All at Sea - On the Stocks in JJ's Dockyard, New British Builds, Part Two

JJ's Royal Dock Yard has been hard at work with nine new hulls launched recently and now busily being worked on to get them fitted out for sea trials before joining the fleet.

This post follows All at Sea - On the Stocks in JJ's Dockyard, New British Builds, Part One which introduced my model of HMS Victory together with some other British naval and Nelsonian ephemera.

The nine new builds just recently built and painted awaiting fitting out.

I tend to work in batches of the same class as familiarity with just the right amount of thread to rig each mast becomes unconsciously-competent with each model completed and so the first additions to the collection cabinet are three new named British frigates.

The respective fleets are growing with each build completed and I will look to do a video and photo shoot of the collection on completion of these latest models.

My three new British named frigates, HMS Euryalus, Naiad and Indefatigable

HMS Euryalus

One of my sources for painting my version of HMS Euryalus was the Profile Prints illustration showing the 1803 36-gun Apollo Class frigate in classics checkerboard pattern.
https://profileprintsgallery.com/hms-euryalus-1803-745-p.asp

Master British ship builder Henry Adams 1713 - 1805 

HMS Euryalus was an Apollo Class 36-gun frigate built by Henry Adams at Bucklers Hard in Hampshire on the banks of Beaulieu River and launched on the 6th June 1803.

Named after Euryalus (pronounced Yuri-alus) the son of Mecisteus and one of the crew of the mythical band of heroes who crewed the Argos, accompanying Jason in his quest for the Golden Fleece, her first captain was Sir Henry Blackwood who rose to fame for his dramatic part in the capture of the French 80-gun Guillaume Tell whilst commanding another 36-gun frigate HMS Penelope on blockade duty off Malta in 1800.

Captain Sir Henry Blackwood, 1770 - 1832
John Hoppner RA

Blackwood and his crew successfully closed on the French 3rd rate which was trying to escape the blockade in darkness and, through a process of luffing under reduced sail, managed to maintain station under the stern galleries of the much larger French ship reducing her to mastless state by daybreak by which time she was joined by the 64-gun HMS Lion and the 80-gun HMS Foudroyant who forced the Frenchman to strike.

Captain Blackwood's 36-gun frigate HMS Penelope delivers another crashing stern rake against the 80-gun Guillaume Tell, as day breaks to reveal the support of HMS Lion and Foudroyant

The action caught the attention of Blackwood's commander Rear Admiral Sir Horatio Nelson aboard the Foudroyant who was enthusiastic in his praise for him and his crew's action, concluding his remarks by asking him to 'say everything kind for me to your brave officers and men'.

Blackwood was appointed command of Euryalus in April 1803 and following her launch spent the next two years operating in the Channel and off the coast of Ireland until being sent in July 1805 to observe the movements of the Franco-Spanish fleet under Vice Admiral Villeneuve following his clash with Vice Admiral Sir Robert Calder's fleet at the inconclusive Battle of Cape Finisterre on the 23rd July 1805, when the former retired with his allies to the Spanish ports of Vigo and later Corunna to make repairs.

A suitably armed Greek warrior figure behind a golden hopolon shield and with sword drawn, captures the look of Euryalus as the figurehead of this British frigate. 

He reported back to the Admiralty when Villeneuve retired to Cadiz traveling back to the Admiralty to deliver his news and meeting Nelson there, and joining the admiral as part of his fleet destined to intercept the Combined Fleet in the October at Trafalgar with Blackwood in command of the inshore squadron aboard Euryalus.

Turning down the offer of command of a ship of the line by Nelson on the eve of the battle, he would meet him for the last time aboard the Victory and together with Captain Hardy witness Nelson's pre-battle will before returning to Euryalus in command of the British frigates; ordered to assist in supporting and recovering damaged British ships of the line, whilst also given the latitude to instruct the rear most British ships on how they might best conduct themselves in the latter part of the battle.

At battle's end Euryalus became the temporary flagship for Admiral Collingwood overseeing the recovery of the fleet and its prizes as the weather closed in on the damaged ships, with Euryalus and Blackwood sent off back to England ten days later carrying Villeneuve's dispatches to the Admiralty in London, thus ensuring Blackwood was in the capital for Nelson's funeral at St Paul's Cathedral on the 8th January 1806.

Post Trafalgar, Euryalus returned to the Mediterranean under Blackwood in February 1806 and at the end of the year would see the appointment of a new commander of the ship, Captain George Dundas with Euryalus involved in convoy escort work and cruising against enemy privateers and merchantmen.

In 1807 she returned to the UK to join the North Sea squadron in operations against the Danes and operating on clandestine duties rescuing members of the French Royal family from Prussia and delivering them to Sweden.

In 1809 she was part of the squadron tasked with supporting the failed British expedition to the Walcheren in Holland, followed at the conclusion of the month long expedition with anti-privateer patrols in the Channel.

In the years 1810-14 Euryalus was back in the Mediterranean intially joining the British inshore squadron under the command of her old captain, Blackwood, escorting convoys and blockading French forces in Toulon, whilst cruizing against French privateers.

In April 1813 Euryalus came under the command of Captain Charles Napier and whilst still operating in the Mediterranean the following year, almost to the day Napier and his crew received news of Napoleon's defeat and abdication when entering the port of Marseilles, later sailing to Frejus Bay to embark Napoleon and take him to Elba.

This remarkable ship still had a final episode to play in as it set sail from Gibraltar to Bermuda in June 1814 to join a British squadron under Captain Andrew King escorting British troops destined to fight in the American War of 1812, later taking part in the bombardments of Fort Washington in the August of that year operating on the River Potomac in support of British forces.

In September she took part in the bombardment of Fort McHenry in operations against Baltimore and on the 28th January 1815 Captain Napier issued a challenge to Captain Charles Gordon commanding USS Constellation to meet in single combat, which was accepted by Gordon, but the meeting was postponed with Euryalus directed to support operations against New Orleans, before the conclusion of the war that year brought Euryalus service career to a close

Traditionally HMS Euryalus would have been armed with 26 x 18-pdr guns on her gun deck, 2 x 9-pdr guns and 10 x 32-pdr carronades on her quarter deck and 2 x 9-pdr guns and 4 x 32-pdr carronades on her forecastle.

HMS Indefatigable

Perhaps one of the most famous British warships in the age of sail period is the frigate HMS Indefatigable forever linked to one of the most famous captains of his age, Sir Edward Pellew, which is saying something, in a time for the Royal Navy when its ranks glittered with successful and talented commanders.

HMS Indefatigable was designed and built as an Ardent class 64-gun ship of the line by the talented British ship designer Sir Thomas Slade whose career was covered in part one of this series of posts for his design of another famous British warship HMS Victory.

By the time she was built, also at Bucklers Hard, and rolled down the slipway in early July 1784, Slade was long dead and the 64-gun ship of the line was obsolete as a class, replaced by the 74-gun ship as the standard line of battle vessel and so the brand new Indefatigable went straight into the mothballed 'in-ordinary' collection of ships, with no decision on how she would be deployed.

In 1794, along with two other former 64-gun ships of the line, HMS Magnanime and HMS Anson, Indefatigable was 'razeed' which saw the vessel cut down from two decks to one creating a very sturdy, with its ship of the line timbers supporting the gun deck, 44-gun frigate.

Her new arrangement saw her deck able to support and maintain the use of her twenty-six 24-pdr long guns and her punch was further increased with the addition of six 42-pdr carronades to her upper quarter deck and forecastle 12-pdrs, making her a fifth rate frigate but with a significantly heavy broadside compared with the 18 pounder frigates starting to become the standard in European fleets.

Commissioned in December 1794 under Sir Edward Pellew, she would be under his command up to early 1799 during which Pellew led his Channel based frigate squadron on prize capturing spree which was shared out between him, his officers and ships crews netting them a fortune in prize money and helping to clear the home waters of enemy privateers and men-of-war.

Captain Sir Edward Pellew

The culmination of this highly profitable and successful 'cruizing' reached a significant high point when on the 13th January 1797 following the failed French invasion of Ireland in December 1796, Indefatigable in company with the 36-gun frigate, HMS Amazon encountered the 74-gun ship Droits de l'Homme off the rocky Brittany coast as the French ship was attempting to return to port in rough seas that meant the French ship was unable to open the lower gun ports.

In a fifteen hour engagement in winds increasing to gale force, the damage the two British ships managed to inflict on their larger adversary meant the French crew lost control of the vessel and it was swept onto a sandbar and destroyed with heavy loss of life among its crew and the 700-800 French troops she was carrying for the aborted invasion attempt.

The loss on the French ship was truly horrific with, it is estimated, just over 100 killed in the battle with the two British frigates but another 800 lost from the 1,300 men aboard, when the ship broke up.

The weather was the victor overall as HMS Amazon failed to pull off in time and was herself wrecked on another sandbar, but with much less loss of life as all but nine of her crew made it to the shore including the fifteen wounded from the battle, later being taken prisoner by the French.

Incredibly HMS Indefatigable didn't loose a single casualty during the battle and suffered just eighteen wounded.

Destruction of Le Droits de l'Homme ... Frigates in Hodierne  Bay near Brest, with the Indefatigable ... throwing up rockets ... 13th January 1797, coloured aquatint engraved by Robert Dodd after his own original  published by I Brydon February 1798 - National Maritime Museum 

After Pellew left the ship, her remarkable career against enemy ships continued under several other commanders with numerous small and similarly sized cruisers, together with enemy merchantmen captured from the Channel to the Portuguese coast, which saw Indefatigable able to return to the UK in April 1802 for repairs and a return to the In-Ordinary fleet with the Peace of Amiens signed.

However her prolific activities would soon recommence with war against Napoleonic France declared she was back at sea by October 1803 under the command of Captain Sir Graham Moore, the younger brother of General Sir John Moore.

Captain Graham Moore c. 1792 - Sir Thomas Lawrence

It was under his command that Indefatigable would take part in an unusual action against Bourbon Spain, neutral at the time, but expected soon to make a declaration of war and ally herself with Napoleonic France.

On the 5th of October 1804 Indefatigable, with Moore as Commodore, commanding and in consort with HMS Medusa (32-guns), Lively (38-guns) and Amphion (32-guns) intercepted a squadron of four Spanish frigates Medee, the flagship (44-guns, 18pdr), Fama, Clara and Mercedes each 36-gun 12-pdr frigates  under Rear Admiral Don Joseph Bustamente carrying bullion from Montevideo, South America

Battle of Cape Santa Maria, from right to left HMS Lively vs Clara, an exploding Mercedes with the stern gallery of HMS Amphion beyond, HMS Indefatigable vs Medea and beyond them HMS Medusa vs Fama - Francis Sartorious

Moore offered Bustamente the opportunity to surrender, but on his refusal, action commenced in what would become known as the Battle of Cape Santa Maria, that would see one of the Spanish ships, Mercedes, blow up and be destroyed taking with her all but forty-one of her 281 man crew, and the other three captured together with an immense amount of gold.

The controversy of attacking a neutral without a formal declaration of war impacted on the unprecedented decision of the Admiralty not to grant normal Prize distribution to the captains and crews involved in the battle which caused uproar among them, having acted under orders from the Admiralty and with the enormous sum involved generated by the bullion and captured ships.estimated at over £69 million in modern value, with the eventual settlement agreed granting the four captains involved just over £1 million.

Needless to say Spain duly declared war just over a month later, on the 14th December 1804, less her gold bullion and four frigates.

After being attacked by British fire-ships and ending up grounded in their attempt to escape, the stranded French ships are engaged by HMS Imperieuse in the Basque Roads - Thomas Whitcombe

Indefatigable would continuing her traditional cruising role against enemy cruisers and merchants, taking part in April 1809 in the attack on the French fleet in the Basque Roads off Rochefort that was not as successful as perhaps it could have been.

She would end her war with the final peace in 1815 and be broken up at Sheerness in August 1816

The standard armament for HMS Indefatigable would have been 26 x 24-pdr guns on her gun deck, 8 x 12-pdr guns and 4 x 42-pdr carronades on her quarter deck and 3 x 12-pdr guns and 2 x 42-pdr carronades on her forecastle.

HMS Naiad

HMS Naiad was a 38-gun Amazon class frigate designed by Sir William Rule, built and launched at Limehouse on the River Thames in London in 1797.

The frigate took her name from the naiad or water nymphs, demigoddess in Greek mythology associated with the vital element of water.

HMS Naiad with HMS Belleisle, 23rd October 1805, in tow to Gibraltar after the Battle of Trafalgar - National Maritime Museum

Commissioned in 1798, she would serve throughout the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, being finally paid off in 1826 after her last actions against the Barbary States in the Mediterranean spending her lattter years as a coal depot ship in Latin America before being broken up in 1898, one-hundred and one years after her launching and making her the second oldest survivor of the Battle of Trafalgar after HMS Victory.

Naiad's first commander was Captain William Pierrepont and operated against French privateers and warships throughout 1798 and 1799.

HMS Ethalion in action against the Spanish frigate Thetis off Cape Finisterre, 16th October 1799

In October 1799 Naiade was Pierrepont's flagship as the the Commodore of a squadron of British frigates, HMS Ethalion (38-guns), Alcmene (32-guns) and Triton (32-guns) on blockade duty off the Spanish harbour of Vigo, when he spotted two Spanish frigates who were carrying silver specie and luxury trade goods back from the Spanish South American colonies.

Giving chase to the two Spanish ships, he was unable to catch them and they parted company in an attempt to lose their pursuers only to be intercepted by other ships in the squadron before they could make it safely into port, netting the British crews an astonishing amount of over £61 million in today's money requiring sixty-three wagons to transport the cargo from Plymouth to London on the  squadrons return home.

From that time until 1802 when Naiad was put in ordinary the frigate was in continuous action patrolling out of Plymouth in company with other frigates and involving itself in capturing enemy privateers and merchantmen and cutting out a Spanish corvette from the little port of Marin in Galicia, Spain, in fact her work at that time reads like a series of adventures straight out of Hornblower.

By early 1803, Naiad was recommissioned with the captain and crew of HMS Fisgard crewing the ship, after Fisgard was decommissioned, allowing the Naiad to recommence her patrol duties out of Plymouth, picking up where she left off the year before, with a series of actions capturing and cutting out enemy vessels along the length of the French coast, returning to Plymouth for a much needed refit in the September before sailing in the October to join Sir Edward Pellew's squadron cruising off Corunna and Ferrol preventing two French squadrons operating out of both ports from joining force and in one clash driving the French frigate Bayonnaise aground in Finisterre Bay on the 29th November.

By January 1804 Naiad was back at Plymouth spending the next year on blockade and patrol duties off Brest, which saw her in action against French gunboats that attacked the boat crews of HMS Aigle 36-guns, and the capturing of two of the gunboats being operated by a party of French sailors and officers and men of the French 63rd Infantry Regiment.

HMS Aigle involved in the action with French gunboats and HMS Naiad off Brest, 27th November 1804 - Thomas Whitcombe

The gunboats were each armed with a long brass four and twelve pounder gun and were sent back to Britain with the 18-gun Brig-sloop HMS Dispatch.

The following year, 1805 would see a climactic moment in the history of this particular frigate when in early October in consort with four other frigates (HMS Phoebe 36-guns, Sirius 36-guns, Juno 32-guns, and Niger 32-guns) she arrived off Cadiz with orders to disrupt local shipping seeking to supply the combined Franco-Spanish fleet under Vice Admiral Villeneuve.

Under her commander, Captain Thomas Dundas, she would join HMS Euryalus in consort with Phoebe, Sirius, the 10-gun cutter HMS Entrepenante and the 8-gun schooner HMS Pickle as part of the light squadron supporting Vice Admiral Nelson's British fleet at the Battle of Trafalgar on the 21st October 1805 taking action at the end of the battle with her guns to ensure the destruction of the grounded Spanish 74-gun Monarca and taking in tow the dismasted 74-gun HMS Belleisle and taking her to Gibraltar.

Post Trafalgar, HMS Naiad continued her work in home waters operating from her base in Plymouth finally being paid off in Portsmouth in 1813 undergoing major repairs the following year and held in ordinary until her return to service in 1823 with her recommissioning for action in the Mediterranean that would be her last active service before being laid up in 1828 .

HMS Naiad concluded her life as coal depot ship in Chile and Peru through the mid and later decades of the nineteenth century, a sad end for a warship with such a long record of successful service, and with amazing stories no doubt held within her old timbers. The Admiralty sold her in 1866 to the Pacific Steam Navigation Company and she was finally broken up in 1898. One can only imagine, if she had remained in home waters, if the public might have demanded her saving alongside Victory and what a comparison the two Trafalgar veterans would have made side by side.

The lines of the British frigate HMS Naiad of 1797 - National Maritime Museum

The standard armament of HMS Naiad would have been 28 x 18-pdr long guns on the main gun deck and 2 x 9-pdr long guns and 4 x 32-pdr carronades on the forecastle.

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Finally a postscript to Part One of this series of posts, in which I mentioned the estranged wife of Lord Nelson living and dying in my home town of Exmouth and her final resting place being at my local church where Carolyn and I were married.

Francis Herbert Viscountess Nelson, Duchess of Bronte 

On an afternoon walk to exercise during the hours of lock down we took a detour via the church at Littleham and I grabbed a photograph or two of Lady Nelsons grave.

As you can see the grave site is well looked after and cared for, declaring the great Lady's titles, Viscountess Nelson, Duchess of Bronte.

Work continues with the rest of my ship builds and my next post in this series will take a look at the three British third rates and their history.

In addition to the All at Sea project, I have a new Age of Sail book to review that I am in the last chapters of reading, plus another scenario from Tonnage Solitaire to play through and D+1, the next stage in Steve M and my play-through of Break out Normandy using Vassal.

Breakout Normandy - Vassal

Continuing our further adventures into the world of boardgaming over the internet using Vassal as part of our exercise in not allowing COVID-19 to interfere with out regular weekly meet ups, Steve M and I got together this week to sit down and play a favourite game, Breakout Normandy (BKN) for which we both have hard copies of the original Avalon Hill version of the game.

I think this is one game in my collection that I have played many times and one that I never grow bored off, as the mechanism of play recreating the first few days of the Allied landing in Normandy and race to steak out a bridgehead before the Germans can reinforce the front is well modeled; and gets to the crux of the fighting of this campaign, in that if the German army failed to stop the Allies getting inland from the beaches whilst linking them up in that time, they would inevitably lose the three month campaign, as indeed they did.

Perhaps one of the best books I have read that captures this element of the build up battle of D-Day captured in BKN is Robert J. Kershaw's 'D-Day, Percing the Atlantic Wall' which uses a mixture of first hand accounts from Allied and German sources to illustrate the critical ten first days of the campaign that set the course of the battle that would end in August in the bloody fields and lanes around Falaise.

Interestingly a new version of BKN has been developed by L2 Design Group, and I found the module for this version on Vassal and was immediately taken with the brighter graphics for the units and likewise relieved that not too much had been changed from the original with summaries out there listing those modest changes making it very easy for Steve and I to get going with this version in our game.

If on seeing this, you are interested in playing the same version I attach a link to the Vassal site. Just download the 2nd Edition module 27-01-2016.
http://www.vassalengine.org/wiki/Module:Breakout_Normandy

To start our game Steve and I simply rolled a d6 on the system to determine sides with the highest going allies, which ended up as me.

BKN starts the game with a D-Day landing phase of play with the Allied paratroops set up and able to launch their coup-de-main attacks on the German gun batteries within their set up areas together with being able to automatically grab key bridges in anticipation of reinforcements arriving from the beaches.

I followed one of the General magazine guided suggestions on key Allied objectives and the forces to be used during this phase.

In my experience of playing BKN, the landing phase is fairly critical and a strong or poor landing can set the agenda from the get go.

I tend to err on the side of trying to make sure the allies get ashore by clearing as many beaches as possible or with any German defenders in such a state as their ability to interfere with subsequent landings are minimised which tends towards a conservative assault with chancy attempts to break inland early limited because of that focus.

The map below is the overall situation where we left the game on the eve of D+1 with the landings completed and German forces moved up and reorganised and with their reinforcements deployed in off map zones together with the next Allied forces in the landing boxes or dropped in by air to their respective landing zones.

For a closer look, simply click on the pictures to get the fully sized map from the Vassal module that we saved.

From the situation close up below the Allies made a solid landing with none of my 2d6 rolls coming in at 6 or less which meant that beaches and landing zones were either cleared or with most German defenders and gun positions disrupted.

British 50th and Canadian 3rd Divisions cleared Gold and Juno beaches and the gun batteries on Sword and in Merville were left disrupted following the landings.

Likewise the Americans achieved a solid landing with the Big Red One and the two Ranger battalions practically clearing Omaha, with just a gun emplacement left disordered and with other German units falling back into neighbouring zones in preparation to resist the push-out.

Similarly the Ivy division had a strong landing at Utah clearing the beach but with plenty to do on the next day and, as with Omaha, German gun emplacements still active on the flanks able to interdict followup forces on the way into the beach.

Steve's German defenders came back strongly in the latter part of the day with seven turns of play alternating and with the weather turning overcast towards the end allowing an increased German supply rate to reorganise all units and leave fifteen points in the bank against the eleven carried over by the Allies.

As can be seen the longish overcast D-Day also allowed Steve to push more units closer to the beaches with 21st Panzer creating a stronghold in front of Caen, key bridges blown in front of Juno and Gold, although 50th Division and its tank brigade managed to capture the key bridge into Bayeux.

So all to play for on our next meet up next week.

Next up, we're 'All at Sea' as three new British named frigates roll down the slipway and are now fitted out to join the fleet.

The New Zealand Wars 1820-72 & The Australian Frontier Wars 1788-1838

The current lock-down on movement in the UK due to COVID-19 has given those of us not feeling the ill effects of the virus and not required to be out and about plenty of time at home to indulge our hobby activities and illustrates what a perfect hobby historical wargaming is for occupying time no matter what the circumstances.

As well as focusing on bringing the next selection of 1:700th model ships to completion, I have had plenty of time to work my way through an extensive list of books I have on my reading list, with some titles very much out of my usual diet of historical reading but covering themes which will hopefully be very relevant later in the year.

I can't say that before dipping into these two titles I had much of an idea about the colonial warfare conducted in Australia and New Zealand in the 19th and early 20th Century between Imperial forces, settlers and the indigenous populations of these two countries, with the asymmetrical nature of the warfare perhaps not as eye-catching as the larger colonial conflicts in Africa or India, making these conflicts less likely to appear on a game table.

However with this kind of guerrilla type warfare, a modern aspect in many of today's conflicts, these wars have an echo that reverberates through the wars of today with muskets and early breech-loader rifles replaced with modern assault rifles and explosives and with the source of conflict due to land occupation and a clash of culture replaced with political and extremist doctrines motivating the violence of today, but in no less of a determined and bloody presentation.

Raffaele Ruggeri's artwork from the Osprey title, illustrating the look and weaponry used by the early Maori warriors

Osprey titles are for wargamers a traditional effective way of getting an introduction to a particular era and theatre of war and so picking up the New Zealand Wars seemed an obvious first read to get an understanding of the time period, scope and peculiarities of the forces and the tactics involved in a conflict; that spanned, in this case, the best part of the 19th century as British dominance at sea and its early industrialisation allowed a rapid expanse of what would become the largest global empire in history.

The time period that the New Zealand Wars covers means that, due to British industrialisation, weaponry developed rapidly in that period from the black powder Brown Bess muskets and smooth bore cannon that dominated the early part of the century to the rifled and breech loaded weaponry offering more rapid and accurate fire that came to dominate the latter period.

Likewise, with the change in technology the tactics for using the weaponry evolved on both sides with the British forces involved meeting a Maori opposition combining its fierce independent spirit with an early appreciation of the capabilities firearms offered them in their traditional forms of internecine warfare, which was later turned against the foreign invaders who came to enforce the Empress Queen's laws in the latest acquisition to the empire.

The look of the first British troops in the new colony of New Zealand, with a miltiaman, in shirtsleeves, raised from among the colonists, alongside an officer and private of the 58th Foot.

I hadn't realised the extent or rapidity that the Maori adopted firearms, with their early acquisition of the flood of muskets that were sold world wide by British traders involved in selling off army surplus at the end of the Napoleonic Wars. Some of those muskets ended up on British Whalers and were used in trade with Maori Chieftains as the Europeans negotiated rights to operate on the northern shores of the North Island.

As the Europeans became more numerous and Whaling was supplemented with settlements and farming, the pressure on land assets and the needs to graze animals caused conflicts between the indigenous population and the new settlers, which in turn saw the first bloody clashes and the call by the settlers for British military units to police the new frontier.

I was surprised to see that New Zealand was at this point not a British Imperial colony, but as the awareness of other European powers looking to get a slice of the imperial land grab, principally France, who were also looking at Australia, influenced the decision to send troops to the island and make its incorporation official, something the Maori population had little say in.

Attack on the Gate Pa in 1864 in the invasion of Waikato, which saw a numerically superior British force defeated, losing 31 killed and 80 wounded. These Pa's were built to frustrate a British advance and often proved costly to attack head on. 

What followed was a series of vicious sometimes drawn out campaigns as the Maori understandably resisted this colonisation of their homeland and fought back using a combination of traditional weapons and tactics mixed with the black powder weaponry, all the while maintaining their traditional internecine rivalries until the realisation that the only way to resist the British and the settlers was to unite in their opposition.

As well as a growing unity in resistance, and the traditional raiding style of warfare, the Maori also refined their tactics with the use of the Pa or stockade fortification in a uniquely Maori response to British technology, with the traditional design for dealing with other Maori groups armed with wooden spears and clubs giving way to an early form of entrenched position with barriers designed to impede the approach of an enemy whilst allowing firearms to be used from the trenches dug behind them.

In the end a combination of the inability of pre-industrial tribal armies to maintain themselves in the field due to the need to disperse and tend crops or find supplies, and the increasing mobility and field skills of first the British and then locally raised New Zealand forces overcame Maori military resistance.

I use the word army loosely when referring to the Maori, as an army often describes a force in the low tens of thousands, if that, in many of the campaigns described and the Imperial forces opposed to them would also be considered small in a European context, but the campaigns and actions that characterised them make interesting reading and I came away with a huge respect for the Maori and an increased love of watching the All Blacks perform the Haka.

Graham Burke's article in WI 274 makes interesting reading forthose interested in getting into the New Zealand Wars

I'm not sure if I will ever get around to creating a New Zealand Wars Sharp Practice style force, but I would certainly be interested in playing the period, thus I would recommend, as well as this Osprey title, checking out the article that appeared in Wargames Ilustrated No.274 by Graham Burke.

In addition Giles Allison on his blog Tarleton's Quarter has some interesting posts looking at his collection of figures and the history.

The other title featured in my 'Down Under' reading is a book loaned to me by Chas another mate from the DWG, The Australian Frontier Wars 1788 - 1838 by John Connor that covers the British colonial occupation and campaigns against the Aboriginal people in that period.

This was also a theme that I had a minimal understanding of before reading the book and I came away with a much greater appreciation of not only the warfare that developed in this part of the world during British colonialisation but also the seemingly haphazard strategy, if you can call it that, that seems to typify the development of the British Empire throughout.

I say haphazard, because British interest in Australia started, following Captain James Cook's exploration and mapping of the wider Pacific area, as a Penal Colony for the transportation of so called convicts of the British legal system often for what most modern day people would consider the most minor offences.

Establishment of the first British settlements in Australia

A penal colony required troops to administer the population and from this early occupation developed local colonies of settlers based around the first areas occupied by the troops, principally in the Sydney and later Melbourne settlements.

As in New Zealand, settlers expansion into neighbouring tribal lands occupied by the indigenous population led to conflict and the involvement of the British military to police this new frontier.

I found it interesting comparing and contrasting the different reactions and responses between the two indigenous populations in New Zealand and Australia to the growing pressure on them and their traditional land rights and the gradual incursion by the invading colonial population.

Unlike the Maori, the Aboriginal peoples were not early adopters of British black powder weaponry, preferring to rely on their traditional close combat fire hardened wooden weapons of spear, light shield and the unique boomerang, not to forget the woomera, a wooden spear throwing device designed to extend the human arm whilst in the throwing and thus deliver the weapon at much greater velocity, calculated to be four times that of an arrow launched from a composite bow.

Also, unlike the Maori, the Aboriginal tribal groups often did not overcome their traditional rivalries in the face of a common enemy and unite to bring a greater force of numbers to further stretch the colonial defences and very often found one tribal group supporting the colonial forces in their efforts against a neighbouring tribe, as one attempted to gain an advantage over the other using the British to help in that effort.

Aboriginal warriors made good use out of a combination of their
traditional weapons, excellent bush skills and rapid movement to
frustrate the early military responses against them.

Connor takes a chapter at the start of his book looking at the weaponry used by both sides with the British relying on the traditional Brown Bess musket and after 1850 more often rifled weapons and discusses the two principal reasons outlined by historians as to why the Aborigines preferred not to use firearms certainly before 1850; centered around their culture based 'spear tradition' in their internecine conflicts, a very strong tradition and a combination of reliance on their superior bush tactics and field skills together with the unreliability of early muskets that may have favoured the Aboriginal weapons in the typical ambush situations generated in this frontier warfare.

As the obvious improvements in accuracy and overall firepower from post 1850 arms became obvious to Aboriginal warriors the reluctance to take up arms using firearms became less, however improvements in British and Colonial troops field skills and the use of horse borne soldiers to increase mobility against the fast moving tribal groups more than outweighed the Aboriginal response.

After taking the reader through the early settlement of the British in Australia and the weaponry and tactics used by the Aboriginal people and in the main the British army, the next five chapters takes a look at the individual campaigns that typified the fighting that would lead to the eventual subjugation of Australia under British colonial dominion.

Thus we begin with the expansion around Sydney in 1788 to 1791, and the later campaigns to occupy the nearby valleys of the Hawkesbury and Nepean rivers from 1794 to 1816, this followed by further expansion inland to the Bathurst and Hunter Valley districts in 1822 to 1826.

The book then shifts its focus to Northern and Western Australia between the years 1824 to 1834 as growing expansion in British trade to the east led to the need for British harbours and trading centres leading to the creation of places such as Singapore and also causing further expansion in these Australian coastal regions as possible links in that trading network and the clash with the local people that occupied those areas.

Between 1826 to 1831 the book's focus shifts to Van Diemen's Land the original European name for the island of Tasmania and the struggle that developed there in what was a relatively small area of land but that required a great deal of expenditure in money and manpower to subdue the indigenous population to occupation.

The final chapter looks at the final campaign of 1838 in the Liverpool Plains and Port Phillip Districts close to Sydney and Melbourne respectively and in which would see the last deployment of British troops and policing responsibilities devolved on to the locally raised Mounted Police units that would see the gradual civilinisation of the wider country.

The characteristics of all the campaigns described see small bands of Aboriginal warriors attacking colonial farmsteaders and the violence that often followed between the opposing parties leading to destroyed crops and buildings, dead on both sides and calls on the nearby military garrison to penny parcel out its infantry companies to stop the conflict.

The early campaigns very often saw the tribesmen running rings around the redcoats unable to march quickly enough to catch up with a withdrawing warband and with Aborigines looking to avoid conflict with the musket armed soldiers and preferring to tackle the less well armed settlers.

Occasionally the two opposing forces would meet, when ambushes were set and laid, particularly when scouts from an opposing Aboriginal group aided the soldiers but in the main the early punitive campaigns exposed the British columns for being too slow and forced the soldiers to act as small garrisons in the face of the Aboriginal attacks.

The British soon recognised the mobility problem and first started to address the problem in the Hawkesbury and Nepean campaign by selecting the best men to put into the punitive columns, namely the grenadier and light company men who were more likely to stand up better to the needs of long rapid marches supported by supply dumps and supply wagons to support the movement.

As illustrated on the book's jacket, the campaign turning introduction of mounted police units seen here in action finally brought some control to the violence between settlers and Aboriginal warrior groups. 

However it was not until 1825 during the Bathurst campaign that the British administration finally grasped the nettle of mobility and the added cost of acquiring and paying for expensive horses when it raised and deployed the first mounted unit, namely the New South Wales Mounted Police modeled on the South African Cape Mounted Rifles.

These units of mounted police soon proved their value when combined with native guides to help in tracking and bringing to action groups of warriors and the later campaigns sees these kind of units start to predominate.

The book provided a really readable narrative of the campaigns and the fighting and touches on the wrongs and rights of the competing groups with the inevitable atrocities that occur in any human conflict for which no nation or group can stand up and claim itself innocent of. That said the typical British contradiction of the rule of law standing over all activities, civil and military, comes to the fore in this account, with the description of the fact that British military punitive expeditions against the Aboriginal peoples, who were the Queen's subjects, had to be legally authorised with military columns accompanied by a legally responsible judicial authority responsible for overseeing the administration of the Queen's peace and excesses committed against Aborigines by military commanders or civil populations could and were brought before the courts.

The fact was the British government never acknowledged the Aboriginal rights to their lands and therefore could not be at war with them during what was a civil conflict between two groups of subjects of the crown, even though for all intents and purposes a war did exist between individual tribal groups and the Crown for land rights.

This conflict provides lots of scenarios between two widely mismatched groups, and Connor describes early encounters between warriors, British soldiers and farmsteaders using muskets and how the tribesmen soon worked out the limitations of the musket in terms of reloading and, using that time, to close with their foes to use the spear to good effect. In addition the Aborigines were expert at laying ambushes that would provoke a pursuit often falling into a further more deadly ambush in its wake.

If you are interested in these two areas of British Colonial conflict, these two books are well worth getting as start points to understanding the fundamentals that characterised the military groups and the fighting and I thoroughly enjoyed the excursion into areas of military history that I had only a passing familiarity with previously.

Next up, Chinese Bat Flu lock-down will not interfere with the output here on JJ's as I will feature the three new British frigates to roll down the slip way and now fully rigged and fitted out for battle together with yet more book reviews and adventures in Vassal style board wargaming.

War of 1812, Columbia Games on Vassal - Part Two

Last week and this week I highlighted the use of Vassal as a platform for hosting board games to play remotely with friends and at home for solo play.

http://jjwargames.blogspot.com/2020/03/war-of-1812-columbia-games-on-vassal.html

http://jjwargames.blogspot.com/2020/03/slow-convoy-sc-7-october-1940-tonnage.html

One of the games featured was 1812 by Columbia Games which Steve M and I selected as our inaugural game to get our head around how the system works and how we could link up as we played to keep the game as interactive as when we play face to face

Well just to complete the post I thought I would update it with a report on how our game turned out which, having got the system understood, we breezed through this week, playing out 1813 and 1814 to leave the map looking as you can see it below.

The game was in an interesting position at the end of last week and the close of 1812, with the Americans having lost Detroit in the last couple of months of the year and releasing Brants Indians on to the western frontier.

However the Americans had control of Lakes Erie and Champlain and had repulsed a British offensive at Buffalo leaving everything to play for in 1813.

The game proved really interesting with both of us launching limited offensives in 1813 which saw the Americans managing to capture Kingston and Lacolle, but losing control of the latter towards the end of the year and suffering some winter attrition as the British pushed the Americans back towards Plattsburg, with the Erie frontier relatively quiet as both sides sought to build up naval strength.

The final year, 1814 saw the war and the battles generated really get going as both sides pushed for the win with Steve launching his Peninsular veterans off along the St Lawrence but splitting his effort towards Plattsburg and Kingston, not before both were rapidly reinforced by US cavalry, artillery and regulars.

As this was happening the Americans took control of Lake Ontario in a naval battle but lost control of Champlain, just as a strong force of US regulars marched up from Pittsburgh to take Detroit and Amherstburg, completely destroying the British army on that end of the frontier, Battle of Thames fashion and forcing the British fleet out on the lake where it was beaten by the awaiting US navy.

Then Steve launched the British offensive first against Plattsburg, that saw the American army destroyed but with a shattered British army left to occupy Albany. In compensation the other British thrust towards Kingston and Sacket's Harbour was comprehensively beaten back on both attacks leaving the game drawn at the end on 18 victory points apiece.

My American troops launched a crushing offensive around Amherstburg and Detroit that cleared the Eire frontier

When we chatted through what had been a really great game and both of us finding the Vassal platform working really well we looked at the final map that showed all the British blocks down to one point per block underlying how bloody that final year of campaigning had been.

However the British cleared Champlain of US ships and were in Albany at the end of 1814

Also how the Americans (me) had been so focused on not losing on the eastern frontier around Champlain and Kingston that I missed the opportunity to counterattack the weak British forces holding the road to Montreal and the 4 victory points plus the likely two British blocks knocked off on the way, providing another 2 victory points, not enough to clinch the win but leaving the US about 4 points short.

A really good game and thanks to Steve for his play which a made for a very fun evening of lock-down as we did our small bit in the fight against Chinese Bat Flu. We're now looking forward to trying out Vassal to play one of our favourite games by far, Break out Normandy which we will start next week.

If you haven't used Vassal yet, I can really recommend giving it a go.