Naval Campaigns 4.04

Now, let's dive into further details about this expansion, and I'll turn things over to Gary McClellan, our lead scenario designer for the Naval Campaigns series and also the author of this expansion. The first couple of paragraphs were posted as part of the Jutland post, but they will be repeated here for continuity of this article.

Tsushima Expansion: Rich and I have talked for years about the need for some kind of expansion for the game, and I’d even started to set some ideas down. However, when Rich mentioned the update to me, I looked harder at the Russo-Japanese War, and lo and behold, options began to open up to me. Honestly, there was a lot more going on in the war than the initial game dealt with. The original game focused on three battles: Yellow Sea, Ulsan and Tsushima.

However, the naval aspect of the Russo-Japanese War was considerably busier than those three battles. One of the most important aspects of the war is that both sides were on rather dubious logistical lines. The Russians had the Trans-Siberian Railroad, but it was very new at the time, and not entirely finished. They could send men and supplies to the war, but it was always going to be fairly slow going. On the other hand, the Japanese could get troops and supplies to the front lines much more quickly, but the vulnerable point was the sea transit from Japan to Korea. In fact, that was highlighted in one action where the Russian Vladivostok Squadron nailed an unescorted transport heading to Korea which was carrying reinforcements for the Imperial Guard Division, as well as a battery of super-heavy artillery for the Siege of Port Arthur. Sinking that single ship delayed the fall of the city for months.

So, when the war started, the initial Japanese goal was to neutralize the Russian Fleet in Port Arthur, and then sweep the Russians out of the area before the full weight of Russian reinforcements could turn the war against them. The failure of the initial attacks on Port Arthur (Scenarios #1 and #2, as well as the Port Arthur Mini-Campaign) left the Japanese in a difficult position. They needed to blockade the Russians in the port, while still detailing enough forces to keep an eye on the Cruiser Squadron based at Vladivostok.

All of this left a nice variety of scenarios that we could add to the game. Not only are the aforementioned Port Arthur and Tsushima Straits scenarios included, but also a scenario on a skirmish on June 23. On that day, the Russians sortied out of Port Arthur, and despite having caught the Japanese at a bit of a disadvantage, did not press the advantage and eventually went back to the port. So a June 23 scenario has been added; not as a hypothetical, as the fleets were out that day, but simply to allow the players to be more aggressive than their historical counterparts.

Likewise, the Vladivostok Squadron kept busy, and launched a raid to attempt a diversion for that sortie (due to communication difficulties, the Port Arthur Fleet was already home by the time the Vladivostok Squadron sailed.) The Japanese attempted to intercept them in the Straits of Tsushima, but the horrid visibility prevented any major contact.

Finally, one of the survivors from the Battle of the Yellow Sea (CL Novik) attempted to sail to Vladivostok, but actually sailed around to the east of the Japanese Isles, with the goal of passing through La Perouse Strait off Sakhalin Island to reenter the Sea of Japan and head to Vladivostok. However, it was located off the Port of Korsakov and sunk by two pursuing Japanese CL. However, the Japanese ships are widely separated and the Russian player may be able to defeat them in detail.

The expansion also contains a pair of historical campaigns for the players. First of all is the Port Arthur Mini-Campaign. The Japanese plan for the opening of the war was to launch a night torpedo attack on the Russian Fleet. However, the attack was of limited success, in large part because the Japanese didn’t use enough Destroyers for the task. For that first battle, the Russians were hamstrung by strict orders from Moscow to not start a war with the Japanese, with even the Russian Guard Ships being under orders not to fire. The coastal batteries were unarmed. The Russians were also vulnerable because they tended to keep their ships outside the main harbor, because the channel was narrow and shallow, and capital ships could only cross at high tide.

The next day, the Japanese main fleet attempted to bombard the remainder of the Russian fleet, but by that time the harbor forts had been manned and activated, and they broke off fairly quickly.

So, the Mini-Campaign represents the two phases of the battle. The night attack with no harbor forts, and then the daylight battle with the Russian defenses fully manned and ready.

The second historical campaign is the full Russo-Japanese War campaign. It starts at Port Arthur, but continues through all the actions of the war. The key here for both sides is to cause attrition while avoiding it. The Russians need to get the Port Arthur fleet out of the harbor and escape to Vladivostok. If they don’t, it is assumed that they will meet their historical fate (bombarded by the Japanese Siege Battery and sunk.) However, any Japanese ship they can sink will not be available for the big battle when the Baltic Fleet comes calling at Tsushima. The campaign will take you through the historical battles (including the abortive June 23 sortie). If the Russian fleet manages to escape to Vladivostok, they’ll be able to sail in support of the Baltic Fleet (ok, the 2nd Pacific Fleet).

Now we bring you some historical notes about the wider world situation that was unfolding that brought these naval actions to a head. These have also been added to the Design Notes for this title.

If you look at a map of the world in 1900, one thing that will quickly come to your attention is European Colonial hegemony. By that point in time, there were almost no parts of the earth (aside from the Antarctic) that were not either directly under the control of European nations, or controlled by the descendents of European settlers (such as the United States and other nations in the Americas.)

However, there were a few exceptions. Two of the most notable were Japan and China, though they were looking more than a bit tenuous. China could feel the pressure of the colonial powers. They’d been forced to give exclaves to the British (Hong Kong), Germans (Tsingtao) and Russians (Port Arthur). What’s more, the Russians were in the process of wedging their way into Manchuria.

Japan was not immune to those pressures either. As early as 1861, the Russians had landed on the island of Tsushima, midway between Kyushu and Korea. The ensuing crisis saw the British intervene and the Russians leave the island. However, this was one in a series of incidents which led to the Japanese to be very concerned about Russian expansion. This was compounded by the Russian presence on Sakhalin Island, just to the north of Hokkaido.

The story is not as simple as a nation resisting an expansionist power, however. The Japanese were looking to embark on their own round of colonial expansion, and looked hungrily at Korea, just across the Straits of Tsushima. At this point, Korea was largely a dependency of China, and the plum looked ripe for the picking. In 1894, the Japanese invaded Korea and fought the Chinese in the First Sino-Japanese War. The Japanese were able to defeat the disorganized Chinese, and were able to grab the prize of Port Arthur on the Liaodong Peninsula.

However, the Russians also wanted Port Arthur, in line with their long-standing goal of getting a warm water Pacific Port. They were able to use diplomatic pressure to force the Japanese to give back much of their war gains, and occupy the valued port for themselves.

This brings us to the Russo-Japanese War, when the Japanese decided to attack the Russians to regain their spoils, as well as push back against Russian colonial pressure.

The key to understanding the war is that both sides were dealing with a potentially troublesome logistic situation. For Russia, the primary problem is that the war was a long way from European Russia, and the Trans-Siberian Railway was still incomplete and single track at this point.

For the Japanese, the issue was simply that it was an overseas war. The primary land battles would be fought in the area just to the Northwest of the Yalu River, but that still meant that they would have to haul men and supplies over the water. It wasn’t an especially long trip, but it did provide a way for the Russians to throw off their logistics. That meant that both sides had great interest in establishing naval superiority.

At least for the first stages of the war, the naval balance of power was relatively equal. The Russian Pacific Fleet at Port Arthur was probably the best fleet they had, with the most modern ships and the best trained crews. They also had a few cruisers at Vladivostok. Neither base was well equipped for major repairs, which ordinarily required a trip back to Europe. (However, in the course of the war, the crews in Port Arthur did remarkable work in bringing seriously damaged craft back into service.) The Japanese Fleet was fairly modern, especially their six battleships, and very well trained.

When the Japanese made the decision to attack, they made the further decision that one of their top priorities would be to neutralize the Russian Fleet. To that end, they decided to launch a surprise attack, not only at Port Arthur, but also to overwhelm a Russian cruiser which was in the neutral port at Chemulpo (Incheon).

The Russian fleet in Port Arthur was vulnerable for a few reasons. The Russians did have some expectation that the Japanese might declare war, and the Tsar had given strict orders that the Russian forces should not instigate the war. Because of that, the harbor forts were not in combat ready condition, and the guard destroyers were strictly ordered not to open fire. Further, the inner harbor at Port Arthur had a very narrow and shallow channel, and capital ships could only get through at high tide. Therefore, it was common for the fleet to be anchored outside the harbor.

The first stage of the Japanese attack was a torpedo attack by ten destroyers. Admiral Togo had more destroyers available, but he chose to send some of them to check on the nearby port of Dalian. The attack was somewhat successful, damaging two battleships and a cruiser. Later that day, Admiral Togo brought up his large ships to bombard the Russian fleet, but by this time the harbor forts had been made combat ready, and he broke off the action with only light damage to either side.

In the larger scheme of things, the surprise attack on Port Arthur had failed, and the Russian Pacific Fleet was still capable of interfering with Japanese communications. The Japanese navy was forced into a blockade of Port Arthur. It would need to be a distant blockade, as the combined threat of the harbor forts and defensive minefields would prevent the Japanese from closely pressing on Port Arthur.

The Russians soon sent down one of their most talented and aggressive admirals, Stepan Makarov, to take command of the fleet. He quickly raised the morale of the Russian fleet and they started to operate aggressively to break the blockade. However, this is when one of the major features of this war made its appearance. The waters around Port Arthur were heavily mined, with both the Russians and Japanese laying extensive fields in the area. On April 13, 1904, Admiral Makarov was aboard the battleship Petropavlovsk when it struck a mine and sank rapidly, causing his death. However, the mines would soon claim their revenge with interest, when on May 14, the Japanese stumbled into a Russian minefield and lost both the Hatsuse and Yashima.

While the loss of one-third of the Japanese battleline swung the balance of force towards the Russians, their commanders, aware of Makarov's fate, did not step up to the occasion. They attempted a sortie at the end of June, but quickly turned back, despite having caught the Japanese short with their forces weakened by numerous detachments.

The source of many of those detachments was the Russian cruiser squadron at Vladivostok. The Japanese were not able to spare enough forces to keep it firmly blockaded, and the cruisers were able to raid into the Straits of Tsushima on several occasions, once catching a ship carrying reinforcements for the Imperial Guard, as well as a number of heavy cannon intended for the Siege of Port Arthur.

Finally, in August, the Tsar demanded that the Russian Fleet break out of Port Arthur and make a run for Vladivostok. This led to the Battle of the Yellow Sea, where the Russians were nearly able to force their way out, but in the end were forced to return to Port Arthur. From there, it was just a matter of time until the Japanese Army was able to deploy heavy artillery in a position to destroy the Pacific Fleet.

The abortive sortie that led to the Battle of the Yellow Sea also led to the loss of the Vladivostok Squadron, which had sortied to provide a distraction and was caught by a superior Japanese squadron off Ulsan.

With the loss of the Russian Pacific Fleet, the war settled into a land war, with the Japanese gaining a final, decisive victory at Mukden. With that accomplished, the only thing left was to deal with the Russian Baltic Fleet (now, the Second Pacific Fleet) which had sailed around the world in an attempt to save Port Arthur and the First Pacific Fleet. The ragged, exhausted fleet was no match for the rested and battle hardened Japanese, and the decisive Battle of Tsushima would effectively end the war.

And that wraps up the Tsushima aspect of today's post. To recap, the following games have been brought up to the 4.04 level today:

And Guadalcanal & Midway have new campaigns added in, in addition to what is listed above and in the Jutland post. Existing owners can grab the new downloads from their Store Account page and new purchases will get the fully up-to-date version upon purchase.

If you would like to discuss this series with other members of the community you can do so in the specific section setup for them in the WDS Forums.

And that brings us to a close on todays post... lots of new gaming to be had. We hope you enjoy it!