A C London | 01 Jun 2015 7:16 a.m. PST |
Inspired by a better than usual series of documentaries about the Spanish Armada on the UK's BBC2 I wonder if any rules are available that would allow a reasonably accurate fleet action from this period to be fought in a reasonable time? I've got some beautiful (if tiny) 1:2400 scale models that I'd like to try out. Years ago I tried to write a set of my own, but gave up as it seemed so difficult. The two main problems are time and anachronism. 1. Most Spanish ships don't seem to have expected that they'd need to reload their main guns much while engaged. The aim seems to have been to fire once and then board. When attempted, reloading appears to have taken about an hour, tho in practice guns seem to have averaged only a shot or two per day. I don't know how typical this was of other, non-English, ships? Smaller, primarily anti-personnel guns (swivels, etc) could be and were fired more rapidly. 2. The English could and did reload their main guns in battle, I think taking somewhere around 15 minutes. However, in the early days of the battle they fought at very long range. So that the chances of hitting and doing serious damage were very small. 3. About thirty years ago I read (and have since lost) an article by NAM Roger arguing (convincingly)that historians up to then had misunderstood the tactics of the 1580s, anachronistically imposing upon them ideas of broadside to broadside fighting from later times. He thought (if I remember correctly)that fleets tended to huddle some distance apart. One, or a few ships would sally from the pack, close and fire a broadside. Twirl. Fire the other broadside and return to the back of the pack and start to reload. Whereupon other ships would sally out to shoot and fall in behind them. So that by the time they found themselves at the front of the bunch they'd be loaded, ready to venture out again. Rather like the caracole tactics used by some pistol-armed cavalry of the time. All of which would seem to recommend unusually long bounds – perhaps representing an hour or half an hour each?? But I wonder how such long bounds would play with the conventions of naval wargaming. For example, great emphasis is put on the direction in which a model points and so on which guns it can bring to bear. But within a 60 or even 30 min bound a ship cd easily twirl to bring guns to bear. Another prob is that when ships do get close – in the later, decisive, stage of the battle, what happens minute-to-minute does matter. Eg in seeing if an English ship gets too close and risks being boarded. So you might want a variable bound length. Or maybe this could be abstracted?? I've more questions and puzzles but have gone on long enough. So, what rules do people use and what sort of picture do they give of 16th century sea fights? Alan |
MajorB | 01 Jun 2015 7:25 a.m. PST |
Given the fact that the Armada consisted of 130 ships and the English fleet was about 200 ships, to recreate the battles of 1588 you are either going to have to have 1 ship model representing several actual ships or alternatively ruthlessly simple tactical rules … |
Allen57 | 01 Jun 2015 7:38 a.m. PST |
Here are three sets of rules I know of. I have played them all and would suggest reading all three and combine what you like from each. runtus.org/page5.htm link link Another possibility which I have but cannot locate at the moment is a copy of the SPI magazine which contained their game on the Armada. Good luck, Al |
Allen57 | 01 Jun 2015 7:51 a.m. PST |
Found it. Strategy & Tactics #72. auction To me this game is more operational than tactical so it may not offer what you want. The magazine article offers some good insight into the war with Spain and the Armada. Al |
Wilf12358 | 01 Jun 2015 9:26 a.m. PST |
From the Perfect Captain: Spanish Fury: Sail! link Cheers, Wilf |
brass1 | 01 Jun 2015 3:02 p.m. PST |
I second (third?) Spanish Fury: Sail. Good rules, excellent production values, and they're free. What's not to like? LT |
sarangkhan | 01 Jun 2015 6:19 p.m. PST |
"Renaissance Naval Warfare" on the Pete Jones Free Wargames Rules site. |
cplcampisi | 01 Jun 2015 7:58 p.m. PST |
Concerning point 3 -- Guilmartin says the same thing in his Galleys and Galleons work. In fact expanding it a little bit, stating that they also fired the bow and stern chasers, and would then pull away to reload. As for point 1 -- Many of the Spanish ships were transport vessels. Seeing as the San Martin (a warship), engaged several English ships with artillery for hours, I really doubt that it took them that long to reload. I have a suspicion that slight differences in emphasis, have been exaggerated over the years. Also, in my opinion boarding was more decisive. It seems like it took quite a prodigious effort to sink a ship with cannon fire alone (without some sort of lucky shot). |
MajorB | 02 Jun 2015 2:14 a.m. PST |
Many of the Spanish ships were transport vessels. Do you imply that the transport vessels were unarmed? Apparantly the Armada consisted of 22 galleons of Portugal and Castile, and 108 armed merchant vessels. |
Lt Col Pedant | 02 Jun 2015 6:12 a.m. PST |
Given that the whole of the English fleet didn't engage the whole of the Armada at any one time, most encounters could be a few good skirmishes had with a few good vessels. Look out for the transports! -once they grapple and board, you're stuffed. |
David Manley | 02 Jun 2015 6:34 a.m. PST |
Looks like a god subject fr a fleet level set of rules. If only someone had something in the pipeline to go with their collection of Valiant 1/1200 models……. |
cplcampisi | 02 Jun 2015 8:22 p.m. PST |
MajorB --I didn't mean to imply that the transport vessels were unarmed -- but that they weren't first rate fighting vessels, and their crews probably weren't as well trained (in things like gunnery) as the crews on the Spanish warships. So when we say "the Spanish took a long time to reload" -- what do we mean? All Spanish crews/ships? Or the merchant vessels? In general, I still believe there's been some exaggeration too. BillyFish -- I like that idea. Breaking it down to small pieces of the action. I know that the Spanish organized a squadron of warships to respond to threats to the formation. So if the scenario is before the break up of the Spanish formation, trying to inflict damage on the transports before "reinforcements" show up can be another factor. |
Yellow Admiral | 03 Jun 2015 5:03 p.m. PST |
Inspired by a better than usual series of documentaries about the Spanish Armada on the UK's BBC2 I wonder if any rules are available that would allow a reasonably accurate fleet action from this period to be fought in a reasonable time? The most promising rules I've seen for this so far: "God Sent Us The Wind" by Chris Peers, published in Wargames Illustrated #196 "Lanterna" by David Manley, published in Wargames Illustrated #190. This was intended for galley battles, but I'm convinced it would work pretty well for pure sail battles too. I would personally add a lot more ship profiles. It's not hard to do. Neither uses individual ship rosters, which are a huge time sink in naval games and anathema for giant fleet battles. These two rules sets also claim to be designed for this period, but do use individual ship rosters: Grand Fleet Actions in the Age of Sail by A & A Games Form Line of Battle by David Manley. I've only tried FLOB for Napoleonic naval and have yet to try GFA, so I can't say how well either works for the 16th C. FLOB plays pretty fast once the players get the hang of it, but is still probably too slow for a table with over 300 ships on it. - Ix |
Yellow Admiral | 03 Jun 2015 5:32 p.m. PST |
Given that the whole of the English fleet didn't engage the whole of the Armada at any one time, most encounters could be a few good skirmishes had with a few good vessels. Just thinking out loud here: Another way you could accomplish this is to make all movement relative to the Armada. Set up the Armada on the table in it's classic crecsent formation; during the "Armada Move Phase", all ships not in the Armada's formation move backwards at the Armada's current speed. After that the regular movement phase(es) take place and other ships have to maneuver in the right direction to keep up or catch up. - Ix |
Russell120120 | 04 Jun 2015 3:45 p.m. PST |
Angus Konstam's "Sovereigns of the Seas" does a very good job of illustrating the early sailing period developments. He notes that the Spanish method of recoil-check was to lash the piece to the ship, the development of the small wheel roll back with block and tackle return was very slow to universally develop. |
cplcampisi | 05 Jun 2015 3:46 p.m. PST |
He notes that the Spanish method of recoil-check was to lash the piece to the ship, the development of the small wheel roll back with block and tackle return was very slow to universally develop. Guilmartin talks about this too. Pointing out that just because the English used four-wheel truck carriages doesn't mean they used recoil to aid in running the guns in to help speed up loading. In fact he seems to be implying that the manner in which the English secured their guns was basically the same as the Spanish. Their preference for the more compact four-wheel carriage was because it allowed more traverse on a crowded deck. |