"A question for David Manley" Topic

I want to try gaming with the ships of the 1880s with freakishly huge MLRs – Duilio & Dandolo, Italia & Lepanto, Devstation & Thunderer, Inflexible, Dreadnought, etc. Should I use Iron & Fire or Fire When Ready?

FWR already has stats for the guns and calculations to figure out the armor, but Iron & Fire seems somehow more appropriate to the ships of the period. I also note that FWR doesn't seem to mention mechanics for slow-loading guns such as one would expect with overgrown MLRs.

- Ix

I'd be more inclined to worry about the inaccuracy of those guns than their slow rate of fire.

Inaccuracy shouldn't be too much of a problem. Expected engagement ranges were well under 500M. But you'd better have god ramming and boarding rules.

Ranges were expected to be over 1000m during the whole engagement even before any of the ships listed were completed. Italia and Lepanto continued on in service alongside ships effective at 3-5000m.

Even Victorian wooden broadside ships expected to begin an engagement well beyond 1000m, the 68pr was an effective weapon at that range so why come closer ?

Part of the 'big gun' concept was that a single plunging hit would destroy any vessel afloat. While that was true, you had to hit it first !!

Reminds me of the tale of the sten gun. It would pierce an oak door 2 inches thick at 100yds – the problem was hitting the door !!!

Good question as you are right on the "join" between the two :) Personally I'd go for I&F myself

Maybe this needs to treated as a separate period with a third set of rules. :-)

- Ix

Part of the 'big gun' concept was that a single plunging hit would destroy any vessel afloat. While that was true, you had to hit it first !!

This is one of the reasons I want to game this period. I've never been able to figure out how a muzzle-loading gun with a 1 ton shell was supposed to work in combat. It took around 4 minutes per round to reload them, and in the era before optical rangefinders, hitting a moving ship from another moving ship at more than a couple thousand yards was nearly impossible.

I am picturing a fight between Duilio and Inflexible to look sort of like a joust at sea – charge into range, BOOM BOOM BOOM <splash> <splash> <splash>, speed out of range to reload, repeat. First one to land a hit wins…

- Ix

Yellow Admiral, this period is immensely rich in tactical thought. It is one of the things that makes it more interesting to wargame than any other. If you have the chance, get hold of some tactical pamphlets and essays from the time. Wargaming-out the ideas in them makes for some great scenarios.

The downside to this is that it is hard to say what a typical battle would look like.

Some sailors and theorists thought that broadsides would still be exchanged in line ahead, as they had been in the days before armour.

Most, tho, thought that the American Civil War and the Battle of Lissa had shown that the sort of middling guns you could mount on the broadside of a seagoing ironclad were unlikely to have a decisive effect. Battles would be won by the ram and fleets that exposed their broadsides to the enemy (as the Italians had at Lissa) would tend to lose.

That opens the way to a host of interesting formations – quarter lines, arrowheads, lozenges, etc. Most, tho, emphasise line-abreast rather than line ahead. Fleets would charge, rather like knights in a tournament. Guns which cd bear ahead would shoot on the approach. There would then be a dogfight. Ramming was difficult, so there would be opportunity for broadsides to be exchanged at close range by ships that had avoided collision. The fleets would shake-out and perhaps return for another pass.

Much would depend on seamanship, but it was realised that there would be a large random element in these encounters. Hence, naval architects' interest in building ships with big-enough guns bearing fd to make a decisive difference on the approach. A lucky hit on, say, an enemy's conning tower might make him much easier to ram. As ships spun past one another at close range a single hit with a big gun might take-out an enemy's engines or penetrate armour through to a magazine. A parting shot might disable his steering.

I cd go on for pages. There were lots of other uses for these big guns. Eg in the ship v shore actions which were likely to be common. It's a fascinating period. You'll enjoy it.

Alan