Remember the Maine:
Scenarios & History, Part One
by Mike Bennighof, Ph.D.
March 2024

Did the Spanish ever have a chance?

The Spanish-American War looms very large in the histories of both participating nations, definitively marking Spain’s end as an imperial power and the boisterous entry of the United States into world power politics. But as an exercise in military operations, it was not a very large conflict.

Great War at Sea: Remember the Maine is all about the naval side of the Spanish-American War in the Caribbean. The war did not last long, as the Spanish threw away their advantages and played directly into the Americans’ strengths.

Remember the Maine’s Second Edition is, like those of Jutland and Russo-Japanese War before it, a fairly radical reconstruction compared to the previous edition. The game now has four chapters, with the first centered on the war as it occurred. Admiral Pascual Cervera has a fleet of four armored cruisers and three destroyers, concentrated in the Portuguese-ruled Cape Verde Islands before the war broke out. He then steamed to French-ruled Martinique to receive fresh instructions from the Navy Ministry in Madrid.

By this point, his ships already needed maintenance – the Spanish Navy had not performed overhauls of all of its ships before committing them to action, as the amount of work needed to bring the fleet to ready status exceeded available shipyard capacity. His crews desperately needed more training, not just in live-fire exercises but every aspect of seamanship. And he had been issued mostly defective ammunition, though it’s not clear if he knew this yet.

The Navy Ministry attempted to micro-manage Cervera via telegraph, and ordered him to Santiago de Cuba, possibly the worst possible choice to base his squadron. The Navy Minister then ordered him to wait there, and Cervera has little choice but to obey even had he been inclined to free-lance, as Santiago had little high-grade coal to offer and the squadron had to wait for colliers to arrive. The American squadron – slow and ponderous, but heavily-armed - found them first, and the Navy Ministry ordered Cervera to break out. That resulted in his small fleet’s destruction, with that of Spain’s four-hundred-year American empire following soon afterwards.

That’s the initial situation we present in Remember the Maine: The Spanish squadron at Martinique, the Americans mostly still arriving in the Caribbean, with a weak squadron at Key West and even weaker ones blockading Cuban ports. The Americans hope to keep Cuba blockaded, the Spanish to ravage American commerce, and each side to balk the other.

I went without what wargamers call “idiot rules” that would force the Spanish player to steam for Santiago and passively await destruction. That would be no fun, and it also means that the game is highly unlikely to play out as it did historically. The Spanish ships have some limitations (thanks to that poor maintenance and those badly-trained crews) but they also have many options. Those American blockade groups are just handfuls of aged gunboats and coast-defense monitors, and it will be tempting to snap them up. The American player can then leave them to their fate, or tie down his or her useful warships on blockade duty when they’re needed to chase down Spanish commerce raiders.

That does make for a fun game, but it’s also one that’s not likely to give you the Battle of Santiago.

To make that possible, we have what I think of as “snapshot” scenarios, that open somewhat deeper into the operation or campaign, just before a crucial moment. In this case, Cervera starts at Santiago and most of the American heavy ships at Key West. This is the moment when the Americans had discovered the Spanish, but not yet moved to blockade them. Cervera can sortie from Santiago and attempt to wreak havoc in the Caribbean, escape back home, or some combination of both. That gives rise to a pair of battle scenarios; neither of these happened, but could have if the Spanish had sallied forth rather than awaiting orders from Madrid.

That starting point still won’t give you the Battle of Santiago, but the next one will. The Spanish fleet begins in Santiago, trapped there by the Americans. They must sortie to escape, because the city will soon fall to attack from the landward side. The battle scenarios include the historical Battle of Santiago (not a good day for the Spanish) and the near-battle between an American battleship and an Austro-Hungarian armored cruiser (not the best of the scenarios, I have to admit, but it really happened, or almost did, and was in the prior edition so I cleaned it up and let it stand).

When the first moves toward war began in April 1898, two of the Spanish armored cruisers were in the Caribbean; the Navy Ministry recalled them to the Cape Verde Islands to join Cervera and the other ships. The American commander on the spot, William Sampson, wanted to take his fast ships and seek out the Spanish armored cruisers, seeing them (rightfully) as a grave danger to the fragile gunboats and tin-pot monitors intended to form the blockade of Cuba. The newly-formed Navy Board, given the authority to micro-manage Sampson, did so enthusiastically and scotched his plan, while the Spanish Navy Ministry proved equally timid. But you get to try it out, and of course we have the resulting battle.

We also include the plan forced on Sampson by the Navy Board, for a slow and methodical blockade of Cuba. It’s just a small scenario, as neither side’s heavy ships have arrived in the theater, and if they want to fight (and since they’re controlled by wargamers, they’ll want to fight), it’ll be a clash of gunboats and gunboat-like old cruisers.

So, did the Spanish have a chance?

Not if they followed the plans laid out by their Navy Ministry, which had upheaval at the top during the war but consistently settled on bad ideas. And while the “fast” armored cruisers on paper looked capable of steaming circles around the plodding American battleships (at this stage of their development, much more similar to overgrown coastal monitors than true blue-water battleships), their poor condition and worse crews made them less of an asset than they appeared. Spain did have a chance, but it was a very narrow one, and would have required either political leadership willing to allow their admiral to operate freely, or an admiral willing to buck his chain of command and ask forgiveness rather than permission.

Spain actually had that admiral, or at least a man who seems to have had that potential. He and his small squadron appear in Chapter Two.

You can order Remember the Maine (Second Edition) right here.

Sign up for our newsletter right here. Your info will never be sold or transferred; we'll just use it to update you on new games and new offers.

Mike Bennighof is president of Avalanche Press and holds a doctorate in history from Emory University. A Fulbright Scholar and NASA Journalist in Space finalist, he has published a great many books, games and articles on historical subjects; people are saying that some of them are actually good. He lives in Birmingham, Alabama with his wife, three children, and his new puppy. His Iron Dog, Leopold, could swim very well.

Want to keep Daily Content free of third-party ads? You can send us some love (and cash) through this link right here.