Golden Journal No. 52
Russo-Japanese War: Shopping Spree
Ships of the Shopping Spree, Part 1
by Mike Bennighof, Ph.D.
September 2024

Shortly after the turn of the last century, several interlocking naval arms races in South America cooled, just as the diplomatic conflict between Russia and Japan over Korea began to slide toward open war. That presented the would-be participants with the opportunity to quickly increase their naval strength, if they could convince the owners to sell, and if they could both out-bid and out-maneuver their rivals to obtain the warships.

That’s the focus of Golden Journal No. 52: Russo-Japanese War Shopping Spree. The little book, a Gold Club exclusive, includes 20 new ship pieces, scenarios so you can play with them, and best of all, a little game-within-a-game auction game so you can bid for them before the fighting starts.

Let’s have a look at the stakes.

The Chilean Battleships
The British shipbuilder Armstrong’s chief designer, Sir Edward Reed,” happened to be “coincidentally” vacationing in Chile when Chile’s rival, Argentina, ordered a pair of Garibaldi-class armored cruisers from Italian shipyards (one from Ansaldo, one from Orlando). That would give the Argentines four such ships. Sir Edward was, quite literally, on the spot to convince the Chileans that his employer could provide an appropriate, cost-effective counter to the Argentine purchase: a second-class battleship, fast enough to run down the Argentine cruisers and powerful enough to destroy them.

HMS Triumph, formerly Libertad, almost Yamato.

The ship designed by Sir Edward would weigh in at just over 12,000 tons, compared to 7,000 tons for the Argentine cruisers. They would be narrower than the usual battleship, both to fit in Chile’s graving dock at Talcahuano and to help raise their speed. To produce that speed, the main armament would be 10-inch rather than the British standard 12-inch main guns, in twin turrets fore and aft, with armor designed to defeat the 10-inch guns of the Argentine cruisers rather than the heavy guns of enemy battleships. In keeping with the design theory of the time, which emphasized rapid-firing medium-caliber guns, she would also carry fourteen 7.5-inch guns in a two-tiered amidships battery. The new ship had a maximum speed of 19 knots, and though this was faster than the 18-knot standard of the period, this was still slower than the 20 knots the Argentine cruisers could make.

Nevertheless, Chile ordered two ships to the design, laying down Constitución at Armstrong’s and Libertad at Vickers on 26 February 1902. Peace broke out three months later, with Chile and Argentina signing the Pacts of May agreeing to arbitrate their dispute, and the Chileans put their battleships up for sale. When Russia made the high bid for them, the British Admiralty stepped in, exercising its right to purchase any British-built warship, thereby shielding their new ally, Japan.

The ships appear in Russo-Japanese War, as Prokhor and Vladimir in Russian colors, and as Yamato and Musashi under the Rising Sun.

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The Argentine Cruisers (Part One)
The Royal Italian Navy laid down a pair of new armored cruisers in 1893, to a new design based on the previous class, but featuring greatly improved armament with the main guns in turrets, high speed, and relatively strong protection. The Italians intended them to serve a dual purpose: to be fast enough to serve the screening and scouting missions of cruisers, but powerful and well-protected enough to stand in the line of battle alongside the battleships.

Argentine armored cruiser San Martín running builder’s trials.

The first two ships launched in May and June 1895, and with the Argentine-Chile rivalry heating up, Italian entrepreneur Ferdinando Maria Perrone saw his chance. Officially, he served as Ansaldo’s representative in Argentina, but his work as a journalist and financier gave him access and connections throughout the upper business and political leadership in both Argentina and Italy (in both countries, men shuffled regularly between these). He saw a chance to turn a profit for himself and Ansaldo, and convinced the Argentines to buy the new cruisers, and the Royal Italian Navy to sell them; contracts were signed on 14 July 1895. The Italian Navy then bought new ships from Ansaldo to replace these.

The new cruisers displaced 6,800 tons, with relatively thin armored belts (up to 150mm, or just shy o six inches) plus armored decks, turrets, and conning towers. They could make 20 knots, relatively fast for the mid-1890’s (the contemporary Saint Bon-class battleships, considered very fast for their type, clocked in at 18 knots).

Main armament differed from ship to ship, though all of them had two turrets. The first ship had one 254mm (10-inch) gun in the forward turret, and two 203mm (8-inch) guns in the aft turret. The second had four 203mm guns, two in each turret.

The Argentines accepted both ships in 1898, but in the meantime the Chileans had answered with a single ship, the 8,000-ton O’Higgins, at the time the largest armored cruiser in the world. She was ordered from Armstrong, which had just built the 7,000-ton Esmerelda for Chile. The Chileans now out-matched the Argentines, who responded by buying the two Garibaldi-class cruisers laid down in 1895 for the Royal Italian Navy, to replace the first two sold to Argentina.

Seeing the opportunity for a little more back-door profit, Perrone now brokered a complicated deal, flipping one of the cruisers to Spain (re-named Cristobal Colón, she would be sunk at the Battle of Santiago in 1898) and laying down a fresh cruiser for Argentina to replace her. The two new Argentine cruisers each sported one 254mm and two 203mm guns. The Argentines made out with a profit on the sale to Spain, Perrone got commissions and Ansaldo got contracts for three ships rather than two. Perrone tried hard to sell both ships to Spain, and the deal went so far that the Spanish assigned a name to the second ship (Pedro de Aragon), but the Spanish could only afford one (probably because Perrone gouged them so badly).

Perrone impressed his friends at Ansaldo so much with his shady dealings that in 1902 they named him to their board, and by 1904 he had taken sole ownership.

All four ships appear in Shopping Spree, under the Russian Cross of St. Andrew as Evropa, Spiridon, Deris, and Preslava, and in Japanese livery as Arakawa, Tedori, Shonai, and Kushida.

The Argentine Cruisers (Part Two)
The Chilean order for new battleships required an Argentine response, but this time Perrone couldn’t help them – the Royal Italian Navy built all of its battleships in state-owned naval shipyards, which lacked Ansaldo’s profit motive and had no interest in flipping ships to an outside buyer. That limited buying options to the most recent class of armored cruisers, the Garibaldis – the next class of armored cruiser would not begin construction until 1904, and this time the Royal Italian Navy avoided Perrone’s chicanery by skipping over Ansaldo when the time came to place orders.

Japanese armored cruiser Kasuga, seen just after the Russo-Japanese War.

The Argentines sought tenders from shipyards around the world, but found no alternatives that could be delivered any faster or at a better price. And so they settled on two more Garibaldi-class armored cruisers, far from a true counterweight to the two new Chilean battleships, despite the latter’s size and relative lack of fighting power. Ansaldo laid down both in the spring of 1902, but the ships would be sold to the Japanese before ever hoisting the Sun of May flag.

These two cruisers would have been named Bernardino Rivadavia and Mariano Moreno in Argentine service. They appear in Shopping Spree in Russian colors as Tverdoi and Saratov; they are present in Russo-Japanese War as the Japanese Kasuga and Nisshin.

In our Golden Journal No. 52: Russo-Japanese Shopping Spree, you can not only play with these ships (we have 20 new pieces for them, for Great War at Sea: Russo-Japanese War), you can also engage in the Competitive Shopping Game.

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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 new puppy. He misses his lizard-hunting Iron Dog, Leopold.

Daily Content includes no AI-generated content or third-party ads. We work hard to keep it that way, and that’s a lot of work. You can help us keep things that way with your gift through this link right here.