Wapen von Hamburg Armament and stats

[DeRuyter]

I have noticed a couple of discrepancies with this ship, which is a beautiful model btw!

In game she is classed as a 4th rate with 68 guns. According to 3 decks she should have only 52-60 guns LD 6 x 18lb, 16 x 12lb, UD 26 x 8lb, QD/FC 4 x3lb. That is based on this German wiki:

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wapen_von_Hamburg_(1722

BungeeLemming noted in the WvH thread that she was armed not as a warship but as a convoy escort which is what she was. The choice of carronades on the QD is also out of period for this ship.

She also seems to have a high turn rate for this type of ship suggesting she is more maneuverable then all but the light frigates. Not sure that her older hull design should provided that much maneuverability. 

Is the extra armament in game a balancer so she can fight an Agamemnon, etc.?

Thoughts?

[akd]

35 minutes ago, DeRuyter said:

I have noticed a couple of discrepancies with this ship, which is a beautiful model btw!

In game she is classed as a 4th rate with 68 guns. According to 3 decks she should have only 52-60 guns LD 6 x 18lb, 16 x 12lb, UD 26 x 8lb, QD/FC 4 x3lb. That is based on this German wiki:

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wapen_von_Hamburg_(1722

BungeeLemming noted in the WvH thread that she was armed not as a warship but as a convoy escort which is what she was.

Yeah, this would appear to be an armament "en flute" much reduced from her design armament, which was probably that of a 3rd rate (of her era).  Note that with this armament, her crew is also listed as just 135 men.  It would be nice to have a variation of her in game with this armament, reduced crew and expanded cargo space (although I really don't want to see even more trade ships with open, empty gun ports).

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The choice of carronades on the QD is also out of period for this ship.

Sure, but same is true for Renommee and Ingermanland. And Surprise and Essex are the only frigates that should have gundeck carronades.  I personally think that it would be more interesting to limit carronades to where they were actually used for all ships (Surprise and Essex would then have much more unique niches in the game), but I'm not sure that would mesh well with the exaggerated hull and mast thicknesses (carronades are arguably the only valid choice on many ships).

Also there has generally been a creep away from historical armament toward arbitrary balancing decisions, so I'm not sure there is really any point in pointing out deviations from historical / or internally inconsistent versus what is in game.  Just two examples:

-Santa Cecilia is larger than Surprise but only allowed 24pdr carronades on gundeck.  Not internally consistent.

-Agamemnon can only replace QD/FC 9pdrs with 12pdr carronades.  Historically she carried a mix of 9pdrs and 24pdr carronades, and the internally consistent allowance would be replacement of QD/FC 9pdrs with 32pdr carronades.

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She also seems to have a high turn rate for this type of ship suggesting she is more maneuverable then all but the light frigates. Not sure that her older hull design should provided that much maneuverability.

Less speed but better turning seems reasonable for a ship of a similar size but lesser length to width ratio.

Edited January 4, 2017 by akd

[Snoopy]

I like variety and balancing ships in a way that we end up with ships that you might want to actually sail means more variety.
Slow but good turn rate for her size is her thing then.
She won't replace the Agamemnon in PBs anytime soon, though, she's too slow, too big a target and not enough HP.

Giving her better guns seems reasonable for such a big hull, also the wiki article says the guns were Swedish and Dutch imports which makes the substitute 18pdr -> 24pdr much less of a stretch.
The balancing between the two decker 4th rate is decent in game I think. The most 'modern' ship is best in class, the two old vessels are worse but have an interesting feature (Ingermanland: 32s), 'burger: turny.

All is well with the world

[BungeeLemming]

http://karl-heinz-marquardt.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Wappen-von-Hamburg-III-Das-Modell-und-seine-Identität.pdf

 

her actual crew compliment never exceeded 283 men. Thats her official count.

On 29.12.2016 at 11:37 AM, BungeeLemming said:

[...] She was never ever intended to fight a battle against any other nations' ship of the line. Balancing her towards our ingame 4th rates is a very delicat matter. I am not sure if that is the way to go - ultimately. But having a ship to escort traders isnt that what we dont have -yet? I know there is not a massive use for such atm. But why not create such for this vessel instead of buffing her unrealisticly? <- that is my fear.

This is my thought towards her unrealistic armament. The devs try to balance her towards unrealistic expectations. She is technically a 4th rate. She is a old design. She is not meant to stand up to an Ingermanland nor an Agamemnon. 11 guns in her main gundeck. What to expect from that?

You know what would be insanely fun? If the devs gave the Wapen the ability to mount insanely huge carronades throughout her decks. that would be a unique feature..

[akd]

She may not have carried the armament of a 4th rate in the role she served, but saying it is unrealistic is a different matter.  Plans show 68 gun ports, and she was certainly capable of placing guns in those ports. I also think you are misreading the number of guns because it seems she had a mix of 12s and 18s on her gundeck.  Everything I've read indicates 24 guns on the gun deck.  I don't read German, but it appears the linked document indicates that even her reduced convoy escort armament would require 376 men on the guns for a full complement.  Remember, it was not uncommon at all for ships in peace to carry severely reduced crews.  Did Wappen von Hamburg ever go to war?

Also, many ships in game diverge from their historical armaments.  In some cases it is non-historical, but still realistic or at least internally consistent.  In other cases it is purely arbitrary.  Devs haven't really indicated if historical / realistic is a goal or not, so it hard to know whether to report something as a problem.

Edited January 5, 2017 by akd

[BungeeLemming]

AKD?

Nowhere do I write that the Wapen could not carry 24pd cannons. My issue are the 18pd on the mid gundeck (just as well as on the Ingermanland). The 9pd guns are questionabe as well. 9pd guns are heavier than one might think and seeing how high they are situated on the vessel they are a significant balancing factor.

See.. The Wapen is apparently of british design (whether or not that is true.. noone but wikipedia knows and that is a source I dont rate particular high with scarce information). When you check out the british Establishment 60 or 70 gunner you see that they were armed as I described above (my quote). 24 | 12 | 6 | 6 | pd. However she is not a direct design of these classes. Its just a suggestion of what she could be pierced with regarding her structural strength.

About crew: I threw in the real numbers to dismiss the incredible 135 number which I have no clue where it comes from. Seriously 135 is just plain wrong.

The Wapen never went to war. she was not intended to go to war. She was not expected to even fight. Her sheer appearance in force was meant to drive off pesky pirates and privateers, corsairs and whatnot. I am sure there is a terminology in english which describes that.

[akd]

I agree entirely the exaggerated weight of guns on upper deck and QD/FC is historically wrong (deviating both from what was actually carried and what the design was intended to carry), but circle back to my other point: we have no idea whether there is any intention to keep these things within realistic bounds connected to the historical designs.  Remember this is a game where currently a small frigate can have a hull as thick as a First Rate.  Do +1 class deviations in gun armament really matter anymore?  

Edited January 5, 2017 by akd

[DeRuyter]

14 hours ago, akd said:

She may not have carried the armament of a 4th rate in the role she served, but saying it is unrealistic is a different matter.  Plans show 68 gun ports, and she was certainly capable of placing guns in those ports. I also think you are misreading the number of guns because it seems she had a mix of 12s and 18s on her gundeck.  Everything I've read indicates 24 guns on the gun deck.  I don't read German, but it appears the linked document indicates that even her reduced convoy escort armament would require 376 men on the guns for a full complement.  Remember, it was not uncommon at all for ships in peace to carry severely reduced crews.  Did Wappen von Hamburg ever go to war?

Also, many ships in game diverge from their historical armaments.  In some cases it is non-historical, but still realistic or at least internally consistent.  In other cases it is purely arbitrary.  Devs haven't really indicated if historical / realistic is a goal or not, so it hard to know whether to report something as a problem.

The problem with WvH is that the plans come from a model which may not even be the WvH ! One of the documents linked in the other thread is a scholarly article disputing the provenance of the model in the Hamburg Historical Museum. The ship was designed for max. 60 guns and was armed by Hamburg with 52. I guess you could justify arming the entire LD with 18 lb guns though - so 22 x 18lb LD, 26x9s UD, and 4 x 4lb or 18 lb carros QD/FC = broadside wgt of 323/351. Still considerably less than the ship in game.

On the turn rate I think it is the whole picture, more than just the L/W ratio. Maybe in game it translates to being slow, but that should be slow to tack and slow to accelerate out of a tack as well. Not only did hull forms change over time but rigging became more efficient as well. Back to the problem of integrating ships in a 100+ year time period.

Having said all this I understand that devs want a really nice German ship for one of the largest playerbases in the game and as Snoopy noted it is good to have a variety of ships ppl want to sail. We should be able to have ships that offer variety without resorting to an unreasonable amount of balancing which results in a historical anomaly.

[Alex Connor]

Back when the Ingermanland was introduced I advocated that the ship should be a 4th rate, as her original armament of 24/12/6lb and relatively small size made her very similar in capability to later 4th rates of 50-60 guns.

However, when the Ingermanland is overgunned to 32/18/6 she has almost the firepower of a 74, and is vastly more powerful than any real 4th rate. Similarly, the later and larger Agamemnon with near-historical 24/18/9 is a fully fledged 3rd rate, albeit a small one by Napoleonic standards. It should be noted that while Ingermanland was later "upgunned" to carry a 30lb maindeck these were short guns and not comparable to long 32s.

This in turn forces the Wappen von Hamburg to be heavily overgunned, as this ship is a real 4th rate which probably could carry no more than 24/12/6lb gundecks and would be completely outclassed by the Agamemnon and overgunned Ingermanland.

Overgunning is vicious cycle.

 

 

[SteelSandwich]

13 minutes ago, Alex Connor said:

Back when the Ingermanland was introduced I advocated that the ship should be a 4th rate, as her original armament of 24/12/6lb and relatively small size made her very similar in capability to later 4th rates of 50-60 guns.

However, when the Ingermanland is overgunned to 32/18/6 she has almost the firepower of a 74, and is vastly more powerful than any real 4th rate. Similarly, the later and larger Agamemnon with near-historical 24/18/9 is a fully fledged 3rd rate, albeit a small one by Napoleonic standards. It should be noted that while Ingermanland was later "upgunned" to carry a 30lb maindeck these were short guns and not comparable to long 32s.

This in turn forces the Wappen von Hamburg to be heavily overgunned, as this ship is a real 4th rate which probably could carry no more than 24/12/6lb gundecks and would be completely outclassed by the Agamemnon and overgunned Ingermanland.

Overgunning is vicious cycle.

 

 

May i summarize that as:

We need to completely redo the current gun set-ups of many/all ships + hull thickness in order to ever obtain more fun/realistic ships.

I'd like that.

[Alex Connor]

32 minutes ago, SteelSandwich said:

May i summarize that as:

We need to completely redo the current gun set-ups of many/all ships + hull thickness in order to ever obtain more fun/realistic ships.

I'd like that.

Guns, hulls, sailing qualities and availability, all needs reworking before release. 

The combat system of naval action has enormous potential, but ingame stats are a mess of ships added over the years and buffs/nerfs of individual ships to cope with imbalances.

And of course, the current meta of super-tanked ships is neither fun nor realistic. 

[akd]

48 minutes ago, Alex Connor said:

It should be noted that while Ingermanland was later "upgunned" to carry a 30lb maindeck these were short guns and not comparable to long 32s.

Not an issue unique to Ingermanland, but I think for the sake of sanity we have to ignore the long-medium-short issue for a given weight of shot.

[Alex Connor]

12 minutes ago, akd said:

Not an issue unique to Ingermanland, but I think for the sake of sanity we have to ignore the long-medium-short issue for a given weight of shot.

A 30lb short gun as an option for the Ingermanland would be an interesting way to set this ship apart from all the other 2 deckers with 24lb main batteries.

[Fluffy Fishy]

Mainly this thread, like the title suggested is meant to ask, should the Wappen Von Hamburg be able to vastly out turn all other 4th rates? And what that does for balance, it can also quite easily out turn quite a large number of the 5th rates too, which seems a little bit too much if you ask me. Below are some figures looking at turn rate.

Wappen Von Hamburg: 3
Constitution: 2.57
Agamemnon: 2.49
Ingermanland: 2.35

It can also out turn these Frigates
Trincomalee: 2.56
Endymion: 2.46
Indefatigable:  2.38

And is closer to these.
Belle Poule: 3.13
Essex: 3.11

The general turn rates seem somewhat bizarre, surely a shorter ship with less water resistance tended to turn better, and that the stats should be closer to that of Ingermanland, as a much older ship and design. Especially compared to the much more modern, and generally all round better design of the Ardent Class Agamemnon, I would also quickly like to bring up that the Agamemnon has a better turn rate than its Ardent razee, Indefatigable, which somehow in the lightening process of becoming a razee, has become much worse on the turn. The general confusion with the statistics gets even more off to a strange start when you consider that a basic understanding of fluid dynamics you find that the Constitution is so much longer than Agamemnon (63m vs 50m), so it should be harder on the turn. Now relating that back to Wappen she is a similar size to Agamemnon, but Agamemnon has a much more modern, and all round better design, drawn by the incredible Thomas Slade.

On the whole there just looks to be something very disconnected between the turn rates of quite a lot of ships, I believe The mechanic needs some looking into with some wholistic sense, as each new ship looks quite disconnected.

[BungeeLemming]

The Wapen's gundeck is 141ft vs the Agamemnon's 160 ft. The Ingermanland is 151 ft. (all in british meassurement)

It suggests that the Wapen indeed has a very short keel and as you said - it would potentially result in a tight turnradius.

Noone can say what her turnrate was in RL. But for the game's sake I see the turnstats as the one thing that the devs have a pretty wide range of balancing possibilities.

btw Wikipedia says leghts over all of the wapen is 50m. I assume thats including the bowsprit

[Fluffy Fishy]

This still doesn't quite make sense how she has a turn rate more similar to USS Essex than the other 4th rates, Oversimplifying things to a cuboid, taking your measurements and assuming she has a keel of about 38m, she also has a draft of 5.5m compared to Essex, which is 36m keel and a 3.7m draft.

This leaves you with a cubed area of 209 for Wapen and 133.2 for Essex. This looks a little crazy, I'd not be so on its case if the ship was somewhere around the turn rate of 2.70-5 but that is a huge difference in surface area over a simplified model. Then you add Trincomalee to the mix and its numbers of 38m x 3.9m and you get 148.2, again much lower than the Wapen.

Then when you bring back the Examples and do the same thing for Agamemnon and Constitution. Agamemnon being 40m x 5.2 leaving us with 208 cubic metres, and Constitution being 44.2 x 7 leaving us with 309.4 cubic metres and should turn like a tank, although be fast as was historical.

Although these measurements are oversimplified they do go some way to explaining that something is very wrong with the current system used. The current system is just too easy to pick apart, which is a real shame.

Edited January 9, 2017 by Fluffy Fishy

[maturin]

Theoretically, isn't deeper draft compensated for (to X degree) by a larger rudder? Whereas length is an uncompensated factor for turning.

[Fluffy Fishy]

39 minutes ago, maturin said:

Theoretically, isn't deeper draft compensated for (to X degree) by a larger rudder? Whereas length is an uncompensated factor for turning.

Surely it depends much more on the rudder design, while its likely that the deeper ship would compensate somewhat by having the deeper rudder, it doesn't necessarily mean that the rudder will turn more or less, or that it has a broader surface. for example a rudder the size of a "t" doesn't have the same surface area as a big "L". While I see your point, to me there are too many variables and it overcomplicated my attempt at a simple model

I guess it all comes down to what the Architect is trying to achieve with the ship itself, and how much turning or straight line speed they are trying to create, and the mix they are striving for, if you keep the Wapen as a fast turner it would likely hamper its speed a bit more.

[Blackjack Morgan]

The ship they really need to take another look at is the Constitution. 

[Koltes]

Wappen's turn rate is purely a balance stat. It might seem OP, but when you combine it with the actual slow speed you get the actual turning time.

Testing tacking from full broadside to full broadside takes in average 54 seconds on Wappen. It took 59 seconds Agamemnon and about the same on Constitution.

While Wappen was able to turn on a dime, and Connie/Agamemnon were making larger circles they still were pretty much in similar angles in relation to each other.

Conclusion. In hands of inexperienced sailor, wappen is doomed as angling its armor is imperative. Same goes for Connie - captain will have to use speed and retain energy tacks, but in overal Connie is easier to sail for less experienced captains. Higher speed allows it to get in side by side position in which connie will outgun wappen due to more heavier guns and more HP

[DeRuyter]

22 hours ago, koltes said:

Wappen's turn rate is purely a balance stat. It might seem OP, but when you combine it with the actual slow speed you get the actual turning time.

Testing tacking from full broadside to full broadside takes in average 54 seconds on Wappen. It took 59 seconds Agamemnon and about the same on Constitution.

While Wappen was able to turn on a dime, and Connie/Agamemnon were making larger circles they still were pretty much in similar angles in relation to each other.

Conclusion. In hands of inexperienced sailor, wappen is doomed as angling its armor is imperative. Same goes for Connie - captain will have to use speed and retain energy tacks, but in overal Connie is easier to sail for less experienced captains. Higher speed allows it to get in side by side position in which connie will outgun wappen due to more heavier guns and more HP

Good points. This hits on another point about Wappen and the Inger for that matter. The turn should be tighter b/c shorter LWL but much slower also because of her outdated rig. Both Inger and Wappen still retain vestiges of 17th century ship rigs - both are more reliant on square sails for tacking, i.e.; the sprits'l and sprit tops'l. While they do have jibs and stays' they are rudimentary compared to a ship designed in the 1760's and later.

[maturin]

 

The turn should be tighter b/c shorter LWL but much slower also because of her outdated rig. Both Inger and Wappen still retain vestiges of 17th century ship rigs - both are more reliant on square sails for tacking, i.e.; the sprits'l and sprit tops'l. 

On the other hand, the 'outdated' large spritsail is said to 'throw the bow off the wind better a bowsprit full of jibs.' Spoken by a man who actually used one. So I wouldn't cast doubt on the Wapen's turning ability due to her rig. Especially when the lateen yard can be jack out to windward to luff up in a big hurry.

[DeRuyter]

On ‎1‎/‎17‎/‎2017 at 2:19 PM, maturin said:

 

 

On the other hand, the 'outdated' large spritsail is said to 'throw the bow off the wind better a bowsprit full of jibs.' Spoken by a man who actually used one. So I wouldn't cast doubt on the Wapen's turning ability due to her rig. Especially when the lateen yard can be jack out to windward to luff up in a big hurry.

Well we'll just have to disagree on this one - spoken by someone who has had to douse the sprit tops'l and brace round the sprits'l during a tack and whose captain had the opposite opinion. Combine all the characteristics and she should be rather slow to tack.

I would agree that the lateen mizzen can be used to help steer the ship in a number of ways - especially in an early 17th century ship with a high QD.

[Lord Vicious]

i find funny how ppl waste time talking about if that certain ship it had 60 or 62 or 50 cannons

When a surprise in this game can withstand  a dozen volley from a victory, when in reality a single one would made it surrender

 

Wappen may not be accurate, it just fit a role in the game, downgrade it would make it useless deal with it

Edited January 19, 2017 by Lord Vicious

[maturin]

16 hours ago, DeRuyter said:

 spoken by someone who has had to douse the sprit tops'l and brace round the sprits'l during a tack and whose captain had the opposite opinion. 

The quote was from Alan Villiers' about the Mayflower II voyage, by the way.

Where have you handled a sprit topsail? Kalmar Nyckel?