This is an ongoing discussion about 17th Century naval wargaming (really, 1620-1720). Part of what is offered are scenarios for games: orders-of-battle, ship lists, battle descriptions, and scenarios for Age of Sail II-Privateers Bounty (a sailing warfare computer simulation/game), suitable scaled for that environment. Copyright (c) 2003-2004 James C. Bender
Thursday, April 10, 2008
My concept of a compact Dutch ship of the line
In a picture book of ships that I had, there was a picture of a Dutch warship from the early 1600's. The ship had fewer than 20 guns, but the lower tier might have been 18pdr guns. When I later saw that Michiel De Ruyter's flagship during the summer of 1652 had only 28 guns, I imagined that the Neptunus was armed in a similar fashion. I was wrong, of course. His ship was just very weak. The only ship that I have seen described has having an armament like what I had seen was the Rotterdam ship named Rotterdam, which was said to have a lower tier of 18pdr guns, with a gun total of 30 guns. In June 1653, the Rotterdam had a more conventional armament, but the Staet van Oorlog te Water for the year 1654 had the 18pdr lower tier, as did lists from 1652.
Dear Jim,
ReplyDeleteI am very impressed with your blogs. I have only superficially glanced at them and will certainly sit down one evening and devote some time to them when I have a chance. I am a big fan of 18th century naval warfare and frequently uses Age of Sail II: Privateers Bounty to run interesting simulations. I look foward to your future posts.
Regards,
Kevin