"Reviewing Islamic Seapower During the Age of" Topic

… Fighting Sail

"Over the past five years, strategic horizons have shifted east and drawn closer attention to increasing naval power across the Pacific. Analysts have pointed out that the rising size of the People's Liberation Army, Navy, to say nothing of the growth of the Chinese Coast Guard fleet, has caused neighbors to adjust their own building plans. Some have even suggested that there is a naval arms race underway in Southeast Asia. The United States is not a passive observer of these trends either, shifting the balance of the U.S. fleet so that 60% of American warships are in the Indo-Pacific region. The nations in that part of the world have noticed American naval developments in parallel with those of China.[1]

This focus on naval power, in a region made up of archipelagic and island nations, peninsulas, and massive expanses of maritime space, certainly makes strategic sense. But the Indo-Pacific is not the only part of the world with navies and naval developments. At the same time observers have trumpeted naval races in the Pacific region, they have reinforced the idea that landpower and armies dominate the Middle East and the Islamic world.[2] Closer examination of both the past and the present suggests this strategic perception is not as persuasive as it appears at first blush. The naval past and present of the Islamic world offers a great deal to study…."
Full Review here
link

Amicalement
Armand

Guess that nobody wargame with Ottoman Age of Sail… (smile)

Amicalement
Armand

Armand,
I would suspect that there are very few people who wargame with Ottoman navies during this period. There are a few reasons for that.

The first reason is that primary documents are hard to come by. Ottoman documents were written in Arabic, but it was a formal, court-type of Arabic. Consequently, the language pretty much requires extensive training before you could even hope to read the documents. A related problem is that the next best source for info on the Ottoman are the Russian Navy archives. So there, you have both language and political issues. One researcher I read said something like this: "The Ottoman Navy is the black hole of naval historiography."

Another problem is miniature availability. For the period 1750-1790, miniatures for Ottoman ships are not generally available (there may not be any). The design of their ships were pretty different from other nations warships and there just aren't any good substitutes. After Selim III starts to modernize the navy, most ships are of French design so it is easy to just substitute French ships for Ottoman. There were also Swedish missions to the Porte, so it may be possible to use a few Swedish ships too.

A third problem is that the Ottoman navy did not see as much action during the Napoleonic Wars as some other navies did. She allied with Russia and England during the 1790's, but that was short-lived and she wound up fighting both of them as the wars go on. The best known Ottoman naval battle is Athos in 1806 against the Russians. There were others, but once again they aren't well documented in English.

Personally, I think the Russo-Ottoman War of 1806-1812 would make an excellent campaign. The forces involved are small, and while there were no large battles in the Black Sea, the opportunity was there. The opposing fleets actually found each other a couple of times, but could not force a fight. But the short answer is probably yes, not too many people wargame the Ottoman navy.

Many thanks my friend!. (smile)

Amicalement
Armand

As always, you are quite welcome [tips bicorne].