JJ’s Wargames – Battle of Camperdown Preparations, The Leeward Column Attacks! Playtest

Needless to say a refamiliarisation was called for, not having played them since then, and Jack prompted me to organise a meet-up to reacquaint ourselves with them now that the fleet building part is finished and so we got together this week to give them another go.

The map above lays out the set up at about 12.55 as Duncan’s British division is starting to engage the Dutch line, Onslow’s division already pressing their attack ten to fifteen minutes before.

I set the table up the night before we played and took a few pictures to bring the map to life, all be it that the Dutch line here is far to long and overly spaced out and I adjusted it before we played to better represent the tighter battle line that De Winter managed to organise before the British attack.

Admiral Duncan’s flagship Venerable 74-guns bears down on the Dutch line leading the her division and with Signal No.5 flying from her mizzen top ‘Engage the Enemy More Closely‘.

Note the distances shown between sender and recipient in this section of the FDS rules are my own conversion to suit 1:700 models, as the rules were written with smaller scales in mind.

My additions to the Signal Book defines to players precisely what these ‘General Orders’ signals instruct the ships and their captains under their command to do or not do.

I outlined the signalling process used in FDS in my Game Planning post, but have added to the rules with a few tweaks that looks at the importance for the commander to tell his captains how he wants to fight the enemy, either by a general engagement that would have his ships stand off at medium range before opening fire or a more aggressive approach with the ‘Engage the Enemy More Closely‘ signal instructing his captains to close with the enemy and even include the ‘Pass Through Enemy Line‘ to allow a raking of an enemy opponent before bringing on the close in gunnery contest to finish the fight.

I now have my FDS kit pulled together with all the markers required, orders of battle sheets, signal books and Command and Fleet Moral cards produced, some of which are seen here on the Dutch side of the table together with the dice tower and game turn clock.

The other key point to ordering captains to put their commands at risk by taking them into very close proximity to the enemy is that once that happens, the captains involved may manoeuvre their ships as they see fit to fight their individual battles, thus causing the pell-mell that these big naval battles could turn into, with control over subordinates only able to be re-established once one side was beaten and in compulsory retreat and the need for ‘Disengagement’ and/or ‘General Chase’ signals to replace earlier instructions.

Yours Truly, rolling to find out if any of my Dutch ships were out of position as the British are about to press their attack, with the die rolls indicating two of my ships were indeed out of position producing gaps in my carefully prepared line.

The basic ship statistics, with rates broken down into inferior, normal and superior that add or takes away in gunnery, AF(Attack Factor added to a d6 die roll in gunnery), DF (Defence factor, similarly used, as with the AF), BF (Boarding Factor usually ‘0’ but could be added to for extra marines or troops on board or deducted because of a weak crew from +2 to -2 and obviously used in boarding melees added or deducted from a d6)

Jack moves Duncan’s division into the attack, moving on a ‘broad reach’ wind bearing under battle sail on an ESE heading as the Dutch make slower progress ‘close hauled’ heading NE. Note the gap at the back of the Dutch line as the Staten Generaal was discovered to be out of position, further astern of the Vrijheid than she should have been, thus forcing the Wassenaer to take an avoiding course.

Movement is very straight forward with Ships of the Line having a basic speed in 1:700 scale of 20-25cms, fifth-sixth rates 30cms, or smaller under the rates 35cms, adjusted accordingly as laid out in the table below. Obviously these are compromises and I could argue a case for small vessels not outpacing frigates, and the rules are flexible enough to cope with those kind of tweaks for the pedants of this world, like me.

My adjusted movement chart for use with 1:700, all distances in centimetres.

Individual captains are also able to adjust their calculated speed up or down by 8cms to allow for the slight adjustments to sail settings to accelerate or decelerate as required.

Movement is done squadron by squadron and then independent ships, those ships either detached from a squadron formation through choice or forced to fall out of formation by damage. A ship in formation is counted as being supported by its comrades which implies benefits on morale checks, and firing and with ship formations firing and inflicting damage simultaneously whereas independent ships fire last and take any damage suffered first before they fire back in response.

Let battle commence! The first British ships break the Dutch line having successfully tested to do so, issuing stern rakes as they pass through and, as can be seen here, taking fire from some of the small Dutch frigates, corvettes and brigs, with them testing to see if they had the audacity to open fire on a ship of the line.

Formation descriptions supported in the text by the distances required between ships in a formation.

As can be seen here in the pictures of our game, Duncan’s ships pressed their attack and managed to break the Dutch line along its length causing several ship to ship melees to occur with close in exchanges of broadside’s and the inevitable damage to accrue, with both sides turning to their command points to remedy the most serious situations as best they could, with never enough points to deal with them all and with no certainty of success when the points were spent on a given ship.

The best part of big battles, broadsides up close and personal with the damage starting to accrue.

The Dutch flagship Vrijheid already carrying medium damage fires her broadside at the oncoming British ships.

My Gunnery Table suitably adapted for 1:700

Gunnery involves an opposed die rolling process with the scores achieved on a single d6 plus an Attack or Defence Factor (see Ship Statistics chart above) for the ship firing or taking fire modified further by damage, rakes and crew quality, with results compared on the table above.

Opposed die rolling process with the scores achieved on a single d6 plus or minus the appropriate factors

Thus the table seen below illustrates that a ship with medium damage receiving another medium damage result automatically escalates to heavy damage, whereas a ship with light damage, receiving another light damage result will normally only escalate on a following die roll of 5+.

The repair cost table. Note any Struck ship left to its own devices (outside of 30cm from the enemy) and not boarded may put up their colours and return to Heavy Damage, thus making it necessary to board them or leave ships to guard them whilst other continue the fight.

The repair cost table above illustrates the requirement in points needed to reduce the damage a ship has incurred down to the next level with a worn status the best achievable once a ship has been damaged in the fighting.

Two of Jack’s British squadron failed to pass through the Dutch line and so were forced to engage on the larboard side.

 

In the centre the little 24-gun corvette Minerva is fouled by a British third-rate, having rashly opened fire on British ships breaking the line. She would strike soon after with a crippling broadside ender her defiance.

As the British attack developed in our game, I chose to fight it in the way De Winter did, keeping my line and supporting the ship ahead as best I could as the pell-mell developed but the British capabilities soon produced several critical outcomes along the line, this despite Jack doing his best to roll the worst dice possible, but me coming up with some abysmal command die rolls that left me short when it came to addressing my damage control.

Already carrying damage a Dutch third-rate receives a passing stern rake.

This resulted in the Vrijheid inevitably suffering heavy damage, despite inflicting medium damage on the Venerable as she made her approach run and thus limiting her effect when she raked the Dutch flagship as she passed through the Dutch line. In fact the Dutch flagship lived up to her hard fighting reputation established in the actual battle, but cumulative attacks on her took their toll forcing a strike test.

The pell-mell in full swing. Rear Admiral Treslong aboard Staten Generaal, (bottom right of picture) is preferring discretion over valour by taking his ship close to the shallows off table, and keeping other vessels between him and the British.

With Jack’s eye very much on breaking the Dutch squadron’s morale the race was on to take out further Dutch ships to cause a break off test and thus making their resistance to further attacks much less effective and so it was not entirely unexpected when a chance fouling with my little corvette Minerva, that had passed her test to obey De Winter’s orders to open fire on British third rates, quickly struck to a broadside delivered at close range.