NationStates Jolt Archive

((This is part of the war being planned here (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=590103). It is not completely closed, but you must drop by the OOC thread before being welcomed into the action. Thanks for reading!))

Indo-Gallagan Ocean, HWMS Royal Oak

Steaming for home, Ceyloba, the oldest ship in the fleet, twice the average age of her hands if she is a day, has the gait of an old girl headed down the shops. Empty fast-transport ships loiter with her out of habit or politeness, quite capable of another four knots while cruising. Admiral Sir James Frazer, White Prince of Ceyloba, is asleep in his quarters, leaving Captain Reginald Decker to watch over the flotila as he dreams of Africa and her troubles, not to be for him to tend. Dockers strikes on the Cape and tribal unrest in Saharaland were a world away, and Decker had no idea about an attack by the Empire of Exponent.

Decker has parts of the ship repainted, stacks and bits of the primary turrets. Many of the transports around him have significant defensive batteries; deck guns, torpedo tubes, anti-submarine mortars, and anti-aircraft turrets, allowing the inexperienced captain to lose himself for a while in imagined glory as he gazed from the conning tower across a string of imperial vessels under steam.

The waters are calm today, so the usually horrid seakeeping of the archaic Iansislian-built battleship, hurridly up-armoured by a needy Walmingtonian navy on ceasing to be Toto IV and preparing to take on her current name, is less noticeable. More visible, as Decker suddenly realises after several seconds of idly looking over them, the trails left by inbound torpedoes.

West Pyeki Gulf, Gallagan Ocean

"...Peiki is an agrarian, feudal society, rife with superstition and shamanistic spiritualism. The Emperor is worshipped as a god, and, cloistered in his network of forbidden cities, remains aloof and remote from the heaving masses of Peiki's rural peasantry and pauper monks. They typical Peikianese is sustained by a bowl of rice or gruel and perhaps some coconut or other exotic wild produce. He has access to some tea-growing regions but prefers instead to imbibe opiates at any opportunity. His condition as a man is analogous to that of a resident in the British fringes prior to Romanisation, and his interests are entirely insular and unfailingly modest."

The extent of the Walmingtonian encyclopedia's consideration of the Pyekan Kuogu was inferior to its treatment of railway gauges of the lower Gallagan sub-continent... and its few assertions were about to be tested in fire. O-23, a submarine of the Pyekan National Navy, had unleashed a full spread of 18" torpedoes against an unsuspecting target in the Walmingtonian pocket battleship Royal Oak.

But this attack was the least of an offensive long planned. The convoy had been shadowed by O-23 for some time, the boat's commander waiting for the assigned moment... the instant of sunrise over Vollumbo, Ceyloba. Thousands of miles away in the west, Pyeki's ambassador to Walmington greeted the sunrise there, hours later, knowing that the attack was already begun. He would be found many miles from the embassy grounds, having snuck out via a secret tunnel to await the divine dawn on Walmington's east coast, only to impale himself upon his own sword. Still more dramatic was the scene in the embassy district itself as the small staff emerged with weapons drawn and attacked local police. The consular staff in Vollumbo behaved similarly.

The attack that had already come was far more practical. With the Walmingtonian flagship out at sea, the first rays of morning brought a blazing fury from the Divine Emperor Pan Yoshimura. Launched from far beyond the horizon by one fleet carrier and two light carriers, four dozen YAP-3 dive-bombers and YAP-5 Boejanana torpedo bombers converged upon the docks at Vollumbo and unleashed a crippling assault. Pyekan intelligence, in contrast to the ill-researched condescension of stuffy Walmingtonian texts, seemed terribly accurate, and Admiral Hirata's Imperial Fleet concentrated a great portion of its underestimated force against the jewel of King Godfrey's III's imperial crown.

Unmistakeable the empires of Pyeki and Walmington were now at war, and it was the superstitious peasants who had struck first.

OOC: Just confirming that this is a thread for the whole new Blackhelm war in the 1930s?

((I'd hoped that the link to his OOC thread at the top of the first post would confirm that, yes ;)
IC response after sleep.))

While Tenarius had grandiose dreams of sending his soldiers to the distant corners of Africa, his naval force was not altogether that great. The Imperial forces managed to scrape up a few battleships, destroyers, and ships that could take a long voyage along those lines, but their naval aircraft was almost completely obsolete, and they had no carriers to speak of.

In light of this crisis, Tenarius decided to send a telegram to the leader of the Pyeki asking for ships to escort his men safely past the Walmingtonians. Tenarius was not a man of the sea, and consequently had little clue as to how many or what kind of ships would be needed for a venture along these lines - he sent a telegram hoping that the Pyekis would have a full understanding of what ships were needed to help escort the continent of Imperial Kayazistani forces sent to aid the men of Exponent. Either way, he hoped that these soldiers would have the ships necessary to transport them from Kamchatka to Africa safely and efficiently.

If the Empire was surprised by Exponent's attack on Port Mavis, the very idea that Pyeki would dare to assault Vollumbo would be almost impossible to entertain.

It was true... so far as Walmington knew, Pyeki -or Peiki as most texts still called it- was a feudal backwater populated by sickly peasants and greedy monks. Granted, they had built a navy inclusive of aircraft carriers and battleships, but much was understood to have been constructed over-seas and the Admiralty did not believe that the Peikanese really knew how to maintain their ships, let alone operate them effectively in battle with a well-drilled force such as the RWN. The newer ships being built in Pyeki itself were sure to be of inferior quality, even if they were massive. Pyeki's eagre embrace of submarine warfare only won greater scorn in Walmington, which had built only one class of submarine in its history and quietly withdrawn all examples from service several years ago, and still considered the whole concept utterly dishonourable, and really nothing more than a curiosity. No wonder it appealed to these simple Asians, for it was a mere novelty, and its application in combat would only prove the weakness of a cowardly foe.

Royal Oak's crippling by O-23, then, would be in equal measure humiliating and infuriating.

While the flagship, Admiral Governor General aboard, crippled miles from home with her armed merchant convoymates listening for the attacker and readying ASuW mortars, Vollumbo faced the air assault alone.

More remote than the Cape and believed safer for its island nature and the proximity of little-rated powers, Ceyloba was slower in receiving new military technologies. The Cape had its own heavy military industries, too, and Ceyloba's economy was almost entirely agrarian with the exception of several shipyards on the coast. The aircraft scrambled in response to acoustic detection of an impending raid included a quartet of RWN Wren but also half a dozen RWAF Wheatear biplanes.

Even so, a solitary Wheatear floatplane joining the action having been on patrol would be the only Walmingtonian aircraft that was slower than any of the attackers, and even it was faster than the Boejanana. Unfortunately, the short range of Vollumbo's acoustic early warning systems gave insufficient warning for the fighters to be scrambled and arrive on station before the first stage of the assault was begun.

The battleship Mainwaring, one of the three-strong Glamorgan Class that was Walmington's finest, along with the battlecruiser Eastgate, fleet carrier Carthage and escort carrier Sparrow, plus three heavy and three light cruisers, nine destroyers, and two corvettes of the Gallagan Fleet were all at anchor, and one further corvette -C-14- was under way in the harbour. Two twin 1.5" (38mm) quick-fire guns and three twin 1" (25mm) cannon on this vessel would prove the most expertly manned defences at Vollumbo, but with their forewarning, however narrow, the hands aboard other ships were a little quicker than their Cape comrades to bring their batteries into action.

Another difficulty for the Pyekan would be the shallower waters of Vollumbo's port, making torpedo bombing less straightforward. This did, however, lead to familiar Walmingtonian complacency and the absence of significant netting and other defences.

#1 Jameston Place
Ianapalis, GFR

"Admiral Hansfield," said Nicodemo Ranalte, holding out his hand to the white-haired Operational Commander of the Iansislean Navy.

"Mr President. Subdirector," said the admiral, shaking Ranalte's hand and then that of the Subdirector of War for the Admiralty. The new titles of the revolution were certainly much clunkier than the royalist "First Sea Lord" and "First Lord of the Admiralty", but it served Ranalte's purposes to embrace the nomenclature of the Republic -- that, and Admiral Hansfield was a True Believer. Hansfield had almost danced when his reactionary predecessor Philip Clayburgh (the former Marquess of Westergate) had been hanged in Gull Flag Square for attempting to help the convicted Tyrant-Northman James Callahan, who would style himself the King of the Shield, escape.

"Let's not mince words," said Ranalte. "The Walmies are being hammered. In addition to the attack on Port Mavis and Vollumbo, I've just had a report of their Royal Oak being torpedoed."

"I shouldn't worry too much, Mr President," said Hansfield. "Even Jane's knows that the Royal Oak wasn't -- erm. Beg pardon, Mr President, but how did you know about that?"

Ranalte smiled. He had been hoping to drop that bomb on Hansfield. "I've just been off the telephone with President Dhawan. Either Nusheld's intelligence services are much better than the reports I've been shown or there is a leak in your vaunted NIO. You were planning to brief me on that, weren't you?"

"As I said, Mr President, I consider the torpedoing of Royal Oak insignificant compared to the attacks on Vollumbo and Port Mavis." Hansfield was positively bristling.

"Very well. Well, I want you to know that Dhawan's being put on the hot seat. Apparently Gallagan Nationalists know about this already and are preparing legislation for an alliance with Pyeki against Walmington on Sea and the Klatch."

"It does seem a good time for the reunification of Gallaga," said Subdirector Peter Inden, speaking for the first time. "I doubt that Dhawan will be able to rally even the majority of the Congress to his side. And he knows about the plans for Operation Starrise."

Operation Starrise was the highly classified plan for the reunification of Gallaga through diplomatic pressure followed by an amphibious attack by Iansislean and Gallagan forces along the eastern coast of Klatchian Gallaga and the invasion of Ceyloba. The plan, however, called for the gradual diplomatic isolation of the imperialist powers, a goal the Foreign Office assured them was years away. Now, instead of a sudden, quick campaign that would be deeply unpopular in both the Klatch and Great Walmington, the nationalists wanted what would be a prolonged struggle dividing the world into two camps.

"Starrise is a non-factor," said Ranalte after a long pause. "I will not allow us to be dragged into another prolonged conflict; the economy is just now starting to recover from the Effitian conflict." He shook his head. "Honestly, I don't think many heads of state think before starting these wars."

"An interesting sentiment from someone whose reputation was made on the killing fields of the Jaizar Valley," said Hansfield, returning Ranalte's jab from earlier.

"Found the Ibrahaim yet?" returned Ranalte. He was referring to the Effitian commerce raider that had perplexed the Admiralty for the entire duration of the last war. In truth, the Ibrahaim had been torpedoed and sunk by the destroyer Homeric in a raging storm off Cape St. Jean in Noropia. However, because the Homeric's wireless had been knocked out in the storm and the chase had led her to be dashed against the rocks of the Cape with no survivors, the search for Ibrahaim continued fruitlessly for almost a year.

"If you'll forgive me, Mr President, I have business to attend to at the Admiralty House," said Hansfield, rising. "Good day, Mr President, Subdirector."

"Make sure to put Mansmouth and Batam on alert," said Ranalte. "I don't want to be caught with my trousers down like the Walmies were."

"You shouldn't needle him like that said Inden after Hansfield had left. "We may yet need him."

"I'm sorry, Peter, I truly am," said Ranalte. "There's just something about the man I don't like."

"An opinion shared by the service, so far as I can tell. Perhaps it is time to shuffle him off into retirement? Donahue seems like he could handle the job."

"Not right now. Not with this crisis brewing. I need continuity for now. We'll talk about it later. In the meantime, I must make to #3. I have a meeting with the Director of Foreign Affairs."

Official Statement
From the Office of the President of the Republic

It is my considered opinion and that of the National Assembly that the unprovoked attacks on Walmington on Sea in Ceyloba and on the Cape will destabilize the world and are a humanitarian disaster. After conversation with the other presidents of the Federation, we must insist on presenting a unified front against such unilateral action. If an immediate cease-fire is declared amongst the warring parties, the Republic will host a conference of all parties to come to an equitable settlement.

God save the Republic,

N. Ranalte, President

Gallagan Ocean

With Royal Oak crippled, O-23 attempted to press-home its attack despite the attentions of the mortar-armed merchantmen. She made eight and a half knots submerged and discharged both of her aft tubes in the general direction of one pursuer while lining up a charge on the stricken flagship. Steadily rising as she drew near and in apparent disregard for the presumably suicidal nature of their tactic, O-23s fifty-two hands began to arm themselves with revolvers and traditional swords in the case of the officers, spike-bayonetted Type-100 sub-machineguns in the case of four appropriately trained men, and an array of melee weapons such as bamboo swords, knives from the galley, and in some cases an improvised blending of the two for the remainder.

As the conning tower broke through the surface and despite their anticipation of an immediate barrage of fire, the Pyekan submariners began to clamber out on to the deck, bringing grapling hooks and lines, and rushing to prepare the 75mm deck gun, as if it would represent a threat to Royal Oak's nine and a quarter inch belt.

Vollumbo

In contrast to Exponent's attack on Port Mavis, the Vollumbo raid was not going perfectly for Pyeki. Lumbering Boejananas, laden with torpedos and three crewmembers, were not only out-run by the defenders -even the biplanes- but utterly outclassed in terms of their agility. Coming in low in hopes of dropping their torpedoes close enough to the surface that they would not hit the bottom, the large, slow, level-flying planes were also relatively easy pickings for the batteries of C-14 and other manned ships and shore defences, resulting in several being brought down without making complete attack runs.

The YAP-3s fared a little better, possibly because the more obvious YAP-5s were drawing disproportionate attention, and also because of their slightly superior speed and handling. If nothing else, the Pyekan pilots were extremely well trained, having more yearly flight hours than most western crews received, and they pressed home their attacks with great determination even under intense fire.

Some minutes into the battle, the rest of the carrier group's aircraft began to arrive... sixty BAI-7 fighters, capable of terrific speeds and highly nimble, all armed with two 20mm cannon and two 13mm machineguns, and half of them carrying two 60kg or 250kg bombs with which to continue the surface attack.

Now the fleet's entire air wing was committed as landing ships moved on Kalle, to the south. The battleship Yahlen along with two cruisers, a flotila of destroyers, several minesweepers, and a vast array of assault craft approached the shore, Yahlen's massive 18.1" rifles preparing to open fire the moment they had the coast's range.

Kayazistan

Newly-appointed Ambassador to Kayazistan, Shinsaku Takahashi, sought an audience with the national leadership in response to the telegram sent to the Empire. Panpok, it seemed, was unsure what -if anything- Kayazistan had to offer Pyeki, and the ambassador was to garner as much information as possible before vital resources could be directed to furthering Tenarius's ends.

Gallaga

Pyeki's diplomatic efforts here were complicated by much duplicity. While the Pyekan Kuogu had been quick to recognise Gallagan independence, the Pyekanma Doctrine secretly asserted Pan Yoshimura's right to rule the sub-continent as part of his divine Asia-wide mandate.

Still, outnumbered two-to-one by Walmington and her Empire, Pyeki's Generals could not ignore the temptation to seek Gallagan help. No less a figure than Major Chotaro Togin, head of the elite Dogfish Unit, was dispatched to Gallaga to investigate the possibility of a Pyekan-sponsored Gallagan National Army to be used against the Walmingtonians and perhaps the Klatch independently of any action that existing government forces may or may not be allowed to take.

Kayazistan

Newly-appointed Ambassador to Kayazistan, Shinsaku Takahashi, sought an audience with the national leadership in response to the telegram sent to the Empire. Panpok, it seemed, was unsure what -if anything- Kayazistan had to offer Pyeki, and the ambassador was to garner as much information as possible before vital resources could be directed to furthering Tenarius's ends.
OOC: Note that Kayazistan is actually in a civil war, and Tenarius is the illegitimate government in the same way that Franco was in Spain. Just a note.

Shuffling over the diplomatic notes, Tenarius grimaced. The attack on Amor had started incredibly successfully, but was stalling as Republican resistance was great than he had anticipated. Nevertheless, he had pressed on with his decision to send 5000 soldiers off to aid Exponent, but had the issue of getting the ships to protect them. There were enemy countries -Iansisle and Walmington for starters. For now, he would simply ask for a few ships to serve as a escort for Imperial transports to Exponent - unfortunately, as he knew little to nothing about naval affairs, he would hope that Pyeki would send enough ships, if any. Possibly he could send them to aid Pyeki, but he would wait a bit first.

The major would doubtlessly soon be in contact with operatives of the New Rumbiak Brigade, an officially banned organization in the Republic of Gallaga and viewed as a terrorist organization by the Federation as a whole. Named for famous anti-imperialist martyr Markus Rumbiak of Tanah Burung and founded on the notion that idealistic non-violence was not always the answer alone, the original Rumbiak Brigade did good work against oppressive regimes across the world. In Gallaga, it cooperated with the National Congress in Gallaga to both moderate the extremist sepoy mutinies that often left dozens of Shieldians and hundreds or even thousands of Gallagans dead and to stimulate them into taking action pressing the Raj where it had never been pressed before.

The New Rumbiak Brigade shared few traits with its namesake. Tanah Burung had no hand in its creation or operation and its goals were somewhat less idealistic. The NRB wanted, in its most general terms, the annexation of Klatchian Gallaga and Ceyloba and the severance of ties between Iansisle and Gallaga. It considered the Dhawan government illegitimate and bitterly resented the continued presence of Iansislean troops at bases across Gallaga. However, the NRB also had very limited support compared to its namesake. Whereas the Rumbiak Brigade had appealed to all Gallagans, the NRB had a strong root structure in the Punjab and much of its literature was as much against the Bengali bureaucrats of the RoG as it was against Iansisle, the Klatch, and Walmington.

Iansislean power on the subcontinent had always been centered around Nusheld and the Ganges, and there was the perception even after independence that Bengal had been developed to the exclusion of the other parts of Gallaga. The Punjab, after all, had only been annexed from Ercolana after the First Anti-Fascist War and the administration of that area had been loose at best. The funding for education and development had been almost nonexistant and large parts of the area had been allowed to starve in the famine year of '57, a fact not soon forgotten along the Indus.

Gallagan Ocean

With the oldest active-duty warship in Walmingtonian service dead in the water and listing several degrees to starboard as the ocean rushed in unabated by damage-control efforts that the excessively modified hull persistantly frustrated, few eyes aboard the flagship were on the waves when O-23 broke through them. It wasn't until the submarine was at point blank range -fortunately having already dispensed with her torpedoes- and a 75mm shell was taken just above the belt that fire was directed against her.

One of the armed merchants did earlier fire upon the surfaced boat using a twin-mounted 1.5" rapid-fire cannon, but the gunners soon found their line of sight obstructed as O-23 closed with Royal Oak.

The arrival of Pyekan submariners on the railings certainly took the old battleship's crew by surprise, and with the distraction of desperate salvage efforts temporarily negated their massive numerical advantage over the boarders. Still, several .5" machineguns on the superstructure soon put paid to the audacious effort, helped by the fact that on this archaic vessel their mountings had been conceived almost as much as part of an anti-boarding defence as against aircraft. One of the merchants was by now coming around Royal Oak to lay its guns on the halted submarine

Vollumbo

The initial attack was being met quite effectively, though the escort carrier Sparrow had been badly hit and several aircraft shot down. Many enemy torpedo bombers had been destroyed, and several dive-bombers too, often without making successful attacks. The arrival of the BAI-7s changed the situation for the worse, the small air contingent already on hand being totally overwhelmed and outclassed by a huge wave of sixty extremely modern Pyekan fighters.

Thick AAA fire continued to rise from several ships and positions around the harbour, but the Wheatears and Wrens alike with out-gunned, out-run, and out-numbered by the enemy's new fighters, which had come as a horrible surprise to the Walmingtonians, who were expecting delivery of new fighters from Stockley 'in the near future' that would still carry a battery arguably slightly less heavy than the BAI-7's two 13mm and two 20mm guns, top out at sixteen fewer miles per hour, and was said to turn slower than the current Wrens.

Before long the destroyer Hare was taking on water, and the battlecruiser Eastgate had received numerous 60kg bomb hits though without sustaining serious damage. Four torpedo-bomber Wheatear variants were vectored in from a training mission, but being slower, less nimble, and less heavily armed than their fighter equivalents, and in three of the four cases flown by less experienced pilots, their value was to be limited, and all would soon be destroyed or forced down.

Kalle

The silhouette of Yahlen seen from a lighthouse off Kalle was impressive and troubling. Harbour guns were archaic, a few relatively modern 3" weapons adding nothing against the battleship, and Ceyloba's second city could offer next to no opposition to a battleship and two cruisers once its aircraft had been scrambled to the north to defend Vollumbo.