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Broadside and Salvo - Siege of Port Arthur April 1904

I've been slowly building up a Russian fleet using Three Decks 1/2400 miniatures. I've had most of the Japanese fleet for some time, but used them against the Chinese for Sino-Japanese war or against my French fleet for no compelling historical reason.
I picked up Broadside And Salvo from Long Face Games (David Manley) as a shorter form quicker rule set. The other rules I have copies of (Tsushima A&A rules designs) and Fire When Ready (also David Manley) require quite a lot of prep getting together box checking sheets for each ship. 

Typically this is 20-120mins work depending on whether I've got the research done. For Broadside and Salvo a battleship is a battleship, an armoured cruiser an armoured cruiser. All ships of a class have identical stats and no box checking sheet. Damage is split into four grades which ships move up or down with repair and damage. 

 This means I only need an ORBAT for my scenario, and a few markers.

 
Hopefully we will return to port Arthur later..


I've been reading The Tide at Sun Rise courtesy of my friend Pete. It is a great history book, very funny in its telling. Togo effectively launches a naval siege of Port Arthur from day one. Over the first few months there are numerous almost engagements. The Japanese try to block the harbour entrance with suicide missions rigged with explosives a few times and the Russians send out scouting parties, training missions and raids. 

 On the 14th of April Admiral Makarov heads out to try and save a stranded destroyer that gets lost in the night and ends up betwixt the enemy. The Japanese turn to flee, he gives chase but it is a trap. Togo's main division hooves into view and there is the potential for a battle.

The Russian Battleships engage!

For our scenario I took the ORBAT directly from the books narrative but estimated all of the timings and ranges, basically to make for a fun game. I used a standard 6/4 and placed the stricken destroyer in the middle. 

The Russians get 5pts for picking up the crew or towing the ship back to safety. Both sides get 5pts per battleship sunk, less for silencing or sinking other ships. The Russian short edge represents the entrance into Port Arthur, and their naval guns can shoot 24 inches up the table. 

The Japanese main battleship division arrives on turn 4, giving the Russians a little time to conduct the rescue and bully the few Japanese cruisers on the table for points first. Weirdly, this scenario worked really well. Normally you get the timings or distances off and one side just runs away with it. It could be more historical, the Russians should have a hard time getting their battleships out and the Japanese should probably get a few more mine markers than I gave them.

 
Enter Togo!

In the event the Japanese won 15pts to 12. The Russians picked up the destroyer crew, but then the Japanese sunk the Askold returning them all to the drink. The Russians then silenced or sunk most of the Japanese cruisers before turning tail when the Japanese main fleet arrived. 

Unfortunately the Japanese destroyer swarm closed the gap and scored 2 critical hits with their torpedoes. A-historically no Russian battleships sunk (even when they had to cross some mines!), but being silenced or crippled they did pay out points.
A swarm of torpedoes score three hits breaking up the Russian Battleship division. No sinks but plenty of chaos.

Thoughts on the rules 

 > They are quick, we played out our game in 2 hours with about 10 capital ships each and 3-5 destroyer flotillas. 

 > The command and control rules - roll a d6 get that many actions, moving forward 4" is free - are reminiscent of DBA but work really well. You need to roll high to do repairs and sometimes must choose between turns and going full speed. 

 > Shooting - also very similar to DBA mechanisms - feels about right. Critical hits and silencing, crippling and sinking ships occurs often enough to keep the game engaging without feeling to violent. > I didn't miss box checking as much as I thought I would. 

 > I would consider adding different movement speeds for particular ships. I don't think giving specific ships their own attack or defence values matters that much at this scale, but some cruisers or battleships were notably faster than other models and this did effect engagements. 

 > Using differential D6 for shooting does make giving out +1 or -1s quite powerful. So differentiating the gunnery of Russian or Japanese crews is quite difficult. For this scenario I shortened the long range malus to 10" for the Russians giving the Japanese a slight advantage. Perhaps you could make this stronger.
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