It would seem from the responses I and Capt. Steve had to the first post in this Anglo-Dutch Wars fleet review, looking at Steve's English fleet, that I'm not the only one fascinated by this early period of fleet actions in the age of sail and if you missed that first post you can look back to it in the link below.
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| JJ's Wargames - Anglo Dutch Wars Fleet Review, The English Fleet |
In this post our attention turns to the Dutch fleet, circa 1666, with a similar order of battle as illustrated at our look at the English, showing the three Dutch battle squadrons and their respective support vessels.
The Dutch were divided into the First or Centre, Second (van) and Third squadrons. The Centre flew their pennants from the main, the Second from the fore and the Third from the mizzen.
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| Dutch Fleet Order of Battle |
Within this structure are the five Admiralties which insisted on having three admirals each (lieutenant-admiral, vice-admiral and shout bij nacht) - so fifteen flag officers plus de Ruyter as commander in chief.
All flag officers flew the Dutch tricolour or Princes Flag as their command flag.
The Second Squadron
First up is the Second Squadron whose van division seen below, nearest to camera, was composed of ships from Frisia. They flew the Princes flag as both their ensign and jack.
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| The five ships of the van of the Second Squadron, closest to camera are from right to left: Groot Frisia, Elf Steden, Groningen, Princes Albertina and Prins Hendrik Casimir. |
The five are from right to left: Groot Frisia, Elf Steden, Groningen, Princes Albertina and Prins Hendrik Casimir.
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Detail of a Dutch man of war stern gallery (Rotterdam ship, Groot Hollandia) from Two Small Vessels and a Dutch Man-of-War in a Breeze by Willem van de Velde, The National Gallery. Willem van de Velde was the leading Dutch marine painter of the later seventeenth century. The warship bears the arms of the Province of Holland – the national arms in the colours used before 1663 – and a Dutch flag flies at the stern. |
Unlike the English ships who sterns are, with a few exceptions uniform with just the Royal Arms, most Dutch sterns were unique and portrayed the ship’s name. Using Van de Velde’s contemporary ship portraits, I had the sterns portrayed in the models. Close ups to follow.
The rest of the Squadron was made up of the Zealand Squadron, which flew their pennants Princes flag as their ensign and the Vlissingen Jack (red with a white vase). Their ships sterns all had the Zealand arms, and below we can see the Zierikzee, Walcheren and Vlissingen.
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| The Zierikzee, Walcheren and Vlissingen of the Second Squadron. |
Lastly, the Second Squadron is completed with the Kampvere, Tholen and Middleburg
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| The fourth-rate 50-gun Kampvere, third-rate Tholen of 60-guns and the 50-gun Middleburg complete the Second Squadron. |
The First (Centre) Squadron
The Centre Squadron was most composed of ships from the Maas (Rotterdam) admiralty and flew their pennants Princes same flags as the Frisians, except their pennants were at the main and not the fore.
The van division is Groot Hollandia, Eendracht and Joshua. The Eendracht is the only ship not to fly a pennant, to avoid her being mistaken for de Ruyter.
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| The van division of the Centre Squadron is Groot Hollandia, the 76-gun second-rate Eendracht and Joshua. |
The centre division is Delft, Zeven Provincian, Provincie Utrecht and Vrede. The flagship flies their pennants Princes command pennant under the Princes flag to identify de Ruyter as c-in-c.
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| Michiel de Ruyter welcomes the young Prince of Orange onboard his flagship the Zeven Provinciën -Maarten Platje. https://maartenplatje.com/product/art-print-michiel-de-ruyter-welcomes-the-young-prince-of-orange-onboard-his-flagship-the-zeven-provincien/ |
They are accompanied by a frigate, a pinnace and states yacht.
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| The centre division is (left to right) Delft, the 80-gun flagship of de Ruyter, Zeven Provincian, Provincie Utrecht and Vrede. Alongside them and nearest to camera, a frigate, a pinnace and states yacht. |
Lastly the rear: Wassenear, Ridderschap van Holland and Dordrecht.
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| The rear of the Centre Squadron: Wassenear, Ridderschap van Holland and Dordrecht. |
The Third Squadron
Now the Third Squadron, whose van was composed of ships from the Norderkwatier admiralty who flew a Princes Jack and the nine striped Triple Prince as an ensign. Here is Pacificatie, Westfriesland, Norderkwatier and Maagd van Enkhuisen.
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| The van of the Third Squadron: Pacificatie, Westfriesland, Norderkwatier and Maagd van Enkhuisen. |
The centre was from the Amsterdam admiralty who flew Triple Prince jacks and ensigns: Beschermer, Hollandia and Gouda.
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| The centre from the Amsterdam admiralty flying Triple Prince jacks and ensigns: Beschermer, Hollandia and Gouda. |
Completing the Third Squadron is the rear division, also from Amsterdam: Haarlem, Speigel and Huis Tiverdrift.
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| The rear was also from Amsterdam: Haarlem, Speigel and Huis Tiverdrift. |
And lastly, a Dutch convoy of fluyts and coastal craft, escorted by a 48 gun warship.
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| A Dutch convoy of fluyts and coastal craft, escorted by a 48 gun warship. |
And a wrecked Dutch warship and and a sunken vessel for those scattered units that would otherwise be removed from the table.
To quote Steve "I do like a war game table to look good!" - To which I say "Hear hear!"
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| A wrecked Dutch warship and and a sunken vessel. |
Finally some close ups of the Dutch sterns. Dordrecht on left, a Zealand ship on the right, and an unidentified ship in the centre because Steve couldn't remember!! (I love this attention to detail).
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| A selection of Dutch stern galleries. Dordrecht on left, a Zealand ship on the right, and an unidentified ship in the centre |
Speaking of attention to detail, you might have noticed the glorious coastal scenery in the background of the two fleet reviews, with long low lying sandy stetches of beaches and dunes designed to capture the look of the Dutch or East Anglian coastline for those actions fought close to shore.
More Anglo-Dutch Wars to come as Steve sets out to refight the opening stage of the Battle of Lowestoft as Vice-Admiral Christopher Myngs leads the White Squadron as he attempts to gain the weather gauge over the Dutch.
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| The Battle of Lowestoft, 3rd June 1665 - Hendrik van Minderhout |
As always, more anon.
JJ
The ships look amazing. Love the battle reports. Can the rules by played with bigger scale models? Thinking of using the awesome Anglo Dutch ships from Warartisan, of which I have a nice collection. Also do the rules required a gridded mat and uniform base sizes for all vessels involved?
ReplyDeleteHi Mark,
DeleteThank you for your comment and apologies for not responding more promptly but I've been catching up on jobs following a significant birthday on the weekend.
I am very familiar with the War Artisan models and did a review of Jeff Knudson's 64-gun model from his smaller scale offerings for the 18th century back in 2015, after having a go putting it together.
https://jjwargames.blogspot.com/2015/07/war-artisan-model-ships.html
The 1:600 Anglo-Dutch offerings look lovely.
Regards the rules, I have not played them yet, but have the original copy plus a copy of Iain Stanford's unpublished supplement, which I hope Iain will publish in the near future.
In principle, the rules could be used for the larger scale models you have in mind, by simply scaling up to the required amount, something I did with my 1:700 models when using rules designed for 1:1200. Of course you also have to allow for a much larger playing area as I have demonstrated with my own games here on the blog with a larger model
With regards the mat, Steve is using the set-square for turning and I guess the grid helps in that process, although using rules for my Napoleonic era games that use a similar concept, I have reverted to turning circles instead on a plain mat and the concept of specific degrees of turning i.e. 30 or 45 degrees does not in itself require a grid, and the rules do not specify that requirement.
Base sizes are listed in the rules for 1:2400 and 1:3000 models, so Steve has obviously upscaled the dimensions for his 1:1200 models and you would need to do likewise with 1:600. The base simply denotes the sea space occupied by a stand representing 3-4 rated vessels.
I hope that helps and best of luck with your plans.
JJ