I collected some data on a Battle of Portland simulation

I ran the Battle of Portland scenario, and used my usual tactics for the Dutch. The only problem, really, was that several times, while steering by the helm, when I took the mouse off the helm, it swung. That caused problems, obviously, as the ships went in odd directions, which caused some ships to get too close to the English. Also, some ships are inherently less maneuverable or slower, and they tend to get separated and overwhelmed. I decided that it would be interesting to record the surviving ships and their condition. The summary is that 73% of the English and 41% of the Dutch remained (or at least that was the battle strength left, in Privateers Bounty terms). It is worth remembering that the scenario has to use reduced numbers, as the total ships are limited. I typically limit the total numbers to about 82.

 

 

Ship	Guns	Hull	Sails	Crew
Advantage (prize)	26	65	95	90
Adventure	36	65	90	90
Amity	36	80	90	95
Anne and Joyce (M)	34	60	45	75
Centurion	36	35	70	70
Convertine	44	70	70	90
Diamond	42	85	50	90
Dragon	38	55	60	80
Entrance	44	90	65	85
Fairfax (1)	52	95	85	95
Guinea frigate	32	65	35	90
Katherine (prize)	24	50	70	70
Laurel	48	50	70	85
Merlin	12	50	60	90
Nonsuch	40	45	35	80
Pearl	24	20	60	70
Prosperous of London	42	70	65	80
Providence	32	60	75	90
Rainbow	52	100	70	90
Richard and Martha (M)	40	90	65	95
Roebuck (M)	30	45	80	70
Ruby	42	50	50	70
Sampson (prize)	26	85	70	95
Sapphire	38	35	70	80
Speaker	56	90	60	90
Triumph	62	100	80	90
Vanguard	56	100	75	95
Victory	60	95	75	95
Worcester	42	95	45	80

 

 

In addition, the Paradox had been surrendered, but was still afloat.

 

 

Ship	Guns	Hull	Sails	Crew
Arke Troijane-AD	28	100	100	100
Brederode-R	54	100	100	100
Eenhoorn-NQ	30	100	100	100
Elias-AD	34	100	100	100
Faam-Z	30	95	90	95
Gelderland-R	26	100	98	99
Hollandia-38-Z	38	100	95	100
Liefde-1-Z	26	100	100	100
Prins-RD	28	100	100	100
Prinses Albertina-F	24	100	70	100
Prins te Paard-RD	38	80	75	90
Sara-F	24	95	100	100
Vlissingen-Vli-Z	26	100	100	100
Vrede-A	44	100	100	100
Vrijheid-A	44	90	40	90
Wapen van Zeeland	30	100	80	95

 

In addition, the Vogelstruis (40 guns) and Gecroonde Liefde (23 guns) were surrendered but still afloat.

 

 

After Jan Glete's research results, I will need to revise my Battle of the Sound scenario

Jan Glete's perseverance in finding the truth about the Cogge and Waegh means that I need to revise my estimate of their size and armament. Jan Glete found that both ships were hired by city of Amsterdam and sent with the fleet to the Sound. He found reason to believe that the Cogge may have been previously hired by the Danes (during 1657).

Instead of believing them to be 132ft x 32ft x 13-1/2ft, I would venture to guess that I should make them 128ft x 31ft x 12ft (Amsterdam feet of 283mm). I suspect that would be close to what they were. We really don't know. For example, some of the Amsterdam Director's ships hired in 1652-1653 were quite large. I think that they may have been rather small. In the Battle of the Sound, they carried 40 guns, but only a crew of 140.

The Privateers Bounty maps are are in CFF files

The Privateers Bounty maps are "Cartographic Feature Files" (I find). If the key pieces for the maps and ships are text, then we should be able to add new maps and ships. Adding suitable 3-D models for the land and ships in the Anglo-Dutch Wars is critical (well, maybe not critical, but they would be really nice to have).

I need to extract the English ship definitions, as I have added more

Actually, I need to extract the ship definitions as I have added both Dutch and English ships for the Battle of Livorno scenario in Privateers Bounty. I have some Smalltalk classes that use my parsing framework to analyze and parse the "usrships.ini" file and generate a formatted file.

I have just been looking at the "text resource" files. Privateers Bounty is obviously designed for "Internationalization". It looks like there is a numeric code that identifies the country in the "usrships.ini" file, and I didn't realize what I was seeing. "Great Britain" is "0" and "Holland" is "6".

It looks like it should be possible to import 3-D models for land and ships. Having some sort of documentation would be helpful, as figuring out what is in the "text resources" files, and doing detective work, would be very time consuming.

Privateers Bounty scenarios

Most people may not understand what I mean when I say "scenario" in the context of Privateers Bounty. Technically speaking, it is a binary file with the suffix ".sc". It is a binary file that captures everything that is needed to run the Privateers Bounty to simulate a battle. You do, in fact need the "usrships.ini" file, as well (I think).

I am happy with my Battle of the Virginia Capes scenario

The French just won a "fight to the finish" Battle of the Virginia Capes. There were 78% of the French ships left versus 9% of the English. Of course, typical of these late 18th Century scenarios in Privateers Bounty, there many immobile ships. Some were totally dismasted while many were just greatly reduced in mobility.

Given the Privateers Bounty issues with maneuvering when you have a formation set, I used the helm, after roughly forming the French into a single line. For that, I did use the line formation and destination points. The only use for such a thing is to impose some order on a totally disordered fleet. Otherwise, I prefer maneuvering the grouped fleet with the helm.

In any case, I am happy with the scenario, and will make it available. I will include it in the zip file that is available.

Battle of the Virginia Capes (OK, it's off-topic)

I am playtesting my scenario for the Battle of the Virginia Capes. I had decided some months ago that I didn't like the canned Privateers Bounty scenario. My concept is that rather than starting at the point of contact, it would be better to start where there is time to maneuver. I am starting with the French fleet getting underway from anchor. The English fleet is approaching from the East-Northeast.

I quickly found out that I had not allowed enough time for the French to get underway and to sort out their formation. Instead, the British were on top of them before they had a chance to form a line. Part of the problem is that I wanted to have the British frigates that were used for repeating. I only was able to add those that were included in Privateers Bounty, but they were part of the problem.

So, I had to go back to the scenario editor. I am moving the British farther out, so that the French have a chance to form into a line, after getting underway. A complication is that the French are on two different tacks, at the start. A challenge is how to form a single line. I found out one of the drawbacks of using destination points. Some ships can be routed so that they end up stalled, pointing into the wind. I am tempted to control the French fleet using the helm, as if I were controlling the Dutch in the First Anglo-Dutch War.

New scenario: Battle of Livorno (14 March 1653)

I just added a new scenario for the Battle of Livorno. I have the OOB posted on my KentishKnock.com website (it has been there a year). For now, we will just have to make the scenarios available on request, as my one website where I might easily make them available is on a web hosting that will not allow zip files to be on their server.

The new scenario has the best land of any of the scenarios. Appleton's squadron emerges from the harbor and is immediately attacked by Van Galen's squadron. Badiley's squadron only arrives quite late, as Appleton popped out of the harbor too soon.

OK, I admit I was piling on in the Dungeness scenario

I couldn't resist smashing the English at Dungeness, as the Dutch so rarely have the advantage. I also wanted to prove my current tactics. I'm ashamed to admit that I have lost this scenario many times, in the past, when I was deadset on "breaking the line".

The next step was to try more scenarios

When the Dutch have an advantage, these tactics are devastating to the English. I just fought a "fight to the finish" style battle for the Battle of Dungeness. I took one picture, as the scene was so striking. The English lost simulation run, having only 9% left (three ships), while the Dutch had 60%. Most of the remaining Dutch were undamaged.

The scenario is quite good, now, as the light breezes are a huge factor. I can just imagine the actual battle, when both sides were scattered across a vast expanse.

What is hard to fathom is why the Dutch, in the real battle, did not do better. I suspect that again, it was poor leadership on the part of Tromp. That is an unpopular thing to say, but the Tromp came close to losing his flagship, if he had not been saved by the loyal Jan Evertsen. If the Dutch had been properly organized, as someone like Michiel De Ruyter would have done, they could have done great damage to the English, under Blake.

Characteristically, Blake blamed his captains, although he took responsibility for the loss, and was ready to be relieved. Instead, they sacked captains, and almost lost Portland on the first day, for the same reason. It was the same reason that they had not done better at the Kentish Knock, which is the most lopsided of the battles.

Instead, when General Monck finally organized the English, they devastated the Dutch (by 17th Century standards). The English chose to break the Dutch line, possibly in response to the Dutch tactics. I suspect that if they just fought an 18th Century-style battle, with two parallel lines, the Dutch would have been beaten even worse at the Gabbard and Scheveningen.

The Dutch, at Scheveningen, tried to fight in a more disciplined manner, but the material mismatch was so great, that they did only slightly better than at the Gabbard. At Scheveingen, the Dutch losses might have been greater, but for the efforts of the surviving admirals, who had vowed not to let the situation deteriorate into chaos, at it had under Tromp's command, at the Gabbard.

Finally a better result for the Battle of the Kentish Knock

I just ran the Battle of the Kentish Knock scenario. The key for the Dutch to do well is to stay clear of the English, and fire at a distance. I stopped the simulation at sunset. The Dutch had been reduced to 77%, because I had gotten too close the English, even mixed with them, which was a mistake. The battle had been more lopsided to the Dutch, but ended at 77% Dutch left and 71% of the English.

The Battle of the Kentish Knock is a tough situation, as the English have many large ships, including the Sovereign (90 guns) and the Resolution (88 guns). There are also many 2nd and 3rd Rates, such as the James and Speaker.

Experiment with the Battle of Portland scenario

I ran a test, on the simulator, for the Battle of Portland scenario. I followed the precepts that I listed. One feature of this run, is that when I removed the mouse from the helm, especially if I did it quickly, the helm would swing in some bad direction. I suspect that I caught a few ships head on into the wind, through this mechanism.

In any case, the Dutch did reasonably well, although it was almost a "fight to the finish", as the final result had the Dutch with 53% of their ships left, while the English had 41% of their's left. There were more disabled Dutch ships. For example, the Brederode (54 guns) was dismasted, although almost undamaged, otherwise. If there was a way, in the simulator, to hook up a tow, then she could have been towed home.

One thing that I scrupulously did was to take the Dutch fleet way to the windward before waring. I was quite successful in keeping clear of the English.

At this point, I really want to try the Battle of the Kentish Knock, to see what is different there than Plymouth and Portland, which are both amenable to the tactics that I have suggested.

Experiment with the Battle of the Kentish Knock scenario

My current thinking is that the Dutch should not use the single line formation in the First Anglo-Dutch War scenarios. However, that does not preclude using what I consider to be "good fleet tactics":

That involves fighting for the weather gauge,

maneuvering as a single unit,

keeping away from the English, so that the Dutch are not intermixed with the English, except after taking damage,

Sailing back and forth on opposite tacks, so that the Dutch ships face the English bows, generally,

Be aware of the relationship of Dutch to English ships, watching the closest point, and maneuvering the fleet based on that relationship, to keep clear of the English,

If possible, set full sails, contrary to customary 18th Century practice,

Always wear, turning away from the wind to go onto the opposite course, rather than tacking through the wind, where your bows, at some point, are pointing into the wind.

Following these guidelines will allow the Dutch to stay mobile, even if they may lose more ships. In the Battle of the Kentish Knock scenario I just ran on the simulator, the English had more ships left, but they were all heavily damaged. The Sovereign (90 guns) and the James (62 guns) both had surrendered. The Resolution was heavily damaged aloft, and was slowed. Many of the remaining English armed merchantmen could have been sunk, if there had been more daylight left. Still, this was another "fight to the finish", which is very unlike 17th and 18th Century reality. You might have seen such a thing, earlier. The Battle of the Downs, in 1639, when the Dutch did great damage to the Spanish fleet in English waters, was almost like a "fight to the finish".

I have several photographs of the last simulation run that I will eventually post.

Another experiment with the simulator

This morning, I wanted to experiment, using a difficult scenario for the Dutch, where they are outnumbered three-to-two, a the Battle of Plymouth. My plan, going in, was to maneuver as a group, not use a single line formation, and to keep wearing back and forth, always turning away from the wind. I upped the sails to "full sail", to get maximum effect. I also had the simulator speed close to the highest setting.

The key point is that I was aware of the Dutch position relative to the English, I kept the Dutch maneuvering along the edge of the English, and would focus on part of the battle, and would maneuver the entire group, based on part of the tactical situation. That allowed me to position the Dutch to "cross the T". You might think that you have to be in a single line to achieve that, but it is not the case. All you have to do is to be maneuvering as a group, and in a crossing situation.

This picture shows the Dutch crossing. There more pictures on AngloDutchWarBlog.com that show the crossing of the T, more vividly.

The Amsterdam (50 guns) in 1654

This is another listing from the "Staet van Oorlogh te Water voor den Jaere 1654". The captain was a veteran of the First Anglo-Dutch War, who had served in Michiel De Ruyter's squadron-sized fleet at the Battle of Plymouth. The Amsterdam was one of the larger ships built as part of the First Anglo-Dutch War building program. What is noteworthy here, is that we list the armament, and separately note brass and iron guns.

 

The Amsterdam had an extremely long service life, as she was finally lost when she was captured by the French in 1689. She fought through the Second and Third Anglo-Dutch Wars, and was only lost during the War of the English Succession.

 

While she only carried 50 guns, early in her life, she later carried as many as 60 guns. This is the armament in 1654.

 

 

Admiralty:	Amsterdam
Ship:	Amsterdam
Date:	1653
Captain:	Jan Gideonsz. Verburch
Guns:	50
Length:	140 feet
Beam:	34 feet
Hold:	14 feet
Brass Guns:	4-18pdr, 4-12pdr, 6-6pdr
Iron Guns:	18-18pdr, 6-12pdr, 12-8pdr

 

 

Why would we be interested in "lasts"?

There are lists of Dutch ships for the period 1628-1633 (and later) that only have "last" figures. If we want to put together fleets for gaming the Battle of the Downs, in 1639, we would want to know the ship sizes. The lists have a mix of detail, but they include crew and armament data for many ships. To use those ships in games, we would want to estimate their size, given the lasts figures. That is especially important because to calculate the English tonnage figure, we need to have estimates of the Dutch dimensions, first. The English burden is calculated as follows:

Burden in tons = (Length of the keel x Beam x Beam/2)/94. This gives you a gross tonnage. Privateers Bounty and other game systems generally base their ship capabilities on this figure.

A good approximation for converting Dutch measurements to English is:

English Keel Length = Dutch length from stem to stern / 1.33

English beam outside of planking = Dutch beam inside of planking / 1.13.

English depth in hold = Dutch hold / 1.13

This is approximate, but it is a starting point. Individual ships varied, but this is a good average. I have used the information from Dr. Weber's book on the Four Days Battle for Dutch ships taken by the English as the basis for these conversion factors. For many ships, he has the English and the Dutch measurements. Frank Fox helped him correct the English dimensions to fix copyist mistakes.

The Eendracht of 1639

If you are familiar with the First Anglo-Dutch War in the Mediterranean, you might be aware of the Noorderkwartier ship, the Eendracht (Unity or Concord). The Eendracht, at the time of the Battle of the Sound, in 1658, carried 38 guns and had a crew of 125 sailors. During the First Anglo-Dutch War, she had carried as many as 41 guns and had a crew of 140 or so.

The Eendracht as built at Enkhuizen in 1639. Ron van Maanen says that the dimensions were 130-132ft x 32ft x 12ft. The deck height, above the main deck, was 7 feet. If you have read my paper about calculating "lasts" (the Dutch gross tonnage figure from the first part of the century) (LastsCalculated), you will understand my interest in seeing the size of the Eendracht in lasts. Ron van Maanen says that the measurement was 300 lasts. I would disagree with that figure. For example, the flagships Aemelia (57 guns) and Brederode (54-59 guns) were 300 lasts, and they were much larger ships. I would guess that the Eendracht was about 220 lasts. I base that on my calculation: lasts = length x beam x hold / K. In this case, it would 220 lasts = 132 x 32 x 12 / 230.4, which is very plausible.

Tactics for Privateers Bounty (again)

I remember that the tactics that seemed to be working for me, earlier, when commanding the Dutch, was to have a broad column attempt to break the English formation, and to sail back and forth, between the two parts. Especially if the break divided the English into different sized parts, the smaller part would tend to be written down fairly quickly.

More tactics

So how do you win, when running a Privateers Bounty scenario? It is almost a separate issue from whether you are controlling the Dutch or English, although the English have great advantages, if you are in control against an autonomous Dutch fleet. If you have the nerve, you can "break the Dutch line", although, typically, they will just be spread out, not in a strict line ahead.

In any case, due to peculiarities about how Privateers Bounty simulates sailing ships, your fleet is going to spread out, dispite having a single line formation set, with close spacing. The problem is that the ships have different speeds and turning ability. That alone will cause ships to spread out, especially as you maneuver your fleet.

You can control individual ships, but I find that is only feasible with small numbers. When 40-ship fleets, you must maneuver them as a group, just to be able to exercise the positive control needed to reduce your losses and to inflict the maximum losses on the enemy. I prefer to tack back and forth, always turing downwind, if possible. It is possible, if you have sufficient momentum, to turn past the wind, but it is too easy to get caught, bow on, into the wind. If you do, you have big trouble. The thing to do is to immediately turn your helm 60-90 degrees, and hope for the best.

It is only in Privateers Bounty that no quarter was asked or given

That may not even be quite accurate, as ships may "surrender" but everyone keeps shooting at them! It seems not possible, with so many ships, to do "manual firing", so we seem to be reduced to letting ships blast away, on "automatic". In the real world, of course, ships would surrender, and that would mean something. Typically, because there was a cash incentive for taking prizes, the captors would want to board and take possession.

One point that I thought of, today, is that in the real First Anglo-Dutch War, the Dutch typically towed disable ships, while I don't think that is possible in the simulation. It would be great if it were, but I haven't figured out how to do it, if it is possible. For example, for the last two days of the Battle of Portland, Michiel De Ruyter's ship was towed.

New Battle of Plymouth experiment

I just posted pictures and results from a simulation run for the Battle of Plymouth scenario where I increased the Dutch crew effectivenes and decreased that for the English. Let's just say that the English still won, because demi-cannon and culverins beat 12-pdrs and 8-pdrs, any day!

This shows the effect of a battle where no quarter is asked or given. The battered Success looks quite similar to the drawing of the Dutch Brederode being repaired after being battered at Dungeness (see Brederode after Dungeness).

You might ask "so how did the experiment work out?"

Yes, I ran the Battle of Monte Cristo simulation with the crew effectiveness increased for the Dutch and reduced for the Engish. For the English, this is not so farfetched. After Monte Cristo, the crew of Richard Badiley's flagship was at the point of mutiny. They wanted to scuttle the ship and escape.

The first time I adjusted the crew effectiveness, the Dutch did well, but the Paragon still was still able to survive all Dutch attacks and to inflict severe damage on them. After that, I further reduced the crew effectiveness for the Paragon. When I ran the simulation again, using my current tactics of maneuvering the fleet as a unit, with the helm, and the Dutch obliterated the English. In any case, the Dutch were stronger than the English. In the actual battle, the Paragon was able to repel all Dutch attacks. We only know, after the fact, how close the crew was to breaking and running.

I don't know if you know of Greg Costikyan

I was just reading the latest posting from Greg Cotikyan's blog. He tells the story of attending the first game design class (that we know about) at SPI in 1972. I discovered his website and then his blog from doing a Google search, some time ago (Games*Design*Art*Culture). What I am impressed by is that he takes time to answer e-mail from people like me, who are only "wannabe" game designers. Not only did Greg attend that class, but he went on to make a career in "gaming".

I still want to run a test where I manipulate crew "goodness"

I still hypothesize that by manipulating the crew ability, that it might be possible to make the English weaker and the Dutch stronger, to better portray the actual performance in the First Anglo-Dutch War. I just manipulated the crew value for the Battle of Monte Cristo, so that the Dutch were "good" and the English were "mediocre". Perhaps you English would object, but I am struggling to explain why the English did not obliterate the Dutch in the war. Instead, it was only in 1653 that the Dutch took even 10% losses in battles. I would appreciate alternate explanations.

The interesting thing about the last simulation run was the Dutch tactics

This last simulator run was significant, in that it was a case where the Dutch were maneuvered back and forth on opposite tacks, heading as close into the wind as possible, without getting caught pointing directly into the wind. That did happen once, but the Dutch quickly recovered, by steering 90 degrees to starboard.

I started the battle with the Dutch in a single group. I maneuvered strictly with destination points. That did not seem to be giving them an edge, so I switched to maneuvering, using the helm. In this case, I challenged the English by sailing through them. I paid close attention to opportunities for raking. For much of the battle, the Dutch had a large group of mobile ships that could sail with all sails set, and sweeping back and forth through the English. In this particular case, the Dutch ended with 1.6:1.0 superiority. It night had not fallen, it could have been a bigger victory, potentially.

Another thing that I could have done is to bring groups of Dutch ships back together quickly, after they had become dispersed. The benefit of that dispersal is that they had a pool of ships that were relatively undamaged, while the English were pretty badly damaged, as a group.

I just ran a Battle of the Kentish Knock simulation

I ran an experiment with the Battle of the Kentish Knock. The Dutch won, as they had 45% left, while the English were reduced to 26% of their starting force. The battle ended with nightfall. I was actually shocked to find that the Dutch came out as well as they did. I maneuvered as a single group, until almost the end. The Dutch were so dispersed, that I formed three groups, so that I could maneuver the separated groups towards each other. After doing that, night fell, and I shut down the simulator, after noting the statistics and taking two photographs. The photographs are not very sharp, but they seem worth posting.

This is the Dutch frigate, the Gouden Leeuw (24 guns), still very mobile, although with riddled sails.

Thisis the English survivors after the Battle of the Kentish Knock. The remaining ships were very badly damaged. The ships include the Hound, with only the mainmast standing, the Speaker, the Sampson (Prize), and the Hercules (M). These include most of the English ships that were still mobile. Dutch ships can be seen in the distance. Note that I caught them just at dusk.

Another battle report: Plymouth

I ran three quick Battle of Plymouth simulations. The first two were a disaster for the Dutch. I did not use a formation and controlled the fleet with the helm. I kept sailing back and forth, on opposite tacks, and cut through the English. The Dutch were almost annihilated.

The last time, I set a line formation. I kept a distance from the English, and sailed back and forth, on opposite tacks, firing all the while. As I reported on AngloDutchWarsBlog.com, the Dutch were winning, something like 75% to 68%. I also posted a new picture that showed a devastated English fleet.

Battle report: the Battle of Portland (again)

I ran a quick Battle of Portland scenario on the simulator. That is a (kind of) nice feature. You can set the speed slide to the right, and the ships will move quickly. If you do that, you must be there, at the controls, all the time. I ran the scenario, again, with the Dutch in a single group, and controlled with the helm, not destination points. I used the same tactics, to sail back and forth, on opposite tacks, and hope for the best. This time, that was a disaster. Probably the biggest thing I did that caused a problem was to "mix it up" with the English. I let the English get in among the Dutch, and hit them with demi-cannon and culverin fire. If I had been content to sail off into the distance, the result would not have been so bad. Instead, "I kept coming back for more", and suffered the consequences. I ended the battle, before the Dutch lost their last ships.

What didn't help the outcome, any, was that I got involved in a duel between the Dutch East Indiaman Vogelstruis and the English 3rd Rate Worcester. I sailed the Vogelstruis in S-turns in front of the Worcester, to try and rake her, repeatedly. While I got engrossed in the duel, the rest of the situation collapsed. When I realized that, I quit the simulation run.

Even more Privateers Bounty tactics

I have found that when I try to take "hands off" the Dutch, when running my First Anglo-Dutch Wars scenarios, the English will start to win. As soon as I start maneuvering the Dutch as a fleet, the Dutch will improve. If their losses and damage are not too great, they will even start to win. The only concern is to not waste ships trying to kill English 1st and 2nd Rates that are dismasted or otherwise heavily damaged. The only way to kill them is to rake them from both ends, mercilessly, and stay out of their field of fire. Doing so is only practical in a "fight to the last ship" (if that can be said to be practical).

Fighting First Anglo-Dutch War battles

I believe very much, and this is based on considerable experience with Privateers Bounty, that maneuvering your fleet, as a unit, is very beneficial. In my last run of Battle of Portland, the Dutch had much of the effect of a line formation without actually forming up that way. I also went back to my "old ways", where I emulated 1653 tactics of making "passes" that broke the enemy formation. In this case, the "enemy formation" was pretty much a "blob". Anytime you are organized and fighting a "blob", you can do well. I have stopped using "destination points" (at least largely), and have gone back to maneuvering with the "helm". The problem is that "destination points" don't actually dictate the rudder setting, and can cause ships to head directly into the wind (a very bad thing). When you do "helm" controlling, you can usually avoid this, to your great benefit.

I just hung my computer, running Privateers Bounty

I was having a great time, running the Dutch fleet at the Battle of Portland (the scenario). I had the entire fleet as "group 1" (CTRL-1) and had set the formation to "Custom formation", which simply means that the ships are grouped, but not in a line. I maneuvered strictly using the helm. After a short while, I had set the sails to "Full". I sailed the Dutch fleet back and forth, being careful to always turn downwind, except for one time that I had been caught directly into the wind. I quickly recovered and was back to the same tactics.

It seemed like I was not inflicting much damage, although the Victory was totally dismasted. I specifically steered to regain the weather gauge and to sail as far North as possible, to further damage the Victory. As it didn't seem to be having much effect, I headed South. I continued to have the Dutch fleet in something liike a line, except that I never had set that formation. To do so would be contrary to history. There is some reason to believe that the Dutch tried to fight in a line, at Scheveningen, after seeing the English fight at the Gabbard.

The battle seemed to be going really well (97% to 97%) when my machine hung. It was so badly hung that hitting the "windows" key didn't pop me back to windows. I had a small amount of control over the mouse, but not so much that I could do anything. I ended up having to do a hard reboot. I was disappointed, but there was nothing to be done. The basic problem was that I had not rebooted after running the simulator for a number of runs. Even though I am using Windows XP, you must run Privateers Bounty in Win98/ME compatibility mode. Therefore, you have the usual memory leak problems.

The big question is why the English didn't do better

After many simulator runs for First Anglo-Dutch War scenarios, the burning question is why the English diidn't do better in the war. In the simulation runs, the English are very strong. If I run the English, rather than the Dutch, I can almost annihilate the Dutch. So why didn't that happen in the real war?

I can think of two reasons that could at least partly explain the situation. One reason is the great disorder of the fleet and the lack of tactical control exercised by Robert Blake. The other explanation is just a tentative theory, at this time. I read this on a webpage discussing the Revenge in her last battle. That page noted that the crew was largely pressed from London and Southeast England, and that the Elizabethan commanders didn't think much of crews so composed.

I propose, as an experiment, to lower the English crew ratings, to see how that might affect the results. Dutch captains and crews were also extremely variable. Some hired ships, captained by their owners, were very suspect. However, for the sake of experiment, I will test my theory. If the Dutch do better, that would suggest that there is some substance to my theory. I will keep you "posted".

I just posted Battle of the Sound pictures

I ran the Battle of the Sound scenario on the simulator, tonight, and took some pictures. The Dutch goal is to run six transports past the Swedish fleet, to reinforce and supply the besieged Danish capital, Copenhagen. A secondary purpose is to inflict as much damage as possible on the Swedish fleet, while keeping the Dutch fleet largely intact.

For this simulation run, I used the irregular formation for the Dutch. I only maneuvered the fleet with the rudder, rather than destination points. For the last half of the battle, I ran the Dutch fleet at full sail. If I had not deliberately gone back to try and finish off the Swedish fleet, the Dutch would have had about a 2:1 superiority, which is amazing to me, given the Swedish superiority in ships. The Swedes had two large ships of 72 and 74 guns (the Viktoria and Kronan).

The pictures are all posted at anglodutchwarsblog.com

General-at-Sea

Putting together fleets for experimenting with Iain Stanford's rules, General-at-Sea is still on my to-do list. My schedule has been hammered by external events for the last three weeks, so that has so far not progressed very far.

The plan is to take my existing ship drawings (sideviews) and reduce them to 1/3200 scale and put three to a game piece, with text on the back. I intend to try a variant suggested by Iain, where the values are calculated from real broadside weights, crew numbers, and burden in tons. We could hope that would give more accurate capabilities than basing the figures on rate and number of guns.

I previously had still been calculating ship values for games based on a modified version proposed by Paul Hague in his book from 1980:

Hull damage value = English burden / 3

Fire power = broadside weight / 20

Boarding value = crew / 4

If anyone has contacts with Akella, I would appreciate your help

I have been unsuccessful in getting a response from Akella (developer of Privateers Bounty). If someone has a connection with them, I would appreciate your making the case as to why we would be worth contacting.

What we would like to do (or at least I would like to do) is to do a version that is tailored for 17th Century naval wargaming. To do that, I would propose the following:

Increase the number of ships that can entered to a very large number (perhaps as large as 250, although you would need a very hot computer to do that)

Add 17th Century ship 3-D models

Add 3-D models for Northern Europe and the Mediterranean

Allow a formation to be preset, during setup

A new one: perhaps allow a user to control ships from both sides, to better accomodate solo gaming

I finally have all the photos posted from last weekend

This morning, on anglodutchwarsblog.com, I posted the rest of the photos from running the Battle of the Kentish Knock scenario in the Privateers Bounty simulator. I thought that they were useful, as they give a good flavor of the experience. As this and other battles were fought as melees, I think that they also give an impression of what the actual battle was like. Admittedly, the land background is not real, but we presently do not have a way to add better landscape 3-D models.

What I would like, would be able to license the technology from (Akella, so we could fix the shortcomings. Greg Costikyan, the big time game developer, thought this would be worthwhile. We could even let them market the product, as a way to make them more open to our desire.

My Anglo-Dutch Wars (2) site is relaunched

I have added a link to the site where I will be posting many pictures. The name is AngloDutchWarsBlog.com. I have put several more pictures, and will be adding more, plus commentary on them. Of course it is also another venue for content.

The Amsterdam ship Maria at the Battle of the Kentish Knock

The Amsterdam ship, Maria, was one of two Dutch ships lost at the Battle of the Kentish Knock. Interestingly enough, almost every time I run Privateers Bounty, for that scenario, the Maria is a casualty. I have a good picture, from the weekend, of the Maria, obviously in deep trouble, with a fire buring, and no foremast, and other damage. A large splash, just to starboard, must be a large caliber shot (32pdr?), while two smaller shot splashes are just beyond (perhaps demi-culverins).

I have wondered at the explanation as to why the Maria keeps getting destroyed. I believe it has to do in its place in its squadron, and in the English squadron that is the most obvious to attack. The Maria was in Michiel De Ruyter's squadron, and was commanded by Claes Sael. She carried about 30 guns, the largest of which were probably 12pdrs. She was not very large, and carried a crew of about 100 sailors and soldiers.

When we look at the English fleet, with two 1st Rates, several 2nd and 3rd Rates (such as the Andrew, Triumph, and Speaker), the logical question is why the Dutch weren't more badly beaten. The only other Dutch loss, besides the Maria, the Noorderkwartier 24-gun ship, the Burcht van Alkmaar, the English results seem pretty meager. I suspect that the answer is that Blake was not interested in tactics. Michael Baumber paints Blake as someone who believes that the combatant with the strongest will, will triumph, and that nothing else matters. Blake had enough concern about the tactical situation to slow, to allow the others to catch up, but that is about his limit.

I have what are essentially action war shots from the Battle of the Kentish Knock

I have some really good photography from the Battle of the Kentish Knock scenario in Privateers Bounty. They remind me of action shots from World War II in the Pacific, from combat photographers. In this case, they are from the First Anglo-Dutch War!

I believe that these pictures will be published on AngloDutchWarsBlog.com. I hope to get a revised site up quite soon. I have sufficient space for higher quality pictures than I can publish from Blogger.

For example, there are two pictures. One shows the large armed merchantman, the London, relatively undamaged, approaching Cornelis Evertsen's ship, the Wapen van Holland, to attack. To the right, is the Warwick, minus formast, and obviously in trouble. The next picture shows the Warwick quickly sinking, with the Hound, a Dutch prize, alongside. The Hound is visibly damaged, but still has all three masts. I would not have thought that this quality of photography possible from a computer screen (admittedly they are not great).

The revised English and Dutch lists are now available on the AgeOfSail Yahoo Group

I have uploaded revised lists for the English and Dutch ships that I have used to date in my First Anglo-Dutch War scenarios for the Privateers Bounty scenario. The main advantage of these two lists is that they are alphabetical, rather than the random order of the previous files. I had to do some Smalltalk programming, to revise my file processor, to produce a filtered, alphabetic list. I don't have anything like the English list, so I believe it will be valuable for producing "game pieces" for Iain Stanford's General-at-Sea rules.

I will reformat the English and Dutch lists to be alphabetical

I'm sorry to say that the lists that I uploaded to the AgeOfSail Yahoo Group "Files" are in some order known only to Privateers Bounty. I realized how I can regenerate the list and, with some work, produce alphabetically ordered lists. Otherwise, they are useless. I'm not sure how many people are interested, but I am, at least, so I would be helping myself.

I finally extracted my English ship definitions for the First Anglo-Dutch War

I wrote a program to parse the Privateers Bounty usrships.ini file that has user ship definitions. I have extracted both my Dutch and English ship definitions. They are currently available on the AgeOfSail Yahoo Group. The English ship definitions are the most useful, as that information is not otherwise available. I directly entered them into Privateers Bounty, rather than having Excel spreadsheets or Word documents. What is uploaded are both formatted Word documents.

More Privateers Bounty tests: The Battle of the Kentish Knock

As I was concentrating on the battle, I did not take any more pictures, but this last simulation run was noteworthy. I ran the Battle of the Kentish Knock with my revised setup, better reflecting the actual ship positions at the start of the battle, and the Dutch did well.

Historically, at the start, the Dutch were sailing westward. I grouped the entire Dutch fleet together (CTRL-1, after selecting them all). I then set the formation to be the single line. Then, I set a new position point way to the East. I did not bother to try to turn them downwind. Instead, I let the simulation turn them. What happened is that they turned towards the wind, essentially tacking, and this allowed the leading English ships to close.

I believe that many English ships were still headed towards the Dutch, while they rapidly formed up, heading East. That let the Dutch "cross the T", pretty much. In any case, they kept sailing East, without changing course. Several ships were caught behind, so I adjusted their sails to be fully set, rather than in "battle mode". That enabled them to break free and start to escape. The only English ship in pursuit, far to the East, was the 3rd Rate Speaker.

When I shut the simulation down, the Dutch still had 97% of their ships while the English were reduced to 90% of their ships. This was actually a more realistic style battle, in that it was not a "fight to the finish".

More pictures from Portland and Plymouth

I have more pictures (plus I reduced the others to more manageable size). I ran the Battle of Plymouth scenario, and at the ending point, when the Dutch were sailing off to the East, up the Channel, leaving the English behind, each side was reduced to 86% of their starting size.

Jan Gideonszoon Verhaeff's squadron at Plymouth, shown forming into a rough line (probably inaccurately).

Gideon De Wildt's flagship, the 44-gun Amsterdam ship, the Vrede.

The English in full charge towards the Dutch at Plymouth, with the large ship near the lead being Sir George Ayscue's ship, the Rainbow.

Pictures from the Battle of Portland scenario

These pictures are pretty large, but they don't reduce well. These are close up pictures taken from the monitor while Privateers Bounty was running the Battle of Portland scenario. Sadly, the 3-D models are late 18th Century, not 17th Century, but you can use your imagination!

This picture shows a portion of George Monck's squadron at the Battle of Portland.

This picture shows Jan Evertsen's flagship, Hollandia (38 guns) at the Battle of Portland, on the opposite tack from the English Diamond.

More Privateers Bounty simulation runs

After some research, I adjusted the positions that I had given both the Dutch and the English, in my Battle of Portland scenario. I had two books open, to help me better see how the squadrons should have been positioned and what course they should have had.

I ran the simulation, after that, and it was the case that the Dutch started off with an edge, as the relative positions dictated. If the Dutch would attempt to conduct a protracted fight, they would suffer. For a while, they seemed unable to damage English ships.

Next, I ran the Battle of Dungeness scenario. A winning strategy was to keep the Dutch in line, keep them at "arms length" from the English, and sail back and forth, on opposite tacks. One thing not to do is to needlessly spend ships by letting the Triumph fire broadsides at close range (or any range, if it can be helped). The last English ship afloat, dismasted, was the Triumph. I made the mistake of trying to sail, in the line of fire, and attempt to wear down the Triumph. All I got for my trouble was as half-a-dozen sunk Dutch ships.

Testing scenarios

I have been doing a great deal of testing of the scenarios that I have recently updated for the First Anglo-Dutch War. The most dramatic change is for the Battle of the Kentish Knock. There, the simulation plays out more like the real battle, so that the Dutch are competitive. The worst outcome was for the Battle of Portland. For whatever reason, George Monck's squadron is able to easily sail upwind to engage the Dutch. In reality, that was much more difficult and time consuming. I need to go back and study why the simulation is different from the battle.

I have reworked most of the First Anglo-Dutch War scenarios

After I got back from traveling, today, I reworked four scenarios:

Battle of Plymouth

Battle of the Kentish Knock

Battle of Dungeness

Battle of Portland (The Three Days Battle)

The point is to change the position of ships and correct wind direction to better reflect what I now believe to be correct. I have factored in Michael Baumber's and Peter Padfield's analysis of those battles. They largely agree, so I have proceeded with that. Sadly, I am not surprised that Dr. Ballhausen's book has been discredited, yet again.

I will supply the revised scenarios, upon e-mail request. That is simply because I don't have a good place to make them available through download. I have done some initial playtesting, and am satisfied that they reflect the real-life situation better than what I have previously had.

How the Battle of Plymouth simulation run ended

At the end, the Vanguard surrendered, and the Dutch had 44% of their ships left. There were actually three substantial English ships left, surrendered, that could have been boarded and towed back to the Netherlands. They were the Vanguard, Rainbow, and the Prosperous of London. The last was the same ship that Michiel De Ruyter took in the first day of the real Battle of Portland. Sadly, it was later retaken by the English, as the Dutch position deteriorated.

My theory about what happened may be only relevant to Privateers Bounty, but it seems if the Dutch can stay in a single line, tack back and forth, keep the English at a distance, they can do well. If a battle devolves into a chase, the English will pick off the Dutch stragglers. The thing NOT to do is to sail the Dutch line into the middle of an English massed group of ships.

Back to Privateers Bounty

This morning, I have been running Privateers Bounty, almost "hands off" with the Battle of Plymouth. I set the Dutch to have a single line formation, and then have been just sailing them back and forth, on opposite tacks, while I did other things. The result, so far, is that the Dutch have 50% left and the English have 4%, with the Vanguard as the only ship left, fighting. At this point, the Vanguard is all but dismasted, although is otherwise still able to fight. The Prosperous of London and the Rainbow are still afloat, but are surrendered.

All that I have done with the Dutch is to keep the line formation, and use destionation points for the formation to control heading. I have been careful to never sail too close to the wind, and keep sailing back and forth, on opposite tacks. That has been sufficient to win, in this scenario. As I write this, the Vanguard is being "written off", gradually, as she accumulates increasing damage, as the remaining Dutch fleet sails past.

I will be reworking some scenarios

Sadly, I will need to rework the First Anglo-Dutch War scenarios for Privateers Bounty. The issues are not the orders-of-battle, but simply the wind direction and ship placement. I have been digging out more information about the Battle of Portland (the "Three Days Battle"), and the consensus shows a different picture than that protrayed by Dr. Ballhausen.

The main difference is that George Monck's squadron was actually very far downwind from the main English body, and farther yet, from the Dutch. It took a very long time for that squadron to beat their way upwind to join the battle.

I am now working on the ship drawings that use the flags

My current project (which is moving slowly), is to digitally draw ships to use with Iain Stanford's rules, General-at-Sea. You can follow my ongoing work over at Anglo-Dutch-Wars.blogspot.com. I have been updating the ship drawings, as I have proceeded. The goal is to make them as three-dimensional as possible, and to use the historically correct layout. I spoke with Frank Fox, yesterday, about the St. George and English 5th Rates. I have been using the Van de Velde drawings in Frank's book, A Distant Storm as a guide.

Some more about English flags in 1652 and 1653

I have been looking at more paintings and drawings depicting battles in the First Anglo-Dutch War. I especially notice Wille van de Velde, the Elder, work about the Battle of Scheveningen, as he was actually at the battle. I have also looked at works other van de Velde works, and works by Reinier Nooms and van Diest. There is ample evidence that while the English jack should usually be the "Commonwealth Jack", that vanes were typically white with a red cross, and that it was not uncommon to have large white flag at the main, with a red cross, dividing the flag into quadrants.

There is also ample evidence of red and blue ensigns, with very small white fields, with red crosses. They were usually flown at the stern, but it is not unknown for one to be flown at the main.

More about English flags

I was just looking at Willem van de Velde, the Elder's drawing of the last pass at the Battle of Scheveningen, and I was struck by the fact that there was an English ship depicted with a large flag at the main, that had the large, red St. George's cross on a white flag. I would not have expected that, but it is clearly shown.

I still don't know what are the correct flags to use for the English, in 1652

About the only evidence I have seen about English flags in early to mid-1652 all show the white flag with a red St. George's cross. The only problem is that I doubt that the artist really knew what was right, and just did that as a convenient way to distinguish what were supposed to be English ships.

I need to find out the right English flags to use

I realized that I don't really know what flags are appropriate for the English, in May 1652. I have asked for help. If I don't hear, I will go with the Commonwealth Jack, Blue ensigns, vanes, and pennants, and be happy with that, until I get better information.

A relate concern is that I am finding new information which is casting doubt, to some extent, on Dr. Ballhausen's OOB, for the Dutch, at Dover, in May 1652. I need to dig some more.

I am preparing the necessary game pieces for the Battle off Dover (19/29 May 1652)

I followed Iain Stanford's advice, and based the division of the English and Dutch fleets at Dover, based on the sailing order and organization of both (as best we know it). I have calculated the "CV's" (combat values), and just need to do the digital editing to prepare the "stands" (three ships per piece). In my case, they are not the usual sort of thing, but are "tents" with three ship images per outer side. The backside will have names, CV, and the like.

I am making "stands" so that I can try Iain Stanford's rules General-at-Sea

I am making my favorite sort of disposable and easily produced wargame piece, the "tent", for use with Iain Stanford's ruleset, General-at-Sea. It seems that since the groups of ships on each "stand", as you would call it with miniatures, differs with every battle, I will need to make custom pieces for every scenario. Fortunately, since I am reducing my drawings to 1/3200 scale, I can use my drawings that I have "lying around". It won't require the higher quality of 1/1200 scale.

As soon as I have an example, I will make it available, online. I will make a report on my experience, once I have given General-at-Sea "a go".

Privateers Bounty tactics and maneuvering

I have run more tests with Privateers Bounty, this time using the Battle of Portland scenario. It is much more difficult than the Battle of the Kentish Knock, due to the English being in two groups: George Monck's squadron to the Northeast and the main body to the Southwest. The Dutch are headed East, in between them.

I have tried both the single line and fighting by squadrons. Aggressive use of squadrons, in the early stages can accelerate the damage to the English. If you do not regroup, quickly, as ships take damage and lose mobility, you lose the benefit of maneuvering by squadrons. The one thing NOT to do is allow Dutch ships to be intermixed with English ships, at least not mobile Dutch ships.

In some respects, the single line is easier to handle, because even as ships take damage, they will be adjacent to the line, unless they become isolated, and left behind. Line maneuvers need to be limited to slight course alterations, or order reversals.

The topic of order reversals brings us to the topic of manuevering. In Privateers Bounty, the one thing to avoid is to allow the simulator to decide to turn into the wind. There may be times when this might seem to be the right thing, but it is generally an error. The reason is that you lose mobility for a time, until you can recover on a new course.

I find that I get better results to turn groups (or individual ships) downwind, to establish the turn direction, and then bring the ship towards the desired course. A ciritical thing to watch is to never turn more than 180 degrees, towards the wind, as Privateers Bounty will most likely turn your ship or ships into the wind.

A critical point is to keep as many mobile ships as possible, as long as possible. If you choose to fight a more realistic battle, where you are not fighting to the last ship, you need to choose your course and the moment to disengage so as to maximize your chances. Often, having a rear-guard will buy the main body time to leave the scene of the battle

I ran the Kentish Knock scenario, again

I just ran the Battle of the Kentish Knock scenario, again, to get another "data point" with Privateers Bounty. I ran the scenario with the difficulty set to "Medium". I ran the three Dutch fireships up the East side, and attempted an attack, on the Sovereign and Resolution, but did no damage, before the fireships were sunk.

I formed the Dutch into four groups, beside the fireships, by squadron. I set destination points, initially, to the South-Southeast, by squadron. Again, as last time, the English came up and caught the tail of the Dutch line (which had been the three slowest ships, all belonging to the VOC). The first ship to succumb was the Louise Hendrika. SHe surrendered, and after a long time, was sunk. The Vogelstruis was quickly dismasted. She held out for a long time, but her guns were eventually silenced, which was too bad, because she could have sunk more ships.

The Prins Willem was eventually run down and dismasted. She held on for a long time and sank several ships and disabled the frigate Portsmouth's steering. The main body came up, and the larger ships started raking the Prins Willem, until she caught fire and then surrendered. Meanwhile, the Dutch main body sailed off into the distance.

The eventual result was that 82% of the Dutch were left, while only 61% of the English were left. That translates into six Dutch ships lost, including the three fireshps and the three East Indiamen. The English lost 16 ships, only one of those being a fireship, the Renown. Amazingly enough, the English were beaten pretty badly: the Dutch only lost three warships while the English lost 15. That was a pretty good performance by the Dutch.

A closer look at the "Generals-at-Sea" rules

I have had an opportunity, finally, to give Iain Stanford's General-at-Sea rules a closer examination. In some ways, since he uses the concept of a "stand", there is something of the flavor of Napoleonic miniatures (or whatever your favorite period is). I was particularly impressed by his dealing with the mechanics of sailing ships.

My tendency would be to handle some issues differently. For example, my reading of the use of fireships would separate them more from the commanders. The Dutch, at least, would have them grouped (in General-at-Sea terms) on their own "stand".

I can see that Iain has concentrated on providing mechanisms to allow players to set up and game their own scenarios, independent of history. Since I have more detailed information, generally, about factors like wind direction and time of day, I would incorporate that, rather than trusting to chance.

For playability's sake, General-at-Sea takes some steps towards simplifications that we would find in board games, rather in miniature sailing naval warfare rules. I can't say that it is wrong, as it makes playing some of the larger scenarios feasible, retaining at least a semblance of the right "flavor".

My tendancy is towards less simplification, which is why I have not found miniatures sailing naval warfare gaming feasible. Iain's approach is as good as any I have seen, for making larger battles possible. I am still holding out for less simplification (although that may not be possible).

Iain Stanford's "General-at-Sea" rules

I have provided a link to Geert-Jan Kruijff's page for Anglo-Dutch War naval wargaming resources. This includes a link to download the pdf file for Iain Stanford's wargaming rules: General-at-Sea. His design aim for the game was to scale one miniature piece to three actual ships, and to make the rules simple and fast enough to potentially fight a battle in an afternoon.

Another test of the Battle of the Kentish Knock scenario

I have had a series of disastrous runs of the Battle of the Kentish Knock, as the Dutch. Tonight, I did another run of the simulator with that scenario. This time, the Dutch tactics were simple. At the beginning of the battle, the fleet is sailing North, with the three fireships at the rear, and the jacht Dordrecht sailing to the port of the rear.

What I did is to stear the Dordrecht to turn to port, to clear the line, and then sailed around to the what would be the disengaged side. The fireships were formed into their own group and sailed North, on the disengaged side. They eventually attacked the group of ships that included the Sovereign (90 guns) and the Resolution (88 guns). One actually set the Resolution ablaze, although they may have eventually extinguished the fire.

I grouped the main fleet into a single group, set the formation as a single line, and then set a destination point to the South-Southeast, so that the line would turn 180 degrees and sail away.

The Southern half of the English fleet actually closed with the rear of the line (used to be the head of the line). The Vogelstruis was dismasted, quite quickly, but kept fighting, sinking quite a few English ships and damaging many more. The other ship disabled was the Henrietta Maria. She was disabled and then had to surrender very quickly, since she was a much less substantial ship. Both ships belonged to the VOC.

By the time the main Dutch fleet had sailed out of sight, the English had lost 9 warships while the Dutch had lost two warships and three fireships. By the standards of the First Anglo-Dutch War, this would have been considered a victory. By Privateers Bounty standards, it is strange, as the usual approach is to annihilate an opponent, no matter what the cost.

Miniatures Sailing Warfare Gaming

I admire the persistence of those who want to continue to game sailing naval warfare with miniatures. I must admit that it is the most interesting and satisfying way to game. The problem is that to use miniatures, you have to make (at least for now) major compromises:

Reduce ship numbers

Reduce realism and risk over-simplification

Even Privateers Bounty does not do all that I would want, but at it least allows gaming with larger numbers and does a credible simulation of gunfire, damage, fireships and fire, in all aspects, as well as the physics of sailing.

The one hope I see for miniatures is if you can combine computers with miniatures, and retain the satisfaction of having the miniatures, while having the easier, and more accurate bookkeeping and rule enforcement that a computer offers.

Experiments

I have run a series of experiments, using the Battle of the Kentish Knock scenario, in Privateers Bounty. The main results are clear:

There is power in sailing in a group (close to a line formation), at right angles to an enemy formation, "crossing the T".

At least for the Dutch, it is hazardous to "mix it up", in a melee, where there plentiful opportunities for large enemy ships to fire continuous broadsides.

Large, heavily armed ships are greatly superior to many smaller ships (300 to 400 tons, burden).

Seemingly, the Dutch would be "shot to pieces", if they tried to fight in a single line sailing parallel to a single English line.

For the losing side, ships that suffer severe mobility damage can be given up for lost, as they will be run down and sunk.

A lot of detailed maneuvering, down to the single ship level, is not useful, when there are still large numbers of ships still mobile and fighting. Formation maneuvering is what matters.

Tactics for the Dutch

The one thing that I can absolutely say is that, at least in Privateers Bounty, you cannot fight in a single line, with the Dutch, at least if you allow the English to close, so that they can fire broadsides. The Dutch cannot handle that sort of fire, with impunity.

In certain scenarios, the Dutch can keep the range long, in which case, if the English try to close, they can be engaged with massed gunfire from the Dutch line.

The Battle of the Kentish Knock scenario is one place where this is feasible. The Battle of Portland is a different situation. At Portland, if the Dutch try to engage in a single line, the converging Dutch fleet and Monck's squadron will make it impossible to fight at long range. Instead, other tactics are required for the Dutch to win.

The most reliable strategy is for the Dutch to engage Monck's squadron, first. The Dutch ships need to get in position to deliver concentrated, raking fire against the largest English ships. The Dutch can well fight in small groups that are in line formation, or that are at least on the same course. If needbe, ships need to be maneuvered individually, to avoid broadside gunfire, as much as possible.

These sort of tactics, massing ships against individual ships, has the best prospect of success. Ideally, an English ship should be attacked at both the bow and stern.

Once Monck's squadron (in the Portland scenario) is defeated, then the Dutch need to attend to the main English body. Again, the same policy should be followed, to concentrate gunfire against the largest English ships, preferably from a raking position.

I just fought a VERY different Battle of the Kentish Knock

I just refought the Battle of the Kentish Knock, where I commanded the Dutch, the difficulty was set at "Medium", and I started the battle with the entire Dutch fleet in single line formation (although they never actually achieved that). I steered the whole Dutch fleet way to the South of the English fleet, and sailed back and forth, each time increasing the distance, as I was able to, given the constraints of the wind.

The battle proceeded as follows:

Dutch %	English %
100%	95%
100%	90%
100%	85%
100%	80%
97%	78%
90%	78%
87%	76%
87%	73%

Early on, the Vogelstruis got caught among the English, and was dismasted. She survived, until she surrended at the end. The Dutch fleet sailed off towards the open sea, to the East, and the rear guard was Bastiaan Centen's ship, the Haes (Vlissingen Directors) and the Brederode. The only pursuing ship was the Anthony Bonaventure (for some reason). The Brederode had taken a good bit of sail and rigging damage, so she was slowed. As the fleet and the Haes were pulling away, the Brederode turned on the Anthony Bonaventure, raking her, and causing her to surrender. At that point, the English fleet had turned away, so the Brederode headed for the open sea, following the others.

This was actually the most realistic battle that I have fought, as it was the most like "real life". In reality, they never fought to annihilate the enemy, while accepted crippling losses.

Tests of line formation in Privateers Bounty for 17th Century naval

I just ran three quick tests, using the Battle of the Kentish Knock scenario, where I commanded the Dutch and had the difficulty set to "Hard". The first test, I grouped ships by squadrons, and attacked the North end of the English fleet. It quickly went badly, and I shut it down. I steered to close to thed English fleet and they got among the Dutch formations and heavily damaged them. I quit, when I saw how things were going.

In the second test, I again grouped the Dutch ships by squadrons, and steered towards the Southern end of the English fleet. Again, the English ships got among the Dutch formations and were winining when I shut the simultion down.

The third test, I grouped the Dutch ships in a single line, to begin with, and kept steering to the East to attempt to keep the English ships from getting in amongst the Dutch ships. Early on, the Dutch were winning. At one point, it was 95% to 78%, with the Dutch ahead. The Dutch got into trouble when they ran out of searoom, and I had trouble maneuvering the line. I had to regroup ships into smaller formations, with each in a line formation.

The English started to win, and then win big. At that point, I regrouped the Dutch ships, and had them form single lines. At one point, when both sides had taken heavy losses, the Dutch went into the lead, at least for a short time. It may even have happened twice. Then the balance tipped against the Dutch, and I quit, when it had gotten to 26% to 12%, with the English winning.

Perhaps my only problem was inexperience in maneuvering formations of ships that are grouped into a single line. At times, there was a clear advantage, and the English quickly took losses, but the English 1st and 2nd rates were able to overwhelm the Dutch, after the smaller ships were decimated. Previously, when I have beaten the English in the Battle of the Kentish Knock, I would eventually maneuver individual ships, and concentrate them against the English 1st and 2nd rates, and overwhelm them. By not doing that, things quickly "got out of hand".

Gaming with 17th Century ships

After having done sufficient 18th Century naval wargaming to have a better sense of it, I can say, definitively, that 17th Century gaming is quite difference. The cause is the small size of 17th Century ships, compared to 18th Century ships.

In a battle simulation such as the Battle of the Saintes, ships shed masts and rigging, fairly easily, but they have considerable resistence to being sunk. That is not true in 17th Century battles, as most ships are sunk by gunfire, while quite a few blow up, either from fire or gunfire.

What this means is that quite different tactics are required. While I don't recommend (at least in Privateers Bounty) sailing in line, close to the enemy, who is also in line, and trading gunfire at close range, you can do it for a while. In a 17th Century simulation, you would be rapidly decimated, and would quickly lose, if you have the smaller, more lightly-armed ships. They are the first to be lost under sustained gunfire.

I do believe there are considerable benefits to fighting in line (at least by squadron), but I would try to be in a position to rake, and to minimize the chance of receiving heavy gunfire. If you do sail in line, keep a distance between your ships and the enemy ships, so they fewer can turn and fire broadsides.

I just won the Battle of the Saintes, as the British, 72% to 0%!

I just fought one of my best battles, using Privateers Bounty, ever. As the British, I just won the Battle of the Saintes, in an overwhelming way. Not only was the "score" 72% to 0%, but there were a large number of surrendered ships, from both the French and British, littering the scene of the Battle.

Again, I grouped ships (using the CTRL-digit system), assigned a formation, and then set a destination point. An interesting feature of this is that everytime you assign the formation, all the ships in the group become selected, and then you assign the destination point. All ships are then affected, without having to reselect them.

The rear of the British line, at the start of the battle, ended up being largely dismasted, but they mostly did not suffer that badly. They formed a line, almost like they were fortifications. One, the Centaur, spent most of the game raking the French flagship Ville de Paris. In this simulation, the Ville de Paris was the last French ship to surrender. I was sure she would be sunk, first. Towards the end, there were at least four British ships raking her.

At the end, when the last French ship had surrendered, there were still 4-6 British ships that were quite mobile. They were able to get in position to run down the remaining French survivors, and force them to surrender.

A feature of this battle was that I was constantly resetting destination points, either for groups (preferably), or where there were isolated ships that were still mobile, I would be maneuvering them to be able to rake the French ships. That was a key reason for my success: readiness to regroup ships and constantly getting them into postion to rake.

More Privateers Bounty

I just ran the Battle of the Saintes scenario that comes with Privateers Bounty. I think three points that I noticed, this time, are worth noting:

only break the enemy line if a gap opens,

group ships and assign the line formation to them,

use your groups that are in line to rake enemy ships, and minimize their ability to use broadsides against your ships.

You need the flexibility to maneuver by squadrons, as a long, single line is unwieldy, and subjects your fleet to too much broadside fire from enemy ships (especially if they are larger and more heavily armed than your ships).

Using that approach, I did rather better (though not acceptably good) in the Battle of the Saints, winning 30% to 0%. This advice applies to 17th as well as 18th and 19th Century scenarios.

Wargame pieces

This is my low-end answer for the need for wargame pieces for miniatures games.

Brederode

Stad en Lande

Difference between 17th and 18th Century ships in Privateers Bounty

There really are some distinct differences between 17th and 18th Century battles, run in the Privateers Bounty simulator. The difference is largely the difference in ship characteristices. 17th Century ships are considerably smaller, and are more lightly armed, at least prior to 1660. Only the very largest were armed on the 18th Century scale.

That difference manifests itself in a number of ways:

17th Century ships burn easily

17th Century ships can more easily be sunk by gunfire

18th Century battle scenes are littered with dismasted ships that, otherwise, still have considerable fighting strength

17th Century battles can employ line-breaking tactics, as the opposing gunfire is less potent

18th and early 19th Century battles can only be fought (with impunity) using line-breaking tactics, if a gap appears in the opposing line. Otherwise, there is likely to be considerable damage taken in the process of line-breaking.

These are the obvious differences that I have learned from running a half-dozen 18th Century scenario simulations, over the weekend. Needless to say, I have run a much greater number of 17th Century scenarios.

I finally won the Battle of the Saintes

Again, this is off-topic, except that it is another scenario in Privateers Bounty. I had two false starts, where I lost confidence in my ability to win the Battle of the Saintes, as the British, and shut them down. I finally won, if you can call 16% to 0% a victory. Technically, it might be a victory, but I have grown accustomed to the 70% to 0% (if not better) style victory, where you really won something.

I really like the 17th Century battles, as they are equivalent to something else I prefer, early WWII tank battles, where the tanks and anti-tank guns are pretty small. Many, if not most gamers like the late-war tanks and guns, where the tanks are monsters and so are the guns. If you get a hit, the tank is destroyed (almost certainly). In the early war scenario, the shot might hit, but "bounce". 17th Century ships, especially the First Anglo-Dutch War, are more like that. The shot doesn't "bounce", but the damage might be small (although the ship may only have a small capacity to "take" damage).

The Battle of the Virginia Capes (rather off-topic)

I recently joined the "WoodenWalls" Yahoo group, after finding that another group was dominated by gamers (men, in fact) who were only interested naval wargames from about 1890 to the modern era. In fact, I found I was not welcome, and pointed to "WoodenWalls".

"WoodenWalls" is mainly populated by miniature sailing naval wargamers. Quite naturally, they are mainly interested in late 18th and early 19th Century battles. One gentleman said that he could "only dream of" fighting the Battle of the Virginia Capes. I guessed that might be a pre-defined scenario for Privateers Bounty. That proved to be the case, although it had a strange name "Battle for the Chesapeake".

I expected that I could just run it, and win. I thought I would start with the British fleet (of 19 ships of the line), and was being handily beaten by the "computer". I thought, "OK", and tried the French. I was was losing rather badly, and gave it up.

I tried, again, later, the French, and won 79% to 0%. I did not like how many immobile ships the French had, scattered across the scene of the battle, but I felt like I understood how to win in this era of large, heavily-armed ships.

What I did differently was to establish groups (CTRL-digit), and assign them the line formation, closely spaced. I also maneuvered by smaller groups (not necessarily the official groups). I essentially circled around the outside of the British fleet, hoping to be in position to rake as many as possible. I actually had several groups around the periphery. Fairly quickly, I reached a "tipping point", and the battle turned into a "mop-up" operation.

Privateers Bounty: my Battle of Portland scenario

I just ran the Battle of Portland scenario, on the simulator, and fought the battle with using destination points, and made every attempt to fight in something resembling a line. In this battle, I maneuvered burning ships, and those ships around them to keep fires from spreading to other ships. This allowed the Dutch to win 60% to 0%.

I had the difficulty level set to "Hard", and attacked the English main body (two squadrons), at the beginning of the battle. George Monck's squadron came up, later, and those ships were some of the last survivors, along with two ships from the other end, which tried to fleet (including the Speaker (Third Rate).

Towards the end, I maneuvered individual ships and small groups, to get them into position to rake English ships. Again, as often happens, there was tipping point, at which time, the English cause was lost beyond rescue.

Privateers Bounty: my Battle of the Kentish Knock scenario

This picture shows the Dutch fleet closing with the English fleet, in the Battle of the Kentish Knock. The wind direction is from the North, which is towards the top of the picture.

The small vessel leading the lower squadron is the Zeeland three-masted yacht, Dordrecht (17 guns). The squadron is Cornelis Evertsen de Oude's "Reserve Squadron". North of that is of Gideon de Wildt's "Rear Squadron" and North of that is part of Witte de With's squadron. Michiel De Ruyter's squadron is up, out of sight, leading the fleet.

The Battle of the Sound scenario

I reran the Battle of the Sound scenario, and tried a different approach. The battle went much better, although it was still hard-fought. Eventually the Dutch reached a tipping point, and there what was left, was to do "mop up" of the remaining Swedish ships.

What I did was to reverse the Dutch fleet's course, and head towards the Eastern side of the Sound. This put the Dutch in a better position to cap the Swedish "T". The battle really progressed well, until Dutch ships started to catch fire. I immediately turned the crews to firefighting, but they accumulated more damage than they would otherwise have.

The Dutch fleet sailed back and forth in their position on the West side, while the six Dutch transports ran past the Western end of the Swedish fleet, headed for Copenhagen with troops and supplies for the besieged city.

One thing that I did that I have not done much with, previously, was to turn the Dutch crews, on ships that had received extensive sail damage, to repair sails. That made the more heavily damaged ships more mobile. Often, they had lost a mast, so they were not up to their normal mobility, but late in the scenario, they provided an anvil force to help trap the last Swedish ship. The Dutch won, finally, 46% to 0%. I had made no attempt to do anything about burning ships (such as altering their course, and that of surrounding ships). That caused the Dutch losses to be as high as this.

More Privateers Bounty simulation tips

Camera Tips

One point sorely lacking in the booklet for Privateers Bounty is information about how to control the "camera". Mostly, I have discovered the tricks accidentally. I don't understand why this isn't documented, by my friend in Russia says it is not in the Russian version of the documentation, either.

Change camera direction	Roll your roller on your mouse forward, and hold. Then move the mouse, and you will see that you can rotate the view.
Zoom in	Hold the roller forward and slide the mouse up the screen
Zoom out	Hold the roller forward and slide the mouse down the screen
Move the camera to angle along the sea	Roll the roller forward and release
Look down on the scene	Roll and roller towards you, and release

This is a scene from my Battle of the Kentish Knock scenario

I had hoped to have one or more pictures from the running Battle of the Sound scenario, but none of them were clear. Instead, I do have a digital picture from January 27, 2004, from my Battle of the Kentish Knock scenario. A (nasty) feature of Privateers Bounty is that they don't have any 17th Century 3D ship models, except for the one 3-masted merchant vessel. The simulation is still interesting enough to be useful. I have tried to contact the developer in Russia (Akella), but have never received a reply.

The importance of using the wind

I just ran the Battle of Plymouth scenario, with me as the Dutch (as usual) and had the difficulty set to "High". This was a very difficult battle, at least in part to the wind direction, relative to the English fleet. A large factor, is that the English outnumbered the Dutch, and the English had several large ships. The English also had the wind, and that made maneuvering difficult for the Dutch, as they Dutch wanted to close, but wanted to maintain a course that would keep them both in line and at right angles to the English. I ended up having a large number of ships stuck with their bows directly into the wind.

I finally started maneuvering groups of ships, rather than the whole fleet. I finally started to make progress. Eventually, there was a tipping point, where the Dutch started to cause English ships to sink or surrender in large numbers, and then there only remained task of destroying the remaining English ships.

I finally had to individually maneuver Dutch ships to concentrate them on the remaining few English ships. ALL of my ship maneuvering was with "Destination Points". That is vastly superior to just setting a heading. I actually don't understand why that is so much better. I only have a good deal of experience that shows that it is (based on results). A friend had recommended it to me, and I immediately adopted the practice, after testing it.

I just ran another test, fighting "in line"

I just ran my Battle of the Kentish Knock scenario. This time, I had the difficualty set to "Hard". The Dutch still won 65% to 0% (65% of the Dutch fleet was still in action, while all the English were sunk or surrendered).

A feature of having the difficulty set to "Hard" is that Dutch ships catch fire frequently. They also run into each other catch others on fire. If you select the ship, and have the crew fight the fire, then that is adequate. If it is one of your fireships on fire, you might either steer the fireship into an English ship or else off at a tangent, away from your ships.

Quite quickly, there were 90% of the Dutch ships and only 23% of the English ships in action. Once the percentages got to 87% to 19%, the fighting got tougher. The Sovereign (90 guns) was still in action, and I had not been agressive enough to "cross its T". All too quickly, the percentages were at 70% to 11%.

After I became more diligent about sailing back and forth, and changing the angle to maximum the Dutch being in line, and putting the line at right angles to the Sovereign and Vanguard, the balance quickly tipped. Suddenly, it was 65% to 7%, and then 65% to 4% and then 2%. The last three English ships were the Exchange (M), the Mary Flyboat, and the Little President. All are very small vessels, so you can see that when the larger ships had surrendered and then were sunk, the battle was quicly won for the Dutch.

A revelation--Frank Fox would have expected this

I just fought the Battle of the Kentish Knock scenario, as usual, with me as the Dutch. I only set the difficulty to "Medium". I did something quite different. Instead of trying to break the English "line", I fought in "line".

I almost always maneuvered the fleet as a whole. The only time I maneuvered individual ships was when they got into an awkward position, at the ends of the fleet.

I did ALL maneuvering by setting "destination points". I have given up on any other way of maneuvering ships. This is a much better system, if for no other reason, you can visualize how the course will take the ship, by the light blue line that is show.

The final result was 85% of the Dutch fleet was still in action, while the English fleet was totally destroyed. Remember that the English had the Sovereign (90 guns) and Resolution (88 guns), so you can see the magnitude of this accomplishment.

How the battle progressed:

Dutch %	English %	Remaining English
87%	19%	Little President, Sovereign, Vanguard, Lion, James, Diamond, Nonsuch, and Ruby
87%	14%	Little President, Sovereign, James, Diamond, Nonsuch, and Ruby
85%	11%	Little President, Sovereign, James, Nonsuch, and Ruby
85%	9%	Sovereign, James, Nonsuch, and Ruby
85%	7%	Sovereign, Nonsuch, and Ruby
85%	2%	Nonsuch
85%	0%	--

Frank Fox is a big advocate for fighting in a single line. I have been a big advocate of breaking the line and concentrating against ships. I did not fight this battle in a single line, but I kept sailing back and forth, aligning the general axis of the Dutch fleet at right angles to the English, as much as possible. The AI used in Privateers Bounty really facilitates this, as the enemy ships generally head towards you, so you can easily rake them. In the fine detail, the AI works pretty well, maneuvering the "enemy" ships so as to rake your ships, so it is not so easy as it might be to deal with the enemy fleet.

My intent is to run more experiments, with the Dutch fighting so that they are generally sailing, as a fleet, at right angles the general English course. I will report on the results, when I have more than a single datapoint. I will also try running with the difficulty set to "Hard". My Battle of the Kentish Knock scenario seems a good testbed, as the English ships are generally much larger. I have found if I misjudge, that I can easily lose the battle.

The Battle of the Sound scenario

I need to update the Battle of the Sound scenario, for Privateers Bounty, to include crew and gun data from the package I received, recently, from Jan Glete. I have the Swedish captains' names, the breakdown between sailors and soldiers on ships, and I have updated gun lists from August 1658. I still want to compare these with what Dr. Ballhausen published, which were taken from a book by Johan Levin Carlbom.