Ancient World Sailing and Trading Conversion

[Timerover51]

Reverse-engineering Paul's ships into a SailMaker

First pass.

                     Pax/Lo Cargo Sailors Rowers STR Silver
                     ------ ----- ------- ------ --- ------
SS Sailship           1  5    250   12       -    5  20,000
CT Coastal Trader     0  4     50   10       -    4   6,000
MG Merchant Galley    1  8     30    4      50    4  30,000
WG War Galley         4  40    60   20     270    5  60,000

s Small              1/2 1/3  1/4   2/3    1/2   -1   1/2
m Medium             1/2 1/3  2/3   2/3    1/2   -1   2/3
g Great              x3  x5    x2    x2     x2   +1   x1.5

l Lateen Sails       AGL+1, SPD-1

The way I'd like to spin it, is to abstract away various technological innovations as stage effects, and also include some shopping list items, such as ballistas, rams, and Greek Fire.

I think lateen sails are distinct (performance-wise) from square sails, so I'd like to add that into the mix in order to trade off (for example) speed versus agility -- square sails can run before the wind faster, but lateen sails can sail closer into the wind.

How much input are you looking for, as the lateen rig is not know prior to the end of the 9th century, so it would be in the Medieval Period, at least according to Bjorn Landstrom in his book, The Ship?

Also, when it comes to Greek Fire, are you thinking of the actual Greek Fire which the Byzantines pumped out of syphons mixed with water, or just a generic flammable liquid? The first use of Greek Fire by the Byzantines was in 717-718 AD, on the Moslem blockading fleet.

Also, there are reliable reports of some pirates, and also possibly the Rhodians using catapults to lob pots containing poisonous snakes into other galleys to cause problems for the oarsmen.

 

[robject]

From "The Story of Sail", I get these ideas:

Galleys (all have shallow draughts):
- Mediterranean Traders (-17c to -15c) Early Medium/Long galley, 6m beam.
- Egyptian Warship (-12c) Medium galley, 6m beam, heavy upper yard, lookout station atop mast, ram.
- Triakonter/Pentekonter/Liburna/etc (-7c onwards) Early Medium/Long narrow galley, 4m beam, rostrum.
- Longship (8c) Medium galley, 5m beam, seaworthy.
- Dromon (12c) Improved Long galley, 5m beam, fore/aft platforms, castles, or catapults, firespout
- Sagittas/Genoese (12c) Improved Medium narrow galley; spur.

Sailing Ships:
- Dhow (e.g. Khalissa) (13c) Short sailing ship, 5m beam, shallow draught, perfect for monsoon winds.
- Sambuk (13c) Medium narrow sailing ship [Dhow].
- Slaver (?) Medium narrow sailing ship, weatherly, easy to handle, efficient, ugly.
- Cog (13c) Short wide sailing ship, deep draught, decked. Foc'sle and bowsprit. Strong hull.
- Caravel (15c) Advanced Short wide sailing ship, shallow draught. Very unwieldly with lateen sails.


Short: appx 16-20m
Medium: appx 22-28m
Long: appx 30-34m

Early ships: width+1; less efficient sail; lower yard present; less seaworthy.
Standard ships: width+1; less efficient sail; less seaworthy.
Improved: normal width; decent sail; seaworthy.
Modified:
Advanced: weatherly and seaworthy.

Narrow: Decreased beam for speed, but less seaworthy.
Wide: Increased beam for improved seaworthiness, but slower.
Shallow draught: able to access estuaries and rivers.
Deep draught: able to withstand storms and hold a course.

Square sail: runs fast with the wind.
Lateen sail: more agile, can sail into the wind.

Rostrum: underwater extension of the keel to strike enemy ships.
Spur: above-water version of the rostrum.
Ram: a ram

 

[Timerover51]

Hmmm, no ships of the Sea People to go with the Egyptian galley, no Egyptian trading ships of Hashepsut circa 1500BC, no Phoenician trading ships, and where are the Roman grain ships that sailed from Alexandria to Ostia. They carried about 100,000 tons of grain a year to Rome from Egypt. Some of the very large grain ships were in excess of 1,000 tons.

Then you have the Viking Long Ships which made it to Sicily in the 900s, and the Viking trading ships, the Knorr or Knarr in particular, which sailed from Norway to Iceland directly, and were the ships used by Eric the Red and Lief Ericson along with Thorfinn Karlsefni to reach the New World, probably Newfoundland.

Alfred the Great built a navy, using the Viking drakkar as the model, but apparently making the ships higher and possibly installing castles in the bow and stern. The Picts and Irish used big hide-covered curraghs for trading between the Continent, the island of Great Britain, and Ireland. They apparently also made it to Iceland. Then you have the Veneti of Brittany, whose ships, based on Roman descriptions, sound a bit like a cog, with extremely stout hulls.

Are any of them in there?

The problem with the Lateen rig is that it is extremely difficult to tack with it, as you have to swing the long yard from one side of the mast to the other to avoid the sail pressing on the mast. You have to basically furl the sail around the yard, pull the yard nearly vertical, swing it to the other side of the mast, and then reset the sail. A properly handled square-rigged ship is only slightly less efficient in working into the rig as a fore and aft rig, although that slight difference can be major depending on the circumstances.

Also, were you thinking just in terms of European ships or are you going to include ships from Asia and Polynesia? Then you have the big balsa rafts from the west coast of South America, and the big war canoes of the Pacific Northwest coast of British Columbia and Alaska.

 

[Timerover51]

Oh, and a couple of more things. A wooden ship could carry its weight in cargo safely, so far a ship with a water displacement of 1000 tons, 500 tons would be cargo, and 500 tons would be the ship. Modern construction techniques managed to shave that a bit around 1900, along with mechanical power.

For building times, as near as I can make out, one man could produce 10 displacement tons of wooden ship a year. So to build a ship of 1000 displacement tons (water, not Traveller) in one year, you would need a crew of 100 men.

 

[epicenter00]

Looking at this supplement, I'm a bit curious about certain things. In particular, the "barbarian" class is going to be a bit controversial.

If you go by the typical standard of "barbarian" to the Romans, it'd be anyone who isn't Roman. Depending on the Roman, even Greeks were technically barbarians.

If you go by "people who aren't Romans, Greeks, Sassanids, or Egyptians" you have a variety of peoples such as Celts (including Gauls, Celto-Iberians, Insular Celts, etc.), Berber-types from North Africa, Scythians/Samartians, and so on.

Regardless, some of these "barbarians" were pretty civilized, in particular the Celts in Gaul. If you want to stick with "Conan the Barbarian" living outside the Empire, the current skill tables are fine. Otherwise, to keep things simple yet Romano-centric, I think that "barbarians" should get greater access to Riding skill in their skill tables.


Re: Armor

Chainmail (Hamata) should be the most expensive and the best armor available in the period. It's vastly labor intensive, since if you're talking about mail, you're talking about riveted or welded mail (not butted) - the Romans were only able to equip so many soldiers with it because they had slaves making it.

Lamellar ("segementata") was not superior to mail; it's thought it was marginally easier and faster to fashion it which is why the Romans adopted it. It should deliver roughly similar protection to mail but be cheaper. Of course it's not as easy to maintain. Apparently there were quite a few instances that segementata was thought to be inferior to chainmail such as during the Dacian Wars. You may want to put in the option of characters being able to purchase the armguards (manica) made in the segementata fashion - like gladiators or some of the legion during the Dacian Wars.

Scale (squalmata) cheaper than chain, but again easier to make. Less resource intensive than the iron lamellar of the legions. Not as effective as chain.

You could probably create further grades of armored protection by allowing players to purchase greaves and vambraces (to keep in Traveller-simple, perhaps just give a bonus for "greaves and vambraces"?).

Also, were you thinking just in terms of European ships or are you going to include ships from Asia and Polynesia? Then you have the big balsa rafts from the west coast of South America, and the big war canoes of the Pacific Northwest coast of British Columbia and Alaska.

That also opens up the technological can of worms known as "Chinese Technology." I call it a can of worms because it's poorly documented in the West while a lot of references that can be easily found are tainted by various flavors of *ism and other kinds of poor scholarship - like the lugsail's development variously attributed to being developed anywhere from 200 BCE (well within the typical "Roman Empire" setting) to 1000 CE. The Chinese had watertight bulkheads, but attribution is anywhere from 500 CE to 1100 CE (perhaps well after the typical "Roman period" so it might be immaterial).

 

[Timerover51]

With some of the ships, i.e. the cog, dromon, caravel, and dhow Robject is well past the "Roman" period and into the Medieval and Renaissance Periods. I am not so worried about sail types, as those can be argued at for a while, as to ship types and possible areas of exploration.

Robject, might I recommend a few more books to you for perusal?

 

[Kilgs]

Very cool. I've always wanted to expand on the sailing rules in the T2k module featuring the sailing ship in South America. Make it an exploration, colonial game but never really got around to doing anything with it.

 

[robject]

[...]ships of the Sea People [...] Egyptian trading ships of Hashepsut circa 1500BC, no Phoenician trading ships, and where are the Roman grain ships [...] Viking Long Ships [...] Viking trading ships, the Knorr or Knarr [...] drakkar [...] curraghs
[...]

Also, were you thinking just in terms of European ships or are you going to include ships from Asia and Polynesia? [...]

I am not looking to simulate shipbuilding. But I'm starting with the stats that Paul published in Mercator. With those stats alone, many ships which are distinct in construction and age and culture will simply be different labels on the same design. For example, the concept of clinker hulls won't be more than a footnote; to use it in actual design would be serious overkill. The trick, then, is finding the right names for classification purposes, having just enough variety to handle many settings, and letting people match their designs to their settings.

I assume the scope is not war-gaming. This gives me a chance to actually build a design system. If I aimed for a wargame, it'd never be done.

The problem with the Lateen rig is that it is extremely difficult to tack with it [...]

Right, I got that impression when I read about the Caravel in particular. That's a good in-game differentiator, since dangerous tasks can be a good balancing factor for better performance.

 

[robject]

I'm starting a separate thread for this discussion and stuff, so as not to clutter Paul's thread. I'll keep it in "In My Traveller Universe", I suppose, and call it "Wanderer: Oar and Sail" or something.