Napoleonic Naval: 1/1200 Scale French v British (RN)

To me there is nothing quite as enchanting as 1/1200 scale Napoleonic warships in the thick of fight. Here a battle squadron of five British (three ships of the line and two frigates) coming to grips with two smaller Squadrons of French (two ships of the line and a frigate a piece). The game was in progress as I joined so some damage had already been accumulated two the leading French and British ships at the bottom of the picture (see below): 

The vans close to exchange deadly fire (see below):

The plan is for the British (who have the weather gauge) to finish off the bottom French squadron before dealing with the second French squadron. This means the rear of the British line is about to be exposed to some long range fire as their "T" is crossed (see below): 

The British Flagship locks horns with its French counterpart and a vicious boarding engagement follows. Not wanting to run foul of the British flagship the second in line abruptly turns to cut the French line (taking "hot" fire as she does so) while the lowly rear most British frigates escape serious damage from the French long range fire. The third British ship of the line decides to cross the French's rear "T" at a more deadly close range (see below): 

In the distance (see top of photograph below) the second French squadron slowly tacks, finding themselves out of position. There are two fierce close quarter actions afoot, with a dangerous looking "French-British-French" sandwich developing against the British flagship. Luckily for the British the opportunistic Frenchman intending to blast the rear of the British flagship sustained withering fire as it manoeuvred. The rearmost three British ships are tacking in an attempt to overwhelm the two stationary Frenchmen before teh second French squadron gets into the fight (see below):

The British flagship is suffering from a withering close range raking, which did not help the boarding action as the French are across her decks. All hangs in the balance. The fickle wind is not helping the six ships trying to manoeuvre into the battle (see below): 

There sadly I had to leave it as each round of the game was actually quite time consuming (old 1970 rules were being used). I later heard the British flagship had struck her colours but the two leading Frenchmen were in a very bad way so the game was called  a "Tactical" French win but "Strategic" Draw as the ships that had fought were no longer sea worthy and sank.