Dawn of the Battleship Dawn of the Battleship Version 1.1 Tactical Naval Warfare 1890 - 1905 by Chris Carlson Foreword by Dr. Norman Friedman edited by Larry Bond published by The Admiralty Trilogy Group Copyright © 2016, 2020 by the Admiralty Trilogy Group, LLC and Chris Carlson All rights reserved. Printed in the USA. Made in the USA. No part of this game may be reproduced or used in any form or by any means without permission in writing from the pub- lisher. The Admiralty Trilogy is a registered Trademark by Larry Bond, Christopher Carlson, Edward Kettler, and Michael Harris for their tactical naval gaming system. The designer of Dawn of the Battleship is prepared to answer questions about the game system. He can be reached in Samplecare of the Admiralty Trilogy Group at [email protected]. Visit their website at www.AdmiraltyTrilogy.com. file This version of Dawn of the Battleship includes all errata and changes through 9 December 2020. Cover: HMS Goliath, colorized by Irotooko_jr 2 Dawn of the Battleship Designer’s Note Designing a wargame to accurately capture naval warfare in the late 19th century was a huge eye opener. The complete lack of sensors and fi re control systems, when coupled with early gun design, all strongly argued that a ship had to get really close if it wanted a decent chance of obtaining hits. The early torpedo designs, based on cold compressed air, or fl ywheel, propulsion and often lacking a gyroscope to maintain the desired course were even worse. But just how close one needed to get was still a bit of a shock—around 1,500 yards for guns, inside 500 yards for torpedoes. Dedicated to Daniel McDonagh (1953 - 2016) After reviewing the historical accounts of gunnery Fellow naval officer, educator, and game designer exercises and battle reports, it became abundantly clear that the system modeling for Dawn of the Battleship would have to be vastly different from our World War I era naval game, Fear God & Dread Nought. It was a challenge to The Designer create a game that preserved historical accuracy, while at Chris Carlson is one of the lead designers of the the same time keeping play exciting and fast. award winning Admiralty Trilogy game series. A retired Dawn of the Battleship provides the rules to fi ght any senior naval officer and systems and warfare intelligence historical or hypothetical naval battle from 1890 to just after analyst, he has many years of experience in assessing the turn of the century (up to 1905). The game system, how the various pieces of kit on a ship or submarine works. like the others in the Admiralty Trilogy series, tries to strike Coupling his analytical expertise with a love for mucking the right balance between accuracy and playability. To about in dusty libraries and archives has enabled him to be compensate for the dramatic backward shift in technology, the primary technical designer of the various naval combat we worked especially hard on fast, clean combat resolution, models used by all Admiralty Trilogy games. with a minimum of die rolling. This includes a revised critical hit system that reduces the time needed to resolve the Edited by Larry Bond effects of an attack, but without losing the drama this part of the rules brings to any game. We believe we’ve struck the right chord with Dawn of Acknowledgments the Battleship, but any game can be improved. If you’ve Thanks to Andy Doty, Bob Eldridge, Peter Grining, followed the progress of our other game designs over Michael Harris, Ed Kettler, Christoph Kluxen, Dr. Gorka Luis the years, you know we will make every effort to correct, Martinez Mezo, MD, Dave Schueler, Steve Thorne, Rick improve, and expand the Admiralty Trilogy system. If errors Wehler, and Jay Wissmann for their help in developing this are spotted, or if you have suggestions or questions, drop game. us an e-mail or letter. We always answer our mail. Version Note This version of Dawn of the Battleship, 1.1, has been updated to make its rules consistent with Fear God & Dread Nought, 2nd edition, and to incorporate applicable rule changes from Dawn of the Rising Sun. Chris Carlson November 2020 Sample file Dawn of the Battleship 3 in 1904 (and then initially applied mainly to secondary- battery guns). This is the period during which naval officers had to work out the implications of steam power. The era of sailing warships had taught them to fight in line ahead, because that concentrated fleet firepower (broadsides) and also because it was the easiest formation to manage. It also made for inconclusive battles, which is why Nelson famously broke his line at Trafalgar. Steam seemed to offer a freedom of maneuver unknown since the use of oared galleys centuries earlier. How would that freedom be used? Should a fleet form into something like a line abreast? That line ahead was the best battle formation was by no means obvious. The Royal Navy adopted it after Admiral Sir John Fisher conducted extensive experiments as CinC Mediterranean Fleet in 1899-1901, near the end of the period Dawn of the Battleship covers. His predecessors had other ideas. As if rapid technological change were not enough, the Dr. Norman Friedman period up through 1905 also witnessed the rise of entirely new (or revived) sea powers. Italy, a major sea power Foreword by 1905, did not even exist as a unified country before The period covered by this game must have been 1861. Japan did not undergo its crucial political shift (the among the most exciting in naval history. Technology Meiji Restoration) until 1868. The United States did not changed so rapidly that a first-class fleet built in, say, 1870 begin building a new steel navy until 1883, and it did not was worse than third-rate fifteen years later. At the same shift to a battleship-centered (rather than cruiser warfare) time, there was very little experience of naval warfare, strategy until about 1889, if not later. The Germans did not so although officers wrote extensively about tactics, and decide to build a large battle fleet until they approved the maneuvered fleets to match, no one had a clear idea of first of Admiral Tirpitz’ Navy Laws in 1898. Russian naval what a naval battle would be like. This period is, if you like, modernization (to overcome the effect of the Crimean War) book ended by the Battle of Lissa in 1866 and by the first began only in the 1880s. (inconclusive) engagement of the Russo-Japanese War, This was also a period of rapid national expansion the Battle of the Yellow Sea, in 1904. The two major battles and of near-wars over colonies and other issues. The one in between, Yalu River and Santiago de Cuba, could be major war, in 1870 between France and Prussia, involved dismissed by many professionals. navies only peripherally, as the French Navy blockaded At the Yalu, the well-trained Japanese force with the German coast virtually without opposition (or impact modern guns bested a Chinese fleet beset by obsolete on the outcome of the war). Russia and Turkey did come weaponry, poor training and, it was said, enormous to blows in 1877, and a British fleet ran up through the corruption. At Santiago the Spanish ships were poorly Dardanelles in a snowstorm – but there was no war. There equipped and maintained, but US gunnery performance was another war scare between Britain and Russia in was apparently so poor that no insightful conclusions 1884. Finally, Britain and France nearly went to war in 1898 could be drawn. The first really decisive battle after Lissa to over colonial competition in the Sudan. To modern eyes, demonstrate modern technology was Tsushima in 1905. that seems a very poor reason for risking a big war, but At Lissa, gunnery was so ineffective that the most British records include war orders drawn up at the time. dramatic event in the battle was the sinking of the Italian This is aside from the lengthy wars in South America, which flagship by ramming. Those who looked back at the involved substantial navies and might have drawn the battle tended to see, not the special conditions which had British in because the Royal Navy was expected to keep made ramming possible, but the revival of a weapon that the maritime peace (to support trade). would dramatically change naval warfare. Ramming had a For any wargamer, the sheer variety of crises and psychological component that seems to have made it far near-wars provides far more scenario opportunities than, more attractive than it should have been, to the extent that say, the run-up to World War I or the period between the a senior Royal Navy officer seriously advocated building two world wars. ships armed entirely with rams, without guns. The ram was The advent of ironclads and heavy guns made it an underwater weapon, and torpedoes might be seen as its possible for countries, which previously had negligible direct descendants – except that they were usable where sea power, to build up at least the appearance of naval rams were not. power surprisingly rapidly – the three main South American By the mid-1890s it must have been fairly obvious that republics are a case in point, as is Japan in the late ships would rarely get close enough to ram, and navies nineteenth century. Conversely, the sheer cost of modern Samplebegan to omit ram bows from their battleships. The crucial ships forced some of the older Europeanfile sea powers, such change came late in the 1890s as power loading permitted as Sweden and Denmark, out of the ranks of major naval heavy guns to fire dramatically more quickly.