Talk:USS Essex (1799)

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How many guns ...?[edit]

I hav found refs for two possibilities - the info box suggests a third. Perhaps it changed at different times? Regards, Springnuts (talk) 15:22, 31 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

'Essex' had 26 12-pounders and 10 6-pounders (lighter guns above the gun deck), according to http://www.history.navy.mil/danfs/e5/essex-i.htm. This makes her notationally a 32 gun frigate; in other words, naval personnel of the time would have referred to her as a 32 gun, 12 pound frigate. This notational number of guns might persist through re-armaments. Guns are removed when such a ship is placed in ordinary, so the initial armament may have been changed in 1809.

The armament in the data panel may reflect her armament as HMS Essex--such modifications by the RN were usual. However, I also came across a complaint by Captain Porter that she should have cannons not carronades going into the Pacific, so she could have been rearmed then

My guess is that her initial armament was long guns--carronades were not that popular then; that she was rearmed with carronades in 1809 or 1812, but probably kept the same number of guns; and that the data panel numbers reflect HMS Essex. However, while the navy.mil site can be considered authoritative of her having that armament at some point, which point is not certain.

I have decided against editing the article, as I cannot fully resolve the issues and this is not the place to discuss the difference between notational and actual guns. Laguna CA (talk) 22:53, 26 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

She did have carronades as I have read elsewhere. This is very significant because it is probably why she lost her last battle. The British frigate simply stayed out for the range of the carronades and used its long guns to nearly destroy Essex. Pgrudin (talk) 12:37, 29 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]