"All at Sea - The Small Ships at Trafalgar" Topic

Most wargaming recreations of the Battle of Trafalgar seem to ignore the small ships involved in the battle, including the nine British and French frigates.

Considering that Admiral Villeneuve kept the option open in his standing orders to using his small ships as yet another squadron that he could call on to add their gunnery to the melee battle he expected to fight, an extraordinary idea and probably not one the frigate captains in his fleet relished, the role of these vessels was important to both commanders.

Having already looked at the models to represent the frigates on the table, this concluding post takes a look at the four unrated vessels that took part and the history behind them

If you would like to know more then just follow the link to JJ's

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JJ

Interesting post, JJ! Clearly, the little ships played an important role when off by themselves, and have some real possibilities for gaming.
Perhaps a fun and inexpensive way to get into Napoleonic naval gaming.

Presumably you are originally from the Exmouth in southern England, not the one in Western Australia, which seems to have some of the infrastructure to quickly become a major naval base, if need be.

Grelber

Hi Grelber,
Thank you, yes indeed, I think many have dipped their proverbial toe into this scale by starting with the frigates and brigs and playing out smaller actions.

In January I put together such a little action, the first of the French Revolutionary War between the brigs HMS Scourge and French privateer Le Sans Culottes fought just off the Isles of Scilly, using ‘To Covet Glory' the small ships adaptation for Kiss Me Hardy, link below

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Oh yes, I'm from the ‘Old Country' so you can infer that this is the Exmouth-senior which has a lot of historical ties to the current theme with Lady Fanny Nelson resident in the town during her estrangement from the great man and buried locally in our parish church and with Sir Edward Pellew hailing from across the water in Teignmouth and taking the town's name when he became Lord Exmouth in 1814.

I was hoping to visit the Australian incarnation of our lovely seaside location but the pandemic got in the way of those plans, so I am still looking forward to visiting the Antipodes.

I seem also to remember seeing an Exmouth during our honeymoon to New England whilst travelling up to Quebec, with lots of English south west town names popping up on sign posts as we got near the Canadian border.

All the best
JJ