All at Sea – Early French Light Squadron

[carojon]

Following on from the work to create a Dutch Light Squadron for the early part of the French Revolutionary War I also found similar use for my surfeit of frigates and brigs to turn out some similarly period looking French units.

The early years of the Revolutionary War at sea and the disruptions caused to the French navy of the period meant that British commanders could not be sure of the quality and commitment they would face in any encounter, but the light forces usually presented a stiff challenge as discussed in the post and I refer back to my thinking and ideas around recreating these small scale encounters on the table.

If you would like to know more then just follow the link to JJ’s

https://jjwargames.blogspot.com/2021/07/all-at-sea-early-revolutionary-war.html

JJ

http://jjwargames.blogspot.co.uk

[Deleted User]

Reading the encounter I was hoping the French would win for once.
As usual I like teh smaller ships. Are there any other differences other than the ensigns and flags?

[carojon]

Hi,

If you take a look at frigate encounters listed in the Osprey book on British vs French frigates between 1793 to 1815 out of 45 actions only 3 were French victories, so as you can see there are not many examples, so I stuck with a famous and hard fought action, which if you look at the casualties shows how well the crew of the Cleopatre did. On  another day against a less well prepared British frigate and less able commander the outcome may have been quite different.

Navies of the period looked very similar with a few notable exceptions, broadly similar to modern navies and so I look to select features such as stern galleries and apply paintwork on them and bulwarks that together with the ensigns and pennants capture the general look of a national navy, given that the model might stand in for MNF Cleopatre in one game and MNF Baionnaise in another.

JJ

http://jjwargames.blogspot.co.uk

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