En Flute

[David Manley]

Another term that one may come across from time to time is "en flute", generally applied to frigates and ships of the line. It referred to ships that had their armament reduced, making space to allow them to be used as transports. The term is French and refers to the appearance of the ship with empty gunports, reminiscent of the hole in a flute.

In wargame terms the use of warships acting "en flute" makes it possible to fight out convoy scenarios without the need to have models of merchant ships to hand, since a standard frigate or SOL model can be used. And the effect is simple to model - just reduce the firepower of the ship by 50-75% (or even greater in some cases). Exactly how this can be done in SGN will become apparent when the rules are released.

[Berthier]

Ah now I'm learning something, thanks David.

[The Cowman]

Another term that one may come across from time to time is "en flute", generally applied to frigates and ships of the line. It referred to ships that had their armament reduced, making space to allow them to be used as transports. The term is French and refers to the appearance of the ship with empty gunports, reminiscent of the hole in a flute.

In wargame terms the use of warships acting "en flute" makes it possible to fight out convoy scenarios without the need to have models of merchant ships to hand, since a standard frigate or SOL model can be used. And the effect is simple to model - just reduce the firepower of the ship by 50-75% (or even greater in some cases). Exactly how this can be done in SGN will become apparent when the rules are released.

Do you have examples of minis with ships both ways? I am curious to see if the effect stands out at 1/1200 scale...

[Attila57]

Nice! I used a "flute" only to toast to your interesting posts!

Attilio

[Cmmdre]

Another term that one may come across from time to time is "en flute", generally applied to frigates and ships of the line. It referred to ships that had their armament reduced, making space to allow them to be used as transports. The term is French and refers to the appearance of the ship with empty gunports, reminiscent of the hole in a flute.

In wargame terms the use of warships acting "en flute" makes it possible to fight out convoy scenarios without the need to have models of merchant ships to hand, since a standard frigate or SOL model can be used. And the effect is simple to model - just reduce the firepower of the ship by 50-75% (or even greater in some cases). Exactly how this can be done in SGN will become apparent when the rules are released.

Good case for House Rules. Would be interesting to use in a scenario.

[David Manley]

Do you have examples of minis with ships both ways? I am curious to see if the effect stands out at 1/1200 scale...

They would generally be visually indistinguishable, perhaps riding lower in the water if heavily laden. In game terms - easy to represent; reduce gunnery factors to 1-1-1, perhaps 0-1-0 in the last third of the damage track. And use a SOL manoeuvre deck for loaded vessels.

[7eat51]

One possible way of representing the two types of ships via miniatures is to have some models of ships at quarters and some not.