It was two months ago since I last reported on progress with the Camperdown collection, and I have to admit that work in JJ's Shipyard was sporadic after Christmas with time having to be made for other activities, which included a lot of blog work preparing and posting my visit report on the Australian Artillery and Armour Museum which demanded the time to do it properly.
If you didn't see the last post on this project or any of the work completed so far you can follow the link below to Post No.5 and links to the preceding posts in the series.
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| JJ's Wargames - All at Sea, Battle of Camperdown - Project Build, Part Five, The Dutch Rear Completed |
That said work has progressed not only with the next three models featured here, but with work on ideas around better presenting a battle scenario in a more manageable time frame, thus the post looking at my game with Jack and Mike play testing the rules Far Distant Ships which produced a very interesting and fun game, and a rule set I'm quite keen to develop games for going forward, again I have attached a link below if you mist my previous post from last month.
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| JJ's Wargames - Battle of Camperdown - The Leeward Division Attacks, Far Distant Ships |
So it is really nice to get back to working the project and present this latest progress in the week when the blog passed Two Million Views, give or take the odd 500,000 bot-crawls, but still a fun number to see after twelve years of writing and journaling my time in the hobby, which to be honest I'd be doing anyway as its amusing to look back over posts at stuff I was focussed on at such-and-such a time.
JJ's Wargames is, and continues to be, a lot of fun to produce and has been the conduit for me meeting and conversing with a lot of folks in the hobby that I might not have otherwise met or chatted with and has only added to the fun of the hobby, so thank you to everyone who has contributed over the last twelve years and, God willing, here's looking forward to the next.
Ok, so with the Batavian rear completed before Xmas I moved straight on to getting the centre done, with work on the fourth-rate Batavier 56-guns and the two outstanding third-rates Wassenaer 64-guns and Leijden 68-guns, which will leave just the razee Mars 44-guns and the four ships of the line in the Batavian van, after which I intend to revert back to the British and complete Admiral Duncan's windward division before finishing off the light ships of both sides.
So below we have from left to right Leijden 68-guns, Wassenaer 64-guns and Batavier 56-guns.
Batavier
Batavier was a 56-gun third-rate ship of the line laid down on the 8th September 1777 in the Amsterdam shipyard, launching on the 18th February 1779, and commissioning the following year.
Her general characteristics were:
Tons burthen 1048 tons (bm)
Length of gundeck 144 feet, 7 inches
Beam 40 feet, 10 inches
Depth of hold 16 feet, 5 inches
Her armament consisted of:
Gundeck: 26 x 18-pounder long guns
Upper gundeck: 26 x 12-pounders long guns
Quarterdeck & Forecastle: 8 x 8-pounder long guns
On 5 August 1781, Batavier took part in the Battle of Dogger Bank under Captain Wolter Jan Gerrit Bentinck sailing in the middle of the Dutch line, between the ships Admiraal de Ruyter and Argo.
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| The Battle of Dogger Bank, August 5, 1781 - Thomas Luny (National Maritime Museum) |
She was engaged by three British ships, and became unmanageable after a fire broke out. The battle, while indecisive tactically, resulted in a strategic British victory and afterwards Batavier was towed to Texel. Bentinck later died of wounds he received in the battle.
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| The battle has been raging for about half an hour and already the Batavier is drifting out of the line, perhaps having come off the worse after an encounter with HMS Triumph 74-guns |
The log of the Triumph makes mention of her fighting two or three enemy ships, with the historical commentary suggesting Cerberus and Vrijheid, but this plan suggests Batavier and Wassenaer likely adversaries given their place in the Batavian line.
On the 30th August 1799 the ship was surrendered to the British fleet under Vice-Admiral Andrew Mitchell during the Vlieter Incident, so called because of the area of the Texel anchorage where the surrender occurred, that saw a breaking out of sentiment towards the House of Orange among loyalist Dutch seamen who refused to take orders from their Republican officers that led to the capitulation to the Royal Navy, including Batavier even though she was the only ship of the Dutch fleet where no mutiny had broken out.
The Wassenaar was a 64-gun third rate ship of the line was launched at the Rotterdam Naval Yard and commissioned into the Dutch Navy in 1781.
On the 11th October 1797 the Wassenaar took part in the Battle of Camperdown under the command of Kapitein ter Zee Adolph Holland. Holland was killed during the battle, and his ship surrendered to HMS Triumph.
On the 11th October 1797 the Leijden took part in the Battle of Camperdown under the command of Kapitein ter Zee J. D. Musquetier.
As with the Batavier, the Leijden soon fell out of the Batavian Line of Battle in company with the razee Mars and together they made their way out and back to the Texel.
Likewise the Leijden would suffer the same fate as the Batavier, surrendering on the 30th August 1799 at the Texel to the British fleet under the command of Vice-Admiral Andrew Mitchell.
TRIUMPH
Log. JAMES READ, Master. Official No. 3081.
October 11th.
P.M. 1\2 past 12, Admiral Onslow began to engage the centre. About 1, Admiral Duncan engaged the van. We soon after fell in between two ships. About 2, much cut up. Ship on larboard side sheered off, came up a fresh ship. 1\2 past 2, wheel shot away.
On the 30th August 1799 the ship was surrendered to the British fleet under Vice-Admiral Andrew Mitchell during the Vlieter Incident, so called because of the area of the Texel anchorage where the surrender occurred, that saw a breaking out of sentiment towards the House of Orange among loyalist Dutch seamen who refused to take orders from their Republican officers that led to the capitulation to the Royal Navy, including Batavier even though she was the only ship of the Dutch fleet where no mutiny had broken out.
Wassenaer
The Wassenaar was a 64-gun third rate ship of the line was launched at the Rotterdam Naval Yard and commissioned into the Dutch Navy in 1781.
Her general characteristics were:
Tons burthen 1270 tons (bm)
Length of gundeck 158 feet, 2 inches
Beam 42 feet, 8 inches
Depth of hold 20 feet, 2.5 inches
Her armament consisted of:
Gundeck: 26 x 32-pounder long guns
Upper gundeck: 26 x 18-pounders long guns
Quarterdeck & Forecastle: 14 x 8-pounder long guns
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| Stern of the Dutch 64-gun ship Wassenaar |
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| At 2pm the Wassenaer is shown struck and Triumph has now moved into the battle with the Batavian van and the flagship Vrijheid. |
HMS Triumph then sailed on to the centre of the battle, and when the Wassenaar was fired on by a Dutch brig, the crew raised the Dutch colours again. But in the end they were captured again by the British.
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| At 3pm, with the battle reaching a close, the Wassenaer is shown under the watchful eye of HMS Russell 74-guns as the prizes are boarded. |
Leijden
The Leijden was a 68-gun third rate ship of the line was launched at the Amsterdam Naval Yard and commissioned into the Dutch Navy in 1786.
Her general characteristics were:
Tons burthen 1307 tons (bm)
Length of gundeck 155 feet, 1 inch
Beam 42 feet, 10 inches
Depth of hold 18 feet, 7 inches
Her armament consisted of:
Gundeck: 26 x 32-pounder long guns
Upper gundeck: 26 x 18-pounders long guns
Quarterdeck & Forecastle: 16 x 8-pounder long guns
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| The battle is lost and the Leijden in company with Mars makes good her escape |
Work now moves on to the next three ships, the razee Mars, and the two third-rates Hercules and Gelijkheid.
I'm off to the Devon Wargames Group club meeting today to run The Attack of the Leeward Division at Camperdown, this time using Kiss Me, Hardy instead of Far Distant Ships, catering for more players, and it will give me an opportunity to compare and contrast the game it produces in comparison with that played last month using FDS.
More anon
JJ
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