Thanks regarding the table! It has now had 4 games played on it and I am still very satisfied with its durability. Maybe I should get around to either making another ocean section or two, or figuring out a way to do dry land on the back of it...
The combination of Russian ablative armor and close range gunnery, with the French heat lances and longer ranged weapons really put the hurt on the Japanese. But, playing only a few turns might not give the most accurate final count. When we called the game we had just closed in on the main EotBS naval forces, which would certainly put the hurt on us.
That said, by focusing such a huge amount of attention on my Borodino Battleship (gotta love that ablative armor!), it left the rest of my fleet (and Andy's) pretty much unscathed. Not to say it's not a viable strategy - indeed, the battleship packs a serious amount of firepower all by itself - but that's a tough situation to be in.
Another thing that might have changed later in the game was the RC aft vulnerability. Once the fleets mixed a little, the EotBS would have had targeting advantage.