NationStates Jolt Archive

OOC: Same rules apply as the main thread. PMT and MT allowed, no nukes/WMDs.

IC:

As the RFM-67 screamed towards their targets, it turned out that the people of Steel and Fire had not sought of everything. The air defense cruisers emptied their magazines once more – launching 32 of the IR-guided Sea Sabre missiles each, and depleting their stock of these missiles to 66 missiles per cruiser. ECM would be useless against something that homed in on non-RADAR emissions – and with more missiles than enemy craft, something would have to give. Still, the frigate fleet had been hit had, with twenty of the boats going down to enemy fire. A carrier – the USS Glorious Wrath has been hit at least several dozen times, the crew abandoning ship with extreme speed. The Mutilator, previously hit by enemy rockets, had also been finished off, sinking rapidly, the crew evacuating as best as they could.

In the meanwhile, the surviving carriers were scrambling air superiority fighters – 360 in number – to go after the source of interference. They were going to give the new enemy some surprises.

Several Hours Later

As the news of the new enemy reached Allanea, a small force - five Allanean carrier battlegroups and ten Confederate Strike Cruiser Squadrons - left home, headed towards Steel and Fire.

OOC: Map (http://img7.imageshack.us/img7/8728/steelandfire1je5.png)
Relative Location (http://img155.imageshack.us/img155/9581/steelandfireworldpositind9.png) /OOC

Continued brief radar sweeps ensured that the EWACs had noticed the incoming air superiority fighters. Otherwise, however, they appeared to do nothing. The strike fighters continued, accelerating somewhat to about Mach 2.1.

Three hundred kilometers from the Allanean fleet, with the enemy fighters just entering coming into jamming range, the air group climbed rapidly; as it did, the fighters launched fewer than a hundred medium-range air to air missiles at the enemy. It wasn't many, which was partly the point; if the Steelians could suggest that the air group they had deployed was smaller than their enemy's, they would maintain an advantage when the real strike was launched. But also, it was worth noting that the jamming made the missiles very difficult to detect on the fighters' radars, since they weren't working, and giving them only a few seconds to respond. The missiles were laser-guided, which eliminated the problem of attempting to guide a missile through a radar jamming field and also eliminated the problem of a target dropping flares and evading. They were, however, shorter ranged and could be outrun. Unfortunately for the Allaneans, there wasn't going to be enough time to do that.

War Ministry, Heraldstein

News of yet another conflict involving the Reich's Allanean ally spread quickly through the Imperial government, and rumors quickly started amongst military members of possible actions being taken in response.

Deep within the confines of the ministry building, in the lower, secure access wings Kaiser Delvius sat at the end of a long table, around him men representing each of the branches of the Reich's military had gathered to discuss the coming operations, which were to remain secret, not even their Allanean allies would be informed of the coming operations.

"Our Allanean allies seek to stamp out the fascist menace posed by Grand World Order and her allies, already large numbers on both sides have begun to mobilize forces in response to one another, we however currently hold the element of surprise.

Therefore I propose we use this to our advantage, and while our enemies eye is turned elsewhere we strike him."

Delvius nodded in agreement while looking over pages of intelligence gathered on the various nations forming the GWO coalition.

"Dispatch the fleets, they will sail for the isles de la ruse, there they will meet up with other allies before pressing on towards Steel and Fire."

The men snapped to a rigid position and saluted as Delvius rose to leave the room, leaving the dossier folders on the table.

The Reich was mobilizing.


Volkenstein

The ships of the 1st Imperial High Seas fleet would receive no lavish send off as they were accustom to, instead the ships had their crews recalled and slipped away in the early morning hours, their destination was unknown, in fact only the Fleet Admiral was aware of the destination, anxiety and restlessness swept through the lower ranks as the fleet made its way into open waters towards the rendezvous point.


Just outside Steelian territorial waters

While the large fleets assembled and other nations mobilized the Cadiz class submarine Meer and her sister ship Colossal took up station outside Steelian waters, for now their main objective was to shadow departing fleets and gather as much intelligence as possible on the military base station on black island. Running near silent, and only going to periscope depth at night the Admiralty was banking on the Steelians not being aprehensive about defending their homeland directly, still for now all operations were cautious and as little risk as possible was taken.

Unfortunately for the enemy, RADAR was not the only tool of the Allaneans. IRST meant that they could detect the enemy's missiles, and take countermeasures – hard, short-range maneuvers to shake off the laser spotters, and releasing flares to make the Allanean fighters harder to reacquire with IR technology. As such, only twelve aircraft were actually taken down by the rather underhanded maneuver.

IRST also meant that the Allaneans could see the enemy attacking force in full – and respond, in full. Those fighter planes that were not targeted cut loose with their armament – right now, each of them launched a pair of ATAM-98 all-aspect IR air-to-air missiles at the enemy. Minutes later, after the first wave of four hundred missiles did their work, the Allanean planes – including those that survived the enemy's assault – launched more missiles, six hundred in number, at whoever lived – obviously, at near point-blank range as the air armadas screamed towards each other.

The Steelians' rapid altitude gain and acceleration was paying off. It became apparent that the enemy would not have sufficient altitude at range to engage the Steelians in a conventional dogfight; even as they launched missiles the Steelian fighters were spreading out in a curtain, splitting and passing in groups several thousand meters above their enemy. But the missile launch did not go unnoticed by the EWACs, who concluded that the Allaneans were using some other means of detection to find them. The choices were more or less infrared, laser, and several more esoteric systems; they decided to prioritize infrared over laser over all the others, and the fighters dropped flares to distract the missiles, then accelerated away from the enemy air group, spreading out and in a few cases even passing directly over it.

And towards the fleet.

Now traveling at nearly Mach 2.5, straining as they approached their top speed, the strike fighters were still a distance out of range for any of the fleet's SAMs, but that would change. Just before passing over the enemy air group they loosed a larger number of AAMs, firing almost a thousand of them; by the time those missiles hit they would be heading away and the opposite direction.

There were losses, of course; the ATAM-98s were quite maneuverable, and with ranges in the tens of kilometers and higher velocities than the planes they were tracking, evasion and flares wouldn't work in every case. The losses, however, were quite acceptable, with no more than two dozen or at most thirty planes destroyed or crippled in the assault. The six hundred missiles that followed were somewhat more of a problem, although by this point the other air group was farther away and had had to reacquire targeting solutions. Steelian planes that failed to evade or provide adequate countermeasures in time ejected all of their air-to-air missiles at the enemy before exploding, as wasting good missiles was a definite no-no.

OOC; Unkerlantum, I'll respond to that when I provide some IC proof for the attacks to be connected to me. Right now, nobody (except some Steelian commander types) knows exactly what's going on. Oh sure, you could make an educated guess by the huge f-in' fleet that just left Alyrion, but it's not obvious by any stretch of the imagination. Yet, anyway.

This time, the enemy strike was extreme in its power – the Allaneans lost over 100 planes to the onslaught, IR decoys avoiding a worse fate. Yet the Allanean aircraft continued pursuit. Now they were on the enemy's tail, firing their BVATMA-450 missiles at the enemy's rear. These were long-range missiles, and the Allaneans were now in close range, making evasion a difficult deal,even if there were only about 400 missiles for the remaining 250 or so enemy aircraft. And after the missiles finished their job, the chasing planes opened up with their cannon.

It's more like 650 (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=14526788&postcount=36) fighters -- not counting 45-50 bombers and EWACs, of which one or two have been downed already. (I said 700+ fighters, of which 50+ have been taken out already, with more in this post.) /OOC

More missiles were incoming, which the remaining EWACs noted duly; additional flares and countermeasures were deployed, as well as a counterstrike of nearly 600 more medium-range air-to-air missiles. At least thirty more fighters and one of the bombers -- one providing jamming cover -- were taken out by the missile strike. However, the strike fighters and remaining bombers were saving their ordnance for something far more useful: the fleet itself, and more specifically, its 18 remaining carriers. Now in very close range, the bombers released hundreds of rockets and smartbombs at any enemy ship in range, from frigates to cruisers to supply ships to missile boats. The strike fighters themselves split up, taking each carrier by squadron; short- and medium-range missiles were launched at the planes themselves, while anti-ship missiles with tarmac shredding warheads were launched at the carriers and HARMs were deployed against enemy radar dishes. Sometimes individual planes descended low enough to strafe enemy ships with their 25mm cannons. All was chaos and confusion, but despite their rapid velocities, the planes were trackable by AA guns and SAMs, and were expected to sustain heavy losses in this particular mission.

The enemy craft were now successful in their mission. The USS Bounty Hunter and USS Butcher had been ht multiple times – the warheads, designed to rupture runways, pierced the deck and blew up inside the air hangars, destroying dozens of aircraft worth millions of dollars, starting several fires. The Eternal Peace and Boundless Mercy had lost their RADAR dishes. The aircraft carriers themselves would have to be rotated to the rear now. But the damage was less than it could have been – the Allanean ships were firing missiles and CIWS at the incoming aircraft and their charges, and the carriers themselves were fighting back – with everything from CIWS to rolling airframe missiles to small arms, and the Allanean fighters were still engaging them with their onboard cannon.

The assault was a risky one. Already more than fifty planes had been hit, and in a final act of violence, piloted themselves downwards to smash into enemy ships. (Orders had been clear: "If you must do kamikaze runs, aim yourselves towards aircraft carriers or cruisers if possible, so you can do some real damage. Otherwise, you just died for no good reason. Congratulations.") One of the bombers, emptied of bombs and hit by several missiles and cannon rounds, plunged from the sky, expending all of its remaining fuel to hit speeds of over Mach 5 by the time it smashed into an Allanean cruiser. But the remaining bombers continued their bombing runs, directing their attacks at anything Allanean, until they had sailed out onto the other side of the fleet and climbed higher in preparation to return home. As for the fighters, they moved on from carrier to carrier, scarcely bothering to confirm their kills; the tarmac-shredding missiles and anti-ship missiles were loosed at the carriers, what anti-air missiles remained at planes either on the surface of the carriers or in the air; cannon fire was directed at anything in range, including planes and in some cases ships.

But at length -- as the two hundredth Steelian fighter fell from the sky, aiming itself for the superstructure of a nearby carrier -- they decided it was as good a time as any to leave, and launching a final strike of several hundred AAMs at the pursuing aircraft while dropping their remaining anti-ship rockets onto the surviving carriers, the fighters accelerated and gained altitude again, soon leaving the fleet behind. Before long they had disappeared again into the dead zone under a cover of radar jamming, leaving only a great deal of damage and a couple hundred dead pilots as evidence of their presence.

[Brief Message to Allanean Command]

I suppose you're wondering what that was all about. Well, in the true spirit of national leaders everywhere:

Blah blah blah imperialist aggression blah blah blah nonhuman filth blah blah, blah blah condemnation blah blah sincere regrets blah blah blah Declaration of War. Blah blah blah badass boast blah blah unreasonable demand blah blah blah or we shall continue our attacks blah.

But we are not unreasonable. We shall halt these attacks if our desires are met. Or if it amuses us to do something else.

Signed,
President Jethro Q. Walrustitty and the Council of Twelve
Anarchist Military Junta of Steel and Fire
[Today's Hint: It can get pretty cold in S&F for the winter! Send icebreakers with your fleets.]

OOC: Steel and Fire, please check your TGs.

OOC: Grrr. Annoying parody posts are annoying.

http://i101.photobucket.com/albums/m44/rosdivan/Rosdivaniflag.png

Official Message From the Commonwealth of Rosdivan Foreign Ministry

To President Jethro Q. Walrustitty and the Council of Twelve of theAnarchist Military Junta of Steel and Fire,

It has come to our attention of late that you have found yourselves placed in the position of having to declare war upon the United States of Allanea. As the Commonwealth and the United States have shared numerous trade and diplomatic links over the years, we find this to be quite unacceptable to the interests of the Commonwealth. Accordingly, we hereby request that you rescind your declaration of war against the United States or the Commonwealth Navy shall be forced to permanently remove your capacity for affecting maritime matters. Unfortunately, as this involves laying offensive minefields in all ports and harbors suitable for oceanic commerce, this will probably result in upwards of a billion of your citizens starving to death. We would greatly prefer it if this eventuality did not come to pass.

Sincerely,
Adam Walthrup, Minister of Foreign Affairs

:: Steelian Fleet: about 1500 km from Allanean Fleet ::

Slowly, inexorably, the fleet came to a halt.

They were in the middle of the ocean, in international waters, but close enough to S&F's national waters that they could be resupplied from there as often as once every twenty-four hours. And they were not doing anything.

As the remnants of the air group passed overhead, with a cloud of jamming in their wake, an aide turned to General Parker, who was playing solitaire. "Sir? What are we doing?"

"We're stopping," said the General.

"Why? Are we going to nuke them?"

The General looked up and stared hard at him. "No, Colonel. We're not going to nuke them. For several reasons. First of all, there's no point. Second of all, I've got new orders from Command saying we have to wait for further orders and not fire unless fired upon. Third of all, and most importantly, we have no damn nuclear weapons."

"We don't?" The Colonel sounded almost outraged. "I was under the impression, sir, that we were departing with a full complement of--"

"R&D is working on a new delivery system for naval nuclear weapons," the General snapped. "You should know this, Colonel. They're refitting all the warheads into new missiles. Meanwhile all we've got is lots of conventional armament. Got it? Good."

The Colonel retreated. General Parker glanced back at his cards, then swept them off the table in annoyance and unfolded a map. There were few things he liked less than waiting.

Out of habit, he ordered the fleet's fighter complement to maintain two wide CAPs, one about two hundred kilometers out, one less than fifty kilometers out. These plus numerous satellites in geosynchronous orbit kept an eye on the fleet and anything that might be coming up towards it.


[Brief Message to Rosdivani Commonwealth]

To Adam Walthrup:

The Administration has reevaluated its position, and has decided to temporarily rescind its declaration of war against Allanea. The Commonwealth Navy's services will not be required, as we've already got some minefields; further actions shall be determined by circumstances.

Signed, &c.
[Today's Hint: Steelian hunter-killer submarine squadrons regularly patrol its national waters! Check carefully for subs before moving fleets in.]

Before anyone asks: Yes, those hints are attached ICly to the signatures of messages sent to anyone we're at war with. We're just begging to be taken down a peg, aren't we. :P /OOC