Warning: long-ass post incoming.
July 1915
The
Warrior's condensor broke down as the ship attempted to leave Tsingtao. The battlecruiser was forced to return and undergo repairs.
All but one of the
Blake-class destroyers finished their reconstructions.
With the onset of the war, the joint tactical studies between the Cascadian Navy and the Royal Navy continued, providing improvements to the fleets' tactical capabilities.
The submersible fleets continued their raiding. Six German ships were lost to Cascadian subs and the Germans managed three sinkings of Cascadian merchant ships.
The
Juneau caught and sunk a German merchant in the eastern Pacific.
The
Amazone's raiding career was reported to have ended with internment in French Indochina after exhausting fuel chasing British merchantmen into Hong Kong. This would later prove incorrect.
Juneau sinks 1 in NAWC
German raider Amazone interned for lack of fuel
The Royal Navy conducted a bombardment of Dar-es-Salaam.
On July 22nd the
Reprisal, freshly-repaired, intercepted the German cruiser
Nymphe roughly 140 nautical miles east of Singapore. The German ship was sighted at 1605 local and the order was given to engage.
Twenty minutes of chase later the class of the enemy was identified -
Gazelle-class, a protected cruiser - and the
Reprisal continued to engage. She scored her first direct hit at 1639.
Numerous hits would be scored over the next hour. At 1702 the rudder of the
Nymphe was damaged by a 5" shell from
Reprisal. By the time twilight had fallen, the
Nymphe was doomed. She sank to the bottom of the ocean at 1807.
August 1915
The Cascadian submersible campaign received reinforcement with the commissioning of three new medium-range submersibles, the
Mako,
Hammerhead, and
Barracuda.
The last
Blake-class DD finished reconstruction and returned to fleet service.
Grant finished reconstructed
UK research helps light forces and torp warfare
Naval Artillery reported that Reilly & Colette had finished work on an improved 13" gun.
Cascadian submersibles sank 4 German merchants in the month while losing 2 of their number to German defenses. The Germans' U-boats scored 2 Cascadian kills.
The
Las Vegas sank a German merchant north of New Guinea. The German cruisers
Hertha and
Medusa terrorized the sea lanes between Cascadia and Hawai'i, sinking 3 ships altogether in the month, while a merchant carrying rubber from the Belgian Congo was lost to the
Victoria Louisa on her way to checking in on Cameroon, besieged by the British colonial forces operating out of Nigeria.
CRS John Q. Adams
South of the Kenai Peninsula, Alaskan Waters
August 1915
Commander Peter Wallace (a distant cousin to the commander of the 1st Battle Squadron and occasionally confused for said cousin) watched the heavy storm-tossed sea with frustration. A German raiding cruiser had been spotted hours ago off of Afognak Island. The
CRS Salem and her escorting ships, including his own destroyer, were chasing the offending cruiser toward what looked to be one of the windiest summer storms he'd seen in the North Pacific.
The chase had started at 0925. It was now approaching 1110. The enemy cruiser had been riddled with several shell hits but seemed to be steaming on strong.
Salem still smoldered from the fire that had been set to her earlier by an enemy hit. Undoubtedly Captain Altmark was just as eager as he was to get to grips with the enemy and send them down. If they could catch them before the storm worsened…
There was a burst of flame from the damaged enemy cruiser. They were firing on their pursuers again. Wallace watched with binoculars, waiting to see if anything on the enemy was yet hit by the fire coming down on them.
There was a flash of sudden light. A thunderous roar rippled across the sea. Startled, Wallace turned his head in time…
...to see what was left of the
CRS Salem begin slipping into the Alaskan sea.
"God Almighty," he swore. The Germans must have caused a flash fire in the turret or magazine...
Then another thought came. With Altenmark dead or out of communication, he was in command of the force.
He knew immediately that he had to try and finish off the enemy cruiser. It couldn't be allowed to escape. "All ahead, flank!", he shouted. "Chase her down!"
"But the storm…"
"Dammit, man, we must catch her!", Wallace screamed.
And chase her they did, but their speed advantage was nullified by the stormy sea. Try as he might, Wallace couldn't overtake the damaged enemy ship. And the storm grew fiercer and fiercer. Just after 1400 they entered the storm proper and visibility dropped to almost nothing.
"We won't hit anything in this, sir!", Lt. Commander Gosnell insisted.
But he kept the chase on. For another hour. Two. But the storm was too fierce. Spent and frustrated, Wallace realized he could endanger his own ships if he continued.
When the German cruiser disappeared into the heaviest part of the storm at 1600, he knew the chase was over.
The Navy ordered four new submersibles to make good on war-time losses.
September 1915
During engagements in the war, the Royal Navy found that their fuzes for naval ordnance were not up to desired standards. They requested a license to manufacture superior Cascadian fuzes. At Admiral Garrett's behest, the Naval Office agreed to the terms of the license purchase.
The Admiralty was informed that work was completed on a new triple torpedo mount for future ship designs.
The submersible campaign continued on both sides. Cascadian subs claimed 4 German ships, losing one of their number during the month. The Germans only managed to sink 1 Cascadian merchantman in the Indian Ocean while losing one of the submersibles assigned to the Pacific to Cascadian anti-submersible patrols.
The cruiser
Hertha claimed two Cascadian merchants en route to China in the waters off of Japan.
The losses to the German merchant marine since the start of the war sent a shock through the German economy, causing a painful increase in prices for numerous items, including food.
German raiding cruisers withdrew from a potential engagement off of Victoria Island.
The Cascadian fleet was also on the movie in the Central Pacific.
The
Aurora and
Artemis, with escorting destroyers, attempted a raid on Kavieng on New Ireland. After spending the night seeking targets in the limited visibility, they spotted German ships with the coming of dawn, first contact being at 0745.
Two enemy battlecruisers, the
Thetis and the
Prinz Eitel Friedrich of the
Derfflinger, led a small force of escorts and engaged the
Aurora and
Artemis west of Kavieng.
The initial exchange of fire led to an early German success when a shell destroyed one of
Aurora's main turrets at 0759. With one turret out, she still managed a return hit on the
Prinz Eitel Friedrich a few minutes later.
The
Artemis soon became the focus of the German ships. She was hit again and a fire began to rage on the vessel, only being extinguished toward the end of the hour. The two Cascadian battlecruisers meanwhile inflicted their own hits on the
Prinz Eitel Friedrich, damaging that ship extensively and knocking out two of her turrets.
The German ships decided that they'd fought long enough and, with extensive damage on the
Prinz Eitel Friedrich, retired into the waters of Kavieng, behind the suspected minefield that the Cascadian cruisers didn't dare enter (Translation: the game will not let you enter the blue circle. Which actually makes this coastal raid mission virtually impossible to win because the bombardment target assigned to Kavieng is literally beside the port and thus in the middle of a 40,000+ yards wide exclusion zone created by the suspected minefield, so only the largest and longest range guns on a clear day have a hope of hitting the damn thing).
Even while withdrawing, the Germans were still delivering solid hits to the Cascadian ships. At 1006, damage from German shells knocked out electrical power on
Artemis, leaving the Cascadian battlecruiser flooding and crippled. It took over an hour for the
Artemis' damage control teams and engineering crew to get main power restored to the ship. The battered Cascadian battlecruisers withdrew, conscious of their exposed position. During their withdrawal, a bulkhead on the
Artemis failed and the ship was threatened with further flooding. Thankfully the damage control teams, exhausted as they were, got the flooding under control.
The Admiralty was humiliated by the battle. While neither ship was sunk, they would require time in the repair yard at Chuuk before being combat capable again, and the German press was quick to laud their Pacific squadrons for their firm repulse of the Cascadian raid. The failure of naval intelligence to identify the extent of the German minefield and the impossibility of hitting any useful German targets without braving said minefield was a further blow to Cascadian prestige and morale. Several newspapers criticized Admiral Garrett personally for approving the raid and for not having the fleet in place at the start of the war to hit the Bismarcks before the German minelayers had finished their work.
With the loss of the
Salem, the Navy laid another
Vancouver-class cruiser, the
Esquimalt, to replace the loss.
After months of preparation, the British forces in Kenya invaded Tanganyika, looking to take the pressure off of the Anglo-Portuguese forces fighting both German colonial troops and Mozambiquan rebels in northern Mozambique.
Several early skirmishes saw British successes that opened the interior of the colony to them. But there was no pullback from Mozambique as expected, and the Germans were holding firm on the vital coastline of the colony after the defeat of a British amphibious attack on the northern port of Tanga.
October 1915
Cascadian Naval Intelligence reported a slight victory in recovering blueprints on the work being done in German yards on the cruiser
Niobe.
The German submersible campaign proved the more effective in October. They claimed three Cascadian ships across the globe without a single loss while the Cascadian submersible fleet failed to engage any target effectively. The
Las Vegas sank two German ships in the East Indies, but those losses were countered by Cascadian losses to the cruisers
Hertha and
Gefion.
Convoy attack of Saipan - Warrior leads La Forge,Diaz, Drumknott, Tacoma, Sacramento against convoy on October 26 1635 local
Near the end of the month, the
Warrior led a force of destroyers and new scout cruisers against a German supply convoy heading toward Saipan. Contact was made at 1710 on the 26th of October.
The enemy transports were quickly overwhelmed by the
Warrior and her escorts.
The German battlecruiser
Prinz Eitel Friedrich was spotted to the northeast. Late from departing Saipan due to a submarine scare, she was too late to save the convoy but still a grave threat to the older, less-heavily armed
Warrior.
A short exchange of shells happened as the
Warrior withdrew south with her escorts. The destroyers
Drumknott and
La Forge were severely damaged by the end of the battle.
During the fighting, the German cruiser
Hela was hit by a torpedo and sunk.
Had the
Prinz Eitel Friedrich been given more daylight to work with, the action would likely have turned against the
Warrior. But night fell before they could land any significant hits on the prototype battlecruiser of the world.
Warrior withdrew in victory.
Meanwhile some cracks showed in the alliance with Britain. Despite expectations, the Royal Navy had not yet consolidated an entirely effective blockade of Germany, which was receiving further supply by buying grain from Soviet Russia and even France. Admiral Garrett wired to London with inquiries as to what was holding back British efforts. The response that the British lacked the ships to properly establish a blockade due to the needs of the Indian Ocean seemed ludicrous.
Ludicrous, that is, until the Admiral received the following British request. The British were understandably reluctant to rely entirely on Cascadian protection for their colonies. Not when Lakeland was publicly vowing invasions of German colonial possessions, invasions demanding that the bulk of the Cascadian fleet remain in the Pacific to suppress the German battlecruisers from opposing the invasions being planned. The British were instead insisting that the Cascadian battle fleet join Home Fleet in the North Sea. This would effectively bottle up the German fleet in the North Sea and enable a proper blockade to be enforced.
It also flew directly in the face of Lakeland's strategy, as Lakeland wanted the fleet kept in the Southeast Asian-Central Pacific waters to support invasions of Sumatra, the Bismarcks, and the Marianas. He had protested even the partial deployment of a couple of the
Constitution-class battleships to join the British Home Fleet.
For the Admiral, he now had to decide whether to give in and accept the British requests, or keep the fleet in position to support the President's invasions.
Garrett House
West Portland, Oregon
30 October 1915
Rachel had noticed the foul mood of her husband in the prior months. He was not new to facing public scorn - the Socialists had always vilified him as a militarist and imperialist - but the insults from the press over the defeated raid on the Bismarcks had stung personally. Added to that were the accusations of lethargy in deploying the fleet before the war broke out.
"The Socialists attack me for provoking conflicts with Germany," Admiral Garrett groused angrily. "Now the Conservatives attack me for
not provoking conflicts." He thumped a copy of the day's
Oreganian. "They still rave about the deployment of the fleet when the war broke out. These fools would have provoked the war had they been given their way. We would have lost the moral edge we now enjoy over Germany. Their invasion of Mozambique paints them as the aggressor without doubt."
"I know dear." Rachel breathed a sigh. That she could breathe easily was not to be taken for granted. Her health finally seemed to be recovering.
"The war has not gone superbly, true. Fortune has not been on our side yet." The Admiral thumped the table with his fingers. "But time is on our side. Time. Germany will be strangled by blockade as soon as the British get their act together and can maintain it."
"I understand."
Something in her voice broke through his frustration. He looked at her intently. "Darling?"
"I had hoped that maybe this war would be like the one in 1903," she said quietly. "That it would end quickly. And then you could retire…"
"Ah." He nodded. "I can understand that wish. But we can't keep going to war with Germany every five years, love. Sooner or later, we must put an end to this cycle. Germany must be brought to heel."
She nodded quietly. It was clear his answer did not satisfy her.
The Admiral put a hand on her arm. "I know you're disappointed, Rachel. I promise you, the Naval Secretary will receive my letter of resignation as soon as the war is over. I swear it to you, love. Let me attend to my duty and this will be over."
Before more could be said there was a sound of wood clashing with wood coming from the hall. Two smaller forms, none higher than four feet, moved through the door. Gabriela was immediately recognized, wearing her long and dark hair in a ponytail the way she always did, dressed in shirt and trousers taken from her brothers' old things. Her compatriot, with a slightly more bronze complexion, had similar attire on. Isabela Talaverda, daughter of a Senator from Lower California, was the one friend Gabriela always spent time with.
The Admiral was beginning to realize it was because the young lady was the only girl in the capital's schools that could match Gabbie's endless supply of energy, and endless need to expunge it in ways young ladies usually did not.
Dueling with wooden swords in the halls being one particularly-unwelcome method.
"You will stop right this instant!", Rachel shouted. A clack of wood on wood nearly interrupted her in that order. But there were no further noises as the two girls stopped their duel and looked to Rachel with a mixture of surprise, worry, and defiance. "I cannot believe your parents think is acceptable behavior in the house, Isabela!"
Gabbie's friend squirmed a little in response. No, they quite clearly didn't.
"And Gabriela! You should be studying! Both of you!"
"It's Saturday, mama," Gabbie protested. "We did our work for the weekend already."
"And so that is that? You will not do extra?" Rachel shook her head. Her frustration was evident. "How can you expect to get ahead just by doing what is expected? You must go beyond expectations. Your sister is in university because of that."
Gabbie was clearly uncomfortable at that remark. Isabela had the look of someone who knew they were no longer central to the argument at hand.
There was enough stress in the family life already given the war. The Admiral motioned to the door. "Why don't you head to your room, Gabbie? Surely there are books your friend will find interesting?"
Neither were clearly interested in that. But while only eleven now, they could see the offer being given to them and accepted it. They ceased the argument and left toward the stairs.
"How can she be so unlike her sister?", Rachel sighed. "I had such high hopes for her too."
"I'm sure she'll come around," the Admiral stated. Although he had no way of knowing how accurate or inaccurate that statement would prove.
In East Africa, the brilliant German general Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck continued to stymie British operations in Tanganyika. The loss of the border skirmishes the prior month had been to allow Lettow-Vorbeck to assemble the Askari fighters under his command into a more coherent force. With his combined unit of German and local troops, Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck launched several successful attacks on British forces in northern Tanganyika, recovering several interior towns and villages by overwhelming isolated garrisons.
The British commanders in Kenya called for reinforcements from other colonies.
Meanwhile, German troops continued to advance successfully in Mozambique, taking advantage of the ongoing rebellion in splitting the Anglo-Portuguese forces. By month's end, the German forces were nearly to Pemba. In light of the threat, the British appealed to the government in South Africa to provide an army to counter-attack Germany. The South African response to the war was ambivalent - their price tag was that the British government let them seize Namibia from Germany and get Lisbon to give them concessions in Mozambique. Nevertheless, a South African army under Jan Smuts was organized to join the fighting in Mozambique.
November 1915
The yard expansion projects ordered the prior year finished.
British design planners provided concepts for improved damage control and subdivision layouts to Cascadian experts. New plans for Triple Bottoms were a direct result of this exchange.
Reilly & Colette's Armory Works division reported to Naval Artillery that they had a working model for a new 16" naval gun of greater quality than had initially be considered possible. The news was welcome in the Admiralty, already working on a new battleship design with the scheduled 1916-17 completion of the
Gallant-class battlecruisers.
The raiding campaigns continued, with a slight edge for Germany given its greater fleet of raiding cruisers. The Cascadian submersibles claimed three sinkings for the loss of another sub. German subs claimed 2 sinkings with no losses. The
Las Vegas claimed two more sinkings in the waters of the East Indies, matched by the German cruisers
Hertha and
Amazone (Not interned as believed) continuing their established raider careers. The
Victoria Louisa claimed another ship near New Caledonia in the South Pacific.
A light engagement in the Straits of Malacca saw the German destroyer
S16 heavily damaged by British gunfire.
And the seas off China were the site of another small naval fight.
Meanwhile, on the 9th of November, the German cruiser
Ariadne was spotted near the Liaotung Peninsula by the Cascadian China Squadron. The
San Francisco and
Walla Walla spotted the vessel at 1555 local time.
A chase began as twilight approached. The
Ariadne was identified as
Gazelle-class at 1620, a half hour before twilight. The German ship continued to flee, looking to escape after the fall of night made visibility beyond 3,000 yards impossible.
At 1708, after over an hour of chasing and shooting, the
Walla Walla drew close enough to land five hits on the German cruiser.
A minute later each cruiser landed three more shells on the doomed German ship, to be followed up by another thirteen hits together two minutes later. This brutal pummelling was too much for the old protected cruiser, which started sinking at 1715.
A steel shortage resulted in a delay of one month for the construction of the
Esquimalt.
Esquimalt delayed due to steel shortage
The German invasion of Mozambique reached a fateful point. The German colonial forces outmaneuvered Portuguese and arriving British forces and besieged Pemba. The British, continually flustered by the direction of the conflict, put out an immediate request for Cascadian troops to assist in the campaign. The fall of Pemba would make supplying troops in northern Mozambique nearly impossible, costing Portugal the northern half of their colony.
Meanwhile Lettow-Vorbeck continued to frustrate the British invasion of Tanganyika. He inflicted a significant defeat upon the British at Arusha, threatening British supply lines into the interior. When concentrated British forces finally came upon him toward the end of the month, the German commander and his Askari troops avoided the trap and slipped away with few casualties.
Von Lettow-Vorbeck's successes, wired back to Europe via neutral Belgium, were electrifying the German populace. Despite the hardships of the ongoing Anglo-Cascadian anti-shipping campaign, the German people remained loyal to the war effort. They seemed to be winning this time and their successes in the Pacific were boosting national trust in the Navy. For the moment, it was the German Navy, not the Army, that was the nation's premiere service.
December 1915
On December 5th, Pemba fell to German troops.
Two days later, Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck encircled and forced the surrender of a significant force of British colonial troops near Babati. German morale reached a feverish peak, as their arms seemed to be successful across the globe.
In light of their battlefield successes, the Germans proposed a peace treaty to the British and Cascadians. It called for the cession of northern Mozambique to Germany, limitations on Cascadian naval strength operating in the Philippines, and the cession of the eastern Samoa islands to Germany for a South Pacific naval station, as well as reparations for the losses to German shipping.
The prospect of peace seemed higher than expected. The fall of Pemba and the surrender at Babati toppled Asquith from the Prime Minister's chair with a vote of no confidence. The Conservatives, under Bonar Law, offered a National Coalition government to the Liberals, but their terms were considered unacceptable for the scope of the situation. David Lloyd George put together a new Government and managed to win House approval for it and to continue the war. Even the Conservatives voted with his Government against a peace vote by dissident Liberals and Labour Party MPs.
Britain was resolved to fight alone if she had to. But she did not. In Portland the Socialists were quick to support the German peace offer, as they were already opposed to Cascadia's "imperialist ambitions" in Asia. But the discontent with the war was still very low and patriotic fervor at a high. Lakeland insisted on rejecting the peace offer personally, but acquiesced to a Cabinet vote insisted on by Burgess. Burgess feared letting Lakeland control too much of the war effort due to remembering his behavior in the prior war.
In the Cabinet, several secretaries supported the idea of asking the Germans to negotiate the terms down, but to accept in principle a reduction of Cascadia's naval presence in the Philippines which, they pointed out, was usually not high even in peacetime as it was.
Naval Secretary Santiago thought he saw the winds blowing toward submission and called in Admiral Garrett to brief the Cabinet. The Admiral was quick to dismiss claims that the Navy was losing the war. Responding to a remark from Interior Secretary DeWitt about the war "being against us", he stated, "These past few months, the tides have been against us, that is true. But war is not a constant tide. I remember when the Confederates seemed to be holding against us in the early 80s, Mister Secretary. Time still told against them, and ultimately the slavocracy of the South was extinguished. There is plenty of hope for the future of the effort. The Navy is growing stronger with every passing day. The war is not a lost cause. It is certainly not being lost to the extent that the German peace offer is reasonable. It is, sirs, an insult, and the honor of the Navy and of our Republic insists that we answer it with steel."
In the end, the Cabinet voted unanimously to continue the war.
Senator Flagg attempted to bring the Senate into a vote to compel the Government to begin peace negotiations, but he failed by a large margin. The Socialists in the House fared little better in their efforts to compel the Government.
And thus the war continued.
The Admiralty was informed that metallurgists for the Navy had completed testing of a new, improved homogenous armor for warships.
Naval Ordnance gave a glowing report on progress for new depth charge explosives, which would improve national efforts to deal with the German U-boats.
Experience in the war helped naval communications experts complete a system of new, advanced naval signals, including greater use of wireless radio communication.
Cascadian submersibles again outscored the German U-boats, sinking 5 to their 2, but losing a sub in the process.
A German submersible operating out of Guam scored a success during a reconnaissance mission on Chuuk. The Cascadian minesweeper
Argonaut was sunk in a gunnery duel with the U-Boat.
The German cruisers
Hertha and
Victoria Louise continued to terrify Cascadian merchant ships and insurance providers.
Hertha claimed three ships in the Central Pacific and
Victoria Louise claimed three while dodging patrols between Hawai'i and North America.
The Cascadian government ultimately filed a protest in Mexico City, accusing the Mexican Empire of providing supplies for the German raider. The Mexicans hotly denied the allegation.
Meanwhile the
Las Vegas continued her efforts in the East Indies, claiming two German ships before the year ended. And while on patrol off China, the
Stockton caught and sunk a German merchant attempting to slip out of Shanghai.
Cascadian naval ships assigned to the British blockade of Germany proposed a coastal raid on German targets. The raid was declined.
On the 9th of December, the
CRS Bakersfield encountered the German cruiser
Stuttgart near Samoa and sank her after a gun battle and a direct torpedo hit.
Steel shortages again afflicted naval construction efforts, delaying the
Richland.
After the rejection of the German peace offer, Admiral Garrett met one-on-one with President Lakeland. He pointed to the situation, the difficulty in getting the Army to agree to risk the high casualties of an amphibious invasion in the Pacific, and argued that the only way to get Germany to surrender those colonies was to make them give them up in a peace treaty. The best way to accomplish this was not by invasion but by blockading Germany alongside the British. "Cascadian possession of the German Pacific Islands and Sumatra can only be obtained decisively by a German submission in the war, and that means a blockade."
After hours of arguing and plying maps, the President acquiesced to the Admiral's strategy.
The bulk of the Cascadian fleet was ordered to England.