Every man aboard is at one of three stations, the sails, the port guns or the starboard guns, and a ship cannot fight its guns and work its sails at full strength at the same time.
Three stations
The station bar along the bottom of the screen has three buttons: PORT GUNS on the left, All hands to sail in the middle and STARBOARD GUNS on the right. Each shows its men as a count against what the station needs: crew 172/172 under a gun side, 108/168 under the sails. Every man aboard is counted at one of the three, and the counts always add up to the crew.
When an order moves men, they walk. A station fills at up to one gun crew's worth of men every eight seconds, so the counts change as the men arrive, not the moment you give the order.
The gun crew
A gun needs a crew sized by the weight of shot it fires: 5 men for a 6-pounder, 6 for a 9-pounder, 8 for a 12-pounder, 10 for an 18-pounder, 12 for a 24-pounder and 14 for a 32-pounder. A ship has one gun crew, enough to fight every gun on one side. It can fight one broadside with the whole gun crew, or split half and half to fight both.
| Crew | Guns a side | Gun crew | Full sail needs | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| First Rate | 850 | 58 | 624 | 510 |
| Seventy-four | 600 | 37 | 390 | 360 |
| Frigate | 280 | 20 | 172 | 168 |
| Brig | 120 | 9 | 72 | 72 |
| Cutter | 60 | 6 | 30 | 36 |
No ship has the men for both at once. On the first rate the gun crew alone is nearly three quarters of the ship's company.
Gun orders
[ works the port guns and ] the starboard guns. Clicking a side's button does the same. Each press moves the side on to its next order:
- Stand Down: the side is unmanned. Its guns keep whatever they have loaded.
- Load: the gun crew goes to the side and loads, holding fire. A bar along the foot of the button fills as the guns load, and loaded counts the guns that are ready.
- Fire at will: each gun fires as soon as it is loaded and bears on an enemy. Gunnery has the rest.
All hands to sail stands both sides down at once. The sails get every man they need, and the rest wait at the guns.
Sail handling
The sails need men: full sail six in ten of the crew, topsails half that, and staysails alone a quarter of full sail's number. Furled sails need nobody. When the sail station is short of men, sail handling slows in proportion: setting and taking in sail and bracing the yards all take longer. It doesn't make the ship any slower through the water, but every change of sail and every brace comes late.
Under full sail, with one broadside manned, the sail handling left is:
| Men at sail | Sail handling | |
|---|---|---|
| First Rate | 226 of 510 | 44% |
| Seventy-four | 210 of 360 | 58% |
| Frigate | 108 of 168 | 64% |
| Brig | 48 of 72 | 67% |
| Cutter | 30 of 36 | 83% |
Under topsails the sails need half the men, and every warship but the first rate keeps full sail handling with a broadside manned. The first rate keeps 89%. This is why big ships fight under topsails.
Spare hands
Once the guns and the sails have what they need, the men left over go to the guns. With one side manned, they wait at the stood-down side, up to a gun crew, so it can be manned quickly. With both sides manned, they work both. A frigate with its sails furled fights each broadside with 119 men instead of 86.
Spare men are also why manning a side from All hands to sail takes only about six seconds: part of the gun crew is already waiting at the guns.
Loading
A side loads at the rate of the gun crew it has. With the whole gun crew at one side, each gun reloads in its own time, which is longer for heavier shot. Splitting to fight both sides halves the crew at each, so both broadsides load at about half the speed, a little more when spare hands join them. Ordering Load sends the men first, and the guns start loading as they arrive.
Casualties
Every man lost thins every station. The counts on the station bar fall, the guns load slower and sail handling drops with the hands left. Losses also cost morale, and a ship whose morale reaches zero strikes. Morale and Striking has the details.
Unarmed ships and boats
The merchant brigantine carries no guns. Its fourteen men are all at the sails, which is more than they need. In the launch and the jolly boat every man pulls an oar, so a boat's crew lost is pulling power lost.