NamelesStatistic
Banned
DANFS has a few comments on [SIZE=-1]New Orleans and Chippewa, in which the most reliable description of their armament gives them 87 guns, 63 32-pdrs, 24 32-pdr carronades. That's the same as the Atlantic built ships of the line, although they might have been more seaworthy given their greater dimensions. I remain unconvinced of this - even monsters like the Santisima Trinidad, L'Orient and Caledonia only had 32-pdrs on the lowest gun deck, and with good reason.[/SIZE]
Interesting, by that account the Americans are going for a more atypical armament, favoring a smaller number of total cannons but all of their armament being of the heaviest caliber. I wonder why the USN decided to go with an all 32 pound broadside? At 2805 tonnes these are really big warships, even for first rates (500 tonnes more than St. Lawrence) so this probably would have helped keep them stable even mounting this really heavy armament.
As to the USS Plattsburgh although it had had the tonnage and armament of a ship of the line (only 400 tonnes less then the two British battleships under construction and 2.5 times bigger than HMS Psyche), it was probably still classed as a frigate because its guns would be mounted frigate-style with the bulk of their armaments being mounted on a single deck. Still it had the size and tonnage close to a battleship, although I don't know how much of a disadvantage a frigate-style layout (if any) would affect the ships performance vs an actual battleship, but considering its size and armaments I would think it could serve a similar role as the other two US Battleships in engaging the 3 British Battleships.
One of the other US frigates, the USS Superior also seems to be exceptionally powerful for a frigate: Even though it was only slightly larger then the largest UK frigate, Prince Regent (1580 vs 1450 tonnes) it mounted 30 32 pounder long guns, 2 24 pounders and 26 42-pounder carronades compared to all the other frigates mounting only 24 pounder guns and 32 pounder carronades.
HMS Psyche was really just an over-gunned sloop rather than a frigate (USS General Pike was actually slightly larger and had a similar long gun armament of 24 pounders but lacked HMS Psyche's 28 32-pdr carronades)
So if you count USS Plattsburgh as a battleship and HMS Psyche as a sloop you get the following numbers in our ATL where the war lasts longer and where the sips under contruction are completed:
RN
3 Battleships
2 Frigates
3 Sloops (one gunned like a frigate)
3 Brigs
USN
3 Battleships (2 armed exclusively with heavy caliber guns, 1 frigate-style)
2 Frigates (one armed with a main broadside of 32 pounders)
1 Sloop
1 Corvette
3 Brigs
Looks like a very interesting battle to me