ChiggyVonR wrote:
I know this is going to get the purists off their seats but I was curious if others feel that the game is modeling this era correctly?
To me the rake tables are just off when it comes to rigging. You see if you turn the ship either way you will hit sails when you are raking the ship, however was that damage that great? I mean you punch a hole in the cloth, big deal.
To me the rake did more damage to the hull since your shot had a better chance of hitting the ship if your range was off. meaning the length of the ship was easily hit as opposed to having to be on target for a depth of what 20 feet you are hitting at a depth of 50+. Now I don't recall the specs of the sizes of ships nor am I going to go look them up.
But rakes, especially at longer range should do more hull and crew damage then rigging.
In other words, it may be true to form for the original game, but I think the original game got it wrong!
Yeah I know the beams would be more exposed, but considering they were dead eying the shot, the length of the target area, because of the variance in powder strength would be the bigger issue, and the spares of the sails would really be more exposed when side by side then raking because the spares would be raked so to speak when battle lines were beside each other.
So how would I change it? Maybe allow the target to be hull when it is being raked. Again the hull would take the major damage, the sails I think would hold up under the attacks much better then the surface of the hull as the shot drops in and kills crew and blows open the deck and perhaps damages the guns.
So I ask, is raking a ship modeled correctly?
The original WSIM was a moderately decent game, but as a historical simulation it was, to be very kind, highly inadequate. The gunnery rules were among the poorest rules in the game. The gunnery factors were always subject to serious questions by knowledgeable players, and did not seem to take into account anything other than the official rated number of guns. The rules for gunnery damage were apparently based on little more than the knowledge level of a somewhat well informed non-historian.
Raking is an example of a rule which has almost no relationship to reality.
First, rakes only occurred when the firing vessel was able to fire down the entire length of the target. A sixty degree angle off the bow or stern was not a rake; it wasn’t even a quarter rake.
Second, rakes were only effective at close range. At anything more than about a hundred yards, the relatively narrow width of even the largest vessel became a difficult target. The game combines the to-hit and to-damage determinations into a single die roll. Thus a “rake” at long range becomes easier than a broadside shot; exactly the reverse of the actual situation.
Third, rakes were aimed at the hull, not the rigging. The purpose of a rake was to send shot down the length of the interior of the target. Doing this, the shot was almost certain to strike and damage something.
Fourth, stern rakes were significantly more effective than bow rakes. The bows of all ships were much stronger than the sterns. Further, at the stern there was a strong change of damaging the target’s steering gear, thus crippling it; or of hitting command personnel.
Fifth, ships which were dismasted (in game no rigging) might or might not surrender when raked. The real issue wasn’t a one-time rake, but the ability of the attacking vessel to remain in a close raking position and the inability of the attacked vessel to change this.
The “long range shot at rigging” and “short range select rigging or hull” appears to be something the authors got out of a coffee-table picture book. A requirement to fire at rigging or hull did not exist as a matter of ballistics, regardless of the range; it was a tactical choice.
It was always possible to target hull or rigging at almost any effective range. At longer ranges “skipping” shot (just like skipping stones on a pond) was regularly used in good weather to greatly extend the range at which an enemy’s hull could be hit. Hull hits at up to a mile were recorded.
Also, rigging shots were low damage return actions. It took a lot of good shooting and a lot of luck to obtain major rigging damage (unlike in the game). Shooting at rigging was done to obtain either the chance to control the engagement (notably being able to disengage at will) or to create a tactical advantage over a less maneuverable opponent. The former tactic was successful some of the time, the latter less often (and required very well trained gun crews).
And, just as a note, when firing at the “rigging” the target wasn’t the sails or the masts, it was the rigging itself. Hitting sails was almost meaningless. Ships normally fought with a significantly reduced amount of sail (known as “fighting sail”). If a sail became too heavily holed, the ship would simply spread a different sail and replace the damaged one. Mast were too hard a target except at extremely close range (not that an attacker complained when a mast was hit), and at that point the enemy’s hull was usually a far more important target. The purpose of firing high was to cut the standing rigging. If enough standing rigging could be damaged, eventually a mast would fall from the pressure of the wind on its sails.
The comment in the next post about Nelson is both very wrong, and very correct.
The wrong. Nelson did not cross a “T”. Technically that is a tactic of the steam warship era, not the age of sail. In fact, he intentionally sailed into what could be described as a crossed “T” position. This was done to break the enemy’s line.
The correct. Most age of sail battle tactics do not work in WSIM. Nelson’s grand double column break of the Franco-Spanish line at Trafalgar is effectively impossible. HMS Victory, Nelson’s flagship, was under fire from at least a half dozen enemy ships for almost an hour as it approached their line. The ship took modest hull and rigging damage during this time (and much of the rigging was repaired before the serious fighting began). Imagine the same situation in WSIM. As noted, Victory would probably have lost all its rigging long before getting close to the enemy line, and also struck, since she was, according to the game rules, being raked. Further, even if she could get close, her hull would never last to break the line (note that in the actual battle, after breaking the line, she continued to fight for well over three hours in the middle of the engagement). Here the problem is that the real ships (and crews) were able to absorb massive amounts of damage, especially to their hulls, and continue to both float and fight.
Also, as an aside, it is appalling to see how often British ships strike in WSIM. A quick check of Royal Navy losses shows 4 ships of the line (64+ guns) lost to enemy action between 1793 and 1802 (inclusive). From 1803 to 1815 no ship of the line was lost to the enemy (at least one did surrender, but was retaken by the end of the battle). The same list included 16 French ships of the line surrendered to the British from just 1803 to 1806. Obviously, the morale and surrender rules have no foundation in reality.
” So how would I change it?” Effectively, you can not. The real problems are far deeper in the game system than just the raking rule and would required massive modifications to the entire game system; or, better yet, a different set of rules.
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