If you have not used the Sails of Glory system for multiplayer games, I highly recommend it. It is a system that has simultaneous turns so it cuts down the amount of downtime and admin making it easy for each player to take control of a single ship as part of a larger age of sails battle.
On April 1st (almost anniversary), we ran a Battle of Copenhagen 1801 scenario using a modified advanced Sails of Glory rules set.
The main idea was to have the two battle lines run by an automa/NPC and the players commanding one ship each trying to influence the battle. The British commanded the frigates as they arrived randomly after being swept away by the currents around the Middle Ground and the Danish commanded the ships kept in reserve which for the battle was actually allowed to sortie out of port.
Each turn considered to be 5 minutes of “real time” in game and every 6 turns players would draw special event cards to affect the battle and NPC control and hidden events and reefs were controlled by a game master.
The terrain is custom built and the main battle line are not SoL minis. I am still working on a post on the scenario rules but I wanted you to enjoy the pictures.
The Battle of Copenhagen 1801 is almost the true definition of a paradox:
- It was fought by the insistence of Czar Paul of Russia, but he was dead by the time it took place
- It was a sea battle to avoid having to commit the Danish navy
- It is generally considered a victory both Danes and Brits
In this post you can find rules and a scenario for the Battle of Copenhagen sprinkled with a bit of What-ifs to keep it interesting. The rule set is a modified Sails of Glory set with rules for NPC battle line while the players each take command of a smaller ship to try to turn the tide of battle.
Battle of Copenhagen – A Danish Perspective
The historical background for the Battle and main Danish battle line is laid out here. Feel free to skip it.
April 2, 1801 was the beginning of the end of Danish ambitions of becoming a great power in Europe have had a significant impact on Danish foreign policy for almost 200 years, yet it is an event surrounded more by myths than facts and in the Danish collective conscience it would have been a Danish victory had it not been for Nelson’s cowardly ruse d’guerre.
However, in the minds of the Danish planners and the commander-in-chief Olfert Fischer in the months prior to the battle there were little doubt. The defeat was a foregone conclusion, the question was whether defeating the Danish garrison could be made a price too high to pay for the Royal Navy.
The cause for the battle can be found 10 years earlier. Denmark-Norway during the Great Northern War (1710-1721) broken the free of the Swedish yoke. Until around the mid-17th century Denmark-Norway had been the leading power in Scandinavia but since then Sweden had been on the rise and had designs on the double kingdom. But the Swedish had been beaten by Russia and while Denmark-Norway never got the revenge or land back lost in the previous century an uneasy power balance existed in Scandinavia. Sweden were held in check by the threat of Russian invasion of Finland should they run into a new war and Denmark-Norway was content with a neutral foreign policy. With all the wars (The Seven Years War, Austrian Succession, American Revolution to name a few) in the following century in Europe being neutral had a great advantage, neutral ships were under the articles of war able to run blockades and that was quite lucrative. The Danish merchant navy grew and grew and merchants got bolder and bolder. In the 1790s during the revolutionary wars, Denmark was again able to run the British blockade of French ports and some may even started carrying contraband which is still illegal under international laws.
Britain therefore wishes to inspect neutral ships and neutral countries insist on their rights not to be inspected and supply armed escorts for their merchant ships, leading to several stand offs between neutral nations and Britain. Then 1798 on the distant island Malta a chain of events were set in motion which would lead to the Battle of Copenhagen. The island had belonged to the Knights of Saint John but they were evicted by Napoleon who took over the island. Many of the knights fled to Russia and granted the Russian Czar Paul the title of Grandmaster of the order hoping that he would help recover the island for the Order.
In 1800 the island was liberated from French occupation but not by the Russians but the British who refused to hand the island back to the Order recognising it as an important naval base in the Mediterranean Sea. This led to the Czar being increasingly hostile towards Britain. As a response Russia created the League of Armed Neutrality consisting of Denmark-Norway, Sweden, Prussia and Russia in order for the neutral nations to stand together and defy Britain on the open seas.
The reason why it succeeded to create the League was the pressure Russia could apply to its immediate neighbours Prussia and Sweden. If Sweden did not comply Russia might invade Finland and allow Denmark to retake the lost territories, if Denmark left, Russia might ease the pressure on Sweden allowing them to invade Norway. Denmark was now caught in the act of balancing between Britain and Russia.
The British feared for the loss of their trade in wood and other naval supplies in the Baltic region, while these had traditionally been the source for the Royal Navy the Russian hostile intents made it vital to secure it. In 1801 a large naval force was sent to the Baltic with the goal of breaking up the League of Armed Neutrality by force. First stop was Copenhagen but the Royal Navy task force would then have to take on Sweden and Russia in turn.
The Battle of Copenhagen was from the Danish view point fought to appease the Russians and avoiding a Swedish invasion of Norway. Denmark was between a rock and a hard place. First of all, Copenhagen could easily be bombarded from the sea as mortars of the bomb vessels could outrange the land based cannons but the Danish navy had to be protected as well, without the navy the integrity of the Danish-Norwegian realms and overseas territories could not be defended and the international trade which was the whole reason to begin with, could also not be defended, so the navy could not be sacrificed in the defence, then results would be the same. Hence the defence of Copenhagen would fall on whatever ships could be spared and a line of outdated hulls were placed in the harbour entrances. The results of the battle was a foregone conclusion, but could Danish honour be upheld in the eyes of the Russians?
Tragically when the battle was fought on April 2, 1801, Czar Paul had died a few days prior, but the news had not reached the forces and the League which was his brain child was dead anyway.
Outline of the Battle and Setup
The Danish line consists of a number of “block ships”, old ship of the line hulls laid out and armed plus the sea forts of Trekroner (North) and Lynetten (Southern). In between are floating batteries and a couple of smaller ships and gun boats meant to rush to defend if the British aimed to try to break through the line. Furthermore the Danish waters are quite shallow with only two deep channels, the Kongedybet (King’s Deep) and the Hollænderdybet, the Danish force was arrayed to defend Kongedybet, the one closer to Copenhagen.
This makes the Danish line very static and battle rather uninteresting but the Danish had a small reserve of two Ships of the Line and two Frigates which were destined to sail for Norway but the arrival of the British navy had prevented them. In reality they were kept in harbour but in the scenario we allow them to sortie out and try to interrupt the British plans.
Nelson’s plan called for the ships of the line to closely engage the Danish line for this 12 ships-of-the-line were allocated, these were the smaller 3rd rates as the reefs and shallows around Copenhagen were a big unknown. He were to attack from the south, the idea was that a wind from South would allow them to attack where the line was the weakest and also prevent the Swedes from interfering as they would be up against the wind to attack. Admiral Parker, who was the commander-in-chief of the British forces, stayed North of the Danish line with the bigger ships-of-the-line.
This proved to be the first challenge for the British. As they moved to engage the line from the South they moved down through Hollænderdybet and tried to get around the Middle Ground sand banks but anchored up to far North thinking they had actually cleared the bank. But Middelgrund would claim several ships grounded as they tried to make their way around it and also critically delayed the British frigates, gun brigs and bombardment vessels, which had been selected to break the Danish line and bombard the Danish naval facilities hoping to force Denmark out of the war.
As the Danish defensive line and the ships-of-the-line will be more or less static and simply battering away at each other, I decided to use an NPC approach for them as that would be rather uninteresting. The scenario instead allow the players to take control of one ship each using the advanced Sails of Glory rules set. They would represent either Danish ships trying to inflict damage on the British line or try to break into the Danish line.
The victory goals are for the Danish to force 3 ships-of-the-line out of the battle plus 1 for each ship-of-the-line they lose themselves, this represent the defence being so tenacious that the British retire to preserve their forces.
The British has two possible objectives. Break all “capital ships” in the Danish line, that is the bigger blockships and the ships-of-the-line or capture Trekroner fort to the North opening up Copenhagen to a bombardment.
Battle is joined around 11:00 the British battle line is in place. Note Russell and Bellona have run aground on the far left. The smaller Danish gun boats are rushing to the gaps in the line.
An overview of the battle
British have opted to split their forces, the gun brigs go after the Southern end of the Danish line while the frigates rush to cut off the Danish reserve seen in the background speeding to turn around Trekroner fort to engage the Northern end of Danish line.
NPC status whiteboard for updating throughout the day. Ld = leadership (motivation for staying in the battle), FP (firepower number of gun chits), HP (hull points). Controlled by the game master.
Game developed into a knife fight at the Northern end where the British frigates sacrificed themselves to slow the Danish ship-of-the-line and escorts.
The Sails of Glory Game System
A quick comment on the game system. The system is not the most well suited for simulation style games but it is easy to learn but hard to master with the wind etc. to take into account. The system requires you to plan your movement two steps ahead simulating that ships in the age of sails so not very fast to maneuver. The great strength of the game system is that it is simultaneous turns meaning that the game is not slowed significantly with more players (as long as each player control only one ship). The game does not have a great solo player mode or NPC movement system hence I choose the game master approach. As much as I like the system, I still find it a bit cumbersome with quite a bit of admin work for managing movement and crew actions and thus I only recommend running with one ship per player and not try it as a fleet versus fleet engagement with only two players.
A more thorough scenario description and layout is coming, but I guess, it is still weeks away before I find the time to do a full summary. Hope you enjoyed the pictures.
Playing with History 