This scenario is a fictional battle where the British attempt to stop the 2nd Pacific Squadron from reaching its destination in 1905. The idea for the game came from this blog post with a memo by the Director of Naval Intelligence, Prince Louis of Battenberg, which includes the proposed British force to be assembled at Singapore:
https://simonharley.com/2022/03/01/prevent-the-russian-baltic-fleet-from-reaching-the-far-east/
Since the memo’s proposed location for the battle (west and south-west of the Straits of Sunda) assumed that the 2nd Pacific Squadron would not go through the Straits of Malacca as it did, the location has been moved to the open water between Singapore and the Island of Borneo.
With the exception of the 4 “Duncans” from Mediterranean, the memo does not list specific ships. The order of battle for the game attempts to reconcile the memo with the fleet deployments listed here:
http://www.naval-history.net/xGW-RNOrganisation1900-14.htm?fbclid=IwAR2ESrVd8GGc80XW1-i7shHVBNvEBki_-zpPa3vnVBVmbFRCZA-kJv2Tk4w
The two ‘PARTIALLY-ARMOURED CRUISERS’ from the China station are taken to be the protected cruisers of the Powerful class, although they may have been the Amphitrite and Argonaut of the Diadem class. The latter class is not yet included in the game code. The British third class cruisers are not included.
The code AI ran both side’s forces.
The sea conditions and orders of battle are listed on Page 1 of the Narrative file:
Force reports:
Plots and commentary:
The 2nd Pacific Squadron cruising formation is that of the Battle of Tsushima. The formation is compact, with no screening or scouting ships. This is consistent with the intent to pass north unobserved. The British force (dubbed the Far East Fleet) cruising formation has two battleship divisions in line ahead, the armoured cruiser division stationed ahead, two divisions of cruisers in a screen ahead and the destroyer flotilla stationed abeam to starboard of the flagship Duncan. The wide scouting screen is deployed to assist in finding the opposing force.
After the initial sightings, the Far East Fleet alters course to close the range. The 2nd Pacific Squadron deploys to port to gain a downwind position. The Far East Fleet later deploys to starboard to engage the enemy battleline.
Once the battle lines open fire, the 2nd Pacific Squadron reverses direction to the south to engage on parallel courses. Since visibility is good and the torpedos carried by the destroyers are short-ranged, the flotillas remain out of action on the disengaged sides of the battlelines.
This simplified plot omits all but the battleships for clarity. Few hits are obtained until ranges fall below about 8,000 yards. As the range continues to decrease, hits from both primary and secondary batteries shatter the leading battleship divisions of both sides. The four Duncan class are sunk (one blows up) and the four Borodino class are damaged. At this point it was assumed that the fleets would disengage.
This plot shows the entire engagement.
End of game status:
The damage to the best ships of the 2nd Pacific Squadron would seem to make it pointless to continue toward Vladivostok, so the British objective was achieved.
Gunnery logs:
Hit Logs for the primary divisions
ncc1717.com 