policy (and the Washington Naval treaty not happened) could you see them offloading earlier dreadnoughts like the Iron Dukes or even the R-class on to the colonial navies?
"Ships sail on water, mylord."
Unless one is cheating in Age of Empires.. in which case the Flying Dutchmen sail across the land too.
@@prussianhillHOYOHOYO
@@prussianhill Wow that triggered a tidal wave of memories! 😂 Endless retyping of 'pepperoni pizza' and so on... 😂😂
@@CruiseyCtrl c , Ctrl v my friend
A man of culture, I see
"Ship designations could be incredibly confusing"
*looks at modern navies* Ah, nothing changed then
Thats a frigate?
No its a cruiser
That's a destroyer?
No, its minesweeper
Is this a frigate?
No its a littorial combat ship
Is that an aircraft carrier?
No, its a cruiser
Boat with guns.
*Looks at Germany's 10,000 ton "Frigate"*
Ya there's a lot of confusion out there unfortunately.
Modern is pretty straight forward and very structured according priority characteristics. The first being displacement.
From what I’ve been observing as a Navy vet that creates a lot of confusion are political antonyms that are civilian and military politicians changing terminology in order secure authorization for new projects.
The other political antonyms are to keep the peace regionally for self defense forces in order to not upset regional nations who might take offense to certain ship types being deployed by certain nations due to treaties or constitutions.
Another point of confusion is when displacement standards are increased and you have two era of ship type standards being simultaneously utilized by various nations.
Some examples are:
KMS Pocket battleships (raider cruisers/armored cruisers). This was a political antonym in that adding the word battleship grabbed everyone's attention and convinced the right people that "we must kill that, NOW." If politicians had tried to convince everyone that we must kill these armored ships of a cruiser displacement, people may have just reacted with "They're cruisers, everyone has cruisers."
Cold War through deck cruisers (escort carriers).
JMSDF Helicopter destroyer (escort carrier).
Zumwalt “destroyers” which are by displacement standards cruisers.
Another point of confusion is when documentaries or history docs do not understand the difference between craft and ship. Which is based on displacement. Ships are 500+ tons and craft being anything up to but not including 500 tons.
Displacement ranges are divided into:
Craft 1-499 tons
Ship 500+ tons
Escort 500-7000tons
Cruiser 8000-19,000tons
Capital 20,000-64000tons
Super Capital around 65,000+ (unofficially estimated)
Cold War displacement ranges were:
Patrol, coastal, & Corvette 500-1000
Frigate 2000-4000
Destroyer 5000-7000
Cruiser 8000-19,000
Battlecruiser 20,000-35,000 (or thereabouts)
Battleship 55,000 (I mean there was only 1 class in operation).
Something else that helps is to separate surface action guided missile warships from carriers, subs, amphibious assault, coast guard, and combat logistics auxiliaries since they have their own separate displacement range standards.
Hope this helps. If you have any questions feel free to ask and I’ll try to help out.
You are correct in the confusion. The civilian world has a lot of voices adding to the truth by common knowledge challenge in military and historical matters.
Entertainment, news, books, history, panel discussions, and even the military not adhering to known and well established structures and standards that every sailor is required to study and know have contributed to confounding a very simple structured system.
Cough. Coast guard cutters. Cough
As a teenager in the sixties I read C.S. Forester’s Hornblower and other historical novels which featured all of those vessels. They are still relevant and enjoyable today. 👍🏻
Good writing never goes out of style
Definitely read Dewey Lambdin's Alan Lewrie Series!
@@jamesvandemark2086Absolutely agree!
Anyone who has not yet read Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin books has a huge amount of pleasure awaiting them
I remember HMS Indefatigable getting harassed by 3 French corvettes in the tv show and was wondering why Captain Pellew was freaking out over it.
An interesting side story. In the 1790s, in order to get more hulls in service, the RN bought about a dozen East India merchantman on the stocks and modified them into two deckers. The East Indiamen were usually built with an armed quarterdeck and a gun deck. In the more insecure times, the gun deck could be armed instead of used for cargo or passenger cabins. This meant that they could be converted by putting gun ports into their main deck in place of cargo. But even though the decks were reinforced, these ships suffered from hogging and sagging decks. This was countered by putting carronades on the original gun deck. One of these ships was armed with all carronades and the story is that coming into action with a French frigate and firing a broadside from the gun deck only, the French captain surrendered after seeing the size of the shot coming from the gun deck and didn't wait to see what would come from the main deck. What made these ships further interesting was their size. They ranged from the size of the standard RN 64-gun ship of the line to being fully equal in size to the largest French frigates and the American "big three" 44s. Armed as 64s and 56s, they would have made a formidable opponent to these frigates, but as East Indiamen, their fuller lines as merchant ships reduced their speed such that they would have found it hard to bring these frigates to battle. As it was, because of their merchant build and the quality of wood used to finish them to meet the emergency of the RN having to fight the French, Spanish and Dutch navies at the same time. Still, they formed a significant part of Duncan's fleet at Camperdown.
So could these be called frigates, or only cruisers, or just by rate?
I think you're talking about the HMS Glatton (1795 version)
Probably my favourite ship from that time. During a skirmish against eight French ships, she single-handedly captured drove off or sunk the ships with a loss of two crew.
Her armament at the time consisted of 28 x 32 pounder and 28 x 64 pounder carronades for a broadside heavier than HMS Victory.
Best opening theme as yet.
Very enjoyable video but it was also so confusing I don't think I could ever remember all of the terminology for all the ships even if I tried😅😅. That's why I'm glad we have such a professional that does this channel😊
I rewatch the cannon video often for the same reason.
It would be nice. If someone write it on a Pdf or if their is a good book.
If it's on water, it's a ship. If it's between surface and bottom, it's a sinking ship..or a submarine. If it's on the bottom, it's a sunken ship or sunken submarine. There, made it easier :)
@@thecursed01 so which is the Moskva?
yeah, my head hurt by 9 min in.
A masterful summary indeed! This is almost a RUclips version of reading the first Aubrey/Maturin novel, which gently draws you in to the arcana of living and working in the great age of sail - and I can't be more complimentary than that.
"It's not a schooner, it's a sail boat!"
Lol. Sorry, couldn't resist 😂
“YOU KNOW WHAT?! THERE IS NO EASTER BUNNY! OVER THERE THAT’S JUST A GUY IN A SUIT!”
Everything I know about sloops, barques, and frigates, I learned playing Sid Meier's Pirates. Supplemented somewhat by Drachinifel...
Literally same. Tho I usually used the war canoe or the starter ship the whole game lol
To add; the easiest way to distinguish a carrack from a galleon, is by the bow: a carrack has the forecastle extending beyond the bow, a galleon does not. Instead, a galleon has a separate platform sticking out. (Which is also called a galleon, confusingly enough)
Note that ships with oars could move against the wind, were extremely manoeuvrable and capable of turning on the spot (where turning a sailing ship was a much more difficult and ponderous operation, with a turning circle in the hundreds of metres) and could even outspeed sailing ships in a sprint (when naval wisdom held that larger ships capable of spreading more sail were faster than smaller ones).
Sailing ships did not necessarily have large turning circles. The more agile ships could turn upwind and tack within their own length.
At 32.52 you show a picture of HMS Pickle. This was the vessel that brought the news of Nelson's death at Trafalgar back to England, because she was fast. Incidentally, she was purchased into service in 1801 from private, previously known as Sting. wrecked in 1808. You may also find the books of Richard Woodman enjoyable. The principal character, Nathaniel Drinkwater, commanded a bonb vessel at Nelson's battle of Copenhagen. They are very well written and based on fact, rather like Sharpe and Flashman!
But HMS Pickle was not in fact, the ship that pickled Admiral Nelson in a barrel, right?
@@Edax_Royeaux Quite right, she wasn't. His body was placed in a barrel of brandy, and stayed on Victory until she arrived at Spithead 5 weeks later, after which Nelson was taken to London for burial.
Probably worth adding the 3rd rate was the main workhorse ship undertaking many scouting and combat patrol missions detached from the fleet while the 1st and 2nd rates tended to either be mothballed between conflicts or stick together in the battle fleet either offensively or defensively deployed against the main enemy fleet concentration.
I KNOW I’m one off who’s asked you this question over the years, Drach. Thanks so much for answering it!!! Now I’ll have to watch it 3-4 times to get it straight.
Was pondering the origin of "frigate" recently. Quite a convenient video for such questions, and far more as usual!
"aaaaahhh, friggit!"
Friggin in the riggin !
See Wikipedia for a detailed explanation: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frigate
That and Why Frigates and Destroyers are so often compared.
@@halkyuusen8626The modern frigate has nothing to do with the 18th Century frigate. Toward the end of WWII a name was needed for an ASW ship without the gun armament to do the job of a destroyer but built to military specs (unlike corvettes). As they were used as an ASW screen for heavy units and/or to lead convoy escorts and those roles were traditional frigate roles the name was revised.
Very useful video, Drach. The visuals were very helpful in displaying the changes to the various rates in terms of size, crew, and standard armaments (hoping that spreadsheet will be available for download…). The increases in broadside weight were impressive, especially for the “smaller” rated ships, which helped those ships punch above their weight when necessary.
"This is my pinnace. It is long, hard and full of english seamen" - Francis Drake, probably.
Is that the sir Francis Drake who circumcised the globe with a hundred foot clipper?
The new opening themes are goddamn epic
The amount of research you had to do is impressive. Thank you.
I'm currently reading 'Post Captain' from Patrick O' Brian, so this video is very informative :)
I'm currently reading Master and Commander and also found it super helpful... I knew nothing about ships or the age of sail when starting the book so there's been a steep learning curve haha. I hope you're enjoying the series!
that was good. But you do a follow up about the ship's boats? Such as gigs, cutters and launches. That would be very much appreiciated thanks.
Those Dutch warships look lovely
I love your age of sail videos Drach, keep em' coming!
Very timely for me. I'm currently re-reading the Hornblower series and I'm on Ship of the Line.
Adm Leighton was a dink
I just finished the series for at least the 2nd time. Couldn't put them down. The end was kind of a relief knowing "that's it".
I think this might be my favorite intro music yet! I think it fits the rythm of the video intro very well!
An elaborate and fascinating answer to a question I never thought to ask😵💫
Of course this was hugely useful! Only shortcoming of this vid? It's too short: i could listen to you for HOURS! Thank you Drach, another sterling piece of work! 👍👍👍
Very nice. A most useful glossary of ship types and mission specific classification. Thanks for posting.
Always love a rum ration on the Age of Sail!
Just by my gaming history, I have become acquainted with a few naval terms and very broad ship classifications.
It started with 'Sid Meier's Pirates! (1987)' which I played on my Commodore 64.
Galleons were useless but were great captures for the prize money and valuable cargo they carried.
Fast Galleons, merchants, were soso (for a pirate) because like all square rigged vessels, they could not sail into the wind.
Frigates were fine although still can't sail into the wind.
For the realistic pirate, the best ships were barque, sloop and sometimes one or more pinnaces.
In the game, the sloop was superior because it could sail over shoals while a barque couldn't and a pinnace was much too small (not enough men, not enough rations for longer cruises, can't store any valuable cargo.
Later I started playing Empire Total War. Unfortunately, while the land battles are quite entertaining, naval battles are rigged!
On Hard Level, you could never win in a one vs. one ship battle of same class.
With two similar ships vs the AI-controlled single enemy ship, you had a 50-50 chance.
But to make sure, you needed three ships. Two to bring down its rigging with a third in reserve in case the enemy managed to suddenly sink your ship. This happened to the human player quite frequently, almost never to the AI player.
Why not play the game on Moderate Level then? That was too easy while Hard was just too hard where naval battles were concerned.
The AI would often manage to sink one of my ships (it would start leaking and you knew it would go down eventually) while even 5th rate frigates in AI hands seemed indestructible. I even tried commanding a 2nd Rate ship once against two or three puny enemy 5th rates.
While my ship wasn't heavily damaged, of course my crew's moral ran so low that they started panicking, in which case your ship was doomed if boarded by the enemy.
For Empire Total War I had no specific type of ship that was my favourite. Just give me a ship that won't sink or suddenly explode and a crew that won't start panicking after a few broadsides. The only certain way to win in naval battles was to bring down the enemy ships' rigging so they couldn't maneuver anymore. And for that you needed to attack 2 vs 1.
What also sucked was that you couldn't remain upwind and bombard the enemy while they couldn't get to you because most warships can't sail directly into the wind. However, while they tried (using oars I guess?), they had their sails down so I couldn't damage their sails and when trying to defeat the AI by simply firing broadsides into his hull, the AI would always win at Hard level.
The old 'Pirates!' on the Commodore 64 was much more fun. If you had a much more maneuverable ship than the enemy (barque or sloop vs. merchant or bigger), you could literally massacre his entire crew by just keep firing at it untill it blew up or the crew surrendered. You wouldn't do this of course, just bring down the enemy crew numbers till the odds were acceptable for boarding and close quarters fighting.
Sid Meier's Pirates was AWESOME! 👍💪
Cossacks European Wars you could set the geography to islands and have naval engagements. The Turkish Xebec out-of-the-box was the best but if you upgraded the tech on the European ships they would blow everything away. The Turkish packet/scout was a fast one-off design, practically a must have for early warning. I only ever beat that game in island campaign mode. It gave you time to upgrade your tech (room to breathe). Otherwise I haven't run it in years. Not compatible with modern operating systems and no new versions available. AFAIK
Like this opening theme!
Deploy the fleet!
Every age of sail video is great. Most interesting era!
Finally someone makes it all clear. And I can see why I have never been able to get this straight. In a relatively few short minutes you have saved me much frustration and wasted time as I used to look at pictures of rigging and declare the type. I do not get it and will not get it, but I really like your channel. It is, for me, the last word on all things nautical!!
Awesome illustrations! Thanks 😊
Thank you for putting these numbers on screen. Much easier to follow that way.
I think this history is interesting from the standpoint that standardization of ships is not a set in stone for all of time kind of thing. It's a constantly moving target. And I feel like this can make ship type identification difficult. You'd like to think a 2nd rate is a 2nd rate is a 2nd rate, but each new establishment increased the size and armament of all of the ratings. So a 2nd rate under a previous establishment was smaller and more lightly armed than a 2nd rate of the newer establishment.
I also feel like we see this today, but not as neatly divided into "establishments". I mean, we have the generation of destroyers that include the US Arleigh-Burke class and their contemporaries in other navies being a particular displacement. But now we're seeing other navies bring in a new generation of ships in which the frigates are larger than the previous generation of destroyers. Adding to that is that these days, there's a lot of politics invovled in how a ship is classified. Navies often feel like the government might be reluctant to spend money on new destroyers but can be convinced to fund said ships if they are designated as frigates, making them sound like smaller, cheaper options.
Painting used around 30:30 should be familiar to O’Brien fans, as that painting is of Cochrane in the HMS SPEEDY taking a Spanish xebec frigate which Aubrey would similarly do in the first book.
The etymology of ship type names and other maratime language is fascinating (to me, at least!). I realized a lot of connections in this vid that I hadn't been aware of before... pinnace(sp?)/pinnacle, gallon/galleot, etc, kind of like the classic example of steerboard/starboard.
A comprehensive discussion of etymological connections in the nomenclature of the age of sail would be the stuff of a dissertation or scholarly book, but a vid covering the broad strokes of ship type nomenclature, the associated conventions and the development thereof (or other naval linguistic connections/developments, etc) would be welcomed by some of the more etymologistically inclined students of naval history that follow and dig this channel. I suspect that there are more than a few other than myself...
Cheers!
(P.S: Is 'etymologistically' even a word? It seems like it at least ought to/could be... maybe 'etymologically' is better. ha!)
Very interesting and informative Drach, thank you. I'm still somewhat confused but much of the fog has been cleared.
Love your age of sail documentaries Drac! Hoping in time some more in depth on early American, British and French ships frigates sloops etc. 18th century onwards, I know you've done a few already :)
Excellent video as always I love it when you do age of sail ships and classes.
now thats a banger of an intro
You have no idea how much I've had to guess these beforehand. Waited for this video forever
The transcript makes an interesting guess at the spelling of the PLURAL of the ship type discussed from about 4 minutes in... (the plural first comes at +/- 5'11). For the singular, it proposes Hinus, but the plural has, among other things, had its first letter changed (and looks a lot more anatomical). It does add a humorous touch to an otherwise already brilliant video.
Nicely description🤩
You mean below 6th rates was a whole sloop of designations 😉
I love these age of sail videos!
Of the intro music you've been trying, I think this is my favorite. This and whatever you used on the Bismarck redesign video
This is very educating and inspiring as an amateur author. I just realized that I can use the terminology of culverins and serpentines in a science fiction context.
Thank you Drach!
Drach, the tone of your voice combined with the accent and dry subject matter make for an excellent sleep aid. Often educational, too ! If I could only get rid of these recurring dreams of barques, galleasses,, frigates and the like . . . sigh.
Dude I'm so glad you have stuff on the age of sail, I'm just getting into the age. Your WWII stuff is great btw
30:22 in addition if you are interested in pirates you'll often here them sailing in sloops however during the golden age of piracy and in general referring to a non naval vessel to this day a sloop is a single masted vessel, athough can sometimes be used as a general term and that vessel may have two masts. However if they say a Bermuda sloop for example a favourites among later golden age pirates for it's speed, that is a single masted vessel.
Running cost was a major issue, if you had a large ship you needed a lot of men to man it which needed provisioning and paying so only a couple of pirate ships were 34 or 40 gun frigates and those that were didn't tend to last long.
I like that intro Drach! It has the feel of your original but a little punchier. Lines up well with big guns!
Your new channel theme has a flavor of 13th Warrior soundtrack. I have gotten so used to your previous one. Brass lots of brass always. :-)
This is the kind of video I was looking for
Thanks!
Very Good. Thanks.
Ok those pictures look badass I really want to see the largest class of ships fully afloat on top of the water they look absolutely massive and just so iconic
Thank you for this video!
Is there any way you could do a similar video about the general nature of various sail rig plans?
I do recognize this is going to be at least as convoluted as talking about ship types, or naval gun development had been. 😅
Perfect. I will share this with fellow fans of the Sojourn
Thanks Drach.
Good job, Drach. My sympathies over your travails over intro music.
You covered a tremendous amount of ground here.
I think this might have been a two-parter, with a a whole video of ratings under frigate.
i love the new intro music. well done(who did it). big plus from a guyy thats watched your videos for roughly 3-5 years. i dont remember now
Great exposition.
THANKYOU 😁🤩 this is something I asked when I was 10 to my grandfather, cause he was in the Navy. He expected his son to provide the answers which were not forth coming, I search our bookshelf and found no answers, we always lived outside of town so I could not walk in to the library and any requests to go to the library after school were swiftly declined. Lastly this was before the internet
I would say the opening music is the best one yet.👍
Thank you for all the hard work.
This video is extrmely useful as someone with very limited age of sail knowledge, hearing you say "2nd rate" didn't mean much before heh
Love the intro tune 😊
Always interesting and informative.
i never realized there was such an extensive difference in pinas sizes. I guess the size of the pinas is dictated by the motion of the ocean.
True ! Also, it's not about size - it's how you use it.
If you like pinas coladas - it's none of .my business.
Different amount of seamen depending on the pinas
I like this intro music. Still miss the old one but this is pretty decent!
Like the intro music
And also the content!!
In the most substantive comment ever ... I miss the old intro song!
Awesome as always Drach!
Fascinating. I stopped taking notes after 2 minutes as I could not keep up. First rate = good, got it. As a teenager, I remember a VIP tour of HMS Victory in the 1970's; my father was an attache to London. That day is well entrenched in my memory.
Well, technically "First rate" just means "big". They were not necessary the "best" vessels, because they were expensive, often slow sailers, and sometimes even dangerously unstable (see Santisima Trinidad, the biggest warship of the Napoleonic wars).
Funnily enough i was looking through these terms for my own project. glad to see you discovered Scott Buckleys "Legionnare"
Before steamboats had been introduced, Austrian Danube Flottilla had in 19th century: a) Boats with one 4pound cannon.b) Boats with four 4pounder cannons. c) Large Boats with one 10pound Cannon and a 12pound howizer.
Nice choice of intro music!
That was great!
I like this intro music Drach :)
Ooooh.....I do like this intro music the best out of the new ones so far.
Thank you
I dig it. Drach knows I love rum.
Very nice summary.
I hate to be "that guy," but (ofc) here goes: the 99 lb increase from 309 lb (at 26:00) is closer to 32% than 25%. One of my favourite % quirks/tripping points.
I need a couple of asprin after that bewildering array of ships and guns. But very well put together video.
Very interesting to learn how the nomenclature evolved so rapidly and somewhat haphazardly.,
That intro music is 🔥
I will need to watch this again, it's an excellent video!
I'm enamored with the idea of stowing kit-build frigates like you're an age of sail torpedo boat tender. Practicality be damned!
I’ve been waiting for a video like this to be uploaded somewhere thank you
We Dutch never cared about it, we just looked what made the most money. If it made money enough and needed to defend itself we just put guns on it. Also we looked what we needed, like with the Raid on the Medway, we needed some fire ships, well, let’s see, a that one, those two and that one are ok, let’s use those.
Second, very important, shallow waters, our ships needed to be useful in shallow waters, again with as much as useful cargo storage as possible. Which came also back in the build of our warships.
If you look at all the ships designed, even today, they are most a bit in a class of their own, our cruisers weren’t really cruisers, like our frigates. Also our subs differs from the standards, but that’s another story.
What perfect timing this video has! I'm currently working on a golden age of piracy inspired ttrpg campaign and all the different ship classifications are driving me absolutely insane xD
Man, have you ever done a piece like this on Medieval ships? I'd love to watch that. I am interested in their speeds, cargo capacity, armaments and comparisons with ancient ships (biremes, triremes, quadremes, etc.).
Drach is dropping some knowledge beats....
Right at 7:55, I promptly started making noises like Lou Costello discussing baseball...
Your videos that explain general interest overview idk how to describe it but they are great; Examples would be the naval gun videos or engines or boilers. I couldn't give a shit about ships but I have watched these several times each
I LIKE this intro music.
I like this entry music