Russo-Japanese Naval War 1904-05

[paulr]

A month or so ago I discussed what was next on this project, I'm pleasantly surprised to say that I've made good progress:

• Finalising the Ship Damage Summaries (SDS) - Done 
• Working on the dozen or so historic scenarios - Started on the first two
• Building Port Arthur - at the ground scale used it will be an approximately 3', 4', 5' triangle in the north west corner of the table - created and printed the gridded map to transfer to a suitable board (left over from Guadalcanal), created 'SDS' and markers for all defenses  
• Developing a campaign - including some better pre-war decisions by the Russians - lucked out on this one 

I was required to do a sort-out and clean-up of our spare bedroom which was a shared storage space for my wargames stuff and my wife's stuff

In the process I came across a photocopy of three articles, Part 1 was in Wargames Illustrated 178, by Dave Manley on Naval Battles of the Russo Japanese War 

The third article is The Mini Campaign which aligned very much with the campaign I had started to develop in my head (or perhaps I was vaguely remembering this article from two decades ago) 

[paulr]

Yesterday, I enjoyed spending a few hours typing up the campaign rules and converting them to use our Pre-Dreadnought variant of General Quarters I/II rather than David's precursor to You May Fire When Ready, Gridley

I've still got a little more to do on them, but they look like they will generate a fascinating campaign. They even include the possibility of the better pre-war decisions by the Russians I alluded to, plus a few more

I also found a suitable, near period, map that I've used to improve on the black & white line drawing campaign map from the article

[paulr]

After returning from holiday I've made more progress on this project

I transferred the gridded map of Port Arthur and the surrounding bay to a 6mm MDF board (left over from Guadalcanal). Roy, our regular wargames host, has a jig saw. He kindly cut it out for me, and I painted it up and added markers for the shore defenses yesterday.

The Russian First Pacific anchored in the roadstead of Port Arthur


There appear to be some Japanese visitors


While it doesn't quite fit on my dining table it will comfortably fit on a 6'x4' wargames table. The boards form an approximately 3', 4', 5' triangle. I've separated it into three segments so that it's no more than 2' wide, making it more manageable and storable.

I've also made a started on another scenario as Pierre the Shy is interested to see how the Pre-Dreadnought version of General Quarters works. Hopefully we will fight the Battle of Ulsan later this month. 

[Duke Speedy of Leighton]

Crikey that's impressive

[fred.]

That's an impressive bit of terrain - when you first said the size of this, I naively assumed it was a typo of feet for inches!

I assume the white squares are defenders. Are you going to stick with painted reliefs for the hills? Just wondering if on the peninsular it would add to game play if they were 3d, or that's all a bit much for a naval game.

[paulr]

The grey squares are indeed shore batteries

I'll be sticking with painted reliefs for the hills as it is so much quicker and easier to do. It still looks reasonably good and makes storage much easier

In game terms the coastline is the bit that matters