"The argument against "quick and bloody" naval rules" Topic

Which leads to the inevitable conclusion that you need more than one set of rules to cover the spread from the single ship duel, with individual sail handling, crucial decisions as to what shot load to use etc, through squadron level actions and through to the great fleet actions.

To get through Trafalgar in an afternoon you need to reduce gunnery to a single fire factor and forget shot types – as you come off the quarterdeck and "helicopter" up to a 'God's eye' fleet view you have to ditch the detail.

When I want the fun of detail shiphanding then I use Clear for Action – which can do a duel in 2 hours and fight a squadron level battle to a conclusion in a full wargames event day.

For a fleet action (and wanting to do more than 1 turn per hour) then I use GMT's Flying Colors, which is the only game I have found that can truly handle Trafalgar in a (long) afternoon. Converting that to miniatures I have managed Strachan's Action in a club evening.

You can do a even action in Napoleonic – look at the frigate actions in the Indian Ocean towards the end of the war – French quality had improved and the RN was suffering from overstretch so these have potential for an upset or even a defeat such as Grand Port (or Algeciras from much earlier on). and of course you have the Yanks and those unsporting big frigates …

A final plea, I do expect a higher standard of Nelson quoting on a forum this well-informed than trotting out "no captain can do very wrong". It forgets what preceded it in the instruction:- "In case signals cannot be seen or properly understood, then no captain …"

It was not carte blanche to go in and blaze away, it was a reasoned, level-headed contingency for when things got confused and an expression of confidence for captains that freed them to act rather than hesitate as had happened so many times before. Forget the books and look at the signal logs for Trafalgar, Nelson is manouevering his fleet with subtely and using the new flexibility of the signals system to the utmost.

Both Suffren and Rodney were individually visionary, but they could not get their disparate captains to co-operate and they hesitated for fear of censure.

Nelson wielded the weapon he was given superbly and repeatedly, and that was his genius.

I must admit the sniping in this thread reads a bit like Monty Python – "Alright, apart from the patent bridge for capturing first rates, the most decisive battle in terms of ships captured in the whole of the Age of Sail and the most comprehensive defeat of a enemy fleet at sea before Tsushima, what did Nelson do for us ?"

Personality wise he was undoubtably a pain and his political views would make even Nigel Farage cough with embarassment these days, but you would want him fighting on your side rather than face him …

Mark Barker
The Inshore Squadron

A final plea, I do expect a higher standard of Nelson quoting on a forum this well-informed than trotting out "no captain can do very wrong". It forgets what preceded it in the instruction:- "In case signals cannot be seen or properly understood, then no captain …"

Heh. Excellent point, but to be fairr that quote was actually made in a totally different thread, and the guy who made (SgtPrylo) it hasn't posted in this one.

- Ix

I agree that Napoleonic naval scenarios can be balanced or even favor the anti-British side. Just because the period was generally lopsided doesn't mean every battle was. I've played plenty of good Napoleonic naval games that were far from certain to be Royal Navy victories.

I am annoyed sometimes by the questionable gyrations used by some GMs and even rules writers to correct the lopsidedness inherent in the Napoleonic period, instead of just moving the setting back to one of the many more balanced periods in the AoS, but I can't blame people for wanting to play their niche period. It doesn't help that it's harder to find out about naval actions in earlier periods, and pre-Napoleonic eras aren't supported as well by fiction (at least in English).

I wish there were a Dutch tradition of wargaming the AoS. It would be fascinating to see what kinds of games their cultural bias produces. Maybe they'd figure out how to get a 200-ship miniature battle done in an afternoon…

- Ix

On the subject of large fleet battles in forgotten periods: I was reading last night about the battle of Barfleur (1692).

44 French SOLs held off 82 Dutch and English SOLs in a battle lasting about 8 hours, and not a single ship was lost by either side (painting above notwithstanding). I don't know of any rules that will accomplish that. I'm pretty sure even the most sedately-paced miniature combat systems written are too "bloody" to keep 120 ships engaged for 8 (scale) hours without a single one striking or sinking.

BTW, that's not a criticism of any extant rules – just an observation. Only a few rules sets I'm aware of even attempt to cover this period, and I doubt they get much playtesting. It is clearly very difficult, maybe impossible, to scale a game to fight the all-day or multi-day battles of the latter 17th C. with hundreds of ships and make it an entertaining game.

- Ix

Dantheman wrote:
"For me most AOS rules bog down at the fleet level because the focus is on what is happening at the captains level. Loading of shot, repairing damage, allocating crew, etc."

>>>>> Absolutely true. The movement and gunnery mechanics themselves for such "captain-oriented" rule sets are also likely to be too complex to permit time-efficient handling of large numbers of ships by a single player.

Dantheman wrote: "I want games where I make decisions as an admiral …"

>>>>> By defining the gamer's role as "an admiral", do you the player acting as OTC controlling the entire fleet on the table, or a subordinate commanding a division or squadron of, say, 4-6 ships)? It is my opinion that divisional admiral is the most reasonable and realistic for a player who is actually touching the ship models. There are problems when seeking to place a single player in the role of THE admiral. The practical considerations of a single player moving 36 ship models every turn on the tabletop in one. The other is the historical unreality of a single mind controlling such a large fleet after the fleets close and engage in earnest. At that point, the ability of a fleet admiral to exercise tactical control over his fleet would (IMO) have historically diminished by an order of magnitude, with his sphere of influence largely confined to only those few ships immediately around his flagship.

The true tactical role of a fleet admiral (IMO) was exercised well before the gunfire started: before-the-fact preparation of his fighting instructions, maneuvering his fleet, responding to both the actions of the enemy and the weather, and delivering the fleet into combat with the best possible tactical advantage. This function is usually tedious, lengthy (counted in days rather than hours), probably unglamorous to most gamers, and TTBOMK lacks any rules to properly model it.

Dantheman wrote: "However, most players I know play because of reading Hornblower or Aubrey."

>>>>> LOL, I got sucked into the period after reading William James!

Dantheman wrote: "In Age of Sail. We have a lot of Shako, very little Age of Eagles."

>>>>> True words. In terms of tabletop time efficiency, perhaps only "Form in the Admiral's Wake" comes close. In many respects, it is a board game played with miniatures.

Dantheman wrote:: "I am with Yellow Admiral. Napoleonic naval is one sided, the greatest fleet of the age had the greatest Admiral of the age. SYW is similar. That is why I like AWI and Anglo Dutch naval. Both sides won some and lost some.

>>>>> The RN enjoyed a large and steadily growing superiority in numbers throughout the Napoleonic period and a clear but variable superiority (depending upon theater and opponent) in crew quality over the first half of that era. After 1805, a rapid expansion of the RN's numbers of frigates and lesser warships materially stressed its manpower pool. The result was a much more confused crew quality matrix in the years after Trafalgar. While the Spanish had collapsed and later changed sides and the Dutch and Danes had effectively been driven from the seas, there were more than a few actions between the British and French where individual British ships performed poorly in combat and victory was only gained as a function of superiority in numbers. This is not to say that RN crew quality had uniformly suffered across the board (see Lissa 1811 for example), but it is fair to say that by this time the situation had progressed from one of "any British frigate will do nicely" to "things are getting out of hand and we need to send HMS Shannon".

That having been said, I categorically agree that, from the point of view of play balance, by far the best period for AoS gaming is the American War of Independence.

However, to obtain the best historical flavor and play, I would propose that attention be paid to differing national doctrines when establishing victory conditions. British naval doctrine, put simply, was to seek out and defeat or destroy the opposing fleet wherever found. Defeat of the enemy fleet, which implied defeat of its mission as well, was of paramount importance and tended to be measured by the number of ships taken or destroyed. French doctrine differed. The army was viewed as the ultimate guarantor of French sovereignty and interests; the navy was considered a strategic servant of the army. The navy's foremost responsibility was for transporting and supporting it in whatever theater it was to be sent. Defeat of the enemy's fleet in its own right was not an operational goal. To successfully evade or frustrate an enemy fleet's efforts to interfere with "THE MISSION" was seen as a victory from the French point of view. A good example of this can be seen in the Battle of Grenada (1779). At the end of the battle, several helplessly disabled British ships had drifted down upon the French line and could have been taken with relatively little effort. The French admiral d'Estaing disdained to be bothered to do so and simply sailed away with his fleet. Another interesting example of this mindset can be found in the French reaction to the Glorious First of June (1794). The French fleet under Villaret-Joyeuse lost seven ships in the battle, but the safe delivery to France of the great grain convoy under its escort was justification in French eyes to consider the battle a success. Villaret-Joyeuse actually received a promotion shortly thereafter. So… what does all this point to in terms of victory conditions in an AoS game? Even if the British succeed in taking or destroying a few French ships, if they fail to prevent the French from continuing "THE MISSION", they cannot claim a clear cut victory.

FWIW.

B

Dantheman wrote: "However, most players I know play because of reading Hornblower or Aubrey."

>>>>> LOL, I got sucked into the period after reading William James!

For me it was A.T. Mahan. :-)

<sigh> What kind of a person is inspired by a long treatise on naval strategy? No wonder nobody comes to my birthday party….

- Ix

I wish there were a Dutch tradition of wargaming the AoS. It would be fascinating to see what kinds of games their cultural bias produces. grin Maybe they'd figure out how to get a 200-ship miniature battle done in an afternoon…

- Ix

Ever tried 'General at Sea' ?

Ok it cheats a bit by having "stands" rather than indivudual ships but it does get the spirit of mass actions of the Anglo-Dutch Wars.

One of the Squadron members prefers Anglo-Dutch (and has a set of Langton painted and rigged 1:1200s to die for) and it has always given a good game when we have tried it.

Mark Barker
The Inshore Squadron

Mark

Tried 'general at sea'. I liked the concepts and mechanics of the game. Definitely unique. However, I found the probabilities skewed based on fleet quality. I think the probability curves need tweaking.

Admittedly this is not a concern when fighting Dutch vs English as they are of equivalent quality. However when you add later French and Spanish in WSS the matches get more lopsided then I think they should because of crew quality. You didn't have a problem in that regard?

I haven't tried General At Sea, and probably wouldn't be able to play it much. First, while I admit that multi-ship stands are a good abstraction and probably necessary for modeling such large battles, it just rubs me the wrong way in naval games. Second, I would have to build both fleets all by myself and then beg for players, so it would be a lot of effort for little gaming. Nonetheless, I'll hunt down a copy and take a look. Thanks for pointing it out.

- Ix

General at Sea

We've only tried English vs. Dutch so other nationalities were not an issue.

… and we cut rectangles of the correct size from card and moved them like a block game – worked fine and no modelling required !

Mark

No models?!?!? Outrageous! This is the Miniatures Page!

Actually that could be a fun craft project. There's a fun potential there to create a nice set of counters reminiscent of the diagrams in AoS literature, with little ship-shaped outlines (and one per player with a little flag sticking out). The counters could show the outlines in a line ahead on one side of the counter and a line abreast, vee, ragged vee, or bow-and-quarter line on the other side, depending on period or navy.

I've been musing for years about creating a sort of mini-game to play the (often multi-day) pre-battle maneuver phase, as a sort of interactive set-up procedure prior to playing with miniatures on a table. Would General At Sea work for that out of the box? If so, it might save me the effort of writing such rules myself.

- Ix

Thursday's toast: "To a bloody war and quick promotion".

The Royal Navy knew what it was talking about.

Not to be picky, but from what I understand the toast was "to a bloody war and sickly season". Both of these usually resulted in promotion.
Monday – our men
Tuesday – our ships
Wednesday – ourselves
Friday – a willing foe and searoom
Saturday – wives and sweethearts
Sunday – absent friends

Sorry, the derailment of this thread was completely unintentional and something I promised I would never do…

I hope I'm not sidetracking this thread but what rules do permit realistic naval actions that can have a small group of ships (perhaps 3 or 4 per side at most) played in a single evening? I prefer realism over bang on my small ship actions. I like fighting frigates. I don't mind record keeping, I like maneuvering and since I grew up sailing hobie cats and sunfish along the coast of eastern Lake Michigan I understand the importance of the weather gage in maneuvering your ships. The one thing a don't want is to have to do is plow through 150 pages and maintain an advanced understanding of mathematics to explain the rules to someone else in order to have an opponent. recommendations?

You can't really sidetrack a dead thread.

However, I recommend re-posting that question in a new thread anyway. A new topic will pop up in the front page feed, and put the question right at the top. I'm considering starting the chase to a similar goal, so I'm interested in a conversation about it. You're much less likely to get a good answer here, near the bottom of page 2 of an openly challenging topic that began with a rant by a lunatic curmudgeon….

- Ix

Dear Private Matter,
I note that you live in NC. Do you plan to attend Historicon? If so, I will be pleased to introduce you to my AoS rules, which I think will be right up your alley. I can bring a frigate or two with me and we can have a small evaluation game on the side.

My email – byronangel (at) Verizon (dot) net

B

Cecil Merriam

Correct with the Toasts, you will find commonly said on Saturday

"Wives and Sweethearts, may they never meet"

I think much of the frustration I'm feeling (and seeing in some posts here) might be a question of games' scale and focus.

Like many, I want to see those sails billow and imagine the thunder of shot from my minis on the gaming table -- and make the decisions of the captains in tactical detail.

But I also appreciate that much of AoS warfare -- some might argue most of it -- consisted in the prebattle maneuvering stage before forces entered weapons range. I want to make the admiral's decisions too, and see my battles take place in some plausible historical context.

No single game or ruleset can do it all. And, I would argue, no single scale can do it all, either.

What's really needed to satisfy both types of gaming desires are games that use dual scales, or ad-hoc pairings of existing operational and tactical games.

Some boardgamers have raved about combining, say, Flying Colors with Close Action.

In miniatures, the Victory By Any Means system has a hugely detailed AoS Caribbean campaign that's designed to work with the minis ruleset Fire As She Bears.

But…how many gamers actually have the space, the time, the willing opponents, and the long-term commitment to play bi-level naval games like those? Playability is such a concern that I think we need some new options. We also need many more solitaire designs.

IMHO, the higher up the command scale you go, the more a wargame should use abstraction and simplification to keep things playable. How about an operational game aid that lets you make the key decisions, then sends you to a "maneuver level" on a 1km boardgame grid, to control the action between first sighting and weapons range? Then, once the forces are at tabletop diatance, you can deploy your miniatures, invite your friends over, and use whatever scale or ruleset you like.

This is just the system I'm trying to create in my solitaire game, A Glorious Chance: The struggle for Lake Ontario, 1813.

It's going to be a free Vassal module, then eventually a print-and-play version. Anyone interested can visit the game page on Boardgamegeek and follow my designer diary from there:

boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/176588/glorious-chance-naval-struggle-lake-ontario-1813