Tsushima

The time of the Russo-Japanese War was prior to the introduction of the great ship Dreadnought in 1906 and so the battleships of the Russian and Japanese fleets have the lower number of guns, 4 is typical, that existed on the first-class ships of that time. Smaller ships such as the cruisers and destroyers are also modestly equipped in comparison with their counterparts of 1916 and there are no ships comparable to the British and German Battle Cruisers that sailed the North Sea. Still, the battles between fleets of the time were deadly enough, with the shorter engagement distances appearing to make up for the reduced lethality of the ships so that battles of the war are still very damaging and bloody affairs. Both sides had destroyers with their deadly torpedoes, which at that time was commonly a part of the armament of all ships up to the largest battleships of the day, and the Japanese also had a number of torpedo boats, which literal to their name do not appear to have any real capability to fire guns and thus are not unlike the American PT boat that was to prove so fearsome to the Japanese in the second World War.

At the end of May in 1905, after sailing halfway around the world, the Russian Baltic Fleet arrived in the Straits of Tsushima to do battle with the Japanese Imperial Navy. This battle would decide the outcome of the Russo-Japanese War at sea. The clash of Admiral Togo's fleet with the fleet of Admiral Rozhestvensky's would be one of the most decisive naval battles in history. This among others are included in Tsushima!