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>Since nobody else has tried to answer this, I'll >engage in a little speculation. "Swivels," or >half-pounders in the British navy, were very light >anti-personnel weapons that were mounted only in small >vessels that couldn't carry "real" artillery pieces, >even 3-pounders. Often, they were a ><b>supplemental</b> armament. Conventionally, for >"rating" purposes in the British navy, swivels were >counted as "half" a gun apiece, so a vessel with, say, >6 four-pounders and 8 swivels would be rated as a >"10"-gun vessel. I believe that the carronade killed >swivels in the British navy, and that the American >navy therefore never adopted them at all. Any left >over in the U.S. from the Revolutionary War period >might have been used by the smallest privateers >seeking an advantage over unarmed merchant ships or >fishing vessels, or those armed only with pistols and >muskets. Ship's boats (another place you could mount >a swivel) and the smallest warships were armed with >the lightest carronades, 18- and even 12-pounders. > >Looking in Lyon (because he has the whole period in >one volume), even the last of the smallest vessels in >the "Slade Era" (1745-1785) have swivels. In the >1786-1830 period, however, you find a few ships with >swivels, or carronades and swivels, at the beginning, >among the cutters, schooners, and luggers, but they >disappear with the Eling class of schooner-rigged >gunboats starting in 1796 and subsequent vessels in >this size range. > >I'll have to look up Demerliac for the French some >other time. I don't know that the French ever adopted >small carronades, so they might have kept swivels >longer.

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