US 74 gun Ships of the Line

There is a book titled The United States Navy from the Revolution to Date by F. J. Reynolds published by P. F. Collier & Son in 1916 that discusses these ships to a small degree. The book also provides very nice artwork depicting many of the American '74's.  You can find it occasionally on ebay.  I also have an extra copy if you are interested.

Bill Morrison

The problem is that, by most casual readers' standards, those ships' careers weren't very interesting.  They were authorized right after the War of 1812, when the Congress was in an unusually generous mood regarding funding for the Navy.  Under the American system of military appropriations the authorization for the construction of a ship and the funding for it are covered by separate pieces of legislation, and no military funding bill can cover a longer period than two years.  During the next several decades after those ships were authorized, the Congress lost its enthusiasm (there was, after all, no looming prospect of a naval war), and the ships got built extremely slowly as the money became available.  (One of them - a frigate, I believe - was under construction for more than twenty years.  I'd have to look up the name.)  By the time the ships of the line were actually commissioned they were, by most definitions, obsolescent at best.  None of them ever got into any serious combat; they served as flagships on foreign stations with the primary duty of carrying commodores around and showing the flag.  Most of them, as I recall, ended their days as "receiving ships" in the east coast seaports.  At least one of them, as I remember, spent much of the Civil War anchored off one of the Confederate ports serving as a supply vessel for a blockading squadron.

I'm pretty sure all of their careers are covered in the Dictionary of American Fighting Ships, which is available on line:  http://www.history.navy.mil/danfs/index.html .  When I tried that site a few minutes ago it was acting sluggish, but it's normally quite easy to use. 

Beyond Chapelle and DANFS, there are two other books that summarize American vessels under sail, including the ships of the line:

Sailing Warships of the US Navy, Donald L. Canney, Naval Institute Press, 2001

The Sailing Navy 1775-1854, Paul H. Silverstone, Naval Institute Press, 2001

Both books summarize information on the designs and service histories, but neither approaches the quality of Boudriot's, Lyon's or Lavery's corresponding works on European vessels.

Two more potential resources:

America's Line of Battle, Its Contruction and History by TD Shiflett ($11.04 at Amazon)

There is also an online message board devoted to US Navy ships of the line which is moderated by PC Coker:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/usshipsoftheline/messages

jtilley wrote:

The problem is that, by most casual readers' standards, those ships' careers weren't very interesting.  They were authorized right after the War of 1812, when the Congress was in an unusually generous mood regarding funding for the Navy.  Under the American system of military appropriations the authorization for the construction of a ship and the funding for it are covered by separate pieces of legislation, and no military funding bill can cover a longer period than two years.  During the next several decades after those ships were authorized, the Congress lost its enthusiasm (there was, after all, no looming prospect of a naval war), and the ships got built extremely slowly as the money became available.  (One of them - a frigate, I believe - was under construction for more than twenty years.  I'd have to look up the name.)  By the time the ships of the line were actually commissioned they were, by most definitions, obsolescent at best.  None of them ever got into any serious combat; they served as flagships on foreign stations with the primary duty of carrying commodores around and showing the flag.  Most of them, as I recall, ended their days as "receiving ships" in the east coast seaports.  At least one of them, as I remember, spent much of the Civil War anchored off one of the Confederate ports serving as a supply vessel for a blockading squadron. I'm pretty sure all of their careers are covered in the Dictionary of American Fighting Ships, which is available on line:  http://www.history.navy.mil/danfs/index.html .  When I tried that site a few minutes ago it was acting sluggish, but it's normally quite easy to use.

Well, the ship of the line Pennsylvania was authorized in 1816, Laid down in 1821 and completed in 1837. The screw steamer Pennsylvania was laid down in 1863 and scrapped incomplete in 1884. On the other hand, USS Vermont was laid down in 1818, launched in 1848 and comission in 1862. Converted into a stores ship almost immediately. Sold in 1902. Finally, USS New Hampshire was laid down in 1819, and not completed until 1864 when she was launched as storeship, until burned, sunk, raised, burned again and sunk in 1922. 

Maybe it would be useful to list the basic facts about this story.  It's a short one; the Silverstone book Schoonerbum mentioned covers it in less than four pages - including pictures.  The following information is condensed from that book.  The parenthetical weblinks are to the relevant entries in the online version of the Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships.  (I don't have a copy of Don Canney's book, but I suspect he doesn't have much more to say about American ships of the line - for the simple reason that there isn't a lot more to be said.)

If I've counted correctly, a grand total of ten sailing vessels that fit a reasonable definition of the term "ship of the line" flew the flag of the U.S. Navy - and three of those fit the definition only if it's stretched considerably.

In 1799, during the brief dominance of the Federalist party (and the Quasi-War with France), Congress authorized the construction of six ships of the line.  Only one had been laid down when, in the following year, the conflict with France cooled down and Congress canceled the program.  None of those ships was ever launched.

Two ships of the line, named Independence and Washington, were authorized, laid down, and launched during the War of 1812, but neither was commissioned before hostilities ceased.  Both had bad reputations in terms of sailing qualities. The Independence ( http://www.history.navy.mil/danfs/i1/independence-ii.htm ) served as flagship of the Mediterranean and Home Squadrons for a few years before being laid up "in ordinary" from 1822 to 1836.  She was then "razeed" (i.e., converted more-or-less into a frigate by the removal of her upper gundeck), and had an active career on various stations around the world until she was assigned as a receiving ship (i.e., a floating barracks for newly-recruited sailors) in 1857.  She was decommissioned in 1912 and broken up the following year.  The Washington ( http://www.history.navy.mil/danfs/w3/washington-iv.htm ) served for two years as flagship of the Mediterranean Squadron, went into reserve in 1820, and was broken up in 1845.

Two more ships of the line, the Franklin and Columbus, were authorized during the War of 1812 but not laid down until 1815, after the Treaty of Ghent.  The Franklin, like the Independence and Washington, was found to be a clumsy sailer, but saw active service in the Mediterranean and the Pacific until 1824 ( http://www.history.navy.mil/danfs/f4/franklin-iii.htm ).  She was then laid up until 1843; in that year she was put back into service as a receiving ship.  She was finally decommissioned in 1843 and broken up ten years later.  (Some of her timbers may have made their way into a new steam-powered screw frigate of the same name, which was built with funds authorized for "rebuilding" the old ship.  It used to be thought that this process, which also was used in the breaking up of the 1797 frigate Constellation and the construction of a new corvette of the same name, was a form of deception perpetrated by the Navy on the Congress.  Recent research has established that it was, in fact, perfectly legal, and almost certainly understood for what it was by everybody concerned.)  The Columbus (http://www.history.navy.mil/danfs/c11/columbus-ii.htm ), though Silverstone describes her as being known as a "poor sea boat," had quite an active career until she was laid up in 1848.  She was burned to avoid capture at the Norfolk Navy Yard in 1861 (along with three other ships of the line; see below).

Right after the War of 1812 the Congress went on a modest military spending spree, which included the authorization, on April 29, 1816, of nine ships "to rate not less than 74 guns each."  Seven of these actually got built, but it took a while - and only three of them actually did the sort of service for which they had been designed. 

Six of the authorized nine were sister ships of 74 guns each.  Two of them ever served in their intended roles:

Delaware ( http://www.history.navy.mil/danfs/d3/delaware-iii.htm ).  Laid down 1817, launched 1820, commissioned 1828. She had a more-or-less active career until 1844, when she was laid up at Norfolk; she was burned when the Navy Yard there was evacuated in 1861.

North Carolina ( http://www.history.navy.mil/danfs/n6/north_carolina-i.htm ).  Laid down 1816, launched 1820, commissioned 1825.  Was in active service intermittently until 1840, when she became a receiving ship.  Sold in 1867.

Two other members of the class did get launched and commissioned, but never served their intended purposes: 

Alabama.  Laid down 1819; launched 1864 (after what surely must be some sort of record for time under construction).  In 1863, for obvious reasons, she had been renamed New Hampshire. ( http://www.history.navy.mil/danfs/n4/new_hampshire-i.htm ). She was launched as a storeship, renamed Granite State in 1904, and sold in 1921.

Vermont (ex-Virginia, ex-Massachusetts) ( http://www.history.navy.mil/danfs/v2/vermont-i.htm ).  Laid down 1818, launched 1848, commissioned 1862.  (Silverstone notes that she was "ready for launching in 1825 but only launched to clear slip in 1848.")  She was commissioned as a storeship for one of the Union blockading squadrons.  She was sold in 1902.

The other two were never launched:

New York.  Laid down in 1820 at Norfolk.  She was still under construction at the start of the Civil War, and shared the fate of the Columbus and Delaware. 

Virginia (ex-Vermont).  Laid down 1822.  Silverstone says she was "ready for launching, 1825 but never launched.  B[roken] U[p] on stocks, 1874."

Silverstone, perhaps a bit euphemistically, describes this class as "highly successful vessels.  [Well, maybe he's just talking about the Delaware and North Carolina.]  Alabama, New York, Vermont, and Virginia were completed ready to launch and kept in reserve until needed...."  Those must be the ones Chuck Fan mentioned - though they were authorized after, not during, the War of 1812.  (None of them was still under construction in the 1880s; all of them had been either launched or burned on the stocks by the end of the Civil War.  Only four - the razeed Indepencence, the Alabama/New Hampshire, the Virginia/Massachusetts/Vermont, and the Ohio - were still Navy property as of 1880.  I haven't encountered that story of a ship of the line being destroyed when a temporary barn fell down.  I suppose it could have happened to one of them after being decommissioned and sold.) 

Two of the other ships of the line authorized right after the War of 1812 were one-of-a-kind:

Ohio, 74 ( http://www.history.navy.mil/danfs/o2/ohio-ii.htm ).  Laid down 1817, launched 1820, commissioned 1838.  She was considered a good sailer, and unusually fast for her size.  (The DANFS says she was reputed to have reached 12 knots.)  She was sold in 1883.

Pennsylvania, 120 ( http://www.history.navy.mil/danfs/p4/pennsylvania-i.htm ).  The largest sailing warship ever built for the U.S. Navy, she had four full-length gundecks.  (Her designer, Samuel Humphreys, apparently consulted the plans of the famous Spanish ship of the line Santissima Trinidad; there's a copy of the latter vessel's hull lines in the U.S. National Archives.)  She saw no active service; she was made into a receiving ship at Norfolk shortly after she was commissioned, and was burned to prevent capture by the Confederates at the start of the Civil War.  That fire consumed four of the eleven ships of the line the U.S. Navy ever built - along with the steam frigate Merrimack, which had a brief but interesting second career thereafter.

Ship number nine of the 1816 authorization apparently died somewhere in the bureaucratic process.

So only seven American ships - the Independence, Washington, Franklin, Columbus, Delaware, North Carolina, and Ohio - ever did active service as ships of the line.  Three others - the Alabama/New Hampshire, Virginia/Massachusetts/Vermont, and Pennsylvania - were authorized and laid down as ships of the line, and were launched and placed in commission, but were never used for their original purpose.  Two more, the New York and Virginia, were laid down and almost finished as ships of the line, but were destroyed before they were launched.

The big factor that led to so many American sailing warships being under construction for so long was money.  Federal budgets in the nineteenth century were, by modern standards, incredibly small.  (There was no federal income tax in those days; most of the money had to come from import tariffs, excise taxes, and the sale of government bonds.)  The Navy (and the Army too, for that matter) got a low priority.  These were the days of the Monroe Doctrine, when the United States professed to have no military or naval interests beyond the western hemisphere.  For that matter, callling these vessels "ships of the line" could be said to be a slight misuse of the language; the U.S. Navy was never set up to form a line of battle in the traditional European sense.   

Over the years those ships have attracted a surprising amount of attention from model builders.  If I remember right, the Smithsonian used to have a nice model of one of them in its naval/military history gallery.  (Almost all the Smithsonian's warship models got left out of the new military gallery that opened a few years ago; that's one of my few criticisms of it.)  I've seen several other nice models of American ships of the line in various places.  Most recently, the visitor center on the pier beside the U.S.S. North Carolina, in Wilmington, N.C., commissioned a series of excellent models representing all the warships named North Carolina, including the old ship of the line.  Anybody wanting to see that one would be well advised to do so ASAP.  Sometime in the fairly near future the great battleship herself is slated to get towed up to Newport News for some major - and long overdue - repairs to her hull.

jtilley, thank you for that comprehensive accounting of the larger sailing ships the US Navy constructed during that period. The Pennsylvania must have been an impressive vessel with 120 guns even if it only served in that capacity for a brief time.

Agreed!  There was no "United States of America" until after 1783; therefore, there can be no "United States Ships" until after that year.

To me, the American ships-of-the-line are interesting as a "What might have been" issue in naval history.  Following the War of 1812 and the Napoleonic Wars, the United States Navy was the only foreign navy respected by the British Royal Navy.  Had the age of sail not died out in the middle of the 19th century, would the USN have grown into a traditional battle line navy similar to the RN?  Or, would it have focused instead on frigates and the guerre de course type of warfare?  The strategic needs of the nation and the service may have evolved differently had the age of sail been prolonged.

Anyway, speculation is only that . . . guesswork.  The American ships-of-the-line did not have the opportunity to accomplish much (if anything) in this transitional period in naval history.

Bill Morrison

Just a quick question, guys. When counting guns referred to being equipped on a "74" for instance; are carronades counted among the 74 guns or are just the long guns counted?

Only the long guns were counted on any rated ship.

For instance a 32 gun frigate could have over 40 guns if you included the carronades.

Cheers

Mike

subfixer wrote:

Just a quick question, guys. When counting guns referred to being equipped on a "74" for instance; are carronades counted among the 74 guns or are just the long guns counted?

There is no universally applicable rule.   At the beginning of Revolutionary war, more often then not, if the ship has covered gun decks, then all carriage guns on covered decks count, regardless of whether they are carronades or long guns.  However, on the same ship only the long carriage guns on open decks usually count.  However if a ship has no covered gun decks then all carriage guns on open deck, carronades or not, counts.    Swivle guns usually don't count. 

The issue is further confused when, starting from about 1800 there are experiments to re-arm even large ships with mostly carronades.  This usually did not change the rating of the ship.   After about 1810 ships with high proportions of carronades increased.  Once that happened, there was increased willingness to count the carronades on open decks in a ship's rating.

Sometimes a ship's hull is pierced with more gun ports then the number of guns she was intended to carry, to provide for such contingencies as shifting guns to chase locations.   In this case the rating of the ship usually follow the number of guns originally intended, not the number of ports.   However this does not keep advocates from inflating the strength of their ships by noticing "Ahhh, but she has ports for X number of guns".   One example is the 120 gun USS Pennsylvania,  which advocates, including yours truly,  claim at various time to be 130, 136 or some similar rate, on account of her having more ports than guns.    But she remain officially rated for 120 guns.

For example, The USS Constitution was authorized by Congress as a 44-gun frigate, carrying 32 24Lb long guns, 10 12 lb long guns, and 2 additional 24 lb long guns as bow chasers.  That armament varied throughout her career, averaging something like 32 24 lb guns, 20 32 lb carronades, with 2 24 lb bow chasers (totalling 54 guns).  Armament often varied due to Commanding Officer preferences, condition of the ship, etc.  So, there is no easy answer other than that provided by JTilley and Chuck Fan.

Bill Morrison  

A couple of other famous examples come to mind.

The U.S.S. Essex, commissioned in 1799, was authorized as a "32-gun frigate" and was referred to as such constistently throughout her career.  The original plans, drawn by the naval architect William Hackett (as reproduced in P.C.F. Smith's The Frigate Essex Papers:  Building the Salem Frigate, 1798-1799) show thirteen gunports per side on the maindeck and six per side on the quarterdeck.  (There's no bulwark on the forecastle, but the arrangement of stanchions supporting the forecastle rail suggests that two guns per side could be accommodated there.  It's entirely possible that the designer figured on one or more bow and/or stern chasers, pointing ahead and/or astern, as well.) 

A letter from her first commanding officer, Edward Preble, dated November 21, 1799 (a month before she was commissioned), establishes that at that time the Essex's armament consisted of twenty-six 12-pounders on the maindeck and ten 6-pounders on the quarterdeck.  (The context of the document implies that all were long guns.)  According to Mr. Silverstone's book, as of 1810 she was armed with forty 32-pounder carronades and six 12-pounder long guns.  (The idea of arming a frigate mainly with carronades was an experiment - and not a particularly successful one; the weakness of her long-range armament was certainly a factor in the loss of the Essex during the War of 1812.)  Figure the foremost maindeck port was a bridle port, leave out the carronades, do whatever you like.  I never took a math course beyond high school, and I admit I'm a product of the Old Math, but for the life of me I can't make any of those combinations add up to thirty-two.  It's pretty clear that, by the last decade of the eighteenth century (if not earlier), the terms "44-gun frigate," "38-gun frigate," "32-gun frigate," etc. were understood in the British and American navies to be indications of relative size, not actual armament.

Then there's the interesting case of H.M.S. Victory.  She's invariably referred to in official documents as a "100-gun ship."  There seems to be some disagreement about the armament she carried at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805; some sources say 102 guns, while others say 104.  (The discrepancy may have something to do with the question of whether she had those two elaborate entry ports on her middle gundeck at the time.  There's reason to think she didn't - in which case those two openings would have accommodated two more guns.  There's also some doubt about whether there were a pair of long guns firing through ports in the forecastle bulwarks - which aren't there today.)  It's fairly certain that two, and only two, of the guns she carried in 1805 were the 68-pounder carronades on the forecastle.  If the total was indeed 102, things work out fine:  a 100-gun ship carrying a hundred long guns plus two carronades that didn't count in the rating.  But if the total was in fact 104, things don't add up.  And that apparently didn't bother anybody.

I remember running across a bit of trivia vaguely related to this point when I was going through the Admiralty Board minutes for the period of the American Revolution.  (This is my notoriously inconsistent memory talking; I doubt the note card on which I wrote it down still exists.)  In the spring of 1780 H.M.S. London, a second-rate ship-of-the-line of 90 guns built in 1766, had just been assigned as the flagship of Adm. Thomas Graves, who was about to sail for North America to become second-in-command to Adm. Marriot Arbuthnot.  In the process of fitting out for the commission she was given eight additional guns.  The admiral passed on to the Admiralty Board a request from the ship's captain that she be assigned some additional men to operate the new weapons.  According to the minutes, he got a chilly response:  "Resolved, that he be acquainted that their Lordships cannot at this time agree to increase the establishment for ships of the second rate."  

Those old Admiralty Minutes contain some fascinating stuff - buried amid hundreds of pages  of distinctly unmemorable minutiae.  (I got thoroughly sick of reading:  "Midshipman So-and-So having represented to this Board that he lost the journal he kept from May 6, 1777 to July 10, 1779, and he having taken oath to the effect that he did keep a journal during the said period, Resolved, that the want thereof be dispensed with upon his making application to take the examination for Lieutenant."  Yawn...snore..."Bloody uncivilized American grad students....")  My favorite:  "Midshipman So-and-So having been convicted by a General Court-Martial of the murder of his Mother on board his Majesty's Ship Whatnot, Resolved, that Sir Thomas Pye [the port admiral at Portsmouth] be directed to hang him accordingly." 

The Victory's carronades are mounted on swivel carriages on the forward corners of her forecastle deck, in such a way that they can be swung around to fire through curved cutouts in either the top of the beakhead bulkhead or the knee-high bulwarks of the sides.  There's a good photo on this page from the ship's website:  http://www.hms-victory.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=34&Itemid=62 . 

The picture shows the starboard carronade swiveled around to fire to starboard; the cutout in the beakhead bulkhead is just out of the picture to the left.  The carriage pivots on a pin mounted just inboard of the bulwark.  Swinging the mount around to fire over the beakhead bulkhead would have entailed removing the pin, bodily heaving the front end of the carriage around, and securing the pin in a corresponding socket next to the beakhead bulkhead - a big, clumsy job that would have been extremely dangerous with any kind of sea running.  And if the carronades were fired over the beakhead bulkhead, the first casualty would be some of the elaborate rigging associated with the bowsprit and spritsail yards.  I suspect the carronades were rarely, if ever, used that way.  Come to think of it, I'm not sure there even is a socket for the pin next to the beakhead bulkhead "cutout."  You can barely make out the cutout itself in the photo showing the galley stove flue, but no fitting for the carronade seems to be visible there.

Some researchers contend that in 1805 the Victory's forecastle bulwarks were shoulder high, with genuine gunports in them for that purpose; that's how they're shown in the contemporary model at the National Maritime Museum.  In any case, every set of plans and every model of the Victory (in her post-1802 configuration) that I've ever seen shows the carronades on the forecastle deck.  That was a typical arrangement at the time; she was perhaps a little unusual in that she didn't have any carronades on her quarterdeck.  (I'd have to look up how many British ships of the line did have quarterdeck carronades in 1805. Plenty of frigates certainly did.)

One of the reasons for the popularity of the carronade was that, because it was so short, it could fire a heavier shot than could a long gun of equal weight.  (A 68-pounder long gun would have been an impractical weapon for the broadside armament of an eighteenth-century ship.)  That fact enabled a heavier gun to be carried higher up in the ship without raising the center of gravity.  (As the text on that web page puts it, "Because [carronades] were lighter than standard long guns they could be mounted on the top deck."  Eighteenth- and nineteenth-century naval architects assumed that lowering the center of gravity automatically made the ship more stable.  The question of stability isn't quite that simple in reality, but the concept was the basis of many decisions in warship design.)  The carronade made its initial appearance on the quarterdecks and forecastles of ships of various rates (the Constitution being a prominent example). 

I'm never comfortable with word like "never" and "always" in this context, but I know of no instances of carronades being mounted on the lower deck of a ship of the line.  (For that matter, I know of no British or American frigate, other than the Essex, that carried carronades anywhere other than on her quarterdeck and/or forecastle.  There may well have been others, but I can't recall any of them - though sloops, brigs, and other smaller warships with maindeck carronade batteries were relatively common.)  And there's no doubt whatever that the first gun fired on board the Victory at Trafalgar was the carronade on the starboard side of her forecastle deck.

I  have not come across any references to carronades below decks on any British ships of the era in question, particularly Victory.

The thought occurs to me that carronades stand higher than carriage guns and there may be issues with clearance thro' the lower deck gunports.

The 68 pound carronades on Victorys' fo'csle were a late replacement for two 24 pound carronades, a fortuitous substitution given the havoc caused to Bucentaure with the initial firing of the Port carronade thro' her stern.

According to Peter Goodwin (the present curator) Victory did carry six 18 pound carronades on her Poop prior to the 1803/04 refit.

I have a vague recollection of reading somewhere that one of the higher rated Trafalgar vessels did carry some carronades on her quarterdeck, but for the life of me I can't recall where.

This shot more clearly shows the cutout on the beakhead rail mentioned by John, but there is no prepared pad on which to fit the swivel bed . This is not to say that there wasn't one at some time, but it seems more logical that the position was used for carriage mounted long guns.

 The jotika kit of Victory which has the built up bulwarks on the Fo'cstle shows the carronades facing forward thro; the beakhead rail, but this seems to present an awkward set up to achieve the raking shot thro' the Bucentaure stern as Victory cut the line.

If you look at the photos of the Jotika kit on their site the built up bulwarks severely restrict  the traversing range of the carronades which effectively can only point forwards.

Well, we've wandered a long way from American 74s.  But this is interesting stuff.

Just how the Victory's forecastle was configured in 1805 seems to be a matter of some debate.  I think there's fairly general (if not universal) agreement now that the forecastle bulwarks were shoulder-high at that time, and had been so at least since her refit of 1800-1803 (or was it 1804?).  She underwent a major reconstruction in the 1920s; I think that was when the forecastle bulwarks were lowered.  There are far better sources than my memory on this point, but I do recall pretty distinctly an article that Dr. R.C. Anderson, who was in charge of the project in the '20s, wrote for The Mariner's Mirror in which he acknowledged that the lowering of the bulwarks was "a mistake for which I must take my share of the blame."  The researchers had reached their conclusion about the shoulder-high bulwarks when the carpenters had just finished work on the lowered versions, and Anderson, quite understandably, didn't have the heart (or funding) to order the destruction of newly-completed work.

I think the installation of the two long guns on the forecastle deck is a relatively recent change.  I'm at least 90% sure they weren't there the last time I was on board the ship (that was in 1991; beware my notorious memory), and they aren't shown on several famous and influential plans and models (e.g., Longridge's).  I have no trouble believing they were actually there in 1805 if Mr. Goodwin and his crew say so.  My guess, though, is that those "cutouts" in the beakhead bulkhead date from the 1920s, when the bulwarks were lowered - and the people in charge at that point apparently thought the carronades were the only guns on the forecastle. 

The complexities of all this can give one a headache.  The bottom line is that nothing about the current configuration of the forecastle bulwarks can be trusted as being accurate for the ship's 1805 configuration.  I'm inclined to agree with George:  if any guns were actually set up to point forward on the forecastle, it was most likely the long guns rather than the carronades.

I believe the initial release of the Calder/Jotika kit had forecastle bulwarks like the real ship does now.  The company is noted for its commendable emphasis on accuracy.  As I recall, when the kit was originally released, sometime prior to 2005 (the anniversary of the battle), purchasers were invited to sign up for "updates" based on Mr. Goodwin's research project, which was still very much under weigh at that time.  (The in-progress photos on the Jotika website certainly give the impression that the raised forecastle bulwarks were added after the prototype model was started:    http://www.jotika-ltd.com/Pages/1024768/Victory_16.htm .)  Now that's what I call an honest-to-goodness scale ship model kit manufacturer.  I only wish I could afford their products.

One interesting source of information about the Victory's armament that doesn't seem to get consulted often is the series of sketches J.M.W. Turner drew on board her, supposedly shortly after the battle.  (He'd been commissioned to do the enormous painting of her that's now in the National Maritime Museum.)  I don't know where the original sketches are, but at least one of them is reproduced in the book H.M.S. Victory:  Construction, Career and Restoration, by Alan McGowen and John McKay.  The picture is a view of the quarterdeck and poop, from a viewpoint somewhat aft of the mainmast.  It clearly shows a good-sized swivel gun mounted on a hefty railing at the break of the poop. 

The completed Turner painting (http://www.nmm.ac.uk/collections/nelson/viewObject.cfm?ID=BHC0565 ) is interesting on several fronts.  Note that the NMM description confirms that, though the painting wasn't finished till 1822, Turner made sketches on board the ship "on her return from Trafalgar."  Note also that the ornate entry port on the middle gundeck is absent.  (Turner is no help regarding the forecastle bulwarks; he inconsiderately draped a downed sail over that part of the ship.)  The McGowan/McKay book contains reproductions of quite a few paintings of the ship made before and after Trafalgar.  Not one of them shows those entry ports.  Neither does this model from the NMM's collection:(http://www.nmm.ac.uk/collections/nelson/viewObject.cfm?ID=SLR0513 ).  This extremely interesting model is said to date from sometime shortly after the "great rebuild" that was finished in 1803.  (The NMM description hems and haws a bit about the bulwarks - but nobody seems to comment on the absence of the entry ports.  By the way - three cheers for the recent changes to the NMM website, which now makes many of the paintings and models in its great collection available for individual study online.)

There is, to say the least, substantial reason to think that Heller was right in leaving the entry ports off its 1/100-scale plastic kit.  I find it a little surprising that the Jotika kit has them.  There may be some more evidence out there, but I haven't seen it.

In the grand scheme of things none of this makes much difference, but I admit I find it fascinating - as the typically insufferable length of this post indicates.

Come to think of it, I have never seen any reference to any ship carrying 68 Lbs carronades on the fo'c'sle, or anywhere else but HMS Victory, and only for a few years (along with a couple 12 Lbs cannons, they were in fact mounted on the fo'c'sle for Trafalgar, but thereafter removed).  Actually, there is ONE other ship that used these, the 50 gun HMS Glatton, which for a time was armed with 28 x 68 lbs carronades, 28 x 42 lbs carronades (she was later e-armed with 18's long guns on the lower deck and 32 lbs carronades o the upper deck).   32 Lbs carronades were often employed on the fo'c'sles of first and second rate ships of the line, and often on the quarter decks as well (the 74-gun HMS Ajax carried 8 x 32 lbs carronades on the quarter deck, and 4 x 9 pound long guns on the fo'c'sle at Trafalgar).  HMS Victory had 32 Lbs carronades on her quarter deck (eight of them) after 1806, with just two 32 pounders on the fo'c'sle, but the 68 pounders had been removed by this time. A 68 Lbs carronade, despite being much lighter than a long gun of similar bore, still weighs almost as much as a 24 Lbs cannon, and thus is really unsuitable for the upper decks of ships of the line for reasons of stability and structural integrity (especially an old ship, and were not seen on any other ships to my knowledge).  Reference 'The Ships of Trafalgar' by Peter Goodwin......

It's a good thing to remember that artillery fitouts for warships of this time depended largely on the personal thoughts of the captain and what was available at the time a ship was taken 'out of ordinary,' and this changed repeatedly throughout their careers (some ships even carried additional cannon and carronades as ballast, and could thus alter their armament accordingly even during a single commission!).  Carronades were not really considered 'standard' guns (at least not officially) until after 1800, although they were certainly used extensively before and after that time.  If you look at the original specifications of British ships built before 1800, you will not see carronades mentioned, although it is quite certain many of them spent most of their career equipped with at least some (sometimes placed on the poop, if not the quarter deck)

GeorgeW wrote:

I  have not come across any references to carronades below decks on any British ships of the era in question, particularly Victory.

USS Essex, a nominal 36 gun frigage which HMS Phoebe defeated in Valparaiso, had mostly 40pdr carronades below decks. In the RN, some sloops were also equiped with 24 or 32 pdr carronades below decks.