In message , "Keith Willshaw" wrote:

Bronz if
anything is cheaper to bore and turn than iron.


It being softer thats hardly surprising.

Which also made them unsuitable as rifles. The James Rifles wore out fast,
which is why they were phased out of service as quickly as possible.

--
Regards,

Michael P. Reed

In message , "Keith Willshaw" wrote:

You are comparing Apples and Oranges

The napoleon was a smoothbore and its production involved
much less boring and turning than a rifle

The true comparison is between an iron
smoothbore and a napoleon.

Wrought Iron or cast iron? The 3-inch Ordnance Rifle was far more expensive
than the cast iron Parrot. The Columbiads though were coastal/siege artillery,
and also not comparable to a field gun. A better comparison would be between
the iron guns and the bronze James Rifles (pattern II?) (though I'm not certain
if the latter were wrought or cast bronze). Unfortunately, info on the James
(the manufactured as rifles version and not the old rifled 6 pounder
smoothbores) is rather rare.

--
Regards,

Michael P. Reed

vincent Brannigan wrote in message ...
Keith Willshaw wrote:


The napoleon was a smoothbore and its production involved
much less boring and turning than a rifle

The true comparison is between an iron
smoothbore and a napoleon. The columbiads
while admittedly larger than the napoleons
were also smoothbores

I agree that rifling adds to cost, but not that much. The cost of boring
(drill the main center tube) and turnign (trunnions) is the same. Bronz if
anything is cheaper to bore and turn than iron.

Rifling costs nothing. It's knowing the pitch of the
rifling that costs a fortune. Which is why
smoothbores still do what they've always done on
the battlefield. Which is die in numbers too large
to fit in New York City, or Gettysburg. So we
have are forced to open new cemetaries in Washington, D.C.





Vince

"Charles Talleyrand" wrote in message
...


I'm interested in any time period from ancient Egypt to maybe Napoleon.
I'm just trying to get an order of magnitude informed guess.


I found this fascinating link:
http://www-atm.physics.ox.ac.uk/rowi...me/thesis.html

For reference, Kagan gives one drachma as a good day's pay for a skilled
Athenian craftsman, and there were 6000 drachmas in a silver talent.

--Justin

In article , Charles Talleyrand
writes
Can someone offer other examples, particularly from a different
time period and/or a different sized ship? That would be
most helpful.

A quick dig through 'The History of Ships', Peter Kemp, ISBN
1-84013-504-2 gives:

Prince Royal 1610, 114x43ft, 1330 tons, 55 guns:
Overall building cost was 20,000 pounds
of which 441 went on carving and 868 7s on painting/guilding

Sovereign of the Seas 1637 (size not mentioned)
Overall building cost 65,586 pounds 16s 9.5d (including guns)
of which 6,691 pounds on carving & decoration.

--
John

"Justin Broderick" wrote in message
ink.net...

"Charles Talleyrand" wrote in message
...

I'm interested in any time period from ancient Egypt to maybe Napoleon.
I'm just trying to get an order of magnitude informed guess.

I found this fascinating link:
http://www-atm.physics.ox.ac.uk/rowi...me/thesis.html

For reference, Kagan gives one drachma as a good day's pay for a skilled
Athenian craftsman, and there were 6000 drachmas in a silver talent.

Another very interesting reference:
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/sourc...d-germans.html

I have to admit, I have no idea as to what the value of a marten's head was
in 1229. For that matter, if you were paid in cloaks, exactly how many
cloaks do you need? Do you fob them off to your relatives?

Some of my favourite passages:

"When summer guests come to the torrent, which is called Vorsch the ferrymen
will take them immediately, without any delay, to the fishermen's inn,
where, on arrival, each boat will pay to the ferrymen four loaves of bread,
and a scutella of butter: if they do not want bread, two kunen will be given
in place of each loaf, and three martens' heads for the butter.
To each ferryman will be given eight martens' heads, and one pair of cloaks,
or, in place of the cloaks, three martens' heads. The summer guests will
observe the same law for paying thelony as is given above for winter guests.

When a guest brings skiffs into Novgorod, if such skiffs meet ships in Nü,
each skiff will receive its own price and a gammon of bacon, or five marks
kunen for the gammon. If the skiff meet merchants in Lake Ladoga, or in the
Volga, it will receive half the price, and half the bacon, or three marks
kunen. If any skiff, piloted with other skiffs, does not arrive at the
appointed time, it will lose its fee. If any skiff, piloted, but not laden,
is wrecked or endangered in the descent, it likewise will lose its fee. When
the merchants ascend by skiffs, and perchance some dispute arise between the
merchants and the ferrymen, or if an open quarrel occur, and the strife be
settled by agreement, the dispute should not be aired further."

The whole article is delightful. Thelony of course is tolls. The same
website comments on that in
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/805Chartoll.html , which is also
interesting.

All in all, I would have settled for several marten's heads, a cloak, and a
gammon of bacon, plus a few marks kunen.

AHS

your link gives this:

Athens supremacy at sea was founded upon her ability to utilise the trieres
as an effective weapon. She capitalised upon her role in the battle at
Salamis in 480 to win hegemony over some of her former allies. Thanks to the
encouragement of Themistokles, Athens had channelled the proceeds of a
windfall from the silver mines at Laurium into a fleet. They were designed
by Themistokles himself "for speed and quick handling" (Plutarch Cimon
12.2). Her fleet of 200 triereis were built before the second Persian
Invasion, for a naval war with Aegina, and enabled the Greeks to repel the
invasion successfully. After the repulsion of the Persians the naval forces
under Athenian command liberated the Greek cities of Asia Minor and the
offshore Islands, part of Cyprus and even invaded Egypt (Morrison and
Coates, 1986).

but how long did it take to build the 200 ships, ie from getting the silver
to Salamis 480?

"Justin Broderick" wrote in message
ink.net...

"Charles Talleyrand" wrote in message
...


I'm interested in any time period from ancient Egypt to maybe Napoleon.
I'm just trying to get an order of magnitude informed guess.


I found this fascinating link:
http://www-atm.physics.ox.ac.uk/rowi...me/thesis.html

For reference, Kagan gives one drachma as a good day's pay for a skilled
Athenian craftsman, and there were 6000 drachmas in a silver talent.

--Justin

A quick dig through 'The History of Ships', Peter Kemp, ISBN
1-84013-504-2 gives:

Prince Royal 1610, 114x43ft, 1330 tons, 55 guns:
Overall building cost was 20,000 pounds
of which 441 went on carving and 868 7s on painting/guilding

Sovereign of the Seas 1637 (size not mentioned)
Overall building cost 65,586 pounds 16s 9.5d (including guns)
of which 6,691 pounds on carving & decoration.

--
John

Note that both of these ships were large "prestige" vessels and _absurdly_
expensive for their firepower. The Sovereign (100 guns btw) especially so.

Staale Sannerud

Will check refs tonight and come back to you with accurate figures!

The price diff is merely the material cost btw (copper was expensive you
know), actually casting and working the bronze was simpler than working with
iron.

Staale

"Vince Brannigan" wrote in message
...


Staale Sannerud wrote:
Including the price of the guns in the ship building price would
make sense if the guns were cast especially for that ship, which
sometimes
did happen esp. with bronze guns. They were around 4x as expensive as
iron
ones by the way.

do you have a cite for this 4x figure.

vince

OK Vince, found a book with numbers in it, relevant to Danish naval service
in the late 1700s:

First, I misremembered the cost of the guns relative to the cost of the
hull. I stated that they were rougly equal, in fact the guns would cost
around half of the hull. The overall expense was roughly: Hull 50%,
artillery (guns and carriages) 25%, sails and rigging 25%. My bad! (Source:
Linjeskibet Holsten 1772-1814, Ole L Franzen. Numbers taken from an
administrative overview drawn up ca 1780 by the Danish Navy's chief
constructor, Henrik Gerner)

From the document by Gerner we find that the guns, carriages and full
ammunition load of a 70-gun ship ca 1780 cost 35.740 riksdaler (an ordinary
seaman's yearly wages at that time was 60 rdl, a vice-admiral's 2.388 rdl,
just to set the numbers into some kind of context) out of a total "system
cost" of 186.514 rdl for the ship as built and fitted out. The similar kit
for an 80-gun ship cost a whopping 211.069 riksdaler out of a total cost of
390.152 rdl, or around six times as much as for the 70. There are 10 more
guns on the 80 of course, and they are of caliber 36-18-12 pounds instead of
24-18-8 on the 70, but above all they are bronze guns on the 80 (prestige
ship and all that, designed and built as a squadron or fleet flagship) and
plain old iron on the 70. So the 4x figure does not seem to be too far off
the mark. For a bronze-armed 90 the guns cost 212.107 rdl by the way, but
again the calibers are rather smaller than on the 80, total weight of fire
was a smidgeon smaller for the 90 in fact.

Denmark-Norway made both bronze (in Denmark) and iron (in Norway) guns
domestically, so the prices stated should not have been modified for
"balance of payment" reasons. It should be stated though that the last
complete set of naval bronze guns in the country were cast for the 90gun
fleet flagship "Christian VII" ca 1765, so the 1780 numbers discussed in the
last paragraph are probably estimated costs of how much it would take if one
were to buy complete sets for the 80- and 90-gun ships at that date rather
than actual invoice sums! While ships were still being fitted with bronze
guns until after 1800 these were by then old guns that had been around the
block a few times - two-ton lumps of metal did not wear out in a hurry after
all! The most bizarre example I've come across refers to an 80-gun ship
launched in 1790, in 1801 she was listed as carrying 12-pounder bronze guns
cast around 1650(!)

Another document referenced in "Linieskibet Holsten...", presumably written
around 1770, states that the artillery etc for an 80 should cost 47.620
riksdaler - and it is explicitly stated that they are _not_ bronze guns -
while arty for a 70-gun ship would cost 39.035 rdl and a 60-gun ship 31.011
rdl. Here the increase from one ship-class to the next is pretty much
linear, keeping in mind that the bigger ships also carry heavier guns.
(Danish Rigsarkivet archive number: "Orlogsverftet afl. 1945. Reg 154b, nr
92", for what it's worth)

A final note on relative costs: Bronze guns were generally quite lavishly
decorated with coats-of-arms, royal monograms and what have you, while iron
guns were on the whole rather plain. This would add to the cost differential
of course.

Bronze is an alloy of something like 75% copper and 25% tin according to
Google - does anybody know how much those raw metals cost relative to iron
back in the 16-1700s? From what I can gather zinc has lately been ~3 times
as expensive as iron, copper ~6 times as expensive? I'd expect that iron has
grown relatively cheaper since the industrial revoltion - but what do I
know...

Regards,
Staale Sannerud


"Vince Brannigan" skrev i melding
...


Staale Sannerud wrote:
Including the price of the guns in the ship building price would
make sense if the guns were cast especially for that ship, which
sometimes
did happen esp. with bronze guns. They were around 4x as expensive as
iron
ones by the way.

do you have a cite for this 4x figure.

vince