A great source of wargame scenario information are old books available at university libraries. I was looking for better information at the Central Michigan University library on the Russo-Japanese War and checked out "A War Officers Scrapbook" by Ian Hamilton and published in 1907. Hamilton was a British Army officer that was observing the war with the Japanese army. The main problem with the book is the orders of battle are sketchy but can be put together. Russian orders of battle are harder to piece together compared to the Japanese. However, the outstanding feature is the battle maps that show every mountain pass and ridge down to the deployment of individual battalions! I have discovered that books published shortly after a war contain better information for wargamers compared to books that are published decades later. As I promised in a follow up to my MWAN article on gaming the Russo-Japanese War, I will be writing up some scenarios to encourage people to give this period a try. The main attraction of this scenario for me is that the Russians are attacking for a change. Most Ruso-Japanese War battles have the Japanese assaulting a Russian trench line and are quite similar. This gets boring after a while. Another advantage for this scenario is since this action took place in mountainous terrain, it can be easily adapted for the Russo-Turkish War and the British in Afghanistan. Background The battle of the Heavenly Pass was one of the first battles of the Russo-Japanese War fought on July 17, 1902. Basically the Japanese had landed on the Korean Peninsula and were headed toward their main objective of Port Arthur. One of the main Japanese strategic considerations was capturing the main railroad junction city of Liaoyang which is 200 miles North of Port Arthur. The Russians had massed roughly 60 infantry battalions to counter-attack the Japanese. Japan decided to take the initiative against the slow Russians. Liaoyang is surrounded by mountain passes. The Japanese had established themselves in the Heavenly Pass by Motienling and the Russians counterattacked. You can see the location of Motienling in relation to Liaoyang which is off the West side of Map #11. The battle of Heavenly Pass can be broken down into three separate Russian attacks. At 11:50 AM, Russian Force #3 in the upper right hand corner of Map #2 attacked Japanese infantry company 1/39. The Russian force was composed of two infantry battalions and one cavalry squadron. The outnumbered Japanese company quickly withdrew to Japanese Position E and was reinforced by a pioneer company. At 12:40 PM, the Russians withdrew showing no grPat determination in attacking according to Hamilton. Why the Russians called off the attack is a mystery to me. You can easily see on the map how this force could have easily outflanked the other Japanese positions. The heaviest fighting took place when Russian force #1 in the upper left hand corner of the map launched an attack at 8 AM after a night march. This Russian force was composed of two infantry battalions. The Russians quickly brushed away a Japanese picket and promptly attacked the Japanese infantry company at Japanese position B. The fighting was so ferocious that two Japanese infantry companies reinforced the position at 9 AM. Meanwhile at the lower left corner of the map, Russian force #2 composed of "several" companies attacked Japanese position A. Hamilton doesn't specify the number of companies. At 10 AM, this same Russian force retreated allowing the Japanese infantry companies there to reinforce the beleaguered Japanese infantry companies at Japanese position C. For some reason, Hamilton doesn't state why this Russian Force withdrew. Once the Japanese reinforcements were brought up at Japanese Position C, the Russians started losing ground by 11:30 AM. Additional Japanese reinforcements appeared causing Russian Force #1 to withdraw at 4:30 PM. Russian losses were 54 dead. The Japanese lost 135 killed and wounded. Hamilton feels that the Russians lost due to the exhaustion they suffered after their night march. Also, the Japanese knew the terrain a lot better. Wargame Orders of Battle Russians: POOR Action Deck Russian forces #1 and #2 (total) 11th Siberian Infantry Regiment: 3 infantry battalions, each with 4 companies (70% morale, -5 per hit), 2 Medium Artillery Batteries (70% morale, -10 per hit) Russian force #3 12th Siberian Infantry Regiment: 3 infantry battalions, each with 4 companies (70% morale, -5 per hit), Dragoon squadron (70% morale, -7 per hit), 2 Medium Artillery Batteries (70% morale, -10 per hit) Japanese: GOOD Action Deck Japanese Positions A, B and D each have: 4 infantry companies (90% morale, -5 per hit) 2 Medium artillery batteries: (90% morale, -10 per hit) Scenario Notes This scenario is loosely based on the action I just described. I basically fudged the forces for the Japanese more since they only had six companies. The Russians had four battalions or sixteen companies. The Japanese would be quickly overrun in a wargame. I combined Russian Forces #1 and #2 since Hamilton specified "several companies" attacked Japanese position A. I let the Russian players divide up this force as they see fit. Most historical battles aren't fair and don't make good scenarios. I like to adjust the forces and conditions to make a better scenario. Sometimes guesses have to be made with missing or contradicting information. Some people would disagree but I rather have a better wargame. The most important parts of a scenario are rules, figures, terrain, and special rules and victory conditions. The rules are easy. May I recommend my own rules for the period published in MWAN #100. If you prefer, any WWI rules or Fire and Fury would work. My feelings won't be hurt if you don't use my rules. The rules used should simulate command control. This scenario is basically quantity (Russians) verses quality (Japanese). If the rules don't show this adequately, the scenario will be unbalanced and favor the Russians. Regarding figures, most people probably don't have them for the Russo-Japanese war. If you do have Russians and Japanese for the Boxer rebellion, great! Even WWI Russians will work. Barring that, any figures will work including civil war types. I use Russians and Japanese from Irregular Miniatures colonial range myself. See one of my articles in MWAN #100 for more details. The orders of battle in the previous section have rankings for my rules. My rules use a numbered deck of cards for command control. Each side draws one card per turn receiving that many actions. A better action deck has cards with more actions. It takes an action to move or fire. A unit can fire or move multiple times. Infantry companies have twelve figures, the dragoon squadron has six figures and artillery batteries have four figures. The morale ratings are the percent chance to pass a moral check on two ten sided dice. The morale reduction for casualties follows. Everybody is arTned with bolt action rifles. Japanese artillery should be better than Russian artillery due to better pieces and gunners. The statistics should be easy to adapt for other rules. Scenario Setup and Victory Conditions Though the map features several hills, only the main hills at Japanese positions A, B and C need to be set up. Also, two hills need to be set up on both sides of Japanese position D. Ideally, the scenario should have at least two Russian players and one Japanese player. If you don't have two Russian players, the scenario will still work with one. Before the game begins, the Russians have to decide how to divide up their forces under "Russian Forces #1 and #2". Basically, this force will attack the Japanese positions on the West side of the map. The entire force listed under Russian force #3 will launch their attack on the Northeast side of the map as they did historically. The Japanese basically set up their infantry companies within the vicinities of the points listed on the map. The Russians go first. If you have two Russian players, you might try not allowing them to talk with each other. Instead, have them pass written messages back and forth of up to eight words or so. The messages should take two or three turns to arrive. You might want to add a die roll for a lost message. These are suggestions only since I haven't tried this. Victory conditions are simple. The two victory objectives are the villages of Nidoko and Godoko. At the end of twenty turns, if each side occupies one objective, the game is a draw. If one side occupies both sights, they win. Conclusion I played this game as the Japanese facing two Russian players. The Russians lost many casualties due to the Russian Commander of forces #1 and #2, Vic packing his troops in a small area. In my rules, casualties from artillery are dependent on the number offigures in the artillery burst radius. More figures in the burst radius cause more casualties. The other Russian commander of force #3, Lowell commented "Pack more of them in there, Vic!" and shook his head in disgust. Lowell is a great player and never lost a single unit! I started to cave in by turn five. By turn fifteen, I was being surrounded in the vicinity of Japanese Positions B and D. I then gave up. This scenario would make a great convention game with four Russian players and two Japanese. I plan on writing up more Russo-Japanese War scenarios and hope you have fun with this scenario. Battle of Yosheri: July 31, 1904 Russo-Japanese War Rules Back to MWAN #104 Table of Contents Back to MWAN List of Issues Back to MagWeb Magazine List © Copyright 2000 Hal Thinglum This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com