AAR - March Nation v Nation. After the storm

[Hjl]

Royal Navy

HMS Brittania - Adm Hugh Gabriel
HMS Vanguard - Captain Henry Watson

French Navy

Montange 1st rate SOL
Generaux 3rd rate SOL
Courageus 5th rate Frigate


The french fleet have weathered a storm on the way to safe harbor. British spies have informed the fleet that they are damaged and that there is an opportunity to strike a blow at them before they reach safety.
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The French sight the British as they come around the cape. The wind is against the French fleet and so its going to be hard to get into the harbor. The Generaux captain decides to engage the British to give the others a chance to get home safely.
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The British ships approach the harbor mouth whilst staying out of range of the forts guns. Their plan is to anchor upwind of the French and rake them as they come around the island.
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The Britannia strikes its sails and drops anchor. The gun crews prepare themselves as the French move around the rock.
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The Britannia opens fire on the Montange. The Generaux catches the HMS Vanguard with a solid hit doing significant damage.
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The Britannia's gun crews hurry to load, double shot this time. The Vanguard retaliates with a broadside of its own on the Generaux. The damage is high but the Generaux is still in the fight.
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The Generaux returns fire on the Vanguard ripping the sails, bringing down a mast and setting her on fire.

The Montagne and the Courageus send boats out to try to tow the French ships through the oncoming wind.



The Britannia opens fire with a devastating double shot at point blank range. The Montange is heavily damage but limps on, determined to draw the fire away from the other ships.
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The damage so far
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The Montange fires on the Britannia. She has taken too much damage though and cannot bring enough guns to bear to hurt the British first rate too seriously.
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The Montange rounds the harbor wall but the Britannia opens fire once again, the damage is crippling.
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The Montange returns fire one last time, hoping to put off the Britannia enough to slip into the harbor. The Generaux simultaneously exchanges fire with the Britannia and comes off by far the worse with the 1st rate.


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The Britannia fires once again on the Montagne, this time the French ship strikes its colors. It is simply too damaged to continue. The Frigate slips behind the Montage, using it to shield itself from the British ships.

The Britannia adds sails to pull away so as not to be caught by the Generaux and moves away from the harbor mouth.

In so doing, the 2 remaining French ships slip into the harbor to safety.


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The damage





As you can see the French ships too a beating but two of them escaped to safety. The Britannia was almost undamaged and the Vanguard took some serious hits.

Another broadside on the Generaux from the Britannia might have been enough to stop it.

I think this might have gone differently if i had had the wind facing the opposite direction. I had to invent some rules for heading into the wind with a ship in a channel. I decided that a straight 5 with one sail was reasonable to act as a boat towing the ship. instead of front of the ship to the back of the ship for the move, i did front to front. Perhaps this was unfair on the French ships, but it was that or plow into an island and sink!