How to get a good feel for fighting in 1652

I would recommend procuring a copy of Privateers Bounty, downloading my scenarios from AngloDutchWarsBlog.com, and running them yourself. The English tactics under Robert Blake and Sir George Ayscue amounted to simply charging the Dutch. Dutch tactics under Maarten Tromp were little better, but Witte de With apparently fought the Battle of the Kentish Knock in an informal line. That was sufficient to save the Dutch from being overwhelmed by the big English ships, as the Dutch took fewer losses than you would predict, given the raw OOB's.