Further Comments
The article state that for primitive vessels, Tech Level 0-3, a gun must have a one crew member for every kilogram of each guns weight, or one crewman for every kilogram of projectile weight of the guns carried by the ship. Tech Level 4 for MegaTraveller starts at 1900, so all ships built prior to 1900 would come under this rule.
The British Ironclad "Alexandra", generally viewed as the finest example of a belt-and-battery ship ever built, had a broadside (one side battery only) of 2,573 pounds, or 1167 kilograms. By the above formula, she would require a gun crew of 1167 men. However, that is only one broadside, so it really should be doubled, so she should carry 2334 men to man her guns. Her actual complement, 674 all told.
Actually, it gets even better. Her three wrought iron masts carried 27,000 square feet of sail, and weighted all told with spares, sails, and 24 miles of rope rigging 150 long tons (152.4 metric tons). Top speed under said, 6 Knots, or about 11 kilometers per hour. The sail spread of 27,000 square feet equals 2,508 square meters, and by another formula, a ship must carry one crewman for every 10 square meters of sail. So, the "Alexandra" should also be carrying 251 crew to handle the sails.
Note, the 2,585 crew that we are up to now does NOT include any engine room crew, stokers are conspicuously absent in his engine room crews. bridge crew, marines, or additional personnel.
The "Admiral" class of pre-dreadnoughts/ironclads, mounted four 13.5 inch main battery guns, each firing a 1250 pound projectile. By the given crewing formula, that would mean a gun crew, for main battery only, of 2268 men. That would be 567 men per gun. The "Admiral" class did carry additional guns besides the main battery weapons. The actual crew, 525 to 536.
Speaking of guns, the article states that only at Tech Level 5, corresponding to 1930, did naval rifles larger than 30cm, or about 12 inch, appear. The HMS Inflexible, started in 1874, mounted four 16 inch muzzleloading guns, the Italian battleships, "Italia" and "Lepanto", mounted four 17.72 inch (45cm) guns each in 1878, while the British ships "Victoria", "Sans Pareil", and "Benbow" mounted 16.25 inch guns in the mid 1880s. World War One British ships mounted 12 inch, 13.5 inch, 15 inch, and in 1918 an 18 inch gun was mounted on the light battlecruiser "Furious". The US was building ships with 14 and 16 inch guns in 1916, as was Japan. The first British 16 inch gun ships were the "Nelson" and the "Rodney", completed prior to 1930.
For hull materials, Iron becomes available at Tech Level 4, or 1900, soft steel (presumably mild steel) at Tech Level 5, or 1930, and hard steel (high-tensile strength steel?) at Tech Level 6, or 1950. Not sure where to start on this one. The "SS Great Britain", still in existence as a museum ship, was completed in 1843 as an iron-hulled merchant ship. The question of using iron or mild steel is extensively discussed in Admiral King's "Warships and Navies of the World" published in 1880. Hard steel armor was being tested in the late 1870s, both as steel plate, and in the form of compound armor, with a hard steel face welded to a wrought iron back. High-tensile strength steel was used extensively by the British in shipbuilding prior to and during WW1, along with the US and most other countries. Apparently, the author simply took the armor types from MegaTraveller (I have no idea where the authors of that work got their ideas) and tossed it in as hull material, without looking at what actually was being used.
Lastly, at least for this post, according to the article, powered undersea craft, i.e. submersibles, are available as of Tech Level 5, or 1930. Hmmm, I wonder if the British Admiralty in 1917 would have agreed with that statement. I suspect that they would have prayed, most devoutly, that that was really the case.
For those who wish to check, most of my data on the Victorian-era ships comes from Oscar Parkes' "British Battleships". I do have a copy of Admiral King's work in reprint, along with Howard Chapelle's "History of the American Sailing Navy", which is very useful for wooden warship construction and masting, Archibald's "The Wooden Fighting Ship in the Royal Navy", again very useful for wooden warships, Jack Coggin's "Ships and Seamen of the American Revolution", probably the best one volume work on wooden sailing ship warfare that I have ever found, along with a fair number of other works. I need to get out my volumes by Admiral Rodgers covering oar-powered ship warfare to look more thoroughly at the muscle-powered ships.
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