Punt Gun Possibilities

yep, I remember seeing that a couple times.

"when everything goes sideways" would be a more applicable descriptor.

Just saw part of a movie called "Last of the Buccaneers" (1950).

Pirate Jean Lafitte is fighting a battle on shore. A ship's boat is loaded with a cannon. Give them credit; a character in the boat says that firing would sink the boat. It's fired, the boat lurches upward, and the day is saved.

How they reloaded it when the muzzle is sticking over the bow is somewhat of a mystery.

Just thought I'd add it as a Hollywood myth.

There was a time, I am led to believe, that cannons did not get run inboard for loading...
Rather it was the job of the crew to hang over the side of the gunship and load it from OUTSIDE the boat?....
Any volunteers?...

Anyway, the gun at the front of a boat, it must have been loaded that way at some point.

As for lighter boats, canoe, punt, or something like that, from what I can find, often it was taken to shore to re-load.
Sometimes using a Bridge to get the height?...

It was all down to the professionalism of our Navy.....
The strength of a crew determined to "Do their best", and constant competition between crews, enabled us to get better and better...
This is not to say that other countries were in any way lack-sea-dasical in their approach, far from it, it just meant that we had highly trained and much practised crews who thrived on better and better equipment.
We, being an Island nation, prided ourselves that we had such sea defences.
The rest of the world was trying to keep up with US at that time....

Plus, we have "Men in Sheds".
England has invented many many many useless things in its time (British Rail being one of them) but now and again, from the sheds of men who hide from inclement weather, we get something absolutely brilliant.....
Such as a rain-hatch over the gun to stop the weather coming in, and bits of sea in high waves, it was suggested that running the guns inboard was first suggested to allow the lower decks to be more sea-worthy in high seas, and it followed that running the guns in and out, someone asked wouldnt it be easier to load the guns inside....
Again, supposition, but does it matter, we started doing that and it worked?... and if it works, tinker with it until it breaks, then make it stronger.
And faster.
Then see who can do it the fastest.

We had evolution going on, every ship built was one better than the last, we didnt stick to just one design, and some ships had make-overs, to make them better....
Well, that was the idea.
Didn't always work.

That and the fact we learnt.
When we lost one battle, or didnt win as good as we may have, or didnt work as well as it should have, we went home, thought about it, and planned a way to stop that happening again?....

'Professionalism' is a questionable term to use in regards the English Navy until the English Republic was in power, and then it was only really in evidence by the later wars with the Dutch.

The Republic employed three 'Generals of the Sea' (instead of a single 'First Sea Lord') to run the Navy. All of whom were literally Generals in Cromwell's new model army. While employing soldiers to run a navy could have been a disaster, it turned out to be a boon because the men chosen took their jobs very seriously. More importantly they were willing to listen and learn about the navy and naval combat (one of the Generals became a very good sailor in his own right, even though he'd never been on a ship before being given the appointment.)

The pitiful showing of the English navy during the first of the wars with the Dutch prompted the Generals to make changes based on their experiences in the Army. They cleared up the chain of command, improved signals, wrote the articles of war, improved discipline for both officers and men and as a result were able to employ combat tactics to make fleets fight as a fleet rather than as a collection of individual ships. The major example of this was the use of the line of battle, which became the standard fighting formation for the next 300 years. (The line of battle was first used by the Dutch. But the English made it the standard fighting formation).

All of these changes became the bedrock on which the reputation of the Royal Navy was built. And yes, it is somewhat ironic that the 'Royal' Navy was really created by the English Republic.

Before this the best you can say of English crews is that they were often more experienced than many of their counterparts. Which is not the same as saying they were 'professional' fighters. Indeed, only a handful of the English ships that fought the Spanish Armada were 'Royal' ships. All the rest were privately owned ships. The extra experience was down to many of these ships and crews having worked as privateers, which like pirates tended to avoid combat where possible.

As for equipment/development of ships until the mid to late 1700's England/Britain was not automatically the best in the world. In fact it is often impossible to know when or where some design features appeared. For example we have no idea who first dreamt up the idea of moving the rudder using a wheel rather than a tiller. The first mentions we find of this rather important feature on ships are worded in such a way that it is clear that the ships wheel had been around for quite sometime at that point. But annoyingly there is nothing to indicate exactly when or for that matter where the wheel had first been used.

Other design features come from other countries, and it was unusual for the English to 'invent' such features purely on their own*. The famous 74 gun ship of the line was not a British design but a French one that the Royal Navy copied, mainly because it took several second rate British ships and a couple of hours to pummel a single French 74 into striking its colours during the American war of Independence. Even by the late 1700's, when Britain really was the leading naval power in every sense**, the Navy wasn't above borrowing ideas from other nations navies. These included more or less copying several Dutch line ship designs and copying the American Navy in extending the bulwark to cover the ships waist.

(*This is for ships and equipment used at sea. On land things were different, as the Royal Navy became an 'industrial' organisation a good 100 years or so before the rest of Britain. They were the first to use steam power to pump dry docks out, the first to use steam for industrial production and the first to use standard 'blue prints' for ship building. They were also the first military organisation to require all officers to sit a test to prove that they knew their trade. Everyone else tended to stick with the idea that officers just needed to be 'Gentlemen', or at least nobility. In the Royal Navy being a member of the nobility didn't help you become an officer if you clearly had no seaman ship, nor did it mean that you would be assured of a command. Something the future King George IV found out the hard way.)

(**Of course by 1815 all of the former challengers to the Royal Navy had either been taken/sunk (the Dutch), stuck in port for the better part of a decade (French), were never more than a mild annoyance (United States), were of questionable quality (Russia) or were bankrupt and unable to really afford to build large fleets nor had the will or need to do so (all of the above plus Spain).)

The Dutch became the leading maritime power because they learnt to mass produce large numbers of cheap ships. This allowed them to undercut transport costs. They were also the first country in the world to have real banks, which allowed for investments to be made (most of the silver Spain brought back from South America went to repay loans from Dutch banks). They were also quite willing to trade with everyone, including countries they were at war with.

England and later Britain became the leading maritime power because of location. Britain's physical location allowed it to control the major shipping route into Europe - the Channel. It was this that brought the Dutch down as they were effectively blockaded into bankruptcy. Later on the position of Britain allowed it to effectively blockade the entirety of Northern Europe and the West Coast of France and Spain. It is often forgotten that both the French and Spanish had as many if not more ships than Britain even as late as 1815. The problem for those powers was that their fleets were split between several ports and the Mediterranean and Atlantic. And in the case of ports such as Brest the nature of the ports meant getting ships into or out of them was slow, difficult and often dangerous. One of the reasons the French didn't try to get out of Brest to fight British ships blockading the ports circa 1800 was that they would have been picked off one by one as they tried to leave.

This positioning allowed Britain to bring trade to a standstill, leaving only British and American ships free to trade without being hassled. Then of course the US decided to start a naval war they could not win, which saw their merchant fleet decline to the point that US trade fell from some $80 million in 1812 to only $5 million by 1815. (Of course part of the reason for that was that the primary nation they had been trading with was...Britain. The US did very limited trade with France because that countries credit was almost none-existent.)

Privateers and merchant ships are/were NOT the same thing. A Privateer was a privately owned warship that was licensed by a naval power* and which made its money through the capturing of merchant ships. To do this a privateer had to be much more powerful than a merchant ship, which meant more guns and a much larger crew compliment.

(*This was the legal difference between a pirate and a privateer)

In earlier periods Privateers were effectively the main naval force for most nations, especially in the Caribbean, and as I've noted elsewhere most of the English ships that took part in the battle against the Spanish Armada were privately owned warships. Even at this date (1588) there was a very clear distinction between a warship and a merchant ship. While the latter could and were used in battle, and warships (especially the larger Royal ships) were sometimes used for trading. The fact was that neither was well suited to fill the role of the other. This difference became much more apparent by the mid 1600's, the point at which England started to overshadow the Dutch. One of the reasons the Dutch had problems in the later wars against England was because the English fleets were dedicated warships while the Dutch were using a mixture of warships and armed merchant ships. By the third Dutch war the English fleet comprised of ships that were much larger and much more heavily armed than anything the Dutch possessed. Although that discrepancy was partly down to the nature of the Dutch ports, which limited the draft of Dutch ships.

'Smaller lighter' ships were usually able to out-outmanoeuvre larger and heavier ships except in heavy weather where deeper drafted and heavier ships were much more stable. However smaller and lighter also meant fewer and smaller guns, and in practice the difference in agility between ships wasn't a major factor in the majority of battles simply because the more agile ship couldn't get in close enough to take advantage of that. Usually the ship with more and bigger guns had the advantage since they could hit harder and from a longer range. In close combat what really mattered was weight of fire, and since manoeuvring required that you pull men from the guns which lowered the rate of fire AND added to the difficulty of aiming Captains did their best to avoid trying to dance around too much. Although they would take advantage of immobility or mistakes if they encountered them.

Smaller and lighter ships were found in navies because they were cheaper to build and operate than larger ships. Most of the unrated ships were (technically) used as cruisers (that is, for patrols which is what a 'Cruiser' was until the late 1800's), escorts and for carrying dispatches. In practice such ships also ended up performing almost every other type of duty a ship could perform. Although was simply because they were often the only ships available for such duty. They even took their place in the line of battle on rare occasions - although rarely alongside the big line ships.

Frigates were the next step up, and these ships really were used for every type of duty including taking a place in the line of battle alongside the big ships. Individually a frigate was no match for a line ship, no matter how agile it was, but in pairs or a group they were a major threat.

The really big ships were rarely used for more than blockades of major fleets or major fleet actions, since they were large and expensive to operate.

Of course 'small' is relative. The size of ships increased continually over the years, certainly with the 'smaller' types. In 1770 a typical British Frigate may have carried 28 guns and displaced some 600 tons. By 1790 a typical British Frigate would carry 32 guns and mass 700-800 tons. By 1810 a typical frigate would have 36-38 guns and mass around 1000 tons.
The biggest jump for the British was after the American war of Independence. The British ships of that period were far more agile than their French counterparts, but also a lot smaller. Experience showed that the larger French ships were much more powerful and effective even against ships that carried more guns. In the example I gave before it took several 80 gun British ships quite some time to batter a larger French 74 into submission, and there were similar experiences with Frigates. The experiences showed that the greater agility of the British ships, a result of them being built with a short but broad hull, was not as helpful as a longer, narrower and faster hull design that carried fewer but heavier guns and which provided a much more stable gunnery platform.

As to 'improving' designs...that is somewhat misleading. Every nation had slightly different requirements for their ships, and the designs of their ships reflected this. The Spanish needed ships that could patrol the trade routes between Spain and South America. This mean ships intended and designed for long ocean voyages and combat out of sight of land. They therefore built ships that carried their guns high up, usually 7-8 feet above the waterline. French ships were designed for short voyages, high speed and short working lives. So they carried their guns very low down, sometimes as low as 5 feet, and had such small holds it was not unusual for them to run out of provisions after a few weeks. They also tended to be much more fragile than their counterparts, as French designers held the opinion that the flexing of the hull gave higher speeds and therefore didn't make the frame as strong as it should have been. (There is a case of a French frigate being pressed directly into British service...and literally falling apart mid channel)
The British built ships for endurance and fire-power. Endurance related to their ability to remain at sea for extended periods of time, technically up to six months although most designs circa 1810 could only realistically carry five months of supplies while remaining combat worthy and a few French based designs couldn't carry more than four months supplies while remaining seaworthy let alone combat worthy. Remaining at sea, especially in the North Atlantic, also required a strong frame. Something that was also required for hefty fire power. In terms of guns British ships tended to carry more guns than their counterparts, on occasion more guns than was really safe, especially with the big second rate line ships which were rather notorious for being only borderline seaworthy in even moderately bad weather. (Hence the reason 'second rate' means something that isn't that good).

Because each nation had different needs they tended to adapt designs taken from one nation to better suit those needs. The British, for example, tended to rebuild captured French ships with larger holds and heavier framing.

Britain decided on smaller carriers due to the cost of the larger ships. However the smaller designs, and the smaller aircraft they had to carry, have serious limitations. The Harrier is a fine aircraft, but not one well suited for long range patrols or really all that effective in the air-to-air role. We were VERY lucky that during the Falklands war the Argentines decided to leave their Mirage fighters at home, because those would have utterly outclassed the Harriers.
Smaller carriers do have their uses, but principally those are close support duties with larger carriers which have larger aircraft best used for air defence.

Currently the Royal Navy has only a single carrier in service (HMS Illustrious which is being used as a helicopter-carrier) which will be retired later this year. The replacement class, the Queen Elizabeth class, will be the largest ship ever built for the Royal Navy and will operate F-35's. HMS Queen Elizabeth will not be launched until 2017, and will not be in full service until 2020. A decision to build a second carrier, HMS Prince of Wales, will not be made until 2015.
It says a lot about the British Government that it has taken them over twenty years to decide that maybe scrapping all the big carriers* back in the late 1970's wasn't such a good idea.

(*Well, big for the Royal Navy. They looked like toys compared to the Nimitz class carriers)