Ship yards of York (9): Audit and prep.

I have allocated the Forged in Battle ships, and re-allocated some of the Navwar ones (French 74s will become 80s to bring the number of them up). Each will nominally represent a named ship of one of the three nations: England, France and Spain. The numbers are really pleasing.

Ships organised into fleets, from left to right Spanish, English and French.

English

4 first rates 100–120 guns

2 second rates 98 guns

1 third rate 80 captured French (HMS Tonnant)

19 third rates 74 guns

4 third rates 64 guns

2 razee frigates

2 frigates

2 merchantmen

4 brigs

French

2 first rates 120 guns

5 third rates 80 guns (including Tonnant)

14 third rates 74 guns

2 frigates

1 merchantman

2 cutters

Spanish

1 first rate 130–136 guns (Santisima Trinidad)

2 first rates 112 guns

1 first rate 100 guns

2 third rates 80 guns

9 third rates 74 guns

1 third rate 64 guns

2 frigates

1 merchantman

2 cutters

I will need to re-flag some of the Spanish 74s as French for First of June/Prairial and some of the French first rates and 74s as Spanish for Cape St. Vincent. The Frigates will be swapped around a bit for various of the smaller actions. In the main though, the ships will be 'fixed' to their allocated nation, merely changing name according to the ships in a particular action.

Merveilleuse!

Ship yards of York (8): Arrival of 'Keith's ships'

The 1/3000 ships produced by Forged in Battle, that I was made aware of by Tim and Julian and then Keith *made* me buy, arrived today—and I could not be more pleased!

Ships and bases on a towel to dry after washing.

The models are excellent. They are robust, have a good amount of detail and an absolute minimum of flash—just a tiny amount on the bottom that I needed to trim to get them to sit flush on the stands. They are stable with a good weight to them once glued to the stand. In short, they look bloody marvellous!

Forged in Battle sent me a 'bonus' of an extra two 74s, which was most generous and a wonderful surprise. It is doubly good, since they are the most common ships of the line.

I received not 31, but 33 of these beauties!

The models are not as detailed as the Navwar ships, but there is sufficient for this scale.

The ships are a little smaller than those from Navwar, but it will hardly be apparent once they are painted and 'sailing' around a table-top ocean. Also, once mounted on the bases, which are thicker than the Navwar ones, they nearly the same height.

I was interested which were closer to a true 1/3000th scale, so did a comparison for Santisima Trinidad.

Comparison of the two Santisima Trinidads: Forged in Battle at left, Navwar at right.

I used the information about her from the Three Decks website. This records that the gun deck was 220' 6", which is 67.2084 m in modern measurements, or ~22.4 mm at 1/3000. The breadth is given as 58', 17.6784 m or 5.9 mm at 1/3000th. I measured the models, simply using a ruler, and the Forged in Battle version is closest with ~ 17 mm for the gun deck and around ~5 mm wide, compared with the Navwar version at ~19 mm and ~6 mm wide. So, I'll use the Navwar version as Santisima Trinidad and the Forged in Battle ship will represent a smaller 1st rate.

Ships on their bases ready for undercoating and painting.

Ship yards of York (7): Action Under Sail Play-test

It went really well. I am a happy chappy.

Before I could stage a game of "Action Under Sail", I needed to 'find' my table.  I moved everything to the far (left) end of the table, gave the now clear section a sweep and vacuum and then unrolled and laid about 1.2 x ~2 m of my recently purchased 'ocean' material.

I was applying off-white (Tamiya 'deck tan') to the sails of the Spanish ships when Julian arrived. He waited patiently while I completed that and then applied blue with a blue-grey wash/highlight to the bases, all the while making me feel good about how the painted ships looked. It's wonderful to have wargaming friends! :)

It also gave him a bit of time to look at a few aspects of the rules that I wanted his thoughts about. The delay was not too long and we were ready to sail.

Above, Spanish squadron, lead by Argonauta, followed by San Agustin, Santisima Trinidad (flag), Montañés and San Felipe Apóstal, with the frigate Ninfa protected by the ships of the line and positioned to relay signals.

English squadron, Zealous in the lead then Agamemnon (flag), Bellona with Adamant out of photo to left. Frigates Sybille and Phoebe on the Spanish side of the line.

Consistent with the first game using any new set of rules, it took us a while to get going and to get into a 'rhythm', but we were soon sailing away and finding that we'd made mistakes in the fleet and movement orders for our ships—player mistakes, not mistakes with the rules. For two reasonably experiences tabletop sailors, we were directing our mini charges in an amateur fashion!

Fleets on course to come to grips, Spanish nearest camera, Ninfa yet to be moved.
Note the good looking and useful wind direction and ship orientation tool that is provided with the rules, for printing and assembly.

The English squadron turned to intercept the Spanish...

and came on aggressively.

Sybille and Phoebe came too close, receiving broadsides from San Felipe Apóstal (at the former), Montañés and Santisima Trinidad (at the latter), while Argonauta (furthest from camera) fired at HMS Zealous in the lead of the English line.

The frigates HMSs Phoebe and Sybille sailing too close to the Spanish line drew the first broadsides of three of the ships, including the 'biggest ship in the world' Santisima Trinidad. Bonuses for initial broadside and the double-shot that I had loaded resulted in serious damage to the hulls of both frigates—damaging all of Phoebe's starboard guns, and killing some crew.

We had a fair bit of discussion about this result. Made some calculations, considered alterations and thought about a change. We then moved to the firing of Argonauta against HMS Zealous and decided against the change. Further firing over the next three turns confirmed us to stick with the rules as writ!

I was engrossed in the game and our discussion about the firing, so forgot to photograph a couple of turns—oops! The Spanish kept sailing on and it appeared that our inept sailing might result in a minor action. Argonauta had lost her main mast top gallant in turn five.

Ah, the admirals were not complete buffoons after all, turning their ships to engage.

The time that we had taken over the first seven turns now paid off. We were comfortable with orders, movement and firing, which was good since the next two turns were really involved. We pro-rated the movement of the ships to more easily determine which fired at which and when during the turn.

English ships of the line approach the turning Spanish.

Montañés fires a raking broadside on Zealous, while she in turn rakes San Felipe Apóstal. 

Half-way through the turn, Bellona got her turn at San Felipe Apóstal, taking out more guns and crew.

The English have élite crews, compared with the raw of the Spanish (on a three-level scale), enabling them to fire and reload more rapidly and so be able to fire at the beginning and end of a move. Zealous had this point-blank stern rake on Santisima Trinidad. She had fired previously part-way through the move, rather than at the beginning, so this shot should not have been allowed, but we wanted to see the effect. A shot at the hull damaged guns and killed some crew.

We both should probably have followed the more usual tactic of disable first (fire at rigging) and then move in to hammer (and board) the enemy ship, but, aside from this, the firing and damage seemed reasonable for single broadsides.

Both squadrons continued to turn. Spanish in line in centre of photo, frigate Ninfa off to the left (showing ill effects of my clumsy hand on the delicate mast). English frigate Sybille in the foreground (Phoebe out of photo behind her), while the four English ships of the line are coming around the Spanish.

At this point Argonauta and Zealous were positioned to exchange broadsides, but no. Zealous was unloaded on the starboard side due to that rake on Santisima Trinidad. Argonauta duly unloaded her port side guns on the English ship's hull.

We continued the ship's wearing.

It was Argonauta's turn to be unloaded (top of photo). She took fire from both Zealous and Agamemnon, adding losses of guns and crew to her previously 'felled' t'gallant. Sybille fired at the unloaded Montañés, while Phoebe (with the guns of her undamaged port-side batteries) and San Felipe Apóstal exchanged 'pleasantries'.

That was our lot. I had to rush into town before shops closed and Julian needed to leave, since he'll be heading to the airport today for his 'international man of mystery' work. 'Twas no matter. The aim was to try and to evaluate the rules. In nine turns we did and they were... pleasingly good. There have the detail that I am after, but it has been cleverly integrated and somewhat abstracted so as to streamline play without losing the flavour and challenges of trying to command and to move ships on a tabletop sea, to bring them to fire on your opponent's ships and in a state of readiness to be able to do so.

Most importantly, we'd had a good game. Lots of decisions and challenges as players, discussion of results, quick looking up to compare with general statistics, getting comfortable with the system and having an absolute ball. After all the weeks preparing these lovely, fiddly little ships it was so pleasing to have them 'sailing' around, getting contorted together and sharing the joy of it all with a fellow-traveller in the naval caper.

Thanks Steve Birnie. If you are still around, I hope that someone is able to bring to your attention this little game in which two wargamers who enjoy French Revolutionary-Napoleonic Naval 're-discovered' the rules that you wrote—some 47 years after the event—and spent a really enjoyable 4–5 hours doing so!

Next step 19th November 1791, 'Battle of Tellicherry'. English frigates HMS Phoenix and HMS Perseverance engaging the 'neutral' French frigate Résolue of 32 under capitaine Gallamand. I'll prepare a description of the historic action for reference and as a comparison with the action as played. In the meantime, the other ships need to be completed, rigging to be applied to them all and then the ships from Forged in Battle, which I expect to arrive any day now, will need to be done—interspersed with painting the now long-neglected land forces.

 'Tis a joy to have so many wonderful hobby 'jobs' to fit in! :)

Summary of the game

Rules: Action Under Sail, 2nd Edition by Steve Birnie, published November 1977 by Tabletop Games.

Scales: not stated, but presumably the rules were designed for 1/1200th scale ships, with a time scale of a few minutes per turn.

Ships: Navwar 1/3000th scale Napoleonic ships.

'Terrain': a roll of material for a blind or 'block out' purchased from Spotlight :)

Ship yards of York (6)—Filler, rant and planning for Tuesday's test game

Filler

I have not done much with the ships lately. A visit to Adelaide for me old Ma's 90th late last week, seeing sis', bro' and other family, then developing a bit of a lurgy for the first few days of this week has kept me out of my wargame shed. I got back to it yesterday and in doing so had an epiphany.

I think that I am at 'peak figures'.

Of course, even I am not this silly. I cannot recall whose blog I originally got this from. The link with the download file just has a generic blogspot address. Please let me know if you know. Most of the others have a similar 'provenance'.

Yes, that's right, it is my turn to say to myself that I have enough figures. Cue laughing, rolling of eyes and broad smirks. Still, not only is it true, but I think that I may even have realised it is.

I have not been like you other, sensible wargamers/bloggers out there who only buy a few figures at a time and try to paint them all, or at least most of them, before the next lot are added to the collection. Having been a bit restrained—but only a bit—for the first 50 years of my life, I have gone absolutely ballistic in the last 8–9, especially 2020*–2023 (I double-checked my records and I began going 'mad' in 2019). I don't have thousands of figures, I have tens of thousands. About 10% are painted to completion, probably another 5% in some stage towards that ultimate aim.

Of course, even I am not so naïve as to think that I am gonna stop purchasing figures.

I have the ships that Keith made me buy (you are all witnesses). These are on the way to me now—and I am really looking forward to them arriving. Then there will be around 400 or so Austrian Hungarian infantry that will be coming my way once Hat have shipped them to my 'supplier'. There a few early 18thC infantry in firing poses that Strelets are planning to release soon—despite the serious, existential challenges that they face in Ukraine. After that though, I reckon I may actually exhibit restraint and consider deeply before making any further purchases. Only something new and really special. And then only in small numbers.

I'll revisit this in a year or so, shall I?!!

Rant

One of the great things about getting older is the imprimatur to have a rant. Not strictly imprimatur, just a rolling of eyes and 'here goes the old man...'. In fact, this may not be new to me since I was given a 'soap box' as a funny, work, Chrissy-pressie one year. I was in my thirties. Not that I ranted then. I had important ideas to convey to others. All based on substantiated information. Plus the odd opinion.

Anyway, this rant is not even mine! It is Julian's. I just happen to agree and to have found myself agreeing more since he made it.

When did people begin to refer to wargame's rules as 'the game'?

So, rather than play a game of <<insert period>> with <<rules>> it seems to be increasingly referred to the game of <<rules>>.

What?! The rules are merely part of the game. In wargaming, especially historical stuff, the aim, is to have some semblance of an historical representation. The eternal quest is to find a set of rules that does this in a manner that is representative, enjoyable and playable. The 'game' involves the figures, terrain, opponents (or solo), cards/dice/no-dice, scale, scenario... oh yeah, and some set of rules that you have both/all decided to use for the purpose.

Of course, it is purely language and terminology and a tongue-in-cheek rant, but there is a bit of annoyance there...! 😁 

Preparation for test game of 'Action Under Sail'

I have made a bit of progress with the boating escapade.

Julian is available, so we are gonna have a test game on Tuesday using the rules 'Action Under Sail'. Or should I say, play a game of 'Action Under Sail', grrrrr!!!!

I have the second edition of the rules, circa 1977. Written by S. Birnie, they first came out in 1976. There was a third edition in 1984 and a fourth in 1993. I have seen extracts and reviews of the first and later editions and think that, for me, the second edition is the 'sweet spot'.

Julian gave them to me with a load of sets of rules for Napoleonic naval that he had decided he would not use. I just happened to flick through them after our test-game and rejection of 'It's Warm Work' and became more and more interested the more that I read. I then worked through some of the mechanics and really liked them.

They are detailed and involve calculations that are not 'de rigeur' for current wargames rules.

I think I got this beauty from Gary's Sgt Steiner blog.

Movement is simultaneous. Ships operate under broad 'fleet orders' and also have individual orders for each ship. The latter are noted simply using arrows, code letters (direction, tacking, loading broadsides) and numbers (for speed and distance of turning/wearing). The main classes of ships have a maximum speed for three strengths of wind (light, fresh and gale) according to one of three positions to the wind (aft, quartering and bow). Ships may speed up or slow down a given amount in a single turn, but not above the maximum (this is not stated directly, an example that Mr Birnie expects players to have common-sense and a spirit of playing). There are three classes of crew èlite, average and raw. Ships with èlite crews can sail closer to the wind (up to 45º), while the others can only get within 60º. Turning through the wind is a three-step process. There are rules for storms, gales, rowing and other such events that I have only skimmed so far.

Broadsides need to be loaded (and noted), with different load times required for single, double and triple shot, better crews doing the job faster. Each ships has a gunnery factor and, if present, a carronade factor. Examples are given for classes of ship, but the calculation is provided and straightforward—a third of the sum product of number and weight of guns divided by number of guns. The 'fudge factor' of 1/3 is included as the guns are divided into batteries of 3 guns (halves rounded up). Firing is then 'simply' gunnery factor + tactical factors + random factor multiplied by number of batteries in the broadside to give 'total damage points inflicted' (TDPI). The TDPI is compared with the defence value for the targeted area, hull or rigging, and damage is inflicted. Or not. Crew casualties also result.

Casualties to crew and levels of damage may result in a morale test for the crew. Damage to rigging leads to fallen sections or masts. Firing at the hull has a chance for further damage: rudder, wheel, lower mast, explosion.

I have not read the boarding rules in detail, but a proportion of the crew have muskets (usually solely the marines) and can be involved in such 'business'. There is also running aground, mooring, involvement with shore batteries, landing parties, but I have not bothered to read it all yet.

I was gonna simply begin with the first action of my 'going through all the naval actions of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars', but Julian had the good suggestion of using the same scenario that he devised for testing 'It's Warm Work'. Perfect. We'll have several ships, different sizes and armament, command and all that good stuff.

I knocked up this sheet to record orders, speed, loaded broadsides and damage. It is based on the example in the rules, plus a few more aspects added to make it, hopefully, an all in one.

Hopefully they will go as well as I envisage and the reason for Julian dismissing them—too detailed for a large, multi-player game—will not be a problem.

The English ships in the foreground are good enough to go. I'll add rigging if I get time, but need to focus on the Spanish ones at left rear, which have a bit more colour added since I took this photo yesterday arvo'.

Ship yards of York (5)—Thanks for sending me down a rabbit hole, Julian and Tim!

True, but not really. Actually extremely interesting and useful, so thank you to you both!

A bit of context.

Even before I have finished painting the ships that I have on the go, there has already been 'slippage'. I won't have enough ships! I'll be okay for the early actions involving one to a few per side, but once I get to May-June of 1794 I am gonna be a long way short. Sixteen ships of the line for the English and Franco-Spanish respectively will not be enough. Even with complete 're-flagging' of the latter two nation's ships.

If good sense prevailed the sensible approach would be to confined my 1/3000 ships to the small and smaller actions and to use Julian's expansive collection of 1/700 ships for the larger ones, beginning with 29th May to 1st June 1794.

Wargaming megalomania suggests doing and being able to do both. Use Julian's with fleet-scale rules and mine with a more detailed set. This could involve two goes at the same thing, or perhaps an historical re-fight with mine and an alternative history with Julian's. Or… one or more of the other permutations.

So, I am considering that I 'need' another 35 of these 1/3000 ships. This should allow enough, with some re-flagging of 74s, 80s and some of the smaller ships, for the biggest of the historic actions; Glorious First June/13 prairail, Cape St Vincent and Trafalgar. I am not ready to jump at the purchase yet, so will have a 'cooling off' period for a couple of months or so.

Enter Julian and Tim with their 'rabbit hole'.

Julian is catching up with his wargaming friends of 'forever', Tim and Nigel. On Friday he sent me an email in which he said:

Just before you 'launch' into Navwar 1/3000, Tim drew these to my attention. You may very well of course prefer the Navwar range, and enjoy the time spent building them, but I thought out of a sense of duty I would pass on the alternative just in case you might think otherwise. 

There was a link to some 1/3000 ships by 'Forged in Battle' being sold at Noble Knight games.

I had a look at them on the Noble Knight website. They said that they are cast in one piece and had pictures of the painted articles. I wondered if they are truly a single casting and what they looked like unpainted.

A quick search lead me to Forged in Battle's website. Turns out you can get these fleets for the Battle of the Nile from Noble Knight for the 'discount price' of £50.28 (plus postage), or go direct to the ‘Forged in Battle' in the UK and get them for £38.00 (plus postage)! The photos of the various fleet and squadron packs on the Forged in Battle website all depict the ships painted (of course), but I found an excellent review on this fellow's marvellous blog.

Naturellement!

If you want the impressions and opinion of a wargamer and information that is useful to wargamers, look on a wargames blog. In his post, 'Queen Catherine', the intriguing pseudonym under which he blogs, describes the ships and also provides some excellent photos of the unpainted models.

One of the excellent photos of the 1/3000 Forged in Battle' ships on 'Queen Catherine's' blog.

They look good. I really like the ‘puffed out’ sails. They are moulded as one piece, which is no problem to me as I construct and then paint the Navwar ships. The separate base looks thicker than the one provided with the Navwar models, but it would be easy to trim the lugs and to the metal base with plastic card. They are more expensive than Navwar, but not ridiculously. Detail is less than for the Navwar ships, but you get a bit more with each ship. Ratlines come with the model. These provide support for the mast, but they are solid, so some painting trickery would be required so that they don't stand out too much. A flag and pennant are also moulded with the model.

I am considering perhaps getting a ’squadron pack’ or two, to see what they are like and to mix up the look of my ships.

While searching for photos depicting unpainted versions of the Forged in Battle ships, I ‘discovered’ these:

Some of the ship pieces in the Victory II game. Photo from Board Game Geek.

They are playing pieces for an interesting looking boardgame called 'Victory II', that is a hybrid of ‘Risk' and 'Civilization’. Peter Morrison, the designer of the game, sells the pieces separately.

I am not sure what ’scale’ these plastic ships would be, but the photos of them and of the Forged in Battle ships give me inspiration to try to make my own. I reckon that I can do better than the plastics and perhaps get close to the Forged in Battle metals. While they won’t have the details of the Navwar ships, they will do and I will be happy as I will have made them—plus I’ll be able to include more sturdy masts and ‘puffy sails’!

So, at this stage, I’ll likely get a squadron pack or three of the Forged in Battle ships and will still get a pack or three (or more) of Navwar ships, but nothing like the full 35 that are ’needed’!

Meanwhile, the English fleet, as it currently stands, progresses.

Painting of English 'fleet' almost completed. While not good for military conformity, I am happy with the mix of colour schemes.

The eight 74s, with four 64s behind them.

It's not a good idea for me to photograph these too closely; they look pretty rough! The two 120-gun 1st rates closest to camera; nominally Royal George and Caledonia respectively. The yellow & black one in the next 'row' is one of the 98-104 gun 1st/2nd rates, nominally Victory.

My English ships need a bit more touching up, principally black and also a more gilt-gold to highlight the bronze-gold that I have used. I'll leave them for now though and focus on getting the Spanish and French ships to the same point. Then I can do the final touches of paint to them all before I move on to the rigging.

I have come to enjoy these Navwar ships more and more—a bit during 'building' (adding masts, bowsprits and sails)—but particularly during painting. It can be a bit of a love-hate relationship though, such as when a mast on one of the 1st/2nd rates broke this afternoon. Not a major problem though. I have had to several masts and bowsprits already, so now have a system.

I have lots of wire sitting around the place, a good store of which is in my wargames shed to use for flagpoles, pikes, lances and such. It is not needed in this case, since the staples that secure the plastic bags in which the ships arrive from Navwar are perfect for the task. How's that? They are provided with a spare mast as part of the packaging!

I almost missed it

 

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Ship yards of York (4)—I have crossed ocean

Caesar's army crossed scary 'ocean' for the first time in 55 BC to a hitherto unknown land (to them). On Friday, I crossed roads in Midland—already known, but still scary😀—in search of ocean. And I found some!

Some French ships, still in the same state as my previous post, crossing 'ocean'.

Some English ships, with a bit more paint applied than last time (mainly black!), also crossing 'ocean'.

My wife said, "It's not very blue." But that was what I was after.

Heavily influenced by Julian, I was looking for a grey-blue mottled look of the north Atlantic Ocean; on a good day!

For the actions that occurred in the Caribbean, Indian Ocean, or even Pacific, it will just have to be an imposing, grey day.

I think it is gonna work. We'll see once I lay it out and move some ships around. On the latter point, it is a nice, flat, slightly slippery surface, so fit for purpose.

If I want to add other splashes of colour, I can always practice my Pro Hart (R.I.P):