delatbabel
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Joined: 7/30/2006
From: Sydney, Australia
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Being an auld salty at heart, I wrote this for my gaming group a few years back. I thought people here might enjoy it. It started with a discussion of why it costs $5 to maintain a fleet in a sea zone but only $1 to maintain it in an enemy blockade box, and why a blockading fleet always gets the wind gauge.
A fleet blockading a port is, generally speaking, and depending on the weather conditions and geography around the port, in relatively calm conditions & waters compared to one on the open ocean. The ships will usually spend most of their time "hove to", which means ship head to wind, sea anchor stuck out the front, not moving very much. There are no tides or tidal currents in the Mediteranean, and in most cases outside the Med (the English channel and Irish and Norwegian coasts being the big exception) the tidal flows are relatively light. So a ship in blockade mode can sit around not doing much most of the time. A ship on patrol in the ocean can't do that, they have an area to cover and usually have to sail around some kind of enlarged triangle (one run downwind, two legs upwind) as their patrol area.
Being at sea, sailing, is much harder on the men and the ship than being hove to under a sea anchor. In the days of canvas sails, having the sails up for any extended period of time exposes them to wear and tear at a much greater rate than having them furled. British ships, especially post 1805, used to be able to spot French ships at a distance because their sails were white (from lack of use after being tied up in port), rather than the murky grey colour of the English sails which saw constant use.
Supplying a fleet at sea is also a lot harder than supplying a fleet in a blockade. Out at sea everything is bouncing around all over the place. In shore you just wait for a calm, sail a small boat with the supplies over to the side of the ship, and then just winch the whole lot on board. I think that's the core of the reason why it takes $5 to supply a fleet at sea but only $1 to supply a blockading fleet.
If you are in a fleet under blockade you are at a serious disadvantage to the fleet in the blockade. First, you have to pick the wind to leave port. Unless you fancy sailing off a lee shore (meaning the wind is blowing on shore, so you have to sail upwind to get away), you are going to have to wait for a land breeze to get you going. Then you are going to be blown into the fleet that's blockading you.
Two things a square rigged ship is very good at doing -- running (sailing downwind), and reaching (sailing across the wind). One thing that a square rigged ship is not very good at doing -- sailing upwind.
One thing that a square rigged ship is very bad at doing -- coming off a run into a reach or a beat. On the other hand it can go from one reach (sailing port side to wind, for example) and turn through 180 degrees and come to the other reach very quickly. Once a ship is sailing down wind with the big square sails out, however, it doesn't do the job of turning back to windwards at all well, and it takes all hands to do it which means you can't easily fire your guns at the same time.
So the ships that are blockading you are going to come across your face -- you sailing downwind at them, pointy end first, copping every broadside they throw at you. Then, when you have enough water to harden up (go across or into the wind so you can return the broadside) you are going through the hardest possible manouver in a square rigger -- while under cannon fire as well. To do that you have to sacrifice the wind gauge. Your only other option is to sail through their line and present your stern at their broadsides -- an unpopular move amongst the crew and especially the senior officers as they all tend to end up dead with large cannon ball sized holes in them. Meanwhile the blockading fleet is just going from reach to reach across the front or stern of you making larger and larger holes in everything and it's all very sad.
So in reality a blockading fleet has a huge advantage over one in port. Even a small blockading fleet can make a big mess out of anything trying to enter or leave.
There are some exceptions.
The Irish West coast and the Norwegian coast (I don't think there are any ports there that are represented in EiA) have a stong gulf stream current, and large offshore shoals. This tends to put a blockading fleet in danger of suddenly sinking. Not much fun.
The English channel ports are almost impossible to blockade, and that includes London, Portsmouth, Plymouth, and Le Havre. This is because of the strong channel current which is tidal and strongly variable, and also because of strong wind vs tide effects. The Alderney races are nearly impossible to navigate when the wind is blowing in one direction and the current is flowing in the other direction, even modern large container ships tend to avoid it lest they break in half or broach (twist and roll over sideways, the fastest way to die at sea). Cherbourg and St Malo are not quite in the same category because of the shape of the Cherbourg peninsula, and Brest is too far into the Atlantic to have that problem.
The Spanish solved the problem of English fleets blockading their ports with the gun galleys. 20 sailing men, 10 marines, 200 sweaty smelly slaves on oars, and 2 long 24 pounders. In a calm they can make a mess of the biggest ship, just sit off its quarter where it can't return fire, and unload the 24 pounders over and over again until the big ship goes down. They are too fragile to cover the atlantic ports, however they can throw a sail up and make it as far as the northern Morrocco ports or even Oran. Caught in a blow, however, and it's all hands to the bottom of the sea, and if a fast moving frigate can catch them on the open water beam to beam then it's good night Irene as even a single broadside will turn them into matchsticks.
The "cutting out" expedition favoured by the age-of-sail novelists didn't ever really happen much. Fire ships and the like (sending a burning hulk of a ship into a port to set fire to the ships at anchor there) and marine expeditions to blow up ships in port did happen a fair bit, however, and so there are ways for a blockading fleet to cause casualties to a fleet in port. Not sure how you'd represent that in game terms.
The bit about fleets coming in to port not being susceptible to the blockade is a bit silly. Fleets at sea are going to have to come in upwind if possible, or drop most of their sails as they approach. Most ports have a channel, or bit of deep water & safe passage that ships will come in on. So there they are, reefing in sails and navigating closely to find the right passage, lining up port lights or channel markers, etc. All sounds possible until you realise that the one thing they have to do to get into port is to present their sterns to the blockading fleet as they go in. Meanwhile the blockaders will be on their best point of sail going back and forth across the bows and sterns of the ships as they head in. See above under "cannon ball sized holes" for the types of problems that presents.
< Message edited by delatbabel -- 1/30/2008 1:50:14 PM >
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