A Battle of Portland simulator run

I did a long run of the Privateers Bounty simulator with the Battle of Portland scenario. I decided to see how the English would do, under my control. I usually command the Dutch, but I thought I would test the relative strengths of the English and the Dutch.

My conclusion is that the English should be dominant, and they should have done better at Portland. I suspect that Blake was gunshy, after he was wounded and Richard Deane was killed on the first day. His flagship, the Triumph (62 guns) had heavy crew losses as well. By the end of the third day, the Dutch were desparate, and ready to make a last stand with what little ammunition was left. At nightfall, Blake withdrew, and let the Dutch escape.

I took four pictures on the afternoon of the third day. Here is an example. I have more pictures posted at AngloDutchWarsBlog.com.

This picture is from the third day of the battle of Portland. The time was about 4:45pm. At this point, the English had lost enough ships so that the sides were about equal in number.

More requirements for the 17th Century Naval Warfare simulator/game

I have thought some more about what the requirements for the simulator should be. I may have already mentioned some of these:

3D ship models can be simplified with most detail in the markings

Masts and sails need to be separate, so that the sails can be turned correctly for th ewind, and so that masts can be made to fall from damage.

Be able to control ships as groups or individually

Command ships to sail together in formation, even though the ships could sail at different speeds.

Ships should heel, showing the effects of the wind.

Ships should have bow waves and wakes, when they move.

Ships should be able to tack, with only a low risk of being "caught in stays", dead on into the wind.

Be able to set the ammunition for groups of ships.

Have land features such as Dover Castle and gun emplacements.

Have recognizable Dutch and English land masses.

Be able to take damaged ships in tow.

Support for campaigns, with victualling, repairs, and new construction or hiring.

At least consider if ships might flee, if their morale falls below some threshold.

Consider incorporating personalities of commanders into the simulation. This would primarily affect solo gaming.

17th Century naval warfare simulation

An important behavior to model, in the AI, is that the fleet would try to stay together, and tow dismasted ships. For example, during the first day of the Battle of Portland ("The Three Days Battle"), Michiel De Ruyter's flagship, the Witte Lam, was dismasted. For the next two days, in fact until he was back in his home port of Vlissingen, his ship was towed.

The only exception to that were "deserters", captains who took out of action, without orders, and deserted the fleet. By the summer of 1653, the Dutch were hanging captains who deserted. Prior to that, Tromp was accused of overlooking desertion. You would also see cases in late 1652 and early 1653 where ship's crews mutinied. These were also not severely handled. After the Battle of the Gabbard, mutineers would have had to fear for their lives.

The Project

I have embarked on the early stages of a project to build a 17th Century naval warfare simulator/game. As you may have read, I now have the Torque 3D engine, and am acquiring the other tools that are needed.

All I really have, right now, is a concept. I have seen and used Privateers Bounty, from Akella. It is oriented towards late 18th Century and Napoleonic naval warfare. Even for that, it has shortcomings. Still, it is a start. I would have liked to be able to use it for a starting point, but Akella is unresponsive to inquiries from ordinary people.

My wish list of features includes:

17th Century ship 3D models

setting formations during scenario building

grouping ships while building scenarios

being able to control both sides in a battle for solo gaming

capability for having large numbers of ships, as are needed to 17th Century scenarios

being able to tow damaged ships

being able to select tactical plan during scenario building

This is at least part of my wish list of features.

The July 1653 list: Jan Pouwelszoon and the Vlissingen

The July 1653 list shows Jan Pouwelszoon commanding a ship called the Vlissingen. Presumably, this was the newly built ship that was listed in the July 1654 list. This was from the "Staet van Oorlogh te Water voor den Jaera 1654". That list provides only minimal information. The Vlissingen was 130 feet long, from stem to sternpost and carried only 34 guns. That was actually the trend, post First Anglo-Dutch War. For example, the Vrede, a substantial ship, carried only 32 guns after the war. During the war, she carried about 44 guns.

If the 1654 Vlissingen was the same as the 1653 ship, then she may well have been at the Gabbard, and was certainly at the Battle of Scheveningen.

Another good resource is Kitchin's map of the "United Netherlands"

A really good map of the Netherlands (the United Provinces) is Thomas Kitchin's map from 1788. It is later, but not so much later as not be useful. You can open up a "browsable" map that allows you to zoom and pan. The images are downloadable, so I grabbed everything I could, in pieces. In particular, I was interested in Zeeland and the Vlissingen area. I had not realized where the "Rammekens" were. That was where Tromp had the damaged ships run ashore so that they could have hull repairs done.

Dutch city maps from 1652

There is a good resource for wargamers that you may not know about. There are maps for prominent Dutch cities from 1652 at "Dutch City maps from Blaeu's Toonneel der Steden". I was particularly interested in Vlissingen (Flushing), given its prominence in the First Anglo-Dutch War.

The noise made at the beginning of an Anglo-Dutch War battle

I was struck, when I reread Frank Fox' description of the sounds that were heard at the beginning of the Four Days Battle (A Distant Storm: the Four Days Battle of 1666). Frank says: "As the range closed crews cheered each other and hurled coarse epithets at the enemy. Above it all the trumpets' fanfares pierced the wind, and kettledrums rumbled and thumped." (page 230)

The sounds would be a good detail to include in any 17th Century naval wargaming computer simulator/game. You really would get a better flavor for what the battles were like.

By the way, Greg Costikyan recommended the Torque engine to me, and I now have it. I also bought it a book called 3D Game Programming All in One, which just happens to use the Torque engine in what it teaches. It also includes an editor and 3D modeling tool (shareware). Meanwhile, I have been working at learning 3D modeling for building 17th Century 3D ship models for use in games. It is really great how many resources are available to someone who wants to learn to do game programming and produce a game/simulation.

It looks like Anim8or is what I will use to make 3D ship models for use in games

I am finding that Anim8or is easy to use, after I got past the initial learning barrier. Anim8or was recommended to me by a friend who has used it to make some really good German battleship 3D models. I was really impressed with his last model of the Bismarck.

I am moving along with the modeling. It will take some time. The other piece will be selecting a 3D-engine. I suspect that Squeak-Alice is just a toy. Still, it might be a quick way to get started. I need to find an engine that is industrial strenght, but free. That might be difficult.

What I think that is needed are frameworks for gaming/simulating different naval warfare eras. They need to be "open", in the sense that you can create your own 3D models (or pay to have someone do them for you) and supply ship definition files to go with them, and then you would be all set. That is my vision. I can see frameworks for 16th, 17th, and 18th-early 19th Century sailing naval warfare, steam-powered ship, some with armor, the pre-dreadnought era, WWI, and WWII. This sounds like a very long-term project. I hope, initially, to leverage off my expertise with the Anglo-Dutch Wars.

Notes about the Battle of Portland

The battle of Portland has much to offer to the 17th Century naval wargamer. It was typical of the early battles that were fought before the line of battle was adopted.

At the battle of Portland, the English frigates were able to take a number of Dutch merchant ships, as well as some warships. The 1653 volume of the Hollandsche Mercurius, on pages 16 and 17 list the ships taken to Dover and Portsmouth after they were captured.

28 ships were taken to Portsmouth and 18 were taken to Dover.

Ships at Portland seem to have generally maneuvered individually.

I believe that the Battle of Portland was a running battle, especially after the first day.

On the first day, there were dismasted ships, including Michiel De Ruyter's ship, the Witte Lam. He had to be towed for the rest of the battle by Jan Duym, in the Zon.

As for communication, they called to each other, as ships were often within shouting distance. That was true of the Dutch, at least. They also would row to each other.

The larger English ships were pretty much immune to being sunk by Dutch ships with 12pdrs. That was particularly true of the 2nd and 3rd Rates. The smaller 4th Rates were probably light enough to be vulnerable. The only English ship sunk at Portland was the Dutch prize, the Sampson, 26 guns. The Sampson had been captured in July 1652, while on fishery protection duties. The Dutch prize, Oak, was taken back the the Dutch, but was recaptured at the same time as the Prosperous, a hired merchantman.

I would recommend two secondary sources, as they tell a good story:

Michael Baumber's book, General-at-Sea and Vol. I of Peter Padfield's book, Tide of Empires. I would forget Carl Ballhausen's book as there are too many errors.

A good, but obscure sources, is a book from 1654 by Jodocus Hondius: Onstelde-Zee, Oft Zee-Daden. There is a chapter or section on Portland, and it seems to have some information that you would not be able to find anywhere else. I don't own the book, but I have a poor photocopy that I have scanned.

I like www.british-civil-wars.co.uk, but the numbers it lists are often not accurate.

The convoy were Straatsvaarders as well as fluits, I would think.

Frank Fox thinks that the hired Dutch ships were largely Straatsvaarders and West Indiamen. I am sure that some of convoy were armed with more guns, while most were probably lightly armed. The Mediterranean was a dangerous place, so probably all had guns. I don't expect that they would have the large Retourschepen. They were reserved for the trip to Batavia, and parts East.

Low firing is at the "round timbers". The English sunk some Dutch ships doing that on the first day. High firing is mostly at the masts, sails, and rigging.

I'm not sure that there is a good description of how the boarding took place. I think that the Dutch ships would attempt to grapple, once they got close enough, where both ships were at low speed. I am not absolutely sure, but both sides included axes in their equipment. The English, in at least one case, repelled boarders with axes. Also, as a last resort, both sides would blow up decks, to enable them to overcome boarders. They also would use the quarterdeck and and forecastle as redoubts, to provide cover to fight off boarders.

I suspect that they would attempt to board when they felt like the enemy's fire was slackening, and they might have taken many casualties.

Computer-aided sailing naval warfare gaming

From the AgeOfSail Yahoo group, I know that there is interest in computer-aided gaming. I have thought that it was good idea for a long time. I just never was ready to do something about it. It seems a natural for sailing naval warfare, since there is typically an unacceptable burden for bookkeeping for fleets larger than just a few ships. On alternative is do what Iain Stanford has done with the General-at-Sea rules, which I had also seen as an alternative. Iain's approach is to use multi-ship stands to reduce the bookkeeping load by a factor of three or four. Another alternative is to use extermely simple rules that risk losing the flavor of sailing naval warfare. Given this, computer-aided gaming that could somehow reduce the bookkeeping burden seems like an attractive alternative.

I am currently heading down the path of a computer simulation approach, with 3D graphics, for sailing ship naval wargaming, so I don't see myself addressing computer-aided sailing naval wargaming,unless there is a way to spin it off of the other effort. Still, it needs doing.

More about tools for building a sailing naval warfare simulator

I am going to experiment with a number of possibilities. For Squeak programming, there is actually Squeak-Alice. The point is made that "Alice is primarily a scripting and prototyping environment for 3D object behavior, not a 3D modeler". A friend encouraged me to look at Anim8tor, a free 3D modeling tool. I just had gotten AC3D, to use. I will evaluate both, to see which one works best for me. I want to use one to develop 3D models of 16th and 17th Century ships, for use in a simulator/game.

If anyone is either interested in participating in some role in this effort, please contact me at jimcbender @ gmail.com.

I am starting a project to do a sailing naval warfare simulation/game

I finally decided to get started on a sailing naval warfare simulator, when I saw that I could at least do a prototype, using (Squeak Smalltalk), something from Carnegie Mellon University, called Alice (a 3D Authoring system), and for 3D modeling, AC3D. The latter was something I had to purchase.

I need to ship develop plans, so that I can make 3D models for use in a simulator. I would start with a Dutch ship, such as the Prinses Louise (36 guns), Witte de With's flagship at the start of the First Anglo-Dutch War. I can see that this is going to be a long-term project, not something that is going to happen fast.

I am working on a generic drawing for English 2nd Rates

I have a drawing of an English 2nd Rate that is in the same family as the others that I want to use to miniatures naval wargaming. The drawing is somewhat based on the van de Velde drawings of the James (or Old James). In this group were the [St.] George, [St.] Andrew, James, and Triumph. There were others that were somewhat smaller, such as the Victory, Unicorn, Vanguard, and Rainbow. While my immediate application is for the First Anglo-Dutch War, the survivors soldiered on through the Third Anglo-Dutch War. The last members of the group survived until at least 1688. At that point, the Triumph and Unicorn were sold. The St.George survived until at least 1697 as a hulk.

What I would like to see

I have two alternative visions of what I would like for 17th-Century naval wargaming. One vision includes a better computer simulator for fighthing battles. The other is a set of quick play rules that allows for fighting large battles with individual ships.

The computer simulator approach seems to be heading more for role-playing and high-definition graphics, which is nice. There is a new game under development called Pirates of the Burning Sea. The game will require a very high-end PC. The game is meant to be played as an ongoing, networked game, with many players. The nice thing about it is that it includes 17th Century ship types.

The thing that is less appealing is that it doesn't seem to accommodate solo playing of battles with large fleets. Privateers Bounty, at least, allows battles to be fought with 40-some ships per side. That was large by 18th and 19th Century standards, although not be 17th Century standards, where there battles between over a 100 ships per side.

Even though a computer simulator would seem to be the best option (after you have tried Privateers Bounty with my 17th Century scenarios, perhaps you would be able to see why), that seems to be a forelorn hope. I have never been able to get Akella to answer an e-mail.

That seems to leave some sort of quick-play rules for miniatures as the only viable option. A good option is Iain Stanford's General-at-Sea rules. I thought that there had been a page on the Pike and Shot Society's site that showed these publications, but there is not now such a page. Geert-Jan Kruijff's old site has a link to a pre-publication version of the rules. David Manley's rules, Form Line of Battle, isn't intended for large scale battles, although they are an alternative.

In miniatures land warfare, you don't have the bookkeeping burden, at least in the sort of battles that I have gamed. I must admit that I have fought North African battles with guns and tanks on the scale of 1:4, rather than 1:1, so maybe my desire to fight with fleets of single ships on a 1:1 basis is not reasonable. What I would like, and have wanted for the last decade, were a set of rules that minimized bookkeeping, but kept the right flavor to a 17th Century naval battle in its play.

Somewhat off-topic, but still interesting

Armada-era wargamers might find this of interest. These are notes from two books written by Julian S. Corbett, the great English naval historian. There were quite a few things that were new to me. I had not realized that the Advantage and Answer were cromsters. I had assumed that they were ships (or at least were ship-rigged).

 

Julian S. Corbett, The Successors of Drake, London, 1919

p.387  he calls the Advantage and Answer "cromsters".

the Moon was a pinnace

 

p.417

 

Ship	-	keel	beam	depth	burden	tonnage
Repulse	-	105 feet	37 feet	16 feet	622 tons	777 tons
Warspite	-	90 feet	36 feet	16 feet	518 tons	648 tons

 

 

Repulse, armament

 

8-1/2 foot brass culverins (18pdrs)	each 3800 lbs.	16
10 foot brass culverins (18pdrs)	each 4000 lbs	4
8-1/2 foot iron demi-culverins (9pdrs)	each 2500 lbs	16
9 foot iron demi-culverins (9pdrs)	each 2700 lbs	4
8-1/2 foot sakers (5pdrs)	each 1700 lbs	8

 

 

Warspite, armament

 

 

Location	length and type	number
For the sides in the 'lower-orlop'	8-1/2 foot culverins	16
For the stern and the prow in the lower orlop	10ft culverins	4
for the capstan deck on the sides	8-1/2 foot demi-culverins	8
for the stern and the prow	9-1/2 foot demi-culverins	4
for the waist fore and aft	8-1/2 foot sakers	6
for the half deck	8-1/2 foot sakers	2

 

 

The armaments of 1599 was as follows:

 

-	demi-cannon	perriers	culverins	demi-culverins	sakers
Repulse	3	2	13	14	6
Warspite	2	2	14	10	4

 

Julian S. Corbett, Drake and the Tudor Navy, 2 Vols., London, 1898.

 

Vol.2, p.194

 

Nature of Armament	Eliz. Bonaventure	-	Aid	-
-	Wynter	Drake	Wynter	Drake
Demi-Cannon	4	4	-	-
Perriers	2	4	-	-
Culverins	6	8	0	4
Demi-Culverins	8	12	2	4
Sakers	6	6	8	10
Minions	2	1	2	4
Falcons	2	3	7	4
Port Pieces	4	4	4	0
Fowlers	6	2	8	4
Bases	12	0	8	2
Shot weight of batteries	395 lbs.	514 lbs.	88 lbs.	192 lbs.

 

 

 

An odd feature of reducing drawings

I am increasingly liking 1/3000 as a scale for ships. Since I am using drawings, not models, I can do a quick drawing, and when it is reduced, it looks good. I have found that when you reduce any drawing, they look better. Small imperfections are hidden and you only see the "big picture" (sorry for the pun). If there is some fatal flaw with the drawing, reducing points it out, immediately. For example, my first cut at a 70-foot, ship-rigged Dutch jacht, has too large a spritsail topmast. I saw immediately that I need to do a new drawing.

17th Century naval campaigns

This is a topic that has increasing interest. I believe that Iain Stanford has some ideas for naval campaigns. For people with too much time on their hands, I can even foresee tying in naval and land warfare. Certainly, in the latter 17th and early 18th Century, that is extremely relevant. We could alway's use Iain Stanford's Captain General rules for land warfare. I can remember reading Mahan's Influence of Seapower Upon History, when I was young, and reading about the Duke of Marlborough and Prince Eugene, along with William of Orange, and their land campaigns, in the context of the naval situation.

17th Century naval campaign games

I have increasing interest in developing a campaign game system for 17th Century (and early 18th Century) naval wargaming. I have been running simulations of the individual battles, but I increasingly would like to see a connection between them. The most obvious solution would be a "map and miniatures" game, where there are fixed schedules for ships being acquired and discarded. I have also thought that you would need scheduled arrivals and departures for the large merchant convoys. You would need to factor in weather, rolling dice (or some random method) for determining the current weather. That would vary according to the season and location.

The tactical rules would need to be kept simple, either Iain Stanford's General-at-Sea rules or something similar. I am balking at treating ships as groups of two or three, but there are certainly bookkeeping advantagees. The system is also very well thought out and tested. There is an earlier version that can be downloaded, as well. The final version, as published, is available from the Pike and Shot Society.

Meanwhile, I am preparing "wargame pieces" (my solution to building a miniature fleet) for the First Anglo-Dutch War. I have been tweaking my English spreadsheet, writing the text for the backside (I make tents, with a picture on one side and text on the other), and gearing up to do more drawing.

It turns out that I will need to do some new English ship drawings

I need to do some more English ship drawings, as I don't have drawings of the right ship lengths (in length on the gundeck) for what I need for the first sheet. When I went to start, the first ship was the 5th Rate Acorn (22 guns). It falls into a range for which I have not done any drawings. "Back to the drawing board" (literally).

My first sheet of English ships for a General-at-Sea campaign

I am working on the first sheet of English ships at 1/3000 scale. A reader had previously asked, in the context of Privateers Bounty, if I would include the English captains' names. I am including them on the game piece, as well as the years that they served. The sheet, like the first Dutch sheet, has 18 game pieces. The ship, at 1/3000 scale is on one side of the tent, while the game information is on the back.

I have a system down, now, for preparing the information and the game pieces, so the process is moving along quite quickly. Again, I am using my "quick and dirty" drawings, since they are at such a small scale. Those drawings still capture the right "flavor".

My wargame pieces for General-at-Sea

This is the sort of wargame piece that I am making. As I have written, I use Excel spreadsheets to calculate the wargame factors for Iain Stanford's General-at-Sea rules. I may need to combine these into a single stand, but I intend to try them out as individual ships.

I just printed my first sheet of 18 1/3000 scale Dutch ship wargame pieces

Well, I did it. I have the first sheet done of wargame pieces. I did a sheet of 18 Dutch ships. They are in alphabetical order, by ship name. Each piece lists the country (the United Provinces), the ship name and guns (i.e., Arche Troijane, 28 guns), the SF, the BF, and the DF. Then I list the captain's name, if known, the "admiralty", and the year acquired. If the era is important, I append something like "circa 1658", as ships will vary in armament and captain, according to the time period.

I'm afraid that I am getting ready to somewhat abuse some rules

I say that I am going to abuse some rules, simply because I want to try them in a way that they were not intended to be used. I will SORT OF be using them, but I want to use individual ships with General-at-Sea, not a stand of three ships. It is all part of my tentative plan to have a First Anglo-Dutch War campaign.

I am making Dutch ship pieces, right now, using my "quick an dirty" Dutch ship drawings. I hope to use my equivalent English drawings, as well, for the English game pieces. I want to make just enough game pieces, that I can get a feel for General-at-Sea, if it is used this way. It it doesn't work out, I can use the same drawings for the stand-of-three. I can use the calculated factors, as well.

Manning and victualling would be critical to a First Anglo-Dutch War campaign

Particularly the English had to leave ships behind, as they had great problems manning their ships. They had to be continually sending out press gangs in southeast England to bring in more men. That can't have been good for their efficiency in combat. The Dutch were little better, and had their own peculiar problems. They had difficulty with victuals, like the English, but also had problems with armament supply. When a critical convoy form Sweden as intercepted by the English, it meant that the new flagships Huis te Swieten and Huis te Kruiningen could not be armed, and had to be left in the Texel when Witte de With's squadron put to sea for the Battle of Scheveningen.

I'm revising my spreadsheets to calculate General-at-Sea factors

I am revising my comprehensive Dutch warship spreadsheet to calculate Iain Stanford's new General-at-Sea factors (SF: Shooting Factor, BF: Boarding Factor, and DF: Defense Factor). I will need to do the same for the English. I already have Iain's calculate factors for the Dutch and English for the Second Anglo-Dutch War.

I still need to put together a comprehensive spreadsheet for comparable English ship calculations. When I do, I will also calculate the SF/BF/DF factors. The calculations are:

SF = ROUND(Broadside Wt/50, 0)

BF = ROUND(Total crew/100, 0)

DF = ROUND(English burden/200, 0)

English burden = (Length of keel in English feet) x (Beam outside planking in English feet)^2/188

Note that the caret "^" means "raising to the power of".

How about a campaign for the First Anglo-Dutch War?

I was reading about campaigns in Privateers Bounty. I don't like how they are done, as they have hard-wired battles. A good campaign should just let battles happen. I understand the limitations of Privateers Bounty, however. That sparked the thought: how about a campaign definition for the First Anglo-Dutch War? (Or how about campaigns for all the 17th Century naval wars?)

For miniatures campaigns, we are probably limited to using Iain Stanford's rules, General-at-Sea. I have experimented with using more detailed rules, and they become unworkable with larger fleets. You have to have the flexibility to have ships be newly built, to work up, and to become available. You need to deal with repairs after battles and storms. You need to allow for ships being wrecked. Also, how about manning?

For campaigns, we would need to supplement Iain's rules to cover such issues. We also to find out month and day for ship completions or hires, although we may be reduced to estimates. That also brings up the issue of time granualarity, and map moves. There are so many aspects to this!

I revised the Battle of Portland scenario further

I just finished revising and playtesting the Battle of Portland scenario for use in Privateers Bounty. I created three groups that were close to the Dutch, with William Penn in a group of 12 ships the furthest west; Robert Blake with about a half-dozen ships east of that; and to the immediate southeast, John Lawson with about a dozen more ships. Further to the south was George Monck, with his squadron and the stragglers. I also switched out ships in Penn's group to reflect the ships that were known to be with him.

This makes for a much more accurate start to the battle, to have the English flag officers exposed, without their complete squadrons. In the real battle, the Dutch gave the English a great scare. Penn's group was hardest hit, having lost the Sampson (26 guns) sunk and three ships taken. The situation was sharply reversed, however, when Lawson's squadron arrived on the scene. He had previously fought off Jan Evertsen's squadron, inflicting heavy losses on them, and then recaptured the lost ships and drove off the Dutch, ending the battle for the day.

I just tried the real tactics at the start of Portland

I just got done reading about the start of the Battle of Portland. Essentially, the Dutch ran before he wind, straight at the leading English ships. I just turned the Dutch loose, with little maneuvering. They were grouped, initially, into four squadrons. I just let it go, and when I shut the simulation down, the English had 95% left while the Dutch had been reduced to 87%. I still can't conceive of how, in the Privateers Bounty, you could use the real Dutch tactics, and be as aggressive. You will be shot to pieces, if you try.

Privateers Bounty uses late 18th Century rates of fire

I was slow to think of this, but maybe part of the issue with the "feel" of Privateers Bounty being rather wrong with the First Anglo-Dutch War scenarios has to do with rates of fire. Especially during the First Anglo-Dutch War, warships were greatly undermanned by later standards. Even during the Second Anglo-Dutch War, they carried larger crews by a significant increment.

The manning issue is at least part of why rates of fire were much lower than in the late 18th and early 19th Century. It was also the case that there was little opportunity for training, in the mid-17th Century. The Dutch were probably better manned, in terms of quality, than the English, although they had a great deal of trouble manning ships, as so many sailors were far away, on mercantile voyages. The English solution was to just make sweeps through Southeast English towns, and press every man they could find. That had to be a factor in their performance.

Battle of Livorno pictures (March 14, 1653) (Privateers Bounty)

This is a picture of Appleton's squadron exiting Livorno harbor, with the small 3rd Rate Bonaventure leading the column. The Dutch are crossing, in a position to "cross the T". This was from a run of my Battle of Livorno scenario in Privateers Bounty.

In the distance, to the left, is Badiley's squadron, quite some distance away. Badiley had hoped to arrive before Appleton left port, so he could draw the Dutch away from the harbor mouth and join forces with Appleton. Tromp was able to perform this maneuver in 1653, when he drew the blockading English away from the Texel, and allowed Witte de With and his squadron to set sail. Instead, in the real battle, Appleton left Livorno prematurely, was defeated, and Badiley never closed for battle. He only exchanged fire at long range, and then retreated.

This picture is from the Dutch perspective, and shows Appleton's squadron exiting from the harbor at Livorno. The Dutch squadron had been anchored offshore, waiting for Appleton to leave. The Dutch had exerted diplomatic pressure on the English, so that the Duke of Tuscany ordered the English to leave.

Ship calculations

This is an example of my ship calculations for four ships that fought at Lowestoft, in 1665. The Dutch measurements are all in Amsterdam feet, and are sometimes noted with a "D". The English are noted with an "E". I have found Excel spreadsheets very useful for analyzing 17th Century ship characteristics and for computing wargame factors.

 

 

Admiralty	Rotterdam	Amsterdam	Amsterdam	Amsterdam
Name	Eendracht	Amsterdam	Huis Tijdverdrijf	Huis te Kruiningen
Date	1653	1653	1655	1653
Captain	Jacob van Wassenaer	Abraham van der Hulst	Albert Claeszoon Graeff	Jacob Andrieszoon Swart
Guns	73	68	58	58
Crew	409	290	258	255
Length (M4) (Amsterdam feet)	150	140	136	140
Beam (M8) (Amsterdam feet)	38	34.5	34	34
Hold (M11) (Amsterdam feet)	15	14	14	13.5
Displacement (tons)	1035	820.8	787.7	781
Broadside Wt (lbs)	460	373	347	347
36pdr	3
24pdr	22	4	4	4
18pdr		20	20	20
16pdr
15pdr
14pdr
12pdr	6	8	4	4
10pdr
9pdr
8pdr	20	18	20	20
6pdr
5pdr
4pdr	22
3pdr		14	10	10
2pdr		4
Steenstukken/Bases
Armament Weight (lbs)	84.25	70.29	65.42	65.42
Armament percent of displ.	8.14%	8.56%	8.30%	8.38%
LWL (English) (M25) (feet)	134.12	125.18	121.60	125.18
WL (Dutch) (M18) (feet)	144.55	134.91	131.05	134.91
B (outside-D) (M9) (feet)	39.33	35.83	35.33	35.33
B (outside-E) (M10) (feet)	36.50	33.20	32.80	32.80
Mean Draft (E) (M26) (feet)	14.80	13.83	13.83	13.31
Draft Forward (M15) (feet)	15.00	14.00	14.00	13.50
Draft Aft (M16) (feet)	16.90	15.80	15.80	15.20
Lasts	394.01	311.61	298.32	296.13
Last coefficient	217.00	217.00	217.00	217.00
Jan Glete's approximation	993.87	786.03	752.51	746.97
English Length Keel (feet)	112.78	105.26	102.26	105.26
English Tonnage (tons)	799.22	617.16	585.16	602.37
Block Coefficient	0.5	0.5	0.5	0.5
Difference between methods	3.97%	4.24%	4.47%	4.36%