International Naval Wargames Day 2024

Today, August 6th, is the birthday of Fred Jane, author of 'Janes Fighting Ships' and, of course, pioneering naval wargamer. The day is celebrated as International Naval Wargames Day, and I took some time this evening to play a couple of games in his honour.

I had planned a fair-sized Galleys & Galleons scenario, but I've been struck down by a lurgy these past couple of days, so had to scale things back. In the end I chose to refight a couple of single-ship actions I'd done last year since I had all the ship stats to hand and the models were already labelled and ready to go.

The first was an 1820 action between an Argentinian privateer, the Santa Rita and a small Portuguese warship, the Maria Teresa. The details are HERE.

This is a night action, and the Argentinian ship starts anchored and unalerted. The Maria Teresa has a chance to sneak in and get the jump on its opponent; before the larger ship gets to fight back. Unfortunately because of the wind the Maria Teresa had to take a slow, long way around the anchored Santa Rita in order to avoid being spotted too early.

The wind changed a lot, making the approach very difficult indeed.

Eventually the Maria Teresa was within striking range of its opponent, although the Argentinians were beginning to suspect that something was up.

A first broadside woke them up, and scored some light damage.

The Santa Rita turned at anchor and replied with its own broadside, scoring a serious hit back.

However confusion on board saw it swing back the other way, exposing its stern to a rake from the Maria Teresa. It escaped without much in the way of serious damage, however.

Because of the wind the Maria Teresa was in difficulties with regard to closing the range on the Santa Rita, and since it was already badly damaged couldn't afford to take many more close-range broadsides. The Portuguese ship turned away in order to see to some repairs.

The crew of the Santa Rita raised anchor and began to turn their ship into action.

Slowly the courses of the two ships converged. The Santa Rita fired a broadside that damaged the rigging of the Maria Teresa.

In return the Maria Teresa damaged the Santa Rita's rudder.

The two ships were now on parallel courses at close range.

But the Santa Rita's damaged steering saw it run aboard the Maria Teresa. The two ships grappled.

There was a swift boarding action which saw the smaller Portuguese ship strike; a victory for the Argentinian privateer, Santa Rita.

For the second game I went back in time a couple of years to 1818 and reran an action between the Chilean vessel Lautaro and the Spanish frigate Esmeralda. This was an attempt by the Chileans to raise the blockade of the port of Valdivia. You can read about the setup from when I played it before HERE.

Here's the early stages of the action. In the distance you can see the Esmerelda on the left and the Lautaro on the right. In the foreground is the small Spanish brig Pezuela.

Lautaro had closed with the Esmerelda immediately, looking to subdue it before the Pezuela could come up in support. It got in an initial rake, although the fire was less effective than hoped for.

The Spanish ship turned across the bows of the Lautaro and delivered a crippling rake in return. Lautaro was in serious trouble already.

The two ships adopted parallel courses. Lautaro managed to stave off disaster with some emergency repairs, before settling into an ineffective broadside duel with the Esmeralda.

Ineffective, that is, until Lautaro managed a well-aimed broadside that crippled Esmerelda. At this point Pezuela came in and fired an ineffective long-range broadside before sailing off to take no further part in the action.

Both ships were now in a bad way, and it was Lautaro that gave up first, striking to the Spanish frigate.

Lautaro was unlucky to get a strike on the All At Sea table. In fact in both scenarios I ignored the first All At Sea strike for each vessel; I find too many single ship actions end this way, and thought it kept things a little more interesting. It's OK for larger actions (and indeed, makes them rather fun), but when there's never going to be a closer friendly vessel it does seem a little sudden, and harsh. In the case of the second scenario Lautaro had already had one strike result; this was her second.

I retained the reload rules for these games (I didn't use them in the original refights), and didn't think that the games suffered for having them.

Anyway, it was good to get some ships out on International Naval Wargames Day.