View Full Version : “An Affair in Morocco.” Part three. "Stealth by night."
Characters introduced into the story thus far.
Algerine and Moroccan Persona.
The Dey of Gizzanoffa: Kamel Mudanyaei.
His Vizier: Amin Giffar.
The Dey’s: Admiral Kulin Bey.
The late Captain of the Al Mukabir: Camel Mujadine
The new Captain of the Al Mukabir: Rashid Suleiman
American persona.
The Squadron commander: Commodore Silas Goldberg.
The captain of USS Constitution: David Frazer.
The captain of USS Essex: Andrew Millington.
First Officer: Paul Swift.
Sailing Master: Hezekiah Bramley.
Essex’s Captain of Marines: Davy Weiss.
Essex’s Master Gunner: Hamish Fyffe.
Essex’s Master Carpenter: Amos Grady
The captain of USS Syren: Lieutenant Gregory Hardman.
Lieutenant Guy Falconer.
Sailing Master: Simeon Prentice.
The Captain of USS John Adams: Cyrus Gregory
John Adam’ First Officer: James Stone.
John Adams’ Gun Captain: Will Bridewell.
Captain of the USS Schooner Enterprise: Lieutenant Andrew Sterett.
Captain of an unknown Algerine ship: Mustapha Kamil.
Sterett’s second ic: Lt. Jim Prentiss.
Ships Master: George Varley.
Master Gunner: Jim Cowley.
Ship’s carpenter: George Temple.
Schooner: Captain Richard Glover (nicknamed Iron fist amongst the hands.)
His ships Master Gunner : Ralph Watson.(“ Old deaf head” to his mates.)
New persona:-
Schooner: Nautilus: Lieutenant Richard Somers.
New characters in this episode.
Nautilus Master: Silas Jones.
July Mission part three. “By stealth at night.”
A few days later after several repairs, in the early hours of the morning, under cloud cover, and before moon rise the two ships were back on station.
They were still both slightly damaged and missing some guns, plus sailors and Marines who were assigned to a special mission.
There was a steady wind blowing down the bay to the West, by South West, which although it was against the ships direction of travel, it was hoped would mask any sound from the ships as Millington put into operation his most daring plan to date.
This plan was for Essex to demonstrate against the seaward defences of Tripoli and hopefully draw the attention of the garrison.
Whilst this was taking place, Lieutenant Somers, with Nautilus, would penetrate the bay until just outside the range of the fortifications guns and give covering fire to the ships boats and Essex’s Marines who would attempt to take the remaining soundings as yet uncompleted as deeply into the harbour as they could before being spotted.
To this end both ships had now slipped into position and Somers only awaited the gunfire from Essex to begin his dangerous mission.
Silently the Essex slipped into position just off the Castle headland.
As Captain Millington closes with the Fort, (despite a poor dice roll must have been the ships rigging groaning) his ship goes totally unobserved by the sentinels.
Someone will lose his head in the morning!
Unaware of the drama unfolding to the East, Richard Somers orders Nautilus’s helm down as she manoeuvres’ into her covering position off the small fort, but out of range. For a moment the rising moon peaks through a gap in the clouds, but the illuminated sails bring no response from the fort there either.
Finally in position, Richard orders the anchor away, and instructs his First Officer, Andrew Conyers to place a spring on the anchor.
A few minutes later and the silence is broken as Essex delivers a broadside upon the Northernmost fortifications, signalling the commencement of the operations.
Taken completely by surprise the fort offers no retaliation, as the garrison is awakened by the sound of gunfire and crumbling masonry.
By this juncture Nautilus has her spring deployed and her Master gunner Silas Jones is fine tuning her bearing on the harbour approaches
Meanwhile Essex is passing the offshore castle and also delivering a wakeup call to its inhabitants.
This time, however, there is a reply from the Fortifications on the promontory who have rushed to get some of their guns loaded.
Although only one of their shots is aimed well enough to be successful, it is sufficient to make Andrew Millington realize that he is about to stir up a Hornet’s nest and he orders the ship’s Sailing Master Hezekiah Bramley to bear away.
The ruse de guerre seems to have worked in drawing the enemy’s attention, and Richard Somers is able to deploy his ship’s boats silently and without any undue attention.
Essex was now taking fire from all parts of the defences as more cannon were loaded. Fortunately their size and age made them very unwieldy, otherwise the shooting would have been far more dangerous. As it was the fairly dark night and movement of the ship was helping to keep the damage down, although even one hit from a 60 lb ball could inflict serious damage on the Frigate.
The uproar from the coast was still masking the work of the ships boats taking soundings, even though the Moon was occasionally breaking through the clouds and bathing the wave crests in an eerie light.
As the crew continued to take soundings a more sinister threat was developing as two gunboats stealthily deployed between the headlands.
As Essex came to the end of its first traverse of the works,
Hamish Fyffe the Master Gunner to the time to aim each gun himself, and deliver a parting salvo, even though he knew that the guns would make little inroads on the sturdy walls of the old Fortress.
Those which did strike home would nevertheless serve to keep the Moorish Gunners heads down, and there attention riveted upon the Essex.
Once again the moon chose this minute to illuminate the sails of Essex, and as she bore away out of range, it was enough to give the shore gunners one last shot, which fortunately failed to register.
However, the wind which had been steady thus far now chose to play a nasty trick and veered to strike Northerly.
This forced Essex to jibe, and bringing her back almost into range of the fortress once more.
At the same time it also forced Nautilus to take up the slack on her spring to hold her heading.
Although now out of range of the fortifications, Essex continued her bombardment to aid the survey boats continued un-detection. The moon having now broken through helped to keep the defenders attention focussed on the ship.
It did not, however, discover to the crew of the Essex the two gunboats, which, also unaware of the stealthy goings on in the harbour, were silently traversing the shoals, on a mission to take the Essex “Sur La Derriere.”
Thus were the boys from Nautilus allowed to continue their nefarious business undetected.
As the gradually worked their way further East, Richard was forced to order further adjustments on the spring in order to continue to give the boats covering fire.
The unsuspecting Essex also moved East, ready to begin another run along the defences, set more sail and altered her course to comply with the curve in the coastline.
Little did she realize that the hounds were steadily closing in on their prey?
Captain Millington ordered on more volley before turning toward the fortifications for one more run.
The wind still held steady, and he was almost ready to wear ship when....
Suddenly from astern all hell was let loose.
The first of the gunboats had let fly with her massive forrard gun and smaller weapons.
As Essex continued with her turn, the Gunboat veered to starboard in order to bring her side battery to bear, and also to allow her consort to come into action.
This proved to be a costly mistake as it allowed Essex to get off a close range broadside, almost crippling the Gunboat in one round of fire.
As she was completing her turn to Port Essex was totally unaware of the second Gunboat looming up out of the darkness until its foremost guns raked her bows, causing considerable damage and holing her twixt wind and water.
Millington replied at once with his bow chaser which was the only gun he could bring to bear.
Despite the chaos caused to Essex Captain Millington had the situation under control within seconds and, as luck would have it, both ships ported their helms still further and thus avoided a collision as they swept past each other.
Essex starboard battery did manage to get off a broadside into the already damaged Gunboat which effectively put it out of action for good.
Also despite the havoc wrought by the second Gunboat, Hamish Fyffe did manage to assemble sufficient gunners for the Starboard after section to get off a parting shot into their tormentor which crushed the fore part of her forecastle and tore through her sails and rigging.
As the false dawn started to creep across the sky, it was now just a question of running the gauntlet of the Fortifications, which had opened fire as soon as Essex had cleared the stern of the Gunboats.
Captain Millington knew he was in for a pasting as he was caught in the crossfire from several batteries at the same time.
All he could do now was crowd on sail and run for it trusting to luck to see him and his ship through.
With the onset of dawn Lieutenant Somers had also decided to call it and raising anchor set off to reclaim his missing ships boats and crews.
The ships boat crews breathed a sigh of relief as they closed with the Nautilus. It has been a hair raising operation for them. They could now bask in the knowledge of a good job completed.
Even with the advent of dawn, the inefficient sentinels on the small fort had failed to notice the three boats making their way back across the harbour.
Unfortunately for the boat crews, this was not the case with the sentries who had been kept awake on the mole most of the night by Essex’s gunfire.
As the light improved and Essex fled, they had time to look around and take stock. The sight of Nautilus underway brought their full attention onto the outer harbour approaches, and they also spotted the boats like an arrow of sitting ducklings heading back to their mother.
Even though the range was extreme, the hot guns managed to skip a ball off the water into the middle of the trio of boats, completely demolishing it and killing most of its crew outright, including Nautilus’s Second Officer who was in command of the survey.
This unhappy conclusion to the survey seemed to at last awaken the gunners on the small fort to the situation, and belatedly they also opened fire. Fortuitously their ball fell short of the trailing boat, and before they could reload the remaining boat, having paused to rescue any survivors from the ships gig pulled out of range and headed back to Nautilus.
With the reunion of the boats and Nautilus, plus the arrival of Essex, the operation concluded.
The ships could now report back to Commodore Goldberg, with a chart showing comprehensively almost the whole of the Tripoli Harbour approaches and hazards.
Butcher’s Bill.
The Americans' ships. ships.
The Tripolitanian Gunboats.
Just a quick thank you to Anthony (Continentaleye) for the kind remarks and Rep he has given me for this episode.
Tomorrow the scene for our weekly game will be moving to the Persian Gulf for a slightly different scenario, before the move back to the Med.
Rob.
I always enjoy reading your AAR's Rob not least because of the models and effort you put into them. I really like your use of the laser for heated cannon shot too. Thank you for posting them. :beer:
Thanks Gary.
it is always good to know people are enjoying my posts.
Rob.
Diamondback
07-29-2021, 12:58
Funny thing... a buddy was just curious about wargaming in general and I sent him some of your AAR's as an illustration of how customizable the game can be even if it's just a solitaire scenario.
Great DB.
Today's game was set in the Gulf. HEIC vs French. I felt it was time they had another airing. It was an odd senario in the way it played out mainly because of a couple of strange wind shifts.
Will post in the next few days.
Rob.
Vagabond
08-22-2021, 02:52
You're really on a roll with these games at the moment. Long may it continue. Yet again a clever scenario with a good outcome for the Americans.
Essex got a bit of a hammering in this one. We were a bit worried that the fort might have done for her but that did not happen thank goodness. Captain Smithers is taking well to his new role as the main actor, whilst I just do the dice rolls for events and fire the guns or move the AI ships about. He now has a Starter set which he is hoping to use to entice his grandkids into action.
Rob.
ShadowDragon
08-31-2021, 10:27
An interesting scenario idea and great terrain - i.e., forts and town. Wow! I AM impressed....but not as in 'pressed' naval-wise. :)
This is all setting up for the Tripoli game at Doncaster Paul.
Thanks for the nice comments.
Rob.
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