Fleet Action - La Belle Epoque

I have been meaning for quite a while to try out Bob Cordery's Belle Epoque naval wargames set. Not having the Monopoly warship game pieces, I do have some Age of Imperialism vessels of suitable design and a good sized gridded game surface gleaned from my SPI Fighting Sail game.

Game map, fleets rule set and a hastily drawn up log sheet.

This pitted the inveterate enemies, Ruberia (RED) against Azuria (BLUE); fleets of 6 ships apiece. And I'm here to tell you the action was fast, furious, and quite fun, really.  

... and some dice: red for Ruberia; white for Azuria

In the year 1891, a border dispute erupted (as was almost an annual event) between the Kingdom of Ruberia and the Republic of Azuria. There had, apparently, been renewed contention over the fishing rights over the Doggerel Bank - though modern historiography seems to hint at more behind. The fleets were quickly mobilised and sailed off to 'protect' the fishing grounds against Johnny Foreigner and/or Perfidious Albert.

The log sheet. I ought to have taken a pic of the post-battle sheet!

The Fleets comprised:

RUBERIA: Admiral Sir Jno Jellibene

1st Squadron: Vice-Admiral James Doughty
11. Impetuous
12. Implacable
13. Impudent

2nd Squadron: Rear-Admiral Sir Horatio Trumpeter
14. Indefatigable
15. Infernal
16. Intrepid

The fleets approach. The Ruberians begin their 
envelopment manoeuvre

AZURIA: Vice-Admiral Honore Ganteaume

1-er Escadron: Rear-Admiral Jonas Poisson-Care
1. Icarus
4. Ivrian
5. Valiant

2-me Escadron: Capitaine Guillaume Enseigner
6. Vigilant
9. Ixolite
10. Xaviera

In response, the Azurians begin to form a 
single battle line ahead

Approaching each other along the northwest-southeast axis, both sides squadrons formed separate columns. The Azuria were close together, the Ruberian more distant apart. This I decided by dice rolls indicating distance from the corner ('1' being the corner itself). The Ruberians rolled 1 and 4, 1st Squadron in the starboard column. Premier Esqadron formed the starboard Azuria column as well; the rolls were 4 and 5. Had either of the rolls been doubles, then they would have formed a single line of battle. The Azurians later would indeed so become, 1-ier Escadron taking station behind 2-me.

Into the jaws... or a kick in the ... erm ...

The Ruberian columns widely separated to begin with, Admiral Jellibene ordered divergent courses, the idea being to envelop the head of the Azurian line to inflict heavy damage on the lead ships before the rearward vessels came into range. How well that turned out will be the topic of the next posting. For now, here are the results of the opening salvos: two hits upon Vigilant, two critical hits upon Impetuous...

Opening salvos. Both sides get the range.

To be continued...