Naval History Forums

Whow, Ulrich! Magnificent! There is a grace and beauty in wooden shipbuilding that has not been reached by anything made from metal, let alone plastics.

And these guys did think in centuries not just for tomorrow. In the South of England you can still find the remnants of Woods with Oaken Trees grown into special shapes to make good stems or stern bits. Just imagine someone going out and carefully bend a young Oak into a certain shape for it to grow and be used in a warship in a hundred years time.
These days’ military projects seem to be timed until the next general election.

Ufo

marcelo_malara wrote:...the much vaunted Santisima Trinidad was called a four-decker just because she had a catwalk bridging the forecastle and quarterdeck where they installed 6 4pdr.

Aha see I always wondered why the very few illustrations I found of ST showed her looking like a big 3 decker

Don't forget lads, the heaviest guns were always in the lower decks, 64pdrs, with the lighter guns progressively ascending from the water line.
Otherwise a capsize would ensue long before one met your adversary. In fact, as soon as you left harbour, or before.

A 64pdr shot was twice the weight of a 32pdr, but not twice the diametre. In fact scarcely 20%. It is all to do with volume. This equally applies to the difference between a 12" and 15" as applied to the size of shell in the 20th Century and BL guns, ie Dreadnought v Bismarck / Hood.

Hi Culverin,

Otherwise a capsize would ensue long before one met your adversary. In fact, as soon as you left harbour, or before.

You may be thinking of the Swedish Vasa which having had its weight of armament doubled during a shambolic building process, "fell over" under the pressure of a light breeze on her sails, having sailed only 1300m from the quayside. She is a fantastic sight today in her fully enclosing building in Stockholm.

All the best

wadinga