Battle - 1721 - Mai 7 - Defending Nassau

Report by Captain Sir Leo Davis describing the defense of Nassau against a Pirate raiding attempt.

Ships in Action:
ALLIES:

 Captain Earl Rodger Berett - (Tigre Mastercraft Frigate)- Green Group

Captain Sir Leo Davis - HMS Unicorn (Mercy Naval Frigate) - White Group

Captain Henrik Highway - (Mercy Naval Frigate) - White Group

Captain James Castor - HMS Merciless - (Mercy Naval Frigate) - White Group

Captain Tom Highway - (Mercy Naval Frigate) - Red Group

- 19 other british captains including one Valiant third rate and several fourth rates.

ENEMIES:

- Pirate fleet of 21 vessels:

Consisting of various Frigates and several Abbadons Will Galleons

Action Setup:
The battle took place on the Arch Coastline map at daytime.

Our fleet formed a double line facing west near the port entrances. The Pirates approached from the south. When the Pirates saw our strong fleet, four pirate ships turned around and fleed the battle. Now we had a siginificant advantage in numbers.

The Action Itself:
As the Pirates approached our line, we were ordered to make a fast 180° turn to counter the Pirate fleets movement. The Pirates split their groups to get behind our line, while the rest attacked our front. The Pirates tried to counter our maneuvers, which resulted in a wild dogfight, with countless orders to turn our ships around, which caused some trouble because not all ships where able to make fast turns, with the result that many ships crashed into each other while turning. Meanwhile our battle line broke up into several clusters of ships. To our luck the Pirates were not able to take advantage of this chaotic movements and moree and more of them got sunk under the fire of our guns.

After nearly thirty minutes of fighting the remaining Pirate ships were trapped between two large rock islands south-east of the port entrance. We were now able to surround them blocking all of their escape routes. Only one Pirate ship was able to slip past and escaped all others were sunk without much efford.

The Result:
We succesfully defended the port against the pirates. With no losses on our side.

The Pirates lost 16 ships. Only five Pirates escaped from the battle.

Lessons Learned:
Many of our fellow captains did not use the crew focus for a better turn rate. This was one reason, why our groups had trouble to stay in a stable line formation, while performing the countless turning maneuvers. Resulting in many unnecessary colissions and broken group formations.

Misc.
The Pirates approach on our line



The last pirates trapped between the rocks.