Trains, planes, and … well, you probably know how it goes. Boats, ships, vessels, watercraft, whatever. The terms I use in the game have been changing like the seasons, but I’ll stick with “boats” for now.
Here a is walkthrough of what I’ve got in the game.
Canoes
Obviously small and light, the canoe is go to transportation for light troops and Indians. You can only carry so much, but they are easy to transport over land between bodies of water.
Bateaux
The bateau was the real workhorse of the North American wilderness, perhaps “comparable” to the Liberty ships of the Second World War? They were used to carry the bulk of the men and material across lakes and rivers. Between bodies of water, the men had to carry the bateaux, so e.g. from Hudson River to Lake George (or Wood Creek) – locally known as “Great Carrying Place”. This is not to be mixed with Oneida Carry, which may be the more famous Great Carrying Place. These overland portages could be several kilometers or miles long but there was no other option unless animals were available to haul the boats.
Bateaux came in many different sizes created by local carpenters, so a single bateau could carry maybe 10 or 20 men and quite a bit of cargo (barrels of food or gun powder, shot or shell for artillery, tents, and whatever an army might need to live and fight). Sometimes bateaux were also equipped with sails but typically they were rowed.
In the game I have two sizes for bateaux, basically small and large. The map does get a little cluttered with bateaux and canoes all over the place, but then again, that’s how it goes!
If the other guy leaves some unattended, just go get them!
Radeaux
Radeaux were rafts used to haul larger loads, such as artillery. Slow and cumbersome, but so necessary if you want to move heavy pieces to the other end of the lake. Sometimes they were made by joining a few bateaux together with a platform on top.
I am not yet 100% sure if I will allow artillery to fire from a Radeaux – likely yes, but time will tell if this sticks. There is definitely a penalty involved.
Artillery Castles
Two or three floating artillery platforms, which I simply call Artillery Castles, were documented by contemporaries. Their purpose was to support a contested landing at the end of the Lake George. However, the French pulled back once they realized the massive size of the approaching fleet. These Artillery Castles (I love the term!) had guns ready to bombard French positions during the landing.
Jacobs
In 1757, Lieutenant Louis-Thomas Jacau de Fiedmont of the French Royal Artillery tested adding cannons to bateaux and thus created the small gunboat called a “Jacob”. Apparently already used in the attack on Fort William Henry, I have decided to have a optional rule to enable a bit more support for the French. After all, if it could have been available in 1758, it should be available in “1758 Fort Carillon”.
Ships
Yep, there is more. Sources have not really been clear where the French “fleet” was located in July 1758, but we’ll have a few key vessels roaming the lake.
La Vigilante, a 10-gun schooner, and Saintonge, a lightly-armed barge showing its age, were the two main French ships on Lake Champlain at the time. Especially La Vigilante will bring a notable addition to the French defenses. If you have captain Payant* at the helm, he’ll give the Rangers a hard time if they try to cross the lake 🙂
* L’Amiral du lac Champlain, Joseph Payant dit St-Onge – or something; I don’t speak French, so please pardon my French!
Below is an image I took in 2014 at Fort Ticonderoga of a diorama showing various vessels on Lake Champlain. If I recall correctly, the diorama depicts vessels some twenty years after the battle, in mid-1770s.
