The most prominent and readily identifiable artifacts on the QAR shipwreck are the artillery. As of 2008 twenty-four cast iron artillery pieces have been located. Ten are recovered and five of these have been cleaned and analyzed. According to the 1703 Establishment that prescribed the "numbers and natures of guns" for English warships this compliment of artillery would be consistent with a Sixth Rate. Twenty guns would also be consistent with that of medium-sized French light frigate. On Vessels of this class the main deck served as the gun deck for the six-pound cannon with 3- and -4 pound cannons mounted on the quarterdeck. This is not to say that the shipwreck site 31CR314 holds the remains of an English Sixth Rate or a French light frigate, but simply that the vessel had comparable armament. Warships of this size had only a single gun deck and on either ship the 6-pounders would have typically been mounted on the gun deck and the 3 to 4-pounders on the quarterdeck. Warships of this class were designed for speed and maneuverability, used as dispatch vessels, for protection of merchant convoys, for coastal protection of merchant convoys, for coastal protection, for voyages to the colonies, and other missions considered unsuitable for ships of the line. Looking at them in the context of the English Channel they were not heavily armed warships. In the context of the New World colonies, a twenty gun warship was formidable.