What is all the rigging on the ships? What are they rigged for?

[Ducky_shot]

I assume all the wires and rigging on ships historically served a purpose. Is it all just radio antennas? Or were there other purposes for it all?

[RipNuN2]

You might get some very specific info from the forum ships experts if you had some screenies of the rigging you were curious about. I would imagine there were different purposes like tying up to dock, hanging flags, etc. etc.

[anonym_Hf93Jbjm9WjT]

standing rigging would be to there to make sure masts, antenna and other wobbly bits, stay in place during foul weather. There are basically 2 kinds of rigging, standing, and running. Standing rigging keeps things upright, running rigging is there to move things about (such as sails). 

[kittikat]

So sailors could hang out their laundry to dry, duh.

And hang nets off them when they're not drying so they can play volleyball (haven't you seen Top Gun, Volleyball is ALL they do).

[Umikami]

23 minutes ago, Ducky_shot said:

I assume all the wires and rigging on ships historically served a purpose. Is it all just radio antennas? Or were there other purposes for it all?

It's for the imaginary radios WoW uses to justify RFP.

[Doomlock]

As Nutty mentioned, to keep the more loose objects more secure on the ship, to hang tarps for shade, to string out flags for ceremonious occasion, to hold signal flags and ensigns, and there's a bit of naval tradition in there too.

[Lert]

A combination of securing masts in an upright position, hanging signals and redundant radio aerials. Navies love redundancy.

[Sotaudi]

1 hour ago, Ducky_shot said:

rigging on ships

The tin-foil hatters and conspiracy theorists were right!  The game is rigged!

[Lert]

8 minutes ago, Sotaudi said:

The game is rigged!

Well, the ships are ...

[K538]

1 hour ago, nuttybiscuit said:

standing rigging would be to there to make sure masts, antenna and other wobbly bits, stay in place during foul weather. There are basically 2 kinds of rigging, standing, and running. Standing rigging keeps things upright, running rigging is there to move things about (such as sails). 

This is the correct answer.  Most masts on ships were historically held in place by the rigging rather than simply by being attached to the deck or superstructure, with some notable exceptions like the US use of lattice masts on battleships.  They're big long levers and they required a lot of support to stay upright even in the lightest of breeze, let alone under the forces normally found at sea.

[Murotsu]

If you are talking like WW 1 era ships with all those wires and such those are primarily there for radio communications.  Back in those days radios were big and not particularly efficient:

It took really BIG antennas, hundreds of feet long to absorb enough signal to allow the radio to receive it.  So, they hung the wires across the length of the ship as high as possible to get the best signal.  Sending a signal took the same sort of huge antenna.  If you had more than one radio (and most military ships did) then you needed multiple antennas for them as they couldn't share like they often do today.

Next, masts of that era were also usually braced with rigging as has been previously noted.  So, there's some of that too.

[Ensign_Cthulhu]

On 29/01/2018 at 12:29 PM, Umikami said:

It's for the imaginary radios WoW uses to justify RFP.

Google HF/DF and you will see how WoW justifies RPF. It was very, very real, but it was also primarily an anti-submarine tool. (In-game it should more properly be a tier-based module applied to ships and not to the captain; the idea of a Chester or Weymouth having it is just ludicrous.)

 

On 29/01/2018 at 3:35 PM, Murotsu said:

If you are talking like WW 1 era ships with all those wires and such those are primarily there for radio communications.  Back in those days radios were big and not particularly efficient:

It took really BIG antennas, hundreds of feet long to absorb enough signal to allow the radio to receive it.  So, they hung the wires across the length of the ship as high as possible to get the best signal.  Sending a signal took the same sort of huge antenna.  If you had more than one radio (and most military ships did) then you needed multiple antennas for them as they couldn't share like they often do today.

Next, masts of that era were also usually braced with rigging as has been previously noted.  So, there's some of that too.

All this is true.

(Note picture of young woman at controls of wireless set; typical example of involvement of intelligent young women in high tech in that age, but on a light-hearted note could also be considered stock photo of crewmember on board ARP ship of the WW1 era. )