Self-imposed rules to prep for naval invasions

[Servius]

Right. The unit scale varies. If we arbitrarily start saying that 1 TW man = x historical men, then we have to allow what an earlier poster said: that 1 TW ship = x historical ships.

Since that just makes anything impossible to nail down, I too prefer to use 1 TW man = 1 historical man. In that sense, on (I think) normal unit size, 1 Line Infantry unit = 120 men (with Austria being an exception I think). I'm listening to NPR right now. They're talking about the Sultana, a US Civil War era Mississippi River steamboat that mostly carried cargo but also carried passengers. The ship was designed to carry ~350 passengers, plus a greater capacity of cargo. When it sunk, it was carrying ~2,500 Union POWs in addition to it's regular passenger compliment. Wiki says it was carrying 2,400 passengers.

If a 1,719 ton steam boat meant for river travel could carry 2,400 people, I'm pretty sure an Indianman (1,100-1,400 ton) of ~70% the size could have carried 10% of the human cargo. Keep in mind that the Sultana was also transporting soldiers, normal passengers, and cargo.

[Khorak]

If a 1,719 ton steam boat meant for river travel could carry 2,400 people, I'm pretty sure an Indianman (1,100-1,400 ton) of ~70% the size could have carried 10% of the human cargo. Keep in mind that the Sultana was also transporting soldiers, normal passengers, and cargo.

Armies have a vast supply train and huge numbers of non-combat personnel. A river steamboat also doesn't have a large compliment of sailors to keep it going and the entire upper deck taken up by those labour intensive sails, and a riverbourne passenger vessel wastes not a single square centimeter on defensive armament. The oceangoing troop carrier is also pretty much its own world in the sense that it isn't at all times within friendly territory for resupply like a riverboat will be, it has to be much more liberal in its provisioning. Finally, the Sultana, with but the most cursory research, was so vastly overcrowded even the decks were completely stuffed. It was a floating sardine can.

Carrying a ready to fight army in open seas is simply in no way comparible to just stuffing as many people as possible in a steam riverboat.....especially considering that the official explanation for the Sultana disaster was because it had been so heavily overcrowded.

[Didz]

While we're at it, it might be fun to explore proper historical army and navy composition as well.

That would be quite hard to do given the period covered by the game and the differences in culture and doctrine. The other big problem when looking at army and fleet composition is that most OOB's (Order of Battle) relate to a specific battle or event rather than routine activity. So, for example, artillery and riflemen might be attached when normally they wouldn't have been.

One nonesense I have noticed is the strange mix of ships used by the AI (e.g. 1x3rd Rate, 1x6th Rate and 1 x Rocket ship). Quite a weird mix and not one that an Admiral would put together.