Could the Russian fleet have been captured rather than sunk in 1905?

raharris1973

Gone Fishin'
Donor
Monthly Donor
Could the Japanese have captured and kept more ships of the Russian Baltic fleet than the sunk or the Russians scuttled?

If the Dogger Bank incident escalated and Britain went after the Baltic fleet itself, could the British have captured more of its ships than it sunk or the Russians scuttled?

What would the best use of the captured vessels for Japan or Britain have been?

It is my understanding that the Russian hardware may have had some flaws but that weak officers and crews were the bigger problem, so it seems salvageable hardware could be more formidable in the hands of others.
 

raharris1973

Gone Fishin'
Donor
Monthly Donor
Thoughts? Is capture of enemy warships while they are still afloat possible in the 20th century as much as it was in the age of sail?
 
“Possible?,” Yes. Likely, No. Basically the commanding officer of the ship(s) in question who have to willingly surrender instead of just opening the seacocks & scuttling the ship(s).
As far refurbishing the ships & putting them back in service, it would be waste of money & resources, especially given all the new ships coming down the pipe.
Better to buy a brand new dreadnought instead of spending money on a bunch of 2nd rate pre-dreads.
 

nbcman

Donor
The Japanese could have picked up some of the Russian vessels that were interned in China, the Philippines, and French Indo-China. Those few vessels wouldn't have been much use to Japan for long but one vessel was significant: Aurora wouldn't be returned to the Baltic Fleet and be around in 1917 to participate in the October Revolution.
 

Driftless

Donor
Lots of hand waving involved..... The war ends and the Russian fleet does the HSF scuttling en masse; though in this case shallow enough water where some of the ships are salvageable. The Japanese would probably have as much interest in the recyclable steel than the intact ships - the Dreadnought (et al) would be under construction by that point.
 
Hmm.. try this: The Russian Naval ministry screws up the contracts for coaling the fleet, maybe with assistance from political ineptitude by the Foreign minister. The fleet ends up anchored in some exposed position awaiting coal & near empty bunkers. A Japanese strike for shows up unexpectedly & the Russian ships with no steam up, crews demoralized, surrender after the first three or four in line are swiftly wrecked.
 

Driftless

Donor
Hmm.. try this: The Russian Naval ministry screws up the contracts for coaling the fleet, maybe with assistance from political ineptitude by the Foreign minister.

Admiral Cervera's force crossing from Spain to Cuba in 1898 ran into serious coaling issues once they got to the Caribbean. Some of it was limited time in neutral ports, in a couple of instances, it was mis-managed coordination with their own colliers.
 
In OTL the Japanese managed to capture quite a few Russian ships during the Russo-Japanese war:

Battleships:
-Iwami (ex-Orel)
-Sagami (ex-Peresviet)
-Suwo (ex-Pobieda)
-Hizen (ex-Retvizan)
-Tango (ex-Poltava)
-Iki (ex-Nikolai I)

Cruisers:
-Aso (ex-Bayan)
-Tsugaru (ex-Pallada)
-Soya (ex-Varyag)
-Suzuya (ex-Novik)

Coastal Defense Ships:
-Mishima (ex-Admiral Senyiavin)
-Okinoshima (ex-General Admiral Apraksin)

Destroyers:
-Fumizuki (ex-Silny)
-Yamabiko (ex-Riechitelny)
-Satsuki (ex-Biedevoi)

Source: Conway's all the World's Fighting Ships 1906-1921 (mentioned in Japan's fleet make up at the end of the Russo-Japanese war in the beginning of the section for Japan)

That being said a good amount of the ships in that list was from the capture of Port Arthur. For the most part the those ships had their smaller guns/secondaries replaced in Japanese service, as the Japanese were heavily reliant of British designs while the Russians were reliant of French designs. Generally those ships were in second line/reserve service due to their condition (battle damage and some were scuttled in Port Arthur)
 
If the Dogger Bank incident escalated and Britain went after the Baltic fleet itself, could the British have captured more of its ships than it sunk or the Russians scuttled?
the contracts for coaling the fleet, maybe with assistance from political ineptitude by the Foreign minister. The fleet ends up anchored in some exposed position awaiting coal & near empty bunkers.
I think the best way is simply that the entire Baltic fleet is surrendered en mass to the RN after the Dogger incident, say the RN follows them to one of the coaling stations and then has already confiscated the coal a note is exchanged back in Russia that GB will accept the fleets surrender and repatriate the crew but gets to keep the ships or we will fight to avenge the unprovoked attack....
 

Coulsdon Eagle

Monthly Donor
In OTL the Japanese managed to capture quite a few Russian ships during the Russo-Japanese war:

Battleships:
-Iwami (ex-Orel)
-Sagami (ex-Peresviet)
-Suwo (ex-Pobieda)
-Hizen (ex-Retvizan)
-Tango (ex-Poltava)
-Iki (ex-Nikolai I)

Cruisers:
-Aso (ex-Bayan)
-Tsugaru (ex-Pallada)
-Soya (ex-Varyag)
-Suzuya (ex-Novik)

Coastal Defense Ships:
-Mishima (ex-Admiral Senyiavin)
-Okinoshima (ex-General Admiral Apraksin)

Destroyers:
-Fumizuki (ex-Silny)
-Yamabiko (ex-Riechitelny)
-Satsuki (ex-Biedevoi)

Source: Conway's all the World's Fighting Ships 1906-1921 (mentioned in Japan's fleet make up at the end of the Russo-Japanese war in the beginning of the section for Japan)

That being said a good amount of the ships in that list was from the capture of Port Arthur. For the most part the those ships had their smaller guns/secondaries replaced in Japanese service, as the Japanese were heavily reliant of British designs while the Russians were reliant of French designs. Generally those ships were in second line/reserve service due to their condition (battle damage and some were scuttled in Port Arthur)

If I recall correctly, for reasons of prestige, the Japanese considered it of utmost importance that the Russian vessels, particularly the battleships, served in the IJN. Even to the degree that guns that were destined for the building semi-dreadnoughts and armoured cruiser / battlecruiser hybrids were redirected to the pretty poorly designed Russian prizes, with the result that the IJN had a number of weak old crapulent pre-dreadnoughts & not-quite-as-planned "modern" vessels mounting smaller guns than intended. Better to let the prizes rot or leave as museum pieces and build vessels such as Satsuma, Aki, Ibuki & Tsukuba with an all-big-gun armament.

Think Vickers Armstrong had (perhaps engineered) a shortage of 12" guns (to force up prices) and had a number of 10" guns they wanted to unload on unwary customers.
 
If I recall correctly, for reasons of prestige, the Japanese considered it of utmost importance that the Russian vessels, particularly the battleships, served in the IJN. Even to the degree that guns that were destined for the building semi-dreadnoughts and armoured cruiser / battlecruiser hybrids were redirected to the pretty poorly designed Russian prizes, with the result that the IJN had a number of weak old crapulent pre-dreadnoughts & not-quite-as-planned "modern" vessels mounting smaller guns than intended. Better to let the prizes rot or leave as museum pieces and build vessels such as Satsuma, Aki, Ibuki & Tsukuba with an all-big-gun armament.

Think Vickers Armstrong had (perhaps engineered) a shortage of 12" guns (to force up prices) and had a number of 10" guns they wanted to unload on unwary customers.

A quick look at wikipedia suggests that in the case of the 12in guns it was at the most the breeches of the guns (the 10in doesn't matter as those are not really main armament in the dreadnought era so using them to rearming the ex-russian ships doesn't really matter as far as affairs of new constructions are concerned). So it's not like their reconstruction delayed new constructions that much, Japan's financial situation (being nearly bankrupted by the end of the Russo-Japanese war) and lack of industrial maturity (Kure was the only place in Japan that could make 12in gun at the time, this period also being when the Japanese decided that they want to construct capital ships domestically, with all the positives and negatives that implied).

As for why the Japanese refurnish all of them, it's not necessarily a matter of prestige but more that they saw the opportunity to literally double their battleline within a reasonable period of time and effort, and by the time news of HMS dreadnought got to them the refurbishment/reconstruction were already underway. The whole is a case of bad timing (with application of hindsight). At the time though we have to remember that while in theory the launching of HMS Dreadnought made every ship before her obsolete, the reality on the ground (or I guess in the ocean) is that it will take a while for enough UK & US (and I guess Russian) dreadnoughts to make their way to the pacific in terms of deployments (years to build them, years more to build enough of them to spare some for the pacific), and in the meantime the Japanese battleline (augmented with the Russian prizes) would be the most powerful force in the Far east in that period of time. Of course they have no idea at the time that they won't be fighting a major naval war for a while.
 
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