Points cost for USS president & United States ?

Points are ever a problem.

The US frigates are built from southeastern Live Oak, the best shipbuilding Wood in the world. Joshua Humphreys, the main designer of the six frigates, specifically called for live oak in their frames and other important structural members. And even the outer hull was plated with it.

It costed five times more than white oak but was worth any penny.

Modern gunnery tests with live oak showed that the super frigates had a hull strengh able to resist a 24pdr. And even 32pdr balls have problems to penetrate. No wonder that the RN ships did not well against them.

So how to calculate? In money it should be 5 times the cost of a RN frigate. And in number of ships available to a fleet even more.

But few gamer would accept that. 😉

The three super frigates are all nearly identical. The commanders noted some sailing differences, one was a bit slow. Nothing that should play a role in game point cost.

Problem with the US fleet is it was a minor league fleet in this era and they are trying to make it competitive. We had like 6 big frigates to use and a SOL 3 we gave to France. Fleet actions of 8 SOL 3 or bigger per side were the standard for other countries and we are not even going to go to the big one with better then 20 SOL 3’s and larger PER SIDE. US players get our ships but will not be able to get any real big battles unless it is a Non Historical point fight. To really bring the US fleet to the table we need sloop and the like type hulls for battles on the Great Lakes. We had naval fleet actions, just in a smaller scale. Also am curious about Russian and Danish fleets or some of the other smaller fleets of the era.

I have been thinking about the Points cost for the USS President and the USS United States and think that the points coast should be 270pts for each.
Both appear to be 4th Rate Ships (190pts) with 2 upgrades each of “More Cannonades” (50pts) and “Streamlined Hull” (30pts).
The Size difference from a Medium to a Large Size does not appear to fit in with the current upgrades in the Rulebook.
however seeing the size of a ship reflects on a modifier in the “To Hit Chart” it may be assumed that this might be a negative cost factor to the US Navy.
If we assume this then the Constitution having more hull points (Sturdy – 40pts) and instead of “More Cannonades” having Overgunned (80pts) the difference is -20pts. This of course is ignoring the difference in Break Values and also the 4 ship points difference.
This Downgrade (call it something like “reinforced superstructure”) will have the advantage of increasing the size, reduce the Hull value by 4 points and increase the break value by 5 points at a cost of -20pts.
Well any thoughts?

Just to close the loop on this incase anyone else comes here to look (as I just did) there is a PDF on the black-seas.com website with a points cost of 260 for each ship.