derLiebesmuskel

Okay, the picture greatly helps understand her layout. I think there are some slight issues with the deck naming though. So, the area from the purple line downward is the hold. From the red line down to the purple: the lower gun deck. Green down to red: the upper gun deck. Yellow to green: fo'c'sle. Brown to green: quarter deck. Pink to brown: Poop. And the blue to green would be the main/weather deck (this should have no roof. the green line should be the deck and the blue line open air). [i've never heard of a well deck on a man-of-war. I believe it's a modern convention. I could be wrong on this though.] As far as rating: from gun count and rigging she'd be a 46 gun 5th rate (swivel guns never count) with 2 decks. Not by any means a common build for the era but possible. She would be classified as a razéed or jack-ass ship-of-the-line (I should think). But being a fictitious ship to begin with, it's easy to fudge propriety. Looking back over your drawing I think I may better understand your intentions. If you mean the brown, blue and yellow line to be a continuous line of deck then that would change all the names around. If so then what you have as the orlop deck would indeed be that, but in that case should be lower and the hold/bilge not so tall. That would then make your red line labeled as gun deck the lower gun deck and the green line labeled as main deck the upper gun deck with the brown, blue and yellow (quarter, well, and forecastle respectively) the main/weather deck. The pink then becoming the quarter deck, with no forecastle existing. I hope that makes sense without me having the time right now to relabel your diagram.

Just to reiterate what Horry said: the top-most, full-length deck that is exposed to the elements (hence the name) is the main deck or weather deck. It is always referred to by one of those two names. It can never be considered a gun-deck, because guns never run its entire length. From what you describe, were the Flying Dutchman an historical ship it would be a 5th rate frigate. (granted the dispersion of it armament would be something more like: 30 guns on the gun-deck (15 a-side) and 8 on the main deck (6 aft amidships - just fore of the quarter-deck and 2 fore-amidships - just aft of the fo'c'sle). For constructive purposes, when you're looking at the list how ever many gun-decks you see there you'll need to add one more deck on top of all that (one that isn't enclosed). I might try to add some listings of how the guns were normally spread throughout the ship.

Perhaps Horry will cover this in a more in-depth tutorial, but some rating information: Royal Navy (for the Napoleonic age): 1st rate* - 100-120 guns /w 3 "gun decks" - 850-875 souls 2nd rate* - 90-98 guns /w 3 "gun decks" - 700-750 souls 2nd rate* - 82-88 guns /w 2 "gun decks" - 700 souls 3rd rate* - 64-80 guns /w 2 "gun decks" - 500-650 souls 4th rate* - 50-60 guns /w 2 "gun decks" - 320-420 souls 5th rate** - 32-44 guns /w 1 "gun deck" - 200-300 souls 6th rate** - 28 guns /w 1 "gun deck" - 200 souls 6th rate*** - 20-24 guns - 140-160 souls unrated**** - 16-18 guns - 90-125 souls unrated***** - 6-14 guns - 25-90 souls * - Ship-of-the-Line ** - Frigate *** - Post Ship **** - Sloop-of-War ***** - Gun-Brig or Cutter note: the term "gun deck" should be understood to be a deck dedicated for housing the majority of the guns. A part of the ship's compliment of guns could be contained on the main deck, but that does not make it a gun deck. i.e. a typical 1st rate of 100 guns would have 32 (of its heaviest guns) on the lowest gun deck, 30 (slightly lighter guns) on the 2nd gun deck, 28 (slightly lighter guns) on the top-most gun deck, and 10 (light guns) on the main deck (normally aft amidships). note: Guns stored on the fo'c'sle and quarter-deck are not counted in a ship's rating count. Generally speaking, captains personally ordered "extra guns" to be stored fore and aft to be used as bow and stern "chasers." Thusly, they were normally "long" guns. note: Carronades were never counted in a ship's rating count regardless of their placement within the ship until 1817. Carronades were also usually stored on the fo'c'sle and quarter-deck for close "yard-arm to yard-arm" action until they came into common usage.

I stumbled across this Wikipedia article and thought I'd share this bit since I remember there was some talk as to the number of swivel guns on a ship: "For instance, HMS Cynthia was rated for 18 guns but during construction her rating was reduced to 16 guns (6-pounders), and she also carried 14 half-pound swivels." So I'd say load that puppy down with swivel guns. :D

Thanks for the recommendation, but it doesn't fill all the criteria I set as goals for my project. It may inspire me though. :)

Ah, yes. Of course. Thank you.

I'm no expert on historical British uniforms, but I think that based on the date and location you give your soldiers should be wearing something more akin to this on their frightened little heads. I could be wrong, and if I am it would be nice if someone could chime in with some references. p.s. I still like the MOC ;)

Mr. Skrytsson (or anyone that can answer), First great work on the MOC! I was curious though; I noticed in some of the LDD/real-life comparison shots that you have a hatchet and hammer laying on the deck. How does one place such items like that in LDD? I thought the pieces had to actually "connect." I've never seen a way to simply "drop" something on top of another piece. Thanks.

Thank you. Resized.

First off just want to say that I'm new to these forums and apologize in advance if I'm out of place with my posting. Just coming out of my "Dark Ages" and want to expand the love I had of the classic Pirate sets as a kid. I'm currently working on a ship but have been having some trouble deciding on a Swivel-gun design. I've seen a few I liked but none that had all the elements I really liked, so I made some myself. (To my knowledge this is an original design, my apologies if that is unknowingly false.) I wanted some that really looked true-to-life in scale and pattern but also had full "swivel" capabilities. This is what I came up with: Two different designs shown on some mock quarter deck railing (I'm aware the ramrods are too large for them, just put them in for effect) ^^This one is my favourite for a realistic cannon look, but I feel it's too long overall. ^^I feel this one has a good size to it, but lacks a little in the realism department. Comments, concerns, criticisms and critiques are quite welcome.

As stated already here Swivel-guns were an anti-personnel weapon. They were used primarily to "sweep the weather deck" to better a boarding party's odds of capture.