Quote Originally Posted by Dayve View Post
If that's what Spanish trade ships were like back in the day, i'd hate to fight an actual Spanish ship of the line, designed for the sole purpose of battle!
Actually, back then (or maybe back a little further lol) the Spanish galleons WERE their ships of the line. I remember on a earlier post on naval tactics, I mentioned that people were losing to fluyts and galleons because they didn't treat it as a ship of the line.

As far as warships go back then, everyone pretty much used the same, or similarly designed ships. Better designs were copied right away; for example, the French built better ships in general than the British, and as soon as the British would capture a new design they'd copy it or implement changes in their own design right away. What made the Royal Navy superior was their level of training and drill, both in gunnery and seamanship. The French couldn't practice as much since they were blockaded in port.

Anyway, back to troop transport. First off, what is 1 "unit"? I like to define mine as:
1 infantry unit - 1 battalion (grenadier and light infantry come in "half-battalions")
1 cavalry unit - 1 squadron
1 artillery unit - 1 battery

Going on this, 1 frigate can carry 1 unit of cavalry or infantry. 1 ship of the line-class hull (including indiamen, galleons, and fluyts) can carry 2 units of cavalry or infantry. Artillery batteries are obviously less in manpower and provisions needed for the voyage, so multiple artillery batteries can be carried in 1 ship(?)

@Tincow:
Will you count colonial line infantry as recruitable overseas? Because lets say I want to be REALLY realistic but the AI natives don't.....