The Japanese shot the snot out of the Russian Black Sea fleet. One of the advantages according to historians was electronic fire control. What constituted electronic fire control in 1905?
WAG: They are talking about electronically firing the artillery, rather than relying on a lanyard to use friction to ignite the powder. (In my speculation) the electronic firing would be more reliable, in general, and would guarantee that fewer shots either failed to fire or fired too late (allowing the roll of the ship to throw the gun off target).
I have not found any information on the subject, so I am simply guessing. I am not aware of any electronic devices that were used in Fire Direction Control in 1905. (I actually know of none in WWI, for that matter.)
Period electrical fire control systems weren’t really what one would think of as modern electronic fire control (ie computerised). They consisted of opticalcoincidence rangefinders (using mirrors) and a telegraphic system communicating ranging data from the conning-tower to the turret or casemate.
The advantages of these electrical fire control systems at the Battle of Tsushima weren’t really all that significant. More significant were the Japanese superiority in speed and armament (bigger guns), the brilliant Admiral Togo, and their fresh and well trained crews. The Russian fleet was made up of mostly older ships with poorly trained crews which were tired and poorly lead. Furthermore, Admiral Rozhestvensky failed to take advantage of some early opprotunities. The Russian ships also had problems with their watertight integrity and possibly poor quality ammunition. Some ships were probably fitted out with optical range finders and/or the syetems descibed above (especially the Japanese ships), but there is doubt as to the effectiveness with which they were used. Especially the Russians seem to have had problems with little training. Even the Japanese systems seem to have only be used for initial range finding. I may be wrong but IIRC the real significance was that of the first use of electrical fire control systems in actual battle conditions.
A detailed technical discussion of the Battle of the Yellow Sea and the Battle of Tsushima can be found here: http://www.ukans.edu/~kansite/ww_one/naval/rjwargun.htm. A less detailed, but nice summary is available here: http://www.onwar.com/aced/data/romeo/russojapanese1904.htm.
“It took seven and a half months for the Russian Fleet to travel from the Black Sea to the Tsushima Straits, and less than two days for the Japanese to destroy it.”
Yikes!
Um, wasn’t it the Baltic Fleet, not the Black Sea fleet?
Speaking of being poorly trained and led, on the way over there was the Dogger Bank incident. The Russians sank a few fishing boats near Britain in the belief that they were Japanese patrol vessels.
The History Channel had a show on battleships. This is a pre-caffeine post, but I’ll try to remember what they said…
IIRC, the Russian fleet was obsolete. The couple of newer battleships they had were hampered by the older, slower ships which added to the length of the trip. By the time the Russians got there the crews were in need of a rest, and I’ll bet the ships needed maintenance. The slower ships also adversely affected the newer ships’ attack, but I don’t remember now exactly how. (I’ll have to read those links above when my brain can process information.)
Anyway from what my currently fuzzy brain remembers, the Russian fleet was mostly obsolete, the trip to the battle site was long and wearying, and the Japanese used better tactics.
An ex prof and retired naval reserve admiral, explained it in class one day. The Japanese did the classic cross the T manuveur. That is the russian ships were basically in a straight line moving forward, the Japanese came in parallel in front of the Russian line. It looks kinda like the letter T.
Japanese were able to fire broadside down the entire line of Russian ships. Russian ships were basically only able to fire their front cannons at a slight angle for fear of hitting their own ships. As a result, the Japanese fired broadside after broadside while the Russians were sitting ducks. End of story.
Crossing the T seems rather eighteenth century. In crossing the T, Nelson could bring his entire line to engage a couple of French ships, raking them at short range. I thought that by 1905 cannon had longer range than that. When was Jutland, 1914?
Maham mentioned the Russian mistakes to be not protecting supply lines and the decision not to save the fleet as a future threat to the Japanese rather than engage it; his example of “a fleet in being”.
Crossing the T was most impressive when a ship of the line could bring 50 guns to bear on an opponent while the victim could return fire with no more than four. However, it was still a very effective tactic as long as ship duels were primarily artillery duels for the reasons that China Guy mentioned. A ship can fire its full array of main guns broadside while only half of that number firing forward. (That is why so many later U.S. battleships were laid out with six guns forward and three aft, to minimize the “T” effect.)
The Japanese did cross the T at Tsushima and the U.S. did it to the Japanese during the fight for the Philipines.