AAR - Frigate Action north of Algiers at 38°13'32“N and 2°41'54“E, 5th of March

[William Bush]

A very interesting action and AAR. Very nicely arranged and pleasing to the eye.

At first glance it seems that the "sweet spots" to take out a fort are

a) Fires
Because the number of actions a fort can take are less then four from the outset and thus after having taken some damage reducing the number of actions available to the fort by one, a Fire with the necessity to put it out will render the fort with not enough actions to dish out damage to the attacking ships with its batteries.

b) Crew Damage
Despite a fort's walls being much thicker and resilient than those of a ship, this is not reflected by the game mechanism by reducing the chances of causing crew damage to the fort. At the same time the "burthen" of the fort is higher than those of the largest ships. This means that "death by lack of crew" will become more likely than "death by structural damage". The same seems to be true for the larger ships in SoG. The latter observation, though, is based only on marginal personal gaming experience, so I might be mistaken.

Lt. Bush

[Bligh]

Despite your lack of experience Lt. you have very astutely come to much the same conclusion as myself and the good Captain Kiwi. We can only assume the position that the guns themselves in their revetments were taken down or damaged thus causing the rapid decline in fire power.
Luck seemed to play a part in both trials re the attrition of men as it is often the ships which take more damage than crew in most of our games unless a boarding action or close action with grapeshot is involved.
All the action in our game was at long range and thus used only A damage chits.
No heated shot was employed at the fort as there is no evidence to suggest its use in the actual battle.
Rob.