"A question on Tsushima" Topic

In Warriors of the Rising sun, does Robert Edgerton make the argument that Japanese ships used incendiary shells in battle, and that these were different from standard shells? Is this the case? How often was this the case? Does it justify differentiating types of ammo in games?

The explosive charge in the Japanese shells was different than what the Russians used. They used mostly high-explosive shells with shimose (melinite), which was designed to explode on contact and wreck the upper structures of ships. The Russians used armor-piercing rounds with small guncotton bursting charges and unreliable fuses. Japanese hits caused more damage to Russian ships relative to Russian hits on Japanese ships, setting the superstructures, the paintwork and the large quantities of coal stored on the decks on fire. That is probably where Edgerton gets his "incendiary" argument.

The shimose also reacted with the metal shell casings if there wasn't a protective sheath (typically varnish) on the inside. The battleship Mikasa lost a gun from a prematurely exploding shell as it was being fired. ( "At 1804 [hours] a 12-inch shell detonated prematurely in the barrel of the right gun of the forward turret, disabling the gun and knocking out the left gun until 1840 [hours]. Another 12-inch shell had exploded in that same barrel almost two hours earlier, but had not damaged the gun." [from Wiki article on Mikasa] )

So the only significant difference is that Japanese shells would cause more superstructure damage and fires. That should be reflected in any reliably researched set of rules.

Reference links:
link (scroll down to contributing factors) [source of most of first paragraph]
link

Jim

Prematurely exploding shells also disabled both rear 12-in guns of Asahi and a forward gun of Shikishima at the Yellow Sea, and another 12-in gun of Shikishima at Tsushima. There clearly need to be some kind of special rules for Japanese shells in RJW games.

Some more great discussion of RJW shells and gunnery in this link.

- Ix