Shipbucket

I really like these battle maps. Keep 'em coming!

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RegiaMarina1939

I thought I'd do a rendition of the standin for USS Baltimore that got shot up by Battery Joanna (El Fraile Island) when I gamed this scenario out.

Captain Hara Tei, Japanese Imperial Army has an unusual viewpoint of the situation in the Philippines. He is not actually supposed to be there, but someone has to oversee and take responsibility for the 10,000 Murata Type 22 rifles the Shinshi ultranationalist terrorist movement has gifted to the Katipunans. A dozen of his fellows and he are present to make sure the rifles get to the right people-which does not mean Aguinaldo. The intended recipient is Deodato Arellano. (He will be chased down by the Americans; whereupon he will die of tuberculosis in the field in the central Luzon highlands, just before they capture him in August 1899). That shipment of guns is hidden in the coal bunkers of the HIDEYOSHI MARU, a British-built iron hulled OSK Japanese collier of 2,500 tonnes (empty) that makes a port call at Dagupan as a layover to offload some low-berth passengers (Japanese contract workers for the hemp trade, i.e. imported slave labor; which is what Captain Hara Tei and his merry band of terrorists use as their cover story to fool the Spanish.) before she delivers about 2,400 tonnes of contracted Japanese hard coal from the Honshu mines to the Spanish navy in Manila.

It sounds mighty suspicious to the Americans, who suddenly show up with a squadron off Lingayan Gulf during that Hideoyoshi Maru stopover. Chinese Charlie, Luiz Almorado Chuen, aboard the SS Manuel Aguinas (remember him?) is also on layover at Dagupan. He investigates (He is supposed to deliver Emilio Aguinaldo to Manila, as a surprise troublemaker gift to bedevil the Spaniards, coming from Hong Kong to arrive on the scene to spark an uprising.). There is an American saying about putting too many cooks in the kitchen. Someone’s stew is about to be spoiled.

Dewey’s sudden unexpected arrival kiboshes everybody’s plans. Hara Tei cannot deliver the rifles as he expects. Chinese Charlie obviously cannot go anywhere near to Manila now and poor Admiral Montojo receives word of Dewey by donkey express, (The Katipunan blocks the rail line between Dagupan and Manila and they cut the telegraph cables between the cities.) that the American Asiatic Fleet is in Philippine Islands waters. But this particular account is from Hara Tei’s point of view, which is nuanced, confused and of course… parochial. This is a garbled Japanese historic version of certain immediate events which will have negative consequences later.

Hara has to rely on Filipino sources for his news as he and his companions run for their collective lives into the Luzon Cordillera mountain region. Chasing Hara Tei’s outfit with his own mule train and hired pack of Katipunnan… well… they are thugs, okay? … is Chinese Charlie who would certainly like to know where a bunch of indentured Japanese peasant workers find the money to put together a mule train packed with guns and ammunition to head off into the high country. Five days later on 29 July 1898 after a firefight at the base of Mount Saint Tomas, Chinese Charlie gets his answer. Hara Tei does not make it. Neither do his compadres. Unfortunately for Chinese Charlie and the Americans, the thugs he hires are Aguinaldo men, so all those Murata rifles and the attendant ammunition are soon on their way south to arm the new Philippine national army of liberation and Aguinaldo is headed that same direction. OOPS.

Dewey, meanwhile, has a plan and a schedule of his own. He wants to secure an anchorage and a shelter where he can coal unmolested by the Spanish navy. Lingayen Gulf fits the bill with a group of islands at the head of the Pangasinan Peninsula. Marines land on Anda Island on 25 July and the Treasury revenue cutter USS McIntosh establishes a sort of blockade at the mouth of the gulf.

So far, so good, for Dewey: or so he assumes. He moves on to Subic Bay confidently expecting to meet the Spanish fleet there. No Spanish fleet. In fact, no Spaniards are present at all. Dewey does manage to scrape up enough Marines and spare sailors to land on Grandee Island and hold that spit of land. Captain Hughes (Marines) is told to do what he can to finish the incomplete Spanish shore battery the Americans find, and the SS Zafiro’s English mercenary crew is promised a bonus if they can lay a few mines to block Subic Bay from Spanish shipping. They over enthusiastically do so. This will bedevil the US Navy for six months as the Fiske pancake mines are difficult to sweep and are all too efficient.

That, however, is the least of Dewey’s current worries.

Very nice battle maps. They are a great inspiration and I want to see more of them!

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Best regards,

RegiaMarina1939

Now that's cool. I've always liked the way the M1895 Steyr drops the enbloc clip out of the bottom of the magazine on the last round chambered. Such an interesting design. Kudos to drawing that system correctly.

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THE NIGHT PASSAGE: Nothing shows how doctrine fails like execution in practice. The mine-clearing parties set out from USS Lake Champlain and the USS McCullough in their ship’s boats They have their snags, cable-saw drag lines and trained swimmers/divers. As expected, they find Bustamante moored contact mines, but the Hawkins mine surprises the MCPs, who are not trained to deal with its anti-tamper feature. They cannot cut and tow those mines aside to open a safe lane. Those mines will have to be exploded with Watson charges emplaced by swimmers. As another surprise, the MCPs find that there are false navigation buoys planted among the real channel markers and when they drag the South Channel for possible underwater messenger cable links to underwater command detonated bottom mines, they find that the cable is there (It is not supposed to be present at all, according to ONI), and that the cable is crudely coated with a kind of tar/rubber insulation coating. This shows the Spaniards have somehow manufactured their own submarine messenger cable, but that is a mystery for a later solution. The mined fake navigation buoys are another nasty surprise. All of this bad news adds up to time that eats into any chance that the little American fleet can make a quick transit through the South Channel. It also will not be a surprise transit through the channel as the Hawkins mines will be blown in place to clear the lane.

Still, if Vicksburg proves anything, ships can run past shore batteries, even past an alerted enemy. That will not happen either. Dewey has given orders to the fleet to use the flume dampers that are a feature of American smoke stacks to control draft and suppress the possible risk of flame flash he knows is a defect with Union Iron Works made steam power plants his ships use. For some reason that will never be clear; the gunboat, USS McCullough, emits a spectacular flame flash; a ball of burning soot ash that climbs from her forward stack to light up the night like a massive fire work. Ships in line ahead column (USS Lake Champlain, USS McCullough, USS Olympia, USS Oneida, USS Omaha and USS Oakland), stand out in the darkness as if flash-bulbed in a dark room. Colonel of Naval Artillery, Senor Garces, and Lieutenant Venavente in joint command of the four precious British-made Armstrong-Whitworth (Elswick type BLRG) 4.7 in guns which they expertly sited on El Fraile Island, have that single flash to decide on which target to engage. Again (in this AU) it will never be known why the USS Oneida is the ship they pick, but maybe it is the nearest largest target that is immediately in front of them. The gunfight and it is a naval gunfight, right out of the old west tradition, lasts about six minutes. The Spanish gunners pump out an incredible two hundred forty seven shells from just those four barrels, which is supposed to be impossible from these seven shots per minute restricted Elswick guns. All of those shells are well-aimed at the USS Oneida. She responds of course, but she starts with armor-piercing shells. Those are the shells stacked first in the ammunition queues and those must be first cleared from the queues in order for the grenades which American ships use for shore bombardments to follow. And her first shots are wild; sailing over and to the left of the Spanish gun pits. It takes her a minute and a half to make that switch, another two minutes to crank gun barrels onto target in gun mount local control (the electric power to USS Oneida's gun mounts is knocked out, when the forward engine room is wrecked in Battery Joanna's first fusillade into her.), because her Fiske Bushnell fire director rangefinders are immediately knocked out. And it takes twelve salvoes of slow well aimed timed-burst shells over El Fraile to silence the Joanna battery and her 130 brave gunners, who actually die to the last man before the battery falls silent. The USS Oneida’s crew does not escape in the furious exchange. As mentioned earlier, the Spanish gunners aim well for features on the USS Oneida they think are important. The observatories (the cage towers), received immediate attention, as do the flying bridge, and the amidships waterline under the stacks where the engines should be. The USS Oneida's armor belt, 15 centimeters thick of the best cemented steel armor that Pittsburgh can make, at 400 meters distance cannot keep out a British 12 centimeter shell. The El Fraile gunfight is a rude awakening to the US Navy about immune zones. Another two hundred meters distance and the USS Oneida’s side belts could have held. Same goes for the conning tower and same for her after number 2 turret. But she is too close and she is vulnerable. The forward Brayton engine complex is wrecked, the number 1 dynamo is knocked out, the Fiske Bushnell observatories are shattered, the armored pilot house’s occupants, including Captain Jesse M. Roper, are killed. The number 2 turret burns out. Of her 410 crew, 78 are killed and 119 are wounded. Her 213 survivors cannot worry about the dead and wounded. They have to patch holes, put out fires, and make emergency repairs. This actually stops all planned American operations for two hours while USS Oneida’s crew fights to save their ship.

There are plenty of Medals of Honor to be awarded. Seaman Patrick Toner dies at his post to prevent the fire in engine room 1 from spreading. He manually turns on the automatic fire suppression system that fails. Midshipman J.E. Lewis, Jack of the Dust Kessler, and Gunner's Mate Flaherty all earn their medals in various acts of heroism to contain the inflow of water that threatens the ship’s float bubble or when they rescue fellow crew members trapped in the flooding compartments adjacent to engine room number 1. Lieutenant J.S. McKean, Seaman Alphonse Girandy and Private Louis F. Theis put out the fires to turret number 2. which could have spread down to magazine number 4 and set off about 300 count of 15 cm unit ammunition. If that had exploded, the USS Oneida would have simply disintegrated.

Dewey has no idea how badly things are, on the USS Oneida. His photo-phone queries remain unanswered during those two hours. He sees that the USS Oneida is on fire, and that she seems in distress, but it appears that he has a Joe Hooker at Chancellorsville moment, where he is confused and indecisive. Finally Lieutenant J.S McKean, as senior surviving officer, photo-phone reports that the USS Oneida is ready to assume her station in line.

Dewey, at this moment, curiously, does not make further inquiry. Instead he orders the MCPs to blast the lane they prepared with Watson charges clear in the Spanish minefield and the battered American Asiatic Squadron, which arguably could be said, has suffered a major unexpected defeat, proceeds into the main Manila Bay to find Montojo’s squadron and engage it.

And with all of this El Fraile ruckus, the curious American fleet inaction during and after it, and Commodore Dewey’s curious befuddled condition (also present in the RTL), something else almost escapes historic notice (This happens in the RTL, too). The notable thing is that the 500 Spanish gunners manning the obsolete six 9.2 inch and fourteen 64 pounder muzzle loading guns and the four modern 10-12 inch (25.4 cm-30.4 cm) modern muzzle loading steel barreled anti-ship mortars and three modern 7 inch BLNGs in a battery on Corrigidor’s south shore , (salvaged from the wreck of the Velasco), remain equally inactive. In particular the modern guns ( By pattern, these anti-ship mortars look to be British Armstrong Whitworth type ordnance.) are silent. Not a shell is fired. They do exactly nothing. That is correct. Absolutely nothing comes from those formidable guns. When asked about it, the Spanish commander of those troops shrugs and says; “Los americanos estaban fuera del alcance efectivo del arma.”

“Out of range.” Think about that one...

I thought the Schwartzlose pistol would draw more comment. Now there is an unappreciated curious piece of hardware. Four functions off one spring. Amazing gun smithing involved, incredibly simple compared to a C-96 Mauser broom handle gun design. Expensive as heck to make, too. Only someone like Britain or America could afford to mass issue it (Officers have to buy their own sidearms, At two month's pay in 1898? OUCH! Some machine guns are cheaper.)

What are the gem-like things on the rifle stocks?

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