Age-Of-Sail Naval Question

[Sea Skimmer]

How about pitting an American "super frigate" (i.e. USS Constitution) against a ship-of-the-line? I know they were designed to avoid the battleships rather than fight them, but would they have good chances if they got cornered?

No they would die, while large they are still heavily outclassed in every single way by a 64 on up. They might do okay against a fifth or forth rate but such ships were long obsolete as ships of the line by the time the large US frigates hit the water. The American solution to enemy ships of the line was to build ships of the line. Sadly, the original 1800 plan for a squadron of 74s was canceled after large scale work had been done on the frames, and the only ship of the line completed in the war of 1812 was given to France as a gift after a French ship of the line blew up in Boston harbor. The super ship of the line USS Pennsylvania would have most likely been the most powerful ship in the world (not certain but she is damn close if not) but was effectively a postwar project. The US also designed and I think finished two or three 84 gun ships which would have carried closer to 100 guns. Many US ships had more gun ports then they were intended guns, super frigates included and when commanders filled them all up with guns it left them very overloaded. It also means its hard to tell how they would have really been armed at any given time since the details were up to the captain and what are at hand when outfitting.

[Eternal_Freedom]

The French and Spanish fleets also spent most of the Revolutionary Wars blockaded in harbour, which greatly restricts your ability to train in maneuvreing the ships and using the guns.

As for that "unwritten rule," I went back and checked my books, it turns out I'd read it in a historical ficiton piece set aboard a frigate, so mea culpa on that front.

[Zinegata]

French performance in earlier wars was not so bad.

Indeed. I believe there was a point when the French were actually ahead of the Brits. Even the '74 was originally a French design.

Interestingly, Arthur Heerman claims in To Rule the Waves that the French Navy lacked staying power; because in spite of its excellent officers (pre-Revolution) it was always short on seasoned sailors. Apparently, the army ate up the bulk of the money for recruitment, and they simply didn't have a pool of sailors as big as the Brits ever had.

[Sea Skimmer]

That's likely true. Even when France had a large overseas Empire she just didn't have the same reasons as the British to maintain even part of her main battle fleet on active duty in peacetime and that had to have hurt retention of seasoned sailors. France also heavily encouraged privateers, with considerable success if ultimate failure, which ate up a lot of manpower. In the later stages of the Napoleonic Wars the impression I get is that France was not even trying to man her fleet, rather the plan was to just build up a force so massive that it couldn’t loose even if the British fleet was still larger in total. Plan was 150+ liners (you can call ships of the line this correctly, save words!) by I think 1817. This would be equal to about 75% of total British strength in that class.

The RN for its part though was chronically undermanned especially towards the later phases of the Napoleonic wars when they had IIRC around 475 liners and frigates in service and about a thousand warships in total. This upper limit on manning was part of Napoleons plan. IIRC the under manning was to the tune of 10-15% across the entire fleet, but in actual effects it meant some ships on foreign stations were at 50% complement.

[Eternal_Freedom]

From The Trafalgar Companion, there is the assertion that in general the French and the Spanish had the best built ships, but the British had superior crews, which proved decisive. When it came to constructing ships, the British would place great emphasis on copying French designs.

Indeed, several of the "British" best ships were captured from the - HMs Tonnant was, for instance described as "the finest two-decker we ever had."

[Zinegata]

Actually, the habit of using captured enemy ship was such that the Royal Navy's second-to-the-last wooden ship (HMS Implacable) was formerly a French '74. (Duguay-Trouin).

Sadly, she was scuttled in 1949 because neither the French nor British could find money to keep her around as a museum ship.

[LaCroix]

"unwritten rule"

Most interestingly, you do find a vast 'preference' for battles amongst foes of equal strength if you look through the available data. If you look closer, this is because there was one very consistent rule in Age of Sail naval battle - barring other factors, the one with more guns (and heavier guns -> broadside weight) wins.

Basically, the battle started only if both captains were convinced that they were more or less equal. Whenever the man in the nest spotted the first sign of mast tops, the guessing game started. Was it smaller and/or slower, and thus prey, or was it stronger - then they tried use their own speed and manoeuvrability to escape. Which side was it on? Was it flying false colours?

The fact that a bigger ship was spotted earlier meant that most small vessels already were on an escape course by the time they were spotted by the bigger, and most of the time, the captain of a liner wouldn't change course to follow a frigate that was at the horizon, only marginally slower and would take days to catch (which could mean that you ran into an enemy fleet). So it wasn't exactly chivalry, only lack of opportunity. If they could get a small vessel, it was lost, no mercy.

Also, in such cases, the flag was often struck before it came to battle. There was no particular shame in surrendering to a liner that approached you with determination to attack if you couldn't get away. In fact, resisting was seen as a heroic (and merely useless symbolic) gesture. After all, the captured vessel could be negotiated to be returned after hostilities ceased, which was cheaper than building a new one - we are civilized, right? Also, the officers (and sailors, but only as secondary concern) were valuable assets that could be re-used, as well.

[Thanas]

The point about the lack of sailors can be made about both the French and Spanish Navy. Both their ships were very well built, with the Spanish outlasting the British ships by ten years on average. However, especially before Trafalgar, the lack of trained sailors doomed both navies. I myself read letters from one Spanish captain telling him that he does not have enough stores and man and cannot even maintain the kitchen fires.

The super ship of the line USS Pennsylvania would have most likely been the most powerful ship in the world (not certain but she is damn close if not) but was effectively a postwar project.

By the time she was launched in 1837 she was pretty much equal to the first rates the British and French were building at the time. She also was not a very successful design and a poor sailor. But yeah, definitely a very powerful warship based on weight of broadside alone. (I had a comparison graph comparing her to the contemporary Russian, British and French ships but I cannot remember the site it was at).

[Sea Skimmer]

The point about the lack of sailors can be made about both the French and Spanish Navy. Both their ships were very well built, with the Spanish outlasting the British ships by ten years on average. However, especially before Trafalgar, the lack of trained sailors doomed both navies. I myself read letters from one Spanish captain telling him that he does not have enough stores and man and cannot even maintain the kitchen fires.

I don't know about Spanish ships, but I've read that most claims of superior French ships were largely fabrications by RN captains seeking greater prize money and that the actual quality of the wood and construction methods steadily declined. The drier climate of Spain I'd note, would also generally favor ships lasting longer out of hand; and you can have huge differences in the survival time of both wooden and metal ships by mooring in freshwater. So lifespan vs quality can be a tricky thing. The actual budget for maintaining them also comes into play and if anyone is on board to keep the decks scrubbed.

By the time she was launched in 1837 she was pretty much equal to the first rates the British and French were building at the time. She also was not a very successful design and a poor sailor. But yeah, definitely a very powerful warship based on weight of broadside alone. (I had a comparison graph comparing her to the contemporary Russian, British and French ships but I cannot remember the site it was at).

Yes well, she took a very long time to build, but when the project was launched things were different, I was being unclear but I meant when designed and the first wood cut around 1816. I have a book with her detailed lines, and the thing is basically a seagoing blockhouse, no way could it have ever sailed well and everyone knew it, but that was the point. She was designed and built only for the mission of breaking blockades so that smaller ships could get out to sea, this issue had basically crippled the US navy in the later stages of the war of 1812. The US had spread the ship orders all over the place and it was just impossible to concentrate them against a blockade maintained mainly by a few frigates or 64 or 74 gun ships off each harbor. It would have been quite difficult for the British to maintain a blockade against ships of this size if they were involved in a war with any European power, given that three deckers were not that numerous in the first place. Earlier US planning, which was awful to the extent it even existed anyway, totally discounted the idea of facing the British on the high seas. The actual ocean mission was to be conducted by two squadrons of three 74s and several new super frigates each, few of which were ever completed. The blockade breaker was slowly built because the Navy could keep reminding people of how bad the blockade was. Its a pity she was burned in 1861; her massive volume of fire would have been very useful against Confederate coastal fortifications when towed into action.

What's really fun is.. while few detailed plans seem to have survived the US actually laid down two 130 gun ships on lake Ontario late in the war, and the British quickly replied with similar construction. The war ended before any of them were finished, but the USN roofed over the hulls to preserve them on the slipway... and kept them on the navy list until 1882! They'd likely rotted by then, but this is when all maintenance on wooden hulled vessels in the US navy was terminated to make way for the steel navy.

[Thanas]

I don't know about Spanish ships, but I've read that most claims of superior French ships were largely fabrications by RN captains seeking greater prize money and that the actual quality of the wood and construction methods steadily declined.

Are you talking about that non-sourced article on the naval tech discussion board? I think that article is right when it comes to some wartime construction but the problem is that it does not show a list of prizes taken instead focusing on one or two prominent examples.

The quality seems to have varied wildly though, that seems to be true. We got ships of the same class only serving 8 years and others serving over 70.

The drier climate of Spain I'd note, would also generally favor ships lasting longer out of hand; and you can have huge differences in the survival time of both wooden and metal ships by mooring in freshwater. So lifespan vs quality can be a tricky thing. The actual budget for maintaining them also comes into play and if anyone is on board to keep the decks scrubbed.

The Spanish were also able to use a lot of tropical hardwood for their ships, which made them allegedly tougher than others. But still, I'd say a ten year longer lifespan when the navies had largely comparable assignments is pretty good.

Yes well, she took a very long time to build, but when the project was launched things were different, I was being unclear but I meant when designed and the first wood cut around 1816. I have a book with her detailed lines, and the thing is basically a seagoing blockhouse, no way could it have ever sailed well and everyone knew it, but that was the point. She was designed and built only for the mission of breaking blockades so that smaller ships could get out to sea, this issue had basically crippled the US navy in the later stages of the war of 1812. The US had spread the ship orders all over the place and it was just impossible to concentrate them against a blockade maintained mainly by a few frigates or 64 or 74 gun ships off each harbor. It would have been quite difficult for the British to maintain a blockade against ships of this size if they were involved in a war with any European power, given that three deckers were not that numerous in the first place.

I do not know about that. From 1790-1815 the British alone built the following three deckers:

120-130 4
110-118 4
100-108 7
90-98: 11

That gives us a total of 26 three deckers. If we add prizes to that that were taken into British service, we can add another 2 112 gunners, including the "finest ship of the line in the world" (Nelson), the San Josef. (Britain also built 3 80-88 two-deckers and 117 3rd rates until 1815). I really think that leaves the Royal Navy with enough three deckers to contain the Pennsylvania.

The situation gets even worse when it comes to the years post 1816, considering the British built a total of 17 further three deckers, including 8 carrying 120+ guns. I am not so sure how I feel engaging a Caledonia class ship of the Line in the Pennsylvania considering the disparity in crew training and of course the broadened version of the caledonia class matches up very well with the Pennsylvania considering they carry only 4 32pdrs less and were completed well before the Pennsylvania. So I really do not know if I would have given good odds to the Pennsylvania. Now, a European war would draw them off but it is not as if the British could not simply have blockaded the port where the Pennsylvania was in.

What's really fun is.. while few detailed plans seem to have survived the US actually laid down two 130 gun ships on lake Ontario late in the war, and the British quickly replied with similar construction. The war ended before any of them were finished, but the USN roofed over the hulls to preserve them on the slipway... and kept them on the navy list until 1882! They'd likely rotted by then, but this is when all maintenance on wooden hulled vessels in the US navy was terminated to make way for the steel navy.

Was that in response to HMS St Lawrence?

[The Duchess of Zeon]

They were actually 88's (the Lake Ontario ships), I'm afraid to say, but they were really built and then framed over on the slipways.

Anyway, the US could have built up a sizeable fleet with the following build orders:

Continental Navy, Revolutionary War:

USS America, commissioned for one day, transferred to France.

3 ships of similar design to America laid down during the revolutionary war. Two had construction suspended and were never finished (in Boston and up along the Hudson toward Albany), the third was being built in Philadelphia and was burned when the British took the city in 1778 IIRC.

Then there was the 1800 build programme, authorized by the Statute of February 25 1799, for the construction of six ships of the line and six sloops. The sloops were completed, none of the ships of the line were.

This was followed by the statute of January 2nd 1813, during the War of 1812, which provided for the construction of four ships of the line. Three were built, and the fourth was delayed and re-ordered in 1816 as she was to have been built in the Washington Navy Yard.

The act of 3 March 1813 then authorized the New Orleans and the Chippewa for Lake Ontario, completed hulls, never launched, remained in ordinary on the navy rolls until 1882 as Skimmer mentioned.

Then the Act of April 29 1816 provided for post-war construction of nine ships of the line, including Pennsylvania and the re-authorized Columbus of the 1813 order.

America herself was built of green timber and wouldn't have lasted, but at least hypothetically if construction had followed through, the US could have had 8 ships of the line in commission at the start of the War of 1812, which would have forced the British to use a much larger blockading force. And, ignoring the prospect of likely a-historical losses, a theoretical force of 20 liners could have been built up by the early 1820s, though more likely 18 since the two surviving Revolutionary War ships would be highly obsolescent, I only include them because the US Navy had a documented habit in those days of getting money for "refits" which involved moving the nameplate and bell onto a new ship.

[Thanas]

I do not think 20 liners are enough for the british to seriously start worrying.

[Sea Skimmer]

Are you talking about that non-sourced article on the naval tech discussion board? I think that article is right when it comes to some wartime construction but the problem is that it does not show a list of prizes taken instead focusing on one or two prominent examples.

Umm no? Naval tech discussion board, do you mean the navweapons forums or somewhere else?

The quality seems to have varied wildly though, that seems to be true. We got ships of the same class only serving 8 years and others serving over 70.

Yeah class is not that awesome as a guide with sailing ships unless the design just is obviously flawed. All it means is the builder worked from a similar set of drawings which are in many cases not so highly detailed, and with everyone done by hand and often completely supervised only by a chief constructor on the scene they'll never be the same.

I do not know about that. From 1790-1815 the British alone built the following three deckers:

120-130 4
110-118 4
100-108 7
90-98: 11

That gives us a total of 26 three deckers. If we add prizes to that that were taken into British service, we can add another 2 112 gunners, including the "finest ship of the line in the world" (Nelson), the San Josef. (Britain also built 3 80-88 two-deckers and 117 3rd rates until 1815).

Compared to ~200 other liners in service that isn't very many in my book. Most of those are required to guard against France and Spain. Plus its not one ship, one blockade station which is why the RN needed so damn many ships in the first place.

I really think that leaves the Royal Navy with enough three deckers to contain the Pennsylvania.

The plan would only work if the RN was already fighting someone else, which was reasonable enough as an assumption given that the US was only likely to be drawn into another war by the same reasons that caused the War of 1812, British interference with United States trade and merchant sailors. As it was in the War of 1812 it took quite a while for the British to gather enough ships to make the blockade effective in the first place with no heavy US resistance, indeed even the direct fortifications of most US ports were lacking. The British simply did not have the ships in that war to have confronted an actual US fleet until the very end, and it’s not for nothing that the US gave up the war shortly after Napoleon fell.

The situation gets even worse when it comes to the years post 1816, considering the British built a total of 17 further three deckers, including 8 carrying 120+ guns. I am not so sure how I feel engaging a Caledonia class ship of the Line in the Pennsylvania considering the disparity in crew training and of course the broadened version of the caledonia class matches up very well with the Pennsylvania considering they carry only 4 32pdrs less and were completed well before the Pennsylvania. So I really do not know if I would have given good odds to the Pennsylvania. Now, a European war would draw them off but it is not as if the British could not simply have blockaded the port where the Pennsylvania was in.

Blocking Pennsylvania plus six 74s and whatever gets built during an additional war would require an entire British fleet based out of Halifax. Such a fleet doesn’t exist with European war, and that was the plan. Of course the US isn’t going to beat the British alone that far back, nobody was thinking in those terms. Basically after the war of 1812 the US could reasonably afford the lavish third system casemated fortifications, or a fleet of liners, with a moderate frigate/sloop navy attached to either plan. The decision was made to go for fortification in view of British raiding, with Pennsylvania funded only very slowly, thus work on frames could begin by 1816 but they didn’t even lay the keel until 1822 and finish until 1837, while in the end fortification work was slowed way down by the end of the 1820s as well (they make Pennsylvania’s completion look fast). It just didn’t seem like a pressing issue when it became apparent that Europe wasn’t going to plunge back into another war quickly and since the British had come to at least remotely expect America. Given how willing the British were to negotiate most American points of contention even in 1812, it’s likely that had the US completed its 1800 program liners, serious work was done on the frames already but they’d largely decayed by 1812, then it might just never have let the war happen.

Was that in response to HMS St Lawrence?

Yeah I kind of confused myself, because the British laid down two more liners later after the American program came, but had St. Lawarence first. She started early 1814 along with two large frigates, Prince Regent with 58 guns and Prince Charlotte with 42 guns which were also completed. The Americans approved two 130 guns ships in reply to word of St Lawrence’s construction, New Orleans and Chippewa, plus frigate Plattsburg of 58 guns. As soon as these ships launched it was intended to lay down 1-2 more frigates. None of the American ships got off the stocks, nor did the later pair of British liners. Those were HMS Wolfe and Canada, plus another 54 gun frigate named Psyche which was completed using frames built in Britain. Some of the earlier smaller British ships also used frames imported from England; interesting example of prefabrication.

[Thanas]

Are you talking about that non-sourced article on the naval tech discussion board? I think that article is right when it comes to some wartime construction but the problem is that it does not show a list of prizes taken instead focusing on one or two prominent examples.

Umm no? Naval tech discussion board, do you mean the navweapons forums or somewhere else?

Yeah, we are talking about that same article. Which I don't really think to be that good - for one, it does not even list prizes and pretty much meanders between the baden analysis and this topic. I think before one makes such general comments it is necessary to actually list the prizes, the condition they were in when captured and the maintenance required.

Yeah class is not that awesome as a guide with sailing ships unless the design just is obviously flawed. All it means is the builder worked from a similar set of drawings which are in many cases not so highly detailed, and with everyone done by hand and often completely supervised only by a chief constructor on the scene they'll never be the same.

I would agree except for objects like the Royal Arsenals where things were very tightly concentrated.

Compared to ~200 other liners in service that isn't very many in my book. Most of those are required to guard against France and Spain. Plus its not one ship, one blockade station which is why the RN needed so damn many ships in the first place.

Of course that is not very many because there were never that many first rates in existence in the first (heh) place. Still, they might very well be able to spare 6 because Spain was a non-factor after the Napoleonic wars and France had too few first rates anyway, and mostly of designs that were over 50 years old in the 1830s.

The plan would only work if the RN was already fighting someone else, which was reasonable enough as an assumption given that the US was only likely to be drawn into another war by the same reasons that caused the War of 1812, British interference with United States trade and merchant sailors. As it was in the War of 1812 it took quite a while for the British to gather enough ships to make the blockade effective in the first place with no heavy US resistance, indeed even the direct fortifications of most US ports were lacking. The British simply did not have the ships in that war to have confronted an actual US fleet until the very end, and it’s not for nothing that the US gave up the war shortly after Napoleon fell.

Sure, but you really can't compare the capacity of France to wage war in the 1820s and 30s with the capacity to do so in the 1800s. What I am getting at is that the plan was pretty much doomed the second Spain got out of the big picture as a great power and the French Navy in the 1820s and even early 1830s was not one worth much in comparison to the british. After 1815 they only completed the following 1st rates:

Souverain (1819)
Friedland (started 1812, launched 1840)
Ville de Paris (started 1814, launched 1850)
Louis XIV (started 1811, launched 1854)

all these being variants of the Ocean class ship, a design more than 70 years old at the time of the launch of the latest, and of course there is the largest sailing warship ever built, the Valmy. The Navy of Frane was not that much of a threat to Britain's dominance that they could not dispatch 30 or so ships to contain the US fleet.

[Crazedwraith]

Wow. I don't check History often enough. Thanks for the replies everyone.

The discussions about Frigates vs Ships of the line made me wonder about the final battle Hornblower has in "A Ship Of The Line" wherein he engages four french ships with his 74 gun ship Sutherland. He successfully cripples all four ships but at the cost of the Sutherland being blasted to a hulk and him having to strike his colours.

There's another really dumb question I have. Across the series a Cutter seems to be a large ship's boat in some stories but in the Commodore it refers to a small independent named vessel the Clam. Are they the same thing? Or does the name apply to more than one type of vessel?

[Frank Hipper]

There's another really dumb question I have. Across the series a Cutter seems to be a large ship's boat in some stories but in the Commodore it refers to a small independent named vessel the Clam. Are they the same thing? Or does the name apply to more than one type of vessel?

Yes, cutters were both a ship's boat, and a smallish, single-masted, heavily canvased sailing vessel notable for an especially long jib.
Very English, they had deep, broad hulls that made them very seaworthy for their size. That hull shape is what necessitated all the sail they carried.

[Zinegata]

The discussions about Frigates vs Ships of the line made me wonder about the final battle Hornblower has in "A Ship Of The Line" wherein he engages four french ships with his 74 gun ship Sutherland. He successfully cripples all four ships but at the cost of the Sutherland being blasted to a hulk and him having to strike his colours.

It's possible for a single ship to face multiple enemies and cause great damage to them, but actually winning the fight isn't likely.

I do recall an incident a British ship-of-the-line fought two French ships-of-the-line in a major battle involving many other ships. Even though the ship had already lost its Captain and many of its officers, the surviving Lieutenant basically said "Fuck you!" to the French after they demanded he strike his colors. The Lieutenant then proceeded to have his gunners demast both of the enemy ships and took them out of the fight.

At the end of the battle (which the British won decisively), the two demasted French warships struck their colors.

Sometimes, just having enough balls is enough to win an Age of Sail battle.

(Also, I keep thinking this was the Bellerophon at Trafalgar, but the details don't match. Oh well, I'll try to find it again in Heerman's To Rule the Waves.)

[LaCroix]

The discussions about Frigates vs Ships of the line made me wonder about the final battle Hornblower has in "A Ship Of The Line" wherein he engages four french ships with his 74 gun ship Sutherland. He successfully cripples all four ships but at the cost of the Sutherland being blasted to a hulk and him having to strike his colours.

In general, a 74 was one of the best ships you could be on in such an encounter. They pack a punch, but are very manoeuvrable in relation to anything that has heavier broadside weight. That's why they became the standard size.

The basic question is "How many guns had the others, and how heavy were those pieces?"

Then there is the question of sea - rough or calm? In rough sea, the chances of the outnumbered vessel are much better, as the heavy sea makes it more difficult for the other ships not to get in each other's way.

Wind direction and position - if he had the wind on his side, the others had to beat about to engage him, which gives him a very favourable position, as he can easily avoid getting surrounded. He could basically force them into a series of single duels by good sailing - which again brings up the question about armament.

In a nutshell, we need more input.

Anyway, a good source for material related to naval proceedings is this page

[Thanas]

The final battle in a ship of the line has him going up against three 74s and a threedecker, I think. However, he is lucky in that the enemy thinks his ship is a French one, allowing him to essentially fire three or four salvos at close range before any reply is given.

[CJvR]

How about pitting an American "super frigate" (i.e. USS Constitution) against a ship-of-the-line? I know they were designed to avoid the battleships rather than fight them, but would they have good chances if they got cornered?

Against small SoLs (64 and lighter), yes. But those were rather rare in the era of the heavy frigates since they were too weak for line duty and the growing frigates sizes started catching up to them but they were still around, there were 43 64s in the RN in 1805 but only 1 a decade later.

[Captain Seafort]

A more interesting question might be be how a US heavy frigate would fare against the Indy - same number of guns, and much much heavily built than your typical European frigate, given her origin.

[Thanas]

How about pitting an American "super frigate" (i.e. USS Constitution) against a ship-of-the-line? I know they were designed to avoid the battleships rather than fight them, but would they have good chances if they got cornered?

Against small SoLs (64 and lighter), yes. But those were rather rare in the era of the heavy frigates since they were too weak for line duty and the growing frigates sizes started catching up to them but they were still around, there were 43 64s in the RN in 1805 but only 1 a decade later.

A 64 still outmatches a super frigate, except if she was a converted indiamen or so.

[LaCroix]

The final battle in a ship of the line has him going up against three 74s and a threedecker, I think. However, he is lucky in that the enemy thinks his ship is a French one, allowing him to essentially fire three or four salvos at close range before any reply is given.

Free salvos into an enemy where everybody but the current watch is under deck (usually in their hammocks), all the cannons in stowed positions and the decks not cleared for battle? Ouchie...

Found the book online, it wasn't like that...

1. Got a hasty broadside in exchange for reaking the enemies (80 guns) stern at almost touching distance. That must have hurt...
2. Broadside exchange with second ship, 4 or 5 into the french and 3 or 4 back(3 to 2 ratio, but with lot's of fire at will). Manages to luckyly demast the French, but at cost.
3. 3 more sides into the crippled #2 in passing.
4. Threedecker tears him a new one, figuratively (and very convincingly written), getting one broadside in return.
5. #4 (two-decker) comes from the other side and de-masted them completely, getting one broadside in return.
6. limited boarding was faught off
7. gets shot to pieces and surrenders

One ship destroyed, another in need of a new set of guns and interior, and two more would need a long overhaul. Aptly heroic and still realistic enough. I think I shall give those books a go.

[Simon_Jester]

Forester's quite famous- no one has a reputation for doing Age of Sail combat better, so far as I know.

A more interesting question might be be how a US heavy frigate would fare against the Indy - same number of guns, and much much heavily built than your typical European frigate, given her origin.

The... Indy?

[thejester]

Forester's quite famous- no one has a reputation for doing Age of Sail combat better, so far as I know.

Yeah there's this bloke called Patrick O'Brian, I hear he went alright...

The... Indy?

HMS Indefatigable.