Napoleonic Naval

With Renfrey visiting from UK, Dale visiting from Canberra & Mark recovered fromhis operation, we had a full house of 6 tonight fro a Napoleonic naval battle.
Brits: Jim, Renfrey & Dale.
French: Mitch & Mike.  Spanish allies: Mark.
The Allies have 2 more ships than the Brits to compensate for the Brits being Elite crews to the French regular & the Spanish raw.
Ships are 3D printed.  House rules.

The Brits are on the right, the Allies on the left.  The wind is blowing accross the table towards the camera giving the allies the weather gauge.

Both sides manouvre their 3 squadrons towards forming a single long line as they approach each other.

As the lead squadrons pass each other the lead French ship is pounded so hard the strikes her colours & turns out of the line.

The British form a perfect line, but their seamanship is better than their gunnery dice & they get much the worse in the exchange of fire as the fleets pass each other.

The 2nd French squadron takes advantage of the weather gauge to turn towards the brit line & open fire with double shotted guns.

The 2nd French squadron breaks thru the Brit line wrecking havoc with close range raking double shot.  The Spanish also turn towards the British line.

With their line broken in two places the British fleet is shattered.  Only 3 British ships manage to escape to the left, the other 6 striking their colours.   The Brits had no opportunity to take possession of the one French ship that stuck it's colours, so that ship ran it's flag back up.

It was a rare crushing defeat for the Brits.  The island cramped their action & their gunnery dice wasn't good, but the main factor in their defeat was the allies' use of the weather gauge to break the British line.