Rules on the Fly – WsuS At Sea

Over the decades I have been running campaigns, I have noticed a few things. One of these is the need to be fairly comprehensively prepared for any combination of troops, activities and actions that might arise. Campaigns can be rather surprising in this respect. In the VMCW, for example, I spent quite a lot of time on non-Mogul wargaming, which was not what I expected. On the other hand, in the Machiavelli campaign, I expected some naval action but got none. It keeps me on my toes, I suppose.

Now, the next move in the War of Stuart Succession threw up three wargames. James VI against the Northumberland trained bands, Arbella Stuart against the Leicestershire trained bands, and, most surprisingly, the Spanish attacking the Dutch in Dover (the sea area, not the port). Um. OK, that will need some thinking about. Actually, there are two Spanish fleets and one Dutch fleet in the area, which means, using my usual rule of thumb, one and a half fleets against one, or 18 ships against 12. I have been at sea before (although I am a landlubber, and perfectly happy as such, thank you), and I do have some rules for naval combat. Somewhere.

A frantic search of my rules file and some whinging to the Estimable Mrs P. yielded a single page of Renaissance Naval Wargame Rules. Somewhere to start, agreed, but I was sure I had a slightly more detailed set. A search of my laptop yielded a more sophisticated rule set, but I still wanted to add a bit more flavour. So I set about adding fleet organisations, fireships and a minimal order rule. This pushed the rule set to four pages of A4. A good place to start, I thought.

Naval battles are, of course, notorious for lacking much terrain. I rolled a pair of D6 and got a double six, so I decided that there would be a shoal in the middle of the table. Further dice rolls established that the Dutch would be coming from one side, while the Spanish were arriving from two different directions. The organisation was that the fleets were in squadrons of 6 or so ships, and the only orders were to ‘support the flagship’, so each squadron had a designated flagship, the biggest and meanest available in my Armada fleets.

The initial dispositions are above. The Dutch are in the near left-hand corner, while the Spanish squadrons are to the right and on the far side. Assorted unrated vessels are around as well, providing communication, scouting, and generally getting in the way. The game started at 6 AM (2 bells of the morning watch, I believe). The wind is northerly, blowing from left to right of the picture, force 5, so a moderate breeze (sailors are given to understatement on such things, I think), and the weather was light rain. The wind direction and strength did not change during the game. The weather improved after 8 AM, however, to fair.

Land battles can be complex affairs. Sea battles are the same, only more so, I suspect. The Dutch clearly have a tactical problem with foes to bow and quarter. However, in the latter case, they have the advantage of the weather gauge. So I had to make a decision as to what to do with the fleet. If I took on the weaker Spanish to the front, I was open to the flank, but if I turned the whole fleet to run down on the stronger Spanish, I risked some potentially battered ships having to face the second Spanish squadron without the wind. So splitting the Dutch seemed like a logical thing to do.

The picture shows the Dutch fleet splitting into two. The aim is to batter the three ships of the westward Spanish column to the right with the five ships of the Dutch squadron. Meanwhile, the other Dutch squadron will batter the northward column of weaker Spanish, avoiding the heavier ships in the other column. Seems like a plan…

Obviously, I omitted to plan for the Spanish responding to the Dutch moves, however hampered they were by the wind. The target column of Spanish has turned to engage the approaching Dutch, while, as advertised, the unrated ships are getting in the way as targets and attempting to engage each other. As we shall see, the unrated ships ended up having a separate battle among themselves, and the ships of the line (insofar as there were any in 1603) engaged each other.

There was actually quite a lot of frantic rule rewriting and inventing going on. My neatly printed out four pages of rules were getting scribbles and scrawls all over. I invented the smoke rule, which means dicing for each smoke bank from a broadside to see if it dissipates. I changed the combat rules to make them simpler. I added firing factors. I shamelessly stole bits from Paul Hague’s book to keep things moving. And so on…

It is probably a bit simple to show some shots of the action rather than try to describe what happened. There was a lot going on, and I had to steal/write rules for breaking a line, minimum moves, ships fouling each other and so on.

In this sequence, you can see the middle and nearest Spanish columns manoeuvring to intercept the Dutch and, in the final shot, smashing through the line. Poor dice rolling meant that not much damage was inflicted, but the tactical situation does not favour the Dutch. In the bottom left corner, the unrated ships are having a running fight. In the top right, the cannon duel is hotting up, and visibility is rapidly dropping.

Surprisingly, the above shows more or less the end of the action. In the bottom left corner, the fight between the unrated ships has finished with the Dutch cromster damaged and down to half speed. It will be forced to strike. In the top left, the Dutch squadron has sailed between the two Spanish ones and is paying the price. While the flagship is unscathed, the others are suffering. The next two ships are damaged, and the one after that has been boarded from the galleas and surrendered. One of the others will also be forced to strike as well. On the right of the shot, a running fight has developed between the Spanish first column and the front of the Dutch. The participants are disappearing in the smoke clouds. Behind them, however, the rearmost Dutch ship as been boarded and struck. The next in line has been broadsided again by the Spanish flagship and sheared off. Unfortunately, it has run foul of the next ship along and caused that vessel considerable damage. This has been compounded by the next Spanish vessel, which turned north before the Dutch line and broadsided it, inflicting more damage. The Dutch 5^th rate is crippled and sinking. The ship that ran it foul has not struck but is stuck, so it will not have a lot of choice, unless it decides to get pounded to bits by the Spanish 5^th rates.

That was a lot of fun as a game, and also has given me some head scratching to do in the campaign. The Dutch must retreat, so they will have to go into Thames, I think, but that is where the English fleet is, which is without orders. On the other hand, with the level of damage, they might disperse and make port as best they can.