"Why ??????" Topic

Hi Folks
I have a question. Why if the Russian's beat the Swedes time and time again. Gave the French a bloody nose in the Med. Slapped the Turks around a lot. Made Nelson go for the Danes at Copenhagen before they could join up with the Russian fleet before the ice melted.
Why do most rules set the Russians with such low stats in their rules? I know the Baltic fleet was iced in the harbour,s for long periods of time so had limited time at sea. But most rule rate the Swedish, French fleets higher. Some have them like the Turkish and Italian States Fleet.
I do not understand this? So Why????
Be safe
A Puzzled Rory

Maybe because developing mastery in the naval profession is a process that takes a great deal of time and patience. Hard to do if you're always…Russian.

=D

Ok I have no idea but am looking forward to reading more informed answers here.

I think it was to do with the quality of their ships, rather than their fighting ability or seamanship…

Quantity has a quality all of its own …

Actually (to bring a little reality to the conversation) the Russians were highly regarded by many respected British commanders (Nelson being the notable exception; his virulent anti-Russian views are now considered unjustified). This is based on several recent works on the Russian Napoleonic navy. Their biggest problems were location and lack of support from their own government. Having your major base iced in a major portion of the year cuts heavily into sea time and training. Add to this the fact that the navy had to play second fiddle to the army (understandable, given that Russia was a continental power).

And the single biggest reason is that, until recently, there weren't any decent works on the Napoleonic Russian navy to counter some of the highly biased (and unsubstantiated) views that had become the 'revealed truth'.

Hi All,
I think coastal2 is right. I now know that the British ask for and got help from the Russians with blockading the Dutch fleet at the time of the British mutinies. I'm still open to ideas on this thread. I to think that Russian ship where poorly made, but built in large numbers. They had the wood etc. to hand and the time (When iced in) to do this all. I heard it was the 3rd biggest fleet at this time. Thank you for the help so far. To add to my frist question, would it be O.K. to charge rules around or move the Russian stets up a bit, without people going nuts on me?
Be safe
A less puzzled Rory

Rory I know you don't play KMH but I just want to say that I always up my Dutch crews to jacktars because the Dutch were good sailers with a lot of experience. The Spanish had been preety good but the plagues of Malaria brought back from their colonies had killed so many in their ports that they could not man thier ships by the time of Cape St. Vincent and they had not recovered by 1805. Not to mention the fact that the Spanish never adopted the peractice of providing limes to their crews.

I feel this sort of thing exists because inherently most wargame "rules" of crew/fleet quality are little more than old opinions turned in to "rules."

So for example your "ratings" might reflect the opinions of James, or Roosevelt, or someone entirely different. At the end of the day it's a sweeping generalization that someone decided was worth reflecting in stat form.

Inherently, as an old school historical war gamer who currently markets games to the younger and more competitive gamer types, I feel that if you are trying to recreate a specific battle as it happened, crew/fleet quality matters to an extent. Outside of that, if you are running a hypothetical scenario or fictitious head to head battle i find a lot of these assumptions, tired, dated, often reflecting false historical prejudices or worse.

I find it more interesting to level the playing field and let the player's tactics and the power of the ship's guns to speak for themselves.

If we MUST rate fleets and crew quality, perhaps it's worth mentioning that house rules are made for when your educated guess/opinion does not match those in the rules. :)

Brian Carnes,
Designer, Sailpower
sailpowergame.com
facebook.com/sailpowergame

Historically (In so far as the Hon. East India co. ships are concerned) is essentially a question of how many men are actually available. The same ship could on one voyage be the pride of the fleet, but on the next be an unmanageable hulk purely based on the number of men aboard. If you look at the texts 'European' crews were invariably considered superior to Lascars but the Lascar crewed ships frequently outperformed the European crewed vessels, (frequently including naval vessels) indeed the problem is highlighted as the RN would press European crewmen but generally leave Lascars.
If there's one thing Russia isn't short of it's manpower.

A similar thing happens in other rule sets for land warfare, Russian Artillery, massive numbers of guns, often handled well and apparently feared…

Russia, 2nd Class Artillery?

As someone more eloquent than me once said…

Some rules are meant to be re-written or ignored!

rabbit

Thank you all for your in-put on this thread.
I must now sit and think, a lot I think I must re-look and some of the stat's and use house-rules. It would be nice if rule makers would up-date stat's if they can.
A big thank you.
Be safe
Rory

Hell I would rate the Ottomans better as well. Yes they lost, but come on, their navies saw more action than many navies rated the same as them.