Partly as a sanity check and partly just to "keep my hand in", I just finished running the Battle of Plymouth scenario, in the Privateers Bounty simulator. I commanded the English, I had the difficulty set to "Hard", and ran with the speed set far to the right (so that time passed quickly and ships moved quickly across the screen). The English all had their full sails set. I set the entire English fleet as a single group, and maneuvered with the helm, after the first few minutes.
I shut the simulation down when the sun had set (about 8pm). At that point there were 71% of the English and 19% of the Dutch left. It was a devastating defeat for the Dutch. There may have been as many as 7 Dutch ships left afloat. There were at least 30 English ships.
What I did was to diligently follow my rule: keep to the windward, always steer as close to the wind as possible, to keep my fleet clear of the Dutch. I always wore rather than tacked. In other words, I always turned onto the opposite tack by turning downwind, and turning about 240 degrees (at least).
When I was clear of the Dutch main body, I steered the English fleet along the edge of the Dutch, so that many ships would have the opportunity to fire. There is a great advantage to watching the point of contact between the fleets, and steering to both stay clear and yet be able to fire, preferably raking fire.
At the beginning of the battle, the Dutch, under AI control were able to "pick off" stragglers. Necessarily, when a fleet is not in good order, maneuvering will cause ships to scatter. The closes to the Dutch fleet were gradually surrendered and then sunk.
A very few English ships, such as the 2nd Rate Vanguard, were immobilized but still able to fight. The maneuvering English main body kept the AI control for the Dutch from finishing off those immoble ships. There may have been as many as four ships immobilized but still fighting, when I shut down the simulation. I will be posting some of the four photographs that I took of the battle.
No comments:
Post a Comment