Rethinking Ancient Naval Battle Rules

 

Back in December 2023 I put out a couple of posts about a system I was working on for large scale naval battles in the ancient Mediterranean.  I continued to tinker with the ideas but have not made significant progress, which now seems to have been a good thing.  The reason for saying this is an excellent article by Nick Harbud - "We Set the Sails and Hauled Our Oars" - that appears in the latest issue of Slingshot, the journal of the Society of Ancients.

The article covers a lot of ground, starting with a review of key aspects of a number of existing rule sets for ancient naval games, then going on to compare their mechanics with the much greater understanding we now have as to how an ancient trireme could perform following the project to construct and conduct sea trials with a full scale replica - the Olympias.

What is made clear is that the ancient warships were much more manoeuvrable than rulesets tend to allow but their structures make most forms of attack favoured in rules and Hollywood movies ill advised, to say the least.  Sending 40 tons of trireme at top speed at an enemy ship might crush the side of the latter but the deceleration at the point of contact would throw your own close packed crew thudding into each other and the ship's timbers.  If the enemy ship was moving across your own direction of movement, the forces would likely be sufficient even at fairly low speed to tear off your ram and risk breaching your own hull.  Likewise with grappling.  What would be the result of throwing a rope with grappling hook from one 40 ton vessel to another if  both are moving at some speed in different directions, other than a broken rope?  

Given the mass of a trireme, the small cross section of the ram, and their light-weight timber construction, a hole could be punched in the side of an enemy ship when your own speed was as low as 1 knot.  If the enemy was not moving, an attack could be made from any direction, but, if moving, only an attack from the stern could remove significant risk of damage to your own hull.  Similarly with grappling, to avoid strains that ropes could not cope with, the difference in rates and direction of movement between the ships should be kept to the minimum, meaning that an approach from the stern would be the only viable way to grapple if both ships are in motion.

With this in mind, the stress that ancient authors put on trying to achieve the diekplous - breaking through the enemy line - or periplous - turning the end of the line, makes sense.  They are among the few ways of giving your ships a chance to attack the enemy effectively by getting onto his rear.  

The final report on the Olympias project contains an article by Andrew Taylor entitled 'Battle Manoeuvres for Fast Triremes'.  This provides very helpful diagrams and discussion as to how a squadron of triremes could try to get onto the rear of enemy ships when they are holding formation, or lure them into making mistakes that would leave them vulnerable, all while avoiding being caught at a disadvantage themselves - for unlike in wargames enemy ships would not be sitting around waiting for you to complete your moves before making their own.  Even with a small number of ships involved, these diagrams become quite complex!

The task for a designer of an ancient naval wargame is how to reflect this new understanding in a game that is manageable and enjoyable for players?

My preference is to stick with designing rules for large scale battles rather than go back to a system that involves moving single ships around.  I don't think most players would have the time, space or ship models to fight actions with over 100 ships a side where each is represented by a single model.  However, abstracting the actions of individual ships into a system that remains reasonably true to the findings that have come out of modern scholarship presents challenges.  I'm going back to the beginning with working through how the kind of manoeuvres between 'fast' and 'slow' squadrons of ships or the facing off between squadrons in line may best be reflected.  Some of my earlier ideas around agility ratings may still have use, but already I think that the small grid system I was using creates too much complexity.

I've printed out some cards to help think through how squadron representation and movement could be managed with larger grid sizes.  Next will be working out different combat conditions and factors than should apply

While I move from pondering to play testing, if you are interested in ancient naval wargaming and are not yet a subscriber to Slingshot, then a year's subscription is worth it just for access to this article - and you will find much else to interest you in the Journal and on the Society's forum.  You can subscribe here.

PS : 9th July

Have just played out two solo trials with a first stab at revised rules.

The basic framework seems to work quite well.  I printed out some cards to represent 6 squadrons each of Athenians and Persians, each side having 3 'Fast' squadrons and 3 'slow', with different factors for crew and helmsman quality.

The movement mechanics are very simple.  A squadron can move one square on a grid if ordered to advance.  The direction of advance can be specified but can never be diagonal.  Squadrons are either in line abreast or line astern, which modifies combat effects when engaging to front or flank.  

The combat mechanics have two to three stages.  First has both sides rolling dice and comparing results to see whether they get any opportunity to make an attack - reflecting the manoeuvring to try to get ships into an advantageous position to ram or grapple the enemy.  Second is a simple roll to see whether any of the opportunities can be converted into a successful ram or grapple, simply cause some damage or are evaded.  If a grapple is achieved, a third stage of boarding action takes place.

There is also a simple order system that constrains how squadrons can act and gives the player opportunity to bluff their opponents as movement is made simultaneously on revelation of orders - an aspect that will work better in contested rather than solo play.