Naval Units, Effective 1715

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Naval Units, Effective 1715

In the interest of striking a balance between the Napoleonic naval rules and what we were using previously, I have come up with the below split between squadron units and individual ships. My guiding principles were to try to keep costs in line with what they were before (the only exception where the units cost more to maintain, I believe, is the CruRons) as well as to work to rationalize the manpower load per ship—your builds should come out to be only slightly cheaper or more expensive than they were before, if there’s any noticeable different, but should also reduce your naval manpower load.

What the ratings mean:
Speed (roughly how many Knots in good conditions),
Combat: (how many dice it shoots and how many hits it can take)
Endurance (how many seasons it can remain at sea)
Cost (how many points to build)
Maintenance (how much to keep in service each year)
Construction time (how long to build)

Conversion from Old Units:
HBatRons: 2 BB1s
BatRons: 3 BB2s
CruRons: 3 Frigates
PatRons: Split into 2 New PatRons

Naval Units

1st Rate battleship (BB1): These ships have 100-120 guns, carry 1,000 men (including 100 marines) and slow, powerful and really tough.  They are also logistics heavy.   Speed 2, Combat 8, Endurance 2, cost 7, maintenance .5, construction time 10 years.

2nd Rate Battleship (BB2): The workhorse of the battleship force.  Carry 80 guns and 800 men (including 75 marines).  Speed 4, Combat 5, Endurance 3, Cost 3, maintenance .25, construction time 6 years

Frigates (FF1): are relatively fast, tough, powerful and expensive.  Each ship carries 40-50 guns, and a crew of 500 (including 50 marines).  These guns are lighter than battleship guns and the ship is not as strongly build.  Speed 5, Combat 4, Endurance 4, Cost 1.5, Maintenance .2, construction time 4 years.

Brigs (PatRons): are fast, lightly armed and cheap and remain ideal for patrol and escort duties.   They remain grouped into squadrons, which are now smaller, consisting of 5 ships. These ships typically carry 10-16 guns, have a crew of 200, and so a squadron has 1,000 men.  Speed 5, combat 1, endurance 4, cost .5, maintenance .1, construction time 1 year.  

Commerce Vessels

Commercial fleet– 50 ships the size of frigates, sloops and brigs. All merchant ships of this era are armed and their crews trained to fight but not as effectively as naval crews and morale is generally far weaker than trained naval personnel as well. Build time is 2 years, cost is 3, provide .5 income.

Nations cannot have more than 3 Commercial Fleets per port. Entrepots can support up to 10 additional commercial fleets

Naval Facilities
cannot be moved once constructed, and can be destroyed by combat action.  

Ports - any port can repair any size ships, but can only build PatRons and commercial shipping. No maintenance cost is required. A port can repair any 10 maintenance points of naval or merchant unit, and can build 2 points of shipping at a time


Naval Yards – 10,000 men, 10 years, 25 points, maintenance .5: large facilities that can build any size ship or repair any size ship. They have a work force of 10,000 military and civilian employees, and also serve as centers of administration. Naval yards must be built in a port. A naval shipyard can repair any naval or merchant unit (up to 50 maintenance points at once), a can build 5 points of naval units of any type per year (so up to 50 build points can be under construction).


Naval Factories – 50,000 men, 50 years, cost 150 points, maintenance 3: very large facilities that can build any size ship or repair any size ship in half the time of a naval yard. These huge facilities must be built in a port. As of game start, the only cities with the naval acumen to build them are London and Rotterdam. These facilities employ 50,000 civilian and military workers. A naval Factory is a vast highly complex system that consists of multiple shipyards, huge amounts of warehouse space, and a sophisticated network of contractors and suppliers. These are exceptionally rare. A Naval Factory can build up to 15 build points of any type per year (so up to 150 can be under construction), and repair up to 150 maintenance points of shipping at once which includes conversions and captures.

Naval Ground Units

Militia:
Naval Yards and factories, though consisting of 10,000 and 50,000 reserves, respectively, cannot be mobilized to provide that same number of units, just as militia. The yards employ a substantial number of men too young or too old to fight, not to mention if they were willing to be combatants they probably would have elected to join at the very least a militia. Similarly, the installation likely does not have enough weapons to arm every single worker--mallets and hammers and saws are deadly, sure, but even in the age of gunpowder often insufficient. In the event that a city hosting a Yard or Factory is besieged, and the defender seeks to utilize some of that manpower, the moderator, at his discretion, will decide if anywhere from 1/4 - 1/2 of the manpower can emergency mobilized as militia combat units.

Marines:
Each naval unit has a set number of marines aboard, which I've indicated above. It takes 200 to form a company and 1,000 to form a battalion. Marine companies are generally too small to matter against anything other than marine companies or certain battalion-sized units (militia battalions, when fighting at a large TL advantage, raiding basically undefended locations). A marine battalion is treated like an average infantry battalion.[/u][/u][/u][/u]