Orders arrived! Lt Ronald's ship, HMS Seawitch at 10 gun cutter, was to be part of a 3 ship squadron that would go out to the area when he had unsuccessfully encountered two Spanish merchants several days earlier. (ouch) The other ships were the HMS Greyhound (18 gun brig) and the HMS Gull (10 gun cutter). Lt Dawson (cheap/family)aboard the Greyhound was the senior officer. Ron had never met Lt Thurston, captain of the Gull before. Would he become a friend or a rival?
Before this mission Lt Ronald's luck had not been good. ( You can read about his first mission in the last post.) His second mission, they had come upon two armed merchantmen flying spanish colors and had been unable to catch them despite all of Ron's and the Master's tricks. The Adrimal had not been happy again and he had gotten a " We expect more..." lecture. The only good thing was his Bos'un, Jeff Fishback had grown to respect this young Lt. (Game event) He had gone to the Navy club but not much happened their (Choice event) and had decided to throw a party for several senior officers with some of the money he had picked up from Sneaky Pete. He invited the Admiral, Capt Lemmon from the HMS Bulldog (32 gun frigate), Lt Dawson from the HMS Greyhound and his politically connected midshipman Robert Waterman. The Admiral declined sighting a previous engagement (not good) but the evening was a hit as conversation was lively and he gained influence with both Capt Lemmon and Lt Dawson. (2nd Choice event These events took less then 10 minutes to resolve.)
Lt Dawson's plan was to have both Cutters out on the wings forward looking for ships. Once the enemy was sighted, the Cutters would close to slow them down and the Greyhound would finish them off. Lt Ronald was glad he had hosted the dinner as he felt he would get a fair shake from his commander.
Lt Ronald's ships were the first to sight sails. He signaled he was closing to investigate. Two spansish 10 cutters and a 32 gun frigate but the Tars held the wind gauge. Lt Ronald raced toward one of the Cutters as the Greyhound closed.
La Colera to the right
The Seawitch and the Cordoba started to trade fire and the Cordoba started to move back toward the protection of her frigate. Meanwhile the Greyhound bravely closed.
Seawitch and Cordba trade shots with the Tars winning!
Lt Ronald saw the trap and started to pull away from the Spanish frigate...
La Colera gets a stern rake on the Seawitch!
Lt Ronald had one eye on the Spanish cutter and one on the frigate. He saw the Spanish flag start to come down and turned to say something to Mr Waterman, his midshipman, when his ship was shattered by what he would have thought was a freighttrain had he know what one was.
With both of their officers badly wounded, Master Jon Price (Agressive/family) thought of his wife and children and sought safer waters.
The Gull and Realidades (Other spanish cutter) traded shots causing a fire to break out on the HMS Gull.
Moments later an explosion racked the Gull and she was destroyed.
The Greyhound eventually managed to drive the La Colera away. Survivors of the Gull were few but Lt Thurston (Careful/Govt) was among them. A prize crew was put aboard the Cordoba and the Tars set sail for home.
Great battle that didn't take long. I had to roll boxcars to have the Gull blow up, who knew?
Post mission Lt Dawson wrote up a very favorable report about Lt Ronald who survived his wounds along with his midshipman. The report along with being wounded earned him a "Good Lad!" from the Admiral and a Glory point as well as a little (very little) prize money. Midshipman Waterman is promoted to Lt and transfered to the frigate Bulldog. A new Midshipman Rob Atkins (Naive/family) joins the Seawitch.
Hopefully this gives you a sense of where I am going with ITSoK. I am having great fun with it so far. For those of you that want to play this scenario the british crew ratings are:
Seawitch Avg
Gull Avg
Bulldog Elite
Spanish
Cordoba poor
Realidades poor
LaColera Avg
Enjoy
Joe
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