A World Without Dreadnoughts - A China AAR

[Jades]

This, my first AAR for Rule The Waves 3, is a fuller account of the China save that I've posted periodic reports from on the thread '"Ship cannot be identified as any legal type" error'. For ease of reading I'll give some initial background, recap the main events posted on that thread here and then continue on with the narrative on this thread. It's continued to be an interesting challenge. I'm up to September 1920 in the save so this and the next few posts I make are retrospective.

I wasn't originally intending to write an AAR for the save so the initial details will be somewhat brief. Dates for events prior to 1905 are approximate, I didn't keep notes and for the details of the wars I'm guessing from the Wars and Prestige page of the History and the ship records.

Save Specs

• Country: China
• Start Year: 1890
• Fleet Size: Larger
• Research Rate: 100
• Tech Variation: Slight
• Maximum Airbase Size: 100
• Realism Setting: Admiral's Mode

This is pretty much my standard setup for new games. I have, so far, not played as Great Britain as I'm still learning the game and don't want to deal with huge fleets and global commintments just yet.

Early Game Events
The initial dock size for China in an 1890 start is a mere 4,000 tons, so building in foreign yards while building up domestic shipbuilding capacity was inevitable.

The starting fleet was predictably small, the key ships being the Ting Yuen Class, a US-built class of four 7,900 ton Battleships with four 12-inch -3 guns in two closely-spaced twin turrets in the front half of the ship. Picture shows the 1906 rebuild.

CHI_B_Ting_Yuen_(R1906).png (16.72 KiB) Viewed 130 times

A class of three additional battleships of 7,000 tons with four 8-inch guns in two turrets, one fore and one aft, were under construction in Britain. These were the Si Ning Class. I decided to let these complete as they were on a par with what Japan had and the blockade points would still be useful.

CHI_B_Si_Ning.png (16.8 KiB) Viewed 130 times

I only had one Armoured Cruiser, Hei Yang, which was 7,100 tons with a main armament of two twin 7-inch turrets.

CHI_CA_Hei_Yang.png (17.26 KiB) Viewed 130 times

It looked decent enough so I adapted the design by increasing it to 7,600 tons with 8-inch main guns. These ships were the Chi Yang Class and I ordered an initial example of the class from France, which I expected to remain friendly for some time, with the intention of laying down additional ships as the budget allowed.

CHI_CA_Chi_Yang.png (17.41 KiB) Viewed 130 times

Japan had a sizable advantage in Armoured Cruiser numbers so closing that gap was my initial priority.

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With regard to the smaller units, I had three Light Cruisers. Two were the Chao Yung Class, which were 4,700 tons with eight 5-inch guns. These had been built in France.

CHI_CL_Chao_Yung.png (16.48 KiB) Viewed 124 times

The other CL was Kuang Yi, of 4,500 tons with single 8-inch guns fore and aft. It had a secondary battery of six 6-inch guns, three to each side. I've always had a soft spot for this layout so I had a second ship laid down in Great Britain once I had the budget available.

CHI_CL_Kuang_Yi.png (15.82 KiB) Viewed 124 times

The Corvettes were the usual motley collection, and four of them were 2,400 tons and hilariously over-gunned. The pick of the bunch was the Ching Ching Class of three ships with a single 10-inch main gun at the front and a secondary battery of two single six-inch guns at the back.

CHI_KE_Ching_Ching.png (14.14 KiB) Viewed 124 times

The other Big Gun Corvette was Pekin, a slightly more sane design with fore and aft 8-inch main guns.

CHI_KE_Pekin.png (13.67 KiB) Viewed 124 times

I never go above 6-inch guns on my corvettes but decided that I'd keep them around for a while since I had more pressing construction priorities.

The final ship in the fleet was I Tung, which was a completely unremarkable 900t design with a single 4-inch gun fore, a single 4-inch gun aft and a secondary battery of two 3-inch guns either side.

My initial construction policy therefore was to complete the build programme I inherited, build more Armoured Cruisers and expand domestic ship-building capacity as quickly as possible.

My foreign policy, meanwhile, was to try to avoid overly antagonising the major powers - particularly the countries I was relying on to build my ships. War with Japan would be pretty much inevitable, the main hope being that they wouldn't bring in anyone dangerous as allies.

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1891 to 1892 - Stormclouds Gather
The build programme I had outlined previously was making reasonably steady progress. I continued to work on expanding the dockyards and was doing what I could with the research budget. Money was still fairly tight and, as a result, intelligence gathering was limited to my most immediate neighbours Japan and Russia.

By February 1891 Si Nang and Ping Yueng of the Si Nang Class had been completed. I was then able to order and commence construction of Chi Ang, the second CA of the Chi Yang Class, in March.

Construction of Kang Ding, the third and final Si Nang Class Battleship, was completed in June. I then had Fu Hsing, the third Chi Yang Class Cruiser, ordered and started.

I ran an exercise in August to give the fleet a run out and see what I had to deal with. I don't remember any particularly useful lessons gained from this.

The budgetary situation was improving, so in October 1891 I ordered the fourth Chi Yang Class Cruiser, Chen Wei from France.

In January 1892 the fifth Chi Yang Class Cruiser, Fu Po was ordered from France. This was planned to be the last ship of the class, with the five ships operating as a squadron once they were completed.

In April 1892 the Light Cruiser Kuang Ping, the second ship of the Kuang Yi Class, was commissioned. This ship was the first one to be completed from my own construction orders.

Tensions with Japan were continuing to rise, with the first warning of a possible war coming in April 1892. In May 1892 my diplomats heard rumours that Spain were considering a war against us, this wasn't entirely unexpected due to their presence in South-East Asia. A further warning of war with Spain came in September 1892, followed by another warning of impending war with Japan in November 1892.

Another problem that was building up, so slowly that I didn't notice it at the time, was unrest.