NationStates Jolt Archive

Haven
Four Days Previously
The skies shook. Something mighty had happened; An explosion that no force on earth could protect. Eighteen thousand weapons of mass destruction, into the air and back down again faster. The Hogsweatian Strategic Defense was startled. It new that even with it's highest yet recorded hitrates they couldn't save Hogsweat from complete destruction. But there was another force at hand in the defense of Hogsweat. When the strategic defense started popping out lasers into the sky, the Magisterium Priest to the Motherland that was required in every Military Outpost, alongside the People's Commissariat for Defence of the Motherland, began to pray. Noone listened to what they where saying, but they prayed the most important prayer that could ever be made. And most importantly, their prayers had been answered; As if magic, the skies darkened and clouds quickly formed over. A great thunderstorm was approaching, although it was more than that. As the clouds merged together, the Hogsweatian missiles smashed into them and exploded on the surface, like a defensive shield. The dark clouds, supplemented by random lightening flashes, where forming a defensive crust around the Valiant Commonwealth's Mainland. Sattelite photos and AWACs units that where in the air moments before the missiles struck through reported that missiles where exploding against these "clouds" instead of breaking through. To this day, there is no scientific reason why this happened. It is also likely there never will be.

Alas, the brave attempt was not enough. Even as fifteen thousand missiles did not break through, the rest was enough to destroy Hogsweat. Maybe the nation approximately the same as the post war USSR could have survived. But not when Arkgrad Strategic Retaliation Station's Windows XP crashed as well, sending a similar amount of missiles up. And again, and again, and again.

So, Hogsweat went from being a world power to a page in the history books.

Present Day, Chukraine
Dark skies loom over the once happy region as the former delegate, the Valiant Commonwealth of Hogsweat died in the mushroom cloud that turned the worlds largest bastion of Socialism into flaking dust and tattered ruins. The gigantic eight metre by five metre Hogsweatian flag that flew off the Hogsweatian Defence Building, the Interior Ministry of People's Harmony, Hogsweat's symbolic building as much comparable to the Whitehouse or Buckingham palace, now lay tattered and torn on the ground, ripped from it's titanium flagpole. But there was some remains, some remains of the Commonwealth that had stood for justice, equality, and opportunity for all. The Valiant Colonies of Chukraine, Cape Town, Dorslav and the Southern Haven Outpost still stood. They where ungoverned: The central government, all five thousand members of parliament had been obliterated. In this situation, there was one man that took control: Star Fleet Admiral Malakovska. His flagship was the mighty Warspite class Superdreadnaught, the CHN Warrior - now sitting side by side with the Illustrious Class Supercarrier, the only remaining ship of twenty five, the CHN Innocent. Encircled by three battleships, the CHN Valiant, Vanguard, and Retribution, the battlefleet's remaining fourty or so vessels where submarines, guided missile destroyers, and replenishment ships. It was a meagre force: In comparison, anyway, but it was all that remained. And they still had their honour, as well as the remaining hundred and eight million civilians.

Makalovska stepped off the docked Warspite to a solemn welcome of the governor and his retinue of Chukograd - the capital of the Chukraine. There were no opposition parties, they had all dissolved and bowed down to the Victory Party that the Governor stood for. After a quick handshake and a nod to Malakovska, the pair walked down the streets, silent, away from the docks and the backdrop of men loading supplies onto vessels. Usually when a man as important as Malakovska, and the Governor, would walk down the streets they would be accompanied by marching bands, rolling tanks, and flower waving crowds. There were none. The marching bands had been recruited into hastily formed National Guard Divisions and the tanks where on excercises in the West. Every so often, airplanes flew over: In fact, they where the only military unit that had been seen more, most likely pilots getting more air time before the inevitable would come. The two strode through the streets, empty as people inside mourned and wondered what was to happen of them. Surely both the Governor and the Admiral knew this too. What had protected Hogsweat in the past was it's unshakeable faith in national defense and the fact that every single Hogsweatian thought and knew the Motherland was watching overthem. Now this was gone, the military was dealt a more than crippling blow and the Motherland's efforts to defend it's people had been in vain...

As they stepped into the City Hall, a majestic building with, as usual, a flag waving and a statue of Josef Dorsal with an enscription "To you, we owe our freedom"

Similar preparations where happening all over the Commonwealth. The remaining pair of Superdreadnoughts and Supercarriers around Dorslav where gearing up for a fight and reserves where being called up and placed on active reserve duty. For truly, what was about to happen was the Beginning of the End for the Valiant Commonwealth.

Neither the Joint Strategic Command nor the various Directors of the government services could explain the events in Hogsweat, not even four days later. It was as if God had decided that the Hogsweatians would suffer for their transgressions and had shielded the world from its final act of hostility by turning the nuclear weapons on their masters. In any case, it had freed up over a hundred divisions and thousands of ships from the assault on the Hogsweat mainland, which probably meant hundreds of thousands of lives saved.

Now it was time for the show to begin. The various fleets had been out to sea for almost a week and had been exercising near their objectives, although carefully avoiding any hostile moves towards the Communists. One major advantage was that the various former colonies no longer had the ability to coordinate, thanks in part to the now destroyed centralized infrastructure that had centered on the mainland.


Cameron Aerospace Force Base, Cameron, Ascension Duchy
The word came exactly on time: Launch. The targets had already been inputed into the missiles and it was simply a matter of typing a command into a computer console. All fifty-four of the 2nd Strategic Missile Wing's intercontinental cruise missile lofted into the air, steadily climbing for a few moments before tipping over and skimming the nape of the earth. The SCM-108 could hit a large portion of West Haven like that and the Chukraine was well within its range. The missiles were targetted at anything that resembled an logistics point; fuel dumps, large ammo depots, regimental vehicle laagers, and anything else that with its destruction would confuse the Chukraine's war effort. It was hoped by the Wing's commander that the powerful ECM and terrain following would be enough to slip through most of the defenses, although nobody could really be sure if they would.

Right behind the massive cruise missiles came twelve massive B-108A bombers. They weren't being especially shy about avoiding the airspace of other nations, but the stealthy features of the Thunderhawk allowed them to get away with it. If the bombers had any intention of going all the way to their targets, the missiles would have arrived at theirs twice as fast and the Chucky fighters would have been alerted for quite a while. However, in this case that was to their advantage. Somewhere over Yanli the bomber launched their missiles, each carried six ASM-503 Arquebus ALCMs, before turning back to base. The missiles quickly climbed to over a thousand feet and began vectoring on their targets, hopefully the commie fighter pilots would be so busy looking for incoming ICCMs flying close to the deck that they wouldn't be able to react to such high and fast targets. With any luck the Chucky airbases near the coast would soon experience a pounding they weren't like to foget.


One hundred miles northwest of the Yanli coast
Fighters began launching as fast as they could be lined up on the electromagnetic catapults of the massive Morrigan class attack carriers. The fighters formed up in flights of twelve and then the flights would form up with others in a strike package before going to supercruise and flying towards the Chucky coast. The fighters didn't bother with their ARC systems, the whole point was to draw pinko fighter coverage coverage off their armada by making them think that an all-out alpha strike was incoming. That wasn't true, of course, trying it first thing when air defense hadn't even been weakened would have been tantamount to suicide.

As soon as the fighters were clear the fleet's battlecruise began launching missiles as quick as the fire control computer would allow, making them look like dragons spitting fire at a hated enemy. Despite that fact that the squadron expended only a third of its total missiles, it still sent over four thousand against the commie fleet. The Ryuho was designed to be the missile-launching equivilant of e-mail spammers, they sent hundreds of "messages" knowing that most would be stopped but that some would get through, leaving the recipient to deal with the unpleasant effects.


[Matt, don't reply until we work out how the initial progression is going to happen. I'd cover all five colonies at once, but that would mean a long post that I'd spend hours having to type and then split up anyway due to the word count limitations.

As a recap: 54 ICCMs launched against the mentioned targets, the bombers launched 72 missiles against your airbase(s) on or near the coast, and 4,608 missiles are currently hurtling towards your fleet while fighters are coming in on what looks like an alpha strike. Keep in mind, however, that these fighters are stealthy platforms, so we're talking a detection range of 50-75% less than what would be possible against normal fighters. I'll be sure to get you stats on everything when we next chat over AIM, assuming Jolt cooperates.]

Airbase Foxtrot, 20km from shore
The missiles stormed towards their targets, hurtling at high speeds to the designated areas of the airfield. Foxtrot airfield was big: it held fourty eight interceptors and twenty Tu 160s. It was however, not without it's defenses: a number of SAMRAMs, CIWS guns, and three giant zeppelins towed to the ground with giant steel cables. The zeppelins gave off so much electronic interference and heat, they themselves, especially with blurred notification from constant blizzards, could be mistaken for parts of the airfield. And they were.

Klaxons blazed as the missiles came directly in. Maybe a score of the ICCMs were intercepted by SAMRAMs before a group plunged into a zeppelin, which commenced to explode mightily, making the sky flash bright and fell to the ground, burning. Several more ICCMs smashed into the burning zeppelin, which sent it flapping to the ground. A missile crashed into a hangar, destroying a group of interceptors and a fuel drum, sending crewmen and logistics personnel running for dear life. Yet another hangar falls prey to the Omzian designed missiles, and another, and then a SAMRAM emplacement.

Tearing through the darkened skies, the bomber missiles thunder and smash into one of the zeppelins, as more and more missiles were attracted to it's giant heat signatures teh zeppelin explodes in mid air, a frightening sight as the hydrogen too goes off in the reaction, a huge fireball in the air spinning down into the snow below.

The last zeppelin suffers the same fate, and now the airbase is protected only by SAMRAMs, which do their best but can't save the airbase from taking more hits. Combined with the idea of mounting an ASAC on a helicopter, and using it as missile bait (the HELO dodging the missile at the last minute) the point defences of Airbase Foxtrot make a valiant defense. However, by the end of the night, no less than half of the aircraft are servicable, and seven out of ten runways are deemed unusable.

CHN Warrior, just off Chukograd Port
"Aye Aye Comrade, CIWS systems active through the port bow. starboard bow, active. port amidships, active. starboard amidships.."

The CHN Warrior, the gigantic Warspite Class Superdreadnaught, was gearing for war. The last of it's supplies had been loaded several hours ago and it was checking all systems were green. Which of course, they where, but preliminary checks always had to be done. Always.

"Aye Aye Comrade. Dual Purpose guns, active port bow.."

Everything was going to plan. Or so they thought. The Warrior had no sooner limped out of port at 20 knots with it's twoscore escorts when the Scandavian ships had launched theri missiles, immediately being picked up by the GPS receptor. Noone could doubt the huge thermal block that were the Scandavian missile launches. The Admiral of the Warrior's Battlegroup was quick to act. Within minutes of the launch, aircraft from the Supercarrier Innocent were in the air and moving slowly in an intercept path against the missiles. Hidden anti-ICCM "popup" RAMs from the mainland were activated and let loose with their countermeasures, downing a small amount of the missiles. As the shiplaunched Scandavian ICCMs approached the fleet, the aircraft moved into an intercept pattern and dropped all the flares, distracting a number of the missiles from their original targets. the first outer picket let loose with their Missile Area Defence, sending short and long range anti missile missiles into the air around the Warrior's battlegroup. These were far more effective than the land based RAMs and combined aircraft countermeasures. As the missiles gained closer, more RAMs from the capital ships, Vanguard, Valiant, and Retribution knocked out missiles coming closer.Smoke filled the sky and irritated both the Scandavian missiles and the Hogsweatian defenses. The last missile defence by the Hogsweatian fleet was a thousand missiles from the Warrior herself, emptying one of her VLS banks as quickly as the Scandavians had launched their own. By the by, the first strike had been largely unsuccesful, but not every missile was shot down.

CHN Retribution
The pocketa, pocketa, pocketa of a CIWS gun could be heard as sailors ran for cover, a missile smashing into the Retribution's ERA panels and causing a huge explosion. Several more missiles smashed nito the hull of the Retribution, causing minor damage to the heavily armoured dreadnaught. Another group hit the hull directly, ripping a small hole about a metre by a metre through the electric reactive armour. The Retribution had taken fire and a missile had struck her funnels. She was burning, no doubt, and the crew rushed manically to try put out her clogging flames. The 700 metre vessel slowed temporarily, it's engines whirring down as the Retribution[/i] stood a standstill, her sailors frantically trying to put out the flames that almost engulfed a radar tower.

Meanwhile, six destroyers had been hit by missiles and were burning. Onboard the CHN Titania, sailors had managed to calm the flames and the CODAG engine chugged into life, spewing oil and accelerating the ship, straining to catch up with it's formation. The Tiger was lucky too, only taking a hit to it's foregun, which exploded in a massive firework display. She was still seaworthy however, and continued to keep up in formation. Four destroyers, the Thor, Tintagel, Token, and Tiara, were not so luckily as multiple anti shipping missiles had hit their hull, radar, and VLS cells and the ships had sunk almost immediately after being hit. One could see other escorts pulling alongside, picking up survivors from the wreckage.

The Hogsweatians were not just going to sit still and soak up firepower. Every sailor was angry, inflamed - they demanded retaliation and the Admiral, who was thinking the same thing, was only happy to comply. The Warrior's VLS guarding plate slipped open, and in a flash began to launch it's Yakhont-41 anti shipping missiles. The Retribution, which had now sped up and was trying to catch formation speed, did the same and let loose with half the number of the missiles the Scandavians had launched, matching the Warrior's attack.

35,000 Feet Above Chukograd Bay
The AWACs unit was flying sky high and soon it would have to land. The crew were beginning to wind down after a hard nights work, and were looking forward to going home to see their families after a whole week up and down in the air. Boris Karkov leant back, closing his eyes briefly, and stretching. It was, coincidentally, as he closed his eyes, the red dots flashed up. Looking back down at the screen, two beeps came through his headphones, and the ever so tiny red dots flashed again. Birds? Surely not that many..although... Better be safe.

"Ey El-Tee, I'm picking up a large number of small objects. Could be birds, could be planes masked with stealth."

The Lieutenant stumbled over and looked as the flash came again.
"Not sure. hard to see up here really... well, I have my orders. Send the report, Boris."

"Aight."

CHN Warrior, Bridge
"Comrade Admiral! Enemy aircraft being picked up on AWACs, latest reports in from Flight 405. Confirmed by flights 221 and 389"

Admiral Malakovska snorted and held back a laugh.

"Idiots. Do they really think we will waste fuel on their attack? Attacking this fleet is certain suicide. Take no course of action, Ensign."
[OOC: I'll do dmg to infrastructure later]

The airbase had been a primary target, it had been a threat to the invasion to come and it was necessary to weaken it at the very least. Since that had been accomplished no bombers were tasked for a followup run against the airfield, the fleet's carrier aircraft could take care of what was left.

HIMS Tartarus, First Expeditionary Fleet Flagship

"Admiral, strike force reports a missile launch from the enemy fleet," intoned the Lieutenant Commander in charge of his tactical division.

"PETER up?" Yu asked, referring to the new battle management system the Imperial Navy had developed.

"Yes, sir. PETER is currently assessing targets based on overhead data. Speed, flight profile, RCS, and known enemy make it consistent with the Yakhont-41 anti-ship missile. PETER is recommending engagement at Envelope 3," answered the junior officer.

"Very well, I concur. Implement the recommended defensive plan and initiate Fire Plan Sierra 2," ordered the Fleet Admiral.

This time the young man didn't even bother to answer, his actions spoke better than mere words would have. In a more pitched battle he would have echoed the commands, but so far this was a textbook missile engagement. That was not to say the situation wasn't serious, it just wasn't yet worthy of panic. The fleet, and the individual ships within it, shifted to unmask as many CAMDS batteries as they could while the fleet's CGNs warmed up the missiles within the VLS tubes.

In the meantime, another volley was prepared. However, this time the real shipkillers would be involved and a lot more of them to boot. As the countdown timer for Foxtrot Papa Sierra 2 wound down to zero each battlecruiser emptied another four VLS blocks and every CAN joined in with two of its own. All told almost six thousand missiles were launched, although not on the straight and dumb course the earlier ones gone on to test what effect a missile barrage might have. No, these missiles were sent on a course that went up and around, something that on a computer model might resemble the head of a flange. On top of that, every one in twelve birds were packed with jamming equipment that would make such a muddle of things that by the time the enemy ships could use their radars to effectively track the incoming vampires, the missiles were already in their terminal phase and breaking towards Mach 6.

This, however, was compounded by the fact that the commodore in charge of the air group, known outside of his hearing by a name whose acronym was said to its fullest extent in polite company, was somewhat insulted the Chuckies hadn't accepted his invitation to dance. For that, he decided, they would pay. After all, he had sent up strike aircraft to make the ruse believeable, but they had not gone out unarmed. Upon recieving and acknowleding their new orders, the pilots of the strike fighters switched on their ARC systems and released enough missiles to ruin anyone's day. The fighters turn tail and went to full afterburner with their ECM going full blast the entire way. The ASMs quickly dove to the deck and began a twisting and winding path towards the enemy fleet, but a lot straighter and dumber than the much larger missiles that were quickly catching up. Every sixth missile was a jamming bird, using its own built-in Athena system to utterly confuse and frustrate the commie radar operators.


[1,440 SSM-501s launched by the aircraft, 5,760 SSM-503s launched by my ships. As an aside, I believe a -502 to be capable of destroying anything but one of Freethinkers or equivilant destroyers with a single hit, however I won't argue the point. May I suggest we create an OOC thread to keep clutter here to a minimum?

Also, I didn't deal with your missile fire because I need the stats for your Yakhont-41.]

CHUKRAINE
Somewhere in the Snow
"Teeeeen-SHUN."

The regiment halted, turned around, and raised a stiff salute as Commissar-General Chukiov gave his salute. "At ease, soldiers." the men dropped their salute and stood at ease in the shivering cold. Behind them lay tanks and trucks of the finest regiment in the entire Hogsweatian Army - the 165th Guards Rifles. The Guards Rifles had a history dating back to the Hogsweatian civil war, fighting on the side of the loyalists of course. Chukiov himself was directly related to Colonel Boris Chukiov, an ancient hero of the Hogsweatian Union, Commonwealth, or State. He also bore the same name, being one of the most famous names in Hogsweatian history and the most well respected in the entire Commonwealth Red Army.

"What I am going to tell you now" the Commissar-General barked "Will change your lives. It will change the lives of all your family, and every Hogsweatian left alive in this miserable fascist chained world. You, and the other three Guards Divisions, are to be the first line of defence of our glorious Motherland and the invincible vanguard when the time for the counterattack comes. Remember as you fullfill your duty, that you must not give one ounce of land to the enemy. You must always fight, whether you are out of ammunition, whether you are burned and crippled, whether you are facing odds one to a hundred, there must be no surrender. You have seen the terrible destruction brought down on subsistence farms that have been the target of Scandavian bombing. They intend to wear down our morale: They are, in fact, committing the very crime that demands the death sentence in our just and great law system. To this end, we must punish the enemy! Not one Scandavian soldier must be left alive after the enemy surrender! I must leave now comrades, but I will be with you when the enemy land, and are repulsed, from our magnificent shores."

The Commissar-General stepped down from the podium, to clapping and cheering
from his troops, and jumped into the VTOL carrier that was taking him to Chukograd.

CHUKRAINE
Chukograd Bay
Admiral Malakovska bit his lip. Watching the incoming missile count rise to almost six thousand and then wandered over to watch the radar station. The Ensign was puzzled as he watched red blips appear for several seconds and then not appear again for a minute.
"Admiral, I think..."

"Yes, I know" Malakovska had worked it out already. "Switch to active IR tracking for these bastards, priority one, put our LADAR on priority two."

LADAR wasn't as much effective in clouded weather but the fleet itself was relatively clean of weather obstacles and maybe it would be good enough for close range fleet defence. As the missiles closed into maximum range for the long range interceptor VLS', the destroyers set off a wave of "PARTISAN" anti missile missiles, backed up with similar weapons from the shore, the number was enough to knock out maybe almost all of the air launched missiles with assistance from the Warrior's RAMs. The SSM's were a different matter altogether however, and as they hurtled down onto the fleet, only short range missiles and CIWS were left as countermeasures. The dreadnoughts put up a hail of flak but it was to no avail as Malakovska watched, grim faced, as half of the Hogsweatian defence force's destroyers and frigates were knocked out of action entirely, and the Retribution once again suffered a pounding that most ships wouldn't take so easily. And then the flagship did such an unexpected thing - it swung northwards to face the Scandavian fleet at full speeds, the remaining escorts, the three other battleships, and the supercarrier now sending up fighters to protect the fleet in tow.

180km OFF GALICIA ISLE, NORTH HAVEN STRAITS
SSBN-491 CHN Brilliant
“Captain, we are approaching maximum range. Orders?”

Glancing down at some controls, the Captain replied
“First Ensign Tattatakov, drop us to new depth, 8-2 metres, bearing 3-6-0.”

“Confirmed, new depth, 8-2 metres, bearing 3-6-0.” The engineer shouted.

Red klaxons blared while crew dashed to positions. The Commander of the boat, Captain Aleksandrov, strode out from the bridge down towards the Strategic Confirmation Centre, the XO right behind him. Rapping on the door and entering a keyword, it creaked open and inside where a few men at their posts. Captain Aleksandrov politely nodded to the Lieutenant-Armsofficer in charge of the SCC, and then said

“Comrade, prep strategic cells one through twenty one .”

“Affirmative Comrade Captain”
The orders were quickly followed through and within eighteen minutes all of the cells were prepped and the submarine was ready to go to Stage 2.

“Are we finished prepping comrade?”

”Aye aye cap’n. Missile cells one through fourty two prepped and ready.” The second ensign at Stage 2 Control answered.

“Very well then, set target Galicia city. Confirm that order, Executive Barfekov.”

“Order confirmed, set target Galicia city.” Barfekov whispered.

“Sir, target set, Galicia City Civilian District. Need a verbal confirmation on that order, sir.” Switching on the microphone in the room, the verbal confirmation that both Aleksandrov and Barfekov followed up with was recorded and dropped into the bridge’s blackbox.

“Very well then, fire tubes in a seven column pattern, Second Ensign, maintain holding target.”

“Sir, require codes and verbal confirmation from Executive Officer to launch.”

“Very well, input code Omaha Romeo Alpha November Golf Echo Sierra Six-Ten-Four-Nine.”

“Sir, code green light, secondary launch numbers required, Captain.” The process continued, clearly irritating the captain of the boat.

“launch numbers One, One, Ten, Four, Six, Three, Eight.”

“Copy that sir..missiles away.”

82 metres underwater, the SSBN CHN Brilliant let off it’s Conventional Strategic “Buzhka” ICCMs before turning away, dropping depth by twenty metres and slinking north easterly, past the ruined motherland, to Cape Town, and Freedom.

NOTES:
[SSBN 40 Class B]
Length: 230 Metres
Beam: 17 Metres
Displacment:
Submerged: 19,350
Surfaced: 22,001
Speed: 23 Knots submerged
Operating depth: 300 metres approx

[YAKHONT-41 SSM]
Length:11.25 Metres
Diameter:1.01 Metres
Maximum Range: 400km mixed trajectory
Flight Altitude:
18m at 20km before target
450m 80km before target
600km 200km before target
700m at launch
Warhead Weight: 800 kg
Weight: 6000kg [with thrusters]
Maximum Speed: Mach 2.345

[BUZHKA ICCM]
Length:17 Metres
Diameter:2.50 Metres
Maximum Range: 1200km mixed trajectory
Flight Altitude:
18m at 20km before target
450m 180km before target
600km 400km before target
700m at launch
Warhead Weight: 1500kg
Weight: 11,000kg [with thrusters]
Maximum Speed: Mach 3

[Hogsweat, I just realized something, your missiles don't have the range to hit my fleet. I launched my missiles at a thousnad kilometers and yours only have a range of 400km.]

HIMS Tartarus, First Expeditionary Fleet Flagship

Everyone about the flag bridge sighed in relief when the tactical division announced the Yakhont-41s had crashed into the sea. Those missiles were nasty customers and the more lightly-armoured ships would have taken serious damage.

"What's our range at present?" Asked Fleet Admiral Yu.

"853 kilometers, Sir," answered a female officer from Navigation Division.

"Very well. Tactical, do we have a fix on their larger ships?" Sir Li Yu was forming a plan in his mind and needed that information dearly.

"Yes Admiral," answered the Lt. Commander.

"Program our strike missiles to only go after their capital ship, the thing's so huge there shouldn't be any confusion. All other ships currently equipped with strike missiles are to go after anything that's a cruiser or larger," ordered the Admiral.

The crew on the flag bridge understood almost immediately; the fleet had expended a great percentage of its missiles and now they were going to go after the ships that presented the most threat. The Tartarus began kicking out missiles as fast as she could, emptying the eight 144-cell launchers in under three minutes; over a thousand missiles targetted at the Chuckie flagship. The battlecruisers simply targetted the remaining capital ships, over two thousand missiles dedicated to those few ships. The heavy cruisers and destroyers were more than happy to pick up what was left, over 12,000 missiles scattered between what was left of the authorized pickings.


West Galicia Isle

The ICCM launch had not been expected, not right in the middle of what was effectively Imperial territorial waters. Had the captain been smarter he would have launched from the west of the isles, so as not to have the missiles cross over several defensive zones before getting to their target. As it so happened, the first thing the missiles crossed was indeed a city and the air defense batteries in the city threw up missile after missile, only a few burning through the jamming and killing a handful of the superlarge cruise missiles. The ICCMs also had the misfortunate of flying over an Aerospace Force base and that base also tried its damnedest to kill those missiles, succeeding moderately. By the time the strike missiles crossed over the mountain range the second time, the duchy capitol was already alert and waiting; they managed to kill all but one of the remaining missiles.

However, that missile landed right in the middle of the residentiall district, with the expected results. Nobody would get an accurate body count until much later, but many guessed it was in the tens of thousands. They would have been right, the warhead had been large enough to wipe out a city block and blow out windows for several more blocks outside the blast radius.

It so happened that one of 3rd Home Fleet's hunter-killer groups was out on patrol and relatively close to the area of the launch, they were given the immediate task of finding the sub and cornering it against the rest of the hunter-killer groups, if they couldn't kill it outright. This the two ships set out to do with a vengeance.


[Launch notes:

Flagship - 1,152 ASM-503 missiles
Other Capships - 2,304 ASM-503 missiles
Cruisers - 10,368 ASM-502 missiles, 1728 ASM-503 missiles
Same mix of live to ECM birds applies]

"Over eighty thousand dead, Your Highness," said the Director of the Interior Service.

Lien closed her eyes and inhaled a deep, shaky breath, "We musn't stoop to their level. As tempted as I am to order all of that infernal territory gassed, it would only create propaganda for them. Air Marshall McLeod, do you know where their units are located?"

"Yes, Highness," answered Ainsley.

"Good, drop kinetics on their heads. I want buildings demolished and any units in the field torn to pieces," ordered the Empress.

"As you command," the Air Marshall bowed and then walked over to her service's terminal in the War Room to pass the order on.

It didn't take long for the satellites in geosynchronous orbit over Haven to shift their aim points. There was a full squadron always in space and each satellite had a hundred osmium-titanium rods just waiting to be dropped on some unsuspecting fool. WIth a single command input from an anonymous warrant officer, all the satellites began emptying their cylinders of kenetic weapons. Everything on land of military value was targetted, from divisions in the field to the bases that housed them. If it was military, it was targetted and too bad if there were civilians around, after what their government had pulled the Imperium didn't care overmuch if a few Chukrainians didn't have the brains to stay away from military installations during a war.

The Hogsweatian fleet had been caught unawares beforehand, but now it was active and missile defences were on top priority. As the missiles steamed over the fleet, destroyers and frigates let off defence missile after defence missile, until it seemed that all the detection systems were full of multicoloured dots. They downed missile after missile, especially those heading towards the Warrior, but naturally some got through and literally exploded against the ship's ERA missile bulges. Admiral Malakovska had looked at them with some disdain when they were originally fitted, but he now realised their importance. The first wave of missiles to hit the Warrior did little damage, exploding against its' outer hull like popcorn against card. The second however, despite the efforst of autocannon and CIWS, did get through and caused some damage to firing control and the UAV launchers, and finally the third wave did a fair amount of damage to crew quarters, although fires were contained by the well placed and well armoured bulkheads. Never matter, Malakovska thought, they would be useless soon anyway. The Warrior had taken light damage, and she was still operational and in good fighting conditions. The Vanguard and the Valiant fared just as well, taking damage, and although a pair of Vanguard's DP guns and the Valiant's UAV rack were knocked out of use, the battleships where still ready to fight, although engine damage had slowed them down.

The Retribution had taken a full salvo of missiles and her flight deck was now officially out of action. The fires onboard the vessel where almost put out, much to the relief of Admiral Viktorva. Glancing down at damage reports he watched incredulously as the metre plunged from yellow to red and almost fell over as the ship shuddered.

"Ensign, damage report, NOW!"

"Admiral, our rear gun's magazines have exploded sir, smoke detectors going off from Lockers A through F, bulkheads X1 through X9 and Z9 through Z14 are gone too." the panicking Ensign replied.

"Lock all bulkheads, contain those fires. What is our stability Ensign?" Viktorva replied in a calm manner, although his head was ringing. He was determined not to have the Retribution sink before combat.

"Sir..our aft is sinking. Slowly, but she's going down. We're disbalanced, Comrade."

Without thinking, Viktorva ordered
"Detach tube missiles, dump our torpedoes and ammunition for A gun. Quickly, if you want this ship to stay afloat."

Three minutes later, the Retribution was slowly balancing itself again, although it would be nowhere near as stable. It's rear turret was a mess of tangled metal and smoking fires that the crew where valiantly battling to hold back. The Retribution had taken the most damage and she was a liability to the fleet at 18 knots. However, she had the second most powerful guns next to the Warrior and when, shortly, they would come in range of the Scandavian Superdreadnoughts that would be important.


edit: m'kay ill add more later