Lautaro vs Esmeralda

One of the reasons I bought the boardgame 'Under The Southern Cross' was to plunder the scenarios for things I could convert into miniatures games. And this evening I had a go at one.

The naval war that accompanied Chile's independence didn't feature fleet or squadron actions, but was characterised by  the raiding of commerce and ports and the establishment and breaking of blockades. It saw the first exploits of Lord Cochrane in South America.

In 1818 Spain controlled the Pacific coast of the Americas, with three heavy frigates. The nascent navies of Chile and Peru had little that could oppose them on equal terms, and sought to even the odds. On 26th April a British captain, George O'Brien took the frigate Lautaro out of Valdivia to engage the Spanish frigate Esmeralda. I decided to game this brisk little action.

I chose to use Galleys & Galleons to play it. I had thought of Form Line of Battle, but it's been a while since I've played that, and I wanted a game I could set up and play quickly. I did, however, forego my lolly-stick ships in favour of vessels more suited to the period, from my Napoleonic collection. French ships stood in for the Spanish and a Turkish frigate (first thing that came to hand) for the Chilean vessel. Anyway, that explains the French flags on the Spanish ships.

Here's the Spaniards, blockading Valdivia. In the foreground is the frigate Esmeralda, and beyond it the brig Pezuela. The wind is blowing from the top-right of the picture, so the Spaniards are beating at the start.

Esmeralda (44) - Q3 C4 - Square-Rig, Chaser Guns - 46pts
Pezuela (20) - Q4 C2 - Square-Rig, Chaser Guns - 25pts

(In the Under The Southern Cross scenario there are special command rules for the Pezuela, limiting its contribution to the action. I reflected this by reducing its quality so it's more of a liability.)

And heading out of Valdivia, with the wind on its starboard quarter, and aiming to sink, burn or capture the Esmerelda, is the Lautaro, under Captain O'Brien.

Lautaro (44) - Q3 C4 - Square-Rig, Chaser Guns, Swashbucklers, Carronades - 58pts

(I realise that in this period pretty well all ships carried carronades. I gave Lautaro carronades and swashbucklers to represent the desperate nature of their mission, and to balance up the forces a little)

The setup is as follows: the wind is from the north-east. Lautaro starts in the centre of the east edge, facing west (broad-reach). Divide the west edge up into six equal zones, and dice for each Spanish ship, positioning them in the corresponding zone, facing east (close-hauled).

I made all ships square-rigged to better reflect the classic square vs fore-and-aft of the period, and assumed that things like marines and so forth would cancel each other out and be irrelevant, so no Drilled Soldiers. In this period I forego the reload rules, which are designed to represent the less reliable and less consistent armament of 15th-17th century ships. However I decided that a ship could only reload one broadside for free each turn; the second would cost an action.

Anyway, the wind shifted straight away, blowing south and putting both sides on a roughly equal footing. I'd randomised the starting positions, so the Spaniards moved to bring their ships together in a line so they could concentrate their efforts on the Chilean ship. O'Brien brought the Lautaro into action rapidly.

The first broadside saw only superficial damage inflicted on the Esmeralda.

The Esmeralda returned fire with a ragged broadside, but inflicted a hit on the Lautaro.

But a blunder saw the two Spanish vessels collide, both ending up damaged.

The wind shifted further, forcing the Esmeralda to wear in order to get back into the action. Lautaro tacked, and in doing so brought its guns to bear on Pezuela.

A close-range rake shattered the Spanish brig.

History will never know what happened next though. Although only lightly damaged O'Brien struck his ship. Maybe with the Esmeralda between him and his port he felt unsafe, or he thought more Spaniards were in the offing. Whatever the reason, the Chileans gave up.

(Galleys & Galleons players will recognise the cursed roll of '1' on the All At Sea table.)

So a short action resulting in a strangely unsatisfying Spanish victory.

Since that had only taken about 15 minutes to set up and play, I had another go. The wind shifted as before, and this time the Spanish decided to try and take the Chilean ship from both sides.

Lautaro veered downwind, and a long-range shot started a fire on Pezuela. This was quickly extinguished, but left the brig a long way downwind of the fight, forcing it to slowly turn back into the action.

As Esmeralda turned into the fight Lautaro tried, and failed, to rake her.

Both ships were sailing close to the wind, so there was little scope for maneuvers. Esmeralda wisely tried to keep a decent separation between the vessels to avoid falling foul of the carronades or a potential boarding action. As it was its gunnery inflicted a hit on the Lautaro.

Lautaro returned the favour, but the Chilean's broadside not only damaged the Spanish ship, but killed her captain as well.

With the weather gauge (just) Esmeralda tried to rake Lautaro, but failed. However the shots did chew up some of the Lautaro's rigging.

Pezuela was still trying to get back into the fight, but the damage it had taken was too much and the crew struck their colours. The Esmeralda would now be fighting alone.

Again the Esmeralda failed to rake Lautaro, but did inflict more damage to the rigging. The Lautaro was now heavily battered. But it fought on, and soon had the Esmeralda in a similar state. One good broadside from either ship would see their opponent strike or sink. A shot wounded Captain O'Brien.

Esmeralda was forced to pull away from Lautaro, which swung around and fired a ragged broadside at long range.

Esmeralda caught fire ...

... and exploded!

So George O'Brien and the crew of the Lautaro had lifted the blockade of Valdivia, and removed one of the Spanish frigates from the war.

Historically O'Brien led the Lautaro straight at the Esmeralda and boarded. But the ships separated in the swell, leaving O'Brien and a small boarding party trapped on the Spanish ship. O'Brien was killed, and the Esmeralda fled. In 1820 Lord Cochrane led a daring expedition into the harbour at Callao, and cut out the Esmeralda whilst evading forts and gunboats.

Both games were more fun than I thought they might be, and the second one turned into a desperate fight at the end, with both ships one decent critical hit from sinking or striking and both crews fighting with lower Quality because of the loss of their respective captains.