Since a friend of mine had bought the Great White Fleet fully painted and wanted to use it, I made up a whole 1908 Japanese-American War so we could play it against my own Japanese pre-dreadnought fleet.

The narrative goes like this:

The Japanese Empire, desperate for resources, hatches a plan to expand the empire further by conquering the lightly-defended Philippines in a lightning invasion. The theory is that this ought to be easy to defend by blockade, cruiser warfare and a strong fleet-in-being, because the nearest full-scale US bases are 7500 miles across the Pacific on the west coast of North America, and the minor supply depots in Guam and Oahu can be easily reduced and watched closely by long-range cruisers. The US Navy is already more powerful, but the hope is that it will take a year to organize it for a full-scale counter-invasion, and the US dreadnoughts under construction will not be ready until 1909. The experts are certain a peace agreement can be negotiated from a position of strength once the Philippines have been consolidated under Japanese rule.

Unbeknownst to the Japanese authorities, the gathering of Roosevelt's Great White Fleet has already begun on the western seaboard. It will be mere months before the US Navy is ready to set sail with a battlefleet, not a year as anticipated.