Trafalgar tactics?

[Cholera]

I've been playing ETW a lot since I just got it a few weeks ago, and like many I have learned how to fight land battles a lot faster than naval battles. From history, Nelson's tactics at Trafalgar (1805) would seem to be one tactic to use in large naval encounters in ETW - but I haven't been successful at all trying to do them. What he did was attack a long French naval line with two perpendicular lines of his own, which broke the French fleet in two parts and then utterly destroyed it. He in effect allowed the French to "cross the T" of his two lines before his fleet crossed their T, more fatally by far:


(The wind is from the west)

My question is whether it is possible to make this opening tactic work in the ETW engine? Or is it best to start off with long, parallel lines and hope to exploit holes later? I'm referring to ship-of-the-line encounters against a "expert" CPU, to be specific...
Cheers!

[NJGOAT]

It is possible but it has to do with wind gauge and the disposition of the two fleets in the beginning. If you have the wind gauge and the enemy fleet maneouvers in a way that you can take advantage of, then it is possible.

The starting position of your ships is very important. Remember you have a big deployment box to play with. Sometimes it is better to start off with your ships as far from the enemy as possible to gain the wind gauge and have time to maneouver before closing with them.

With all that said, it is still difficult to pull off as the AI tends to start turning their ships to fire at yours at maximum range. If you don't have the wind gauge closing the distance to cross the T is almost impossible. Outside of really big battles the best you can often hope to do is cut off their last couple ships, not break them down the middle. A lot of players prefer to turn with the enemy ships and exchange broadsides, while steadily closing the distance. When the disposition is right and they have the wind, they'll turn their line and attempt to cross the T.

[happycynic]

I use a variation of the tactic all the time. I break the line in the middle and then turn back towards the van to isolate it and break it. This is not strictly what Nelson did as he had ship split up and break the line in multiple places once the two lines met, but that requires micro-management of all ships which is too hard to do in game. Just make sure you have the wind at your back when you do this. Also, only use this tactic against similarly-sized vessels. Smaller vessels will explode and set your ships on fire. This is especially a problem when fighting the AI's favorite sloop-brig fleets with SOLs.

[xcorps]

That exact thing happened to me today. I had 4 4th rates agains a swarm of brigs and sloops. I passed through his lines twice, slaughtering at will, until a brig exploded. This set my lead ship totally afire, and it exploded before the second and third could get out of range, setting them afire as well. When both of them exploded, the fourth lost morale and fled.

[Khassaki]

The point has been made that if Nelson hadn't died he would have faced an enquiry for such ridiculous tactics.

Unless you are facing an enemy with little competence and very low moral, the tactic will not work.

It pretty simple. Stick to chain initially, and try to concentrate your fire on a few of their ships, once the line breaks up, send your largest most intact ships to storm the stragglers and shoot to crap out of his smaller ships to cause explosions.

Not much of a plan, but for the most part you want to be crossing his T and not the other way around.