Trafalgar Day

Wargame admirals habitually fight very sanguinary naval battles. It's not uncommon to find one surviving battered hulk pounding away at an equally wrecked opponent in a bid for final victory.

In contrast, if there's any characteristic that seems to define a real life admiral, it's his circumspection. Sensitive to the smallest disadvantage, the real admiral, who unlike his game counterpart, could face a dip in the drink and invariably controls a significant investment of national treasure, will endeavor to avoid that disadvantage at almost any cost. The end result is that the naval battles of history are often remarkably tentative, indecisive and bloodless. The French admiral Suffren and British admiral Hughes fought four squadron-sized naval battles in 1782-1783 without either side losing a ship in action. It goes without saying that a wargame campaign recreating that campaign will not have the same result.

But every so often there was a truly decisive naval battle. And when they occurred they illustrate the stakes of a naval battle, the potential cost and help explain why real admirals feared allowing their opponent any advantage at all. Battles such as Tsushima, Surigao Strait, Manila, Santiago, the Nile and Narvik demonstrate the danger of being caught with your pants down at sea.

Trafalgar, fought on this date 205 years ago, was one of the most decisive battles of history. While the Napoleonic Wars would continue for 10 more years, they went on with England essentially invulnerable to French direct attack. England would be the pre-eminent naval power for the next century, only facing a serious challenge after 1905.

The two sides were fairly evenly matched in numbers. Nelson's British fleet had 27 ships of the line, the combined Franco-Spanish fleet had 33. Neither side was under any illusions, however, that the two sides were evenly matched in combat power. Both sides recognized that the British had a clear advantage on a ship-to-ship level. So long as the Allied fleet maintained an unbroken formation it might lose a battle, but wouldn't lose too many ships. This had been demonstrated as recently as Calder's Action on July 22, 1805, which involved many of the same ships that would fight at Trafalgar. Calder's 15 British ships of the line defeated the 20-strong Franco-Spanish fleet, but did not destroy it. Just 2 Spanish ships were lost.

Nelson's genius was employing a plan that allowed the British fleet to break up the Allied formation and the courage to take the risk involved in doing so. He took the risk after making the calculation that the ill-trained Allied ships wouldn't be able to take advantage of his vulnerable approach. Events proved him right and the British were able to concentrate all their force on about 2/3 of the Allied fleet. The British destroyed 18 of the 33 ships in the Allied fleet and a subsequent action on Nov. 2 eliminated 4 more. The surviving Allied ships were blockaded and never again able to mount a dangerous coordinated campaign.

Compared to most fleet actions, then, wargaming Trafalgar is more likely than usual to result in a battle resembling its historical antecedent. Nelson was willing to risk his life, the lives of his men and a substantial part of England's wealth in search of decisive victory. In the end he did lose his own life, but British losses otherwise were relatively light, less than 10 percent of the men engaged and no ships. As much as admirals admire Nelson's example and may wish to emulate him, the fate of his opponent Villeneuve is never far from their minds. He also eventually paid for his loss with his life, with the added penalty of disgrace and the knowledge that he had cost two nations their navies.

Among the games depicting Trafalgar are Flying Colors, Wooden Ships & Iron Men and 1805 Sea of Glory

Chesapeake vs. Shannon

Today is the anniversary of two notable naval victories by the Royal Navy.

The more recent of the two was the 1813 duel between the American frigate Chesapeake and the British frigate Shannon which has been the topic of several posts already.

The earlier one was the British naval battle known as the Glorious First of June, where a British fleet defeated a French fleet in 1794.

"I didn't know that!" Wargaming and perusing through History

One of the alluring things about wargaming for me is the discoveries it can bring.

Today happens to be the anniversary of the Battle of Audierne Bay, which was fought on Jan. 13, 1797. In the grand scale of things it wasn't a very big battle -- just a pair of British frigates against a French ship-of-the-line -- or a very important one. It's notable as probably the most famous fight of the renowned British frigate captain Edward Pellew, who is one of the probable inspirations for famous British frigate captains of fiction such as Horatio Hornblower.

I pulled out my copy of Flying Colors, which happens to have a scenario about the battle, and looked it over. It's one of the more interesting small ship actions of the Napoleonic era. The French ship was the Droits de l'Homme (with the suitably revolutionary name The Rights of Man), a 74-gun ship of the line that would normally have been able to fend off two British frigates despite the superior British seamanship. But the French ship was unlucky in several respects.

First, the weather was bad, with a stiff wind making it impossible to open the lower bank of gunports without sinking the ship! This deprived the French battleship of its heaviest guns.

Second, while one of the British ships was the 36-gun Amazon, a standard frigate for its time, the other was the 44-gun Indefatigable, a "razee" frigate, which meant that it had been built as a ship-of-the-line and had been turned into a frigate by removing the upper deck. This meant it was much more stoutly built than a standard frigate and had a heavier battery of guns. It also meant that, being lighter, its gunports were higher and it could therefore use its guns despite the waves.

Finally, the Indefatigable was commanded by Sir Edward Pellew. (Shown at left)

The battle ended with both the Amazon and the French battleship (after heavy damage) being blown ashore and wrecked and Pellew skillfully sailing his ship out of danger.

All good stuff, already. But I was curious about Pellew and soon found out that he had indeed had a long and surprising naval career.

As a midshipman he fought against Benedict Arnold's fleet at the Battle of Valcour Island on Lake Champlain on Oct. 11, 1776. Almost exactly a year later, as a lieutenant he was present at the Battle of Saratoga (facing Arnold again!) and became a prisoner when Burgoyne surrendered his army. Paroled, Pellew couldn't see any more active service against the Americans, but he distinguished himself in other waters until being put on half-pay after the wars ended.

When Britain and France resumed fighting after the French Revolution broke out Pellew was given command of the 36-gun frigate Nymphe and resourcefully manned it and got it to sea as one of the first British frigates to sail. He defeated the French frigate Cleopatre in one of the most famous single-ship duels of the war. He was then promoted to command the larger Indefatigable.

Eventually he rose to the rank of admiral, was named a viscount and died at the age of 76.

So a small scenario in Flying Colors led to a line of inquiry that brought out a lot of intriguing facts. While I'm not surprised that Pellew was also the commander of the Nymphe vs. Cleopatre fight, I was very surprised to find out about his role in the American Revolutionary War. His participation at Valcour Island was a definite "I didn't know that!" and doubly so for his participation at Saratoga. Indeed, I had never heard that Burgoyne's army included a naval contingent, and I've read quite a few accounts of Saratoga over the years. "I didn't know that!"

This si the sort of thing that reminds me why I love wargames.

Flying Colors and command and control in the Age of Sail

Flying Colors is GMT's attempt to make a workable two-player fleet action game for the age of sail.

There can be little doubt that the most satisfying way to play any tactical naval game is with as many individual ship captains as possible. Even in the data-linked modern era of Harpoon or the TBS-equipped World War II era it's better to have each ship controlled by one player, or at least have each player control no more than a couple of ships. It's the best way to explore the command and control issues involved.

But you can't always get a bunch of folks together for a multi-commander game of Close Action, so Flying Colors attempts to mimic the command and control of age of sail fleets with two rules. One is a simple command span rule, which lets players move ships freely so long as they are within the command range of a leader. This is a tried-and-true wargame rule. Except for a few rare and talented folks (such as Nelson, Hood and de Grasse) this range is inadequate to control the whole fleet. That brings in the second rule, formations, which allows an admiral to command all the ships that face the same direction and are within 4 hexes of at least one other ship in the same formation. This would seem to encourage historical formations. Is it enough? I haven't played enough to judge, but I'd be interested in hearing from those who have.