NationStates Jolt Archive

OCC: This is 1950s tech FYI. I've been getting somewhat tired of modern tech lately, so I decided that perhaps it'll be fun to concentrate more on the past aspect of LRR. I think I might even abandon mainstream NS modern tech and just go with futuretech and pasttech.

IC:

The Robotic Navy, in an effort to keep up with international navies, has taken a keen interest in anti-ship missiles. Never strong in the heavy ship department, the RN relies on fast torpedo boats, destroyers, submarines, and aircraft to defend the archipelago from foreign naval assault. Anti-ship missiles could give the RN a considerable edge over the competition, both in air-launched firepower and shipborne weaponry.

To these ends, the RN plans to convert half of the fleet of Daring class destroyers (32 ships) to carry the RB-03 missile. The RB-03 is a radar-guided weapon, compatible with current RN gunnery and search radars. Its range at altitude exceeds thirty kilometers, and is effective beyond 24 kilometers when surface launched.

The missile weighs 600kg, and can travel at speeds approaching Mach 1. The foreward dual 4.5in turret will be removed, and four RB-03 launchers will be installed in its place. Plans are also underway to install RB-03s on motor torpedo boats, Crown Colony cruisers, Tribal destroyers, Whitby frigates, and perhaps even armed merchantmen.

The RB-03 will likely go into service with the RAF as well, deployed on the Hunter, Venom, Vampire, Draken, Mosquito, Tempest, Fury, An-2V, SAt. 2, and Meteor.

Testing has shown the RB-03 to be highly effective against escort ships and logistical vessels, although the missile's effectiveness against heavily armored vessels is questionable. This has prompted many in the naval establishment to question why the RB-03 is being deployed in the first place, as it does not seem to greatly improve the capabilities of the Robotic Navy's surface fleet, but installation will proceed as planned.

The RN invites observers from foreign navies to come to Grand Kingston and see the RB-03 for themselves.

An unremarkable Admiralty office, Rampart Street, Southend, Walmington on Sea

"Pig-swill!" Cried Admiral Eric Longworth, wartime head of ANCAT and presently bored fellow, causing one or two of his associates to gasp at the profanity.

"I agree." Mumbled the Prime Minister, still wearing the why did you call me here? look of a man thoroughly disinterested. "A typical shabby Na... who're we talking about?" "The Robotstani's, sir." "...Rubbertstani trick!" He finished.

"They mean to fly a rocket at the speed of sound without a pilot and expect it to hit a moving ship?" There was in the office much shaking of heads and associated flapping of jowls and shuddering of facial hair.

Still, in typically Walmingtonian fashion, an expensive expedition was put together for the purposes of going to look at the shabby trick in action, and to talk about what a shabby trick it obviously was. From Ceyloba, the unspeakably old lady (she's thirty-five! Plenty of ladies have remained quite happily thirty-five for years!) HMWS Royal Oak set sail, Longworth himself having flown-out to travel with her. The Royal Walmingtonian Navy hadn't enjoyed a good bit of snooty, "oh, you fight under the waves, like the Fascists?" nose-upturning since it (and the RWAF's nuclear bombs) obliterated the last major American slips.

Longworth was in no doubt that the pocket battleship (as the refitted early C20th Iansislian battleship was now classified) would cause a spontanious bowing of heads amongst the apparently classless Robotstanis when he and she arrived to scoff at that nation's absurd armaments claims.

(By which I mean to say, "Hurrah!" for your decision to go retro on us. I still don't understand all that futuretech stuff, though!)

OCC: Thankyou kindly for the endorsement, WoS. I thought it would be fun to try something new. As for futuretech, well...I've always had a place in my heart for SciFi...albeit mostly Asimov-inspired. Speaking of Isaac Asimov, I really must finish the Foundation series.

IC:

Grand Kingston is made ready for the Walmingtonian expedition, and a section of the island's extensive dockyards (when you see the Robotic Archipelago, think Andaman and Nicobar, except subarctic) is set aside for the Royal Oak. Just to be safe, Kingston harbor is made tens of meters deeper in some key areas so the Royal Oak doesn't embarassingly run aground.

Meanwhile, not a great distance away from the Royal Oak's future anchorage, shipyard workers get to work installing RB-03 launchers on the Darings. If the Walmingtonian officers think they'll be doing some scoffing, they aren't alone.

"Look at that thing! Its a monstrosity!"
"It'd get stuck in a battle!"

Of course, the Robotic Navy hadn't conducted a major overseas operation since fighting against the Facists. Battles, as far as the RN is concerned, will take place in and among islands and relatively shallow, narrow waterways. While the RN does have two fairly impressive battleships, the Halie Selassie and Prince Louis Cavour XVII, they too are slated for ASM installation.

Bump

The Royal Walmingtonian Navy took a rather different view of the seas than was the case in Robotstan. Walmington had an empire to protect, from the western Atlantic to the Indian Ocean, and was increasingly afraid that everyone was trying to disrupt it. The Royal Oak had served for a generation, protecting Ceyloba throughout the Anti-Fascist War, and before that spent untold years with the Iansislian navy. She was still going because Walmington couldn't afford to replace her since the American War had drained her coffers and strained industry, and because of talk about the twilight of the big-gun ships: some in government and admiralty were nervous about building a new battleship or battlecruiser only for it to be called obsolete by the next year. Quite possibly, Royal Oak was steaming for another clash with destiny, for the outcome of these Robotstani missile demonstrations might decide the fate of the old girl and her superior ilk in the Home Fleet.

Royal Oak was the last of what had been re-named the Iansisle Class Pocket Battleships, her sister Iansisle having sunk in action against a fleet lead by the infamous Bismarck. The surviving old sister made for Robotstan's chilly waters at less than a gallop, her old bones not apparently eagre to leave behind the warm footbath called the Bay of Bengal. Repainted before departing, and finished off even as she moved, Royal Oak looked quite elegant in an old-fashioned sort of way, moving at an apparently relaxed and refined rate of knots with some swan-like quality... which was reflected below the water line, where her four rusty screws kicked frantically to maintain her big frame's momentum.

She wasn't making the full fourteen knots at which she youthfully cruised during the war, but there was no hurry: who were the Robotstanis that they wouldn't wait for a ship belonged to His Walmingtonian Majesty? Still, Admiral Longworth would have been quietly relieved to hear of the dredging of Robotstani ports, for the up-armouring and conversion to carry eight twelve inch guns in four turrets -carried out after transfer to Walmington- of the old battleship resulted in a nearly twenty thousand ton displacement on a length below four hundred and seventy feet, and Royal Oak travelled low in the water, enjoying less than fantastic seakeeping.

Soon, she was on the Robotstani horizon, mucking up the air with clouds of black smoke from her dirty old stacks, only the outside of which got much attention while she sat around, static, in Ceyloban ports.

As the Royal Oak nears Grand Kingston, a gaggle of MTBs, Antisub sloops, and civilian watercraft come out to greet it. Kingston harbor should be, if just barely, deep enough to take the Oak's considerable draft. On its way towards the reserved anchorage, the elderly battleship will pass by the cream of the RN's capital ship fleet. Crown Colony light cruisers, County heavy cruisers, Battle class Destroyers, even some of the new Tigers, as well as the Halie Selassie and Prince Louis Cavour XVII.

The Selassie and Cavour are the largest ships in RN service with the cancellation of the planned Vanguard class vessel, and represent the service's halfhearted commitment to battleships during the age of the fighter-bomber. They carry numerous AAA cannons, and even ASW mortars, and dockyard workers scurry across the vessels as they are prepared for helicopters.

Overhead, a Lysander takes archival pictures of the group of ships.