Russo-Japanese Naval Campaign - Introduction
[Pre-Cabinette Archives c.2011-13?]
The Genesis of Russo-Japanese Naval Armageddon
A few (let’s not be too picky) years ago I became frustrated with evenly matched naval encounters where players happily sacrifice their fleet with no aim other than to rob the opponent of his. It was clear the only way to overcome this mutually assured naval destruction was to run a campaign. So, taking a deep breath I thumbed through my trusty back catalogue of wargaming magazines and settled on a Russo-Japanese campaign system devised by David Manley and printed in both Wargames Illustrated (#181) and Miniature Wargames (#265). The Russo-Japanese War (RJW) was already a front-runner for this project as I was keen to exploit the quick-play pre-dreadnought rules, ‘Damn Battleships Again’ (DBA) by Phil Barker – then freely available on-line. A quick play-test with card counters, also from the trusty Interweb (see Mikasa example below), was an unqualified success.
The ships were mounted on magnetic tiling with a sea texture applied using fast-setting epoxy resin teased into waves and wakes with a cocktail stick. The ships were fitted with a card spacer before mounting on the base to maintain their freeboard once the sea texture was added. While the fleets were under construction several further play-tests fine-tuned the rules - I’m an obsessive rule-tweaker - to make the DBA rules more RJW specific and setting out how campaign encounters are translated onto the table.
Scratch Building Naval Terrain(?)
An absence of terrain is one the big attractions of naval wargaming, saving money, storage space and set-up time. Initially I used a blue cloth for the sea but it was not ideal and would ruck if I moved my ships with insufficient care. Needing a harder and smoother sea surface I visited my local flooring shop and found some vinyl flooring (see photo) that could be cut to match the size of my table with no unsightly joins.
This not only looked better, but offered a much better user-experience compared to my blue cloth. Not only does it have a slightly shiny and textured surface better suited to represent water it also lays flat with no creases despite being stored rolled up in my loft.
For islands I used my flocked Hexon hills (by Kallistra), the only other land features, which I made, were the two sides of the channel into Port Arthur. The photos below show the western arm known as the ‘Tiger’s Tail’...
These were made from vinyl tiles cut along contour lines and glued atop each other. These were smeared with PVA glue onto which sand was sprinkled and finally small balsa wood building (5-10mm mm tall) were added.
A Handy Widget for Damn Battleships Again (DBA)
While Phil Barker’s ‘Damn Battleships Again' are fast enough to allow several actions to be fought in a single day’s gaming, I wanted to speed them even further by making some bespoke tools. After some trial and error, I found all I needed was a single multi-purpose widget for measuring movement (distance and turning), defining arcs of fire and the 'knuckle angle'. The ‘knuckle’ angle is the tightest turn a squadron in line ahead can make without giving the enemy an advantage when firing at ships turning in sequence at the same point.
The pictures below show the widget in use to:
... move (ships move in increments of base lengths); ...
... and, define the broadside arc of fire.
A Quick Campaign Overview
The campaign theatre of operations is divided into several sea areas (see map).
The Japanese accrue victory points (VPs) for successfully convoying their army across the sea to seize Port Arthur; 35 VPs being required to win the war. The Russians win by either denying Japanese VPs or cancelling them out through actions such as bombarding the disembarkation ports. If the Russians can delay a Japanese win for long enough the Baltic fleet arrives to save the day – or meet a watery doom at Tsushima. Each turn (two per month), aside from the initial attack on Port Arthur, the players have to apportion their ships across variety mission types; these include patrols, convoy escort, bombardment and minelaying / sweeping. Players must specify the route that each mission takes to its destination (the return leg is ignored) hopefully avoiding any enemy patrols. To streamline order writing, bespoke order sheets were used (see 3-mission extract below); a highlighter was used to indicate the mission type and route so the player only has to write in the number of ships of each type (all ships of the same type have the same characteristics).
Of the different mission types patrolling is the most important. Successfully patrolling a sea area gives a player control of that area in the following turn which will limit their opponent’s ability to conduct missions because missions may enter an enemy controlled area but may not pass through it.
AC Armoured Cruiser
LC Light Cruiser
OAC Obsolete Armoured Cruiser
OBB Obsolete Battleship
OPC Obsolete Protected Cruiser
PC Protected Cruiser
TBD Torpedo Boat Destroyer
Finally Ready!
At last, unlike many other abandoned projects, this one was now ready and war was declared ... after the attack on Port Arthur!
A campaign narrative will follow in three instalments.
