War of Åland - Introduction

Deviating from the renaissance period rather harshly (although I've gamed it a number of times recently in addition to playing Flames of War), I'm now planning on researching the War of Åland and seeing if that can be reasonably portrayed as a wargame.

This rather unknown naval conflict, part of the Crimean war, took place in the Baltic sea 28th March 1854 to 20th September 1854 and 17th April 1855 to 10th December 1855. Finland was during this period under Imperial Russian rule, but most of the conflicts took place in what is today considered to be Finnish territory.

The war is currently remembered mostly in a folk song called "Oolannin sota" (War of Åland), which is a cleaned up version of an original song created by a Finnish prisoner of war during imprisonment in Lewes, possibly the author being a military physician called Johan Wallenius, but that can be only speculated upon.

The Finnish lyrics (of the currently sung version) are thus:

Oolannin sota

Ja se Oolannin sota oli kauhia

Hurraa, hurraa, hurraa

Kun kolmella sadalla laivalla

Seilas engelsmanni Suomemme rannoilla

Sunfaraa, sunfaraa, sunfarallalallala,

Hurraa, hurraa, hurraa.

Se oli niin komeata katsella

Hurraa, hurraa, hurraa

Kun engelsmanni seilasi lahdella

Juuri Oolannin fästingin kohdalla

Sunfaraa, sunfaraa, sunfarallalallala,

Hurraa, hurraa, hurraa.

Ja se oli vihollisen meiniki

Hurraa, hurraa, hurraa

Että ampua murskaksi fästinki

Ja ottaa se sotaväki fangiksi

Sunfaraa, sunfaraa, sunfarallalallala

Hurra hurraa, hurraa!

Mutta Suomen poijat ne ampuivat

Hurraa, hurraa, hurraa

Että fästingin muurit ne kaikuivat

Ja Oolannin rannat ne raikuivat

Sunfaraa, sunfaraa, sunfarallalallala

Hurraa, hurraa, hurraa!

A very quick and dirty translation into English would be:

War of Åland

And the War of Åland was terrible

Hurrah, hurrah, hurrah

When with three hundred ships

did the Englishman sail at our shores

Sunfarrah, sunfarrah, sunfarrallallalah

Hurrah, hurrah, hurrah

And it was so grand to see

Hurrah, hurrah, hurrah

When the Englishman sailed on the bay

Just at Åland's Bomarsund fortress

Sunfarrah, sunfarrah, sunfarrallallalah

Hurrah, hurrah, hurrah

And that was the enemy's intention

Hurrah, hurrah, hurrah

To shoot to pieces the Bomarsund fortress

And take the soldiers within as prisoners

Sunfarrah, sunfarrah, sunfarrallallalah

Hurrah, hurrah, hurrah

But the boys of Finland they shot [their cannons]

Hurrah, hurrah, hurrah

Making the walls of the fortress and the

shores of Åland echo [with the sounds of their cannonade]

Sunfarrah, sunfarrah, sunfarrallallalah

Hurrah, hurrah, hurrah

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-l2AdP4YF4 <- this link provides the song and also another translation (probably better than mine).

Bombardment of Bomarsund - Wikimedia Commons

My first problem was when it came to wargaming was that basically the English and French fleets more or less sailed over the Russian fleet and blasted the Finnish coastal fortresses to smithereens. This will pose a problem for scenario design, but hopefully Jay White's excellent scenario design article in Wargames Illustrated 358 (August 2017) will provide me with some insight. These will mostly be one-off scenarios to be played with bunch of friends, so the scenarios need not be balanced as such - although giving the Russian army at least some fighting chance to win the scenarios would be nice.

My connection to the war is that I have visited the Viapori fortress (nowadays Suomenlinna) dozens of times during my youth and it holds a special place in my heart. Also one of the fortresses involved was Svartholm fortress in the neighbouring city of Loviisa, although it's involvement was rather anticlimatic.

I'm a total newbie to naval wargaming, but the rules system I plan to use is is Fighting Sail by Osprey publishing, as the rules are very clearly written and at they have received several rather good reviews. I'm not aiming for historical simulation, but more of an enjoyable gaming experience. The biggest problem with the rules is that they don't allow for steam-powered ships, but I think they might be easily adjusted for by (for instance) giving steamships +1 to sailing rolls. The Russian fleet/Finnish merchant fleet was mainly sail-powered so for those I can use the rules as is.

I'll be using 1:1200 ships, most likely I'll 3d-print them myself using epengr's Age of Sail -set, which print out comparatively well on my cheap Flashforge Finder printer (at 0.05 mm resolution).

A quick experimental paintjob with paper sails.

I still need to add rigging, a national flag and a base, 

but this is sufficient for my purposes.

Of course, I'll need to create remixes of some of these models to add for steamship elements, but luckily the details are so small that very rudimentary 3D-modeling will suffice (ie probably a box and a couple of cylinders, but perhaps more if I get inspired).

My premise for the models will be that I since I have trouble distinguishing a 1st rate ship from a 2nd rate ship at normal gaming height, the differences between different 1st rate ships aren't that important.. "close enough" being the rule here and that for me is a very flexible rule.

This may provide me a good opportunity to do some historical research. This is a rather passive project at the moment (as is this blog), but my intention is to use this blog for myself in order to collect my thoughts and ideas about the campaign and if it attracts readers, all the better. Don't expect regular updates though.