Notes from a Wargamer.docx

1

Notes from a Naval Wargamer
By Jeffrey G. Chorney
Introduction
A
bout 2.5 years ago I was messing around with some Age of Sail rules and was thinking about toying around with a War of 1812 Great Lakes scenario. I remembered a website entitled War Artisan and non-other than its editor Jeffrey Knudsen. Jeff is a really great guy and a real enthusiast when it comes to Age of Sail war gaming and history. I had downloaded his Away Boarders rule set and was thinking about building some of his flats to run a quick campaign. Then as I revisited his site about a year or so ago the eye candy was overwhelming. I just had to have some of his kits to build. Again the gentleman that Jeff is said in an email reply 'no worries' I'll send you some 1812 warship kits to build free of charge.
So to the drawing board and man cave I went. I downloaded a bunch of markers off of his site, some hexes, etc. and I was in business. Everyone who knows me will testify that's never enough so I decided to amalgamate Captains Bold (another rule set Jeff has created) with Away Boarders to create a unique experience with these great rule sets. What I like about them is their simplicity with which to get a game going and the ability to tweak and modify. It turns out Jeff and I seem to be on the same page when it comes to war gaming and I asked him what his philosophy is when it comes to war gaming? His response as follows:
1. A historical wargame does not need to include every possible
aspect in order to reflect history accurately, only the aspects most
relevant to the role the gamer is playing. The aspects chosen by
the designer must be portrayed consistently with the historical
record; otherwise, it is just a game.

2. While there should always be an element of chance, the results
should mainly be driven by the player's decisions. Frequent decision
points that are clearly related to the outcome will keep the players
engaged in the narrative being played out on the game table.

3. Each aspect of the game, from the aesthetics of the layout, to
the manipulation of the components, to the wording of the rules and
ancillary material, should be crafted to evoke the historical event being 
portrayed. The game then becomes a complete, engrossing and
memorable experience for the players.

4. The most compelling and meaningful thing about a historical wargame
is the story it tells. The best games are the ones that are less about
"who won?" and more about "what happened, and why?"
"A man truly on the same page as me for the most part however… I still tend to deviate into the unknown and imaginations." So there you have it. I had my marching orders to some building of flats, markers, chits, event cards, ship models etc. The figure on the left is one of Jeff's kits he offers on his site.
The starting point and a slight hiccup or two!
I started into the project and things were going pretty well until my father in law got really sick. Life has these curve balls so the project came to grinding halt really quick. Nothing basically transpired for about 2 years as our family had to make some tough decisions and both my mother and father in law(s) ended up in a nursing home. Once everything settled down it was time to resume the project. I had about three quarters of this article typed out and Google cooked my file folder by accident when I was trying to transfer it from my IPAD into the cloud so I could work on it from home or wherever. Another setback however… I was still determined to get this project done and start playing games as I modeled in the man cave on some various projects. My goal was to have everything fit in a significantly small area and I hit that target with a little bit of ingenuity.
The playing board games and a reference book
The War Artisan, AKA Jeffrey Knudsen has a really neat system to make up hexes and playing seas. I decided to scale everything down regarding the flats to a playable scale of around 1:1100 Figure 1, give or take and utilized his unique hex system from Captains Bold to accomplish this. I was able to fit the Away Boarders game and the Captains Bold game on a very small tea table Figure 1. Both boards could be swapped back and forth as I sipped on a spot of tea. For the Bolds scenario I kept Jeff's scale models at 1:300 Lake Erie 1813 set. Above is a picture of a model from his website. http://www.warartisan.com/
The Osprey Series has a great reference book on the subject. https://ospreypublishing.com/great-lakes-warships-1812-1815
BTW Jeff's Lake Erie set is complete to order from him. For the Bold playing area a disk was made to just cover my tea table and I utilized tiny red dots laid out per his game instruction for maneuvering into the position of one on one ship battles.
The game plays as follows:
Both admirals write their orders for their fleet captains with an objective in mind
The Flag Lieutenant plots the ships on the map of Lake Erie with orders and objective's that the admirals have communicated to them
The ship flats are plotted on the special hexes and sailed to eventually form a line of battle
Ships engage each other with Away Boarders rule set and event cards are used to supplement actions
Ships fight one on one with Captains Bold rule set
Casualties, ships sank, or damaged, are plotted on a spread sheet I have from Wooden Ships and Iron Men (WSIM) to keep score.
Special chit boxes track each ships action
Event cards drawn will eventually determine when the game ends
Research and history
I would be remiss if I didn't mention the research involved to put this altogether in order to have a game that reflected a bit of the history and battle on Lake Erie as the real event was a game changer for the USS Navy not to mention all of the politics that was going on before, during, and after the conflict. As Mr. Knudsen stated;
"A historical wargame does not need to include every possible aspect in order to reflect history accurately, only the aspects most relevant to the role the gamer is playing. The aspects chosen by the designer must be portrayed consistently with the historical record; otherwise, it is just a game." End quote.
When naval war gaming this period, or any period, pre 'present date' we know a few things. We know who won and who lost. We know what the price tag was in terms of human loss and suffering.
We also know which side had better leadership, moral, technology, and may I dare say the combatant who had God Almighty on their side. So as a solo war gamer everything factors into play and how in depth one wants to go will rely solely with the war gamers intention.
As I researched the battle for Lake Erie I found a lot of controversy over tonnage of ships, actual armament/ordinance and crewing of vessels. There is a lot of conflicting information on the internet and published articles. Even some of the books I looked at had different information. Also some of the ships in the conflict had no records to be found. I ended up relying on three main sources of information; Great Lakes Warships 1812-15 Osprey Publishing, If By Sea: The forging of the American Navy – from Revolution to the war of 1812 by George C. Daughan, and the Pictorial Field-Book of the War of 1812 by Benson J. Lossing 1869, Battle of Lake Erie Chapter XXV.
Acknowledgement
I also pulled some additional information from the Naval Historical Foundation… and in particular an article entitled History of the Great Lakes wrote by Rear Admiral Denys W. Knoll, USN (RET). The admiral is retired in Erie where he has been the president of the Erie County Historical Society and long-time member of the Naval Historical Foundation. At the time of this writing I believe he is still alive.
http://www.maritimehistoryofthegreatlakes.ca/
The Battle
My first battle was one of total historical accuracy and in my mind kind of boring as the outcome is already known however it gives one the sense of what transpired, why things happened the way that they did, and what was going through the captains' mind. We pick it up at 14:00 hours after some initial orders as follows; Perry with his squadron was anchored near West Sister Island ready to get underway as soon as the British ships began to sortie from Fort Malden. All officers had been fully instructed, given a code of signals, and each ship was assigned a British belligerent to take under fire. Also Perry had his famous flag "Don't give up the ship" in white made for hoisting at the start of the battle.
Figure: 1. Perry (flag) is in the foreground third vessel from the left engaging HMS Detroit (yellow marker denotes flag officer on Detroit is injured). By 14:30 hours Perry had took the brunt of the British broadsides with every brace-line shot away and the ship was no longer manageable. Note: Perry has the weather gage (blue arrow chit S/SW) which is a huge advantage on a lake.
Figure: 2. a close up of the action and note the round blue chit marker's that denote ships which have fired a broadside. Perry is front and center.
Figure: 3. Just to the stern of Perry (US flag marker denotes flagship Lawrence) we have USS Caledonia facing HMS Charlotte, Hunter, Lady Prevost, and Little Belt in the background.
Figure: 4 in the foreground is Commander Elliot in the USS Niagara with left to right in the background USS Trippe, Somers, Porcupine, and Tigress.
Figure: 5 to the left or larboard side of Perry in the foreground are USS Ariel and Scorpion. Directly behind Perry is Commodore Robert H. Barclay, Commander of the British flotilla in HMS Flagship Detroit. To Barclay's immediate bow is the HMS Chippeway. Note: blue wind direction chit showing weather gage advantage USN.
The following two photographs show what the game looks like boxed up and a typical chit box with appropriate markers to show how the vessel is currently scoring. On the backside of the ship graphic the following information is available to me which aids play; Name of vessel, Tonnage of vessel, types or armament including whether there are long guns, carronades etc., Total count of crew members aboard, and the name of the commander which BTW can be any type of rank from a midshipman all the way up to a Commodore.
Figure: 6 the game boxed up less; two full size vessels under construction at the time of this photograph and underneath are score sheets from Wooden Ships and Iron Men which I'll explain later.
Figure: 7 a typical chit box which can visually show how much sail is flying or a captain/first mate is attempting to bend on the next turn, whether the ship is engaged in battle, types of shot available, crew count, types of armament and so forth.
14:50 Hours… all is not well for the British!
Figure: 8 just before 14:30 hours Perry decided to transfer his flag to the Niagara as the USS Lawrence was a mess. Oliver Hazard Perry had noticed the Niagara intact and called for a small boat with four oarsmen. The British seeing this move thought the USS Lawrence was about to surrender and ceased firing. The British made a huge mistake thinking the battle was over. Approximately 15-18 minutes later after Perry boarded the Niagara he sent Commander Elliot into a small boat to reform the smaller vessels into a loose line windward of the main van. Oliver Hazard Perry quickly maneuvered the USS Niagara to cut the enemy line in two. He then slipped in between Lady Prevost on his larboard (port) side and HMS Charlotte and Detroit who had the misfortune of colliding.
Perry quickly ordered both broadsides loaded and raked the Lady Prevost at half-pistol range and fired a full starboard broadside at the HMS Detroit and Queen Charlotte. By 14:50 hours the battle had abruptly ended and the famous message went forth from the USS Niagara … "We have met the enemy and they are ours – two ships, two brigs, one schooner and one sloop."
Figure: 9 Here we see Commander Perry split the van in two. One has to wonder how on earth the British Commanders Barclay and Finnis royally screwed up by allowing both of their vessels to collide as the British were seasoned sailors. One should note though that the Americans had an advantage of 9 vessels to 6 British… the tonnage and fire power was pretty even so what happened to the British?
Figure: 10 here is the conclusion of the battle and some closing thoughts.
It's not known why Barclay didn't make the decision to cross the "T" unless the wind conditions were the overriding factor that he had to tack straight into the wind to do so which would have left him like a sitting duck. Perry had a distinctive advantage having the weather gage at his back as he could quickly maneuver into positon and 'cross the T' which in this instance won the battle. From the authors experience/standpoint… when sailing craft on a big lake… a wind can literally come out of nowhere and turn a big Lake like Erie into a boiling cauldron which IMHO caught the British totally by surprise. I believe this to be a possibility as… (The British) were weathering and trying to turn before the wind to escape. Perry made the decision to split the van as (Barclay and Finnis) had crashed into each other. I would hazard to guess (no pun intended) that Oliver Hazard Perry had seen this happen a few times in his career and took full advantage of this situation. I would conclude "Perry was the combatant who had God Almighty on his side this fateful day."

Now for the best part - Captains Bold
A little later after Away Boarders was released Jeffrey Knudsen released Captains Bold a game of dueling Frigates©2014. For me personally this game is where it's at IMHO. This is where the naval wargamer can get into a personal melee between two captains and fight an intense duel with hand to hand combat et al. This game immediately caught my attention so to start with I built two out of the six paper ship model kits that Jeffrey supplied me. I built the HMS Lady Prevost and USS Ariel for this article. The kits go together well and the instructions are more than adequate. Jeff has tutorials on his website on how to build etc. I decided to add a few more subtle rigging details onto the models which was my decision to spruce them up a bit. I built a round blue seas playing board that fit perfectly onto my little tea table. Red dots were added to indicate the points on which an attacking ship must be located relative to the target in order to get the benefit of raking gunnery.
Game Scenario
For my scenario I chose the battle engagement of HMS Lady Prevost (black pin) running with the wind and USS Ariel (white pin) closes quickly with the weather gage at hand. Both vessels are steering North/NW away from Middle Bass Island. Commander Lieut. Buchan in Prevost has made the decision not to run to Fort Detroit, instead he is to turn about and give Ariel a broadside. Commander Lieut. Packett in Ariel 'a cagy brawler' sees this manoeuver and decides to give Buchan a taste of his 4 Long 12 pd. swivel guns before Buchan can get a broadside off. This is where we'll pick up the battle after a few logistics.
Lady Prevost
Displacement 230 Tons, length 83', Beam 21', Draft 9', Complement 86 crew men, Armament 1 x 9 pounder, 2 x 6 pounders, 10 x 12 pounder guns. Commanded by non-other than Lieutenant James Buchan, Royal Navy.
USS Ariel
Displacement 75 Tons, length 70 ', armed with; 4 long 12 pounder guns mounted on pivots. One cannon was forward of the foremast, two were between the masts, and one abaft the main mast, a compliment crew of 36 seamen. Commanded by non-other than Lt. John Packett USN. The Ariel was very sharp, had a reputation for speed, and was considered a clipper schooner design.
Notes: both are rigged as top sail schooners however… Ariel is vastly outgunned. Lady Prevost has a distinct advantage in a close range battle with armament and crew members however Ariel has greater speed and maneuverability. Ariel is a lighter vessel in tonnage which may or not be an advantage as we shall see.
"Bataille Engagement" Note: Wooden Ships and Iron Men (WSIM) advanced game tables used for ease of scoring and journaling.
Figure: 1 Buchan proceeds to close haul sail, turn and load larboard cannon. Packett trains all 4 of his long guns and fires low at Prevost.



Figure: 2 Packett's decision to fire does him well, he scores 3 direct hits on Prevost's battery and shreds Prevost's foresail to pieces. Buchan readies and decides to fire high in an attempt to dismast Ariel. Buchan fires and takes Ariel's 2nd and 4th long guns out. His crew also scores two direct hits on Ariel's square sails.
Time for a wind check; wind shifts 120 degrees clockwise and wind velocity does not change. Now Buchan has the weather gage but only for a moment as Packett understands his predicament and uses his speed and agility to come about Prevost's stern and readies a rake.
Figure: 3 Before Buchan can load his stern guns Packett delivers a devastating rake with two of his 12 pound long guns. Buchan realizes he has significant stern/mid ship damage and some loss of crew. As he debates on whether to strike his colors Packett decides to grapple as he is upwind and in a favourable position. Roll to grapple fails.
Time for a wind check; Wind shifts 60 degrees counter clockwise and wind velocity increase 1 number. Buchan is in a quandary as he is damaged and he is head to wind. He knows as soon as Packett can reload he will take another rake, he has two choices. He can strike his colors or adjust sail and cross the T.
Figure: 4 At this point of the game I decided to let the dice chose Buchan's fate. Roll of 1-3 commanders will strike colors, roll of 4-6 commanders will carry out decision to cross the T and fire a rake into Ariel. Roll of 5! Buchan maneuvers into position using the wind to his advantage and fires a full broadside into Ariel. All cannon completely obliterate Ariel and dismast her. Packett is KIA so a subordinate strikes colors and the battle is over.
Conclusion
What I like is you can use Away Boarders in conjunction with Captains Bold to have a lot of fun playing your favourite Age of Sail naval battles. The rules are easy to learn and play goes quickly especially with the Captains Bold rule set. I decided to use WSIM Tournament Edition Rules 1.2b advanced game tables for scoring as I like how it's laid out and I modified their ship specification charts to track hits, crew, guns, sail etc. I was prepared to grapple, board, and melee however it never came to that.
What is an advantage is Jeff made his rules easy to learn and less is more. From here if you're an experienced wargamer you can modify his rules to suit your needs, and one can make things as complicated as one choses.
It was interesting to see that a failed attempt to grapple and a di roll of 5 changed the outcome of the battle. IMHO the battle was quit realistic and very plausible.
With a little ingenuity you should be able to make other belligerent countries ships to fight different Age of Sail naval battles. The paper models that Jeff supplied me were fun to build and play with on the table. Eventually I'll build out the rest of the ship models he sent me to enjoy in the future.
Figure: 5 In order to celebrate the 200 year anniversary in 2012 Canada minted the above 25 cent piece coin as a tribute to Laura Secord. The coin gives you a good relationship to the 1:300 scales of these fine kits.


Builders Notes:
I decided to spank the kits up a bit and used two different sizes of bamboo sticks for the masts to show a better relationship of scale. I used 0.15" music wire for the yards and bowsprits. The following thread and fly tying thread were used:
Ratlines and backstays were 100% Cotton Gütermann C Ne 50 Col. 5201 Made in Greece
Blocks on the spars were made by twisting W-C-XF Soft Wire Copper into a loop then filled with white glue and painted
All other running rigging was; UNI Thread Camel waxed 6/0, UNI Thread136D 6/0 waxed Dk. Brown, and UNI Thread waxed 8/0 Lt. Cahill.
Deadeyes on ratlines were made with a dollop of Gem Tack glue then painted. I made a special jig to construct the ratlines on the bench which helped significantly