Battle Report: 1877 The Russio-Turkish War

It was a nature-deifyingly hot day out, so for the first time ever, I played a wargame outside!

1877 The Russio-Turkish War, A Squadron of the Black Seas fleet, Reinforced by Ships rushed in from the Baltic face off an Ottoman Squadron of Ironclads.

As the two squadrens come into range of one another head-on, they manuver into their formations for the battle.

The Russians form their frigates in a line on their left whilst Khaptain attempts to go-it-alone down the right, all with the circular ironclad Novgrod dawdling along giving long range supporting fire.  

The Ottomans take a different approach, advancing in-line, with their ironclads screening their more vulnerable unarmoured ships.

As the two squadrons close, the concentrated fire of the ottoman ships jams the rudder of the lead Russian Armoured Frigate, forcing her to cut to starboard, destroying a number of her guns and starting a sizeable fire below decks. No other ships take any sizeable damage, and move on unmolested. 

As the ships speed on, exchanging shells at distance, an unexpected catastrophe befalls the Russian Armoured Frigate Kreml, who takes a hit to her boiler, causing her to explode with unrivalled violence, killing all aboard and sending the previously undamaged ship, in pieces, to the bottom of the Black Sea. 

The Ottoman Fleet breaks into two wings and takes significant but not crippling damage from Russian fire, and contuse onward doing considerable damage. The now one-ship-column of the Russians speeds on firing ineffective volleys at the large Ottoman Ironclad Messudieh, the Russian General Admiral, that had previously taken a rudder hit was left dead in the water, but still returning fire, and Khaptain continued her wide arc towards the enemy fleet, cannons blazing as she goes.

Then came the most dynamic moment of the game. Khaptain, moving in at full speed rammed the damaged Ironclad Corvette Muin-I-Zaffer, splitting her in two, before successfully ramming the Side-wheeler Torpedoship Squab and reducing her to matchwood. Khaptain then took the brunt of the fire from the remaining Ottoman ships at very close range, destroying many of her guns. 

The game ended with the Khaptain ramming into Messudieh to little avail. The few remaining guns of the ships exchanged blows, before, with all ships badly damaged, night approaching and all crew exhausted from the days events both squadrons disengaged. The game was a draw in Russia’s favour.