Action - 1721 - January 13 - a Bloody Nose at Charlestown

Ships in Action:
Allies -

Captain Leo Davis - HMS Unicorn - Deliverance Heavy Frigate

Captain Seth Seaborn - Hercules Frigate

Captain Three Dogs - Hercules Heavy Frigate - (Royal Secret Service)

Captain Willo Wiesel - Hercules Heavy Frigate - (Devourer)

Captain Mack Jack - Hercules Heavy Frigate - (The Royal Guard)

Captain Gottfried Leibniz - Capricieux Mastercraft Frigate - (Devourer)

Enemys -

Vincent Jervis - Hercules Heavy Frigate

Hadar Olofsson - Hercules Heavy Frigate

And four other french Captains in various Heavy Frigates

Action Setup:
We formed a group to patrol the Santiago area, after encountering no enemies there we moved over to Charlestown which was attacked by the french.

Captain Three Dogs was leading our group.

The Action Itself:
When we arrived in the contested waters around Charlestown we got imediatly attacked by a single french captain in a Capricieux Mastercraft Frigate. In battle he immediately turned around and tried to leave the battle. We were able to keep him in the fight until he reached the exitpoint, then he left the battle.

After we left this battle we found ourselves directly next to a huge group of french ships, which attacked us on sight. The enemy had the wind in his back while we started with the wind on our port side. The french charged onto us, while we tried to turn and get into formation. But our group was too close together and our ships turned not fast enough to get into a good position. The french crashed into the rear of our group and started to sink our ships in no time. After three of our ships got sunk the french turned on me aiming for my sails, so I prepared for a boarding combat. I used all my repairs and hit my invincible skill, to buy me some time, this way I was able to sail directly into the Heavy Hercules Frigate Captained by Hadar Olofsson. When I crashed into his ship I was unfortunately not able to initiate boarding combat fast enough so I got boarded instead.

The boarding combat was very intense. The enemy had the advantage of having one more reinforcement wave than I had (6 vs 5) but soon I was able to equal out this advantage by disrupting him constantly with my gunshots and by throwing grenades. At the end of the fight both of us had no reinforcements left. Unfortunately I was not able to keep up the pressure and got defeated in the end.

The Result:
A defeat, our whole group got sunk or was taken as a price without doing any noteworthy damage to the enemy.

I lost my Deliverance Heavy Frigate, but this gave me the opportunity to replace it with my new Mercy Naval Frigate.

Seaborn reporting: The moment we popped out of the other battle - after waiting in the instance to refill our buffs - there were about 12 frogs waiting. When we were tackled, once again there was no order in our line. We didn't have time for that. Gunny was sunk first and couldn't even start to manage our fight. He didn't say a word, to be true. The enemy force was big. I managed to get myself into a solo-position to fight one single ship, a Heavy Herc, commanded by Vincent Jervis (I used a regular Herc). We both went for anti-cre-shots, both trying to board.

When I boarded him, he had 6 waves left, I had three. I managed to get him down to two waves, but then Vincent Jervis killed me. Popping out My ship was immediately crushed by three frogs and sank.

Lessons Learned:
It was a bitter defeat for all of us, but It was also a good lesson. Especially for me by having my first boarding combat after the big Avcom changes went live.

I could see the advantages of using the handgrenade in the right moment, which gave me several opportunites to break through the guard of the enemy captain and his crew.

We have to thank Three Dogs (aka Gunny) for leading us into the battle and giving us a lot of good advices.

The french fleet near Charlestown



Leo Davis in boarding combat with Hadar Olofsson