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French Magicienne class frigate armament
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James



Joined: 27 Feb 2009
Posts: 47
Location: Church Hill, Tennessee

Post Posted: Wed Feb 08, 2012 1:54 am    Post subject: French Magicienne class frigate armament Reply with quote

I was reading about the Battle of the Nile on wikipedia and in the article it states that the French had 2 Magicienne class frigates present, Serieuse and Artemise. The Wikipedia article on the Battle of the Nile states that these 2 ships were armed with 36 guns, even William James states that Artemise and serieuse were 36 gun frigates but the seperate Wikipedia articles of the Magicienne class ships gives each ship an armament of 32 guns.
All I want to know is how many guns these ships carried, 32 or 36?

James
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PMarione
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Joined: 26 Mar 2007
Posts: 883

Post Posted: Wed Feb 08, 2012 3:52 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Oliver Warner in "the Battle of the Nile" gives them as 36.

Frank Lecalve in "liste de la flotte de guerre française" gives them as 32, and in "les pertes de la Marine française" gives them as 40.

Brian Lavery in "Nelson and the Nile" call them just frigates. He says that Brueys ordered the frigates to send their best gun crews to the ships of the line and that Sérieuse and Artémise put 150 men on board the Orient, Tonnant and Franklin.

Jean Boudriot who is certainly the best authority for French vessels, classifies the frigates in 3 classes : 8, 12 and 18 according to the guns caliber.
Magicienne, Sérieuse and Artémise were 12 pounds class.
For the frigate of 12, he says that the number of guns (originally 32) could be up to 40 and even 42.
For the frigate of 18, he gives the number of guns from 32 in 1782 to 44 in 1807.

Magicienne : 1777 in Toulon (Coulomb), 26 x 12p and 6 x 6p
Sérieuse : 1779, in Toulon (Coulomb), 26 x 12p and 6 x 6p
Artémise : 1794, in Toulon

James had a propensity to enhance the broadsides of the enemies' ships, giving more weight to the famous Brit's courage.

In summary, the two frigates were 12 pounds frigates who where designed to carry 32 guns but could have had up to 40 guns at the Nile. One received a broadside and sunk, the other was put on fire by her crew and blew.

@+P
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