Analysis
The Battle of the Yellow Sea was naval history's first major confrontation between modern steel battleship fleets, so with the exception of Admiral Togo's 20 minute duel with Russian Admiral Stark's battleships at Port Arthur on 9 February 1904, both Vitgeft and Togo were new to fighting modern steel battleship fleet actions.
Although Admiral Stark had been replaced by Admiral Stepan Makarov shortly after the Port Arthur battle, Makarov in turn was replaced by Vitgeft, following Makarov's death in April 1904, when his battleship Petropavlovsk blew up and sank in the Yellow Sea, after striking mines. Had Admiral Stark remained in command at the time of the Yellow Sea battle, Admirals Togo and Stark would have met on equal terms, both retaining about equal combat experience in battleship fleet actions. But the naval force that Togo was to meet at Tsushima the following year was not the same type of battle fleet that he engaged at the Yellow Sea either. Though Admiral Vitgeft was new, many of his men were not, most of them were veterans of Far East duty, with some of them veterans of the 1900 Boxer Rebellion in China. Thus, when Togo fought Vitgeft's fleet in the Yellow Sea in August 1904, he quickly found that they knew how to sail, and they were good gunners.
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