NationStates Jolt Archive

Attention, all personnel. This is Marshal Abdullah Hassan Al-Ghazi speaking.
The enemy naval attack on our nation has failed, and over six hundred enemy ships are at the bottom of the sea – and the Allanean Navy has not left harbor yet. Soon enough, this will change. We are asking for all decent nations of the world to come and assist us in our counter assault on the Blackhelmians. Even as we speak, a navy is being assembled to defeat the enemy vermin.

We have fought the Blackhelmians before. I wish I could say we won, but it's not really true – they surrendered before we could get a real fight going. If I were a Blackhelmian or a Griffincrest mercenary, I'd do the same now.

As of now, I will command a joint multi-branch effort to attack the enemy on land and on sea, coordinated with allied forces.

There's little else to say, my friends. See you in Paradise City.

And my God Continue to Bless Allanea.

* * *

From Allanea's six Permanent Strategic Forts, from Liberty Harbor, from Port-Allanea, hundreds upon hundreds of ships emerged, spread across a space of 7,000 miles. Other battlegroups were steaming towards rendezvous points in the ocean from far-off New Kentucky, the Hash, and other Allanean colonies.

On the outer edges of the fleet, submarines, anti-submarine cruisers and AA vessels patrolled, while at the very middle, carriers did their work, keeping up CAP patrols. In the middle of the giant fleet would move the two Longsword warships.

The fleet was on its way. Soon, Allanea would fight.

[[OOC: Is this open?]]

OOC: Hey Leis

IC:King Jackson I Square, Imperial Palace Complex, Granton, Findan

Emperor Samuel III stood before a large crowd and an even larger one in front of him on television sets around the Empire and now the world. He began, "Ladies and Gentlemen, tonight I come before you with a grave heart. Our nation is at war with the Blackhelm Confederacy.

I'm sure many of you are aware of the pirate attacks on our shipping as well as on the shipping of Allanea, Cotland, and the Free United States. And many of you are aware that communications with Allanea have been fuzzy, due to the destruction of several of its telecommunications satellites.

Many of you were not aware that the Griffencrest Corporation, a corporation which has taken over the very soul of the Blackhelm Confederacy, has been behind these attacks for the sole reason to destroy the way of life for the liberty loving world. To the oceans and the skies safe for no one other than itself.

We along with the navies and air forces of, Allanea, the Free United States, Questors, Xeraph, and Cotland destroyed these pirates who were menacing Havanic Waters making it unsafe for all who traveled them.

This morning a group of our newest attack submarines sank the last air craft carrier. Our ballistic missile submarines destroyed one of the bases where they launched their hideous deeds. Our naval air craft destroyed a number of theirs, but not without loss. Twelve of our brave young men and women lost their lives. I will now ask for a moment of silence for those gave the ultimate sacrifice so that liberty might yet live," Samuel along with billions of others across the Empire bowed their heads in prayer. It did not matter to whom they prayed, whether it be the Goddess, God, Yahweh, Allah, Buddha, or Krishna, Findanians were one at this moment, Samuel raised his head and began to speak again, "We must go into to this darkness of war bravely knowing that in the end light shall triumph and we shall be victorious. As I speak our armed forces are preparing to strike at the heart of the Blackhelm Confederacy. I believe that we shall win this conflict for all the freedom loving peoples of the world who dare to cut themselves free from the chains of their masters, who dream of a world free from oppression. Because of our glorious struggle we will be one step closer to that goal. And tonight I want each and everyone of us to remember our motto, Ad Libertas, to Freedom, Goodnight and may the Goddess Bless us all. Hail Findan! Ad Libertas! Victory!"

Camp Hartwick, Liberty-Harbor, Allanea

For days upon days the tools of war had been arriving at the ad hoc military base outside the largest port of Allanea.

Nearly 25,000 B-52's, B-1's, KC-135's, C-130's, and F-35's had arrived and many more were arriving every minute. The Imperial Air Force was ready to bring to war to Blackhelm, with raids not seen since the Great Tribulation War over sixty years ago.

In addition to 11th Fleet which had suffered those causalities and Home Fleet, the 2nd and 5th Fleet had already arrived in Havenic waters bringing Findanian naval strength up to several thousand ships with many due to rendezvous near Blackhelm waters.

Hundreds of Coast Guard vessels, now officially under wartime Naval command were also in place, ready for any search and rescue missions that would come their way.

Nearly 25,000 Imperial Marines were also ready to begin fighting in Blackhelm. They had already bet the Army that they'd win the war by the time the first soldier was aboard a C-130 bound for Blackhelm.

The Imperial Army was ready and eager, too. Already 100,000 Airborne troops were in place ready to jump into Blackhelm territory and beat those stinkin' Marines to the punch. Over 1200 M1A1 Abrams tanks had been sent to Allanea to wait for the invasion begin.

And with all the troops, every conceivable munition of war was being sent a hundredfold to Allanea. From spare tracks, to socks, to bullets, to shells, and rockets and bombs.

The Empire was ready for war.

They all had watched the Emperor's speech and they were ready.

OOC: Please keep FT assets out of this. This means you, Charzak.

OOC thread for your ORBATs or comments is here, please post all OOC comments in that thread (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=565639)

Muspelheim Air Base, CFUS

"As you all know," the base commander briefed the bomber crews, "Our country has recently come under the attack of ruthless privateers, determined to cut off our trade with neighboring nations. This attack was unprovoked and was a defilement to our sovereign rights as a nation. Under General Directive 543, we are to join with Allanean and her allied forces in bringing those responsible to justice. Your bombers are the most advanced in the country, with the latest technology and capable of dropping the most sophisticated ordinance. But the enemy will be tough and determined. Your nation expects nothing but for you to fulfill your duties. Remember the oathes you have sworn and fulfill them all! To your planes!"

The roaring of engines echoed into the night as the bombers took off.

Attention, all personnel. This is Marshal Abdullah Hassan Al-Ghazi speaking.
The enemy naval attack on our nation has failed, and over six hundred enemy ships are at the bottom of the sea – and the Allanean Navy has not left harbor yet. Soon enough, this will change. We are asking for all decent nations of the world to come and assist us in our counter assault on the Blackhelmians. Even as we speak, a navy is being assembled to defeat the enemy vermin.

We have fought the Blackhelmians before. I wish I could say we won, but it's not really true – they surrendered before we could get a real fight going. If I were a Blackhelmian or a Griffincrest mercenary, I'd do the same now.

As of now, I will command a joint multi-branch effort to attack the enemy on land and on sea, coordinated with allied forces.

There's little else to say, my friends. See you in Paradise City.

And my God Continue to Bless Allanea.

* * *

From Allanea's six Permanent Strategic Forts, from Liberty Harbor, from Port-Allanea, hundreds upon hundreds of ships emerged, spread across a space of 7,000 miles. Other battlegroups were steaming towards rendezvous points in the ocean from far-off New Kentucky, the Hash, and other Allanean colonies.

On the outer edges of the fleet, submarines, anti-submarine cruisers and AA vessels patrolled, while at the very middle, carriers did their work, keeping up CAP patrols. In the middle of the giant fleet would move the two Longsword warships.

The fleet was on its way. Soon, Allanea would fight.

Secret IC:

*Encrypted Fax*

TO: Allanean Military planners
FROM: ASoGM Intelligence Agency
RE: Satellite Intel

While your frequent use of nuclear weapons in this conflict somewhat concerns us, we would be willing to give copies of data collected by our spy satellites for your war with Blackhelm Confederacy and Griffincrest, since Griffincrest's standard tactics is to strike at enemy spy satellites. Furthermore, we are debating joining you in this conflict, as we feel that Griffincrest, and by association Blackhelm Confederacy, is a danger to free nations around the world.

A single phrase is all it takes.

Across the world, Otagian boomers ceased their wandering, halting in their travels as their communications arrays grasped the message. Adjusting their depths to a mere dozen meters, they waited, patiently listening for the sign. Their time would come soon.

In orbit, six Sabre space planes caught the wisp of heavily encoded gibberish, and moved resolutely in their seperate ways, taking up positions encircling the globe. Chatting excitedly amongst one another, their crews quickly finished the preparations of their precious cargo. Another forty four of the vessels soon joined them, flying serenely through the dark.

The message reached more residents of the starry void, these older, sitting unadorned and out of the way, sleeping and dormant for a decade. As the signal struck, inactive circuitry sprung to life, putting into motion the final stages of the plan that their creators had made long ago.

Exactly twelve hours later, the phrase repeated. Aquila Eagle Terminus.

The timing was perfectly executed, each piece of the puzzle in its proper place. A ripple of fire exploded from the ocean waves, a maniple of submarines each launching half a dozen missiles into the sky, their burning contrails dying out as the atmosphere thinned and vanished. Their payload launched, the submarines dove again, scattered and in hiding again.

Six space planes saw the burning trails, and began to subtly glow, hundreds of invisible lines illuminating Griffincrest and Blackhelm orbital assets across the globe, satellites and space craft alike shining like beacons to specialized eyes. As the sea-launched weapons rose from the world below, forty four more space planes seemed to explode, streaks of fire enveloping them before flying away, thousands of weapons unerringly hunting their targets. Not ones to wait for retaliation in kind, the Sabres immediately began their descent, back into the safety of Otagian airspace.

As the boomers' ASATs reached their target altitude, they too shattered, two dozen warheads flying away from each, hunting down their prey. Seeing this, the final stage erupted. Two dozen satellites, slowly turning for maximum efficiency, let fly with a final barrage, each spouting a final swarm into the void before falling silent and dropping rapidly into the atmosphere, their hulls burning to nothing within moments.

From the launch of the first missile, the entire attack had taken less than five minutes. From the launch of the space-borne weapons, one. In that one minute, more than twenty thousand kill vehicles had been launched, and closed rapidly on their targets.
________________________


But sometimes, far more than a word or a phrase is needed.

An hour after the attack was launched, Otagian television and radio was interrupted, a speech by the Regent replacing the regular programming.

"Ladies and gentlemen, fellow Otagians. It is with heavy heart that I am forced to make this announcement. As many of you know, Otagian sailors were killed only days ago in a cowardly raid by unknown forces. SIS was able to determine the identity of the perpetrators as mercenaries in employ of the Griffincrest Corporation. I have no choice but to declare a state of war to exist between the Regency and this band of murderers and cowards. Likewise, any who would shelter these bandits will be met with the full force of the Otagian military.

"Noting their preference for attacks on civilian and military orbital infrastructure alike, thirteen hours ago I authorized a preemptive strike against Griffincrest orbital assets in order to permanently remove their ability to threaten the lives and property of others. I have also authorized the mobilization of the Fifth and Sixth Fleets, as well as the Sixth Army. These forces are even now underway to rendezvous with our Allanean allies.

"The Regency's prayers go out to our brave servicemen, without whose efforts we would be at the whim of criminals like Claudius Griffincrest. It is our firm resolve that men like him will not go unpunished. Our every effort has been made, and will continue to preserve the lives of our soldiers and to bring an end to these terrible events."

Message from The Lone Alliance:
We stand strongly with you, and fully support this endevor. We will try in whatever way we can to assist you, and will send several repair and supply ships to you. Good luck to you and happy hunting.

Secret IC: TLA also prepares to deploy several dozen subs for Commerce raiding on Blackhelm.

We interrupt this program for a important message by Grand Duke Ozgood the Third. With that statement the screens go dark for a moment then the darkness is replaced by the Grand Duke standing on the flight deck of some unnamed carrier.

"Good people of Tarlag, We have been attacked. Civilians and military personal have been killed. Some of our ships have been sunk and aircraft shot down by a ruthless enemy. An enemy that does not care about human life or free trade in our oceans. An enemy who arms Pirates to do their dirty work. An enemy who does not have the guts to face us themselves."

"This enemy cannot be permitted to attack us again. We the people of Tarlag cannot permit them to rearm their pirates to attack more innocent people. We must take a stand and take it now!"

"I hold in my hand a declaration of war between Us and the villains who have attacked us. We were defending our right of free trade and they attacked our ships. We as a people cannot let this stand. Now I will tell you who these villians are. It was the Blackhelm Confederacy who has backed the people who have attacked us."

Ozgood with that statement walks to the left to a group of disshevelled men dressed in worn uniforms surrounded by Naval guards.

"Good people of Tarlag these are the people who attacked our Brothers and Sisters. We have put them to the question and they all have said who they are and who they work for They are Griffencrest mercenaries supported by the Blackhelm Confederacy. Griffencrest are the ones who gave the order to attack us and they will pay!"

With that statement the line of men were marched to a row of gallows set up on the flight deck of the carrier.

"This is the fate of all men who attack us, the good people of Tarlag. This shall be the fate of Griffencrest and the Blackhelm Confederacy."

Strickland sat belowdecks as the storm whipped the seas, reading-up on the newest declarations of war on the Confederacy. He allowed a small grin when he read that Ozgood had hanged a bunch of the BC-backed pirates.

He tapped his commpin. "Watch-Commander, where is Amra?"

"He's in Ravennii, sir."

"What the hell's he doing there? We've got a half-dozen nations declaring war against a Xeraphian ally. I need to know what he has in mind." As if he didn't already know what Amra would say. Ally or not, piracy is looked upon as an international crime of the highest level.

"Shall I open a line to him, sir?"

"No. Not right now. If he's in the capitol he's into something important." Strickland sat thinking for a moment. Any news from Vhammpyr?"

"Not a peep, sir. All we know is that their fleet left the Blackened Isles four days ago. If theyr'e coming this way, they'd just about be here. Just about impossible to track, sir....."

Strickland was well aware of how difficult it was to track Vhammpyrian naval units. When on the move, they were surrounded by a fog so dense that they could never be seen with the naked eye at more than ten feet. Added to that, the fog had an oily, almost greasy consistency that coated all it touched. It's added effect was that it shielded the navy from prying electronic eyes.

"Do we know ANYTHING else besides that, commander?"

"Yessir. Admiral Dinofrio is aboard one of the ships."

"Dinofrio" He's a landguy! What the fucks' he doing on a boat?"

"Unknown, sir."

This "war" was getting more peculiar by the moment. "Let me know when you get a line on the Vampire navy. Or ANYTHING for that matter."

"Aye, sir."

"Sir. Latest info from OBP-3 shows several large fleets steaming towards The Blackhelm Confederacy."

Strickland gazed at the large commscreen. "Do we know who they are, Commander?"

"Sir, so far we can confirm Allanean, Free United States, and Tarlagian units on course for BC waters. Findan, Otagia, Questors, and Cotland appear to be gearing up for something big. The Lone Alliance is at High Alert in all their ports."

"And here WE are, eh Commander?" The Xeraphian fleet was 127 miles off the coast of the Confederacy, at anchor. Four CBGs totalling 118 ships were in alert, ready to either attack BC or defend them, whichever Amra ordered.

"OK, Commander. Enough of this bullshit. I don't care what Amra's doing in Ravennii. Open a channel to the capitol, encrypted frequency."

"Channel open, sir."

"Amra, this is Prince John, currently 127 miles off the coast of BC. We've got a shitload of multi-national naval units bearing down on BC's coastline. Are we defending or are we joining the invasion force?"

Silence for a few seconds. "John.....go kick some BC ass. But remember...only if thet fire first. Amra out."

Strickland looked around at the bridge-staff. "Well? Whattya deaf? You heard the man! All units to battle-stations! We're going in!"

Duke Ozgood sat in his office with several of his advisers. Looking at his computer display he turned to the man on his right Admiral Dayron.
"What is the status of the fleet?"

"As of right now they are about 500 miles out of Forbidden Bay heading on a course for Blackhelm. As per your orders Zanatos has been put in charge of the over all fleet."

As Dayron was about to continue the door opened and two very different women entered. The first was an short older woman dressed in out of date military fatigues. Following behind her was a woman of about twenty, with long blond hair done up in a single pony tail. She was dressed in the modern combat gear of Tarlag's Naval Infantry.

The Duke turned to the two with a bit of surprised look. "Lady Moonshadow what is she doing with you?"

"Ozgood meet my new Squire."

"I think I know my own Daughter Paladin Moonshadow. What is she doing with you?"

Lady Moonshadow went from looking lile a frail old woman to looking like the powerful and well respected force of nature she was.
"We my Lord Duke, are going to fight the Blackhelm and their Pirates. Lady Jade and myself are going and nothing you can say will change what we are doing."

"Bull Shit, I WILL NOT LET HER OUT OF THE COUNTRY!"

"Father, I am not first in line for your office and I am an officer in the TDF. I want to serve my country and I will do it."

"Stay out of this Jade, I know it is Lady Moonshadow who put you up to this. So stand in the corner and wait your turn."

Lady Moonshadow moved to where the Duke was standing and kept going backing him into the wall. looking up at him with her hard grey eyes she said.

"My Lord, we are going to meet with the Xeraphian leaders and then with the others to arrange how this war will be fought. We will then join with one of our units and teach these bastards a lesson they will not forget. If you what the same lesson that they will get keep going."

Looking for help from the other men in the room and seeing none forthcoming Ozgood visibly relaxed and responded.

"Very well, go to Ravennii and meet with Alric's son Amra. The Regents are giving him more power and he did want to meet you."

Going back to looking like a frail old woman She turned to leave.

"Come along child, I knew your Father would agree to or mission."

Chancellor Lucius Blackhelm was very startled when he heard that several fleets were massing against him. He had no idea why, and, upon learning that the fleet of a nation he considered an ally was just off of his shores, he was quick to send a message to the Xeraphian Admiral.

Dear Admiral of the Xeraphian Fleet,

Please inform us of the meaning behind postitioning so many vessels so close to our nation. We have done nothing wrong, and wish not for war.

Reply with haste,

Lucius Blackhelm

Just in case the message was returned with the intent to make war upon the Confederacy, the coastal defenses were activated. Thousands upon thousands of batteries were springing to life, minefields and barbed wire layed out, trenches dug, and all kinds of other taks were being done as the Confederacy prepared for war.

The Xeraphian fleet had come far too close to the Confederate shore for their own good, and even as the Chancellors message was being sent, three thousand P-700 missiles were being trained on the fleet, readying themselves to fire at a moments notice.

In space, the Otagian attack had done far less damage than the enemy would have hoped. The Griffincrest space program was one of the most important parts of the Corporations military might, and they invested accordingly. Billions were sunk yearly to prepare their satellites for just such a threat, and now was their time to shine. tens of thousands of brilliant pebbles were hurled towards the enemy missiles as they tore through the atmosphere, crashing into them and destroying them before they could do any real damage. Still, a handful of satellites were lost.

The Corporation was now about to go on the orbital offensive. The space stations, satellites, and any other orbital assets would soon come under both railgun and missile fire as hundreds of Soyuz's, satelites, and solar sailors moved in to engage the countless satellites of the various nations arrayed against them.

Chancellor Lucius Blackhelm was very startled when he heard that several fleets were massing against him. He had no idea why, and, upon learning that the fleet of a nation he considered an ally was just off of his shores, he was quick to send a message to the Xeraphian Admiral.

Dear Admiral of the Xeraphian Fleet,

Please inform us of the meaning behind postitioning so many vessels so close to our nation. We have done nothing wrong, and wish not for war.

Reply with haste,

Lucius Blackhelm

Just in case the message was returned with the intent to make war upon the Confederacy, the coastal defenses were activated. Thousands upon thousands of batteries were springing to life, minefields and barbed wire layed out, trenches dug, and all kinds of other taks were being done as the Confederacy prepared for war.

The Xeraphian fleet had come far too close to the Confederate shore for their own good, and even as the Chancellors message was being sent, three thousand P-700 missiles were being trained on the fleet, readying themselves to fire at a moments notice.

In space, the Otagian attack had done far less damage than the enemy would have hoped. The Griffincrest space program was one of the most important parts of the Corporations military might, and they invested accordingly. Billions were sunk yearly to prepare their satellites for just such a threat, and now was their time to shine. tens of thousands of brilliant pebbles were hurled towards the enemy missiles as they tore through the atmosphere, crashing into them and destroying them before they could do any real damage. Still, a handful of satellites were lost.

The Corporation was now about to go on the orbital offensive. The space stations, satellites, and any other orbital assets would soon come under both railgun and missile fire as hundreds of Soyuz's, satelites, and solar sailors moved in to engage the countless satellites of the various nations arrayed against them.

ooc: check tg

responded

ooc: didn't allanea say no ft?

OOC: And I see FT, where? IC response forthcoming.

There were now very few remote-controlled bombers left in the Allanean air force (though the Air Force was hastily working to convert some of the giant fleet of regular bombers to remote-controlled flight). But a few dozen aircraft still remained, and Allanea's first operation hinged on these few craft.

Mike Hutchinson was assigned a new craft – but this time, his mission was a whole lot different. This time, the slick, black stealth bombers would fly high, out of the range of most AA. As they approached the enemy shores, they distributed several tons of chaff, making sure that on enemy RADAR, giant signatures would appear – far from where the aged aircraft actually were.

They approached Paradise City from dozens of different directions and began to dive rapidly. As they came in, they transmitted hundreds of photographs each to Allanea. Later, these photographs would be looked over as the Allaneans sought evidence of the enemy defenses – and especially for locations of the Paradise City Defense Fleet. By the time the planes were within 20 miles of the city, they were already at low altitude, approaching the city harbor at almost sea-skimming altitude.

And then they fired. Their loadout was now of Harpoon missiles – relatively cheap compared to Khans or even P-700 missiles, but they'd do the work, and they were comparatively light – every aircraft carried about 17 of them. As such, between the 70 Sariels and 20 ancient Lancaster-B UCAVs, 1,530 missiles streaked out towards the harbor.

In practice, every type of ship would be attacked – not just whatever military ships were in harbor, but cargo vessels, tugs, and especially oil tanker. The Allanean logic was simply – a nonmilitary vessel was not likely to have CIWS, and if a tanker was hit, the burning oil would screw stuff up for the harbormaster really well – and more importantly, sinking even a hundred ship in harbor would make it unnavigable for years – and that's not even talking about the costs of the ships and their cargo.

Most importantly for the Allaneans, they needed to be certain as to where the Paradise City Defense Fleet was before they closed in on the Blackhelmians. This was a reconnaissance mission first and sabotage second.

In the meanwhile, Marshal Abdullah Hassan Al-Ghazi was typing his message to Lucius Blackhelm – copied, of course, to the CEO of Griffincrest corporation.

Dear Sir!

Actually, scratch that. You're a worthless pile of shit stacked six feet tall. Anyhow, on the off-chance you haven't noticed, there are at least six national navies steaming your way, and I understand that there's going to be a seventh one on its way soon. This is not so much due to your latest actions, but due to the stuff you did earlier – specifically, the fact that you allowed Griffincrest Corporation to continue its depredations, endorsed and allied with the nations of the Corporate Alliance, and variously maintained the policies of international idiocy.

Considering that you Blackhelmians cannot appreciate subtlety, let me restate this: You've been a bunch of cosmic-scale idiots, and now Allanea is slightly annoyed – by which I mean I have clearance from Congress to do whatever I want to you. Infrastructure strikes. Depopulation strikes. Whatever the hell I need to do to end the threat you pose to the right of the Allanean soccer mom to drive her car to the nearest Cute Bunny Burger, I can do it.

I will not have any qualms exterminating your entire government structure and all of Griffincrest Corporation, starting from the highest executives and working my way down to janitors and dogcatchers. I certainly have enough ammo.

However, I do not only work for Congress. My direct boss is Alexander Kazansky, and he is very kind and merciful. I promise you that if you file an unconditional surrender, we will be very amenable to you, and in fact will even allow you to live, despite the fact you're a completely worthless stack of subhuman shit – but I digress. Basically – surrendering is a good idea.

We're nice people like that.

Sincerely yours,
Marshal Abdulllah Hassan Al-Ghazi.

Aboard H.D.S. Rumgar the Terror

Commander Lewis looked over the railing of the flying bridge at the fleet they had just linked up with. He marveled at the size of the fleet assembled. Not since the fall of Xeraph had such a fleet been assembled. Lewis was interrupted by Admrial Zanatos who was just coming out to the open air bridge.

"Commander, intelligence has just come in that the attack has already started. Otagia has launched a missile attack and so has Allanea."

"And what was the damage?"

"Unknown at this time. I have dispatched some R-12 Hypersonic recon drones to check. The Bastards have taken out most of the orbital assets above them so now we will use drones."

"What will be our opening attack Sir?"

"The R-12s will be looking for targets as they asses the damage already done. Then the Airfoce will launch 500 Hortan B-1200 to launch a missile strike on their infrastructure. They will keep launching attacks until we get there."

Their conversation was interrupted by the sonic booms of a fleet of heavy bombers flying over at mach 1.5.

LATER

The 500 bombers came with in 400 miles of the Blackhelm coast. At that point 400 of them dropped to subsonic speed and each of them launched 12 cruise missiles each. These missiles would target oil refineries, bridges and military airfields. The 100 bombers that kept at high speed launched 6 large high speed missiles. Each of these missiles were armed with EMP warheads their targets were air defense radars, communication centers, and the air bases the cruise missiles have targeted.

"Sir, Lucius Blackhelm wants to know our intentions."

Strickland chuckled. "Our intentions? Our intentions are to invade the Confederacy....IF they fire on us."

"That's a distinct possibility, sir. Otagia, Tarlag, and Allanea have commenced hostilities against the infrastructure of the BC/GC homeland. Missiles and bombers. A shit-pile of 'em. Sir."

Strickland studied the reports. "A shit-pile indeed. All is at the ready, Commander?"

"Yessir." He paused a few seconds. "Sir! Dense fog to the northwest of the BC landmass!"

The Prince smiled. "About damn time. Signal Dinofrio as to the situation."

"Aye sir."

The Vampires were here.....................

OOC: And I see FT, where? IC response forthcoming.

ooc: as i remember, railguns are still not possible, but i see what you mean. it's more pmt then.

As the Allanean attack commenced, the 321st Bomber Group massed for their own assault. Each B-92 carried four tomahawk cruise missiles on it's external hardpoints, as well as air-to-air missiles to fend off fighters. Holding back a few miles, more than fifty F-43 Sleipnir's prepared to defend them. Each bomber fired a cruise missile. These were modified, however, to send out radar images equal to that of the bomber they had been launched from. The missiles went on different courses than the bombing group, a hopeful deterrent. Their internal bays opened, revealing rows of bombs and conventional cruise missiles. Following the Allanean and Tarlag methodology, the bombers loosed cruise missiles at strategic centers of the Confederacy.

Warlord Ptah stood silently on the bridge of the battleship Winged Death. This was his first assignment as Warlord. The successful conclusion of the revolt in Moraz had earned him the right to command.

Prince Teii had summoned him to his throneroom, which was actually nothing more than a huge, cavernous hole deep within the Hel Mountains. As Ptah strode through the labrynthine halls, he became aware of a faint glow at the end of a passage. The Prince's throneroom. Over all the ages of it's existence, few had been given the privilege of entering there.

As he had expected, the room was littered with the remains of hundreds of humans. Skulls and other bones were strewn across the floor like so much garbage. Off to the right, another unlucky human lay strapped to a filthy, blood-stained wooden table, still alive.

Vampires, contrary to popular belief, needed to feed just once every five or six weeks, less if in stasis. Which meant that the selected human lived for a very long time as it's limbs and organs were harvested for consumption. The one currently on the table still had both legs and most of it's facial features. Both arms, however, were gone, torn from it's body. Curiously enough, there was no blood to be seen, nor was the human in any apparent pain.

The Prince stared at Ptah, pronounced his elevation to Warlord, then bade him leave. Ptah bowed, and proceeded to his new assignment: Warlord of the 6th, 7th, 23rd, and 61st Vhammpyric Legions.

The Legions of Vhammpyr consisted of 150,000 Warriors. They all carried the standard Imperial sidearms, but aside from that, their weaponry was of each individual's choosing. Many carried autorifles, swords of various descriptions, warhammers, battle-axes, and flamethrowers.

Ptah had led the attack on the rebel stronghold in the mountain citadel of Moraz, long an enemy of the vampires. Teii had never paid them much mind over the centuries. But when the rebels had detonated a 5-meg nuclear bomb in Port Kosa....well, enough was enough.

It was all over in less than 72 hours. All of the rebels were dead, the leaders branded as food for future consumption. Before they were led away, the rebel leaders were treated to their punishment. Their eyelids were cut away so that they would be forced to see their wives and children being skinned alive and eaten by the victorious Warriors. A few of the rebels went mad listening to the screams of their kin and the tearing of their flesh by the vampires razor-sharp talons. As the bones were cracked open for the marrow, the Warriors chomped and slurped their grisly reward.....

And now, here he was, Warlord of the largest Vhammpyrrian fleet since the Kothite Extermination. His orders were to sail to the Blackhelm Confederacy, shell the costlines for 36 hours, then disembark the 300,000 Warriors who would not stop until either they or the enemy were obliterated. Ptah had reserved for himself the pleasure of eating the one named Lucius. He was sure that his losses would be high, but it was very difficult to stop a Vhammpyric Warrior.

You see, you can't kill a being that was already dead.........

The enemy bombers would never make it past the Confederacy's vaunted seven layer defensive shield. As the huge wave of bombers began entering into the area of the AAD-1 anti-aircraft balloons, signals were sent back to their relay bases on the ground. Hundreds of bombers were en route to the Confederacy, but within minutes, they would be no more than new homes for the various fish species of the ocean around the Blackhelm Confederacy.

From over a hundred and fifty miles, the over three hundred of the AAD-1's let loose a pair of their AIM-57 Super Phoenix missiles. Six hundred missiles were soon to be screaming for the Allanean aircraft, the first ones detected.

Soon, even more bombers were detected. Now, the same three hundred AAD-1's would loose the four remaining Super Phoenix's, and wait for the aircraft to close in. There were still thousands of other balloons in the area, so even if by some chance these missiles did not do the trick, hundreds more would soon be taking their place.

An aerial assault upon the Confederacy was a poor choice.

IFS Ironhammer SD, 750NM from the Blackhelm Confederacy, 1345 GST

Admiral Viscount Sir Henry Luis Guzman was at the helm of the largest assemblage of Findanian naval power in the seventy-five years since the Great Tribulation War in which Findan and its allies had destroyed their old enemy the Krakitic Empire. Findan was the only nation who fought in that war to survive all twelve years of war.

He was the first person to command a Grand Fleet since his Great Grandfather formally relinquished command of the 1st Grand Fleet at the end of the Tribulation war.

He grimaced as he reviewed the intelligence report on the Otagian attack on Blackhem/Griffencrest, as if there is any difference between the two he thought, space installations. While they did have a few small successes, according to Space Command back at the Imperial Military Command Center (IMCC) outside of Granton, the attack was not as sucessful as hoped in the words of a Major Issac Myers, and endorsed my Major General Count Sir Antonio Romeo Sforza. He had another interesting report on his desk from a Major (brevet) Wechsler also of Space Command interestingly enough it was not endorsed by Major Myers or General Sforza, but by General Jonathan Stoddard the head of the Office of Strategic Services.

According to Wechsler, Otagia and apparently Space Command had severely underestimated Blackhelm/Girffencrest space capabilities. Now he knew why his superiors had not endorsed his report. Poor bastard he thought, the kid has just killed his career in Imperial Air Force Intelligence despite his brevetted promotion to major. At least Jon Stoddard had put aside politics to out the report through proper channels. The Imperial Navy, just like every military branch in the world did have internal politics, but the Imperial Air Force had a reputation for having some strange politics.

"Sir," a voice called distracting Guzman, "Sir, we have an incoming flight from the IMCC"

"Yes, Charley?" he asked his aide, Lieutenant, Senior Grade Charley Hughes

"It is a Major, um Wechsler, sir"

"Interesting, very interesting."

"Sir?"

"I just read one of his reports. It seems Space Command underestimated Blackhelmian space defenses. And his superiors did not like his report or at least this Major, um Meyers did not."

"No wonder they are sending him here. Permission to speak freely, sir?"

"Go ahead, Charley"

"My sister is married to Major Meyers' brother. I've met the man, his subordinates carry and he knows it and he doesn't like it."

"I see Air Force politics always seem to confuse me. We if this Wechsler is as good as he seems I'll see if I can get him assigned to me on TDY, so I can become his efficiency report officer. I outa think that would protect his career."

"Sir," came a voice from his com. It was his intelligence officer Lt. Commander Sheila Hopkins

"Yes Shelia?" he asked.

"Sir, it appears that the Allaneans have launched a bomber raid on Blackhelm and they are encountering AA resistance."

"Thanks for telling me, Shelia," he turned off his com, "Charley I think a good ole' Tomahawk attack will do wonders for the Helmies defenses don't you?"

"Oh yes, sir. I'll prepare the order. How many do you want?"

"I'd say a thousand should suffice."

Not less than fifteen minutes after Admiral Guzman ordered the attack. 1000 BGM-109 Tomahawk Land Attack Missiles were launched from the Grand Fleet's ships at the Blackhelmian air defense and radar stations over the area where the Allanean Air Force was conducting its raid.

Guzman devoutly hoped that his attack would aide the Allaneans.

The elderly Allanean UCAVs have reached the end of their rope. Of the approximately 120 aircraft the Allaneans had, all but ten were blown up before they reached harbor, and of those, only three had the chance to launch their missiles – and then, of course, they were taken down too.

So did the Allanean Remote Control Bombing Corps come to an untimely end in the Blackhelmian skies. But their purpose had been served already.

For the Allaneans were now aware of the locations of some of the Allanean ships. And so, from 20 of the Aviso cruisers – traveling on the foremost edge of the formation, along with a large part of the fleet's anti-missile warfare cruisers – 200 Khan missiles went up, fired at a 7,500 kilometer range.

The giant missiles would ascend, entering high orbit long before they passed the sea wall. Then they would descend, aimed at Farbanti carriers, Greyhammer and Fitzgerald.

The Findanese attack was repulsed with minimal casualties. The Tomahawks woul;d have to run the gauntlet of 7 anti-missile layers before they could hit targets on shore, but still, a RADAR station and SA-6 battery, along with a pair of SA-2 launchers on the shore were lost.

Meanwhile, the Confederate generals were preparing to loose their secret weapons. Ten thousand Confederate Wooden Rockets were about to be deployed at the Findanese fleet. These would, of course, not all make it. When that volley was lost, another ten thusand would go up. Then another. Then another. It would continue until one side was out of ammunition, and chances are, it was going to be the Findanese.

Meanwhile, the Allanean Khan's struck home. Anti-missile fire was going crazy as missiles and bullets tore into the sky, and brilliant pebbles were launched at the missiles as they left orbit. Still, however, the Greyhammer was hit twice, and began going down quickly. Many lives were lost aboard the ship. Meanwhile, the Fitzgerald began pumping out water and putting out fires. Both Confederate carriers would be out of comission, at least for this battle.

The giant front of the Allanean fleet turned slowly and only slightly, the fleet heading for a point about 500 kilometers south of Redemption. However, the changes in heading were only slight, and given the enormous distance, could easily change.

The enemy bombers would never make it past the Confederacy's vaunted seven layer defensive shield. As the huge wave of bombers began entering into the area of the AAD-1 anti-aircraft balloons, signals were sent back to their relay bases on the ground. Hundreds of bombers were en route to the Confederacy, but within minutes, they would be no more than new homes for the various fish species of the ocean around the Blackhelm Confederacy.

From over a hundred and fifty miles, the over three hundred of the AAD-1's let loose a pair of their AIM-57 Super Phoenix missiles. Six hundred missiles were soon to be screaming for the Allanean aircraft, the first ones detected.

Soon, even more bombers were detected. Now, the same three hundred AAD-1's would loose the four remaining Super Phoenix's, and wait for the aircraft to close in. There were still thousands of other balloons in the area, so even if by some chance these missiles did not do the trick, hundreds more would soon be taking their place.

An aerial assault upon the Confederacy was a poor choice.

The first of the B-92s detected the missile launch. Still out of range, the bombers let their decoys take the brunt of the assault as they turned back to base. With such defense systems, it was suicide to try and penetrate inland. Before the bombing campaign could commence, a comprehensive attack against these balloons would have to be made.

ooc: outta curiosity, why do people on NS use dirigibles/balloons?

http://www.martinfrost.ws/htmlfiles/fatah_logo.jpg

In the Name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful.

Mr. Lucius Griffincrest!

We see that in your glorious struggle with the Allanean capitalist infidel you have deployed an array of wooden missiles against their Findanian pig-dog assistants. We in the Glorious People's Republic doubt very much that this is a good choice. Wooden missiles will be lacking in structural integrity, and have no advantages over a steel missile of the same size. As a matter of fact, unless your engineers are trully blessed by Allah, we suspect that you should keep your missiles subsonic, or they'll have a tendency to break up in mid-air, or set themselves on fire due to the friction and temperatures involved.

However, we do support your struggle against the evil Allaneans and their Findanese pig-dogs. As such, we would like to send over some engineers to teach you some of the trade secrets of the People's Glorious Republic of Fatahland. We suspect that an updated version of the famous Kafah and Qassam rockets would surely aid you in your battles.

Further, should you wish to receive the aid of the Glorious People's Republic of Fatahland, we will also send you volunteers from the Glorious People's Militia, who will assit in the battle against these terrible foes.

Remaining the supporter of your valiant struggle against the Allanean imperialist,
Colonel Hodji Al-Reddin of the Glorious People's Army of Fatahland.

OOC: I'm waiting for BC's response to Vhammpyr's TG

OOC: I never got a TG from him...

IC:

All of the CWR's were focused on the Findanese frigates. No anti-air or anti-missile system in the world could keep ten thousand missiles away from less than six hundred frigates. Even with the rest of the fleet opening up, the sheer number of rockets would soon over power the Findanese defenses. And once those frigates were out...well then there were bigger fish to fry.

In orbit, the offensive was ongoing. IT would not be long now before the entire enemy coalition was effectively blinded.

IFS Ironhammer SD, 750 NM for Blackhelm Confederacy, 1400 GST

Admiral Viscount Sir Henry Luis Guzman stood in the CIC of the Ironhammer. The results of his missile attack were not as good as they hoped. Though some damage was done. Any bit of damage was good. Major Samuel Houston Wechsler was being of great help to him. Wechsler was able to digest various bits of intelligence and quickly come up with a good analysis. If he was able to avoid the internal politics of the Imperial Air Force he would go far, Guzman thought.

"Vampire, vampire, we have multiple inbound targets. ETA 15 minutes and closing fast."

Captain Jackson Peterson, the Ironhammer's skipper spoke into the intercom, "General quarters, general quarters this is no drill this is no drill. We have inbound vampires."


Many of the wooden rockets did not make it into radar range. Their design failed them. But many did make into the range of the Findanian ships.

IFS Barracuda

Skip Morganthau also got his crews to general quarters. "Fire the SRBOC's!" he ordered.

As soon as the missiles were within 5NM the Phalank crews began to fire too. Many missiles were brought down but it was not enough the Navy took losses.

The first causalities were a three man crew of a SH-60 Seahawk that just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. In an instant it blew up with a shred remaining.
IFS Cyclone Patrol Boat

Lieutenant Senior Grade Jack Baghurst hardly had time to begin maneuvering his boat before three missiles struck his boat obliterating completely, killing all the sailors aboard.

Five other patrol boats went down will all hands. Three of the Coast Guard Cutters also were sunk. Though one manged to get its MI-24 Hind helicopter off before it was struck my two missiles.


IFS Barracuda

Just as Skip Morganthau thought he and Barracuda lucked out a single rocket struck the CIC. The last thing he remembered seeing was Tanisha Jackson, his XO dead.

When he awoke several hours later in the Barracuda's sick bay he found out he was the only survivor from the CIC. He had lost 10 officers including Tanisha Jackson and 112 enlisted men, with 13 missing and 83 injured. 11 of them in critical condition. The Barracuda had already begun the slow journey to Allanea and a dry dock facility, but for her the war was over.

Skip was lucky. He had only minor wounds. He had a couple of gashes in his right leg and another on his left arm, plus a minor concussion.


IFS Sea Devil SSGN

Commander Henry Johnston had his orders. He and 30 other SSGN's were to launch an attack on the Blackhelmian missile silos which had been used in the attack against Imperial Findanian Naval Sources. The crews of the submarines were eager for vengeance for their fallen comrades.

"Preparing firing sequenced, launch in ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one... missiles away, thirty seconds until next volley, repeat thirty seconds until next volley."

Twenty SSGN's each launched 100 tomahawks at the Blackhelmian wooden rocket launch sites. Three thousand missiles were in route.

While fifteen seconds earlier. Elements of the surface fleet had launched two thousand tomahawks at some of the anti-missile sites in the sea wall.


It had been a long afternoon for the 1st Grand Fleet. Eight ships were sunk. The Barracuda was so badly damaged that it was unclear if it would be used again. Two frigates were slightly damaged and three more lost with all hands, but not enough to warrant immediate return to a port with dry dock facilities. A destroyer was also departing with Barracuda to go back to Allanea and a dry dock facility for repair.


In this attack 1215 Findanian lives had been lost. And more were sure to die before this war ended.

“Alpha Squadron, this is Theta, you are clear to pass over route Seven, over.”

The airspace over the Allanean battlegroups was a veritable soup, as recon drones, ASW helicopters and CAP fighters held a constant defensive envelope around their respective ships. Yet still, the air traffic control detachments plotted a path for strategic bombers to get over the warships – by traveling far, far above it, at an altitude of 10 kilometers

“Okay guys. We already lost forty more satellites, so we need this to be done as quickly as possible. Don't screw it up.” Indeed, that was true – 20 “Thor” godrod satellites, and a pile of other sats was lost to Blackhelmian money. The satellites would cost dozens of billions to replace – and for every moment the war went on, more would be lost.

And so, they needed to hurry. Far overhead, a terrible force passed – 100 BA-10-4B Arbiters, 100 GLI-133 Ank'riats, and 1,000 of the awesome B-22 Zeus.

As they entered a range of about 2,500 kilometers from the enemy, they fired their first weapons – thousand upon thousands of decoy missiles (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ADM-160_MALD). Each of the bombers carried 4.5 tons of decoys – or literally, a hundred missiles, each programmed to look like a strategic bomber on RADAR.

For several minutes, the Blackhelmian RADAR would show a deranged vision – a fleet of thousands upoon thousands of strategic bombers advancing upon the Confederacy. Thousands of reasons to launch theater-defense missiles. Thousands of reasons to fear.

And thousands for distraction from the real show.

For every one of the superheavy Allanean bombers carried 100 missiles – the cheap, outdated, and seemingly useless Tomahawk missile, modified for air-launch.

Which meant sixty-nine billion dollars' worth of missiles. Or, conversely, 120,000 missiles, launched at the famous Sea Wall.

They were not divided evenly. 100,000 of the missiles were aimed at RADAR dishes, CIWS and SAM missile installations on the wall. 20,000 were aimed at the various cannon turrets.

This would not be a good day to be a crewman on the Wall.

Several launch sites were destroyed by the Findanese missile strike. Enough to knock the second volley down to only 8,000 missiles. This, however, was not a serious set back, as all that was needed to fire these missiles was a runway. The second wave was soon launched, this one targetting only the frigates once again. It would be accompanied, however, by a massive flood of an additional three thousand Kh-101 missiles. Any enemy that was daring enough to come within range of the Confederacy's missile silo's should be prepared for serious missile spam.

The attack on the sea wall would take out ten S-500 locations, but striking at these targets was a foolish move. The forewall of the sea wall was deliberatly constructed to withstand against a massive missile spam, and the AAD-1 gauntlet could not have made the job of the Tomahawks any easier.

General Marcus Blueshield paced back and forth in his war room within the Chancellery. Chancellor Blackhelm stood beside him, as did a number of other high ranking staff.

"We need to destroy the Findanese fleet outright if we want to get the message across. I suggest we let of a Khan barrage off, targetting their Ticonderoga's. Grant it, this is overkill for a Ticonderoga, but we need to leapfrog over the fleet, and attempt to shut down their Tomahawk spams."

The rest of the staff agreed. The Ticonderoga's had to go. Within minutes of the decision, seven hundred Khan class missiles were flying towards space. They would soon be screaming through the atmosphere, seeking the decks of the Findanese vessels.

3:57 PM
TO: Marshal Abdullah Hassan Al-Ghazi, Allanea
FROM: Koloman Hosviy, Dux Populi, Rotum Solum

Rotumian hearts saddened to learn of plight. Would like to help in pursuit of global peace. Rotum Solum is landlocked country with no navy. Have been working on advanced missile system "Tortoise Fist" however. If works as designed will be able to destroy largest enemy ships before they even see you. If you desire to implement will require three aircraft carriers on which to install system. If you agree will send missile system components and Defense Bureau personnel to install. Await reply.

Koloman Hosviy
Dux Populi, Rotum Solum

OOC: The rushed grammar is an IC thing, by the way. If you want me to stop I will.

Aboard H.D.S. Rumgar the Terror

"Sir, they are attacking everyone's Sats. As of right now we only have Sat 345 and our recon drones gathering intel."
The Admiral looked over the holo-table for a moment and the gave an order.
We have the Billings armed with sat killers so lets us them. Order her to fire on everything in range that is Blackhelm. Also lets get those Air force bastards into this. Have them launch a wave of the new Horton 2000 Hypersonic bombers. They operate above 75,000 feet and if they are out fitted with anti- sat missiles then that should get rid of the Blackhelms in orbit."

With the commands given the Cruiser Billings launches 40 Lancer 7 anti-sat. missiles.

From Guther Field in Tarlag 144 H-2000 Bombers rise up into the air with their payload of 12 Anti-Sat. missiles each. When the bombers enter their range of about 200 miles off the Blackhelm coast they release their deadly cargo on the Blackhelm orbital assets.

The Allanean attack, however, was a totally different story. Hundreds of thousands of munitions began popping up all over the RADAR screens. The AAD-1 balloons began desperately firing their weapons, but it was only a dent in the massive tidal wave of weaponry that was about to crash into the sea wall. The CIWS, AAA, and other systems all put up a desperate fight as they struggled to survive against the disgusting display of Allanean firepower. Within minutes, however, it was over. The massive, powerful sea wall was now a smouldering wreck. Huge pieces of the wall were completely blown away, and the forewall virtually ceased to exist.

Two could play at that game, however. Roughly six hundred Tu-160 Blackjack's began to rocket down the runways around Sacrament, the Confederacy's most important airbase. Each held six Kh-55 missiles. Of course, this was nowhere near the size of the Allanean spam, but hopefully it would get the point across. These missiles would be launched at the mass of Allanean frigates providing the primary AA and AM defense to the fleet.

They, however, were merely a distraction. The loss of pride associated with the battering of the sea wall was not to be taken lightly. Nine hundred Khan missiles were going to be launched at each Longsword class warships. The combination of missiles from both above and the front would surely be enough to overwhelm the Allanean defenses and get through to the vessels.

The KH-55s were an utterly pathethic form of attack, and the Allaneans dealt with them quite easily. Every single Allanean anti-missile frigate fired up its own arrays of long-range counter-missiles, and each of them was able to pump out deranged 120-missile salvos. This meant they could easily deal with the 480 enemy missiles. Whatever survived the initial salvos was simply chopped to bits by Allanean missiles.

But the Khan attack was far, far more successful. Though many of the expensive missiles were shot down, the Longswords were struck multiple times. Test Subject 11-X received hits to the main reactor, and within minutes, hundreds of crewmen were dead. Others were subjected to a terrible death in the boiling, irradiated water as the ship went down, rocked by explosions of the thousands of tons of missile fuel and explosives aboard.

DREAD had done a good job making a lot of the ship's functions automatic, and it had been functioning on a reduced crew – but regardless, 1,900 lives were lost aboard the Test Subject 11-X

Strangely, Test Subject 13-C was luckier. It was hit multiple times, of course, and of course, it went down – but the attacks were not as spectacular. The reactor was shut down, and the captain pushed all the necessary buttons to fire the onboard missiles into the sea. None of them had range enough to reach a target, except for some Khans – but there was no time to actually aim them. It was not likely a single Blackhelmian would die in the launch, unless he somehow deliberately jumped on the missile.

But the Test Subject 13-C was still sinking. The casualties there were only in the low dozens, but the Allaneans had to leave the ship quickly or they would all go down with it. And so, evacuation began.

* * *
Ten hours later

The Allaneans continued plodding towards the southern parts of the Confederacy. With every hour, the enemy got about one hundred and fifty furlongs closer to the Allaneans. And at dawn, the Allaneans saw several black dots appear overhead. These were the Allanean bombers, and they were coming back for another go – but now there were fewer.

These were the Arbiter bombers, and they were now fewer in number – only 18 bombers were needed for this mission. They were still not armed to their full tonnage. Each of them carried 200 decoys and 50 missiles – this time, the stealthier and more expensive AGM-86 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AGM-86_ALCM)

They broke up into small groups as the Blackhelmian seas approached, and rose. Eventually, each went its own separate way – and that was long before they were anywhere near Blackhelmian waters.

They launched their missiles at precisely 2,000 kilometers – or, for Allaneans, 10,000 furlongs – from the enemy.

Each of them had his target picked out – an enemy aircraft carrier.

Again, the enemy RADAR would light up as thousands of decoys flared on their screens – even as the actual enemy bombers were actually stealth craft, and were difficult to find on RADAR in the first plce.

And then, the missiles came – 50 per enemy carrier.

Yesterday was a bad day for a crewman on the Blackhelmian wall.

Today it would be a bad day to be a carrier crewman.

The Allanean attack would not be as successful as their strike on the sea wall. Still, however, three of the Griffincrest carriers were destroyed, a significant portion when there were only sixteen around. These attacks needed to stop. Griffincrest, still maintaining several airbases belonging to its privateers, ordered up its F-4's to intercept the bombers and their refueling aircraft en route to the Confederacy. To assist in the protection of the nation, Su-30's began flying out to 2,000 kilometers, the last recorded launch point of Allanean munition, and started looking out for any more incoming bombers.

For now, however, the Confederacy would wait.

The Allaneans were disappointed by the limited success of their attacks. They did not know that the Griffincrest corporation planned another attack, and therefore did not carry out another pre-emptive strike on the privateers and their islands. Instead, they repeated their strike – but now, with a far greater complement of bombers. This time around, 50 bombers were sent out

The proud Arbiters (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=9939710&postcount=2) pushed on at the majestic altitude of 27.5 kilometers, where few fighter aircraft could reach – and certainly few of the Blackhelmian aircraft would equipped with their Middleman drones – and a full payload of 100 modified Tomahawk missiles and 100 decoy drones each. Where subtlety didn't help, they hoped sheer firepower would. The Tomahawks were expensive, of course, but they were a hell of a lot cheaper, for this operation, than the stealthy cruise missiles were.

And so they launched their missiles again – from a range of 2,400 kilometers, this time.

Although the bombers were too high to be reached, the aircraft they relied upon to be refueled were not. F-4's from the privateer bases had a field day as they picked off the lumbering aircraft, but it was not enough.

Thousands of missiles smashed into the Griffincrest carriers, destroying the vast majority of them. Of the thirteen left (which was seen as a bad omen to begin with) only two survived, and only one of them had escaped injury.

In an effort to halt these bombing runs, the Sukhoi's were recalled, and in there place came the MiG-31 Foxhound's. These were all equipped with ALMV/ASAT Anti-Satellite missiles. Of course, they would not be firing at satellites, but bombers. The effects, however, would be the same.

OOC: Allanea, did you see this? http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=14019758&postcount=7

End Fourth Day of Combat

Indeed, the Allaneans now had a problem – they had lost ten refuelers, and the risk was now increasing to any aircraft that would travel to Blackhelm. And yet, they had covered a large part of the distance from Griffincrest.

And still, two enemy carriers remained alive.

That had to be dealt with. From the light avisos scouting ahead of the fleet, 20 Khans were launched. 15 of them were targeted at the undamaged carrier, and the others at the one that was damaged.

Encoded Message to the Gun Manufacturers

We will happily accept any aid you might provide.

The ASoGM satellites were close, by the time the word from the Allaneans was received. The satellites began taking wide angle shots of the battlezone from their main and side looking cameras, and ASoGM Intelligence analysts began forwarding them to the Allaneans through secure communications as fast as possible. Also being collected and forwarded were radar parametrics and their locations for the Blackhelmian and Griffincrest assets, including those of the AAD-1 anti-aircraft balloons. Griffincrest and Blackhelmian satellites were mapped, and that data was encrypted and forwarded as well.

Secret IC:

*Encrypted Fax*

TO: Allanean Military planners
FROM: ASoGM Intelligence Agency
RE: Satellite Intel

We are forwarding all the information we have collected thus far, and will continue to collect data for as long as we can. Feel free to share this intel with your allies already in the theater, but we must ask that you not divulge where you received this information, The less people that know we are helping, the longer we can help without our satellites being targeted.

OOC: Since IC events have moved very fast since I was last able to rp, here is the order in which I'll respond to different events
1. The wooden rocket attacks along with the Khan missiles.
2. A response to both
3. A naval aviation attack on the Blackhelmian bombers as they return after the attack on the Allanean fleet.
4. A Bomber attack of my own

IC: 1st Grand Fleet 763NM from the Blackhelm Confederacy

Since the first Blackhelmian attack, the 1st Grand Fleet had moving steadily away from the Blackhelmian coast, in order to reduce the destructiveness of an second attack on the fleet. It came as no surprise that a second Blackhelmian attack followed the first. This time they were ready as the shouts of "Vampire, Vampire" rang out in all of the CICs in the fleet.

Fewer wooden rockets made to the fleet this time do to both the extended distance and the preparedness of of the Phalanx CIWS crews. One frigate the, Cormorant was hit killing 110 sailors and 4 officers, wounding 1 officer and 72 enlisted men. A second frigate, the Albatrosswas hit but only 73 men and 8 officers were killed with 3 more officers and 34 enlisted men wounded. Two more patrol boats were sunk taking all 28 men and officers with them. 251 sailors were killed in the attack. What was to follow was even worse.


IFS Swiftsure CG 765NM from the Blackhelm Confederacy
Commander Nicholas Kimmel was glad to have survived the two Blackhelmian attacks on the Grand Fleet, and was even more glad to get out of the range of the Confederacy's shore based anti-ship missiles. Despite the losses the Imperial Navy had taken Kimmel was confident that victory would come for the allies at the end of the day. He hoped he would get back to Findan soon, so he could see his daughter, a First Year at the Imperial Naval Academy, come home for Fall Fest. His train of thought was interrupted when his radarman spoke, "Vampire, Vampire, we have multiple contacts inbound bearing two-niner-four, repeat multiple contacts inbound, bearing two-niner-four."
"Prepare to engage CIWS!"

IFS Ironhammer
The call of "Vampire, Vampire" also came on the Ironhammer.
"Sir," said tactical officer Commander DeSean Jenkins, "We have a problem. These missiles are not the wooden rockets we've been dealing with. They appear to be Khans."
"Khans?" Admiral Viscount Sir Henry Luis Guzman asked rhetorically.

Knowing his Admiral as well as any career sailor should Jenkins simply gave a brisk nod.
"Sh*t," Guzman snarled, to his communications officer he said, "To all ships in the fleet loose order, repeat loose order. Tell 'em to fire as many Tomahawks as they can at the Khan silos!"

"Sir!" said Fleet Communications Officer Lt.Commander Barry Nussbaum as he ran to his post to send the Admiral's order to the fleet.

The ECW and Phalanx crews did the best they could under the circumstances destroying many of the Khans, but too many bit.

Explosions rang out all over the Grand Fleet. In some ways the Ironhammer was lucky no missiles had locked on to it, but in the CIC Admiral Guzman felt pain as many of his boats were sunk. He saw his men and women die all around him. And they kept dying despite the best efforts of the CIWS crews.

IFS Swiftsure

Commander Kimmel was lucky so far his CIWS crews had manged to destroy two Khans so far, but he had already seen eight of his fellow cruisers sunk with all hands. And in the panic the frigate Sea Serpent had crashed into the cruiser Intractable causing both of them to capsize, but it looked like at least a total of 150 men and officer from both boats had gotten off, but his best friend who had commanded the Intractable had chosen to go down with his ship.

"Oh Shi-" was all his XO had time for before a Khan made a direct hit on the bridge of the Swiftsure making the cruiser no more. Commander Nicholas Kimmel of Somego would never see his daughter at Fall Fest, or anyone again.

That day would go down in infamy as one of the worst tragedies in the Imperial Findanian Navy's history. Only the Krakitic raid on the Clason Islands Fleet seventy one years ago, the attack which had started the Great Tribulation War, ranked worse.

1 superdreadnaught, 1 battleship, 1 carrier, 199 cruisers, 115 destroyers, 201 frigates, 300 patrol boats, 12 coast guard cutters, 1 hospital ship, 5 amphibious assault ships with a total of 8000 Imperial Marines, 27 oilers, and 3 helicopter carriers had gone down with all hands.

18 crusiers, 12 destroyers, and six frigates were permanently damaged. And nearly a dozen other ships were damaged to one degree or another. Tens of thousands of men and women were dead. But unlike what the higher-ups in the Blackhelm Confederacy thought, the men and women of the 1st Grand Fleet of the Imperial Navy were not discouraged, no they were not. They now had more determination to come out and win this war and "...Light Blackhelm up like 9th of July and put the boot up his a$$ because that's the Findanian way..."
Yet the Findanians had managed to launch 6000 tomahawks all aimed towards the Confederate Wooden Rocket batteries and several Blackhelmian anti-missile sites.
As the fourth day of the war dawned they would get their chance.

OOC: I'm waiting for BC's response to Vhammpyr's TG


ooc: sorry, my mistake. Vamps response is in the OOC thread.

Despite the devastating losses inflicted on the Grand Fleet there was some good news, as someone had once remarked during the great struggle that was the Great Tribulation War, "The night is often darkest before dawn." Allanea had destroyed the Black

As word of this tragedy spread across Findan and the world, Findanians took that old maxim to heart and put all their hearts and determination in defeating the Blackhelm Confederacy the same heart and determination they had during the decade long Great Tribulation War over Sixty years ago.

Naval Intelligence, Imperial Military Command Center, Nieburg, Findan

"This is interesting, sir, I've got something on one of our remaining KH-11's," said Master Chief Ben Palmer

"What is Ben?" asked Vice Admiral Dontrell Jenkins

"Sir, it appears the Blackhelmian Air Force is conducting an attack on the Allanean Navy. I think we gotta do something"

Admiral Jenkins tugged at his chin as he thought for a full sixty-seconds, "I got it. I'll give Henry Guzman a call and inform him of the situation. I assume the Blackhelmians are using their standard TU-160's correct?"

"Uh, yes sir, that's what's gone from their base at Sacrament, unless of course they are pulling a fast one on us."

"Unlikely," Vice Admiral Jenkins replied, "They'll be using their best planes for this strike. The Blackjacks are fast but our Lightnings are faster yet. Lieutenant Worthington!"

"Sir," asked the young communications officer.

"Get me a secure line to Admiral Guzman with the Grand Fleet, ASAP!"

"Sir, yes sir!"

"Brilliant plan, sir" said Master Chief Palmer, "How did you come up with it?"

"Ben, your forgetting that I'm an ex-fighter jockey. Flying is second nature to me"

Palmer had forgotten about Admiral Jenkins' F-16. When the F-16's were replaced by the Imperial Navy five years ago, the then Commodore Jenkins, one of the highest decorated pilots in Imperial Navy history managed to snag one for himself and continued to fly regularly, keeping the jet at an airfield outside Granton. While this was officially against the rules, Jenkins was both and Admiral and a highly-decorated one at that, so very few people were in a position to tell him no.




Imperial Findanian Navy Air Task Force Sparrowhawk, approaching the Allanean Fleet, sometime later

3000 F-35's of the Imperial Findanian Navy were fast approaching the bombers which had devastated the Allanean fleet and whose comrades had earlier devastated the Findanian fleet in several missile strikes. Now the men and women of Task Force Sparrowhawk would seek revenge for their fallen comrades. The men and women of the Centurion Squadron who had lost twelve of their comrades to the air pirates would be in the vanguard. And all of the members of Task Force Sparrowhawk would remember their fellows who were in the White Knight Squadron, who had perished when their carrier had been sunk in the latest Blackhelmian.

Flying at Mach 1.3 Task Force was closing in on the Blackhelmian bombers fast.

"Wild Bill," said Kamikaze Nakamura, "I got the b*st*rds on my APG-81, range 22 miles and closing"

"Prepare to fire missiles in three, two,one, fire on will, repeat fire on will."

What happened next was revenge for the Findanian airmen, sailors, and marines who had given the ultimate sacrifice for their Empire in the last two days.

10,000 AIM-120 AMRAAM missiles had been fired at the TU-160's.

OOC: I had a sick post and jolt ate it.

IC:

The Tu-160's had only launched six missiles each for a reason. They had been specially redesigned by Confederate engineers so that they could carry six KS-172's. These missiles were the real deal, with a maximum range of four hundred kilometers and a top speed of Mach 4, the Russians really out did themselves, and were more than happy to supply their friends within the Confederacy with some of these beauties. The pilots were informed of the Findanese flight as soon as the planes left their carriers via satellite footage, and the pilots now had plenty of time. Each bomber prepared to fire, and hopefully disrupt the attack before the enemy AMRAAM's were in range. Soon, three thousand six hundred missiles were screaming for Findanese metal.

Meanwhile, Confederate High Command still did not feel confident enough to engage the Findanese fleet in a naval contest, especially now with their lack of carriers. They did, however, see an opportunity to possibly smack the enemy fleet from their shores once and for all. First, a monstrous wooden rocket barrage, twenty thousand of them, would scream for the weakened fleet. With such a heavy loss of the smaller ships, the defense capabilities of the entire fleet took a shot. This would be followed up by three hundred Su-27's, all loaded up withfour P-800 Onik's and their friendly pair of Vympel R-27 missiles. Backing their strike, one hundred Tu-16's, loaded two Raduga KSR-5 missiles manuevered to blast down the runway. Finally, right behind them, one thousand old, outdated Il-28 bombers, all loaded up with 3,000kgs of torpedoes, and all ready to go. With their air compliment being tied up engaging the Tu-160's, the fleet was pretty much left on its own. This was not going to be a good day to be a Findanese sailor.

The Confederacy was not without injury, however. With the loss of the sea wall, their anti-missile defenses took a serious blow. The wooden rocket barrage would be the last for awhile, as Findanese missiles effectively shut down the majority of them, and those that were left were being used for this recent attack. Not only this, but a large number of other batteries were crushed as well. As each day goes by, the anti-missile defenses of the Confederacy were getting weaker and weaker, and many within the Confederate government were getting antsy, some even began contemplating something that had never before been thought of in the country...surrender.

Though the Allanean Navy was so far still sailing in the general direction of the Confederacy, the Allaneans had a problem – they had the tiny Blackhelmian islands still impeding access to the enemy for their strategic bombers. Something had to be done – and the Allaneans had just the right tool for the job.

Once more, the Arbiter bombers took to the air, swiftly rising to their maximal altitude. They aimed not towards the Confederacy, where no doubt the enemy would be waiting for them, armed now with special weapons with a greater chance of reaching to their altitude. They aimed towards the tiny islands, choosing one each.

As they passed over the F-4 fighters, far beyond enemy reach, their bellies opened up, and each of the enormous bombers dropped out 400 guided GBU-39 Small Diameter Bombs (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GBU-39_Small_Diameter_Bomb) at everything on the islands that even remotely looked like a runway. With the bombs' high-accuracy guidance and the small size of the islands it would not be likely that the Blackhelmian airmen would get a place to land.

In the meanwhile, Allanean propaganda continued to be spread through the radio and Internet, promising high rewards to any Blackhelmian officers that would surrender their ships, and forgiveness to any Blackhelmians who surrendered themselves.

That'd probably be for the best - the Allanean stockpile of GBU-39's had just run out. They had other bombs, of course.

http://i143.photobucket.com/albums/r145/emperornero06/coat.jpg

To: L. Blackhelm
From: Neroian Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Re: Military Operations
Encryption: High

Our illustrious and wise leader, Emperor Nero, has once again deemed your nation worthy of our military support. If military intervention on our part is desirable or required, please advise immediately, and make ready your air fields to receive our forces.

One a more personal note, Admiral Chinh seems quite excited about the prospect of fighting another war alongside the Confederacy. He is quite ready to see some action, and assures me spending the last few years as military governor of occupied Crystal Island has not made him soft.

With respect,
Chie Lo
Servant of the Emperor

http://i143.photobucket.com/albums/r145/emperornero06/chielo.jpg

That'd probably be for the best - the Allanean stockpile of GBU-39's had just run out. They had other bombs, of course.

ooc: sorry for my absence. I actually forgot about my participation in this thread. for that, i apologize. may i assume my forces have simply been supporting the rest of the allied forces? if not, i can simply edit/delete this post.

ic:

Not wanting to give the Confederacy any time to regain momentum, the Commonwealth bombers began their own campaign, only minutes after the Allanean bombers had removed themselves from the OA. Utilizing the same GBU-39s Allanea had used, the B-92s followed up with one devastating attack after another.

OCC: Great we are going again. I will post a more I.C. post later.

Wishing to give full support to Tarlags allies The Tarlagian Air Force dispatches 1,500 Horton B-1200s and B-1500s in waves of three hundred. The Bomber force will be escorted to their targets by 600 Gripen fighters and several dozen electronic warfare aircraft. Each of the Bombers is armed with 2,000 pound glide bombs and cluster munitions. Their targets will be the coastal defenses.
In conjunction with this attack the Tarlagian Navy will launch 400 Sea Draken fighters supported buy 400 Su-33Ns and Sea Gripens. Their targets are Blackhelms Airships. Each of the Sea Drakens is armed with 4 Skyfire* anti-airship missiles.

*Skyfire heavy Anti-airship Missile

Speed- mach 2.4
Range-60 miles
Guidance- Laser Guided, Radar, or Remote guidance.
Payload- 5, 20 pound Thermite bomb lets around solid missile core.
Note- After missile penetrates the airships gas bag or superstructure the 5 thermite bomb lets detach and ignite.

The privateer bases were now effectively shut down, smoking wrecks on the tiny islands dotted throughout the vast oceans of the NS world. The Confederacy and Griffincrest, however, were not done, not by a long shot. They picked up on the massive flight of Coalition bombers and escorts, and decided that now was the time to get their premier aircraft, the Space Union SuF-8 Phoenix's, up into the air. One thousand of the aircraft begin taking off preparing to engage the various enemy aircraft they would soon engage. This was not all, however, as another six hundred and fifty MiG-29's, and over three thousand MiG-21's prepared to defend their homeland. The MiG-21's were a combined effort of surplus Confederate aircraft, Divinity Semi-Autonomous aircraft, Egyptianstanni Defense Force Aircraft, and Redemption City SkyGuard aircraft. This attack would leave the local cities barren of local fighters, but the Confederate Air Force promised to defend these cities with their own, more modern Sukhoi's.

Response to Chie Lo

We would thouroughly appreciate any help you can provide. We are grievously outnumbered, and out anti-missile systems are being reduced daily. Please, send whatever you can, as soon as you can.

Thank You,

Lucius Blackhelm

SIC

http://i143.photobucket.com/albums/r145/emperornero06/coat.jpg

To: L. Blackhelm
From: Neroian Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Re: Military Operations
Encryption: High

It is with great pleasure that I inform you of our Emperor's decision to dispatch men and material to your nation with all due haste. Several of our finest carrier battle groups are being rerouted to the area as I write this, and a massive airlift operation will commence shortly.

Per our usual arrangements, men and material will be airlifted to Sacrament Air Force Base. Once sufficient assets are in place for our troops to fight effectively, they will be moved to more forward areas.

At this time, the Emperor is willing to commit the following resources towards the defense of your country:

- 4 Carrier Battle Groups
- 20 Assorted Army Divisons
- 600-700 Fixed Wing Aircraft

Due to the immediate need to resupply your missile defenses, we will be shipping you 200 MEADS (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MEADS) units along with sufficient missiles to reload each unit three times.

In order to facilitate a rapid entrance into this war, our logistics planners would like to make the following requests:

- Stockpiles of jet fuel, deisel, and rations be established at Sacrament AFB for use by our forces
- Civilian construction crews be put to work restoring the temporary airfields our military engineers constructed during our last war outside of Divinity and Sacrament

With respect,
Chie Lo
Servant of the Emperor

http://i143.photobucket.com/albums/r145/emperornero06/chielo.jpg

In the meanwhile, the Allanean navy continued to approach – but the Allanean plan was different. Now that the path for long-range aircraft was once-more opened, they proceeded to the next priority. Yet once more, a flight of refueling aircraft and bombers took to the sky, proceeding towards the enemy position. This time, these were not the oversize Zeus bombers, but 2,500 Kestril bombers, known for their stealth, rather than for their great firepower. They would approach the 2500-kilometer range from the enemy navy unseen, at below ordinary RADAR range, and fire their weapons – 10 AGM-86 ALCM (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AGM-86_ALCM) missiles each. Among with these, they launched 10 of the famous Allanean decoys each – posing as B-22s. And so, on the Blackhelm RADARs, a gigantic flight of 25,000 B-22 bombers appeared – and a storm of 25,000 guided missiles, going for their frigates and Al-Maradim vessels.

OOC: Allanea, with the radar parametrics data I sent you, you shouldn't need decoys. You should be able to jam their radars.

Near Confederate Waters

The Commonwealth Fleet had been moving in to bombard the coastline, but the appearance of four battle groups halted their advance. Rearranging into battle formation, the five carriers (three Gibraltar and 2 Thor) began launching fighters as their support cruisers, destroyers and battleships locked targets on the intrusive vessels. Noticing the Allanean attack, the ships opened with their own barrage, carefully making sure to avoid striking the Allanean aircraft and missiles.

Meanwhile, F-43 Sleipnirs of the 34th, 10th and 21st Tactical Fighter Squadrons had been called off their offensive against the Confederate airforces and gone to intercept a large mass on radar. They picked up a massive airlift operation of over 600 aircraft. Maneuvering to maximum firing range, the fighters targetted, focusing their main powers against the transport aircraft. A slew of missiles left their racks, streaming towards the intrusive craft.

Major Arn Skallgrim yawned, something which was quite unusual considering that he was flying at close to twice the speed of sound in a very expensive strategic bomber of the type Blackburn Blackadder MSE.2AEP. Even more concerning was the payload the strategic bomber was carrying. In the hold of the Blackadder was nothing less than six cruise missiles of the type LBM.73D Fjorda, each armed with fifty 1000 gram VX bomblets, each capable of killing a small city.

"Navigator, pilot. We're approaching wayoint Omega," The navigator said, making Major Skallgrim focus on the instruments in the glass cockpit again.

"Pilot, navigator. Roger. Begin preperations for weapons release."

Ten minutes later, the checklist had been completed with everything being within specs. Smiling slightly, Skallgrim spoke over the intercom to the other three crewmembers of the Blackadder.

"Pilot to all. Stand by for weapons release. Bombardier, please upload target co-ordinates and arm the munitions. Release of chemical weapons has been authorized."

"Bombardier, pilot. Understand release of chemical weapons is authorized. Uploading co-ordinates and arming munitions now."

In the bombardier's station, the officer entered the appropriate authorization codes that armed the six weapons mounted on the rotary launcher in the vast bomb bay further back in the aircraft.

"Bombardier, pilot. Standing by for weapons release. All systems are green."

"Pilot, copy." Skaillgrim said as he eased the throttle back, reducing the speed to high subsonic, something which would make it easier to deploy the weapons.

"Pilot, bombardier. You are weapons green. Fire when ready."

"Bombardier, copy. Bombbay doors open... Weapons away!" The bombardier said with glee as he pressed the fire button six times in rapid succession. In the back, the rotary launcher released the missiles through the open bombbay doors quickly, dropping all six weapons out the large hole in the floor within twelve seconds.

Once clear of the Blackadder, which immediately turned and returned home, the CotVeritas VTVM-253F2 turbofan engine kicked in and began propelling the Fjorda missile forward. The stealthy missiles immediately dropped to 40 meters and began flying towards their targets which were up to 880 kilometers away, using waypoints to guide them to the targets while avoiding things like radar stations that could detect the stealthy missiles.

Once over the targets, which were either suspected privateer bases or Griffencrest military bases located near or inside population centers, the VX bomblets would deploy from the cruise missile and deploy at an altitude of 300 meters, causing the VX nerve agent to be spread out and inflict gruesome horrors on as many people as possible.

The use of the six LBM.73D Fjorda cruise missiles weren't so much a combat requirement as it was a field testing, which had been secretly agreed to with the Allaneans, in order to avoid confusion. Damage assessment would be carried out through the use of reconnaissance satellites, ELINT and SIGINT on Griffencrest communications, and guesstimation.

The decision to target Griffencrest was mainly due to that country's backing of a pirate organization that had cost the King of Cotland some $20 million of his personal fortune in tea, which these pirates had sunk. The King had already reaped some revenge over the Griffencrests through participating in the sinking of their fleet, but a bigger revenge was needed. The use of the VX missiles was exactly what the doctor ordered. There's nothing like setting a $27 million deadly nerve agent carpet to revenge a $20 million loss.

In the wake of the nuclear detonations, a single sentence was sent over unencrypted channels: "That's for sinking my tea."

OOC: I am ignoring the nukes. Allanea, we can intercept you prior to that range now, my MiG's can refuel in air.

OOC: Why?

OOC: Fight like a man, nukes ruin everything.

OOC: I've already sunk your fleet in the other thread. Nuking you is just the cherry on the desert topping. However, if you're reluctant to be nuked, I can edit so you get gassed instead. Your call mate.

OOC: I've already sunk your fleet in the other thread. Nuking you is just the cherry on the desert topping. However, if you're reluctant to be nuked, I can edit so you get gassed instead. Your call mate.

You can attempt to gas me I suppose.

OOC: Edited.

The Cottish bombers would never make it to their destination. Confederate MiG's were flying out to three thousand kilometers in order to intercept the Allanean bombers releasing their Tomahawks, and this was far, far past the release point of the Cottish cruise missiles. As soon as the bomber was detected, a wing of intererceptors were deployed immediately.

Near the Cottish bombers, the 34th Fighter Wing was orbiting, their F-43s prepared to move in to respond to any threats. The commander's comm chirped with a message from the nearby E-5 AWACs.

"Turn course 250, support Cottish bombing group. Hostiles are multiple Mig-21s."

"Roger that," Colonel Marilova said. She waved a hand towards her wingman, Major Gulov. He nodded and sent the message down the line. Within a moment, the fighters had turned into the fight, preparing to meet the interceptors head-on.

OOC: New variant of post. People, have you LOST the OOC thread or something?

IC:
Fifth day of fighting
In the meanwhile, the Allanean navy continued to approach – but the Allanean plan was different. Now that the path for long-range aircraft was once-more opened, they proceeded to the next priority. Yet once more, a flight of refueling aircraft and bombers took to the sky, proceeding towards the enemy position. This time, these were not the oversize Zeus bombers, but 2,500 Kestril bombers, known for their stealth, rather than for their great firepower. As they passed over the Allanean fleet, they were joined by 100 Hawker Calcutta Electronic Warfer aircraft, tasked with jamming the enemy RADAR.

An additional escort was composed of 500 Blackburn F-1 Air Superiority fighters – they were armed with long-range A2A missiles.
As they approached the 2500-km line (Which, by the way, was growing closer to the naval craft as well), the AEW aircraft swung their jamming equipment on full-blast, keyed to the enemy RADAR, while the Blackburn ASFs fired a single long-range A2A missile each at every hostile aircraft they they could detect.

Interestingly, the fighters also served another role – if some enemy still had a running RADAR in this mess, they were far better RADAR targets than the near-invisile stealth bombers that were proceeding towards their target down below, on sea-skimming altitudes. As they hit the 2700-kilometer line, they would dispense half a ton of chaff each, just in case.
They would approach the 2500-kilometer range from the enemy navy unseen, at below ordinary RADAR range, and fire their weapons – 10 AGM-86 ALCM (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AGM-86_ALCM) missiles each. Among with these, they launched 10 of the famous Allanean decoys each – posing as B-22s. And so, on the Blackhelm RADARs, a gigantic flight of 25,000 B-22 bombers appeared – and a storm of 25,000 guided missiles, going for their frigates and Al-Maradim vessels.

The fighter-jets were aloft, the subs were prowling, the battleships, missile-cruisers and HCGSs were less than an hour from launching a massive assault against the Blackhelm Confederacy and the Griffincrest Corp. The Fleet Commanders had been assigned High Alert Status: Attack/Invade. Operation Erase BlackGriff was a "Go".

Despite the escalating tension aboard the invasion fleet's flagship, Fleet Commander Harkins appeared calm, almost sedate. He knew BCs capabilities, and he knew the Empire's capabilities. No contest. In 72 hours or so, Imperial Marines accompanied by Vhammpyric Warriors would have Lucius Griffincrest trussed up like a pig ready for slaughter, awaiting Amra's decision as to the Chairman's fate. Harkins knew that Warlord Ptah wanted to eat the Chairman, but he doubted that Amra would let him. Maybe a finger or two, but that's it.

Harkins was contemplating getting home in time for the grape harvest when his reverie was interrupted by a loud beeping. "What is it ensign?"

"Sir, message from Ravennii".

"On screen, ensign."

He coul hardly believe what he was reading. "Ensign, this is legit? All encryptions and protocols phased in?"

"Aye, sir. It's for real."

He read it over once again and fighting down a surge of anger mashed the commtab on his desk. "All commanders invasion fleet. We have orders to stand down. Repeat. Operation Erase BlackGriff is aborted. All airborne units return to homeship. All invasion ships, including Vhammpyrian Fleet, to return to Xeraphian ports. That is all. Harkins out."

He stood, seething with an anger he seldom felt. "Ensign, open a channel to Ravennii," he said with a tight-lipped grimace.

"Channel open, sir."

An image of the War Room in the Royal Palace filled the commscreen. Surprisingly, only two people were there. Amra Tan'it and John Strickland. "We've been awaiting your call, Commander. What took you so long?", asked Amra.

"Amra.....what the fuck......"

Amra held up his hand. "Relax, Commander. We have more important things to do right now than deal with corporate-backed pirates. Tarlag and Findan can deal with them. They don't need us. But I need you back here ASAP. Got it?"

Harkins calmed down a hair. "Yessir....but it better be good. Harkins out."

"Oh fuck!" Major Skallgrim exclaimed when the Radar Warning Receiver warned that there were a rather substantial quantity of hostile aircraft, identified as MiGs, inbound. The crew immediately got to work, jamming the antiquated radars on the MiGs with the defensive jamming suite while turning the speedy aircraft around, a slow-going process, aborting the attack run in the process. In addition to the jamming, the Blackadder ejected chaff bundles from the countermeasure dispensers, hoping to fool the hostile radar for long enough to get turned around and kick in the afterburners, taking the mighty Blackadder to speeds in the vicinity of Mach 2, moving away from the hostile MiGs.

Whether or not the Blackadder would manage to get away would depend on the range and skill of the Griffencrest pilots and their ordinance. Regardless, the Blackadder's navigator was busy contacting High Command to let them know that there had been some complications. Hopefully, he'd be able to get the message sent before the Blackadder was intercepted.

"They're bugging out," Gulov informed his flight commander.

"I see it," Marilova answered. "All fighters," she radioed, "Weapons hot. Intercept all hostile aircraft."

Internal racks opened on the belly's of the fighters as long-range air-to-air missiles were launched at the attacking Migs.

"Sir, I have incoming Migs. Radio is going wild with intercept orders from our allies. What should we do Flight Leader?"
"Vector in all fighters to intercept and destroy those Migs. Before our fighters Break have our Gunslingers* launch their long range missiles and we will see if we can punch a hole though their fighters."

With the Orders given 3 dozen B-1200 bombers climbed above the first wave of bombers. Each of the large flying wings when they reached 10,000 feet above the other bombers launched 24 long range air to air missiles at the approaching fighters.

* Gunslingers are bombers armed with powerful air to air radars and 24 Phenix air to air missiles,

ooc: Blackhelm...check your profile visitor messages

The Imperial airlift operation had begun as a mere trickle of men and material, but by now the airlift was in full swing.

Other than key air force ground personnel, the 24th Combat Engineers Brigade was the first unit to arrive at Sacrament AFB. Their first duty was to inspect and repair a makeshift airfield they had constructed nearby during a previous war. Aside from weeds and some overgrowth, the airfield was in relatively good condition, and would soon be ready to receive a steady stream of C-130 military transports.

All in all the deployment was going as well as could be expected. It would take time for the Imperial military to get all the boots on the ground that they wanted, but numerous air wings were already in place, and would soon make their presence felt on the battlefield.

OOC:
Status of Imperial Forces
Aircraft - at Sacrament AFB
Air Force Ground Crews - at Sacrament AFB
Military Engineers - near Sacrament AFB
Ground Combat Troops - still en route
Carrier Battle Groups - still en route

OOC: So, this is, what, the 8th day of combat? I'm not sure Blackhelm would agree to this.

OOC: So, this is, what, the 8th day of combat? I'm not sure Blackhelm would agree to this.

OOC: I've been posting in this thread for 3 or 4 days now. I just now said some of my aircraft have arrived. I don't think that is unreasonable especially when I have made no effort to effect the outcome of aerial battles already in progress. I should also point that in your last post, you launched bombers from your homeland and also attacked with them in the same post. I don't have a problem with that. However, I do think that if your aircraft can fly from your homeland to BC's territory in a single post; I shouldn't catch grief for sending aircraft from my nation, then role-playing their arrival the next day. If we want to be super technical (which I don't), I role-played sending stuff to BC well before you role-played sending your bombers, so it seems to me like some of my stuff (like my fighters) should have arrived before your bombers. To be honest, I don't think it is possible to maintain a super accurate chronological timeline especially when you got a lot of people attacking one person. In that scenario, the person getting gang banged is going to have trouble responding to attacks quickly, but people tend to keep posting new stuff before old stuff is resolved.

PS. Someone said there is an OOC thread for this war, but this is the only "Open Season on the Blackhelm Confederacy" thread I can find when I search.

here (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=565639)

OOC: Nero has a point, it would take him the same amount of time to airlift his men over as it would for your bombers to make it.

IC: The MiG's were flying out to three thousand kilometers, giving them a five hundred mile gap to cover before the bombers could fire their missiles. This was plenty of time, as the MiG's would still have the general idea of the bombers location, and thousands of massive aircraft would not be too difficult to find.

Nearly the entire Confederate airforce was being called up to deal with this massive bombin run. If the Confederates could crush this attack, it would severely cripple the Allanean offensive effort. The relatively few escorts compared to the thousands of MiG's and Sukhoi's would soon be overwhelmed and it would be a free for all on the bombers, provided everything goes the way the Confederate High Command imagined it to be.

Chaff and other countermeasures began to fill the sky as the MiG's began trying to ditch the Blackladders missiles. Still, many went down, but not enough to stem the massive tide. The two tremendous aerial formations were soon going to collide, and in a few hours, the sea would be covered with the wrecks of thousands of aircraft. What could prove to be one of the largest aerial battles in history was about to commence.

As the Blackhelmian fighters approached, they were noticed – but the battle has been joined by now, and it would be too late to break from it. And so it was upon the Blackadder's to fire their weaponry once more, to at least tone down the amount of enemy fighters – but their launch was pretty pathethic next to what was actually about to happen.

For 3460 kilometers away from the Blackhelmian outermost patrols rested the leading edge of the Allanean warfleet – and among the warfleet were dozens, nay hundreds of Allanean anti-missile cruiser and other warships, armed not only with conventional CIWS, but with anti-aircraft missiles that could reach out to 640 kilometers. The Allanean aircraft were under a happy-sized umbrellla.

Two things happened at once – the Allanean bombers fired their decoys, making housands of B-22's 'sprouted' like wildflowers on those Blackhelmian RADAR screens that could somehow get through the Allanean jamming. And the Allanean air defense cruisers fired part – only part – of their long-range air defense missiles, 12 each. 140 more air defense missiles took off from the Allanean air defense frigates.

The Blackhelmian air force was now on the business end of 3,500 ground-to-air missiles, and 500 more A2A missiles, and trying to hunt stealth aircraft without RADAR on the rough seas. This was going to be interesting.

Hundreds of aircraft were struck from the skies, causing serious damage to the massive formation that was approaching the Allaneans. Flares and chaff, along with several other things, filled the sky as the MiG's and Sukhoi's made desperate manuevers to avoid the missiles. For several hundred, however, it was to no avail, and the pilots and their aircraft were soon in the water, thousands of kilometers away from land and the only ships nearby to save them belonging to the enemy.

Now, however, was the Confederate turn to strike. Each of the still alive 335 Su-30's launched six Vympel R-27's, each of the still flying 705 MiG 29's launched six R-77's, each of the slightly over two hundred MiG 31's launched four R-77's, each of the 183 Su-31's launched their compliment of a knockout twelve R-77's. The missile storm would hopefully be enough to crush the Allanean storm head on, but if it didn't, the Confederate pilots did not care. After firing their missiles, they peeled off, and headed for home.

Meanwhile, in orbit, Griffincrest and Confederate space assets were preparing for something big. Whatever remained of the coalition space systems were about to be targetted and shut down. Dozens of Hunter satellites began opening up upon the ABM's, spy sats, and whatever else remained of enemy assets still in orbit.

The Allaneans were strangely surprised by this tactics. It was a brazen attempt by the Blackhelmians – using RADAR-guided missiles in an area of serious RADAR jamming, where they had more decoys than targets, and where oceans of Allanean chaff appeared on RADAR screens as targets a mile wide. Besides, the Allanean bombers were now on the terminal stage of their attack – they launched their missiles targetting the Al-Maradim escorts, and then turned home. It was not a good time to try and do what the Blackhelmians did.

As the R-77's approached on computer guidance and switched to RADAR, they were rendered blind by the omnipresent countermeasures – or, sometimes, went off and gone after the hundreds of decoys. And trying to kill a near-supersonic aircraft with an unguided missile is rather an iffy proposition. Still, about a hundred Allanean aircraft were lost – but still, the Al-Maradims had over 15,000 Tomahawk TASM missiles headed their way.

In the meanwhile, in the sky, Griffincrest's hunter-killer sattelites found the Allaneans far from defenseless. Not only were the Allanean satellites equipped with basic point-defense systems that would shoot down at least some of the incoming enemy projectiles, but orbital combatants – Gorgon, Ocelot, and Wellnigton class – confronted the Blackhelmians head on. Still, dozens of ABM and godrod satellites were lost, costing the Allaneans dozens of billions of dollars in expensive equipment. While losses of Allanean aircraft were minimal, satellite losses were spectacular – 55 Thor sattelites, 20 early warning satellites, 21 orbital RADAR stations, 13 command and control sattelites and 10 ABM satellites – over 110 sats and 600 billion dollars worth of equipment. Congress was not going to be happy about this.

Six hundred Um al Maradim ships wwere wiped out as chaos ensued throughout the combined Griffincrest-Confederate fleet. There was a real problem now, as so many of the escort vessels were lost. Fires were everywhere as men struggled to pull ther brothers from the oil and blood soaked Sea of Neptune. This sea had seen death before, but never on a scale such as this. The Confederate High Command demanded revenge. Griffincrest demanded revenge, and the Confederate people demanded revenge.

And revenge they would have. For thirty years, the former empire of Exponent and now the Blackhelm Confederacy had been stockpiling Kh-55 missiles, and now had roughly a half million of these missiles all over the coast. Other than these there were nearly ten thousand Khan missiles in the Confederate arsenal, not counting the Griffincrest arsenal, all also positioned to fire upon enemies as they neared the coast. The Confederate revenge would be swift and painful. The entire stockpiles of both of these weapons was about to be released upon the Allanean fleet. The hundreds of thousands of missiles would surely overwhelm the anti-missile defenses of the fleet, and to make matters even worse, the ten thousand Khans were targetting the fifty Ark Royals of the fleets Carrier Battle Groups, as well as the thirty five Elusive Class battleships of the fleet.

Not only this, but while this was happening, dozens of Tu-160's began blasting off, each loaded up with twenty four Kh-15 missiles. As chaos began gripping the Allanean fleet, an additional two thousand four hundred missiles would come smashing down, all of them targetting the Avisos. Surely, the Allaneans would retaliate, but for now, the Confederate High Command felt content that the damage they were about to do to the enemy fleet would be enough to buy some more time for them to secure more weaponry.

As all of these missile began screeching overhead, the eight combined Griffincrest fleets began to steam out to meet the Allanean fleet head on. They would meet them while still under the air cover from their mainland, hopefully enough to cancel out the Allanean carrier advantage, and would hopefully make it into range of their big guns. The plan of the Griffincrest admirals was an outdated one, but it was still a plan. They wpuld set out together with the Confederate arsenal ships, the only Confederate ships to set out with them, and loose spam after spam of missiles as they began to close. Once within range, they planned on relying upon the massive guns of their dreadnoughts to level the enemy vessels, all the while having their ground based MiG's and Sukhoi's running air support. The massive Griffincrest fleet began to lurch forward, crews all ready and prepared to fight to the death for their homeland.

ASoGM spy satellites were continuously recording the new movements of the enemy assets, and transmitting them to the ASoGM Intelligence Agency, including that of the TU-160s and Griffincrest fleets. That information was quickly copied, then sent through heavily encrypted means to the Allaneans. Hopefully the Allaneans would get this information quickly enough to mitigate the damage done by the Blackhelmian and Griffincrest attacks.

Included with the new reconnaissance was a reminder that the ASoGM needs to stay anonymous in the conflict, to make sure that the Blackhelmian and Griffincrest forces don't attack ASoGM space assets.

And there was fire.

The Khan missiles rose towards the night sky like angels of vengeance, ready to strike against the impudent Allaneans for daring to cross into ancestral Blackhelmian lands. By their thousands they came, rising like pillars of radiant flame, to destroy the Allanean invader befor he could set foot upon Blackhelmian land. And by their thousands, they were harvested.

Across the sky, Cyclops and Aries ABM sattelites came alive, firing their entire stockpiles of ABM rockets and chemical laser charges to shoot down the enemy missiles. Between them, they had 10,560 charges to fire, and 10,000 targets.

And yet they could not get them all – for no system is 100% effective. Even at 94% effectiveness, the Allanean ABM system could not take down every single Khan. Some still made it through – and despite the fact the Allaneans spent over a trillion dollars in satellite stockpiles to stop these Khans, they still ended up losing ships – 15 Elusive class battleships and two carriers – to the enemy onslaught.

As the ships sank, every effort was made to save sailors from the wrecks before they finally gave in to the sea, but the boiling water, the radioactive waste from pierced reactors, and jet fuel explosions made it more than difficult. In the end, eight thousand people gave their life that terrible day – and many more were now injured in various ways, lying on stretches aboard the various Allanean warships.

The other attacks were detected on approach – and yet the Allaneans would find it easier to deal with the slow, unstealthy, ground-attack missiles than they would deal with the Khans. The order was given – and throughout the Allanean fleet, decoys were deployed – hundreds, nay thousands of decoys, creating the appearance of a gigantic fleet, a multitude of targets unseen before – and even as that happened, five missiles were fired.

There were not ordinary anti-air missiles. These were USABMs – Universal Standard Anti-Ballistic Missiles – Allanean nuclear-tipped ABMs, designed to stop incoming ballistic and cruise missiles from striking Allanean cities. Each carried two guided last stages. Seconds lates, ten thermonuclear explosions tore through the sky, 700 kilometers away from the Allanean ships, in the path of the enemy missiles. Each was about two megatons in force – yet at this distance, they could do no damage to either fleet – yet they were targeted not at the fleets, but at the oncoming waves of Kh-55s.

Yet this was not all. As the Allanean ships drew nearer, the enemy missiles began to be picked off by CIWS missiles. Even without reloading, the Allanean air-defense cruisers and frigates could spit out 100,000 short-range CIWS rockets between them, which dealt with the unstealthy enemy missiles with ease. Besides that, they fired two long-range anti-air-missiles each – two per each TU-160 that approached them. Around them, the sea boiled with explosions as multiple enemy missiles slammed into the locations where the decoys seemed to be and were shot down by CIWS. Between the, the elements of the navy took down 120,000 Kh-55s by anti-air missiles, 80,000 through the use of decoys, and an equivalent amount by CIWS, and nuked the rest.

Still, about a dozen Avisos were lost, and with them, at least five hundred crewmen dead and 2,000 injured.

Retaliation had to come. And so, Admiral Al-Ghazi ordered a release of half of the fleet's arsenal of Khans – 2,000 missiles. They would be launched from the Avisos. They rose and fell, just like the enemy Khans did – but they had far fewer targets.

For this attack, 104 of the biggest ships in the enemy navy were chosen – the superdreadnaughts, the battleships and the pocket battleships. The Khans were not evently distributed – 320 Khans were fired at the superdreadnaughts, at 40 missiles per target, whereas the pocket battleships were targetted by 640 Khans, at 10 missiles per target. The rest – slightly over 32 missiles per target – was fired at the battleships proper.

After this, the fleet could only strike in this manner once again – but hopefully, it would work out for the best.

The Confederate ABM system was in far better shape than their Allanean counter part, and thus was far better equipped to deal with the enemy Khan's. Brilliant pebbles, along with dozens of other different types of countermeasures began filling the sky as Khan after Khan was crushed in orbit. Still, however, two battleships were lost and a pocket battleship was damaged during the attack, as no system is perfect, after all.

Meanwhile, as the Allanean fleet was reloading, the Confederates decided to use the Allaneans own tricks against them. Twenty thousand Convair XSM-74 missiles were launched at the fleet, followed by another, and then another, in all sixty thousand decoy missiles. The goal of this was to continue to use up the Allanean missiles while the Confederate fleet advanced. After the last two attacks, Allanean stores had to be running on at least half by now, and hopefully after this they would be even less.

The attack, however, was not without teeth. Seeing the Allanean successes with remote controlled aircraft, the Confederates would launch their own version of the attack. One thousand Myasishchev M-4 aircraft, each armed with four Kh-22M missiles. The missiles would be released at four hundred kilometers under the vail of the decoy launches, and together with the twenty thousand decoys, four thousand missiles would come screaming for the Allanean cruiser groups.

Aboard the Allanean fleet

"Alert, alert, all personnel to battle stations, we have incoming bombers on all vectors, this is not a drill, all personnel to battle stations, incoming bombers. All CAP aircraft are to turn to vectors delta, alpha, omicron, I repeat, all CAP aicraft.”

As the first wave of decoys approached, the Allanean anti-air cruisers pitched in, launching a terrible salvo of 3,000 long-range and 15,000 short-range missiles, leaving the rest of the 'bombers' t be dealt with by the other ships' air defenses – as they promptly were. And from the various Allanean carriers, fighter aircraft were launched in the direction of the incoming threat, as the Allanean RADAR screens detected new waves of attack.

"Sir, I have visual. There are very few actual bombers if anything – these are mostly decoys, I repeat..”

Even as these words were spoken, four Kh-22M missiles entered the CIWS envelope of an Allanean air defense cruiser. Two were taken down by guided missiles, one was mulched by CIWS, and the fourth sheered off one of the ship's rudder.

"Decoys my ass, bitch, there are live ones in there!”

The Allanean air defense cruisers would not be the only ships in the fleet doing anti-missile work. Smaller, lighter air defense frigates were also firing their missiles and operating their CIWS cannon, covering the cruisers with their own, smaller air defense envelope.

But the orders had changed now. The cruisers flicked their air defenses to only deal with what showed up as a missile – a team of experts was on the scene to deal with what military aircraft there actually were. Now they were free to fire three short-range defensive missiles at every anti-ship missile that came into their range, and only attack the enemy bombers – or decoys, whatever – with their long-range equipment.

Above the Allanean cruisers, the Blackjack aircraft passed – fifteen from each of the surviving carriers, they made a formidable force. Below them, they pilots saw four cruisers burning, their crews stru. ggling to put out the fires. Another one was sinking below the waves already, the crew abandoning it in a patterned, orderly fashion. Yet another was spinning slowly around its tail, the destroyed rudder system rendering it out of control.

"Fire! Fire! Fire!” - the Allanean fighter aircraft launched missile after missile at what seemed as bomber, but as they approached to see what they expected to be bomber wreckage buring on the sea shore, they would find nothing, only decoys.

And then they saw the enemy aircraft.

"Jesus Christ, these bitches are fucking old!” - one of the Allanean squadron commanders explained. - “They're leaving! Anybody got heaters left?”

But it was too late – most of the Allanean fighters had already expended their munitions fighting decoys. The entire giant formation had only about two hundred missiles left – so they fired what they had on the remaining bombers, and began closing in on them, hoping to use cannon on their enemy.

Back at the fleet

"Marshal Al-Ghazi, we're in range. Finally, we can execute Oplan Righteous Sword.”

"Very well. You know what to do.”

The crews of the Torrent class Arsenal ships knew precisely what to do. They have not fired a single shot during this conflict yet, but they knew – courtesy of the Gun Manufacturers where their targets were.

They began to leave their ships. The large submersible vessels were not submarines, but they could go about 30 meters deep – and that's what they were programmed to do – fire their weapons at pre-set targets and disappear under the sea.

Each of the arsenal ships could fire 1200 TASM missiles before it emptied every VLS cell – and then it'd need some other ship to reload it. That'd be a bit difficult.

But between them, they could fire 48,000 missiles, and that's just what they did.

They distributed their missiles quite simply – 16,000 were distributed towards the enemy's Al-Maradim light craft, and 20,000 more were targeted at his corvettes, with about 10 missiles per Al-Maradim and 20 per corvette. About 12,000 missiles remained, and they were aimed at the frigates – about 23 each.

That was going to be a fucking bitch for the fleet to deal with – and in the meanwhile, the Allanean Arsenal ship crews were getting the hell out of dodge.

The AAD-1's had long stood silent, waiting for the fleets to close. Now was finally their chance. Missiles began filling the sky as their operators far away in Sacrament detected the barrage from the Allanean fleet. As the two huge formations of weaponry clashed, the crews of both mighty fleets got to watch a most impressive display as the sky seemed to literally explode as missile impacted missile in mid air. For the crews of many of the Griffincrest fleets, however, the sight would be their last. Dozens of missiles began raining down upon the fleet, and as all was happening, the admirals began screaming for more decoy launches. Once again, another sixty thousand missile salvo was launched, and once again, the bombers took off, only nine hundred this time, a hundred of them having been brought down by the Allanean pilots.

Still, the fleet was taking severe hits. Over a hundred Um al Maradim's were destroyed, and roughly seventy corvettes and around half that number of frigates were lost. The loss of escorts sent a shiver of fear throughout the fleet command. They needed to reform their position immediately. For now, the Griffincrest fleet would not be moving. Instead, ships began a massive repositioning effort while helicopters and divers began a massive rescue effort to reclaim some of their downed sailors.

Meanwhile, the Divinity Semi-Autonomous Navy began to become fearful. They watched as the mighty Griffincrest fleet was being whittled down, and saw the Confederate Navy as useless. They decided to take matters into their own hands, and send out their own fleet, as crappy as it was. The Divinity fleet was made up of seven hundred missile boats, each armed with a pair of SCUD launchers, and three Kashtan CIWS systems. These formed the bulk of the fleet, but there were also many, many smaller craft, armed with no more than a couple of AT-14 Kornet missiles, and even some rubber boats with plenty of fuel and RPG's. This almost meaningless navy was soon about to see why the conflict on the seas should be left to the big boys, but nevertheless they were prepared to fight and die for their beloved home city.

The Allaneans now had their air defense cruisers under orders to avoid shooting at strat-bombers – it was clear that this was going to be just a terrible waste of missiles. The Blackjacks in the meanwhile patrolled for enemy bombers, under their own orders to only attack enemy bombers under confirmed visual contact. It was a disadvantage, but given previous enemy tactics, it just might work.

And so the enemy fired their missiles once more, finishing off two of the injured cruisers and taking down two more – this time, the cruisers could concentrate on their CIWS. In addition, the Taniat battlecruisers were now rotated from defending the force projection battlegroups to guarding the front of the naval force – thus actually bolstering the AA defenses of the Allaneans.

The FPBGs also had their own complement of Arsenal ships – however, for some strange reason, the Allaneans no longer attacked using those. They simply proceeded, quietly, towards the enemy battleships – and the submarines that had hitherto been in the rear of the action have now been moved to the front, between the Allanean anti-air cruisers and the enemy. The Allaneans were preparing for something, but it wasn't clear what it was.

So far they were at a distance of only 1400 kilometers from the enemy's navy, and the distance was closing.

They had kindly ignored the fact that the DSAN was closing in on them. As this force was supposedly useless, they were packing one, powerful bonus. They had, much like the North Koreans, modified their SCUD's over the years to fly much further than they were originally intended to, some even pushing 1200km, and at the moment, they were about to show the Allaneans that they meant business. Their missile boats packed their SCUD's in a six chambered rotary launcher. allowing each of the seven hundred boats to unleash twelve missiles in a relatively short amount of time. They would then reload via their accompanying resupply ships, who would do so via crane.

As the several thousand SCUD's began flying for the enemy fleet, yet another wave of remote controlled bombers took off, prepared to deposit another several thousand missiles into the Allanean fleet.

All of these missiles would be accompanied by Riverstone Cormorant missiles. The fleet was about to open up with a crippling salvo, one that hopefully would be enough to shut down the enemy defense for good. Twenty thousand missiles were soon to come flying from the fleet, all targetting the Pepperbox LSV's. With the shear volume of missiles that was about to pour into the fleet, and coming from three different directions, it was going to be a tough time to defend all of the ships as well as they had last time, and with each and every lost ship, there was that much firepower being taken away from the Allanean abilities to hold back the missile tidal wave.

Aboard the carrier USS Ludwig von Mises

“Admiral, we have incoming missiles from the Divinity vector.” - the RADAR officer blinked in disbelief at the RADAR and spectrographer data in front of him. - “This seems to be the local SCUD modification...”

The Admiral, a tall, balding, grey-haired man in parade uniform, stared at the ensign.

“Check your data, Jones.” - the Admiral replied - “A SCUD mod with such a long range would have cee-ee-pee of about ten to twenty furlongs. There's no way they'd expect to strike us with them...”

“They are there, Sir. Finishing ascent now...”

The Admiral shook his head, and then the realization hit him. - “It's a distraction! All ships, stand down from targeting these missiles! Only hit them if they're coming down on you! I repeat, it's a-”

“Sir, incoming Kh-55 swarms at all vectors, they're coming at our air defense cruisers!”

“Now that's real work! Tell the frigates to get at it!”

Aboard the frigate USS Rocinantes

Smoke and fire rose from the Allanean air defense frigates – dozens of short-range missiles fired at the mass of Blackhelmian missiles as they broke the 200-kilometer gap. There were about 300 frigates, and each of them had about two dozen targets – they could do their work without even bothering the air defense cruisers, or even without seriously depleting their stock of munitions. But some of the guided missiles still passed through somehow – only to crash against the gatling gun arrays of the Allanean air defense cruisers.

And then there was a terrible howl – hundreds, nay thousands of Cormorant missiles broke right through the Allanean defensive systems. From the cruisers, about five thousand missiles rose, taking down Cormorants in flight – they could no longer just spam ammunition at their enemies. The Allaneans had to economize, and hope the enemy missiles would be taken down before they reached their intended target.

The captain of the Rocinantes shuddered as he saw the trails of the thousands of missiles cross deep into the territory covered by the fleet. At least they're not for me.

As the Cormorants passed by the fleet ships, automated CIWS systems strafed the Blackhelmian missiles time and time again, guided missiles streaked out to take down their new targets. Yet this was not sufficient.

Suddenly, the captain of the Rocinantes heard an extremely powerful explosion. Far, far behind the fleet, on the very edge of the horizon, he saw a gigantic mushroom cloud – so large that for a second he suspected a nuclear attack. And then, as he turned to his RADAR screens, he realized what had happened.

The LSV-456B had been struck, carrying ammunition for the fleet. As it had been hit by about 30 enemy missiles at once, that triggered almost all of the explosives onboard. The 16 crewmembers didn't even need a funeral.

Seconds later, the LSV-304 became a giant burning wreck, with a burning oil patch spreading around it. Even as it drowned, more and more Blackhelmian missiles impacted its burning hulk. The sailors aboard the LSV-301 managed to take that in and were busy throwing themselves overboard as their own ship was struck five times by missiles. It sank quietly, being a mere freshwater carrier.

Six more ships were sinking quietly to the north as the barrage continued – not just of Cormorants, but of SCUDs. The captain of the Rocinantes watched in perfect disbelief as ten enemy missiles plunged into the sea in front of his very eyes, failing to do him any harm whatever. Only after his automated CIWS guns flared up and took down two more SCUDs did he realize that it was he, in fact, who was the target of this barrage.

Aboard the carrier USS Ludwig von Mises

“Sir, we are continuing to lose LSVs. So far reports indicate forty ships lost, five hundred crew presumed dead. Spectrometer and RADAR data confirms missiles as Cormorants.”

“Are all ships deploying anti-LIDAR and infra-red countermeasures?”

“As we speak, yes.”

Indeed, the Admiral could see dozens of IR flares being fired off the few ships that were in eyesight range from his carrier, and anti-LIDAR aerosol being deployed. It wouldn't help much, perhaps... but still. It would be something.

“Very well. Also... this 'Divinity fleet'... dispose of it.”

“Dispose of it, Sir?”

“Order Arsenal ships to fire at it. 5,000 missiles, that'll deal with it. And while you're at it, fire 300 TASMs at the Confederate air defense batteries near Divinity. Are we clear?”

“Yes, Sir.”

And the barrage continued.

From the Allanean ships, thousands of guided missiles ascended, flying in the same directions from which the enemy SCUDs came, even as the Blackhelmian missiles continued to kill off the LSVs. By the time it was all said and done, 76 LSVs have been sunk and sinking, and 14 others were without propulsion or rudders – and, after the Allaneans transferred their contents to other vessels, they, too, were sunk.

And the last SCUDs were still plunging down. Minutes later, it was all over.

It was only now that the Admiral realized the full extent of the Blackhelmian plan. He nodded sternly to Ensign Jones. “Ensign Jones, I'll be in my quarters.”

His quarters were spartan – the room of a true military officer and a graduate of the Robert E. Lee Military Academy, the best in Allanea. On one wall – a photograph of his wife, and on the other – the picture of the Admiral himself as a young man, on the day of his graduation – with distinction, of course – from the Naval Academy at Sacramento.

He looked sadly at the picture. Back then he was naïve. He believed that war would be a moment of glory. A moment where he could face off against the best and worst in his enemies, and pit his wits, his courage, his honor against the wits, courage, and honor of foreign commanders and troops.

It didn't turn out like that. He shuddered as he contemplated the very notion that someone would equip boghammers with ballistic missiles with a CEP of twenty furlongs as their main weapon, and then use thousands of these missiles as anti-ship weapons in an attempt at distraction for the only purpose of hitting an enemy's support vessels. The expense – of life, of money, of sheer firepower – when something like that could be accomplished far easier – seemed unbelievable to him. And yet here it was – a shattering blow to everything he had learned about warfare, about human nature itself. The sheer incompetence seemed to be hurting his mind by merely existing.

He drew his sidearm – a customized M1911 pistol with ivory grips – and cast a last sad look at the picture of his wife.

“I'm sorry, Ellen.” - he whispered, a lone tear rolling down his cheek. - “I can't live like this. The fail . It burns. It burns.” - he cried like a little baby - “I'm sorry, Ellen. I'm so, so sorry.”

Then, with a single, fluid motion, he shoved the pistol into his mouth and pulled the trigger.

The Commonwealth fleet was faring similarly than the Allaneans. As the missiles had approached, the fleet had activated Jormungandr; a system similar to AEGIS. While AEGIS dealt with a single ship's CIWS, however, Jormungandr networked the fleet's defensive systems into one cohesive unit. CIWS systems would now react autonomously, informed by the network on what threats to engage. The external destroyers and frigates Phalanx opened fire first, as the cruisers launched SeaRAM missiles and their own turrets began tracking. Even with the advanced Jormungandr, however, losses were inevitable, and soon, several destroyers and a contingent of cruisers were ablaze in various states of destruction. Still, the Commonwealth batteries fired, even as the fighter wings swooped in to attack, firing Exocet missiles towards Confederate forces.

What had once been a large fleet of ships was in moments turned into a massive floating junk yard. Large chunks of ship were strewn all over the sea as the only remnants of the once proud navy of Divinity began to get carried off in the waves.

Now, however, was the Confederates turn to strike once again. The Confederate arsenal ships, each packing a whopping eighteen hundred Cormorant missiles, began to target their counterparts in the Allanean fleet. Other ships would turn their attention towards the Taniat's, and a salvo was prepared. Eightteen thousand Cormorant missiles were fired at the Allanean Taniat's, and another eighteen thousand were launched at the still supplied Torrent class arsenal ships. There was over a thousand missiles per arsenal ship, but seeing how ferocious the enemy anti-missile defenses were, the admirals of the fleet decided that it was worth the risk if it meant finally shutting down the massive missile spams that the opposing force was putting up. As soon as the arsenal ships fired, they began to speed back to port.

These locally made missiles were not the only things targetting the Taniat's. Yet another four thousand missile spam was going to be launched at the cruisers, to further strain their ammunition. With each and every single Allanean ship lost, it was that much more ammuntion that the other ships had to expend to make up for the loss. Not only that, but with the massive loss of LSV's that the Allaneans recieved, resupply was going to be very, very difficult.

To even further the loss of ammo that the Allaneans would soon experience, ten thousand wooden rockets were let loose from all over the coast. These weapons, although basically decoys, could and would cause massive damage to a ship if it made contact, and had a far, far smaller CEP of the SCUD missiles. Hopefully, the Allaneans would be out of weaponry before they even managed to close with the Griffincrest fleet.

As the Allaneans received warning from the Gun Manufacturers' satellites that a large quantity of enemy missiles was launched, immediate action was taken. The Arsenal ships activated their emergency dive capacity – by the time the Griffincrestian missiles would hit, the water would already close over the deck of the Allanean warships. The IR guidance of the Cormorant would find no target.

The Taniat vessels, in the meanwhile, were evacuated – meaning, in this context, that the crews started jumping overboard and swimming away or taking off aboard helicopters and other vehicles. The CIWS systems – which were automated – flared up five minutes later. They were programmed not to defend themselves, but rather to launch all they had to protect the other ships of the fleet – it was obvious that the Taniats were beyond saving, and they were not saved.

Their effort helped to shoot down about 2,800 of the missiles that targeted the Allanean cruisers, leaving the rest to be chewed up by the mere frigates.

In the meanwhile, the wooden rockets were noticed as they were still over an hour of flight away. The therapy was easy – the Allaneans sent out 1200 of their faster, far more maneuverable CAP fighters to go and deal with that threat. They could not, of course, deal with all of it – but they had stock of air-launched missile-defense missiles that had not been used yet, and the strange missiles had a long, long way until they got to the Allanean ships. By the time they entered range of the Allanean vessels, about half of the enemy missiles would be gone, and the Allaneans did not need most of their advanced weaponry to deal with the rest.

Still, some missiles penetrated. Two refueling tankers, and six LSVs were now sinking – even as the Allanean aircraft readied a counter assault of immense proportions.

From the Allanean aircraft carriers rose a storm of aircraft – Hawker Cossack S2. Mk. 2 strike bombers, Blackburn Beafurt light fighters and Supermarine Sea Fury light strike bombers. Between them, there were 2,496 aircraft. Each carried a LLM-67 missiles (http://z4.invisionfree.com/NSDraftroom/index.php?showtopic=2587) on every hardpoint. Behind them, on the lowest altitude possible, approached hundreds of remote-controlled helicopter aircraft and dozens of AEW aircraft helping to run interference.

As the Allanean aircraft approached, the vessels behind them contined to jam all Blackhelmian RADAR frequencies, continuing to make detection close to impossible – and if that wasn't enough, the anti-air cruisers spammed several hundred decoys into the vague direction of the enemy, and each of the HELOs fired a decoy of its own – and of course, all the decoys posed as planes.

As the Allanean aircraft reached within 200 kilometers of the enemy, they would fire their missiles at the baloons. There were many missiles – between them, the aircraft had 14,976 hardpoints. The baloons were in big trouble as thousands of missiles started to explode around them – and the best thing was they didn't even need to hit the baloons head on to injure them with the shrapnel.

Another beautiful thing was that the Allanean ships were beginning to close in on the Blackhelmians. The front line now closed in to 900 kilometers, and the submarines to 800, and there they were ordered to stop.

And back in Allanea, a new flight of bombers was taking off – though it was not clear where it would go, as yet.

Admiral Lucius Ironclaw was the man in charge of the Griffincrest operations out here, and, although he himself was with many of the other high ranking members of the Confederate and Griffincrest militaries in a bunker somewhere under Paradise City, he smiled as he watched the satellite feed of the loss of the Allaneans prized Taniat anti-air vessels.

Vibius Silkshirt, the man in charge of the Air Fleet, and in turn the balloons, was much less happy. He had lost a full two thirds of his AAD-1's, and now had just over a thousand left operational. This was definitely not a good thing for anybody in the Confederacy.

The Griffincrest fleet bgean to make full steam, carefully keeping their eyes open to engage the submarines that they knew would be accompanying the Allaneans, all the while making preparations to engage and crush the Allanean fleet in a gun battle, a fight which the Confederate High Command was sure that Griffincrest would win easily. The problem, however, was closing to this distance. The solution was, once again, to let loose some Cormorants. One thousand Cormorants were let loose, but this was not all. The eight Kraken's were all loaded with ten Khan's each. A total of eighty Khans were soon launched, all targetting the only things that could pose a real threat to the Griffincrest fleet in a dual of guns, the remaining forty battleships.

And, once again, another wave of ten thousand wooden rockets were launched. The Allaneans could not keep spending ammunition forever. They were going against a national stockpile, and were slowly losing supply ships and drying up their stocks.

The air attack

The Allanean aircraft turned and flew away after launching their missiles, but the remote-controlled HELOs did not. They proceeded until they were at the range of 40 kilometers of the enemy. And then they launched their weapons – simple, Mark-50 light-weight torpedoes, targeted at the Blackhelmian Al-Maradim. As previous warfare hinged almost purely on missiles and CIWS and the Al-maradims carried no known anti-torpedo defenses, that was expected to have a higher chance of success.

In total, 2,400 torpedoes were fired at four per target.


The Blackhelmian attack

The Khans were highly effective, causing the loss of five more battleships. The wooden missiles were far less so, as now the Allaneans simply sent out their carrier-based aircraft – about 4,000 this time – to meet them, and killed most of them before they even got into range of CIWS. However, another oiler was lost.

The Allanean counterattack, six hours later

The Allanean Zeus bombers arrived once more, armed with a giant amount of TASMs. This time, however, they had an advantage – they could launch their missiles over the Allanean fleet, from a distance of 950 kilometers, with its air defense envelope shielding them from enemy fighters. That, and the Allanean radar jamming now meant they didn't need to carry decoys. Thus, there were 1,500 bombers, carrying 120 TASMs each.

On the other hand, the Allanean navy was now closer to the enemy, and could now provide far superior targeting data – which was bound to improve performance.

Not a single Al-Maradim was targeted this time. Only the cruisers, corvettes, and destroyers were now targeted – by an amazing hail of 180,000 missiles, at a rate of 100 missiles per ship.

This was not going to be a good day to be a Blackhelmian sailor. Not a good day at all.

The Commonwealth fleet, still supporting the Allanean forces, kept up a steady barrage of CIWS fire, enveloping the surrounding area in a protective shield of 20mm slugs, missiles and chaff rockets. From above, the bomber group returned, dropping Paveway bombs once more on the remaining Confederate ships. A flight of F-43 Sleipnirs flew close by, ready to intercept anything that would try and stop their bombing run.

Those helicopters would never make it range of the fleet to loose their missiles. MiG patrols around the fleet would surely intercept them before they came within a hundred kilometers, and the threat would be ended long before it could even start. The otherthreat, the massive wave of missiles, was quite another story.

The admirals in the fleet and back at the High Command Headquarters in Paradise City watched as the sky lit up with hundreds of thousands of missiles began screaming out of the heavens for the Griffincrest fleet. The government had to do something and fast. The loss of the Griffincrest fleet would give the coalition a virtually free ride to the coast, and that was absolutely unacceptable. Finally, the gereral representing the Western Province spoke up. The Allanean fleet was finally in range of his coastal defense batteries, and he was capable of deploying a nuclear weapon to mimic the Allaneans previous defense against the Confederate missile strike earlier.

And so it was decided. Klaxons began sounding in the silos all around the province as the nuclear missile prepared for launch and the upranged Pyatyorka missiles began to come online. The nuclear blast caused by the detonation of the Western Provinces missile cleared the sky of nearly all of the Tomahawks, but nearly was the key word. Nearly thirty ships of various sizes were lost from corvette to cruiser, along with another ten Um al Maradim's. Now, however, was the Western Provinces time to shine.

For years, they had worked on their P-5 Pyatyorka's, tinkering here and there until they came upon the perfect design. The missile they found had only half of the firepower of the original, but twice the range. Not only that, but seeing the utter failure of RADAR guided missiles against the Allanean fleet, the provinces missile staff went into over time taking off the terminal RADAR guidance and keeping the inertial mid course corrected guidance system in place the whole way. Now, they would test their design. Eighty thousand of these missiles would begin making their way for the Allaneans, all specifically targetting the one hundred and eighty Parish class destroyers of the fleet. With so many missiles targetting each ship, there was no way the enemy could survive. The downside, however, was that the Western province was now nearly out of these missiles, with only a few thousand left. After them, they were stuck with Silkworms.

This attack would coincide with yet another massive storm of wooden rockets, another ten thousand of them. With every passing day, thousands more of these rockets were being churned out, some even being launch right from the very factory they are made.

To further the Confederate plan of action, the Confederate Airforce began to make their way behind the Allanean fleet, back to their original 3000km mark, from which they could once again begin intercepting incoming bombers and hopefully avoid yet another missile storm like the one they had just faced. If that had happened when the fleets were closer together, there would be a much different story on our hands.

In the meanwhile, Allanean warships now activated a new form of jamming – working now on only Griffincrest RADAR frequencies, but also on the enemy's radio communications. Within around several hundred kilometers of the Allanean ships, the Blackhelmians and Griffincrest mercenaries would have huge problems.

The Allaneans simply laughed. Around them, the completely useless inertial-guided missiles plunged into the seas by their thousand. The CIWS crews giggled as their automated cannon picked off anything that dared to come close to them, but these were few and random.

And yet they had work to do. Yet once more, from the Allanean aircraft carriers, a vast force was launched – 500 Blackjack fighters, rushing to meet the onslaught of the MiG-29s. They carried only two long-range A2A missiles each, but it was hoped it would be enough – they needed to save missiles now.

Simultaneously, other Allanean fixed-wing aircraft – about 2,000 in number, of various makes and models – rushed towards the enemy baloons once more. Unlike the first party, they did not save on their amount of missiles – this time, intermediate range. Again, they deployed chaff that would make their RADAR signature seem like a giant white line all across the RADAR screens – even if the Blackhelmian RADAR somehow got past the jamming. And they launched their missiles – four each – at the remaining Blackhelmian balloons. This would be approximately 8 missiles per every one of the giant balloons.

And from Allanea, another air armada was taking off – and from its harbors, another group of ships was leaving.

The Western Province missile salvo was called off quickly, but not before sixteen thousand of their missiles were launched harmlessly at the Allanean fleet. They had seen their mistakes too late, and hurriedly began dissassembling their launchers and fleeing into caverns around the coast. Griffincrest and Confederate engineers were called in, and they immediately began looking for other solutions guide the Pyatyorka's.

In the meantime, the city of Redemption, one of the more powerful city-states along the Bay of Neptune, finally decided to step in. They realized that the Griffincrest fleet was struggling, and fearing that the Allanean fleet might force its way to shore, they decided to deploy their own fleet. Once again, a Confederate city would deploy nearly a thousand under trained missile boats to strike at the Allaneans. This fleet, however, was armed with the C-802, a result of the close relationship between Redemption and China. This, however, had the downside of meaning that the fleet needed to get rather close to the Allaneans, a difficult task by any means. To help make this task a little easier, another Chinese weapon was about to be deployed. Over a hundred and eighty thousand DH-10 missiles, the Chinese equivalent of the missile Allanea had been using so effectively, would be fired at the enemy. The targets were the Parish Class destroyers as well as the sixty still floating Ark Royal Class Carriers. Over a hundred missiles was targetting each ship, which the Redemption government believed would be enough to break through the enemy air defense and ensure a devastating blow to the Allaneans.

On the Confederate part, they devised another plan to make their wooden rockets even more effective. Every twenty rockets, one of them was going to be armed with an R-27ET missile, which would be fired from an operator via remote control back in Sacrament. This should come as quite a shock to the Allanean pilots as the next wave of ten thousand missiles began streaking from their runways.

As for the balloons, they now had the added coverage of the fleet's defense to augment their own CIWS ability. Once more, missiles screamed for other missiles, detonating in mid air and causing brilliant explosions, capturing the eyes yet again of the sailors beneath. Still, even with the addition of the fleet, another two hundred balloons were sent to the sea.

OOC: Blackhelm, AGAIN! FOR THE LOVE OF GOD USE A REAL ANTI-SHIP MISSILE!!!!! This time I will take rather more sizeable casualties from them but Jesus Christ consult Draftroom before writing your attacks! PLEASE!!!

IC:

Allanean Defensive Measures

The Allaneans knew now that the missile attacks would continue. As such, they made several adjustments – based simply on the immense warning time the enemy missiles gave them. Whenever an enemy attack was launched, smoke projectors were turned on, to confound enemy observation, and AEW aircraft were put in the air, to extend the range of radio control jamming. IR decoys stood at the ready to be fired, should an enemy arrive.

Yet the Allaneans were not prepared to withstand an attack of 180,000 high-quality cruise missiles. Even despite the many countermeasures, the three-hour warning time, and the sheer amount of Allanean air defense weapons, it was simply not possible to shoot down everything.

Five minutes before the enemy missiles hit, the cruiser crews fired several thermonuclear anti-air missiles in a vain attempt to shoot down the enemy munitions – but even that didn't take down enough. Thirty-five air defense cruisers went down.

As the missile wave passed the cruisers, the avisos reaimed their 75mm autocannon and started carrying – not mere munitions, but semi-guided, anti-missile shells. That helped a bit, twoo – but two carriers were hit, one losing steering, the other losing RADAR coverage.

And as the enemy ships approached, the response to them was simple – three of the Allanean arsenal ships simply emptied their TASM arsenals at them as they entered the range of 800 kilometers. Simultaneously, 500 deck aircraft took off from the carriers, each carrying an Akkar missile, that would be launched as the enemy ships entered the range of 700 kilometers. And finally, as the survivors entered 300-kilometer range, every single Aviso in the Allanean fleet would launch another Akkar missile at them.

That would end up being 5,100 missiles for less than 1,000 tiny missile boats.

And then it was time for

ALLANEAN OFFENSIVE MEASURES

The Allanean air attack was comprised of three wings, all three of equal importance.


Wing Alpha

The first wing was comprised of 50 B-22 bombers with 100 Lu-45 AF escorts, flying within the cover range of each other's CIWS systems – not that this would matter. The LU-45's carried each a half-load of air-to-air missiles, to extend range, and the B-22's each carried a dozen decoys, to use as they arrived within range of Divinity – for it would be Divinity that would be their target. From their bellies was launched an immense number of missiles – stealth air-to-ground missiles, with a range of 2500 kilometers, equipped with simple inertial guidance – which was okay, because their targets could not move. There were five thousand of them.

Three thousand, armed with anti-runway cluster munitions, targeted the Divinity military airfield. The notion was simple – strand the Divinity branch of the enemy air force, don't let it take off. The others, armed with simple HE warheads, targeted the remaints of Divinity's air defense systems.

Wing Beta

The second wing was comprised of 120 more B-22's, with a a load of 14,000 heavily-modified TASM missiles. They were similar in conception to an ASROC missile in that they carried a light-weight 350-kilogram torpedo as their final stage – but it was an anti-ship rather than an anti-submarine torpedo. It would separate from the missile at 20 kilometers from its target, drop into the sea from a low altitude, and proceed towards its enemy.

The Allaneans were wise – and thus, from their frontmost strike cruisers, still untested in this battle, they fired 1200 of the Axis Novan Spectre missiles they operated before.

The Allaneans were also not boring – so from their carriers they took off a complement of strike bombers, 1000 in number, and they carried the Akkar missile that had been tested before – two on every bomber - and launched them at once frome a range of 400 kilometers.

The simple plan of Allaneans was to attack on three separate vectors, targetting the remaining Al-Maradims with the missile-deployed torpedoes from the water, to the fire of sophisticated, speedy Akkar missiles from the air - about ten torpedoes per Ul-Maradim and about four missilee for each one, too. But the real strike was composed of the Spectre missiles – expensive, 29-million-dollar contraptions designed to shoot and kill superdreadnaughts, would strike the Ul-Maradims simultaneously with the other missiles. They were much faster and stealthier than the Akkar, but they were timed to arrive almost simultaneously – with the hopes that the other missiles would either strike home or function as de-facto decoys, and failing that, the torpedoes would work.

Yes, Allanea had just expended 14% of its arsenal of Spectre missiles. But the Freemen had good cause to believe it would be worth it.

Wing Gamma

As all of this went on, and missile exchanges – and even dogfights – erupted on various fronts, 300 Be-2500 cargo ekranoplans/aircraft flew over the Allanean positions, with their Lu-45 escorts besides them, double in amount. The Lu-45s dropped onto the decks of Allanean carriers, and the Be-2500's simply landed on the water near the Allanean ships under the cover of smoke and decoys. Aboard each of them, there were 500 tons of supplies – mostly missiles, to defends the Allanean ships and strike the Blackhelmians with. Another similar convoy would arrive within two hours.

OOC: Can I get updates on this thread?

OOC: Read the OOC thread or talk to me. Essentially I sank Blackhelm's pirate fleet, destroyed his sea wall, and am now fighting with his navy.

The Allanean air attack was almost pitiful. There were over a thousand MiG's out at the three thousand miles mark, well out of range of the Allanean RADAR jamming, and were scanning the skies for anything that looked foreign. Soon enough, they would have their targets. The small group of escorts that the Allaneans had brought with them was quickly dove upon by nearly five times their number, while another hundred planes targeted the bombers and let rip with their own missiles to strike the bombers from the sky before they got a chance to let loose their missiles and destroy Divinity's fledgling air force and defenses. As this was taking place, the remaining three hundred MiG's and Sukhoi's began to fly for the cargo planes. It was imperative that these did not make it to the Allanean fleet. As such, each of the Confederate aircraft targeted a specific aircraft, and loosed every missile it had on their targets. Should somehow none of their missiles hit, the fighters would close in and destroy their much slower opponent with simple cannon fire. Those erkanoplanes would never make it, the Confederate pilots swore it.

Meanwhile, the Confederacy had finally finished their plans to unlock their RADAR from the Allaneans. Thousands of modified P-700 Granit's using the traditional less punch more range tactic of the Confederacy, were soon positioned all over the coast. The warhead on each was reduced to 500 kg, but their range was bumped up to 900km, putting the Allanean navy within their range. These missiles were all going to be targeting the Allanean fleets RADAR and jamming devices. Should they decide to turn off their RADAR and unjam the Griffincrest fleet, that would just simply cause the missiles to switch back to active RADAR homing, and still guide the Granit's to their targets. Twenty thousand missiles were to be launched at the Allanean fleet, targetting everything and anything they could hit.

This would be accompanied, once again, by the launch of ten thousand more wooden rockets armed with the R-27. Any Allanean aircraft sent up to destroy these missiles would have another thing coming for them, as these previously easy targets were now about to bite back, and hard.

Meanwhile, the Allanean naval air assault was more effective than Griffincrest would have liked. The Akkar missiles slammed home taking over a hundred Um al Maradim's with them. Not only that, but several corvettes and cruisers were set ablaze, and chaos began to over take the fleet as missile after missile screamed in. The remaining anti-missile balloons did what they could to stop more damage, but by now there were just too few of them to be as effective as they had been in the beginning of the conflict. Their CIWS and missiles, along with those of the fleet, continued to fire until the last Allanean missile had exploded, but for over a hundred vessels of the Griffincrest fleet, it was too late.

Deep under Paradise City, Admiral Ironclaw looked unhappy. He knew what his only choice was. It would be at least two more days before the Western Province could reconfigure their missiles with a new guidance system, and these were two days the Admiral did not have. He ordered his fleet to steam for the Allaneans head on. His only hope was to over come the Allaneans through the shear might of his cannon fire, and hopefully by time for the Confederate fleet, still assembled in the Bay of Neptune, and get the coastal defenses up to where they could destroy the remaining Allaneans.

The Allanean plan was not well thought-out this time. The bombers were wiped out, most of them before they could even launch their missiles. From the LU-45 detachment, over half were shot down The Ekranoplanes were a little better off, for they each had a LU-45 escort to defend them and and intrinsic anti-missile defense system of their own, but still, 50 of them plunged into the icy seas. In the meanwhile, about 20 Allanean Avisos and 15 battleships were lost – some entirely pulverized by missile fire, others sinking slowly. The Allanean vessels remained in their place, waiting for their enemy and resupplying from the remaining ekranoplans.

Within several hours the next Allanean attack came. It was comprise of a wave of Barsuk stealth aircraft, designed to penetrate enemy air defenses – a gigantic wave, composed of 500 such bombers, armed at the Allanean national arsenals, with a weapon that had not yet been used in this campaign – the Vympel-37 missile. They were fired from a range of 3150 kilometers outside the Blackhelmian border – and 150 kilometers outside the enemy air envelope. Each of the bombers carried 10 of the large missiles, allowing for a grand total of 5,000 to be launched at the 700 patrolling aircraft.

The Allaneans did not expect an attack on their planes, but just in case, they had them escorted by 500 Lu-45s.

North Point NAS

North Point was located on Luna Island in Northern Wolfenhalle. It was the headquarters and home port of the Ambrose Sea Fleet. The conflict between Griffencrest and Allanea was a perfect time for the Wolfenhaller government to conduct operations against Griffencrest. The order was for the entire fleet to be sent to support Allanean operations. The flagship of the force was the old carrier RNS Samuel Hood, the oldest ship in the Wolfenhaller Navy. The force steamed out of port and head to the operational area.

Liberty City

The Federal Department of Defense was busy with the nation now at war with a foreign entity. The plan was destroy only Griffencrest property, and keep collateral damage to a minimum. Now the event was in the hands of God and the crew of the vessels.

The Confederate aircraft were struck from the sky as thousands of missiles began screaming in upon them. This was a serious blow for the Confederacy, as now the air patrol would need to be supported not by the mighty MiG-29, but instead by the older MiG-21's, which have once again over the years been modified for in air refueling. This would be a severe set back, however, because the outdated planes were far easier to deal with than their now deceased cousins.

The Allanean battleships were almost all lost, and without them, the confidence of the Griffincrest generals in a ship to ship cannonade would soar. These ships had to be eliminated, and fast. The plan was to once again use anti-radiation missiles, which could if necessary switch to RADAR guidance, and target the surviving fifteen battleships, as well as the eighty Type 168 Cruisers and sixty six undamaged Ark Royal Class Carriers. One thousand of the remote controlled M-4 bombers, which had been out of use for several days now, began to take to the skies. Along with them, three thousand more decoy Convair missiles were fired to distract the Allanean anti-air cover. Each of the M-4's were armed with four Kh-31 missiles, which would track down the Allanean vessels from their RADAR emissions. With a speed of over Mach 3, they would be very difficult for the Allaneans to stop.

Still, the Griffincrest fleet continued to close, all the while keeping their SONAR on high alert looking for any sign of a submarine.

ooc: Is this open or closed..?

OOC: Open.

The Allaneans reacted to the M4 bombers as they really should have – as the bombers were detected on RADAR, a small amount of aircraft was scrambled – about 250 in number – carrying 8 G43 air to air missiles (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=13165664&postcount=25) each.

By the time the aircraft were fully in the air, the anti-air cruisers had already spat out 500 long-range anti-air missiles, trying to get the enemy aircraft before they got into missile range. But it would be the aircradft that would do the main work.

They would go out to a range of 200 kilometers and fire their missiles at the Blackhelmian aircraft – they would hopefully impact them at a time when they were within 350 kilometers' range of the Allanean Type 38 cruisers. The Allanean pilots grinned maniacally as they saw hundreds of red streams of fire – the trails of 2,000 missiles – spool out towards the enemy aircraft.

Behind them, Allanean ships once more used RADAR decoys and other means to fool the enemy's missiles, but how necessary they would be remained to be seen.

Elsewhere

Seeing their maneuver worked so well last time, the Allaneans now redoubled their attack. Within several hours, a new fleet of bombers would hit – now comprised of 1000 bombers. Their task was the same, but they carried double the amount of missiles, naturally.

Now, there would be 700 patrolling aircraft and about 10,000 air to air missiles.

The bombers were absolutely defenseless in the situation they were now in, but the wooden rockets that they were with were not. The surprise to the Allaneans would be great as the wooden rockets, far ahead of the unmanned M-4's began letting fly several hundred R-27ET missiles before they began to make their dive upon the fleet. The bombers continued behind them waiting to see what was to happen. Regardless of the outcome, they would loose their missiles, it was just a matter of how many missiles would be launched.

The MiG-21's were destroyed, but there was no shortage of these aircraft, and a few hundred more were put up in their place. This had to be stopped, however, and the answer was to deploy the massive Confederate Air Fleet. Hundreds of huge airships, long thought to be obsolete in modern warfare, began to move towards the three thousand kilometer mark. These weapons were bristling with CIWS and anti-missile systems, and were well prepared to take anything the enemy had to throw at them. Several of these vessels were going to stay along this imaginary border line, but the vast majority of them were planning on moving out to engage the Allanean relief fleet. This was going to be a true test of the times. If the Confederate fleet was able to best the sea-based Allanean opponent, perhaps the time time of the ocean going fleet would be seeing its last days.

And so indeed, the R-27 attack came as a complete suprise, eliminating about half of the Allanean aircraft in mid-air. Upon detecting this, however, the Allanean air defense cruisers began to fire long-range air defense missiles at the bombers, firing approximately 5,000 of them, looking to rapidly compensate for the lost of defensive aerial capability.

Simultaneously with that simple act, shorter-range missiles, resupplied by Ekranoplan, would be again fired at those wooden missiles that were even now diving at the fleet. Still, five more battleships went down to the fire of these bizarre weapons.

The wooden missiles made impact and a cheer was sent through the bunker containing the High Command and the Griffincrest staff. That was soon silenced as the bombers were eliminated outright from the massive wall of missiles the Allanean fleet threw up at them. Luckily, no pilots were killed as they were unmanned, but still, that was a heavy loss of material for the Confederacy. This was probably the largest difference between the Confederate and Allanean forces currently arrayed against each other. The Allaneans could afford to spam missiles wastefully and haphazardly, and did so rather frequently. The Confederates, however, had to be careful, and conserve what they had.

Still, the obsession to eliminate the last ten battleships of the Allanean fleet drove the hand of Admiral Ironclaw. The fleets were well within range now for the Riverstone Spider to be deployed. The Spider was similar to an ASROC, except with a much, much longer range (700 km), and was originally designed for the air fleet. The torpedo was released at a forty kilometer mark, and would immediately begin making its way for the enemy fleet. Ironclaw rationed that if he could use these to punch a hole through the enemy cruisers, he could release yet another Cormorant volley, supported by rockets and decoys, and hopefully strike the war winning (in his mind at least) blow to the Allaneans. That would come later, however. Now, his target was the eighty Type 168 Cruisers. These were targeted not only for their AA ability, but also because of their ship to ship ability. Eight hundred Spiders were fired, ten per cruiser, and the Admiral locked his eyes upon the satellite feed and watched to see what was to happen.

The Blackhelmians were in for an extremely nasty surprised. Not only because the Allanean Type-68 cruisers were behind the ranks of AA destroyers, that had barely fired their weapons in this battle. It would require barely a fraction of the Allanean supply of anti-missile weaponry to be fired – and indeed, some anti-missile weapons were fired post-haste – about nine hundred short-range missiles. None of them were fired from the Allanean air defense cruisers or frigates, but from the destroyers, that had fired almost no shots throughout.

Still, several dozen missiles stil went through – and then, within seconds, torpedos were detected in the water. The cruiser crews did not worry.

It takes a torpedo moving at 50 knots about half an hour to reach its target.

It take an UDAV-1 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Udav-1_anti-submarine_system) anti-ship [/url] system a minute and a half to fire all of its sixty anti-torpedo rockets – ten decoys to pose false targets, fifty agile torps to target the enemy torpedoes.

And that's before it needs resupplies.

Yet the Allaneans did not attack the Blackhelmians, they preferred to allow them to draw still closer. On another front, however, the infamous stealth bombers began another attack run on the enemy – now targeting the enemy airship fleet once they got into the maximum 300 kilometer range of their missile. It wasn't like the airships were going to dodge 10,000 missiles, anyhow.

ETA:32 Hours, International Waters

The 4th High Seas fleet cut swiftly through the water in route to assist their Allanean allies in their battle against Griffencrest tyranny, this would be their chance, however small a role it may be to avenge griffencrest aggression against the Republic from decades ago.

The two Feathermore dreadnaughts Remorse and Conquest, the pride of the 4th fleet steamed well ahead the main column save one modified Indestructable class carrier God's Might and several paramount air defense vessels.

The ships were equipped with newly tested and approved stand off capable "sea pike" Hypersonic missiles with a range greater than 4,500km and capable of delivering its 750kg warhead at astounding speeds. The coming conflict with the Griffencrest navy would be their first live uses in combat situations for the Republic, however during testing the missiles were more than reliable and Admiral Hussar expected them to be a valuable asset in the coming conflict.

As precautionary measures three fighter squadrons flew CAP's around both the advance group and the main fleet along with other AWACS and command and control craft and as added defense one squadron of Canaries also equipped with Anti-Ship and anti-submarine weaponry cycled through in intervals of forty five minutes

No, this is true, the Airships couldn't dodge the missiles. They could, however, defend themselves against this attack more than any other unit in possibly the entire world was capable of. The airhips were created to be massive floating CIWS platforms, and this was soon to become apparent as thousands of anti-missile missiles screamed through the sky and even more CIWS turrets began spraying buller after bullet into the missile storm. Even dispite the heavy defensive fire the air fleet put up, two Mako Class Bombers were sent down.

The response from the Air Fleet was swift. Twelve thousand Cormorant missiles were launched from the floating missile platforms. Their targets were any of the various ships of the Allanean relief fleet, none were to be picked out just yet. The aftermath of this strike would provide the air fleet with their next targets. This was followed up by a launch of two thousand Spider missiles, aimed at the submarines of the relief fleet.

The Griffincrest fleet, in the meantime, decided to copy the Confederate Air Fleet, and they too would target the Allanean submarines. The Allanean submarines were roughly a hundred kilometers from the rest of their fleet, and with the Spiders dropping their torpedoes forty miles out from the target, this put them well out of range of many of the Allanean missiles and all of its CIWS, greatly improving their chances of a kill. The Griffincrest fleet let loose a hail of five thousand Spiders, and were now beginning to run low on these munitions. Hopefully their effects would be felt.

As the relief fleet was targeted, and as its missile magazines were not touched, the Type-165 fired an immense salvo of 10,000 long-range anti-air missiles, and 20,000 of the shorter-range equipment. What survived the salvo would be chopped up by CIWS.

The Allanean Tyrant-class submarines, in the meanwhile, would be completely chopped up by enemy torpedoes, ceasing to exist as a class. As the nation that manufactured them had long ceased to exist, it would be the last of these subs for a long time.

And now the Allanean Type-165 cruisers would be used for a completely surprising purpose. Every single one of the 400 remaining cruisers would fire a small fraction of its arsenal – a mere 20 long-range anti-air missiles, a minor speck compared to the wealth of arms they carried aboard. Between them, this worked out to about 8,000 missiles, that would be distributed almost evenly between the baloons.

The response from Mr. Silkshirt, watching the battle from the command bunker, was a subtle "Oh damn". The balloons were by this point rather exhusted of ammunition, and were not able to defend themselves as successfully as before. The result was catastrophic for the Confederacy. Of the former eight hundred balloons, a little more than ten were left in the air. This was not a good thing, not by any means.

The distance, however, had been closed to within 300 km. This was fantastic, as far as the Griffincrest fleet was concerned. Not only this, but the sixty four thousand Pyatyorka's had finally had their changes made to allow them to home in on the enemy RADAR, as well as keep its active RADAR in case the Allaneans turned of their systems. In one hail of glory, probably the only glory ever to come out of the hell hole of a province that was the Western Province, the missiles screamed towards the Allaneans. Their target was any ship in the outer ring of the fleet, most likely going to be the AA destroyers and cruisers. The massive storm of Soviet era missiles would be, as usual, supported by a ten thousand wooden rocket spam from the Confederacy.

This was not the end of the attack, however. No, far from it. Recently, Griffincrest had made a deal secret deal with the world famous arms manufacturer ZMI for the purchase of several thousand Vauntic Class Unmanned Surface Vehicles. Three thousand of these heavily armed boats were soon about to hit the seas for their first ever combat debut, along with ten thousand Protector USV's, each modified to carry a pair of Norwegian made Naval Strike Missiles. Every single ship in the fleet was carrying at least one, some over a dozen, of these USV's, and within minutes, the size of the Griffincrest Armada grew exponentially. All of these little ships were packing an advanced CIWS array, and in a huge splash of water, they sped for the Allanean fleet. In the meantime, the Griffincrest fleet came to a stop, and threw up a hail of three thousand Brahmos missiles from the fleets Rajput's to add to the stress of the Allanean anti-missile systems.

The new Admiral in charge of the fleet – Admiral Pyatnizky, promoted after the suicide of his predecessor – knew precisely what to do. He ordered a single nuclear-tipped ABM missile fired, the four megaton-yield explosions wreaking havoc among the Pyatorkas. Then, Allanean patrol helicopters and CAP aircraft started slaughtering the wooden missiles with their automatic cannon and killing Pyatorkas with air-to-air missiles. CIWS missiles would be launched by dozens of thousands, and yet many of them would still come through. Still, thirty more AA cruisers and fifty destroyers were brought down. Further, ten LSVs and five oilers that somehow ended up in the outer ring of ships were also brought down.

In the meanwhile, the Allaneans detected the thousands of enemy boats take off – but, knowing their speed, they knew they still had several hours until the boats closed in on them. They had other things to deal with. Admiral Pyatnizki ordered the Arsenal ship crews to do their duty – and they did it. Simply put, they launched all their remaining TASMs - approximately 20,000 missiles – at the surviving Ul-Maradim light craft. That was it for the Arsenal ships – they were now filled with wounded sailors and survivors from sunk ships and sent home to Allanea.

ASoGM spy satellites were still at work, taking pictures, noting radar parametrics, and communications frequencies. Among the communications frequencies intercepted were the frequencies used by Griffincrest to communicate with the USVs. While the ASoGM satellites wouldn't be able to crack the encryption without help from decryption experts, that frequency data could be useful to the Allaneans as it already was. All the new information pertinent to the battle was forwarded to the Allaneans as quickly as possible, after it was duplicated.

5km from the Allanea fleet

The Ambrose Sea fleet arrived at the area to support the Allaneans. Already the air groups of the carriers were in the air. The decision was to launch missiles at anything that carried a Griffencrest or Blackhelm flag and was a threat. The air was filled with hundreds of Tomahawks and Harpoons heading towards the enemy fleet. Admiral Harris, Commander-in-Chief of the fleet sits in the combat control center, planing and controlling the actions. This was his first taste of battle, and he was worried. The fleet was powerful, made up of half of the entire Bundesmarine or Federal Navy. The F-4Ss and F-57Cs stand watch over the fleet. The subs watching from below the deeps. Now the tide had turn, it was up to the oil robbers to make the next move.

Federal Standard Oil, Port Stanford

Federal Standard Oil, a semi-government owned company which was responsible for 60% of Wolfenhalle's oil had just seized the stocks owned by Griffencrest. The company seized the stocks under law, since Griffencrest was a company in a now enemy nation. The company had a interest in the conflict with the possible to seize the assets of Griffencrest in Blackhelm. They keep this hidden from the government while they prepare for the planned seizure.

As the Allaneans were now aware of the ASOGM broadcasts, they did the simplest thing they could on short notice. Their radio jamming arrays were shifted from jamming the controls of the wooden rockets – which, at any rate, proved useless – and readjusted the m to the frequencies of the approaching vessels. Area jammers covered the entire location, and directional jammers were aimed at the oncoming boats. They couldn't decipher, but they could JAM.

And of course CIWS and missile launchers were prepared to fire at any time.

OOC: Newcomers, you need to wait a bit. Your fleets can not just appear off of my coast.

IC:

The Um al Maradims took devastating losses. Over eight hundred of the vessels were battered to pieces as the missiles rained down upon them. Only four hundred of these assault ships were left afloat, and this was now a serious problem for the now badly damaged Griffincrest fleet. Admiral Ironclaw was furious, and the overly merry Western Province Commanders, all cheering happily and still gloating over their sinking of more than eighty Allanean vessels, only made him more so. He screamed at them for silence, as now his fleet was near the breaking point, when the Confederate General Blueshield finally spoke up.

"Admiral, we are right now in a position to overwhelm Allanean missile defenses by striking on all fronts. If this works, we stand a chance at crippling their fleet."

The Admiral was suddenly not so unhappy s he implored the general to go on.

"The Air Fleet is in a position between the two Allanean fleets, and is capable of releasing a Cormorant barrage into the rear of the fleet. Now, if we can time this correctly with Divinity and your own fleet, a wooden rocket volley from the shore would be launched by my own forces. This would hit the Allanean fleet at the same time as a Granit launch, as well as a Sledgehammer II discharge from your fleet. If we play this right, we can make them all hit the enemy at the same time."

And so this was done. Before anything, eight thousand wooden rockets, a smaller volley than usual but still nothing to sneeze at, was fired at the Allanean anti-air vessels from the south, near Redemption. The Airfleet was next, and it released a blast of two thousand Cormorant missiles aimed at the rear of the Allanean fleet, where chances are the anti-missile coverage would be lowest. Moments later Divinity would let loose an additional fifteen hundred P-700's to strike at the north of the fleet, and to top it all off, the Griffincrest fleet released the majority of its Sledgehammer II missiles at the Allanean carriers and still floating battle ships. Seven thousand of these missiles were fired. The capital ships would be massively outnumbered, and the chances of their survival against almost a hundred missiles each was very, very slim.

Terrible destruction was wrought upon the Allanean battlefleet. True, the decoy systems and friendly CIWS did the best job it could. From the Allanean destroyers and frigates, over 8000 close-range defensive missiles were fired at the approaching Sledgehammer missiles. Behind them, decoys provided extra targets, and friendly ships did the best job they could. Still, with the Allanean defenses weakened, losses would prove to be devastating.

The wooden rockets in particular took a harvest of blood. 25 Pepperbox LSVs, 17 Type 176 Replenishment tankers, and fifteen Type 14 Fast Attack Craft were taken down. Giant oil fires erupted on the sea surface everywhere that an oil tanker was hit.

In the confusion and terror, the Elusive class battleships took terrible hits from Cormorants – some as much as ten, fifteen missile strikes per ship. Of the entire convoy of fifteen ships, twelve were now down. Three more were so heavily damaged that they were unsafe to use, and therefore abandoned.

The frontal attack was least efficient, and yet it imparted terrible damage. Three Ark Royal carriers were taken down completely, sinking within two hours, and two more were injured so terribly there was no recourse but to turn them towards home.

The Allanean fleet was damaged, but it could still fight.

From the Type 168 cruisers erupted their full magazines of P-600B Sea Lions – the heaviest, most potent anti-ship missile every to come out of the Questarian arsenals. These terrible weapons would be would be aimed at the Ul-Maradims – at more than 16 missiles per Ul-Maradim, the strike would be difficult to shrug off.

Elsewhere

While all this went on, a gigantic fleet of Allanean bombers appeared in the skies once more – this time, it was truly huge, composed of 2000 stealth bombers and 500 escorts. Each of them carried a dozen of the same long-range missiles that the Allaneans had used before, and a dozen of 45-kilogram decoys, the same type that were previously used to deceive the Blackhelmian air defenses.

As it approached, it split itself into several small groups of aircraft, coming at the strange enemy Zeppelins from dozens of different directions – and all fired at once.

Now the Blackhelmians had a problem – their RADAR would now display 40,000 air-to-air missiles approaching them from dozens of different vectors. In truth, there were about 15 missiles per Zeppelin targeted, but they had no way from separating one from the other.

This would be... interesting.

In the meanwhile, an Allanean government press release was sent out, posted online and sent in copies to all Blackhelm and Griffincrest mass-media.

It ran as follows:



We in Allanea remind the Confederacy that despite the terrible losses already inflicted upon the joint Griffincrest-Confederate Fleet, surrender is still an option.

We guarantee the personal security of the rank and file Confederate and Griffincrest personnel in the even of a surrender. Furthermore, no genocide or atrocities against the people of the Blackhelm Confederacy will take place in the event of the surrender. These are the conditions:

Potential Blackhelm Surrender Conditions, for the Perusal of the Blackhelm Populace and Government Officials

1. The Griffincrest Corporation be nationalized, and its institutions broken up. The leaders of the Corporation are to be placed under arrest and tried for piracy under Allanean law.
2. The Blackhelmian government is to resign from office, and a democratic government is to be instituted.
3. All Griffincrest Corporate military equipment, uniforms, and unit banners are to be given over to Allanea, as are the unit banners of the Blackhelmian military.
4. The Confederacy will abstain hereafter from maintaining an offensive military force for 60 years. The funds that would have otherwise been expended on maintaining it will be paid to Allanea. This will also serve to compensate Allanean businesses who lost property to raiding.
5. The United States of Allanea will become a full ally of the Confederacy, and will use all available resources to protect Blackhelm from any and all foreign attacks. This will serve to compensate from the loss of military power.
6. The United States of Allanea and the Confederacy of Sovereign States shall give funds to repair any environmental damage caused by the fighting, to repair the infrastructure of the Blackhelm Confederacy to a first-world level, to and to support the democratic government.
7. The CSS shall station troops in portions of the Confederacy for the transition period, to support law and order and the emerging democratic government.
8. The Blackhelm Confederacy shall leave the Corporate Alliance.

Apart from this, the following offers stand for the duration of combat:

Offers for Local Officials and Members of the Armed Forces

1. Any naval commander who surrenders with his ship will receive money to the market value of the ship, to be divided among the crew. The commander himself will receive an additional sum of twenty million dollars and an Allanean Freemanship.
2. The rewards for killing any member of the Griffincrest hierarchy or the Blackhelmian government will continue to stand until a surrender is issued.
3. Any province capital that surrenders to Allanea will receive 100 billion dollars in development funds from the Allanean government, and an addition billion dollars, plus a complete amnesty, will be given to the members of its city council and equivalent. Smaller settlements will receive smaller amounts of funds.

Remember that Allanea is kind, but she is also just. Should we not receive a surrender, we will not balk at any means necessary – and we really mean that – to accomplish the total and complete defeat of the Griffincrest Corporation and its minions in the Blackhelmian government.

That is all.

May God continue to bless Allanea.

Marshal Abdullah Hassan al-Ghazi

To: The Allanea Government

From: The Kingdom Of Imbrinium

Subject: Conflict and help


The Imbrinium government is offering to let the forces of Allanea to use our ports and airbases to repair and stage equipment in support of your actions on Blackhelm Confederacy. Our naval dry docks and ships yards are at the ready should you want to use them, you can use our airbases to stage aircraft for attacks and or bring supplies in to rearm your ships. The use of such bases is only for the length of this conflict. If your nation would like to meet over this that's fine. Our naval forces will help your ships make in to our ports if needed. We can and will rearm at sea your naval ships if asked to do so. Thank you we await your respones.

Prime Minister,
Kingdom Of Imbrinium

Admiral Silkshirt had realized that there was little hope for his Air Fleet a he recieved the satellite reports of the Allanean aircraft coming towards them. He could only do one thing tp try and make the fleets sacrifice worth it. He ordered the fleet to immediately empty all munitions into the Relief Fleet. They did as they were ordered, loosing fifteen thousand Riverstone Spiders, three thousand Cormorants, and six thousand Shockhound Avengers into the Allanean postion. The Shockhounds were targetted at the galleons and the Ark Royals. There was only eighteen vessels that became the target of six thousand powerful missiles. Next, the Spiders all targetted the Questalia cruisers, Sandakan cruisers, and Admiral Class cruisers, ten thousand missiles at fifty vessels, and the Cormorants were launched at the remaining vessels. The Air fleet, after releasing their missiles, took the massive impact of the enemy strike. CIWS and anti-missile systems blazed through the air, but it was not enough as airship after airship plunged into the sea. It was a horrible sight, as those few ships that remained limped back to shore. They would be out of the fight until the conflict came to shore.

The Um al Maradim's did not fair much better. Only a handful survived the hellish rain of explosives. The sea was a mass of twisted ships, blood, oil, and bodies as the Griffincrest fleet steamed forward. From the fleet, a hail of Shockhound's came surging forth, two thousand of them all targetting the AA cruisers and destroyers. Yet another hail of the venerable wooden rockets, five thousand this time, came over the fleet as well, keeping the same targets as their more advanced cousins now leaving the Griffincrest decks. The remaining Sledgehammers were also about to be released, all three thousand of them, all targetting the sixty three carriers still afloat.

The letter of surrender was scoffed at by the Confederate High Command. This was merely the beginning, there was a long, long war still to be carried out on land should the Allaneans even make it, and the Confederacy had been preparing for just such an event for decades now. With thousands upon thousands of missiles aimed at the Allanean capital ships, the Confederate/Griffincrest commanders were sure that they would be able to halt this fleet.

Meanwhile, the Griffincrest Eighth Fleet, currently absent from from the conflict around their homeland, began to slide out from its births around the captured city of Vik, in Kamasha. Their destination would not become clear to their enemies yet, but the fleet knew their mission and steamed out into the icy waters amongst the cheers, streamers, and fireworks of the local garrison and population.

As the Griffincrest missiles dove towards the Allanean ships, the enormous CIWS arrays fired up again, but they could not be 100% effective against such terrible firepower. Half of the Galleons, and all of the larger destroyers bought it all at once, losing the Allaneans 54 ships.

The mainline Allanean fleet was even less lucky, however. 50 destroyers and 25 AA cruisers would be lost, and with their loss of coverage, less carriers could be protected. 10 Allanean carriers went down.

In the meanwhile, the Allanean raiding bombers came back again. They came in two waves, each of 500 aircraft, separated by half an hour of gap time. As they approached, they each fired a salvo of 5,000 long-range missiles at the patrolling aircraft and airships.

Ten thousand missles at a hundred airships and three hundred MiG's....it was quite a waste by any means. Of course, the Confederate pilots had no chance, and we wiped away quickly, but that only caused the High Command to send up a new weapon, cheap, light drones. Several hundred of these drones were soon sent into the skies within their cargo planes, and deposited out the back where they immediately began their patrols, each packing a full suite designed to counter enemy missiles from RADAR jammers to chaff and flares, and also all had one R-27ET, the same as their wooden rocket counter parts. Slowly, throughout the course of the conflict, the Confederacy was modernizing, relying more and more on unmanned missions in an attempt to save valuable men and material. These were no different.

And still the Griffincrest fleet steamed on. Their missiles remained silent for now. They needed to get into the range of the enemy fleet with their railguns, where they could rain hell upon the enemy fleets while still maintaining distance over the guns of the smaller ships. They still needed to get closer to use their next missile wave.

OOC: I believe all this could end if Griffencrest just quit its tyrannical quest for oil =D

Now, the Allanean bombers went towards the Western province of Blackhelm, where the drone UAV patrol line came closest to the shore. There were 800 of them and a group of 200 cargo aircraft.

As the first bombers approached the patrol line, 400 of them launched their full payload – 4,000 air-to-air missiles – at any decoys in the vicinity. The other simply proceeded into the temporary weak spot in the enemy defenses that was bound to be caused by enemy casualties.

The drones were picked apart by the missiles, and the bombers were soon moving into the airspace of the Confederacy. Roughly a hundred and fifty MiG-21's soon blastd off from their runways and made their way to intercept the bombers over the ocean.

Meanwhile, the Griffincrest fleet was coming up on 350km from the Allaneans.

Now, the other bombers launched their payload. 100 of them unleashed a payload of 1000 long-range anti-air missiles, and 200 more fired a payload of 2,000 Tomahawks, aimed at the enemy SAM stations' RADAR emissions. 100 avoided firing anything at all.

And the shoreline was now minutes away.

The enemy was now bearing down on the Western province. Thirty Mirage III's rocketed off from their runways within the Province, preparing to pick up where their Confederate brothers failed. The Confederate High Command, upon realizing that the bombers were headed for the Western Province, waved it off and did not send out more aircraft. They did, however, send up another wave of drones to contain the bombers within the air ring and keep them from returning home.

As the Allanean planes approached Blackhelmian land, six – only six – of the bombers fired their payloads, 80 missiles for 30 enemy planes.

This time, the Mirages didn't go down without a fight. Each of the planes fired a pair of Meteor missiles at the incoming bombers. The sixty missiles targeted thirty of the bombers, and soon the Mirage's too were shot down.

Finally, the Allaneans were over enemy territory – and as soon as they were over the shoreline, the cargo planes opened their holds.

Minutes later, the true meaning made sense. From the cargo aircraft, thousands and thousands of troops dropped out – 20,000 in number, a complete Airborne division. They were the First Airborne Division (nicknamed Furry), and they screamed their battle-cry as they plunged towards enemy soil.

“Furry Airborne! With bullets, teeth, and claws!”

Along with the troops, dropped towards enemy land were about a hundred extremely wide rolls of the segmented steel. The meaning of that was not yet clear.

RNS Hood, Ambrose Sea Fleet

Harris sits in his cabin, with reports of the Allaneans landing, he decided to aid them. A flight of F/A-18Es would provide close air support with rockets and bombs. The rest of the fleet prepared for the battle with the opposing force. The fleet was comprised of the Hood and 39 other carriers, 30 battleships, and escorts. One of the battleships, the Port Stanford was near the carrier with it's 16.5in guns at the ready, and it's missiles prepped. The Allanean fleet was nearby so Harris thought to say hi.

"To the commander of the Allanean Fleet. This is Admiral Harris of the Wolfenhaller Federal Navy, and Commander In Chief of the Ambrose Sea Fleet. Looks like you need some help."

The ships approached the Allaneans to aid the fight.

The Allaneans would have about five minutes before the local Communist militia showed up with their Katyusha's. Twenty of these vehicles began to rain hell onto the airbourne division, supported by over a hundred mortars tearing out of the jungle. Shells and rockets began to fall like angry hailstones upon the outsiders who had dared to set foot on the soil of the Confederacy, untouched by a foreign army in its history. Even as these munitions began to fall, the local garrison began to prepare itself, and ten Havoc's left their bases to support their former enemies in wiping the Allanean landing party off the map.

Meanwhile, another group of Tu-160 Blackjack's took off, this time planning to intercept the fleet from Brydog before they could rendezvous with the Allaneans. Three hundred bombers took off each carrying twelve Kh-55 missiles, all upgraded with a RADAR homing/ active RADAR guidance system based off of the lessons learned earlier. Thousands of missiles would soon be screaming for Brydog blood.

For the Allanean fleet, an additional two hundred Tu-160's took of, each carrying twenty four Kh-15 missiles, ready with their anti-radiation guidance and secondary active RADAR, just like the rest of the Confederate arsenal at this point, targetted the Type 14 fast attack craft, and they too would let loose a hail of thousands of missiles at the small craft.

Admiral Ironclaw watched as the distance between the fleets closed, and smiled a bit. His fleet had the benefit of far more guns, and even should the galleons close, they were outnumbered by Griffincrest's battleships and pocket battleships, not to mention the eight SD's of the fleet. It would not be long now before his image became a reality. His mine then drifted to New Kentucky, where another of his fleets was sent. He wondered just how well they were doing, as they had not yet reported back.

The post commander at Palermo Naval Base inside Volgrad sat back in his chair and read the orders that had just been sent to his command.

FLTCOMD HQ:

PNAS-V:

Commander 4th fleet you are ordered to bring your forces to full alert and prepare to move the fleet out in support of Allanea forces in its conflict with Blackhelm Confederacy. You are ordered to submit a plan of action and support you need from the main land no later than 36hrs from today. Orders to other fleet commands are being readied at this time. There is no time to wait.

FLTCOMD HQ:
The admiral thought to himself well I will be dammed this has came out of nowhere as he looked out the window at most of his fleet sitting in the harbor. Well I guess I need to get the old boys together and get a plan in the works.

The admiral picked his phone up and told his aid. “I want all the senior staff in here ASAP”

Invasion Force Alpha

Within several minutes, the Airborne were surrounded by their enemy – and that's just how they liked it. The squad riflemen were hard at work, unrolling the strange metallic rolls until they were all flat, and large, flate squares were arranged upon the ground. Many a man were killed during this action, but the Allaneans were far from defenses.

Brought in with the division were approximately 400 82mm mortars – mostly regular, but there were also several Vasilyek automatic mortars rechambered for the European caliber. From the Allanean position, manportable UAVs were launched by their hundreds, as they were now squad-issued equipment with the Allanean army. These craft would easily detect the enemy mortars by their muzzle flashes and helping commanders to direct fire into the enemy locations.

Some of the UAVs -about three dozen of the total number – were directed to simply crash into the windshields of the Havocs or their fragile rotors. Those Havocs that somehow survived this would be subjected to the fire of dozens of manportable SAMs from the surface, and if they were stupid enough to come close – the fire of hundreds of machineguns, heavy machineguns, and .308 rifles – many of which fired steelcore AP or incendiary rounds that would really mess up the life of the pilot or his craft.

Allanean Armada

As the Blackhelmian aircraft approach, five hundred air superiority fighters would take off to meet the Tu-160s – one for every plane, no matter where they took off for. As they approached within range of the enemy, they would fire a pair of A2A missiles each, and then close in to strafe them with cannon fire. Should anyone survive that and choose to approach within the range of Allanean long-range anti-air missiles, the orders were given to launch at the enemy bombers as fast as possible, three missiles per bomber. Missiles were runninng low, and it was better to simply take down a bomber than its hell-cargo.

In the meanwhile, RADAR decoys were fired off by the dozen, and EW craft were in the air.

As this went on, from the AAW carriers, approximately 200 drone helicopters took off, and so did 200 deck bombers, about half an hour later. They were headed straight for the enemy Armada.


Yet Elsewhere

Now, yet another team of bombers and cargo aircraft – now immense, with four hundred bombers and 600 cargo aircraft involved – was set for the enemy lines.

As they approached, they split up – most of the aircraft were headed for the previous landing location, but 150 bombers were set for the Blackhelmian Armada.

As they entered the range of enemy patrols, 100 bombers on the main force and 50 bombers on the smaller one would fire their entire payload – 20 missiles each, amounting for 2,000 missile at one point and 1,000 in another – at the enemy drones, proceeding to then enter the resulting breach.

Colderon watched over his mass of screen at the onslaught that was besetting the Blackhelm Confederacy, and the Griffencrest Corporation. And with Griffencrest requesting assistance from the Raven corporation, he looked over the options. helping the Griffencrest corporation would be costly, and would require a large number of troops and supplies, something colderon had just sent out to Steelios. Plus possible retaliation from allied forces now currently engaging the BC/GC forces. Though Colderon was sure he could fend off attacks for a little while, sheer number where against him and it would take allies to drive them back it they did retaliate. After he watched a little while longer he made his decision.... he would help the Griffencrest corporation if conditions. A message was sent to the CEO of Griffencrest...


From: The Desk of Colderon Jason Zion


We are willing to begin operation to counter the attack against you, and we will be willing to provide offensive force to aid your retaliation. But this will come with a rpice tag, aprice tag that will not be cheap.

I will be putting my sharholders though much by doing this and it will need to be compensated with the promise of something in return. We want control of atleast 25% of your oil holdings thoughout the world. This will not be negoitable and attempts at such will only increase the price.

Take some time to review our offer. It is a small price to pay for freedom and life.

Signed,
Colderon Jason Zion.

AT PALMERMO NAVAL BASE
Admiral Manna was headed to the dock to take command of his flagship. The details where sketchy but it looked like this would be the largest fleet movement in his career. The 4th fleet was ready as it could be he wondered how the 3rd fleet was doings since they were still building there naval base in Lamoni but that wasn’t his concern right now he had a lot of water to cover in a short time. There was another thing that worried the admiral the 4th and the 3rd fleets where going to be fighting battles with new tactics unproven in combat, they’ve all trained hard on them but was it enough.

Meanwhile headed to open waters from Thiseio Naval Base Admiral Longo was headed out to sea with the 3rd fleet almost 400 ships steaming into a battle of their lives. Longo wondered how this all started he had heard nothing until the day of the orders. I wonder how the new fleet will do under real combat some many new tactics and new ships many untried in real combat. As the fleet set off into the open ocean, the sun was setting.

The Allanean air armada was not going to be as lucky as they had been last time. Now the High Command was aware of just what they had planned, and soon the skies were filled with almost two thousand wooden rockets, all equipped with a single R-27ET, screaming for the Allanean bombers and cargo ships. Behind them, an additional thousand drones fully equipped with countermeasures, and finally, carrying out the rear, a hundred Su-15's. More wooden rockets were put on standby, should the Allaneans make it through.

Over the fleet, the Allanean naval air wing would be met with a torrent of anti- air missiles as they neared the Griffincrest fleet. Not only that, but the fleet was also being protected by the shore based MiG's and Sukhoi's, who were quick to engage the enemy aircraft, as well as their drones.

And finally, a group of cargo aircraft began to drop off their cargo into the ocean not far behind the Griffincrest ships. What they were dropping would soon be seen to be three thousand ECCW drones, which quickly rendezvoused with the thousands of unmanned vessles thatwere previously jammed. Soon, that massive fleet would be once again on the move.

Air Armada

The response was simple. While it was not yet clear what damage was inflicted by the first 2,000 missiles, there were still 350 bombers that had not yet launched their payloads. Now they did – and there were 4200 more missiles in the air – in total, 6,200 missiles, 2 for every approaching target.

Naval air strike

Surely, the Allanean craft were decimated by the enemy strike. 100 helicopters and 50 aircraft wer destroyed completely – but then, Allanean air defense started firing, targeting enemy patrol aircraft with their long-range missiles – and minutes later, the real fun began as the aircraft entered 40 kilometer range.

The Allanean bombers were equipped with 6 Mark 50 torpedoes modified for anti-ship useh, and the helicopters carried two each. Within minutes, 800 torpedoes were speeding towards the enemy corvettes. And then, the air armada's bastard child, the smaller bomber force, fired its own weaponry – 1,000 simple TASM missiles – at the enemy.

The original 2,000 missiles had done their damage against the drones, but the second launch of four thousand missiles was less successful. The wooden rockets were obliterated outright, but the drones unleashed their full compliment of anti-missile systems, saving roughly half of their number and all but a handful of the Sukhoi's. These aircraft would continue on, and behind them, another wooden rocket launch was called for.

Meanwhile, the fleet was taking damage as almost fifty corvettes and a dozen destroyers went up like the forth of July. A pocket battleship was alsp heavily damaged, as was a pair of Neptune cruisers. Now, however, it was Griffincrests turn. Their newly revived USV's moved into the fleet, and let loose a horrifying volley of 20,000 Norwegian made Naval Strike Missiles screamed from the heavily modified Protectors, demanding the steel of the Avisos which lined the outskirts of the fleet. With the Avisos in the outer ring, and the missiles flying only a few feet above the water meant that the CIWS from the mass of ships behind the target would be useless.

This USV strike would be accompanied by an unearthly roar of an equal number of Moskit missiles from the Griffincrest fleet, all also targetting the Avisos, who had up to this point defended their fleet so gallantly and fought back against their Corporate counterparts so vigorously. These ships needed to be smashed from the seas if Griffincrest and the Confederacy sought victory.

One hundred of the Blackjack's had made it, and they too were now preparing to unload their missiles from a different angle on the Allaneans. Twelve hundred missiles would soon be screaming for the twenty AAV carriers to ensure that another helicopter attack did not happen.

And once again, five thousand wooden rockets swept over the fleet, targetting the remaining Pepperbox's. These were not so much to cause damage as much as they were to occupy the enemy CIWS. This was going to be a real show to watch, as every angle of attack was different, and Allanean counter missile fire would need to be seriouly divided.

As all this was happening the Vauntic's continued on towards the fleet.

The Allanean bombers continued towards their target, but the Allanean fleet was now suffering from vast problems. The enemy attack was simply devastating.

The stealth missiles exterminated 123 Avisos in one fell swoop – their low profile, stealth, and flightpath assured plenty of hits. Yet, the Moskits and the Kh-15 missiles were not as lucky – two cruisers simply emptied their magazines of short-range missiles against them, and then they were engaged by CIWS cannon on every ship they passed. Still, five AAV carriers went down.

In the meanwhile, the attack on support craft had been much more devastating than could be expected. 19 Pepperbox class LSVs were destroyed.

But the Allanean counterstrike would now come, and it would be immense.

From the relief fleet, a salvo of 15,000 TASM missiles was launched – ten from every Allanean ship. They were targeted purely at the Blackhelmian corvettes – Soviet designs known for low-quality CIWS.

What would be worse for the enemy ships was that some time after that launch, every Type 142 patrol cruiser would empty its magazines of SS-60 (http://z4.invisionfree.com/NSDraftroom/index.php?showtopic=1549) Sea Serpent anti-ship missiles. Simultaneously, the Allanean fast attack craft launched eight of these missiles each. In total, 2,750 of them were launched, almost three per enemy corvette.

These were stealth weapons, traveling at an altitude below 20 meters above sea level. They were at a range of about a third their maximum – meaning they had fuel for evasive maneuvers and if they slammed into a ship without expending it all, it would even add to the explosive power of the missile.

And they were launched late enough that their arrival would be timed with that of the TASM – meaning that the enemy CIWS and RADAR would probably be at least partly distracted by dealing with the far more obvious threat.

Considering the Tarantul only had two CIWS guns at best, watching them try to deal with 18 missiles at once, approaching from different angles and three of them barely trackable with the ship's sensors, was going to be… interesting. Very interesting indeed.

OOC: whistles

There were now ten thousand more CIWS guns available, thanks to the USV's now in the area. As a result, the damage to the Griffincrest fleet was much smaller than the Allaneans were hoping for. Still, roughly two dozen corvettes were slammed with missiles and shredded, their crews lost and their destiny to be a home for the various species of fish around the Confederacy.

Now, the Vauntics would release their own three thousand missiles at a near point blanc range, all targetting the Avisos once again. This would be supported by another two thousand wooden rockets, also targetting the Aviso's, and finally, the corvettes would retaliate with four thousand Kh-35 missiles. All of these were heading for the unlucky Aviso's, which were now seriously lacking the cover from the fleet which they had enjoyed previously. Not only this, but the constant efforts to down the Confederate wooden rockets and other weapons should be by now leaving Allanean ammuntion stockpiles on the low end, and it was now only a matter of time before they were entirely defenseless.

And now, the unexpected happened. The patrol cruisers activated their own arrays of anti-air missiles. They were smaller than those on the air defense cruisers, but they were still sizeable, and between them, they could launch 8,500 AA missiles without even straining themselves. What few lucky missiles survived this salvo would be mown down by the Avisos with ease. At the end, no more than a dozen ships were lost.

And now it was time to counterstrike. Now, the Allanean relief fleet, fast approaching, launched a new batch of missiles - 12,000, twelve from every ship - launched now at the Vauntics. They were not TASMs this time, but Tomahawks, equipped for shore attacks. As they went up above the Griffincrest fleets, their warheads would fall apart, releasing about 20 anti-tank submunitions each at a high altitude above the fleet. They would find and lock on to their targets within a 10-kilometer range from the release point - and they would be far too small, being about 25 kilograms in weight, to be targeted by shipboard CIWS. However, they would be good enough to trash a Vauntic, which was essentially a glorified speedboat with a gatling gun, or a Protector, which was 9 meters long and part-inflatable. 10,000 enemy boats, 120,000 submunitions. This was going to be fun.

In the meanwhile, the Allanean planes had crossed the shoreline. Some of them merely passed overhead, dropping out cargo containers and troops. 80,000 troops - not Allaneans this time, but Confederate Leg Infantry - and 12,500 tons of ammunition and supplies where brught in aboard 600 aircraft.

The bombers, in the meanwhile, passed over the jungle, dropping out other cargo - 250 Daisy Cutters - on jungle about half a mile north of the northernmost Allanean landing point, clearing out vast areas.

After the bombs had landed, about a third of the new troops, equipped with chainsaws, axes, and explosives, set themselves to clearing wide swaths of forest in every direction.


It would be up to the Blackhelmians now to decide whether they wanted to chase them. Regardless of whether they did or not, as soon as they left towards Allanea, a new convoy, now composed of 500 much larger cargo planes - the Berievs - and 500 more bombers was already taking off there.

Concordia res parvae crescent
005-549-223-646-Likhodeevich, also identified as Fleet Admiral Tarakh Likhodeevich, and, most recently, Warmaster Likhodeevich, looked with pride at the that which was unfolding before him. He was standing in his office in the Imperial Navy commandery in the Pudite Kemeral islands, and before him stretched the port complexes of the fifteenth colonial naval compound in the service of the Emperor. Assembled in this massive artificial port were hundreds of ships - pure, shining white steel bastions in an uncompromising sea, representing as they did the formidable bastion that was the will of their Emperor in this large and uncompromising world.

Now, they had been summoned to represent him again. Here, former Fleet Admiral Likhodeevich watched as his forces - those of the third Imperial Navy expeditionary fleet - assembled from their various home ports at the Dominion, gathering here, the Kemeral islands compound; preparing to stage their next action. Here was where the forces of now-Warmaster Likhodeevich were to meet up with those of Fleet Admirals Slobotchikov and Uglechenin as well as Field Marshals Tepritskoi and Lipozarevskii. Once gathered, Tarakh Likhodeevich would take command not only of his own forces, but those of the other officers.

Such was the nature of the Pudite rank of Warmaster - the only rank in the Imperial Armed Forces attainable by promotion, directly from any other rank, to that of Imperial Warmaster. Such an officer has authority not only over their distinct branch's formations, such as an Air Marshal, a Field Marshal, or a Fleet Admiral, but over the whole of the Imperial Armed Forces presence in a region. This post is traditionally filled by a former Admiral, and they make up the vast majority of past and present Imperial Warmasters, but there is no definitive law to enforce on the subject.

As it was, former admiral Tarakh Likhodeevich had been promoted to the rank of Warmaster for this coming Pudite operation, the nature of which had not yet even been revealed to his immediate subordinates. The order had been given to assemble, and they would. The ships of the Admirals and Field Marshal's would be gathered and organized in two days time, and after that, Warmaster Likhodeevich would distribute his own detailed operational guidelines concerning this newest Pudite enterprise - the relief of the Blackhelm Confederacy, and with them, the Griffincrest Corporation, long-standing as friends of the Dominion.

When Warmaster Likhodeevich's fleet left port, it would with more than one-thousand active surface combatants, followed by hundreds more submarines, and many more hundreds of tenders, tankers, and ammunition ships. Following this fleet - far in reserve, in fact - would be the fleets of the Imperial Army, whose transports and trivial escorts would be further reinforced by a small independent Imperial Navy contingent. Within the bowels of these Imperial Army transports, there would be borne more than a million souls of Field Marshal Tepritskoi's command, all superbly-trained and equipped, and willing to give their lives for the defense of this, one of the closest things their Emperor could claim as like an ally.

The final contingent would be the expeditionary fleet of Fleet Admiral Uglechenin, escorting the ships of Field Marshal Lipozarevskii when they should be so called into action. For the commencement, however, they were a reserve force, activated and prepared to serve, but not yet called to fight. When Warmaster Likhodeevich's fleet left their ports in the Kemeral islands, so too would the fleets of officers Uglechenin and Lipozarevskii, bound for a course to take them in the direction of the Pudite colony of Nechronia, where, if having arrived before being summoned, they would wait in relative safety and anonymity to serve.

In a matter of days this great Pudite force would set out upon the open seas, bound for the besieged shores of a friend, and for what would be the largest Pudite naval engagement not directly related to the invasion and annexation of some trivial territory. This fight would be for higher stakes, and would be approached as such. More was hanging in the balance here than whether or not the Emperor would add a few thousand more miles to his domains - no, this was the hope of one people and the resolve of another given shape. Great, gleaming stainless white shape.

Once departed, the Pudite fleet would take another six days to arrive in or about Blackhemian waters, barring any foreign interdiction. Once the Pudite force entered within twenty-five hundred miles of the last reported foreign fleet possibly hostile to the Confederacy, they would begin to send up regular air patrols in force, to supplement the surveillance and minimal screen that was nearly always maintained when a war-fleet of the Emperor was at sea.

The hope thus was that the Confederacy and those who fought alongside her could stand firmly long enough to see on the horizon the glittering white hulls of the transports of the Imperial Army and Navy, that they might be rescued by those that they bore.

Warmaster Likhodeevich was confident that they would endure...

[OOC: Emporer, there's an OOC thread (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=565639), post your ORBAT there. Griffincrest, I have a telegram for you]

Emporer! Over here! (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?p=14193102)

The men who had been dropped on the land would not be there for long. It wwas decided that the Communists were expendable, as everybody in high command knew that as soon as the Allaneans left they would turn their guns back on government forces, and the Allaneans needed to be dealt with. As such, a group of five Tu-160 bombers took of, flying high above the battlefield below. Once over the area, each released single FOAB bomb, the world's most powerful non-nuclear weapon. Each of these bombs were four times stronger than the United States' MOAB, and would leave the current site of battle no more than a charred death zone.

Meanwhile, every available aircraft in the area, from every city from Divinity to Redemption, sent up aircraft to end the bombers and cargo vessels as they came in. Hundreds of planes were in the sky, and to assist in the assault, a thousand armed wooden rockets went up as well. The bombers and cargo planes had little hope of survival.

The Griffincrest USV's took severe damage, most of them being lost to the Allanean attack with a hundred or so surviving. This, however, hit the Vauntic's only after they fired off their second round of missiles. And so, three thousand more missiles would scream from the dying Vauntics and head for the still floating Avisos. The Griffincrest fleet, in the meantime, stood still.

Land
As the thermobaric weapons fell towards the battlefield, terrible casualties were inflicted upon the Confederate volunteers that worked at the very front of the Allanean army. Within several minutes, 5,000 troops were either killed or terribly injured. There were no facilities to provide aid for their wounds, and the only thing the medics could deliver was euthanasia – through morphine, or a bullet to the head.

Of the Allanean bombers and cargo aircraft that brought in the troops, half were lost to Blackhemian planes.

But the Allanean counterattack was now on its way.

The second echelon of Confederate troops moved into the jungle in staggered rows. Where the guerillas were trained in insurgency warfare, they were trained in COIN. They carried .308 rifles that could reach deep through the cover, even penetrating some thin trees. They wore infra-red monocles on their helmets that allowed them to spot the body heat of the rebels. They were good at their job – not anywhere as good as Allanean Airborne could be, but, man to man, they could easily best a Blackhelmian guerilla – especially with their Dauntless ballistic armor, with their Thermobaric grenade launchers and other equipment.

They would sweep out through the jungle, engaging the guerillas where they could be found.

Sea

In the meanwhile, the Blackhelmian attack on the Allanean fleet was devastating. 80 Avisos were immediately destroyed, and 15 more sank within the next thirty minutes.

The Allanean response was a bit unsurprising, of course. It was the Type 522 Submarines, the most forward of the vessels, that fired – delivering a blast of 1,680 of the high-powered P-600B guided missiles. After that, they started moving off their launch point as quickly as they could.

The 'Parish' class nuclear destroyers fired their weapons off too, contributing 2280 more missiles of the same type. More importantly, they fired off about 7200 TASM missiles. In actual fact, the TASMs were fired slightly earlier than the more modern P-600s, allowing them to arrive approcimately at the same time.

At this range, they could maneuver almost freely to attempt and dodge enemy fire as they scooted in towards the enemy corvettes, of which only 850 were left. This distribution would mean approximarely 12 missiles were fired per enemy ship – and on the other hand, the Allanean submarines were out of missiles and the Parishes had only 3 anti-ship missiles left in their tubes per destroyer, and only perhaps two or three reloads per tube.

In the meanwhile, the Allanean aircraft were still on their way.

ORBAT for the main Allanean fleet, current after last losses

60 Water Buffalo Class Troop Carriers
63 Ark Royal Class Carriers
419 Type 165 Class Cruisers
180 Parish Class Destroyers
18 Foxbury Class AAV Carriers
70 Type 552 SSGN’s
150 Type 142 Patrol Cruisers
30 Type 176 Replenishment Tankers
80 Type 168 Cruisers
40 Pepperbox LSVs
280 Type 38 Destroyers
200 Type 27 AA Frigates
200 Type 32 AAW Destroyers
285 Type 14 Fast Attack Craft
250 Type 07 Class Avisos

Total: 2,341 Ships

Blackhelmian Navy ORBAT

8 superdreadnaughts
30 battleships
64 pocket battleships
117 cruisers
250 destroyers
448 frigates
150 corvettes


Total Ships: 1,067

This is from my conversation with Blackhelm over IRC.

The corvettes were blown away. only a hundred and fifty were sill afloat, due purely to lucky placement in the fleet when it was re-organized. Now, however, the fleet needed o move to the Allaneans. The enemy was in a severe missile shortage, and the High Command was sure the fleets guns would do the trick. As they closed, however, the fleet would release a barrage of P-500's into the Allaneans. Four thousand missiles, the entire stock of Bazalt's in the fleet, were to be launched at the remaining Avisos. This would coincide with the arrival of five thousand wooden rockets landing upon the AA vessels which had so valiantly fought earlier, as well as a release of another group of Tu-160's, a hundred in total, each with twenty four Kh-15's, which would be released from behind the Griffincrest fleet and would also target the Avisos, and finally, to top it all off, Divinity lent its hand in another launch of SCUD missiles from shore, a full thousand of them, targetted at the carriers. Although they would likely not make contact, it would distract the enmy missiles, and waste what precious little ammunition they still clung to.

In the jungle, the communists, armed with Kalashnikovs and RPK's, as well as a few RPG's, fought fiercely with the Allaneans and their allies, who were being used as cannon fodder. Several more Katyushas had arrived, bringing their number now to almost two dozen, and these continued to rain hell don on the enemy positions.

High Command was less than satisfied with the performance of their FOAB, and decided on a new plan. A group of ten Su-25 attack aircraft began swooping down upon the Allaneans and their allies with thousands upon thousands of pounds of cluster bombs, tearing up the ground upon which there would be no cover for the Allaneans. Finally, the Allaneans would be finished off by a massive napalm drop, covering entirely a nearly full ten square kilometers of jungle. They would cover the area over and over again, nearly a dozen times, ensuring that absolutely nobody, not the three thousand Communists, nor the tens of thousands of Allaneans massed against them, would be able to survive.

At Sea

The attack has been devastating. Of the Avisos, only about 50 remained afloat. But now, the relief fleet was in range of a missile attack. The Type 522 subs of that fleet launched their entire missile complement – 2400 missiles. They were distributed fairly – 1200 targeted at the enemy corvettes that were still afloat, at a fair ratio of 8 missiles per corvette, and 1200 launched at the enemy cruisers, at the ratio of 10 missiles per cruiser.

On Land


This time, the attack was far more impressive. Of the forward force of 20,000 Confederate troops, less than 5,000 remained alive. And worse, the fire would now grow into a giant forest fire, spreading in every direction. The remaining troops fell back in disarray.

In the meanwhile, a new flight of bombers was on its way to the area – this time, a mix of B-22 Zeus bombers and Kestril stealth bombers, followed by 500 Antonov aircraft. As they approached, ten of the B-22 bombers launched a load of long-range anti-air missiles at the enemy patrols.

This time, the Confederacy was not fucking around. Seven huundred Confederate Mig-29's took off for the enemy bombers, and Redemption sent up an additional two hundred Shenyang J-11's, alng with about fifteen Shaanxi Y-8 electronic warfare planes. These planes began to jam the RADAR on the enemy missiles, taking a page right out of the Allaneans play book. Not only this, but several hundred decoy drones were also flying with the air group.

The patrols were blasted away.

However, now the fleet was able to use its guns. Hundreds of massive railguns throughout the fleet began to train themselves on the Allaneans, and with a massive, thunderous roar, tremendous heaps of metal were being flung at insanely high speeds through the sky, soon to come crashing down upon the Allaneans. To compound the hundreds, if not thousands of sheels that were now beginning to fall like a hailstones upon the Allaneans, yet another launch of only two thousand wooden rockets was fired off.

Admiral Ironclaw watched as his dreadnoughts, battleships, and pocket battleships began to release full broadsides upon the enemy from behind the protective shield of their many escorts. He smiled as the pounding never seemed to stop, each BOOM like another step in a glorious dance that he designed. The Allaneans would soon find themselves under a withering amount of fire as the railguns tore into the fleet.

On land, the enemy was being crushed. Massive firestorms had engulfed their position, and the Confederate air force was not done yet. Any poor sap that had somehow survived the unholy amount of napalm dropped on the Allanean positions was now about to get stuck under a hundred and fifty thousand pounds of cluster munitions as ten Tu-95 Bears began to unload their bowels onto the survivng Allaneans.

As the battle seemed to be dying down, a tremendous fleet of firefighting helicopters went up, in an attempt to drown the flames. Nearly two hundred choppers from all around the region came in to stop the spread of the fire from destroying the entire Confederate Backlands.

Ground

On the ground, the forward positions of the CJAF troops were completely eliminated, and the workers with their chainsaws and axes were affected too – of the original Confederate 60,000-strong force, less than 25,000 men were left alive, and most of them were those who stayed behind with the Allaneans.

Now, the Allaneans – and their allies – performed an inverse maneuver, directing their mortars at the shore, where the defenses were supposedly slim.

But there was aid coming, as the bombers continued to their goal.

Sea

As the enemy shells impacted, the foremost ships of the fleet, the air defense destroyers, would now begin to die. Sure, their CIWS cannon could stop some shells, but the shells were too fast and about 50 of the destroyers were lost.

But now the relief fleet was in range of the enemy – at 650 kilometers range, in face - and it fired. Only the Type 168 cruisers of the stike squadrons needed to do anything – and they fired a full salvo of their P-600 missiles. The missiles, 7200 in number, were divided fairly. About 3600 were fired at the Blackhelmian frigates, targeting each one with eight missiles. 2500 were fired at the enemy destroyers, at an slightly more generous ratio of ten missiles per enemy craft. 970 more were fired at the cruisers – at the same ratio again, and the remaining 20 were fired at a pair of randomly chosen pocket battleships.

Four pocket battleships were outright destroyed, with four more seriously damaged. Thirty firgates would also be sent to the bottom, as well as fifteen more cruisers and twenty destroyers. However, the battleships and other vessels of the fleet were still pumping out steel like never before, and now, they Confederate government decided to act, to assist the Griffincrest fleet once more. Once again, a hundred bombers, with over two thousand Kh-15 missiles in store, began to make their attack upon the Allanean fleet, no desperately attempting to use whatever was left of its CIWS to fend off the constantly falling shells of the Griffincrest fleet. The missiles were launched at the sixty Water Buffalo class troop carriers. There were forty missiles per ship. This would be targeted by an additional six thousand rockets. Now, one hundred rockets and forty high speed missiles screamed for the blood of the Water Buffalos. It was going to be a bad day for the men aboard.

Meanwhile, the Confederate/Redemption fighter wing began to engage the Allanean bombers. Only the Redemption J-11's and the drones would release their arms, however. Each fighter carried an unreal ten missiles, and as such, they each loosing their array of R-27's, accompanied by another thousand of the same missiles from the drones. The J-11's than turned back to head home, as the drones continued on their way, packed chock full of decoys.

On the ground, the Su-25's continued to make life an absolute hell for the Allaneans, as yet another militia showed up. This was less organized than the communists, who had now withdrawn for the time being, but was still well armed and in posession of an army of neary ten thousand bandits, equipped with recoilless rifles, AK's, RPK's, RPG's, and several other ex-Soviet small arms. They began to rally behind their leader, Warlord Sadiki Nbobo, and began to surge towards the now dying fires as overhead the Confederate helicopters were still extinguishing what was left. The sheer concept that a foreign army was going to come over here and try to change things, compounded by the fact that the Allaneans were all carrying high powered and advanced weaponry and equipment, all of which could surely fetch a very high price on the black market, gave the men of warlord Nbobo an great morale boost, which was only further aided by the cocaine they were given.

Land

The Su-25s would have problems, as dozens of the Allanean troops – as many as 50 per battalion and several hundred in the division – were equipped with manportable ground-to-air missiles. Anybody coming within range of these rockets would be fired upon

In the meanwhile, as the warlorld's troops entered the burned-out clearing, they would be faced with ferocious fire. Though the Allaneans and Confederates were now less than 35,000 men, they did have .308 rifles and they WERE good with them. At any range of less than 600 meters, an Allanean was almost guaranteed tohit a target – and while the militiamen were not cut-out targets, they were still putting their life in great danger. In places where they grouped together, the militiamen would be targeted with machineguns and thermobaric rockets.

Regardless what happened to the Allaneans and the Confederates, the militiamen were screwed.

Air

450 bombers were lost immediately, but the others, protected by their CIWS, decoys, and chaffwent on towards their target.

Sea

As the Tu-160 were detected on approach, the Allanean air defense vessels emptied their magazines of all long range missiles - about 1000 - targeted at these ships. After the launches were detected, they launched their entire capacity of short-range missiles against the incoming missiles. They stopped them - but at the cost of finally running out of ammo. Two or three enemy missiles still went through, to be cut down by the CIWS aboard the Buffaloes themselves. After that, the Buffalo crews got the hint and high-tailed it at their full 160-mph velocity to a point far, far in the rear.

The air defense ships, in the meanwhile, having run out of primary arsenal, started advancing towards the Blackhelmian ships.

Further, the air defense frigates were being lost. 35 of them were now lost to enemy fire.

Yet, from the relief fleet, a fleet of 240 strike bombers rose. As they flew out, rapidly approaching a range of 400 kilometers, they fired their missiles – four missiles per plane, 2400 in number – at the enemy destroyers.

The destroyers lost thirty more of their number, and the situation was now reaching a critical point. The Kraken's continued to make it rain upon the fleet, wholly ignoring the now charging cruisers, and the battleships and pocket battleships did the same. Their target was the carriers, both Foxbury and Ark Royal. The remaining destroyers, however, gathered up their remaining BrahMos missiles, six hundred of them, and launched them into the thick of the cruisers. The cruisers and frigates did the same with their Moskits, launching another five hundred missiles.

In the air, it was now about to be the MiG's turn to engage, as they locked onto the enemy aircraft, each of the seven hundred air superiority fighters releasing six missiles, creating a huge wall of four thousand two hundred R-77 missiles to come smashing into the enemy.

On the ground, the militiamen began to scattedr as it became obvious they were horribly, horribly overmatched. This mismatch, however, was of no consequence when it came to yet another bombing run. The Allaneans had gathered into the same general area to fight the milita now in a route. The answer for the Confederate Air Force was five more FOAB's, followed up by three more Tu-95's chock full of cluster bombs. An almost unreal amount of was being dropped into this area, and if this didn't end it, surely there was more to come.

Ground

The FOABs were no longer a threat now, as the Allaneans and Confederates simply walked out of their impact points, hiding in the jungle or otherwise avoiding the slow, unwieldy bombs.

After the bombs dropped, they moved in the obvious direction – forward, towards the retreating militiamen, shooting and bayoneting them as they tried feebly to escape the wrath of the Allaneans. Only those who surrendered outright were allowed to live.

Still, around 3,000 CSS and 1,000 Allanean troops were killed by the cluster bombs.

Air

The bombers were now destroyed. Still, before they all were shot down, one of them managed to fire off its shot – 100 Tomahawk missiles, armed with area-denial munitions, aimed at the nearest air base..

The other aircraft simply left.

Sea

10 of the AAV carriers and 50 of the AA cruisers were lost to enemy fire, but now the plot was clear.

This was all a distraction to allow the Patrol cruisers to reload their VLS cells to fire a second time – and now they did.

Each of them fired 10 P-600 missiles. The total was impressive – an entire 1500 missiles.

But the target selection wasn't, for these missiles were aimed solely at the fleet's battleships. At 50 missiles per battleship, they were not likely to survive.

Encrypted Message to Raven Corps

We will pay you a fair price if you join the fight on our side.

"Sir, we're entering combat range."

Admiral Kimura looked up from his dataslate, freezing the simulation scrolling across it. Nodding to his aide, the Admiral set the slate on his desk, and mentally dialed his counterpart in 5th Fleet. The connection was virtually instantaneous; Admiral Zane had been expecting the call.

_____________

Zane leaned back in his chair, black and crimson uniform creased from more than a day of wear. The Admiral had been awake for nearly thirty-six hours now, making last minute preparations for the attack. Sighing, he reached across his desk and popped open a bottle of pills just as the chime of his ansible rang.

Smiling, he activated the comm as he swallowed a pair of the small green tablets. "Admiral Kimura, figured you'd be calling about now."

The wall in front of him dissolved in a shower of glowing squares, before rearranging itself into an image of Kimura's own station. Kimura's avatar nodded noncommittally.

"Zane. We're nearly in range of the Allaneans. I gather you've finished preparations?"

"Of course, Admiral, just as we'd planned. I've been fine-tuning the Fifth's deployment for the last few hours. Any final changes you want to make in the battle plan?"

Kimura grunted, shaking his head. "The plan will work or it won't. No sense worrying over it at this late of a date."

"Fair enough, Admiral Kimura. I'll see you on the tacnet. Admiral Zane out."

The image of Kimura and his bridge blinked out of existence, replaced by the bland grey wall of his command center. Waving an aide over, Zane gestured with the bottle clasped in his hand. "Just got off the phone with Kimura. Give all vessels the go order. Lets get this show on the road, shall we?"

__________________

Across the two fleets, aircraft were catapulted into the air, hundreds of Poltergeist fighters soaring gracefully towards the combat zone. Their orders were to intercept any threat to the Allanean forces in the area, avoiding engagement by the Blackhelm navy if at all possible.

Below, the massive fleets moved, seeming achingly slow to the pilots above, bringing the Allaneans fully under their protective umbrella while closing to missile range with the Blackhelm ships so that they could bring their full payloads to bear. The massive frontage covered by over two thousand Otagian vessels seemed to form a giant maw, closing inexorably around their prey.

Deeper still, the submarine escorts of the twin fleets darted boldly ahead, silently passing under the Allanean forces. Hidden by the massive combat above and the death rattles of dozens of vessels, the hunter killers glided invisibly towards their targets.

Safely behind the lines of ships, a third and final fleet waited, patient. No massive carriers or battlecruisers lurked there: Instead, hundreds of landing craft bobbed slowly in the water; from small vessels only carrying a couple hundred men and a few aircraft, to massive behemoths with thousands of soldiers aboard, dozens of parasites clinging to their decks to shuttle their cargo ashore. Protected by a small destroyer escort, the vessels simply waited, seemingly uncaring. The Blackhelm fleet was dwindling. It was only a matter of time before they would begin their duty.

The battleships, as well as the dreadnoughts, had yet to even fire a shot in their own defense. All of their VLS cells were loaded full of various anti-missile and anti-air weapons, just for this moment. The only offensive weaponss these beasts of war carried aboard them were their massive guns and their depth charges and torpedoes. Each ship was also carrying six RIM-116 launchers with a volley of twenty one missiles each. These would be the missiles released against the oncoming threat. Outnumbering the enemy missiles more than two to one, and supported by the CIWS of hundreds of ships, the battleships were saved, with only one being damaged by a rogue missile which somehow broke through. The men aboard the battleships quickly scrambled to reload their launchers as soon as they emptied, and the gunfire continued unhindered.

From the battleships rose three Yak-141's, all waiting for the moment to engage. These aircraft lifted up into the air and targetted the cruisers moving towards them, devoid of any missiles and forms of self defense. Each of the now ninety aircraft released a volley of four C-802 missiles at the ships, and soon, three hundred and sixty missiles began barreling down on the ships on their suicide mission.

On the ground the Bears soon returned with more napalm. Once again the area in which the Allaneans and their allies occupied was hit twelve times, seriously cooking the area and creating yet another firestorm. The flames were so intense that they would create a vacuum, sucking people in and eliminating any evidence of their existence forever.

Admiral Ironclaw was now beginning to get nervous. He sent a message to the Allanean fleet. Himself and Chancellor Lucius Blackhelm wished to meet the Allanean delegation in Albandaea, the Praetonian owned city on the Western Province coast.

SDVF Akhenaten, highly eccentric earth orbit

The communication laser speared through the atmosphere, tickled the CCD array,and spoke sweet binary nothings to the processors. They hadn't bothered encrypting this particular narrow band transmission - there was no need as of yet.

TO AKHENATEN STOP

INITITE ORBITAL INJECTION AND PROCEDE TO LOW EARTH ORBIT UNDER THE HORIZON BEHIND GRIFF/ALLANEA BATTLESPACE. BATTLE MIRROR ARRAYS ARE INROUTE. WAIT FOR FURTHER ORDERS.

Captain-Pilot Brennan would obey, even with a skeleton crew, and the ship on its shakedown cruise out of the Arjuna belt. Even with a minimum of torpedos loaded.

They still had two hundred megawatts of fusion plasma pumped UV laser...

Land

The Allanean and allied forces were getting screwed. Of the Confederate troops, only 2,000 remained alive, and the number of Allanean troops had dropped now to 18,000. Still, however, the Allaneans were not considering surrender - for they knew that help was on the way - this time, in the form of 100 Arbiter bombers, moving at their customary ultra-high altitude to assist the Allanean troops. Their target - the Crescent Bay airbase.

Proteced by stealth and altitude, they approached.

Sea


The attack had been devastating. 65 more frigates and 40 destroyers went down – and then, the Allanean ships were now in range for what the Blackhelmians termed their 'suicide mission'.

They fired their torpedo arrays. Every one of the Allanean AA ships had some form of torpedo tubes, and they fired 4 torpedoes each – a grand total of 920 torpedoes, aimed squarely at the enemy battleships, at over 30 torpedoes per target.

But that was not all. From the 50 surviving Avisos, their most potent weapon – 100 Spectre anti-superdreadnaught missiles – were fired, concentrating on the superdreadnaughts. The Fast Attack craft – in both relief and main fleets - too, opened fire, firing off their P-972s at the enemy frigates. Between them, 3,824 missiles were fired.

On the screen of the commanding fleet admiral, a simple message appeared:


Target/Munition Ratios:

31.72 Torpedoes per battleship
12.5 missiles per superdreadnaught
9.1 missiles per frigate.




Meanwhile, the Allaneans replied:

"What are the guarantees of the meeting's security?"

wait a second... since when was this an FT battle?

OOC: You didn't know the PMT nature of the orbital fighting? :confused:

OOC: And sicne when was this the OOC thread?

The winged forms dance so far above the clouds as to be meaningless to the real scale a human can comprehend. They are small, barely three metres from snub wing to wing and the life spans measured in mere weeks before they light up the sky as falling stars and they are renewed by the next hopefully improved generation. They are not quite dyna saur platforms and not quite low earth orbiters. They however can almost fit into both rolls. In a moment of falling forward, in that brief touch of atmosphere they are surrounded by free gravity and friction provided energy, burning low density atmosphere that could be harnessed. All that marvellous free heat that could be used for just an instant to do something truly unusual. Now for just a brief instant a squadron of these objects does something that none have done before save in simulations. Three brake up almost instantly but two make it for that brief moment of needed balance between burn ..and being 11 times hotter than the surface of the sun.

For just a moment plasma is forced into the thermal regulation metallic armoured petals now unfolding in burning layers as thermal electric converters work and strange threads of materials dance upward as countless computer models predicted and then for just a moment they do something rather special.

Flash.

Just once. But it was still over 1.5×109 Joules of raw energy, about enough to melt two tons of steel being hurled in a brilliant confined bolt that for that moment of confinement did something else entirely to merely dissipating. Plasma is of course a dire weapons medium. But it can be used to create so much ..else.

It lased. As did its brethren.

In between the two closing formations of orbital vessels space was quite literaly turned into for a very short moment a massive sensor dazzling storm of light and fury.

//Wide band text only transmission to orbital combatants // Smythii accord enforcement will be carried out if terms are violated. Stand down orbital military assets peacefully. // This is your only warning.//This is an Automated Response System//

61,500 kilometres from the Luna

Lagrange 4.

The Hill class battle platform Mount Olympus masses a little over 8 kilotons. A great deal of this mass is fuel tankage held in tethered grids well away from the station. The majority of mass however consists of ablative and massed Whipple shielding. From the outside the station looks ordinary enough, vast sprawl of modules, solar farms and radiating grids but at its heart this solid mass of angular armour hangs like a boated spider. Now this mass ..moves. antennae reposition and fuel tanks are hidden behind masses of mobile Whipple plating while its movement reveals bank upon bank of laseing units, kinetic interceptors, and the horrid aerodynamic forms of RKVs. This is however not what should worry.

The Station looses 2,300 tons of mass in moments as Ocelot Mk. XIV space superiority drones spread like the head of a dandelion blown by a careless child. Escaping the possible nuclear destruction of there mother craft and spreading to cover possible approach vectors. Orbital manoeuvring is not simply A to B. it has horribly predictable rules. The cost of recovery in lifted volatiles will be staggering.. the cost of not launching unthinkable.

Encoded message from Allanea to Griffincrest

We recommend we both stand down our orbital assets.

The destroyers moved in to defend the battleships from the torpedoes, and were destroyed outright by the storm, sustaining 80% losses. They succeeded in saving the battleships, however. The battleships continued to rain an unmericful hail upon the Allaneans, along with the dreadnoughts and pocket battleships. Every single vessel trained their guns on the now just sixty Type 32 AAW destroyers, and let loose a barrage that shook the very foundations of the earth. Hundreds of shells began travelling at incredible speeds for the sixty ships, intent on taking yet another class of warship out of the enemy line.

The Kraken class dreadnoughts were also overly well prepared for an attack of this nature, and they too had replaced their usuall offensive arms with anti-missile and anti-air weaponry, choosing to rely upon their guns and torpedoes. Each of these massive ships carried aboard it sixty Firestorm missile launchers, and each of these launchers contained a box of twenty one missiles. The SDs let loose a blast from exactly half of their Firestorms, once again firing several missiles against every enemy one, not only covereing themselves but the frigates as well. Still, a handful of frigates were lost.

As for the Arbiters, they would be in for quite a surprise. Almost all of the Western Provinces S-300's, combined with those of Divinity Province, began to target the incoming aircraft. In total, five thousand missiles went up in a massive barrage against the enemy, with fifty missiles to a plane. This would be repeated until the planes wer gone.

"The safety is assured by the Praetonian military" the Admiral responded.

The solitary Torngasoak lit up the battle mirrors with its primary laser. Luckily for the two combatants targeted it was not at full power...Just enough to blind any electro optical sensor caught in the beam.

A third drone, outfitted with a radar unit and communications relays opened up with a barrage of microwave radiation - locking on to every spacecraft in the melee in front. In addition to this a message began repeating:

This is Sky Marshal Antonov of the Izistani Aerospace Force and attache to ZMI. All spacecraft immediately stand down from combat readiness. Under Article VIII of the Symthii Accords, we are obliged to act to protect our own assets from damage caused by battle-debris. Hence forth we ask nicely that you stand down your weapon systems to prevent any further loss of life. If you require humanitarian assistance please respond, and it will be provided.

It would repeat until a response was received.

Land

As the Arbiters were targeted, they deployed about two tons of chaff each. From the point of view of RADAR, the aircraft were now effectively concealed in a cloud of steel. They launched their drones – Middleman drones per Arbiter – to provide additional distraction to enemy missiles – and launched 40 non-reuseable decoys each.

The drones did not merely distract the enemy missiles, they attacked any that still were headed for the Allanean planes rather than for the decoys.

But still, a dozen Arbiters was lost – a heavy blow considering the circumstances and the total size of the Allanean Arbiter complement.

30 minutes later, they were over the airbase. Their bomb bays opened, and they dropped their bombs – a grand total of 2000 tons of simple, old, good 500-kilogram high-explosive bombs, and 3400 tons of anti-runway munitions. Of these, there were only 1000 actual, honest-to-god, 25-kilogram anti-runway bombs. The rest was composed of 500 tons of ,000 HB-867 anti-personnel mines (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HB_876_mine) – in other words, 100,000 landmines that would remain scattered all over the base and its runways – and 2,800 tons of small, two-kilogram thermite incendiaries, to cover the base in literally hundreds of 3000-degree fires.

Sea

The AAW destroyers were now completely dead. But now, the Type 38 cruisers spoke again. They launched a salvo of 2,720 AS-18 Heron missiles – missiles that fell down to the surface about 10 kilometers from the target, unleashing a single torpedo each. The olny difference from the original Questarian missile was that they carried a 433mm anti-ship, rather than anti-submarine torpedo. Their targets for this were the enemy frigates. They combined this with a launch of 1360 P-600 missiles, divided up equally between the enemy destroyers and battleships.

Elsewhere

“Very well. So, how about an unconditional surrender?”

Beneath the waves, the clutch of submarines advanced carefully, mindfully avoiding the slowly descending corpses of the ships above. Shielded by the cacaphony of battle and the local thermocline, the hunters were all but invisible. The first signal that the Blackhelm fleet would have that it was under attack would be the roar of a full barrage of seven hundred and twenty keel breakers rushing upwards through the thermocline, primarily towards the battleships and dreadnoughts. With the angle of attack preventing what remained of their escort from placing themselves in harms way, there would be little to prevent the barrage from wreaking havoc amongst the Blackhelm giants.

Above, the Otagian fleets opened fire as well, a wave of five thousand seaskimming missiles streaking forth. Darting towards their prey far below the sight of enemy radar and CIWS, a dozen or so of the missiles smashed into errant waves due to software glitches, but the rest homed in unerringly on their targets: The Blackhelm escort fleet.

It was now the pocket battleships time to shine and save the ships of the fleet. Every single ship emptied eight of their twenty Firestorm launchers into the massive fray of missiles descending upon their brothers. Ten thousand seven hundred and fifty two missiles were soon coming in to claim the Allanean and Otagian ones. Even despite this, another twenty frigates were lost, as well as a battleship. This is nothing compared to what could have been, however.

The many massive guns of the fleet now found a new target. The hundreds of Fast Attack Craft in the Allanean fleet were now about to become the victims of the hellish rain of immense, high speed projectiles. Every single cannon in the fleet adjusted their targets, and let loose in a volley that would make Ares himself tremble. Meanwhile, the pocket battleships were still not done with their assault. There were still about a hundred frigates of the Type 27 Class present, devoid of any missiles to defend themselves. The pocket battleships prepared to take full advantage of this fact, and they, much like their bigger brothers had done earlier, sent up a group of two Yak-141's each. Each of these VTOL aircraft, which now numbered a hundred and twenty eight, fired off four C-802 missiles, putting around five missiles, sometimes more, screaming down range at the virtually defenseless frigates.

Unfortunately, the airfield was completely destroyed. Confederate Army divisions were now being assembled to go into the jungles, and within a few hours, two regular divisions and an Imperial Guard division would have the area surrounded. With them, several dozen Buratino and BM-21 MLRS systems were coming in, to complete the annhiliation of the Allanean Free Furry Division.

"We have dispatched delegates, and await to see you in Albandaea"

Land

Even as the enemy divisions moved out of their bases, Allanean and Gun Manufacturer observation satellites noticed their advanced, and alerted the FFAD. The troops of the division, assisted by the foreign troops that came in with them, started digging in, digging complex dug-outs and creating long-term firing points from logs and soil. Such a firing point could be completed within four hours by two detachments, and yet could withstand a direct hit from a 122mm shell.

But the First Furry Airborne division was not the only group of people alerted to these new developments. Even as the Arbiter Bombers were turning for home, the other Arbiter bomber complement – 150 planes – was taking off. As it approached at maximum altitude, it split up – 100 going for the FFAD positions and 50 going for the Blackhelmian fleet, still at max speed and altittude.

Far behind them, and far slower, a new 1000-plane air armada was taking off, also headed towards the Blackhelmian fleet.


Sea

The Fast Attack Craft had been at the very aft of the Allanean fleet. Now they moved at full speed to the back, to avoid the assault of enemy shells. Their CIWS did its level best to take down shells, and so did the CIWS guns of ships that were between them and the enemy. Still, 20 of them were down.

With the frigates, it was a different picture. The Type 150s fired a salvo of long-range missiles – ten each, barely even affecting their ammunition stockpiles. But between them, it was a thousand missiles – of which 850 were aimed at the oncoming enemy missiles, and 150 were aimed at the Yak-141 aircraft. What few missiles came through were slaughtered by the frigates' CIWS automatic cannon. Only two frigates were actually down.

Then, the counter-strike came, and it came from the carriers this time. It was a wave of carrier deck bombers – 1,200 planes – escorted with 500 fighters. They, too, carried light-anti-ship missiles – 5 per bomber and 2 per fighter. As soon as they were on course for their target, they launched their deadly payload – a total of 6,000 missiles, aimed at a mere 60 ships.

In the meanwhile, the frigates were now at an incredibly close range to the enemy ships – they could now literally see the enemy within their sights. Their strike would be rapid and certain – they launched 400 torpedoes, aimed at the enemy frigates. At this range, it would be almost impossible to dodge the torpedoes.

The relief fleet, which was now coming in closer, was gearing up for its own assault. From the Type 42 patrol cruisers, a simple attack was launched – 1600 AS-18 Heron missiles, again modified from anti-ship attacks. Yet once more the missiles deployed 440mm anti-ship torpedoes that dropped into the water about a dozen kilometers before the target was reached, before heading for the fleet's frigates.

In the meanwhile, a message was sent from Allanea to the Griffincrest Corporation and the Blackhelm Confederacy.

Dear friends!

It appears my apprentices are hell-bent on invading your nation and putting everybody to the sword. I have come out of vacation – due to some crap going on in Shansekia – and have discovered to my dismay they have made insane demands on you. I am however much more kind and merciful. My own requests to you are of a far more peaceable nature.

My first request is of a symbolic nature. Namely, that all the units and division banners of the Griffincrest and Blackhelmian armies and navies be turned over to Allanea in sign of our success in this mission.

The second is of a selfish nature. Namely that the region of Kergalistan, a Griffincrest colony, be turned over to Allanea. We guarantee that the population be treated far better than the previous owner has been treating it.

The third is the main reasoning behind this conflict. Namely, we request, first of all, that the Griffincrest corporation cease its piratical activities now and for ever, and that its posessions be incorporated into the Confederacy. In return, we will assign the Corporation 1.5 trillion dollars' worth of contracts for Allanea itself, to supply the nation with fuel and oil byproducts for the military. In the intermediate period, Allanea will defend the Confederacy's property against any and all acts of piracy.

The final request is that you end all legal discrimination based on race and religion, including the Sacrament Law. In return for this, the Confederacy of Sovereign States will provide one trillion dollars per year for ten years for infrastructure correction in your nation.

Should these conditions be agreed to, the United States will not merely cease hostilities against Blackhelm, but ally with your nation and provide you with our fullest protection. Should they not be agreed to, we can keep fighting until you get it.

Yours, Alex.

Claudius Griffincrest and Lucius Blackhelm looked over the document sent to them, and together their jaws dropped. The first request, as well as the second, were, albeit humiliating, but it was the third that caught Claudius' eye, and he convinced his old friend Lucius that it was well worth it. One trillion dollars a year to repeal an act which was costing billions? One and a half trillion dollars and lucrative contracts for some pieces of cloth, a rebel laden teritory, and an end to piracy? Where could Griffincrest go wrong?

"Your terms are acceptable."

This was the sole response given by the Confederate Chancellor. To High Command, the conflict had been a success. The Allaneans had recieved nearly six times more casualties than the Griffincrest/Confederate forces, the Confederate Navy was barely scathed, and the Griffincrest fleet was still maintaining every one of its capital ships. Griffincrest had shown that they could once again take on the world's premier power, and with no more than a bunch of mercenaries and the missile support of an oversized third world nation could get a treaty in their favor.

Now, they would wait for the peacekeepers.

OOC: Still waiting for a response on my torpedo attack...

OOC: This concludes this thread. PLEASE DO NOT POST FURTHER.

IC:

Official Address by Alexander Kirillovich Kazansky

Ladies and gentlemen, I am pleased to report that the war against Griffincrest and Blackhelm is now over. Our losses have been heavy. We lost 75,000 men dead, and at least eight times as many injured. The Confederate Forces lost forty thousand men dead. How many men the enemy lost, we do not know, but it is likely that they have been lost less men than we did. I admit this freely.

Yet, I believe, it was all worth it. True, we destroyed more ships than we lost, by any count, and it is true that the enemy lost less men than we did. To many Allanean families, this is a tragedy today.

Yet let us remind ourselves why people join the Allanean Navy. They join voluntarily, so that they could protect their country, and so that they could bring freedom to people all over the world. Today, we are brought news that the thousands of our sailors that died.

Yet, starting today, millions of people in Kergalistan will breathe the sweet air of freedom. In Blackhelm itself, terrible acts of oppression have been ended once and for all, and equality will now be the law of the land for all.

But the Blackhelmian war is not fully over. The battle against piracy was only a first stage. Now, the second stage of the war will commence, in which the Allaneans and the Confederates will fight side by side. We will fight together against the communist and islamist terrorists within Blackhelm, so as to conclude this struggle – not against a particular nation, but for all nations in the world, not for the national interest of Allanea or Blackhelm, but for the international interest of liberty.

That is all.

And may God continue to Bless Allanea.

THEN END