Talk:USS Constellation (1797)

Jingoism
Is it just me or do some of the sections seem somewhat jingoistic?--94.192.227.195 (talk) 21:07, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

It's Just you. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.32.21.156 (talk) 01:33, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

Not meeting B-class criteria
I've downgraded the assessment on this article. It is not meeting criteria 1 and 2 presently. I plan on working this article up the ratings but this will not happen for some months. --Brad (talk) 21:05, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

Nice expansion
Hi Brad, I did some work on this article some years back, nice to see the expansion! Cheers!
 * Thanks but don't get too excited. There's a long road ahead to FA. --Brad (talk) 03:10, 19 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Let me know what you need I have some sources.--Tirronan (talk) 05:09, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Need for citation
I question the statement:

"Joshua Humphreys' design was long on keel and narrow of beam (width) to allow for the mounting of very heavy guns."

Being narrow of beam is not a characteristic that would seem to support "the mounting of very heavy guns." If narrow beams support very heavy guns, then what kind of guns could the ship have carried if it had a wide beam? 207.30.62.198 (talk) 20:25, 16 November 2011 (UTC)


 * Later designs such as the HMS Leander 60 gun frigate would be straight wall designs, this type of design for heavy frigates was about fifteen years after these ships were built. However that line is a Historian's opinion of the design and not an off comment.  The tumble home type of construction was the staple of most heavier Man O' War designs right up until 1812.  There have been a few major naval disasters the Mary Rose is one that comes quickly to mind, of too much weigh out to the far beams and as naval architectural science was relatively unknown the chances taken on hull designs tended to be rather timid.  As sailing ships heel over in turns the tumble home design was an attempt to answer that to the degree that the problem was understood at the time.  The design kept much of the heavy ordinance closer to the centerline.  Obviously, the problem had not be all that well understood or there would have been more straight wall hull designs.  The citation is at the end of the short paragraph. Nice catch on the lighter broadside by the way, I screwed that up.  Anyway the Historian was talking about what the builder was intending.  Ian Toll's Six Frigates is where the information and citation come from if you want to come up to speed on the background of this.Tirronan (talk) 08:55, 22 November 2011 (UTC)
 * There's more about the ship and her beam problems that I haven't added to the article yet. Truxtun demanded very large masts installed on the ship and during the Quasi-War she had a problem with laying over in a turn to where her guns were swamped. Also, after the QW she went towards ordinary and sunk in the channel because she laid over during the night and water got in through the gunports. Humphreys was assigned to resurrect and fix her up. Truxtun was a drama queen who made a lot of bad decisions during her construction. Brad (talk) 09:40, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

Very nice sounding explanation, but I still want to know what size guns the ship could have carried if designed with a wide beam if narrow beams support "very heavy guns" although I do assume that you are supporting this position "in good faith" 207.30.62.198 (talk) 17:02, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

The nearest that I can come to understanding the statement about heavy guns on a narrow beam would be to assume that the designer thought he had come up with a design capable of carrying heavy guns despite (not because of) a narrow beam. 207.30.62.198 (talk) 17:10, 22 November 2011 (UTC)


 * This ship had 24lb main guns and as Brad pointed out it created problems as the weight was too much and she had heeling issues. In one cae overshooting the target when she heeled over and couldn't make a turn as expected.  Because of this the ship was refitted with 18lb guns.  As for the narrow beam there is also the rule that the narrower the hull the "Finer" in ship lingo the faster it would be.  However again the historian is talking about the design decisions that the builder was making at the time of her construction.  That is not a comparative anylasis of ship hulls and design decisions.  HMS Leander a newer design wide hulled straight sided 60 rated and mounted 24 lb guns with no issues, it was more a answer to the US Large 44 gun frigates and not this design.Tirronan (talk) 21:38, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

I do understand very well that the designer would have considered a narrow beam to have been desirable in order to achieve high speed, and that the thought that heavy armament was also desirable for obvious reasons. I have to assume that what the designer really thought was that he was somehow going to defy normal expectations with (usually mutually exclusive) heavy guns on a narrow beam with some sort of design brilliance, just as later engineers struggled with the conflict between high speed and heavy armor in battleships. I believe that the designer thought that he would achieve a narrow beam relative to hull length, more by lengthening the hull than by actually narrowing the beam, and that the longer length would provide the extra buoyancy to allow for the relatively heavy guns. Of course this ignores stability and hull stress issues. Indeed, the ship did have to revert to 18 pounder guns. On that subject, and I don’t really want to open up a whole different can of worms here, but I wonder if they might not have been better off simply reducing the number of 24 pounders rather than switching to 18 pounders, then perhaps they really could have had heavy guns and narrow beam. 207.30.62.198 (talk) 23:52, 22 November 2011 (UTC)


 * This ship was a very successful 38 rated 18lb frigate. The failure of the six frigates was the USS Chesapeake which started out with a design for a 44 Constitution Class heavy frigate and ended up as a 38 gun over built and heavy 18lb gun frigate.  All the 44's worked ok but the United States was a mule of a sailor.  As you mentioned the 44's were exactly that design marginally the same width but the spar deck was fuller, this allowed the spar deck to carry much heavier broadsides and they did it pretty well.  The Leander Class was probably a better ship but as said before it was much later.  As to hogging, the cross hatched scantlings did much to stop that in the 44's and were the forerunners of longer man o' war designs.  The 80 gun class ships of the line became much more popular after this period because of this hull construction method.Tirronan (talk) 03:56, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

Again, very nice sounding, but still not answering my question, which is: If narrow hulls support very heavy guns then what kind of guns would a wider hull have supported? 207.30.62.198 (talk) 17:24, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

"Yeah I have tried three times here, I'm done.Tirronan (talk) 02:19, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

My question is rhetorical, but it does deserve an answer and it has not been answered, so I’ll try to answer it myself. Here is my own answer to my own rhetorical question.

The very heavy guns could of course have been heavier still if the beam had been wider. As in all warship designs, heavier guns are more easily carried by a wider beam. The statement was not intended to imply that the designer had found a way around the laws of physics, only that he thought he had found a perfect compromise, allowing relatively heavy guns on a relatively narrow beam. In other words a heavy armament despite, not because of, a narrow beam. Predictably, this did not work well in practice, as it is hard to get around the laws of physics, and the ship had to have its armament reduced from 24 pounders to 18 pounders. The statement about the designer’s intentions was not intended to be viewed as an endorsement of the idea that you should put very heavy guns on a narrow beam and in fact the history of the ship showed that you should not.

The comment is not really intended to apply the Constellation or the Congress (and so perhaps should not appear here) but to the three heavier ships, United States, Constitution and President. These three ships may have truly been an attempt to get high speed and heavy guns, by simply enlarging the ships in all dimensions. Larger ships can more easily give you more of whatever you want, speed (longer hulls and more sail area) or more armament or other qualities. It may have been assumed that with the large ships you could have a somewhat heavier armament even while increasing speed, by enlarging the hull size by an even larger percentage than you have increased the armament, so that even with a (slightly) heavier armament you might have armament that is lighter as a proportion of hull size and weight, and so giving (slightly) higher speed, but at a sharp increase in cost per ship, obtaining large frigates that cost about what you would expect to pay for a ship of the line.

In practice, the temptation to add an even heavier armament (to the three heavy frigates) was too great to resist, thus throwing away any potential for higher speed, unless you simply mean higher speed than a ship of the line, which would have had a much heavier armament.

In conclusion, the comment about heavy armament on a narrow beam should not be a part of the article on USS Constellation, if it has any applicability it is only to the three heavy frigates.

207.30.62.198 (talk) 22:36, 27 November 2011 (UTC)
 * 207, the proper way to handle the disagreement here is to produce an alternative wording of the passage with a source to back it up. We can sit here for weeks debating the topic but the purpose of an article talk page is for improvement of the article. I have the Beach and Toll books and the Allen source is available online free. Brad (talk) 11:14, 28 November 2011 (UTC)


 * I am not sure there is a disagreement. I believe someone was trying to make a statement about the design as the designer thought about it.  However the statement would only pertain to the 44's as the 38's were dimensional twins to British designs and except for the diagonal scantlings and heavy planking, exactly the same as every other 38 rate out there.  Perhaps the way to approach this would be to say "The 44's were designed to be as fine (in the naval sense) as their heavy guns would allow.Tirronan (talk) 14:51, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Broken Links
I was wanting to read the document that states that USS Constellation was broken up in 1854. I was unable to access the link by clicking on them and via directly typing the link into the address bar of my browser. Could you, fix this? I have been searching for other proofs of the break up in 1854 and have been unable to find any other documents on the net. Thank you Magnum Serpentine (talk) 22:53, 29 April 2012 (UTC)


 * I've fixed the links and archived the documents on WebCite. I have not linked directly to the pdf's because they are both lengthy documents and take a long time to load.  You can get to them from this page on the Naval Surface Warfare Command's website.  There is also a useful timeline of the controversy on this page.  Spinning  Spark  12:43, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

cracked on studding sails?
This phrase is either very obscure or it's archaic. It should be replaced with a description that is meaningful to readers, or enhanced, maybe linkified to something that explains it? Only a tiny fraction of the average population, those who are into the age of sail and/or sailing, might have any idea what this phrase means. I looked around a tiny bit, but still have no idea what it means. (I understand the need to use sailing terms where appropriate, but most sailing terms can be googled to find out what they mean, this one doesn't seem to be like that.) CraigWyllie (talk) 20:35, 14 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Six Frigates by Toll reads that the vessel "flashed out" studding sails. However, I think the passage needs someone who speaks sail to clean it up.-- Jim in Georgia  Contribs  Talk  13:51, 8 February 2016 (UTC)
 * The Phrase means to quickly deploy additional sails to the sides of the yards called studding sails or studsals, or studsail. Studding sail.

1801 sinking
Constellation sank in the Delaware River in 1801. Anyone have any further details? Mjroots (talk) 07:49, 8 February 2016 (UTC)
 * See Toll, page 160. She dragged her anchor and ran aground at high tide. I think that a little different than sinking,. but...-- Jim in Georgia  Contribs  Talk  14:08, 8 February 2016 (UTC)