Well I'm interested to hear opinions on how the game will handle "raking" and whether a stern rake will be far more powerful than a forward one. I looked through various boardgames I have and they varied from not differentiating the two rakes at all, to doubling the stern rake compared to the forward rake to making the stern rake 1.5 more powerful.

From all my reading, which may not be much, the stern rake if done properly and timed to sweep the ship stern to bow, is utterly devastating. The casualty figures on ships raked by the finest gunners (the brits..please no arguments about the US sailors, I'm talking SOL here) were truly enormous, not just in crew killed and wounded but also in guns dismounted and other sundry damage. It was not unknown for a mast to be shot through on the gun decks.

However, I cant recall such devastation from a forward rake and logic suggests that this would be as expected. The bow of the ship is tapered therefore deflects some shot, it is more heavily reinforced for crashing through the seas so some shot wont penetrate, it is a little further from the gun deck so some shot that does penetrate will loose momentum and do less damage. The bow presents a much smaller cross-sectional target making it harder to hit. All these factors help to reduce the damage a rake through the bows could inflict. Conversely, the stern of a ship is pretty much windows and thinner timber, the stern is designed to keep the weather out, allow light in and provide accommodation space, when cleared for action there is very little between the stern of a ship and the forward guns of the gun decks. It is literally like a bowling alley with only the mast, ladders, stored supplies (down the centre line and along the sides) and the guns themselves to inhibit movement down the length of the ship. The stern of the ship is a huge expanse of flat cross-section making it easier to hit and far simpler to penetrate.

My thoughts are thus summarised here for discussion:

1) Stern rakes if well done are devastating, probably battle winning
2) Forward rakes are harder to achieve, and even if done successfully will do far less damage
3) A "partial rake", that is, a rake where only a portion of the broadside can go the length of a target ship should be severely reduced in effect for a bow partial rake, perhaps no effect at all above a normal broadside. A partial stern wake would be "partially" devastating.
4) All rakes whether stern or bow are not equal. What I mean is that an elite crew on average will do more damage and successfully implement a rake better than a green crew. The rules would therefore need to bias the liklihood of success of a rake, plus bias the damage inflicted by a successful rake towards better crews. This does not mean a green crew couldn't land the perfect rake straight through the stern windows of HMS Victory, it just means it isn't very likely. Thus poor crews will find it harder to actually hit a ship in a rake position and even if they do their timing will mean they are less likely to inflict the maximum damage.

All of these discussions of course centre around the quality of gunnery which no doubt will be differentiated but the issue of "the rake" is a complex one. I think bow rakes are actually not that effective, I'm not even convinced they should get any bonus apart from the fact that the victim cant shoot back at you! I'd like to hear of examples of any combats you may know of where the bow rake was crucial to the outcome of the battle.