An Affair of Outposts, Yellow Sea, November 1904….Game Number 79 Part 1.

A Japanese squadron looking for the Russians

For a variety of reasons the planned naval Russo Japanese War game for next week at the club has been postponed until early February. In the meantime though, I thought it would be a good idea to have a solo run out of the rules at their current stage of development, just so you could see what is what and where is where. The action was fought using my WoFun collection and my Hexon seascape on a 5ft by 3ft playing area or 15 by 8 hexes if you prefer. I have opted to use two forces of protected cruisers that essentially run into each other whilst on patrol. Contrived I know, but there is a method in the madness. The two forces consist of the following and at this stage do not worry overmuch about the abundance of letters - they all mean something and this will become clearer as the action unfolds.

Japan

Kasigi and Chitose

Tsushima and Niitaka

Oleg and Aurora

Izumrud and Jhemchug

The ship charts you see above are very much a work in progress and have been made deliberately large so that notes etc can be easily recorded if required. The top half - speed, turn increment, hull size, armour class and flotation points are pretty much self explanatory but the weapons fit may seem a little complex. In a nutshell, each box represents a D6 roll for combat - either a guns or guns or torpedoes. The letters within the boxes are the firing arcs that the weapon can bear upon. There are six main firing arcs and a further twelve combined arcs making eighteen in all. Straightaway that will seem overly complex but in practice it is surprisingly simple to work with and has the advantage of better representing some of the unique weapon fits carried by ships over the period - wing turrets, casemate batteries and so forth. Every permutation of firing arc has its own diagram which avoids any ambiguity and the ship specification tables for each sub-period will also include the appropriate abbreviation.

Armour and Guns range from very light to very heavy with the former also having an unprotected category. Looking at the charts above you can see the appropriate initial by the gun or torpedo line - for example the Japanese protected cruiser Kasigi has a pair of medium weight (M) main guns with two gun boxes. FWPS means forward wide part and starboard whilst AWPS means aft wide port and starboard. In each case this translates as being able to bear in either the port, starboard or forward wide firing arcs. P/S means a gun box that can bear either port or starboard. Simple eh?

Where there is an overlap in gun types - where two calibres fall within the same category - the larger of the two gains a * next to it to distinguish it, as well as a positive D6 modifier. 

Guns classed as main or any ironclad era rifles have one box per barrel, secondary have one box per two barrels whilst tertiaries have one box per three barrels. Guns classed as light (L) or very light (VL) - typically 6” or smaller - gain a positive firing modifier to allow for their generally faster rate of fire.

I could witter on about this stuff for ages but for now I will leave it there as I have a battle to get ready for.

Somewhere in the Yellow Sea, November 11th, 1904….

To Be Continued….