Talk:Rating system of the Royal Navy

message: Please do not remove the first paragraph as it functions as a quick navigational aid to the other articles in this series.  Thank you. Petersam 03:36, 18 Oct 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Replaced navigation paragraph with better navigation template that someone did a nice job on! Petersam 05:53, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: First paragraph is navigational aid

message: Part of the problem is that she has the manueverability of a traditional frigate, but the guns of a small ship of the line.  Such information might be useful in the article for comparison given Constitution (and other vessels of her class) has such a unique niche. Will (Talk - contribs) 04:31, 23 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't think we have to guess.  The USS President (1800) of the same tonnage, and number of guns, was captured by the RN, and taken into the RN, with no record she was going to be treated as a stretch-frigate.  Geo Swan (talk) 22:13, 22 March 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  How would the British have rated the ''[[USS Constitution]]''? 

message: I'm afraid there are a few errors in your description of the Rating system. As you (or someone) has been kind enough to cite my book on "The Fifty-Gun Ship" as a source on Fourth Rates, perhaps I might offer a few points. I won't make the changes myself (I am trying to update some of the individual ship entries for both the British and French navies as and when time permits) but should you wish to consult with me on any point (while I'm not omniscient or infallible, my knowledge on sailing warships in quite extensive) then I'm happy to try and help. Better still, you can email me on sailing.navy@btinternet.com
1. It is not true that Pepys created the rating system, although he undertook a major revision in 1677 that vastly improved the system. Originally it was introduced during the early 17th century (under Charles I), although the exact date is unrecorded, and at that time it was based on the number of men carried per ton.  In 1677 Pepys changed this to the number of men needed per gun, as well as the number and weight of those guns.  There is a very good summary in Chapter 6 of Ted Archibald's book "The Wooden Fighting Ship in the Royal Navy, AD 897-1860" which also describes the system in 1652. During the next few decades the system was periodically refined, to arrive at the classification that the Wikipedia article tabulates (roughly true, but still needing corrections in certain respects)
2. It is also untrue that all Fourth Rates were removed from the classification of "ship of the line" in 1756. This was true of the 50-gun ships, but not of those of 60 guns which continued technically to be classed as ships of the line. However the 60s were increasingly unfitted for any use and gradually died out (being superceded by the new 64-gun Third Rates), although this took time and there were still four 60s left in 1793, albeit in harbour use.
3. It is certainly true that not all Fourth, Fifth or Sixth Rates were frigates. Although the definition of what constituted a "frigate" varied over the years, what was common for the latter half of the 18th century was that it was a ship which carried all of its main battery on one deck (upper deck) and had no guns or ports on the decks below this upper deck. Clearly, this could apply irrespective of the overall number of guns.  Thus you could have a ship of 40 guns or even fewer which had two complete gundecks, while true frigates could go up to more than 40 guns (i.e. there was an overlap).
4. Technically, the 20/22/24-gun Sixth Rates (and many unrated ship sloops), although they carried their main battery on the upper deck and were constructionally "frigate-type", were not classed as frigates. Having said this, this is not true of the Seven Years War era. At that time, the Admiralty referred to all ship-rigged vessels with no guns below the upper deck as "frigates", including the early ship-rigged vessels of less than 20 guns (and hence unrated). But after that War the term "frigate" was restricted to 28-gun ships and above.
5. In official parlance these smaller Sixth Rates with fewer than 28 guns were designated "post ships" (because they were the smallest ships able to be commanded by a post captain). However, this is confused because many sea officers would in practice refer to these smaller Sixth Rates as "frigates", even though the Admiralty did not approve this mis-use.
6. As regards Fourth Rates, the term covered all ships of MORE THAN 44 GUNS and up to 60 guns. So both frigates and two-deckers were included in the Fourth Rate. There were also Fifth Rates which were two-deckers (the 40-gun and 44-gun ships were a good example. In the first half of the 18th century there were also "demi-batterie" Fifth Rates (you will understand that this was a term adopted from the French) which, while not carrying a full tier of guns on the lower deck, had a number of ports on the lower deck and here carried a few relatively heavy guns, although the main battery (numerically) was on the upper deck.
May I respectfully draw your attention to my series of books "British Warships in the Age of Sail" (published by Chatham Publishing) of which the 1793-1817 volume was issued in 2005, and the 1714-1792 volume is currently printing for publication in the summer of this year (2007). The third volume, covering 1660-1714, is in preparation.
Can I also draw your attention to the fact that post-1815 frigates and other sailing warships are not covered in Wikipedia. This is true of the later sailing warships as well as the wooden-hulled "screw" warships of the mid-19th century. Again I would respectfully refer you to my "Sail and Steam Navy List, 1815-1889" (nominally co-authored with the late David Lyon, although sadly he died after conceiving the project and - to be blunt - was not able to help write the book, although his extensive records, which I now hold, were an essential contribution to the publication). This 2004 publication covers this era of transition. If someone could put is the appropriate 'stubs' for all the appropriate vessels and class names, I will happily fill out the detail as and when I can find time.
Regards to all,
Rif Winfield 81.159.61.35 08:39, 22 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for dropping by and for those very detailed comments. As often happens on Wikipedia the article started off as a simplified account and we're only gradually adding the full details in. If you have a moment, could you take a look at ship of the line and frigate? There are a number of us working on articles about important types of warship, though we made our first real efforts on battleship and I'm personally about to start doing serious work on ironclad warship, which is a bit after your period (though it does cover some of the material about transitional ships, which are going to be worth their own article at some time in the future). By the way, why not create a user account? It's very easy and will help keep track of your comments. The Land 12:44, 23 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Changes in the Rating system 

message: The various ratings don't really seem to merit separate articles. I think it would be much better to concentrate content in this one article. If anything, it would cut down on needless repetition of information and better focus.
Peter Isotalo 19:39, 12 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Probably, yes. The Land 19:43, 12 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Consider merging 

message: The British Navy was not the only one to have a system of rating their vessels. Other naval powers - particularly France - had similar but not identical systems. Where can we provide this detail? Rif Winfield 10:27, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Rating systems in other navies 

message: The assertion that "first rate", "third rate" as references to quality, derives from the Royal Navy rating system, sounds like a possible retronym, and I think requires more authoritative references.  Geo Swan (talk) 22:18, 22 March 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: It's not a retronym, but a well-attested etymology.  I've inserted an appropriate Wikionary reference. Shem (talk) 23:25, 22 June 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Possible retronym? 

message: I worked on the article on the .  One of its references claimed it was the smallest commissioned vessel in the RN -- ie. commanded by a commissioned officer.  Her complement, IIRC, was 25.
The section of this article on unrated vessels says their complement ranged down to a crew of five.  Surely a vessle with a crew of five was not a commissioned vessel?  The article may have made the claim that no vessel with a crew smaller than 25 was ever commissioned.  Maybe she was the smallest during the brief period she was in commission (she was retired after just a few years as she and some slightly larger vessels had proven too small for their role enforcing customs regulations on the American coast.)
Anyhow, I would welcome clarification on this.  Geo Swan (talk) 22:27, 22 March 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Hi Geo Swan, Check out the Placentia-class sloops. They were 20% smaller in terms of tons burthen than Sultana, and had crews of six to eight officers and men. Regards, Acad Ronin (talk) 17:47, 14 January 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: Smallest commissioned vessel?

message: Gun-brigs and Cutters are reported to have 6 to 14 guns and crew of 5 to 25. Are those guns swiwel guns or what? If so, I think it would be in place to mention it. Still, minimum crew of 5 men is too few to handle minimum number of 6 guns and the ship at the same time during a battle, even if it's a question of swiwel guns, even if they are divided to sides two by two with one in bow and one in aft. --Ukas (talk) 23:20, 7 August 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Fault? 

message: Why was great ship redirected to this article? The term pre-dates the rating system by at least 200 years and has virtually nothing to do with this type of the classification system. Firstly the weapons and tactics that the ratings system relies on wasn't developed until much later. Secondly classification of ships in the modern sense barely existed even in 17th century. And just because "great ship" is an English term doesn't mean that it should automatically be associated with the Royal Navy of the early modern state of England several centuries later.
Peter Isotalo 01:05, 12 August 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Great ships 

message: The reason the number of guns carried varied from the number rated in the Royal Navy in the Napoleanic era was that the gun rating had become a proxy for the number of crewmen assigned to vessel (plus the captain's pay, amount of stores, etc).  Since a carronade required a smaller crew than a long gun, it was possible to (for instance) replace 6 long 9-pounders with 12 carronades, without changing the required crew or the gun rating.
Unfortunately, I can't lay my hands on a reference for this (it might be in one of NAM Rodger's books), but when I find it I'll make a corresponding update.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.229.220.37 (talk) 00:35, 29 June 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  reason for discrepancy between guns carried and guns rated