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Post by randomizer on Dec 14, 2013 22:18:30 GMT -6
Part-1
What follows are personal opinions regarding the game, the historical background behind some of it and how the history can affect how the game plays out. Nothing that follows is meant to reflect the views, philosophies, intent or opinions of any other Member of the NWS Team or Fredrik Wallin, SAI’s designer in any way. I claim ownership of any errors however.
For the last year or so I have found myself immersed in the arcane and often misunderstood Russo-Japanese War, February 1904 through September 1905 and it is my (probably biased) opinion that Fredrik’s interpretation of events produces perhaps the best recreation of the naval war as has been published anywhere. This was a complex war where contrary to the received wisdom, naval power was exercised in a manner that was mostly outside of the recently promulgated theories of the now famous A.T. Mahan; whose writings the Russian’s had probably not even noticed and the very pragmatic Japanese seem to have taken with a rather large grain of salt up until that time. Unlike SAI WW1 both sides have the ability to affect the land war. For the Japanese Player this means accumulating Victory Points (VP) by accomplishing VP objectives and sinking Russian ships while preserving his own. Japanese VP totals will trigger certain events up to and including the fall of Port Arthur. The Russian Player needs to prevent this.
The Ship Designs:
DesignShip2 models the period warships reasonably well but some compromises were necessary in graphic representation (mostly in funnel arrangements) or secondary armament configuration. For example it proved impossible to accurately recreate the Japanese Garibaldi type CA Kasuga with her single 10” forward mount and twin 8” after mount. So Kasuga is depicted same as her sister Nisshin with two-twin 8” mounts. After the RJW the real Kasuga was refitted into this configuration so this game design decision might upset some rivet-counters but compromises are necessary and this hardly breaks the IJN. For the most part however, the ship designs in the game should be reasonable representations of their real-world counterparts but in the SAI world. Of course players may edit any design, as they like.
Destroyers and Torpedo Boats are generally much smaller than their WW1 counterparts and are comparatively weak in both gun and torpedo armament. Torpedoes ranges are less and daylight torpedo attacks can be suicidal. As there was as yet no counter to the submarine threat, you may find and operate cruisers and even big ships without DD escorts depending on the mission. Both sides have large numbers of torpedo craft but they usually have very short legs and across the course of a 4800-turn scenario, fuel can become a real concern. The torpedo-boat destroyer was still a new concept and the type generally only fought their own kind in the absence of bigger ships. In a fleet action they generally attempted to stay out of the way until nightfall. The Player who attempts to use them Great War style as screens or tries to counter real destroyers (>300 tons with 3” guns) with the smaller torpedo boats (generally <200 tons and mounting 2” guns) may not like the results. The best defenses against torpedo attacks are probably daylight and good visibility along with secondary and tertiary batteries of B’s, CA’s and CL’s.
For game purposes, some designs have had their type changed from B to CA, specifically the old Japanese battleships Chin Yen and Fuso. This was done so that the AI would better utilize them in their historical roles. They retain the same VP as their battleship incarnations, versions of which have been provided in the Designs folder for Player use as desired. In general the classification used in the designs was selected with the goal of facilitating the AI using them in a doctrinally sound manner for the period rather than absolutely adhering to contemporary or modern classifications. Indeed, in the day the proliferation of ship types caused by rapid technological change produced a bewildering mish-mash of First, Second, Third and Coast Defence Battleships, 1st, 2nd, 3rd Class, Armoured, Protected and Unprotected Cruisers, Gunboats added to assorted Torpedo Gunboats, Torpedo Boat Destroyers and Torpedo Boats and even a couple of Torpedo Rams although none of these are present in the game. Sorting them all out into the SAI warship ship types of B, CA, CL and DD was a bit of a challenge and some of the decisions may seem arbitrary. Feel free to use DesignShip2 to make whatever type changes you like with the caveat that the game engine treats each type differently. Gunnery and Combat:
Changes in the gunnery and doctrine parameters of SAI mean that importing ships from WW1 Steam and Iron to SAI-RJW (and vice-versa) may give unrepresentative or unusual results and is neither recommended nor supported. The decade between 1905 and 1914 brought vast changes in the understanding of internal and external ballistics as well as the very basic requirements for effective long-ranged gunnery combat. Battle ranges in the RJW are much shorter, generally 6-7000 yards and often closer. Outside of this distance, hit probability is reduced, often reaching < 0.01 and this conforms to what was seen in the event. Surprisingly, research indicated that contrary to popular opinion; Russian gunnery was often quite effective while Russian armour piercing (AP) ammunition was generally more efficient than that fired by the Japanese, who preferred high explosive shells (HE) for all calibers and did not employ any AP for guns < 8”. The game reflects this and so Players may find that what worked in WW1-SAI may not be so successful in the RJW.
One aspect of naval combat that research revealed is that in the gun vs. armour race, armour time and again demonstrated its superiority. It was very difficult to find instances where penetrating hits produced major behind-armour damage, at least where the target ship survived. At the Battle of Ulsan, Russian crews on the armoured cruisers Rurik, Gromoboi and Rossiya were slaughtered by HE hits but the ships’ vitals remained largely undamaged where protected by armour. The former ship was significantly slower than the Japanese and early on suffered a critical steering hit to her unarmoured stern that ultimately doomed her but fires (exacerbated by Lyddite based, Shimose HE filled furoshiki shells) and instability caused by flooding of her unarmoured ends were the principle causes of her loss. Similar effects may be seen in the game where Russian ships will be hit repeatedly by Japanese small and medium calibre HE and remain afloat and in the line. However, HE is far more likely to start fires and these can be fatal as they were in the event. I believe that SAI-RJW models the above quite accurately and it can be difficult to fight a purely gunnery action to a decisive conclusion without having overwhelming superiority. Of course if you are willing to close the range and risk catastrophic losses, you may do so but in the game as in the event, this usually benefits the Russian’s more than the Japanese.
Depending upon the mission profile (Attack, Normal, Cautious, Withdraw) Players should see the AI-controlled CA’s more inclined than in WW1-SAI to exchange fire with enemy battleships. This presents both opportunity and risks, as these ships are operationally very valuable and expensive in VP so they should never be expended lightly. The six excellent Japanese CA’s of Second Fleet are a priceless resource and attaching CA’s Nisshin and Kasuga to the battle line of 1st Division often serves well, as was the case during the war.
The tactical Holy Grail of “Crossing the T” (tei sempo) had only recently been adopted (attributed by some references to Admiral Sir John Fisher commanding the British Mediterranean Fleet during the 1901 maneuvers) as the 1894 Battle of the Yalu during the Sino-Japanese War had signaled the end of the Line Abreast as an engagement formation. The intervening decade found all the world’s first rate navies grappling with the triple issues of increasing warship speed, increasing gunnery ranges (~2000 yds in 1894, ~4000 yds in 1898 and >5000 yds by 1904) and fleet command and control. The Japanese Navy’s lessons from the war with China led them to the conclusion that superior speed allowed concentration on portions of the enemy line and that two divisions (one composed of B’s and the other CA’s) acting in concert could be used to create a tactical advantage. This was the essence of their “L” (otsu) tactics where the B division and CA division operate in an “L” shape relative to each other, keeping the enemy within the cradle of the “L”. If you can execute this tactic in the game, you may find it very effective for providing local firepower superiority and it may be easier to execute than “Crossing the T” within effective gunnery range even given a superior fleet speed.
Although wireless was widely fitted in both fleets (by the summer of 1904 wireless in Japanese warships down to destroyer size was practically universal), it was still too cumbersome to be used tactically. Therefore, command and control in action remained almost entirely visual using lights, flags and semaphore and neither side really encouraged subordinates using too much initiative in action. While this may have resulted in some missed opportunities it really came home to roost at Tsushima where it probably contributed to the disaster that overtook the Russian Fleet. Big ships were generally handled cautiously and with the aim of minimizing risk and there will be times in SAI-RJW when a similar approach may serve the Player well.
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Post by randomizer on Dec 14, 2013 22:22:25 GMT -6
Part-2
Japan’s War:
When playing SAI-RJW from the Japanese side, it might be beneficial to have a broad-brush understanding of Japan’s real-world war aims in 1904. Japan had been planning for war against Russia for some time but the goal was always a limited war and the strategic aim was control of Korea although almost all land combat would be in Manchuria. Essentially, the initial strategic concept of operations for 1904-05 was almost perfectly executed by the Japanese armed forces working together in a close cooperation almost entirely absent from 1941-45. This is not to say that everything proceeded perfectly, there were errors, diversions and even a few disasters along the way but overall the Russo-Japanese War unfolded as intended and the game is designed with this in mind.
The Japanese General and Naval Staff’s appreciated the magnitude of their task and planned accordingly. Once the decision to fight had been made, the plan was to unfold in two distinct phases:
1. The military occupation and subsequent political control and domination of the Korean Peninsula and advance to the Yalu River. Only when this phase was complete would operations be expanded to the next phase.
2. After securing Korea in all respects, military operations against the Russian Army in Manchuria would commence with the aim of inflicting such defeats as to trigger Russian withdrawal towards Harbin and a negotiated settlement in Japan’s favour. This will involve an advance north from the Yalu coupled with invasion of the Liaotung Peninsula through the ports of Anjun, Pitzuwo and Takushan. Depending upon the results of the invasion, other invasion objectives may include Dalny near Port Arthur and Yinkou to cut the rail line to Peking. There was never any intention to invade Russia proper, or at least those areas of the Far East where Russia had historically dominated. Only after the major Japanese victories at Mukden and Tsushima failed to induce Russia to negotiate did the Japanese plan to expand the war. More on this below.
The role for the Player with the Imperial Navy is to facilitate the Army’s implementation of the land war, first in Korea and it deserves to be emphasized again that only after the requirements of the first phase were complete would operations expand into Manchuria. As Combined Fleet commander, the Player should keep these broad goals in mind as he plans his operations. Although several sources claim that the Japanese were already enamored with the decisive battle doctrine of A.T. Mahan, there is considerable evidence to the contrary and the strategy executed in the first year of the war owed little or nothing to Mahanian theories of sea power. It was recognized that control of the sea lines of communications (SLOC’s, a modern term) was necessary and the destruction of the Russian Pacific Fleet was desirable but the planners realized that the prospects of the Russian navy cooperating in offering itself up during the opening days of the war were so slim as to be ignored. Therefore something else needed to be done and a plan to seal the Russian’s in Port Arthur (or Dalny if they were located there) using blockships was prepared and five hulks were readied, crews were trained and rehearsals conducted. Later, Vice Chief of the Naval Staff, Vice Admiral Ijuin Goro recommended a surprise torpedo attack on the Russian ships using a night attack by destroyers in advance of a declaration of war. Admiral Togo initially favoured the blockship scheme but elected to go with the torpedo attack just one-week before hostilities commenced. This last minute change of plans probably contributed to the relatively poor showing by the Japanese destroyer crews; ten-boats launched 16-torpedos at stationary targets closely grouped in short columns and achieved just three hits. Furthermore none of the damage proved fatal. The Imperial Navy did better at Chemulpo were cruiser Varyag and gunboat Korietz were damaged and then scuttled as the Japanese Army landed without opposition. The Campaign begins after both of these actions have occurred.
The initial turn can be very important to the Japanese Player. The long-term aim is to accumulate VP while denying the Russian AI the ability to do the same. You have the advantage in intelligence and will frequently learn of a Russian sortie so that you can use the Pre-empt function. Also, there is a Japanese Search Zone outside of Port Arthur and reports from this asset can often trigger Emergency Activation to allow you to sail at 50% Operation Point (OP) costs. However, in most respects the Russian navy is not a pushover.
The theatre is split in two by the Korean Peninsula and although both fleets are much smaller than what you might have become accustomed to in WW1-SAI, the area of operations is more than twice as big as the North Sea and far bigger than the Baltic. AI controlled merchant traffic plies both the Yellow Sea in the west and the Sea of Japan to the east. The Russian main base on the Yellow Sea is Port Arthur, heavily protected with batteries mounting up to 10” guns. Vladivostok is also protected by 10” guns and the approaches to both ports can expected to be mined. The Japanese have two dedicated minelayers converted from merchant ships and as in SAI-WW1 auxiliary minelayers may be purchased for VP. Although the principle Japanese bases are Hiroshima and Nagasaki, forward bases will become available and at the start, the Combined Fleet is located at Haeju Bay north of the 38th Parallel. Later, basing at Chinampo (the port for Pyongyang) or the Elliot Island just east of Dalny become options to consider. The Japanese may rebase automatically in most cases with some risk and OP cost. As a very general rule, the further forward your big ships are based the more reliable your ability to intercept Russian sorties and prevent the AI from attacking your Yellow Sea SLOC’s. The down side is that the Russian AI will tend to extensively mine the approaches to Dalny and Port Arthur and your naval intelligence will often not detect Russian defensive minefields so close blockade or pursuit of Russian ships can become very expensive.
Initially, Togo frequently had battleships from his 1st Division demonstrate in front of Port Arthur, trading long distance salvoes with the forts and challenging the Russians to come out. This can sometimes work; the AI may use Emergency Activation and sortie significant forces but then there is that nasty mine problem again. In one test game while attempting to exploit just this sort of situation I lost three irreplaceable battleships in a single afternoon and was never able to make up the lost VP. Mines crippled one ship and in trying to save her I lost the other two to an aggressive and effective attack by the AI outside of the range of the forts’ guns. Your main task is to facilitate the fall of Port Arthur by accumulating VP, protecting the Yellow Sea SLOC’s and minimizing your own losses. Neutralizing the 1st Pacific Squadron until the capture of its base is vital; Togo opted to let the Army do the heavy lifting at Port Arthur and in the Campaign you do this by accruing maximum VP. Other than Nisshin and Kasuga arriving in April 1904, you start out as strong as you will ever get and every loss hurts. The Russians have a spare fleet that should show up some time in the spring of 1905 and if you’re not ready, it can snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Know when to cut your losses or minimize your risks.
Keeping a lid on the Russians in the Yellow Sea is only part of the strategic problem; the other is the merchant traffic in the Sea of Japan coming under attack from the fast Russian Vladivostok Cruiser Squadron. Historically Admiral Togo had counted on keeping Admiral Kamimura’s Second Fleet of fast 8”-gunned CA’s with the Combined Fleet but the Naval Staff deployed them to Fusan on the southeast corner of the Korean Peninsula instead. Togo famously told Admiral Yamamoto, the Navy Minister that as far as he was concerned “The Russian’s can do whatever they like with Hokkaido, at least for a while.” The clear implication is that he was willing to give up on the Sea of Japan provided he could effectively protect the Yellow Sea SLOC’s and he wanted Kamimura’s big cruisers to help. Managing the situation in the Sea of Japan is entirely up to the Player; the Russian cruisers can be difficult to catch and losing merchants and transports in one sea can very quickly negate successful operations in the other. The Japanese CA’s are faster and better armed than the Russians but that does not guarantee success against them.
The Japanese Fleet is well balanced and more homogeneous than the Russian fleets. It is slightly faster, receives a small night fighting benefit and occupies the central position as an initially superior force. However, the margin of superiority is very slim and until the fall of Port Arthur or the destruction of the Russian 1st Pacific Squadron the Japanese Navy has little tolerance for the possible loss of its B’s and CA’s. The Japanese Player in a SAI-RJW Campaign may benefit from understanding why Togo handled his Combined Fleet as he did. The stark contrast between the tentative, long range and indecisive battleship action on 10 August 1904, probably intended to force the Russian’s back to Arthur and the very aggressive close and kill tactics of the Combined Fleet at the Battle of Tsushima in May 1905 were likely due less to greater combat experience and more a function of the change in the very nature of the Japanese naval war after the fall of Port Arthur. The August battle was for limited objectives and fought to minimize risk with the knowledge that the Baltic Fleet remained in the picture but Tsushima was intended from the start be a battle of annihilation. The Player who recognizes if something similar happens in the game and acts accordingly should find campaign success. Russia’s War:
A Russian Campaign can be a very frustrating experience. The 1st Pacific Squadron is a powerful force and although many ships have a -1 crew-training penalty at the start, this is primarily due to the Fleet being at winter stand down when hostilities commenced. Unlike the Japanese who possessed a uniform doctrine and clear role for the Navy in wartime the Tsar’s fleet was on less sound strategic footing. The role of the Navy had always been coast defence but in the 1890’s they flirted with French style guerre de course and built some large armoured cruisers that even made the British sit up and take notice; Rurik in 1893, the first major warship fitted with triple-expansion engines followed by Gromoboi, Rossiya and Bayan. All four were in the Far East in 1904 but there were no plans to fight a commerce war against Japan. Indeed, the Admiralty in St. Petersburg just sent whatever ships that were not required in the Baltic to Port Arthur without any real thought to what they would do if their deterrent value failed to deter. Russia’s naval war plan was probably best summed up by Admiral Alexiev, Viceroy of Russia’s Far Eastern Territories and de facto Commander in Chief: “If the monkeys dare to fight, we will sink their ships. Then they shall be reasonable again.” “Monkeys” was a pejorative term for the Japanese favoured by the Tsar and Alexiev as one of Nikolas’ many uncles clearly shared the prejudice. The SAI Player need not take such a narrow point of view but his limited OP and paltry repair capacity represent the dysfunctional state of Tsarist institutions in general and the Navy in particular.
Although your ships are of sound designs overall and your crews can be trained up, you will generally lack OP to do everything that needs to be done and have only a very limited repair capacity. You have three significant bases; Port Arthur (PA) on the Yellow Sea, Vladivostok (Vlad) in the Sea of Japan and Camranh Bay in French Indochina where reinforcements from the Baltic will arrive. We can dispense with the last one first, Camranh cannot be used for operations since its capacity is zero and any forces left there will very quickly become combat ineffective due to breakdown and you will also incur a OP penalty every turn that you can ill-afford. It is merely a fuel stop on the way to either Port Arthur or Vladivostok and for game purposes, the point of origin for arriving surface ships. PA is very well defended and Dalny is nearby and can act as a haven for cripples although if the Japanese can gain enough VP the latter will fall and become a Japanese port and any ships based there will be lost. Vlad is home for your fast and powerful Cruiser Squadron but is far removed from the Japanese sea-lanes and transiting to profitable hunting areas generally takes considerable time. Any Force that is at sea and more than 100 nm away from a friendly base may suffer damage or have its time between refits drastically shortened and being aware of this may affect how you execute your sorties from either base. Although it is generally believed that Vlad was iced up for several months during the winter there is no evidence that ice ever prevented any Russian operations during the War and this is reflected in the campaign.
It is possible to transit forces between PA and Vlad but it’s not that easy to do. Getting close is not good enough; your ships actually need to enter the destination port during the scenario turn. Failure to actually enter port automatically sees the ships teleport back to the port of departure, frequently with damage or the need for immediate refit. This is intentional although teleporting ships’ are seldom a good thing in a game. However the goal here is for the Player to recognize when the transit becomes impossible and then abort the attempt. Given the 4800-turn campaign scenario length there is just enough time to make the trip one-way. If you divert to engage in commerce raiding along the way or need to loiter waiting for a Japanese blocking force to clear the Tsushima Straits you are unlikely to complete the trip and should turn back. Historically not one single ship from the initial Port Arthur force made the transit successfully and only CL Almaz and two DD reached Vlad in 1905.
Your goal in the Campaign is to prevent the loss of Port Arthur and hang on until the Baltic Fleet arrives. Sometime in the summer of 1904 you will get the option to trade VP for Baltic Fleet reinforcements and it’s a one-time offer. The Admiralty made the decision to reinforce the Far East fairly early after operations commenced in Manchuria but before the siege of Port Arthur was properly under way. Once the announcement had been publicized it gained its own momentum and so canceling the departure of what became the 2nd and 3rd Pacific Squadrons became impossible for political reasons. If you choose not to buy the reinforcements you never get another opportunity. On the other hand, at the start of the Campaign there is a force in the Red Sea that can be sent east immediately, arriving in Camranh Bay in the spring of 1904. You get this option on the first campaign turn and if you refuse them the same ships will appear with the Baltic Fleet option later. Historically these ships returned to Russia and later sailed with Vice Admiral Rozhestvensky where all were sunk or interned. You may discover that your options are severely limited by a lack of OP. Play for the long game. Use Emergency Activation to save OP and mine aggressively or defensively every turn if you can. You have two fast purpose-built minelayers and some of your DD’s have a limited mine laying capacity. Your DD force in PA is large and the ships themselves are as good as anything the Japanese possess. The fast scout cruisers Novik and Boyarin are faster than any comparable Japanese ships and can also make effective raiders in the Yellow Sea. They are also possible candidates for a transit to Vlad should this fit in with your overall concept of operations. Expect that over time, battle damage and the requirement to refit may choke your repair queue so check this regularly and adjust the queue as required so that the important ships get priority for repairs. The accumulation of Japanese VP may also reduce your OP and repair capacity every turn creating a vicious cycle where OP shortage prevents operations that might negate Japanese OP gains which further reduce your OP. DD sorties and mine warfare can be your friends and mining a single Japanese B can work wonders, particularly if she sinks. You also have a single AMC in Vlad that makes an effective commerce raider at a low OP cost but she’s probably slower than whatever is likely to be hunting her. That said, she has the range and the speed to get through the Tsugaru Strait and raid Japan’s east coast shipping.
Many of the Russian VP objectives involve commerce raiding but there are also bombardment targets and reach objectives. Remember the task is the opposite of that as when playing as the Japanese; the aim is to maximize Russian VP while minimizing Japanese VP. Russia may have two fleets available but will likely have difficulty using either one in its entirety and so you must plan to make the best use of OP every turn.
Final thoughts:
There is a considerable amount of history built into the game including the Russian combat submarine flotilla that starts to become operational at Vladivostok in January 1905. Over the next few months the boats (coastal submarines - SSC in the game) made a number of war patrols and on at least two occasions contacted Japanese warships although no attacks developed.
After the Battle of Tsushima the war dragged on for months; the Japanese invaded Sakhalin Island and planned to carry the war into Russia’s Maritime Province because despite suffering defeat after defeat, the political will to negotiate a peace settlement did not exist in St. Petersburg. Desperate and nearing bankruptcy with foreign support bleeding away as their territorial ambitions appeared to be increasing, Japan’s war effort was saved by the Russian Revolution of 1905, which finally convinced that Tsar that peace was the beginning of the solution to Russia’s rapidly growing internal crisis. In the game, the Japanese meet this threshold at 600,000 VP and if the opportunity presents itself to take the victory if offered I suggest doing so, particularly if the Baltic Fleet has not yet arrived! On the other side of the sea, the Russian Navy has great potential and possibilities in spite of its operational and logistical handicaps so a Tsarist victory is certainly possible.
Here’s hoping that you find SAI The Russo-Japanese War as enjoyable and challenging to play as it was to produce.
Please feel free to comment on the game's treatment of the history (or lack thereof as you may see it). Discussions on the War itself properly belong in the General History Forum.
Thanks and Good Shooting!
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Post by hschuster44 on Dec 23, 2013 5:44:30 GMT -6
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Post by vonfriedman on Dec 23, 2013 10:27:54 GMT -6
If someone want to simulate some imaginary naval warfare of the late Victorian period I would recommend reading on www.archive.org "The last great naval war. An historical retrospect" by Seaforth, A. Nelson, pseud. An Anglo-French war breaks out is on some year between 1890 and 1900. In that period communications could only occur via signals between ships and / or semaphores on the land. This situation, in my opinion, would emerge - at least in the case of smaller ships - even in the period considered by SAI RJW. I wonder if this is simulated in the RJW game.
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Post by Rasputitsa on Dec 23, 2013 11:00:45 GMT -6
If someone want to simulate some imaginary naval warfare of the late Victorian period I would recommend reading on www.archive.org "The last great naval war. An historical retrospect" by Seaforth, A. Nelson, pseud. An Anglo-French war breaks out is on some year between 1890 and 1900. In that period communications could only occur via signals between ships and / or semaphores on the land. This situation, in my opinion, would emerge - at least in the case of smaller ships - even in the period considered by SAI RJW. I wonder if this is simulated in the RJW game. Thanks, good find, now on my Kindle.
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Post by vonfriedman on Dec 23, 2013 13:07:47 GMT -6
In a sense it is a book similar to The Great Pacific War: A History of the American-Japanese Campaign of 1931-33 by Hector C. Bywater. While I would not find it difficult to imagine an operational SAI scenario set in 1931 I find it hard to imagine how the SAI engine would work in a 1895 scenario, without the radio.
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Post by gornik on Dec 31, 2013 9:26:20 GMT -6
Some notes about the history and the campaign.
After reading some diaries and memoirs of 1-st and 2-nd Pacific Squadrons officers, engineers and Port-Arthur defenders I got feeling, that real situation was quite different from what I saw in the game. Admiral in P-A had nearly unlimited "OP" (coal and ammunition) to sortie the whole fleet 2-3-4 times, but resources couldn't be replaced fast. (And after Japanese landing there was no possibility to replace them at all). As for repairing ships, it seems that Russian engineers might repair all but main calibre guns and some machinery on 2-3 big ships at the same time, though it took much more time than normal (as many decisions were found experimentally, especially for underwater damage). So in game terms commanders in P-A and Vladivostok had roughly nearly 1000 OP but only 5-10 per week were added. There were 2-3 repair points (mostly in P-A) available but there was no way to plan repairing time as nobody knew whether to work or not new inventions. After P-A loss (unused "OP" lost with base), things have become worse for Russians. Though there was still dock of suitable size in Vladivostok, this base had lack of supplies and facilities. Fleet in this base should become very dependable on sea communications with neutral countries. This was the reason of forming "fleet train" for 2-nd Pacific Squadron. In fact, if Togo sunk only these valuable transports, Russian fleet in Vladivostok became powerless very fast, especially after losing floating repair base "Kamchatka".
I understand, however, that most of things I have just written can't be realised correctly on game engine, and one of main problems is AI, which can't make decisions as good as human player. Realising even half of these may make victory for Japan even easier than present "cruiser spamming and winning" for Russia. So, this post is not criticism of game concepts, I just try to to indicate differences of game from reality. Thanks for all who develop this wonderful game! Happy New Year!
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Post by randomizer on Dec 31, 2013 10:14:53 GMT -6
Operations Points also represent abstract command and planning considerations. They are not just material related but are also a measure of intangibles such as aggressiveness. command/control acumen and effectiveness. With the best will in the world, the Russian Fleet Commander (as represented in the game) will likely find themselves handicapped by OP constraints just as the real commanders Stark, Makarov, Vitgeft, Viren, Reytsenshteyn and Jessen were restricted and conflicted by Viceroy Alexiev, the Admiralty and the Higher Naval Board in St. Petersburg. In SAI-RJW however, the Player possesses a unity of command and purpose almost entirely absent from the event so Player control of both the Vladivostok and Port Arthur forces is essentially non-historical but at the same time vital to the game.
The much maligned Russian naval engineers often performed prodigious feats of repair and improvisation (the home-made caisson built to repair battleship Retvisan at Port Arthur being just one example) but the entire naval system that they operated in was fundamentally unsound from the top down. This is at least partially represented by the restrictive Russian repair capacity.
As for the Fleet Train, it was certainly essential for the transit of the 2nd Pacific Squadron (the 3rd Squadron seems to have made do with a couple of store ships' and a hospital ship in addition to the inevitable chartered colliers) but had they reached Vladivostok, the requirement for the ships themselves (as opposed to the technical specialists aboard them) would probably have fallen away as the engineers moved to facilities ashore. There was no facility on repair ship Kamchatka that did not already exist in some respect at the naval base in Vladivostok.
Thanks.
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Post by gornik on Jan 1, 2014 12:23:09 GMT -6
Thanks for the detailed explanation!
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Post by Fredrik W on Jan 1, 2014 13:59:00 GMT -6
And thanks for your input Gornik! Good and valid points, but as you say, it is not possible to simulate everything in a game, there are always compromises to be made. Especially as the game system is meant to cover a wide variety of naval conflicts. There were already far more adjustments than originally expected to RJW to get the simulation to work in the context of the RJW compare to WW1.
Thanks for the feedback!
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Post by vonfriedman on Jan 2, 2014 15:04:25 GMT -6
On December 1891 the Italian Navy's own magazine Rivista Marittima published an article on "The game of naval warfare" of the lieutenant A. Colombo. A simulation at operational level of the naval war is illustrated in detail with reference to a period where the heavy guns of the battleships were allegedly able to fire 5 rounds in an hour and a quarter at an effective firing distance of 2500 meters. The range of the torpedoes was estimated in 600 meters. The cruising speed of a battleship division was about 12 knots in fair weather. Beside the cruisers there were smaller "avvisi" (sloops, scout cruisers). They play an essential role in the game, being used in collecting and transmitting information to/from flagships and semaphore land stations. In this game the defending side has a lot of torpedo boats along its coastline. They have a very reduced autonomy (less than 10 hours). Towing is often used, partly because engine failures were frequent in all types of ships. Various other data are available from this source, that was used by Lieutenant Mc Carty Little in the early years of US Naval War College. I wonder how the basic SAI / RJW engine could be modified to deal with the operational side of the naval war of that period.
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Post by randomizer on Jan 2, 2014 23:18:23 GMT -6
This is a good question, one that I certainly do not have a definitive answer to.
I think that SAI-RJW handles the period back to and including the Spanish American War and that it could do justice to scenarios derived from the Fashoda crisis through to about 1907-08. Maybe including the Great White Fleet but then we begin to enter the fire control innovations that stemmed from the increase in gunnery ranges seen in the RJW, improved understanding of internal ballistics and empirical gun/projectile/propellant experimentation.
The Battle of the Yalu scenario demonstrates the doctrinal changes that occurred in the decade between that battle and the Battle of August 10th, 1904. Line Ahead replacing Line Abreast as the battle formation of choice was just one of a significant number of innovations that SAI-RJW tries to model and that may make it less suitable to recreate the earlier period. Also the transitional nature of naval architecture in the 1870's and 80's meant that a large number of designs achieved short service lives due to rapid obsolescence. A look at the 1888 Royal Navy manoeuvre's (the exercise where the "defeat" of the Home Fleet triggered the 1889 Naval defence Act shows that a battle force of that era bore very little substantive resemblance to the fleets that would fight the RJW or even the Yalu a mere five-years later.
In my opinion, in order to achieve the same level of authenticity that it displays for its chosen eras (WW1 and the RJW) SAI would have to be able to model:
- A world without wireless, where the Despatch Vessel was vital once a fleet sailed from its base.
- The odd technical juxtaposition of muzzle-loading rifles, studded projectiles, wrought iron armour through to Krupp steel and long-barreled (well >30 calibre) ordnance using smokeless nitrated propellants and early armour-piercing projectiles. I really have little idea of how this could be done in a manner that would receive commercial acceptance.
- An excellent observation of a facet of operations of the day that is often ignored and never (to my knowledge) commercially simulated. - True. Not only were the ship types different, the roles that they played were unlike those that would evolve over the next decade or so. Protected cruisers frequently operated in the battle line, fine for training but what would combat experience have brought? That said, navies tend to fight like they trained but nobody really trained seriously for war outside of the table-top (or bathroom floor) wargames conducted at various naval academies. This is why I am a bit leery of taking the contemporary professional journals at face value. Although they are essentially all we have there were almost no significant or tactically decisive battles between Lissa in 1866 and the Yalu in 1894 (except the lopsided Sino-French war of 1884-85). We should not automatically assume that Lt's. Colombo and McCarty and their peers were any more representative or accurate than our current crop of naval affairs talking heads, CNN experts or Internet bloggers 120-years on.
I think that it is probably safe to say that the Team was not unanimous in the assessment that SAI-RJW can recreate the SAW era as well as it does the RJW. I would like to see additional User scenarios from the years around 1898 but I'm not sure that the game can do justice to all the nuances of the earlier naval epoch.
Thanks for the thoughts.
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Post by vonfriedman on Jan 3, 2014 7:16:09 GMT -6
Being able to simulate the flow of information in the time before the radio makes it possible to develop future games based on the age of sail, which would be very interesting. On this point we could continue the discussion elsewhere. However, I still think that NWS should in future reuse the best of Thunder at Sea and develop a new game on the 2WW.
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