Debunking the Rake Myth in Age of Sail Rules

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sgtfox
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Debunking the Rake Myth in Age of Sail Rules

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Debunking the Rake Myth in Age of Sail Rules
The first paragraph of this article is from #61 of The Courier wargaming magazine, from the summer of 1993. I have the author’s “permission” to use it here:

As Nelson’s H.M.S. Victory (104) breached the allied line at Trafalgar, her larboard broadside raked the stern of Villeneuve’s Bucentaure (80). At ten yards, with some batteries double-shotted and others triple-shotted, a devastating storm of iron swept the enemy flagship from end to end, instantly killing or wounding four hundred men and dismounting twenty guns! We’ve all read such tripe as this in popular histories. Who took the time to go around and count casualties immediately after the first broadside? The battle had just begun for Bucentaure. After Victory sailed past, the Temeraire (98) and Neptune (98) followed her through the line and likewise raked Bucentaure. The Neptune then came up on the lee side and fired again. Next, Leviathan (74) and Conqueror (74) each raked Bucentuare’s stern, while Britannia (100) and Ajax (74) fired at her from long range. Meanwhile, Victory, caught in a deadly embrace with Redoutable, continued to fire her larboard broadside at Bucentaure throughout the battle. Conqueror as well kept up a steady fire against the flagship, even though she was engaged with other ships on her starboard side. If one could believe the popular histories’ assessment of the destructive power of one raking broadside, one can only imagine what the final casualty count would be. Well, try 197 killed and 85 wounded! Yes, the ship was totally dismasted, but 282 casualties, at the end of the battle, is a long way from the alleged 400 casualties caused by the first rake! Given the proliferation of such falsehoods as this, it is easy to see why so many Age of Sail rules are too bloody.
When one breaks down all of the single-ship actions for 1775-1815, where correct data exists, it becomes apparent that rakes were not anywhere near as deadly as novelists and game designers have portrayed. The U.S.S. Constitution was a fearsome ship and raked H.M.S. Guerriere’s bow, at very close range, on more than one occasion, but analyzing the battle, Old Ironsides didn’t really fire at the norm for American ships of the period. That may have been because of those massively heavy 24# guns. They took longer to reload than smaller calibers. Still, if rakes had been that severe, her performance, although splendid, should have been better. In other battles, U.S.S. Enterprise, with a bow rake, and U.S.S. Argus, with a dreaded stern rake, likewise failed to match the standard gunnery of other U.S. Navy vessels of the period in overall performance.
In 2015, twenty-two years after the article in The Courier was published, a highly touted new set of rules was released. The designers did a detailed paraphrase of said article, but neglected to mention from where they got the idea. After agreeing with the conclusions, they went right ahead and followed the trend of the day by giving a bow rake bonus of 150%, while the stern rake got the standard 200% bonus in their rules. I don’t ever like to use guess work, but without more specific examples available, I’ve given my home rules a bonus of +10% for bow rake and +25% for the stern rake. That’s probably pushing it in both areas, but I do believe there should be a bit of a bounty in maneuvering your vessel to do extra harm. That said, I’ve always believed that the number one benefit in raking an enemy vessel is that your vessel is not subjected to a broadside from the enemy during that game turn.
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