new types of ammunition?

[Henry d'Esterre Darby]

No need to apologize.  I thought it an interesting question.

 

Right now, ships mostly sink.  As more mechanics are added (especially economy and other incentives not to fight until you're on the bottom) you'll likely see far more captures than sinkings (and we'll agitate to make sinking more difficult than a mission kill).  This will put the focus onto a more historically accurate "disable and board in the smoke" instead of "put her on the bottom".

[DeRuyter]

Generally I believe the use of shell, fused, exploding rounds, etc and naval howitzers became widespread at a later period, the ACW for example, at least for ship to ship combat. Certainly we should have bomb vessels mounting mortars, or even rockets - how else could one have the "rockets red glare", and "bombs bursting in air" at least for the US players!!

[SYN_Bloody-Bandy]

Right now, ships mostly sink.  As more mechanics are added ... you'll likely see far more captures than sinkings ... This will put the focus onto a more historically accurate "disable and board in the smoke" instead of "put her on the bottom".

 

Again, new here, but I've seen the "ready to board" message (or variant) just a few times, and thought I saw 'G' mentioned as the key to initiate this action, but then thought/remembered I saw elsewhere it is 'X'???  Well, G didn't work in game, so I blasted him again with double...

 

[Henry d'Esterre Darby]

Hulk smash ship!!!!!!  SMASH!!!!!!

 

 

If you are at a very slow speed, and so is your opponent, and they're in the right spot, you'll get a G for boarding option that will pop up.  But everything has to be lined up correctly.  

[CommodoreWesley]

To somewhat rest your fears a bit, mortars and rockets were not used in ship vs. ship combat.  It was used for land bombardment from ships.  I have found no case that mortars and rockets were used from a ship against a ship.

 

"Rocket" ships were used by the British to bombard Copenhagen after their seizure of the Danish Fleet in 1807, and in 1812 at Fort McHenry.

 

My two cents is that they should not be in the game, as people will use them incorrectly thinking that they will be powerful weapons against other ships.  These weapons were too inaccurate to be used against other ships.  Although port battles are likely to occur in the Open World, I highly doubt that they would be frequent enough to merit the use of ship mounted rockets or mortars. 

[Kleinburger]

Generally I believe the use of shell, fused, exploding rounds, etc and naval howitzers became widespread at a later period, the ACW for example, at least for ship to ship combat. Certainly we should have bomb vessels mounting mortars, or even rockets - how else could one have the "rockets red glare", and "bombs bursting in air" at least for the US players!!

But it was the British ships launching them .

[Hethwill, the Red Duke]

To somewhat rest your fears a bit, mortars and rockets were not used in ship vs. ship combat.  It was used for land bombardment from ships.  I have found no case that mortars and rockets were used from a ship against a ship.

 

"Rocket" ships were used by the British to bombard Copenhagen after their seizure of the Danish Fleet in 1807, and in 1812 at Fort McHenry.

 

My two cents is that they should not be in the game, as people will use them incorrectly thinking that they will be powerful weapons against other ships.  These weapons were too inaccurate to be used against other ships.  Although port battles are likely to occur in the Open World, I highly doubt that they would be frequent enough to merit the use of ship mounted rockets or mortars. 

 

Yes. Exactly what I found.

 

Maybe they come of use on the OW mode as a highly specialized setup for specific missions.

[BlouBulle]

Fused explosive weapons are pretty ineffective against a ship (including mortars), near the time of the ironclad none fused explosive shot was used by the French...and then were adopted by other nations phasing out round shot however this would break the game for 3 reasons:

 

1) Like a mortar it can damage "soft" targets and cause fires.

2) Like a cannon it can penetrate a Ship
3) Like a boss it won't require fuses.

[Hethwill, the Red Duke]

The fuse at this time was manual and not on impact as you well know. The main idea behind their use in naval combat was to actually make the enemy ship catch fire. Several different approaches were tried but none worked properly.

[Mirones]

The fuse at this time was manual and not on impact as you well know. The main idea behind their use in naval combat was to actually make the enemy ship catch fire. Several different approaches were tried but none worked properly.

 

so they wont work properly ingame and wont be used as much to justify development time into it. later maybe but as allways Admin has the last word.

[Hethwill, the Red Duke]

Yes. Actually it was a good introduction point for my "naval action" research spree.

 

I definitely do not want it to be used in ship to ship battles as it is not properly historical. Was simply an assessment to the most knowledgeable. Given many ships of the line mounted howitzers it could be correct but ship safety comes first and in the time frame such contraptions were a real danger ( guess a misfire could effectively ignite the magazine... ). Trials were actually conducted by the french and shown very impressive results but written off due to the aforementioned reasons - a simple misfire of a shell, like a short fuse, would mean hell to everyone ( in the army everything is cool, one cannon crew less only  )

[DeRuyter]

We can explore other shot types that we used by different navies in addition to the those you mention in the OP. Here is some of the shot types used on the Constitution:

 

You've got: star shot, barshot, grape, canister, double headed shot, round shot. I am not sure how often these were used though. Just food for thought. Sorry for the bad photo quality.