Britain v France 1899

[martinworsey]

This is a fleet battle set in the Mediterranean in 1899.

It is based around the war scare associated with the Fashoda incident of 1898.

In order to produce ships with period flavour, I have produced a set of ship parts with era colours. I have also used the deck colours from the NWS Forum.

As ships designed in the 1890s often included open barbettes, I have produced a mini mod substituting the open barbette designs for Austrian turrets. I have produced 2 versions, version 1 does not include the turret mod (in case this is not desirable). Version 2 includes the mod.

[martinworsey]

Version 1

Ship Parts should be copied into the Graphics File (Rule the Waves 3 >Data>Graphics. They are prefixed with a z for easy identification.

[martinworsey]

Version 2
This allows Marceau class to have barbette armour and Royal Sovereign class with a barbette mount.

Based upon Steam and Iron, this was the way that Royal Sovereign was represented.

[AndyHall]

Outstanding! Thanks for creating this scenario. It's one I've often thought about but have not got around to creating. Well done!

Monsieur Johnny Crapaud got a thumping first time out.

One thing I noticed is that the game clock runs in reverse. This was an issue in the SaI:RJW, as well, for pre-1900 scenarios. I don't know what to do about it but there seems to be an easy fix, that is to open the scenario in scenario editor and change the year to 1901.

Good stuff!

Screenshot 2026-07-04 143838.png (120.71 KiB) Viewed 319 times

Screenshot 2026-07-04 172158.png (40.31 KiB) Viewed 319 times

[martinworsey]

Thanks for the feedback.

My best result as British was 7 B, 1 CL and 1 TB sunk for 1 DD lost (although this was an early playthrough). However, this was the Reserve and Coastal Defence battleships. I have also managed to lose (3 B lost to 2 B sunk including my flagship to a torpedo).

[AndyHall]

Actually did quite a bit better second time through. The trick so far seems to be to look for a gap in the French line and cut off the trailing French battleships and destroy them piecemeal, something like Nelson at St. Vincent.

[martinworsey]

That is what I did on my successful run through.

When looking at the vessels, those typically referred to as pre-dreadnoughts (Brennus, the flotte d'Echantillons and Charlemagnes) are very powerful and much superior to the earlier vessels typically referred to as ironclads. The coast defence vessels are also rather weak. If you cut the trailing weaker ships off, it seems possible to achieve a decisive victory. Otherwise, the better ships on both sides are well matched.

I did research the scenario (the French oob was taken from John Jordan and Philippe Caresse French Battleships of World War One and the fleet exercises in 1900). Therefore, the ships available are historical and hopefully reflect the relative merits (or otherwise) of what was available. I find the evolution of warships in the 1880's and 1890's quite interesting with vessels just as revolutionary as Warrior and Dreadnought emerging.