24 pounder tested against a hull replica of the Wasa warship

Thucydides wrote:I believe Vasa had a sister ship (or a follow on) which was built with a broader beam.

"Äpplet" was a foot wider and her upper gundeck had 12lb guns instead of 24lb guns, 300 tons heavier than Wasa.
And commonly listed as a ship of the line in English sources.

Thucydides wrote:but even if the guns were removed, Vasa would still have had a hard time of it during heavy weather.

That is probably true for more large warships than not of this era though, even if Wasa was one huge notch worse.

Thucydides wrote:The primary issue in the design of the Vasa wasn't her gun battery, but rather the ship's beam was too narrow, making her top heavy and prone to heel.

That is not automatically true at all. Just changing the ship style to English, or better yet to French makes it a bit more steady.
The Dutch hullstyle used was just not meant to have so much gunweight on a ship this size.

Both English and French style would have made the gundecks a bit more narrow and kept more of the topweight closer to the center. Not enough to make it a good ship, but it would have helped.

Thucydides wrote:Tenshinai

Although the Vasa does carry an impressive battery for her time, she is designed in such a way that she cannot deliver a broadside the way *we* think of it. Indeed, with the diverging barrels when the battery is run out, there is no way to get an effective broadside at all, except when the ship is practically on top of you (even then, many of the guns might not be able to engage, particularly those near the stem of the ship).

Ehm, say what?

You seem to have missed the little detail that guns can be aimed in elevation AND sideways...
And ships of this time rarely had straight gundecks, as they are simply too small to manage that, heavy armament and decent lines for hydrodynamics.

Heck, look at Nelsons almost 3 times heavier Victory, not even there do you find a completely straight gundeck.
http://www.admiraltyshipmodels.co.uk/ac ... Cutout.jpg

Then there´s also the little detail that "broadside" does not automatically mean that all guns are fired at once, that is modern myth.

A ship moves, and with a curved gundeck, it would be just as normal to fire guns as the target is passed by rather than try to aim all perfectly and then fire them together.

The same was still true at Trafalgar, just that there, most ships are bigger and as such have less curving in their gundecks.

Wasa is perfectly capable of delivering a broadside, even the way YOU think of it.

And in case you missed it, early 17th century means that almost any gunbattles are relatively close up no matter what.

Thucydides wrote:Once she is that close, the next thing that will probably happen is a swarm of Swedish sailors and Marines will be coming aboard your ship....

Quite possible yes. But that does not change the fact that the ship has neither a fore nor aft castle, and that most of its cannons are heavy, "long" range weapons aimed at artillery duelling.

Had it been designed for boarding actions, if nothing else it would at least have had many more 1-3lb guns.
And the main battery would likely have been a good deal weaker.

As it was, having ALL main guns the same size and type is actually somewhat unusual for the time, and the only reason to have that is because it benefits ranged artillery battle.

Tenshinai wrote:

Joat42 wrote:Well, originally it was a working design but someone wanted more of everything which made her top-heavy and unstable with predictable results.

When i looked it up to make sure i didn´t say anything wrong, i actually found that this may be a myth.

Examinations have been done that shows no changes in the design after construction started, and the number of guns ordered (early on) were what was later used.



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rdt wrote:Since Vasa never completed her maiden voyage (blub, blub), it certainly was a naval design failure for all the reasons stated in the above posts. But the ship itself is a beauty. The carving and wood sculpting are exquisite. And the Swedes have done a magnificent job of exhibiting the ship and much of its human elements in the Vasa museum in Stockholm. Were air travel more comfortable these days, it would almost be worth a trip to Stockholm just to see that. As it is Stockholm for a week is, in itself, a worthwhile holiday destination.

Yeah, i´ve been there a few times since i grew up in Stockholm, and it really is an awesome sight.

And like joat says, Stockholm is definitely an excellent place to visit, IN SUMMER.

The real problem wasn't mucking around with her design after it was officially "frozen" (that's more of a modern USN tradition ). It was simply that no one knew how to make proper stability calculations and when concerns were expressed, the "whistleblowers" were told to sit down and shut up. It's nice to know that some bureaucratic and government agency traditions have been around for so long, isn't it?

runsforcelery wrote:The real problem wasn't mucking around with her design after it was officially "frozen" (that's more of a modern USN tradition ). It was simply that no one knew how to make proper stability calculations and when concerns were expressed, the "whistleblowers" were told to sit down and shut up. It's nice to know that some bureaucratic and government agency traditions have been around for so long, isn't it?

Bureaucrat, the worlds second oldest profession (with electrician being the oldest since someone had to run all those wires before the light was turned on).

Joat42 wrote:

runsforcelery wrote:The real problem wasn't mucking around with her design after it was officially "frozen" (that's more of a modern USN tradition ). It was simply that no one knew how to make proper stability calculations and when concerns were expressed, the "whistleblowers" were told to sit down and shut up. It's nice to know that some bureaucratic and government agency traditions have been around for so long, isn't it?

Bureaucrat, the worlds second oldest profession (with electrician being the oldest since someone had to run all those wires before the light was turned on).

True. But "electrician" lacks the scatological implications of "bureaucrat."

[quote="Joat42]
Bureaucrat, the worlds second oldest profession (with electrician being the oldest since someone had to run all those wires before the light was turned on). [/quote]

I prefer the more traditional definition of "the world's oldest profession" rather than electrician. But electrician or prostitute, either is going to be more honest that a bureaucrat.

runsforcelery wrote:The real problem wasn't mucking around with her design after it was officially "frozen" (that's more of a modern USN tradition ). It was simply that no one knew how to make proper stability calculations and when concerns were expressed, the "whistleblowers" were told to sit down and shut up. It's nice to know that some bureaucratic and government agency traditions have been around for so long, isn't it?

Well, that and the fact that Sweden wasn´t really a naval nation at the time helped build up to the mess.

When you make no difference between putting a general or an admiral in charge of a fleet, there MAY just be a wee little bit of a problem somewhere(theatrical *cough cough* Kronan 1676 *cough cough*)...

Thucydides wrote:Look at the Vasa's lines, and you see that the when the cannon are run out they do not form an effective broadside, since they are all slightly iverging from each other (as the range increases, the shot will land farther and farther apart). She could shoot ar fairly acute angles from the stem, but less so for the stern.

.

I am no expert, but I am not sure how the divergent angles prevent an effective broadside, I was under the impression that gunners normally "fire as you bear", meaning the guns would tend to fire front to back or back to front anyway? Seems the forward angle on the first few cannon just let you start your broadside a bit early, hoping for that "golden bb"?

Skywatcher44 wrote:I am no expert, but I am not sure how the divergent angles prevent an effective broadside, I was under the impression that gunners normally "fire as you bear", meaning the guns would tend to fire front to back or back to front anyway? Seems the forward angle on the first few cannon just let you start your broadside a bit early, hoping for that "golden bb"?

The problem, as i understood, was that it was hard to point all guns in one direction on "Wasa", because the gunports were placed so, that the guns couldn't be actually placed parallel to each other.

Dilandu wrote:

The problem, as i understood, was that it was hard to point all guns in one direction on "Wasa", because the gunports were placed so, that the guns couldn't be actually placed parallel to each other.

Like i already stated in previous post, cannons can be aimed sideways, and the more guns on a smaller ship, the more difficult it is to have a straight gundeck at all.

As i also noted above, not even the vastly larger and century later Victory of Nelson has a perfectly straight gundeck.

Tenshinai wrote:

Dilandu wrote:

The problem, as i understood, was that it was hard to point all guns in one direction on "Wasa", because the gunports were placed so, that the guns couldn't be actually placed parallel to each other.

Like i already stated in previous post, cannons can be aimed sideways, and the more guns on a smaller ship, the more difficult it is to have a straight gundeck at all.

As i also noted above, not even the vastly larger and century later Victory of Nelson has a perfectly straight gundeck.

Dilandu's point was that the guns on the Wasa cannot be aimed sideways enough to point parallel to each other. On later ships they could and did, so that all could be aimed at the same target at the same time. On the Wasa, only a few guns could be aimed at the target at the same time.