The Ship Model Forum

Anonymous wrote:I am not sure what they did to "deserve" a better outcome.

They endured months of hell to travel around the world and most found a sailor's grave at Tsushima Straits. They fought to the bitter end in the best tradition of their service.

Most of their crews were not up to Japanese standards, nor to Makarov's 1904 fleet, but still they went on and were annihilated. Some of their gunnery was good, and their fire might have caused more damage to the Japanese fleet.

Granted, they could not have won a fleet engagement, but they might have managed to slip away undetected to Valdivostok, or at least part of the fleet.

If anything, I feel that they deserve a better treatment in restrospect. Brave and determined men should not be portrayed as ineffective, nearly ridiculous and blundering amateurs. It does not even make the winner look any better.

Mind you, the very same words could be applied to the way the Italian Navy of WWII is usually portrayed; disdained and ridiculed.

Jean-Paul Binot wrote: but I believe that the Russians deserved a more balanced outcome.

I am not sure what they did to "deserve" a better outcome. Moreover there seems to be few things they could realistically have done to dramatically improve the outcome. Much of scenarios showing a better outcome for the Russians depended on the Japanese making mistakes which they avoided in real life. One does not deserve a better outcome when the only realistic way for achieving the better outcome was to reduce the proficiency shown by the enemy.

This movie, like all the books and articles written on the battle, indeed on the whole war, is very Japanese-centric. But indeed they won.

Admittedly I am an unrepentant russophile, but I believe that the Russians deserved a more balanced outcome. They scored quite a few hits, mostly on Mikasa, but failed to take down with them a single Japanese battleship. No Japanese major combatant was lost while nearly all the Russian ships were sunk or captured.

The Russian force at Tsushima was not a true battle fleet. Only the quartet of Borodinos were really modern battleships, and there were few cruisers to counter those Togo used so effectively.

The high point of the naval war happened in 1904 at the battle of the Yellow Sea, and its cruiser equivalent teh battle of Ulsan, which were much less one-sided because the Russian Pacific Flet was a true integrated comabt force, revitalized by Admiral Makarov. But fate, or luck, was against the Russians in every engagement of a war that should never have happened in teh first place.

Sten Ekedahl wrote:Well, the old "crossing the T" was still the favoured tactis for battleships in surface engagements even in the 20th century. IIRC Jellicoe succeeded with this at Jutland in 1916.

As long as warships can only direct a part of their firepower forward, but all of their fire power to either side, crossing the T would remain a devastating tactics that enables the crossing fleet to bring all weapons to bear upon the crossed fleet without the latter being able to reply with anything like in kind.

Well, the old "crossing the T" was still the favoured tactis for battleships in surface engagements even in the 20th century. IIRC Jellicoe succeeded with this at Jutland in 1916.

Hi There I agree with Roger T.......
This film was made definitley in the 60's and obviously with key scenes shot on the real Mikasa.

Well & truly in the days before cgi. hence you have all those ship models racing around on a swimming pool with depth of field problems and all shot in glorious cheap film stock............the only thing missing is "Godzilla" wading thorugh the fleet.

Another amusing issue was the use of "flash Pots" ....a puff of smoke to represent, I assume a high explosive shell taking out a japanese gun crew. How the hell did it get there, through the top deck or side gun portal without blasting a hole?

Aside from the quality issues I found it interesting that this naval engagement was depicted almost like a naval fight of the 18 & 19 centuries ie "Nelson at trafalger". With ships firing broadsides ...was it really like that ....or was this depicted by the director because he felt it was more spectacular ?


Regards
Mike

Flippin' heck, I can log-in using Internet Explorer, but not when browsing with Firefox...

Anyhoo, be that as it may, I heartily recommend Battle in the Sea of Japan.

Those clips are from Nihonkai Daikaisen, or Battle in the Sea of Japan, a Toho epic of 1969 starring the late great Toshiro Mifune as Admiral Togo, and featuring effects work by Eiji Tsuburaya, the man behind Gojira.

I posted a load of screengrabs here...

http://bobhenneman.info/forum/viewtopic ... +daikaisen

... and noted where a DVD of the film can be obtained.

Roger 'Unable to log-in again' Todd

Looks nice! However, I guess its not the original film ;o) I would guess its some late-thirties or maybe even postWW2 propaganda film?

I like the stiff heroic poses held by Japanese command staff. One thinks they are more concerned about looking good to the posterity than they are about keeping on top of the battle situation.

That was pretty cool.

Battle of Tsushima Strait

Pt 1. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9g1qzm03 ... ed&search=
Pt 2. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKqTQBzeptI&NR=1