"National characteristics in Napoleonic Naval games" Topic

So what national factors, if any, do you integrate into your Napoleonic wargames?
I have read in various places that the British had more experienced crack crews compared to the French (after the revolution), so should get a better chance of passing their crew checks. They won most of the battles so this makes sense to me.
Some rules also give the British a faster rate of fire. Do you agree with this?
The Americans also get a firing bonus in some rules, although I have seen this modelled as more ACCURATE, rather than FASTER. Do any of you agree with this?

I have also read that the Dutch were pretty useful in a naval fight. How do your rules handle this?

What about the Spanish, Russians, Ottomans, Italians and Danish crews?

I suppose a lot of the National differences arose from command and control factors but at the moment I don't want to place too many restrictions on the players, but I am keen to put a large dollop of national flavour into my games.

Any thoughts on the respective abilities of the British, French, American, Dutch, Spanish, Russians, Ottomans, Italians and Danish crews? Any interesting rules that you use?

One of the key differences was that the British and American ships were at sea and the crews training whereas the French and Spanish ships were often blockaded and were not gaining the same sort of experience.

The rules I play give better quality crews advantages in all aspects of combat. If you follow historical scenarios then it follows that French and Spanish crews are typically less well trained and thus less capable, as you have already outlined.

I don't know about any other nations.

Ultimately you can just handle this by either troop classification (Crack, Veteran, Regular, Poor, Awful or whatever) or via 'national characteristics' (+1 for being British, -2 for being Spanish) – which is essentially just another way of saying British crews are Crack and Spanish ones are Poor. Or some combination thereof if there really are some national doctrinal differences e.g. preference for shooting at sails or hulls, use of chainshot etc.

If you can get hold of a copy of "Don't Give Up the Ship", by Arneson, Gygax, and Carr, link they go into differences between a lot of nationalities, such as % of actual sailors in a crew, gunnery rating, melee morale ratings. Example, the Russian crews are rated highly in melee, poor in everything else.

Of course, it's a set of game rules, so take it with a grain of salt.

Most history books or good wargame rules will give you some idea of which nations were good or bad and which had unusual tactics or practices.

It's usually more interesting to include qualitative differences between the nationalities, not just a few plusses and minuses. The French like to load up with chain shot and bar shot and fire at the enemy rigging to decrease their speed and maneuverability, while the British fired at the hull to put guns out of action. The Spanish could be deadly up close, but their long range shooting was inferior. That's more interesting than "+1".

Be aware that while the conventional wisdom is that the British were awesome and the French were stormtroopers/red shirts and the Spanish were worse, most of the people who have had input into this appraisal are CS Forrester fans or anglophiles generally. Some people are starting to contest this view. I don't think the revisionists have made their case yet, but be aware that there is some controversy.

It's all about seamanship. Big sailing ships take a lot of knowledge and experience to handle well. The more time you spent at sea the better you got.

So, for example, British ships tended to spend a lot of time at sea on blockade duties or whatever while French ships tended to spend a lot longer in port being blockaded.

The British NAVY was better than the French pretty much throughout the period (significantly better for most of the time) BUT SOME French ships were better than British ones on the day they fought particular actions.

Some of the reasons are given above, less time at sea, less practiced crews and officers at all levels lacking confidence in not only their own abilities but that of their commanders and crews.

Having said that they performed well in many actions and the sailors particularly showed no less courage than any other navy at the time.

At certain times French cruising ships were the equal of or better than their British opponents on some stations – the Indian Ocean is an example.

Most of the rules I've played stress the quality of the individual crews over broad brush national characteristics. As already pointed out, the French could be particularly good (especially in the Indian Ocean) and the British could be particularly bad (depending on the quality of the crew and officers). The biggest problem facing nations other than the US and Britain, was lack of sea time to train their crews. The long time on blockade duty allowed the British to hone their crews into well oiled machines. Where national differences matter is in doctrine, such as gunnery. Here the differences tend to be more national oriented.

Too Fat Lardy "Kiss Me Hardy" rules have specific rules for the Nationalities with Britain and the US being "black jack tars" the French being some French words I cannot remember offhand and the Spanish are "landlubbers".

French ships are generally quite well built, and faster than British ones.

Of course, until the British capture them, rename them, and press them into service against their former owners.

Yes, British were quite good at rapid firing, so 1.5x – 2x isn't unheard of, especially once they figured out how to angle their gun trucks more, to get in more shots on the same firing pass.

Americans were for the most part equal to the British, in many cases, and in some cases superior, since they had more crew on board for the same number of guns.

Of course, all of the above are generalizations, so you need to know the period/battle that you wish to represent.

The nations with large (and active) merchant fleets generally had better and more trained sailors to draw from. This would include the British, Americans, Dutch and Danes. There crews had larger proportions of able seamen. Some French could rise to this level--as someone noted above, their Indian squadron was a cut above their normal skill, although they were once driven off by a squadron of British East Indiamen who actually signalled "general chase." The other fleets were generally poor with a much,much higher proportion of landsmen.

Even so, the Royal Navy was not consistently good--witness the fall-off after Trafalgar and their shock at running into the American frigates early in the War of 1812.

It is s rich period with a long list of possibilities.

It all depends on how deep you wish your rules to go,
Ship building,French built and newer Spanish built SOL and frigates are among the best built in the wars along with the US frigates.
National characteristics
The Spanish tend to excellent sailors with poor gunnery, moral and boarding,
The French tend to poor sailors with with average gunnery, moral and boarding,
The Dutch where a grate Navy but past it's best, with it's smaller SOL.
The Danes give up having a sea going navy and make there fleet into floating batteries.
The Turk and the Russians in the big picture are at best average, but with the Russians winning most encounters.
The Royal Navy even with it size it constantly better than the rest in all aspect of seaman in a warship.
Not with standing they did have problems keeping on top there game after 1805,the shortage of man power becomes a critical factor.
Fighting will keep you at the top of your game.
The Americans with a high quality crew, well built frigates some with 24pdr gun deck, can bully just about everything other than a SOL.

If you have time to look up the Number of warships captured in the wars by the navies.

You must always keep in mind when dealing with Royal Navy is "Prize Money" a driving factor in British supremacy at sea.

According to NAM Rodgers' "Command of the Ocean", the British Navy got the upper hand in the mid 1740's when they learned how to provision their ships well enough to stay at sea more than a couple months without the crews becoming ill. Before this, fleets out that time or longer headed back to port with lots of sick aboard. From this time on, British naval crews had lower mortality rates (not counting combat) than the average British civilians ashore.

Longer time at sea means more proficient sailors. Add in extensive gun drill and you have a serious advantage.

The Royal Navy stored fresh fruit and were obsessive about cleanliness at a time when both of these concepts were equated with old wive's tales. Note that British officers often remarked on the filth of captured French ships.

An example of superior seamanship: the French would not sail ships of the line into the Saint Lawrence during peacetime, it being seen as too confined. The Royal Navy just sailed up in 1759 and unloaded Wolfe's army. They said it was easier than sailing the Thames.

The seamanship yes, also James Cook's charting and mapping of the St Lawrence first.

"National characteristics" was, I thought a dead end that wargamers had reversed out of years ago. A British 32 gun frigate would usually have outfought a French 32 because it's crew was far better trained. Not because the British seamen were braver, or better seamen or gunners inherently, because they had been at sea longer and were better trained. Linois in the Indian Ocean was good because his men were very well trained through long experience together, much as RN crews were. RN vessels had an enormous pool of experienced and trained Merchant seamen to draw from as well, as has already been mentioned. RN vessels, by about 1810 were suffering from reduced manning, because of the enormous size of the RN having absorbed all the available seamen. When the RN met the USN in 1812 and later they found generally larger ships, with bigger guns, more guns, with crews at least as well trained (often with British seamen) and, perhaps more importantly, with bigger crews. All of these things, crew size, training and experience, can be incorporated into rules without categorising ship or crew quality by nation. One of Linois' lascars would have been as good a seaman as one of Hoste's Maltese, or Cornish seamen, for example.

Most wargamers use the phrase National characteristics to encapsulate the factors brought about by national doctrine and training regimes.
Most gamers probably don't intend it as meaning that people from a certain country were inherently braver, or had better eyesight allowing them to shoot more accurately etc etc.

The longer a crew was at sea the better they became. But the longer a ship was at sea the less able she became, fouled bottoms, old rigging, battle and sea damage and sometimes rot.
Not all British ships/crews were good Nore etc. So would the British fleets be so much better? Nelson was not at all the battles. The British fleets had the best back-up on land. If Napoleon had not stopped the money and stores going to the French fleets, would it have been so one sided?
Be safe
Rory

Yet the squadron that had mutinied at the Nore then successfully fought the Dutch at Camperdown. Nothing to do with training or skill, but to do with unhappiness about conditions.

Yes you are right. But as they sat in the harbours it was the Russian squadrons that bottled the Dutch fleet in port.
Be safe
Rory