NationStates Jolt Archive

"And here we are, entering Day Two of the NATO Warlympics, Dianne!"
"Yes, here we are, Tom! And it looks like it's going to be an interesting day for everyone."
"What have we got listed on ground combat for today, Dianne?"
"Well, Tom, the current events for todays ground combat are:

Fleet Action – Battleship Round 1
Obstacle Course – Ship
Submarine vs Submarine Round 1


"Ooooh, looks good, Dianne!"
"Yes, it does, Tom. Now, on to the action...."

Captain “Buck” Zeiss loved doing the final checks himself - looking to each crew member, each station, each position. The Shardik wasn't anything like the Pierpont he was used to - but then, it was a submarine, and a few things remained the same.

"Sir! We're underway to checkpoint Alpha, sixteen knots, surfaced."
"Thank you, XO." Hope those Rosians know all about air superiority, or we're going to learn in a hurry how fast this baby can dive. "What are the reports?"
"Wind, WNW at seven knots, conditions clear. Ocean is calm."
"What are the opfor using?"
"Sharina? We don't know, sir, but we should have an advantage here - no one has encountered a Barracuda yet, they don't have our sounds."
Buck snarked. "Sounds? Son, you'd get more sounds banging spoons together in the alps. ETA?"
"Current speed, forty-five minutes. We do not have any signal from the judges, or from the Sharinan ship."
A nod. "No worries there. Comm? Keep alert. Listen up - we might get lucky and they give away the farm before we start. Helm? Keep the baffles off and keep us running like an Oscar until further notice, nice and loud."
"Aye, sir!"
Nothing like running a bit of a game before the game.

Captain Morganssen turned the Muad Dhu hard about, bringing the Fafin-class battleship into the wind.

"ETA to checkpoint?"
"One hour, mark."
Vedda nodded. The Muad Dhu was a well-made battleship - but it was not going to do well when it met up with a SuperDrednaught.

Fortunately - hopefully - DPUO wouldn't have anything that big...

"Have the fleet report in. We'll figure out deployment enroute."
"Aye, sir!"

HMS Intrepid

Keeping station, off the coast of TIOR, the sleek and simple lines of the United Kingdom’s newest class of warship sat stoically, as if a woman of meditation keeping her nervous anticipation deep inside of her – hidden from the rest of the world. Adjacent to her stood a short and squat, rather bulky-looking re-supply ship that could be seen dropping long rectangular crates into open spaces on the fore and aft decks. In the distance sailed a number of frigates and destroyers which had escorted the Intrepid from the designated corral for the Royal Navy’s warships.

On the bridge, men and women moved about the spacious interior in their sharp dress uniforms. Slightly off-coloured from their contemporaries, especially at home, the crew wore black slacks with a rich green shirt, along the lines of hunter green. Matching the shirt and slacks were a black tie and double-breasted jacket with appropriate golden stripes and stars and anchors for station and rank. Oddly placed amongst the professional chaos were a man and woman dressed in their own distinctive through non-compliance suits.

“Good evening, Azazia. This is Tom Maybore,” the man began.

“And I’m Kathy Gitmeot. We’re standing here on the bridge of the Royal Navy’s newest battle cruiser, the HMS Intrepid with her captain, Brenton Hood.” The camera zoomed out to bring into frame a shorter man with thin wire-frame glasses on a clean shaven, angular face all working to give the hint of an extremely intelligent individual. And that was capped with the air of professionalism by the officer’s cap and the medals displayed on his left breast of the neatly kept uniform.

Maybore stepped into view while in the background the re-supply ship could be seen pulling away. Into view stepped another officer, who leaned over to Hood and whispered a message to which a nod was sufficient. “Now, Captain Hood,” Maybore said, turning to the young officer, “I understand that the Admiralty believes this ship well suited to the tasks before her today, could you outline those tasks that you and your crew will face?”

“Certainly. The basic programme engages the Intrepid in several combat and non-combat operations. These include engagement of an enemy submarine, ship-to-shore bombardment, the rescue of lifeboats, and lastly escape from enemy counter-bombardment. I believe that at the end of the event, all parties will have nothing but the utmost respect for the Royal Navy, this ship, and her crew above all else.”

“Indeed,” Gitmeot added, her thin body and well-made-up face coming into screen. “Now, I understand that this ship has a lot of… big guns. What can you tell me about these big guns?” she asked, subtly turning to show her plastic-surgery-perfected body towards the officer.

“Well, ma’am,” Hood added, showing no interest in the reporter, “from a technical point of view I can tell you that the Intrepid and all other ships of her class are equipped with eight 381mm guns, five 155mm guns, and a large complement of missiles.” The camera cut out of the interview and the television screens instead were fed previously recorded material, which showed the Type 85 class opening fire on unknown targets, and then in another clip firing off a barrage of missiles from her forward VLS cells. “In the end, however,” Hood continued, “I would be remiss in not mentioning that the most important weapons on this warship are the highly trained sailors I command.”

Another officer came on screen, and while whispering to Hood pulled up his sleeve and tapped on his watch. Hood nodded and faced Maybore once again. “If you will excuse me, I’ve received word that the Intrepid is due to shortly commence her run.”

Hood walked away from the reporters with a heavy sigh, the media would ruin any military exercise. It always did, and it always would. Alas, orders were orders, and the Azazian Broadcasting Network news team would stay on the bridge. Of course on second thought, he could avoid there prying questions and likely ill-timed remarks, and interfering camera men if he decided to conduct the whole of the operation from the Combat Centre below decks. Of course, he would be forgoing the view provided from the windows, but then most of the work would be conducted beyond the horizon.

“Commander Damier,” Hood called to his lanky first officer, “we’re moving to Combat.”

With a nod and sly smile of understanding Damier turned to face the bridge crew and incidentally the two reporters. “Aye, sir. Moving to Combat.”

Hood led the way down the corridors and stairs to the still comfortable, but noticeably more cramped Combat Centre – where the media could not enter during actual live-fire exercises. Upon arriving he found the room lit by the standard white lights used during daytime operations. “Weapons,” Hood called to the red-haired girl sitting at the tactical station. “Load torpedo tube 1 with automated decoy drone and load tube 5 with automated sensor drone.”

“Aye, sir.”

Further aft, in the section beneath the main aerial drone hangar and aft superstructure, sleek black canisters with tiny water jets slid onto moving conveyor belts that pushed them into the greased launching tubes – each on opposite sides of the ship. The crewmen below slid the hatches shut and spun the wheels keeping the blast from the rocket-motors from incinerating the torpedo room crew. Above decks, the weapons officer alerted Hood that the loading was complete as the sealed hatches triggered tiny electrical sensors that in turn lit up on the tactical weapons display panel.

“Captain, torpedo tubes 1 and 5 loaded and ready for launch.”

“Excellent work, lieutenant. Has word come about commencing bombardment operations, Lieutenant Valeri?” Hood inquired to a similarly short man of Russian descent, face covered with a neatly trimmed – though to Tetley awfully horrendous looking – beard.

“No, sir. Still awaiting the word.”

HMS Intrepid

Hood glared at the large hologram projector table in the center of Combat. From here the command crew could observe the situation reported by the host of Azazian sensor equipment, both directly from the Intrepid, or from her remote drone or above satellites or through the linked tactical net from her other ships. Of course, in order to provide fairness to the competition, Hood had been limited to his own sensors, and he interpreted that to mean his deployable drones – which were the main means for the Type 85 to collect crucial information. Any active scans would certainly betray the stealth ship and leave the comparatively lightly armoured battlecruiser vulnerable to the later counter-battery fire. That was the problem inherent in battlecruisers, sacrificing armour for speed. The Royal Navy, despite the trend against such classes of vessels, continued to utilize them for small surface action engagements in addition to raids on merchant shipping (or escorting merchant shipping) and limited shore bombardment. Would the Intrepid survive against a dreadnaught, or a super-dreadnaught? Hood knew only so long as the Type 85 could outrun them, and with the stealth design the hope was she could run out of the detection range and from there disappear off the enemy’s screens.

But such matters were to be left to naval planners and architects. Today, Hood’s mission was noticeably simpler than engaging an enemy ten times his size; it was to engage an enemy submarine and then land the shells from his main guns on the beaches before darting out of the area. But like most military operations, the entire operation was shot to hell before it began – it had been four minutes since he was to have received permission to engage.

“Communications, do we have word yet?”

“Sir, receiving transmission from control right now. One moment.”

Hood nodded. And glanced down at his watch, noting the time as now five minutes past the official starting time. He looked back up at the fresh-faced communications officer.

“That’s it, sir. We can commence operations.”

Hood nodded once more, “Thank you, lieutenant. Weapons officer, launch drones; navigation, course one-six-five speed three knots silent running. All hands, report to action stations.”

With those few words the entire ship became a beehive of activity, the anxiousness of men mere minutes before replaced by a unit of calm and collected nerves, of years of preparation and patience. Hatches were slammed shut and lighted panels along the corridor informed the crew their presence was required at their defensive stations. The Intrepid had entered into a potentially dangerous area – although they all knew the reality that the potential was real, though the real was just a game. Along the starboard and port hull small hatches slid open and the black canisters, the size of large torpedoes, flew into the ocean beneath. The hatches slid closed and as the Intrepid began to swing south, off the straight course, the drones continued on, one acting, the other listening.

“Captain, drones are away and active.”

“Thank you, Weapons. Keep our decoy quiet, but not too quiet. We want the sub to think they are us.”

Commander Damier moved over to his captain and leaned in to whisper, “sir, shouldn’t we be moving quickly – after all this is a timed event.”

Hood would have placed a hand on the shoulder of his friend were the shoulder not so high above his head. To that thought he smiled and faced his academy friend, “Yes, but if we rush into the beach, that sub out there will pick us off. If I were them, I’d be waiting, simply hiding until we were forced to move to keep a good time. In our haste, I would fall in behind us and finish us off with torpedoes to our engine spaces. Boom, no more engines, no finish.”

“Right, sir. But how are we going to flush them out of hiding first?”

“We need to look like a relatively experienced, but imperfect crew and ship. Leave the drone’s acoustic signature a wee-bit higher than ours would be – and since the Type 85 has not yet been in combat that sub ought not to know our acoustic signature. The question is simply will she take the bait or not.”

Damier nodded, accepting the strategy of his commanding officer, before moving off to the Weapons station to better monitor the reports from the listening drone – which was almost idling a bit away from the decoy, listening for any reaction below the surface. Hood stood by the hologram display of the Intrepid moving slowly off the course of the drones to better triangulate the location of the sub – which sat between him and the coast. Normally this task of sub-hunting would fall to a destroyer or frigate escort while the Intrepid would already be unleashing her main guns on the coast over the horizon. Yet, without the escorts firing the main guns would be far too loud and would blow the cover of his ship, which for now hid stealthily somewhat distant from the battlefield. For now the decoy was executing a standard evasion and detection patrol, similar to a zig-zag course trying to push any potential subsurface contacts towards the coast, backing them against the proverbial wall. Several hundred meters distant a drone now sat idly by, simply listening to the ocean waiting for the sub to make her move while the Intrepid inched towards the shore line extremely quietly, likely sounding more like the decoy than the ship the decoy pretended to be.

“Captain,” The weapons officer called out, “the decoy is now seven hundred meters distant. Permission to launch aerials?”

“Aye.”

Amidships, the small flat landing pad – too small for a regular helicopter – witnessed the opening of the shudders to the drone hangar, where two small rotary-wing surveillance drones were wheeled from their docking pods out to the open-air deck. Technicians quickly fueled the small stealthy objects and unfolded their rotors, which after a minute with fueling complete, began to spin up. The technicians ran back to the hangar and signaled the drones were good to go and gave them the commands to lift into the clear skies. Lastly, the shudders were shut and the ship once again disappeared off the surface of the ocean.

Above the ship, the semi-sentient drones received an encrypted burst transmission from their host ship with the current tactical situation and a list of orders. The computer programme sorted out the necessary requirements and most efficient aerial search pattern to assist with the drones below, and began dropping tiny active sonobuoys into the ocean hundreds of meters below.

Hood watched the events unfolding before him as if watching a blockbuster movie with the aid of the holograms before him. His primary concern now would be the “loss” of his aerial drones should the sub loose a surface-to-air missile. Of course he doubted that would be the action taken, for it would alert the forces searching for the sub to its general location, which would become its “grave”. His hope was that the active pinging would frighten the crew into –“

“Captain, sensor drone reports low-intensity transient noise, bearing… two-eight-zero, sir.”

That put the sub between his own ship and the decoy. Likely attempting to sneak in behind… possibly either ship upon a moment’s thought. There was no time for such tangential thoughts, however. The hunt had begun in earnest. He could now legitimately act on the outside knowledge he had.

“Sound battle stations throughout the ship. Order the decoy to increase speed and engage it’s active sonar. Drive it towards us. Swing the aerials around to form a loose triangle at these two points.” Hood pointed on the display, the locations he touched translating into exact coordinates the weapons officer merely needed to transmit. “The gap those drones will be closing up will be filled with us. Hopefully, they don’t hear us. Weapons officer, load tubes two through four with torpedoes and prepare a firing solution.”

“Aye, sir.”

Throughout the ship, the yellow lights of before had become blood red and the torpedo room crew worked with a feverish intensity to unload decoys, a standard load during action stations, to the rocket-assisted torpedoes ordered by Hood several sections over. The crews rammed the units into the greased launch tubes and screwed the hatches shut, the torpedoes were now ready to fire once they received the proper targeting data and the authorization from Combat.

“Captain, torpedoes ready to fire, sir.”

“Open hatches and fire torpedoes.” Hood didn’t like the fact the submarine had managed to sneak between his ship and the decoy, something had somewhere gone wrong in the plans, perhaps the sub had been alerted to his presence or had been fortuitously stationed at the outset of the game. But there was nothing standing between him and the sub, which would soon be well aware of his presence from the screaming torpedoes heading in its direction.

Suddenly a loud screeching noise raked across the eardrums of the command crew. It ended with a sickening loud thud that Hood didn’t want to contemplate how loud it sounded reverberating through the hull. “What the bloody hell was that?”

“Number Three Hatch malfunction. It’s jammed, sir!”

“Torpedoes in the water! Bearing two-eight-zero, speed, four-five knots, sir!”

“Shut Hatch Three! Continue launching tubes two and four, launch decoy in tube one full possible speed on our current course, Navigator swing the ship to course two-eight-zero, maximum speed!”

The sleek graceful lines of the previously near motionless battlecruiser sliced into the low swells on the sea as the water jet engines began to rocket the ship towards its top speed of forty-five knots. The Pebble Bed reactors deep within the hull raced to 105% as the engineering team gave Hood everything the reactors had and more – beyond the standard operating levels. From the fully open torpedo hatches, the casings roared into the ocean crashing down with an enormous splash before the torpedoes sprang free and raced towards their target now only a few hundred meters away.

“Captain! Hatch Three will not shut. It’s fully jammed. Torpedoes two and four are now away, reloading tubes two and four with torpedoes and one with a decoy.”

The last canister released from the Intrepid sounded exactly like her host ship, running at the same speed of forty-five knots. Instead of turning towards the enemy sub, she kept running on the same path the host had been on moments prior to her launch, attempting to take the enemy torpedoes with her as the Intrepid closed towards the arming range.

“Captain! One inbound torpedo now headed off towards the decoy, the second continues to approach us, range 400 meters.”

Hood simply nodded and glanced at the hologram table, observing the dynamic situation of the attack and counter-attack.

“Enemy sub now taking evasive maneuvers, our torpedoes still locked on.”

The hope he had for the Intrepid was that the enemy torpedo would not arm before impacting on his hull while his own torpedoes would destroy the enemy submarine, which was now diving deep, and diving quickly. Fortunately, the new Royal Navy surface-launched torpedoes could go deeper than their predecessors, and would then destroy the enemy sub, surprising their crew. His concern, however, was the inbound torpedo – at such close ranges, there had been little such a heavy ship as his own could have done, that one had followed the decoy was beyond Hood’s expectations. That left one. The torpedo was now just two hundred meters away.

Hood looked up see the command crew, rather calmly acting to the changing circumstances, only yelling out to make sure that he heard them with the pertinent data. There was little left to do now but hope the torpedo didn’t arm. “Sound collision!”

As the torpedo raced onwards smaller decoys were dropped into the water, hoping to break the lock the enemy torpedo had on the battlecruiser, but they did little more than buy seconds in which Hood’s crew navigated the massive ship to take the blow along her keel – the last and hopefully successful surprise in the engagement should the torpedo detonate.

In Combat the crew watched as the torpedo closed, its sophisticated homing mechanisms bypassing the last minute defenses of the Intrepid. Then, with seconds to go the crew saw it dive underneath the hull of the ship before detonating.

The explosion, of course, was no real explosion per se, but a transmittance of data between the two computer systems which then instantly formulated the damage suffered by the ship. Now Hood would find out if he had survived.

“Report?”

“Keel is intact, sir. The jelly keel system worked, we’ve suffered damage to the outer skin, minor flooding in Sections 12 through 14, but it’ll be contained momentarily. The enemy sub has meanwhile been eliminated.”

Hood clapped his hands, “Great work, ladies and gentlemen.” The jelly keel had been designed to defeat keel-breaking torpedoes by suspending the actual keel of the ship above the outer skin of the hull. The space between the two had been filled with an advanced gelatinous foam – derisively nicknamed jelly for its not-entirely-pleasant scent – that would absorb the blast pressure and distribute it along the length of the ship. While causing stress on the hull still too great for smaller escorts, the battlecruisers and beyond had frequently – though not always – survived simulated keel-breaking attacks. In the meantime the blast had ripped away a section of the hull with some of the jelly flushing out to sea before hardening upon contact with the ocean water. The system, now severely compromised, would likely not stop more than one or two more similar attacks, but with only one submarine out there Hood had little to be really worried about. If the situation had been real, and if real damage to the hull had been inflicted he would have returned home for repairs with a damaged, but still floating combat vessel. Today, the specially designed equipment for the games would now generate the added sounds of water flowing not-so-smoothly over the damaged hull, and the ship’s overall speed would be regulated. Additionally, the real-life problem of the jammed torpedo hatch would need to be repaired before the ship could again disappear. For now, for the duration of the remaining phases, the Intrepid would be suffering from some imaginary and some real problems.

Though Hood again had something to be thankful for, the encounter that had seemed to take ages had really only taken a few minutes. Leaving him to wonder at the idea of time, and its movement relative to events and their importance. But for now, the time had come to wreak havoc on the coast.

Thunder was old. Her ageing frames creaked and groaned unsteadily as she ploughed through the choppy sea at 20 knots, sending cascades of white spume into the dawn sky and water rushing back towards the unyielding breakwaters. The ship’s 177,000-tonne bulk could still make a good speed, but her body was starting to feel the strain. Only three weeks before the Warlympics, one of her high-pressure turbines had failed, requiring her to be assisted into port. Cracks were developing in areas of the superstructure close to the blast from her nine twenty-inch main guns, and her propeller shafts were running more roughly than usual. Even with the awesome sum spent on maintenance for the Navy, there was little that could be done to prevent such things happening. Thunder, like all of her class, had been designed for wholly different guns and powerplants. She had taken the conversion well, but wasn’t at her best; even before the Warlympics, she had been due in for a refit in any case. Only the necessity of sending a battleship group and the unavailability of the name-ship of the class, Hunter, had dictated her going, accompanied by two more of her own class and four Frunze class ships, equally mature but still capable designs.

At this moment, Thunder was running a quick firing exercise, her admiral testing the ship’s crew still further than he usually did. He had been testing them for years, checking their abilities constantly, and was never quite satisfied. More importantly, nor were they.

His name was Rozanov, and he looked only a little older than his thirty-seven years would suggest. His clean-shaven, slightly ruddy face now peered through a pair of binoculars, observing the winking signal lamp of their sister ship Conqueror as it passed a message to them. His morse was rusty, and he couldn’t decode it as fast as his First Officer did, but he got it in his own time: “Ready to commence.”

“Sir, Conqueror reports ready to begin firing exercises. She was the last one we needed confirmation from, captain.”

“I know,” replied Rozanov calmly. “Signal all ships to begin firing practice in forty-five seconds. Port ten, steer one-five-oh, guns ready port; revolutions for thirty knots.” The battleships swung into a swift turn, bringing their main batteries to bear on an uninhabited islet some fifty kilometres distant. When they had all deployed, and were arrayed in the Navy’s customary trapezoid shape, the guns opened fire, a noise heard even by distant Rosians. The shells were landing well, noted Rozanov, even when the firing ships were a good sixty kilometres away and had little targeting data – he’d ordered them to turn off their active sensors, and rely instead upon optical rangefinders and infra-red systems: the old-fashioned way, as he called it. He turned to the battleship’s captain.

“Good shooting, captain. Pass my congratulations to the gunners.”

“Aye sir.”

Privately, Rozanov was worrying. He didn’t know how good the Vastivan ship might be. He barely had any intelligence on her capabilities, and that worried him greatly; the last thing he needed was to have his ship blasted out from beneath him. Still, he knew the exercise area, which was blessing enough. He headed for his cabin, mentally concocting a way to get the drop on his opponent, and put the demons of inaction to rest.

Captain Vedda Morganssen nodded as Comm reported another dull salvo report. "Besides the DPUO fleet, anything supposed to be in this sector?"
"No, sir. We've requested from TIOR twice, we're supposed to have empty waters."
She considered this, nodding.
“Feed it all in, get us some fix on what we’re facing.”
“Aye, sir.”
I’d feel much better with a full group… But the Admiral had been distinct in her orders – no need to give away the whole game up front. Vedda had to make due with an older version of the Battleship assault group. The Muad Dhu would somewhat make up for that with her sheer firepower – but she was also chief target.

She set her strategy up on the TELEMX table - six Spearfishers in a wide ASW pattern, with the Makos moving in a divergent course – she was working with their stealth capabilities to catch the DPUO fleet in a pincer of fire early on. And she could take their losses, provided the Checkers could perform to their stated levels - and DPUO didn't wise up to the Pierponts and Slingers early.

He missed the presence of an Archer – they’d performed far beyond expectations in Africa. “Ah well, no sense making tears over spilled milk.” She moved more ships around, looking at options, planning for eventualities.

“Helm, how fast get we get this puppy going?”
“Near thirty knots, Captain.”
“And how fast can we do that?”
“Sir?”
“I’ve got a plan, and I’d like to know if you’re up to it…”

"Cease firing." The hilled side of the island was now little more than a wasteland of blackened, scorched ground, with brush fired around its peripheries. The battleships’ guns turned back to their neutral positions, and the vast bulk of the ships laid in a new course, waiting for action. The Vastivans now knew they were there. That didn’t much matter, in Rozanov’s eyes. The ships under his command were not intended to be stealthy, or to have any degree of subtlety about them. Stealthiness demanded reduced protection and speed, made excessive demands on maintenance. No, Rozanov agreed with the fleet doctrine that stealth was essentially a waste of time and money wholeheartedly. He grinned to himself as he watched the plotting table, observing the UAVs of the eight ships as they ambled out in a low-flying hemisphere. Here was one occasion when stealth was most certainly not wasted. The UAVs would be hard to detect; even if they were detected, they would simply relay all the information they received back to his waiting ships by encrypted, directional UHF bursts, from where it could be fed to the waiting ECM systems and missile guidance pods.

As he mused, the Chief Sonar Officer tapped him on the shoulder and bid him approach the monitors. Rozanov examined them intently, noticing the small spikes on the rounded displays, and smiled thinly.

“Vastivan?”

“Probably. They’re not familiar signatures, but they’re definitely heavy warships. We’ve some faint contacts elsewhere, too, but they’re not enough to go on.”

Rozanov nodded decisively. “Right. Let’s see what the UAVs pick up.” Heading back towards the Air-Ops area, Rozanov smiled again. Maybe he could teach them something about “stealth” after all, he thought, gazing contemplatively at one of the vast multi-band radar antennae above his head, topped with a towering multi-directional ECM emitter.

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Ten minutes later, six Ka-29B1 helicopters rolled off the flight-decks of the battleships and headed towards the island, their stub-wings heavy with 1,000Kg bombs.

Just over 50 nm behind the main fleet, Morganssen's first "lure" began their job.

A single Checker frigate dialed her RADAR upwards - along with all the additional signal-garble her equipment could manage. "Detection" wasn't her game - flood was.

Beside her, one of the fleet's Slinger SSGN's swung her launch tubes open - and launched four flights of rockets in staggered fire. Aimed upwards, it would be difficult not to see the rockets rise to heights: the Kasseem UAV's each rocket carried would glide slowly downwards, taking pains to analyze and search for anything that looked vaguely like a ship or plane or helo.

The Kasseem was an older design, lacking the modern materials or stealth of the SHARD designs - which was entirely within Morganssen's plan.

At the very least, DPUO would send something to take a look. The Checker was headed in quite the wrong direction - one might assume a straggler, but that would bring the search to the wrong direction.

And with luck, by that time the Checker - or her sisters in the main fleet, or members of the other decoy - would be detecting sends, if not perfectly leading to the DPUO fleet, perhaps giving a better indication.

And in a battle like this, first served is first sunk.

The Slinger slid beneath the waves and headed towards it's next checkpoint - far deeper then visual search could reach.

And aboard the Muad Dhu, Vedda accepted the signal she had been waiting for - the rockets red glare - with calm certainty. The game is afoot... now, which island is going to start acting funny... Her own SHARD UAH's had been corkscrewing upwards for some time, half loaded with sensor pods - and half armed with twin Typhoon 20mm hypersonic cannnons, loaded and ready for "enemy" planes - or UAVs.

"IR contact! Missile launch, bearing one-nine-five, range...about thirty-five thousand," called the CSO matter-of-factly.

Rozanov started. "Very well. UAV number?"

"Four sir."

Rozanov considered. It was unlikely to be any sort of attack - nobody in his right mind would launch such a small number of missiles against such a target as them, unless it happened that they had nuclear warheads, which was exceedingly unlikely.

"IR track?"

"Lost, sir. Motors have flamed out."

"Did they reach apogee?"

"Probably not, sir."

What sort of missile is used in small numbers, moves upwards, and yet doesn't have a ballistic flight path? Rozanov didn't have the answer to that, but he did have an idea of what it could be. A decoy - or an outlying picket unit. He could send a UAV to recce the area, but he doubted he'd find much there for his trouble; and in doing so he would neatly give away his location to anyone looking for him. For a moment, he considered the third option, but rejected it immediately. He would need it later, he felt sure.

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Above the island's tall trees, the helicopters hovered gently, consuming fuel at a not exactly welcome rate, their crews glancing at their fuel gauges. Laden down with their heavy bombloads, they moved sluggishly, and were using up a fair bit of power just to stay airborne. But their worry dissipated when, at last, the order arrived. The helos swung away from their hover points and dropped their bombs in quick, ragged succession, then motored back to the ships, hidden behind the island, as the rising clouds of their payloads rose upwards.

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Oko lay behind the main force, some 150 miles distant, and waited for her orders, her starboard side turned towards them.

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Rozanov was not a patient man by nature. He disliked this style of fighting, and was eager to use his ships’ heavy armour and armament to his advantage. Still, it wouldn’t pay to do so, and he knew it. The one thing keeping them shielded from any lurking sensor platforms were the tall, stony peaks of the small island, and they couldn’t hide behind them forever. He knew the enemy would be using all the tricks, most of all “stealth”; he knew also that his own sensors could, usually, see through such “stealth” fairly easily. Do I move, and let them do their worst, or do I stay, and wait for them to make the false move?

Or do I do both?

"XO, sitrep."
Commander Richard Deal removed his cap and ran his hands through his thick brown hair. "Well, sir, COMM states the shelling we heard had to come from this set of islands, here. BLUE ONE has deployed here, and she and BLUE TWO have already deployed UAVs of the K type; BLUE TWO is now on to checkpoint delta while ONE plays tethered goat. Considering the noise she's making, it should be obvious something is there, though we doubt strongly it will be taken as a fleet at first - which is the point. BLUE THREE and FOUR are proceeding us, and BLUE FIVE is on an intercept course - if we're right about where the DPUO fleet is, currently tagged RED SIX.

"Your opinion on breaking up the fleet like this?"
"We're down a total of three destroyers, four frigates, and we are used to operating without much submarine cover, so the two Pierponts we still have are about normal. That makes us a bit low, even with the cruisers additional firepower. But then again, most NATO nations consider our fleets "ship happy", so we're probably - and I do state probably - on equal terms, even with the chevrons gone. If we have a lapse, it will be on ELINT and ECM, not raw firepower."

"Recommendation?"
"Set missiles for memory strikes. While that will drop our accuracy somewhat, it will prevent their jamming from having a greater effect. Considering the speed at terminal, we should be able to hit their battleship frequently, regardless of the change in targeting method. We should also rely more on gunfire, as their ELINT capabilities won't mean as much to 'dumb shells'. And the eighteen inchers are not insignificant, particularly with the Casmir designs on them and the fives."
"If we get close enough."
"Yes, sir. If. And there will be a significant question - our designs against what amount to Russian designs. And they're set to take damage. Very sturdy builds, even in the older variants. Sinkings will not be as likely as operational kills - and for that, I'd recommend using the Devilfish."
"We've got eight on one carrier."
"I'd recommend deployment on spotting their fleet, then closing quickly. Once in close, we have some effectiveness with the GMGs in knocking out their sensor capabilities, even on the battleship, and doing so selectively."
"It's a suicide mission."
"Of course. Just as I would recommend having the carrier move out between us and their fleet as a missile target once firing starts - she's excess, and we don't expect any of the Devilfish to come back. On the other hand, she's a hard sink, and a definite wall."

You're a sick bastard, Mr Deal... The Captain nodded. "Workable. Plan it out, pass on orders to the..."

"Sir?" TARGET broke in. "We may have something..."

The battleships were hovering. Formed into a long pair of columns, with Thunder at their head, their hulking forms were shielded by the island, for now at least. Rozanov still pondered whether to light off his active sensor systems and move out into the open sea. He'd give away his position in doing so, but he was probably going to be found first in any case; the Navy's entire doctrine was that stealth, impinging upon maintenance work and combat capability, was a wasteful use of resources. It was a doctrine he'd always felt confident enough of before. The ships around him were designed to fend off missiles and torpedoes without much difficulty, after all, but now that he had to test it, he was nervous. Which is stupid, since I can't actually get killed by this exercise! He chastened himself. Now was not the time to be indecisive; now was the time to be bold, daring. Or stupid, depending on how one looked at it.

"CSO!"

The CSO's tinny "Yes sir!" arrived down the interphone.

“What’ve we got?”

“Not much sir.”

“Details, you cloth-eared bollock!”

“Not much, but over a wide area sir.”

Rozanov guffawed down the mike. “Seriously, what’s out there at the moment?”

“We’ve got a few SONAR contacts, mostly distant, and relatively quiet. Picked up what might have been a submarine some time ago, some way off from where those missiles went up, but nothing since then. If we stick to our present speed—“

“Which is nought knots--” Rozanov commented.

“—we should be able to maintain decent SONAR performance.”

“Any ELINT stuff?”

“Nothing yet, admiral.” That was to be expected. The enemy would not show his hand unless he had to.

“Very well. Carry on, CSO.”

”Aye sir.” The interphone crackled and went silent, and Rozanov punched the key for the communications room.

“Comms, bridge. Do we have secure comms with the Oko up?”

“Secure communications ready, admiral,” intoned the CCO mechanistically.

“Get them on the line, and patch it through to my cabin.”

“Aye sir.” A series of clicks and pops, followed by a bout of white noise as the satellite link managed, with some effort, to establish itself. Having given a final, celebratory high-pitched screech, the voice of Oko’s captain appeared, somewhat startled, down the satellite phone.

“Admiral Rozanov here. Question for you, captain.”

A pause. “Go on.”

“How rapidly can you change your bearing?”

“Only slowly while the radar’s operational. We have to synchronise our turning motion with the transmissions, otherwise the picture gets too much blurring on it. But we can turn fairly rapidly, due to our thruster units.”

Rozanov cursed inwardly. “Thankyou, captain.” He hung up, and considered his move, staring intently at his map table. He had eight UAVs airborne, spread out in a hemisphere covering his ships from the front. Of those, at least three would be very hard to pick out among the islands, while the rest, old though they were, were probably stealthy enough to be hard to detect with passive sensors.

The fundamental choice was a simple one: to radiate, or wait to be radiated against. Right now, he was doing the one thing he really shouldn’t do, and not using his own sophisticated and powerful active sensor systems. His mind leaned ever more closely towards that solution, but some instinct told him to avoid it, and told him so urgently. Chewing nervously on a pencil, he called for Thunder’s captain.

“You wished to see me, admiral?” The six feet two inches of Captain First Rank David Smith poked a tousled-haired, faintly ovoid face around the metal doorframe, looking faintly bemused as always.

“Yes, captain. I need to discuss something with you.”

Smith entered, closing the door with a hefty clang, as Rozanov began expounding his idea.

HMS Intrepid

Brenton Hood longed for the days of years past, where major ships of the line were open to the raw elements of storms, sails secured with decks a flood with slick seawater. Today’s Royal Navy instead preferred enclosed bridges, sails had long since been replaced with advanced nuclear reactors, and while the decks would always be slick with water washing over the bow, men – and increasingly women – were frequently not allowed topside to keep the radar signature of the ships as small as possible. Of course, on this mission he stayed far from the bridge, avoiding the nuisance that was the Azazian press corps. Combat itself provided the pinnacle of the departure from ways of the past. The signal lines had been replaced by satellite antennae and arrays. Quick bursts of light from shutter lamps were now quick bursts of quanta from secured transmitters. Binoculars scanning the horizon for the masts of foreign frigates were now rotating radar systems in integrated masts, slung as low and as small as possible to avoid being seen.

Today, the HMS Intrepid sailed at high speeds, extremely quietly, virtually undetectable – at least under normal conditions. For now, the crew was under non-normal circumstances. Which meant he needed to exert the influence that captains should, though Hood personally preferred to let his men and women act without interference hoping that their own initiative would serve them well, and in the future the Royal Navy well with their eventual promotions. However, the ship was not at rest, not at sea, they were in battle conditions, and their ship was damaged. Even if it was just a game.

“Navigator, change course to,” Hood paused as he contemplated his options. To head due south would partially expose his half-open hatch to potential radar operators on the coastline, which would then home in on his signal. He needed to shield the hatch from the coast. “Course two-zero-zero. Full speed to the coastline.” Hood turned and put his hand on the shoulder of the weapons officer. “Ready gun crews for shore bombardment.”

The Intrepid raced at a speed of forty knots, water churning behind her in the wake as she sliced through the calming seas. On the forward decks, massive angular stubs protruded from the hull, with small teeth-edged grooves running down in almost rectangular patterns, leaving three such patterns. As the smooth lines of the ship hurried towards the coastline, the little teeth-edges separated and swung downwards into the protrusions. Soon, three barrels rose from the stubs and the hatches shut, the turrets now swinging to bear on the coastline, a mere one-hundred kilometers away.

“Captain, main batteries ready to fire.”

“Fire at will, Commander Grace.”

The red-haired weapons officer signaled her receipt of her orders, although a lieutenant-commander, the Royal Navy had the tradition of giving due respect to officers and barring any reasons to show disrespect, lieutenant-commanders were called commanders despite their junior rank to men with the real rank, such as Hood’s executive officer, Commander Damier.

Anyone who could observe the ship, possible to some degree to those in the United Kingdom as the news crew on the bridge had positioned their cameraman to look out over the bow, saw the turrets turn to port, the barrels elevate and in a moment of silence and stillness – save the crashing of the ocean waters at the sharply curved bow – the seas shook and were literally depressed as a wave of high pressure sped out of the barrels, followed almost immediately by large shells from the 381mm diameter guns. They raced upwards through the sky reaching apogee, then in a graceful arc they raced down towards the earth below, where they shattered branches and whole trees before detonating and carving out massive craters on the forested hillsides where ‘enemy’ forces were entrenched.

Hood glanced down at the three-dimensional representation before him, the distant shore depicted from the data obtained by the re-tasked aerial sensor drones. Trees and hills entirely obliterated and slowly being obscured by thick smoke from the shells detonating and from the forest beginning to catch fire. He turned the image around and looked at his battlecruiser, still steaming on a generally southern course at a relatively high speed. Ordinarily such speeds would have been far too high for his liking – however there were lifeboats to be “saved” from the enemy, similar in some respects to a modern day Dunkirk.

“Captain, counter-battery fire.” A collected voice called out amidst the organized chaos that was any warship in battle.

“Report on their precision, if you will?”

“Nothing solid, sir. It appears right now to be blind return fire in a pattern – not easily identifiable, but one is there.”

“Navigator, re-plan our course along general bearing two-zero-zero to avoid the projected impact points of the enemy artillery fire.”

“Aye, captain.”

“Do we have any trajectory information on their guns?”

“Coming through now, sir. Feeding the data over to Weapons.”

“Weapons officer, task Turret A with eliminating counter-battery fire.”

“Aye, sir.”

The first turret from the bow adjusted its position and the barrel elevation slightly before opening fire on distant artillery pieces throwing their own shells towards the Intrepid. It would be only a short time before the ‘enemy’ found the battlecruiser and began opening fire on her while she loaded the lifeboats. However, they were still a few kilometers distant.
“Captain, they’ve identified our course. Shells now landing directly ahead of us.”

“Bloody hell…” Hood muttered, he had hoped for a few more minutes of non-interference, but like all good plans, it had been shot to hell quite literally. “Bring remaining guns to bear on artillery positions. Fire at will.”

The cameraman on the bridge recorded the remaining turret forward of his vantage point swinging slightly, the barrels elevating slightly, then hurling their massive instruments of destruction at the artillery positions near the coastline. The live feed jumped as a shell fell into the ocean off the port bow, missing the ship by a mere few dozen meters. The column of water rose vertically and the salt-water slammed down onto the forward decks, eliciting audible mutters of concern from the reporters stationed on the bridge.

“Captain, we’ve reached the rendezvous coordinates. Most of the lifeboats are ready for personnel transfers.”

Hood nodded, for now would be the tricky part: loading his ship with evacuees, keeping the ship from suffering significant damage – and doing it all quickly. The Intrepid’s advantage in sheer speed over many competitors would potentially be negated by the fact she operated without a real helicopter hangar bay and flight deck. For this mission in particular her drone hangar had been nearly emptied and a chopper had been crammed inside with its necessary maintenance equipment – but there would only be the one chopper. As he watched the battlecruiser approach the checkpoint, he was about to bring the ship into peril as the lifeboats spread out in a line parallel to the coastline behind them.

“Navigator, change course to zero-nine-zero, and drop speed to five knots, when possible evasive action at your discretion. Aviation, launch the chopper and begin taking up personnel. Operations, open our lifeboat hatches and begin dropping the nets.” Hood glanced around the compartment, the crew seemingly unaware of the dangers involved in this part of the operation. “Let’s get moving!”

The battlecruiser heeled to port sharply, the guns turning in unison, continuing to rain down hell on the enemy positions. Shortly after making a course to the east she dropped her speed and with her starboard side facing the shore, with the number three torpedo hatch jammed open, the enemy could now identify her on their radar screens.

Ensign James Caldwell operated the davit for the number three lifeboat, which on today’s mission had been removed in order to bring aboard the evacuee boats. Fresh from the Royal Navy Academy, this was his first cruise and already he had realized the dreams he had for excitement and seeing foreign lands. Suddenly a shell screamed down slamming into the water meters away from the Intrepid’s hull. The wall of water rose upwards and slammed into Caldwell, who had been leaning out over the hull to ensure the lifeboat crews had properly secured the cables. He reached out to steady himself from the force of the impact, but missed the railing and slipped on the now slick deck. He could only watch as the ocean raced up to meet him.

“Captain, lifeboat hatch number three reports man overboard.”

Hood spun to face the operations officer. “Is this part of the simulation or did we really lose a man?”

“Sir, Lieutenant Voroznev reports that Ensign Caldwell has gone overboard, sir.”

“Dispatch swimmers and medical teams to the hatch, get him aboard immediately!” The best laid plans, and most well-intentioned events always went wrong. And of course, being that the Intrepid was a new ship, the bugs had yet to be fully worked out. Hood shook his head, cursing the minor problems that here in the international spotlight would come off as larger problems of the Royal Navy.

At sea, two lifeboats were slowly raised upwards to the starboard hatches while swimmers below hooked an unconscious Ensign Caldwell to an emergency line dropped from the number three lifeboat hatch. Around them shells continued to fall, rocking the large ship slightly – leading some of the evacuees to sea-sickness and all of its physical symptoms.

Hood watched and listened to the drama unfold as the ship waited for the remaining lifeboats to make it to the port side, to be brought up to the remaining lifeboat hatches.

“Captain, we’ve been hit!”

Hood looked up to see Commander Damier standing with a piece of paper in his hand, a report from the computer that simulated one of the shells actually hitting his ship. The ‘enemy’ would fire shells not intended to hit the ship, but when a lock could be achieved – according to the computer programming – the enemy would transmit a code to the Intrepid informing her of the hit.

“Sir, we’ve lost the hangar bay and the flight deck is no longer operational. Estimated 23 fatalities from the mechanics and flight personnel unloading the chopper’s load of evacuees at the time.”

“Captain, another hit! They’ve found us!”

Hood grimaced, with the lifeboats still being hauled up, there was little to do but fire his own guns in return – which was already being done.

“Damage report?”

“Main belt strike, sir. No significant damage, reduction in stealth characteristics from aspects facing starboard side.”

“How much longer until the boats are up?”

“Another forty-five seconds, sir.”

“Damnit, move them faster!”

“Captain, we’ve just lost the aft mast.”

“Bloody hell! Tell the gun crews to take out their fucking guns!”

Although the Intrepid looked the same as before, the computer simulations portrayed a ship now pock-marked by a gaping burned out hole between her intact forward superstructure and a wrecked aft mast. The computer-generated images for the “video-game” representation of the battle depicted a ship with heavy smoke billowing from the burning aviation fuel in the destroyer hangar deck where twenty-three sailors and evacuees had “died” with many more injured. Meanwhile, the ship was still bracketed by heavy shelling throwing plumes of water dozens of meters into the air. An artillery unit against a close off-shore ship could be disastrous for both sides, and unbeknownst to Hood, the enemy artillery unit had been decimated with very few of the pieces still able to fire accurately.

“Boats are up, sir!”

“Navigator, new course, bearing three-three-zero, evasive maneuvers keeping on general course prescribed. Maximum speed.”

The Intrepid started churning the water aft of her and raced off at forty-knots, her overall course now resembling a figure eight with the top loop yet to be completed. In doing so, Hood had once again presented the more stealthy side of the ship to the enemy, making it again difficult for the artillery guns to find her. As he glanced down at this watch the days it had seemed to take the operation had been mere dozens of minutes, and had cost him twenty-three lives, according to the computers. Regardless, there was real damage that would have to be tended to upon returning to the fleet, and if not there he’d sail the Intrepid back home to Breningrad for repairs and refitting the torpedo hatch that had been the actual cause of the problems.

As the near-misses became more and more distant and came in at greater intervals, Hood sighed and finally allowed himself to sit down. He turned to face his XO and simply nodded, the order understood. He half-listened to the orders securing the ship from battle stations and grudgingly rose to give post-operation interviews with the reporters stranded on the bridge. As he passed off command and exited the combat centre the crew not busy with tasks offered quiet claps and subdued cheers – only quiet so as not to interfere with the rest of the ship’s operations, which although not finished were now routine maneuverings back to the start line. Hood turned and smiled to the crew, many of whom had never been in such well-simulated combat situations. He’d give a speech and buy them all drinks later, once the mission was technically finished. But since it was all-but over, his customary nod gave the crew all the re-assurance over their performance that they would need.

A few minutes later, at full speed, the Intrepid exited the operational area. Captain Brenton Hood thanked the reporters for their presence and proceeded to the officer’s mess to fix himself a well-earned cup of tea.

HMS Mako

Slowly, excruciatingly slowly, the small bead of water with salt dissolved into it ran down the smooth slope of skin, through the furrows in the brow until it met with the resistance of brown eyebrows. From there it gathered with other scattered masses of sweat until a large bead grew from the force of gravity, falling only to splatter on a glass screen depicting the conditions of the ocean floor.

Captain Neville Holmes wiped the spot away with an already damped and soaked rag. The tiny command center of the HMS Mako gave little comfort to the small crew embarked aboard one of the newest diesel-electric patrol subs in the Royal Navy’s silent service. At the moment he sat at ten meters below the surface with his snorkel raised taking in oxygen until the engagement began. While most nations present at the Warlympics were likely to be seen using their newest and latest nuclear-powered submarines, the Royal Navy hoped to show the continuing threat and occasional dominance of the diesel-electric boats.

“Captain, message from Fleet, the game is afoot, sir.”

Holmes nodded, stroking his brown mustache at the same time. “Switch to the AIP system and down snorkel. Take the ship down to fifty meters.” He listened to the sharp relay of commands and the sudden lurch of the ship deeper into the ocean’s depths. His first opponent was a submarine from The Island of Rose, name, make, model, most importantly noise signature… all unknown. That would certainly make it most difficult, however, Holmes was up to the challenge, especially in a type of boat traditionally considered inferior to the nukes – at least by his fellow Royal Navy submariners.

“Holding at fifty meters, sir.”

“Deploy drone.”

“Deploying drone, sir.”

From the bow, one of the six torpedo tubes slowly opened – presenting a possible acoustic signal for the TIOR sub to lock onto if close enough away. Yet, it was a risk Holmes knew he needed to take. Slowly a small cylindrical object crept out of the tube controlled from the command center by a secure underwater modem. The drone, once fifty meters distant from the Mako spun up its propellers and noise signal generator. The sea now witnessed the sound of the Mako slightly amplified propagating through speakers inside the drone’s body while its own passive sonar system listened for any potential contacts.

The drone was an offshoot of the surface drone/decoy that successfully lured away enemy anti-ship missiles, proven to be effective in the Battle of Daccat. However, for the submarine fleet, the drone provided an opportunity for the Mako to extend her listening range as the drone proceeded sounding like the Mako without the super-quiet air-independent-propulsion system, instead sounding like a normal SSK performing passive scanning for the TIOR vessel.

Holmes hoped that the TIOR sub would react to the drone, and allow him in the process to get a glimpse of his opponent and then engage him and hopefully score the hit that would end the match. But for now he moved his sub forward at three knots, listening to both the drone and the sea for any hint of the TIOR sub.

"You can't enter that!"
"Why not? It's a ship."
"It is not a ship! It's a ...."
"According to our fleet roster, the 'Rufus' is a ship. It has it's own designation, it is listed on resupply as a ship, it is documented during construction as a..."
"Yes, fine, alright. It's a ship. Very well then."