Vehrec wrote:Wouldn't the destroyers be beating the ocean with their active sonar?
I didn't think sonar existed in world war two, at least not in its' modern form.
In primitive form, active sonar existed in World War One: ASDIC systems.
If anything, I'd think passive sonar is the more 'modern' type; in the World War era, computers and signal processing were too crude* for a sonar operator to easily filter out random noise (such as the ship's own engines), so it would be very hard to simply dip a microphone into the ocean and detect anything. Active sonar lets you generate a brute-force sonic pulse to spot the enemy, which is more in line with the capabilities of that era's technology.
Simon_Jester wrote:
If anything, I'd think passive sonar is the more 'modern' type; in the World War era, computers and signal processing were too crude* for a sonar operator to easily filter out random noise (such as the ship's own engines), so it would be very hard to simply dip a microphone into the ocean and detect anything. Active sonar lets you generate a brute-force sonic pulse to spot the enemy, which is more in line with the capabilities of that era's technology.
*i.e. practically nonexistent
Both types were actually present from the beginning- work proceeded more or less in parallel on what were called "echolocators" (active sonar) and "hydrophones" (passive sonar). By World War II they'd figured out how to insulate the hydrophone elements decently from own-ship noise, but as you note there wasn't any way to filter out random sea sounds so it was pretty much dependent on operator skill. By and large passives weren't worth much back then, although a really good and experienced sonarman could do some surprising things with them.
In this case, the destroyers would have an idea where the sub was from the torpedo trajectories, and an even better one from radio DF cuts on her transmission. From there you charge over, pinging, and when you pick something up you engage with ahead-thrown weapons (Hedgehogs) and depth charges. In this case they got a substantial amount of debris right away, so they can figure the sub is either dead or mission-killed pretty quickly and go on to other things.
Actively searching for submarines wasn't something you could do with WWII technology unless you had a large number of escorts or aircraft. Even then, you were better off using radar and catching them on the surface recharging their batteries, then either sinking them or bringing in escorts to finish the job. Randomly pinging around for submarines didn't really work.
A/N: Yet another update. I thought I would get further than this in this installment, but the story sort of grew on me so I went with it. I have this planned to finish in another installment or two, but we'll see. Hopefully I'll finish this story before I start having to ask, "Why am I on these waterskis and what's that shark tank doing up ahead?"
Also, I have an outline forming in my head for a sequel set in this timeline, about 20 years later. The U.S. and Japan are having a trans-Pacific cold war, with the Draka Remnant on Madagascar serving as a flashpoint for that conflict. (And need I add that the Draka Remnant and the former serf states in Africa have a...complex relationship?) Would there be interest in seeing that?
1845 Hours
Air Defense Operations Room, Genoa Area Command
Air Marshall Andrew Vorhees leaned back in his chair and lit another cigarette. The ashtray in front of him was already full enough to serve as a small sandbox, with a dozen and more white cigarette butts sticking out of it like ill-hewn tombstones.
He’d been on the go since the dawn conference, first getting as many planes, men, and guns moving as he could from Toulon and then catching one of the precious few transport flights down here to organize things. Now he was staring at the glass situation map of Genoa, watching serf auxiliaries mark patrol areas and draw circles on it in greasepaint while a Citizen officer watched much more closely than normal.
“Sir.” Vorhees turned to the young Pilot Officer who was handing him a message form. “From the Navy. A hunter sub sighted a United States class attack carrier south of Corsica half an hour ago. She appeared to be launchin’ aircraft at that time. Navy says the transmission cut off abruptly.” Vorhees leaned forward in his seat, automatically scanning the message form.
“Analysis, Mister?” He’d always loved the mentoring part of being a senior officer, and even a crisis as mortal as this one was no reason to stop teaching his junior officers. Made it more important than ever, in his opinion. The young Citizen shrugged.
“Could have been combat air patrol or a scouting mission, Sir, but we have to assume the worst.” The worst being very specifically defined under these circumstances- AR-1 Revenant attack bombers in the air with live atomics. “And if it is that, there’s only one place they could be headed. Only major logistics center we got left.” The boy looked upwards at the ceiling of the command center, and Vorhees grinned.
“Full marks. Now get on the horn to the fighter fields.” Vorhees raised his voice, letting it carry across the whole command center. “Listen up, people! We probably got some damnyanks on the way to pay us a visit in a couple-three hours. Kick everythin’ up to Force Condition Five, scramble the reserve Night Owls, move the Peregrines up to cockpit alert. I want everything we’ve got radiating and every gun locked and loaded. Remember, either we get this one or everybody dies. Let’s do this people, let’s go!”
Phones came off their clips, and a dozen voices began to talk urgently all at once. Vorhees looked as the sighting report was entered onto his status board, and smiled tightly.
“The game’s afoot.”
1914 Hours
Docking Bridge, USSReprisal
“Here they come.” There was none of the high, desperate excitement in the lookout’s voice that there might have been a few days or hours before. Altoona’s radar had picked up the Snake strike flight thirty miles out, but it hadn’t mattered. Reprisal’s last fighters had gone into the sea hours ago, and with her speed reduced to a crawl the big carrier couldn’t get enough wind over her deck to launch more without the catapult. Commander Guitierrez knew that their AA crews would do the best they could. He also knew that it wouldn’t be enough.
As he watched, Altoona peeled out of formation with the damaged carrier and began working up to full speed. When the raid warning came through Guitierrez had ordered his escorts to break off and maneuver independently through it. All the close screen in the world couldn’t save a ship that moved like a crippled whale, and right now he needed those ships intact for rescue work more than he needed to reduce the hits Reprisal might take. If they made enough sea miles during the night, they might even be under Gibraltar’s air umbrella not too long after daybreak.
Yeah, that was it.
The Draka formation that came in was noticeably smaller and more homogenous than the one before, more in line with their first attack. Guitierrez felt his lips pulling back into a rictus grin over that. Altoona’s intercept gear was nowhere near as good as what had been aboard Traverse City, but even they had picked up a panicked cacophony of air support requests from across the continent, along with increasingly stern directives to conserve as much aviation fuel as possible. How the Snakes expected to square that circle he wasn’t sure, but it did seem to limit the number of planes they were willing to send after Reprisal.
Unfortunately, they’d have to be a whole lot worse off before they’d consider letting her go. Even ignoring the threat they posed, two of the few values the Draka recognized were pride and payback. Reprisal qualified in spades under both those categories.
Guitierrez heard a crashing din start to build up as the task force’s 5” mounts opened fire, followed with disturbing speed by the chatter of the close-in Bofors mounts. Down here on Reprisal's bow he could hardly see any of the battle- the ship was being conned from an antiaircraft sighting station just forward of where the island had been, with orders relayed by phone down to the rudder compartment. It was a damned bad system, but at least up there they could see what was coming. Guitierrez stared out the forward windows and waited for the bombs to fall.
The Draka Vulture bombers released their loads a mile or two out, keeping their bombsights fixed on their targets in the twilight gloom as their munitions homed in on their targets. Guitierrez heard the phone talker emotionlessly call ofd the rounds that went ballistic as proximity fused 5” shells shredded their mother craft with enormous midair shotguns, but it wasn’t enough. He could feel the deck tremble under him as the ship shuddered, and heard the phone talker call them out. “Near miss, port quarter. Near miss, port quarter. Near miss, starboard quarter.”
Then a huge, shuddering roar as Reprisal was hit, another, and another. His ship took deep, gaping wounds, the alarms sounded and the speakers shouted of fire, fire on the flight deck, and suddenly Guitierrez had had enough.
“You have the bridge, Mister Brown.” With that, he strapped his helmet on and left the bridge, vaulting the ladder up to topside. Looking at the damage wouldn’t make it go away, but at least he could get some idea of what was happening to his ship and how he could stop it. He sure wasn’t doing anyone any good staring out the windows on the docking bridge.
The Flight Deck
Guitierrez mounted up to a world of twisted, burning horror. The Bofors guns had fallen silent, and the 5” mounts were crashing only occasionally as they took parting shots at the retreating Draka bombers. The after part of the flight deck, though, was a roaring inferno, flames licking over the twisted metal that had once been the landing area as smoke billowed up into the darkening sky. Guitierrez could see gangs of seamen unrolling hoses and playing water over the worst of it, and he could see casualties who had been brought to the flight deck instead of sickbay trying desperately to crawl away from the fires. He raced in, hardly knowing where he was going or what he was going to do, until he saw a group of officers in khaki standing near the edge. Calvin was there, directing a gang of men trying to switch around water pressure.
“How bad is it, Chief?” Calvin looked over his shoulder and shook his head.
“Bad, Skipper. I just took the last prop shafts offline, which means we’re dead in the water. Because I did that we’ve got pumps and fire mains, for now, and we can keep these damn fires from eating up the whole ship. That’ll last until something else falls apart in Engineering or the Snakes hit us again, and then we’ll have nothing.” Calvin paused. He knew what he had to say, but Navy tradition dictated he be very careful about how he said it.
“Sir, I don’t think we can control this conflagration. I have to recommend that we abandon ship while rescue operations are still possible.” Guitierrez closed his eyes. There it was. He nodded.
“All right, Chief. I’ll have the escorts move in. Pass the word for all hands to abandon ship.”
2023 Hours
Aboard Spirit of Rio
“Show time!” Fujita’s voice over the intercom broke into Rosemont’s consciousness as he guided Spirit northwards, his three companions hanging off his wings. They’d been in the air for just over an hour, spiraling up and away from Reprisal and sticking together for the first part of the flight. What they were about to try called for some very, very tricky timing, and the longer they could all stay together, the better. On the other hand, if the Snakes caught them on radar before they separated, the whole thing would be worse than useless.
Rosemont blipped his navigation lights once, then twice more in quick succession. He looked over his left shoulder at Applebaum in Night Terrors, barely catching sight of the other man in his dim cockpit lights. Rosemont brought his hand up to his oxygen mask, then pushed it out with splayed fingers, the classic “kiss-off” signal he’d learned to use instead of “goodbye” during his formation training at Pensacola. Applebaum nodded, then peeled smoothly off into a turn. Within seconds his Revenant had melted away into the night, and Rosemont pushed his yoke forward, diving Spirit down towards the dark sea below. Again, Fujita brought his radar up, counting off the altitude until they pulled up less than a thousand feet from the sea below. Rosemont checked over his shoulder, finding Yarrow’s dim formation indicators tucked in on his right wing, exactly where they were supposed to be.
“No radar emissions, Skipper. We’re clear.” Walker sounded a lot better than he had when they’d talked in the ready room- actually strapping in and taking off seemed to have sealed his determination. Rosemont nodded, and permitted himself a tight smile. They’d done it. Flying high without the weight of their bombs, Applebaum and Saint-Laurence would be faster than Spirit, giving them enough time to curve out onto oblique courses towards the target. With any luck they’d all hit the Snake radar net at more or less the same time and confuse the Draka. In the meantime, Snake Eater could support Spirit with jammers, chaff bombers, and serve as a decoy to draw off Snake fighters if it came to that. Rosemont would have much preferred to be the one coming in at an angle, since when push came to shove the Snakes would probably figure it was the atomic bomber taking the direct route, but he didn’t have a lot of choice either. His plane was four tons heavier than the others, and none of them had enough gas to poke around all night.
Rosemont trimmed his nose out, and took in the shimmer of moonlight on the water beneath his nose. The interphones hummed softly in his ears, and Spirit responded to his touch so effortlessly that moving her rudder seemed to take no more mental effort than flexing his foot or making a fist. He let his eyes fall into the familiar flicker of the gauge scan, dipping upwards to find Yarrow’s formation lights and then checking the water in front of them for obstacles. He was night flying again, and for the next hour or so he could be content with that.
2050 Hours
Aboard Night Terrors
“Turn point.” Polinyn, the new guy, sounded nervous. Bayreaux had still been only semi-conscious when the briefing began back aboard Reprisal, so Applebaum had picked one of the backup BNs to fill out his crew. The backups had been through the same training that they had- Flannery had only made the choice as to which crews would fly the strikes the night before. Still, it was the young Russian’s first time flying combat in the AR-1, and he was palpably nervous.
Whereas I am a seasoned veteran, with one whole abort under my belt. Applebaum had done his share of flying, in Helldivers and the last of the old SBD Dauntlesses, but comparing that to the Revenant was like comparing a Model T to a new Chevrolet. Never mind all the new gadgets, the thing was just so damned big.
Applebaum eased his yoke over into a right turn, settling onto a new course. Somewhere just off his nose, Saint-Laurence should be doing the same right about now, just as Rosemont and Yarrow punched their way through the same imaginary circle around Genoa. At least it was clear tonight. He’d damn well had enough of trying to fly this thing through the rain.
“Signals.” Wallenstein’s voice was calm, perfectly clear as he enunciated his words. “Draka Watchtower types. There appear to be multiple point sources emanating from the area around Genoa, all with similar or identical signatures. Our intelligence only showed one in place.”
Applebaum laughed humorlessly. “Well, looks like there’ve been some busy little Snakes over there the last few hours, Albrecht. Been getting a reception together for us.”
“Yes.” If Wallenstein appreciated the joke, he was uncommonly good at keeping any hint of it out of his voice. “Signal strength is increasing, pilot. Recommend we begin our descent.”
“Roger.” Applebaum pushed the yoke forward. After a couple seconds, he figured out what was wrong, and keyed his mic.
“Altitude, Sergey?” Polinyn started reading the numbers off, sounding a bit abashed. Well, the kid didn’t have to drop any bombs tonight. As long as they were heading for the general area of Genoa they should be all right. Night Terrors screamed on just above the waves, riding the night like a hungry ghost.
2053 Hours
Air Defense Operations Room, Genoa Area Command
“Contact!” Vorhees wheeled around in his chair at that, watching as the serf auxiliary carefully drew a new greasepaint trace on the medium-range status board. “Bearing bullseye 205, range one-fifty miles.” Vorhees fairly jumped out of his chair and strode over to the talker who had reported the contact.
“What do we have? How firm? Come on!” The serf talker handed him a penciled contact slip.
“Western Area Radar, sir. They been gettin’ make and break contacts for a bit on the edge of their scopes, but now they got somethin’ for definite. Intermittent, but pretty strong when it there.” Vorhees shut his eyes for a moment, then looked over at the fighter patrol areas penciled in on the plot. Committing fighters over there would stretch his remaining resources even thinner, but there was nothing to be done for it.
“Send Black Buck one-seven flight over to investigate. And get a pair of Peregrines movin’. Just in case.”
Aboard Black Buck 17
Approx. 120 miles south-southwest of Genoa
“Black Buck 17 acknowledges.” Flight Officer Ilsa Tromp pulled her Night Owl into sharp, raking turn, peeling off her assigned station and heading for the intruder’s track like a hawk moving in on its prey. She reached over and jammed her throttles against the firewalls, making sure they were stuck. Night fighter duty had been cushy until exactly twenty-one hours ago, when those damned fools Venner and Weiss had managed to let a Yankee expend them and fry Marseilles- and still worse, get themselves recorded doing it. Now the whole night fighter command was under a gods-damned microscope, with the sound of bush knives being sharpened already sounding in a thousand officer’s messes. The Draka might frown on infighting, but they were no more immune to the psychology of disaster than any other human beings- including the time-honored pursuit of hunting the wild scapegoat.
“Recommend course 010 magnetic.” Maggie Miller’s voice was devoid of its usual cheer as she buried her face in the radar scope’s black rubber hood, searching out the blip that was trying to kill their last link home. Tromp glanced in her rear-view mirror, making sure Riksdottir’s lights were still lined up with the targets scribed there. Flying formation wasn’t usually something night fighters did, which was making her even more testy, but no matter. The intercepts had also told them of the precious time that had been lost after Venners and Weiss inherited the plantation, while the Peregrines searched with only ground control to guide them. There had to be someone left to act as a seeing eye for the rest of the system, as much as she itched to bring this bastard down herself.
Ilsa grinned behind her oxygen mask. Of course, she was the flight lead. And if they managed to bring this leopard down before the rest of the hunting party came up, wasn’t that the more honor to them?
2054 Hours
Aboard Night Terrors
“Night Eyes set for sure, Walter.” Wallenstein’s voice was dolefully precise. “And it seems our friends have learned from last night’s festivities. I’d say there are at least two signals out there.”
“Wonderful.” Applebaum forced himself to keep up his scan, while his mind built a carefully compassed model of the planes heading in for them. “Do they have us?”
“They are heading right for us, on a perfect course to intercept our path. Either they have us, Walter, or we should begin to seriously consider Loki worship.” Son of a bitch. He did have a sense of humor. Applebaum heard himself laughing.
“Allright. I’m taking it up to three, might need some room to maneuver here in a minute.” Even as he spoke, Applebaum eased the yoke back and thumbed the button for the fuel boost pumps. “We’ll do the same thing Spirit’s crew did. Play dumb until he finds us, then light ‘em all off and hope we can shoot our way out.” Of course, last night the Draka hadn’t known they were at war with the Alliance yet. Life was full of little challenges like that. “Sergey, give ‘em a chaff bomb. Let’s muddy the waters a bit.”
“Roger, pilot.” In Night Terrors’ nose, Polinyn ran his hands over the conventional bomb panel. Single release, time fuze for five seconds- just long enough to clear the Revenant before it burst. He slapped the doors open.
“Away!” Night Terrors jerked as the chaff bomb dropped away into the slipstream.
Aboard Black Buck 17
“That’s funny.” Miller adjusted her scope with a frown, while Ilsa looked over worriedly. Draka Forces legend had it that was one of the three most common last things a pilot heard from her radar operator, right up there with “Oops” and “Oh, zebra shit!”.
“What is it, Maggie?” She kept her eyes determinedly forward, straining even though she knew it was vanishingly unlikely she could pick the contact out in time for them to do anything about it. Or avoid a midair collision. If Maggie’s radar had just packed it up, she needed to hand the lead off to Riksdottir right now.
“Bloom on the scope.” Miller’s fingers twisted the gain down, leaning forward even harder into her hood. “Could be a decoy, but I thought I saw it movin’ right before it dropped off. Those Yankee planes like to duck in and out of low altitudes…could be nothing, could be another contact. I’m calling it in.” Tromp blinked- their training had taught them to check and double-check a contact before reporting it, but going by the book didn’t seem to have worked so well lately. And if Maggie thought it was solid-
“Do it.”
“Doin’ it.” Miller keyed her radio mic. “Manorhouse, this is Black Buck 17. Be advised we may have multiple contacts out here…”
2057 Hours
Aboard Night Terrors
Albrecht Wallenstein hunched over his tail-warning scope and watched the twin blips drop towards the bottom of the range indicator. It was hard to watch them boring in towards him when he had a weapon in his hands, but he knew he had to wait, just as you had to wait for the wolf to get close in the woods before you took your shot. He could open up on radar, but his chances of scoring a hit would be much better on visual. Just a few more seconds-
Night Terrors jumped in midair as shells ripped into her left wing, and Wallenstein looked up from his scope to see a Draka Night Owl fighter swooping up and away from them. He’d been suckered! The Draka had dove in from above, closing the range at the last minute. He wheeled the sight around, catching a hint of a wing glinting in moonlight. The Draka wingman was coming in right on his leader’s tail. Good to know he wasn’t the only one making mistakes tonight.
Wallenstein squeezed his butterfly trigger grips, and a hammering stream of 20mm cannon shells poured into Black Buck 18. Riksdottir and her radar operator died without knowing why.
Aboard Black Buck 17
“Gods curse it!” Ilsa Tromp pulled her Night Owl into a tight, banking turn, her eyes riveted on the slim black form that was already trying to disappear into the night. “How many Freya-damned times did I tell yo’ not to ride my tail, yo’ little moron!” Already there was no trace left of her wing, the hulk dipping invisibly towards the sea below with a shattered cockpit. She keyed her mic.
“Manorhouse, Black Buck 17. Black Buck 18 is down, repeat, Black Buck 18 is down. We have visual confirm on a Yankee AR-1 Revenant bomber, tracking on radar now.”
“Copy, Black Buck.” A short pause, then the controller came back. “Black Buck, disengage an’ maintain radar contact with the target. Tercel 03 flight is inbound to engage.” Tromp bared her teeth. The right call, but these damned Yankees were cutting a swath through her squadron. Her heart called out for her to take their heart's blood, not let the glory boys in their Peregrines have the kill. But all she said was,
“Black Buck acknowledges.” Needs must, after all.
2059 Hours
Aboard Spirit of Rio
“Cross Hair sets, pilot. They are not wasting time.”
“Just give me the cue, Gunner.” Applebaum had abandoned his scan again, eyes flicking back and forth across the sky in front of him in search of the Draka Peregrines. If he could just-
“Now!” Applebaum wrenched the yoke over to the side, standing Night Terrors on her left wing and yanking until the engines screamed in protest. He didn’t realize his mistake until too late.
The reefing turn had snatched Night Terrors out from under the first Peregrine’s gunsights, but it had also killed their forward speed, leaving them a sitting duck for the wingman. The Draka pilot kicked his rudder, watched the Revenant’s belly slide under his sights, and squeezed the trigger on his twin 30mm cannons.
Night Terrors’ cockpit filled with red light and warning buzzers as one engine caught fire, the plane sliding sideways and threatening to drop into the ocean. Applebaum pushed the wing down, teeth gritted as he tried to will her to start flying again. The Peregrines looped around for another pass, aiming for the bright orange flare of their burning engine.
In the glassed-in nose, Sergey Polinyn hung on to his seat by the handles, face white. He could see the engine flares coming around for them, and there was nothing he could do but either hang on or reach for the ejection handle between his legs. A frantic voice in the back of his mind was chanting confuse the radar, confuse the radar. As the Peregrines came in again he slapped the bomb bay doors open, jammed the selector over to the “salvo all” position, and yanked the release handle.
All nine remaining chaff bombs in Night Terrors’ bomb bay blew off the racks at once, their ejection charges blowing them out sideways until they almost stood still in the air. Five seconds later, their fuzes burst, forming a cloud of fine metal strips hundreds of feet wide.
Fifteen seconds after that, both Draka Peregrines plowed through the cloud, their hungry turbojet engines gobbling up the air and sucking the chaff strips into their first-stage compressors. The turbine blades fouled, then shattered, sending hot chunks of metal into the fighters’ fuel tanks. As Tromp and Miller watched in stupefied horror, both jet fighters turned into hot orange fireballs in midair.
At the same instant, the structural members supporting Night Terrors’ bomb bay doors, already holed by cannon shots, gave way under the high-speed slipstream. As the doors ripped away the stress took the main wing spar with it, folding the wings up like a sheet of paper creased in the middle.
The shattered hulk of Night Terrors fell like a dropped stone into the Mediterranean. Applebaum, Polinyn, and Wallenstein died instantly.
Last edited by ChaserGrey on 2010-12-26 01:47am, edited 1 time in total.
Probably call it a win for the Snakes. Night Terrors was a decoy, but they had no way of knowing that- the problem with the situation they're in is that you have to get all the bombers to make sure there isn't one left with a nuke. Given how important Genoa is to the Draka right now, losing any reasonable number of fighters to take down one of the bombers is probably a good trade.
Quick summary of the aircraft types in play here:
Ryan AR-1 Revenant- Our hero. Twin turboprop carrier attack bomber. Top speed around 300 knots on the deck. Equipped with radar bombing system and self-protection jammers. Crew of three- pilot, bombardier/navigator, and gunner/ECM operator. Carries one nuclear bomb as well as two 20mm cannons in a remotely aimed tail turret.
Night Owl- Standard Draka radar-equipped night fighter. The design is a derivative of the Eagle interceptor/escort fighter, with the fuselage modified to accept a radar set and its operator, seated in a "pit" to one side and slightly below the pilot. (For those following at home, think De Haviland Sea Vixen) Top speed around 350 knots, armed with a nose-mounted 30mm cannon battery as it's meant to shoot down relatively slow bombers. Onboard radar set is codenamed "Night Eyes" by the Alliance.
Peregrine- Draka jet fighter/interceptor, similar to a late Me-262 or Gloster Meteor. Twin turbojets, slightly swept wing, top speed around 500 knots or .89 Mach, whichever comes first. Four 13mm machine guns. Simple ranging radar to help with intercepts and gunnery, Alliance codename "Cross Hair". Main weakness is the same as all early jets- high fuel consumption and not a lot of spare space for tankage, meaning it can't really do airborne patrol. As mentioned in the story, Draka doctrine is to use Night Owls and ground based radars (Alliance codename "Watchtower") as pickets, holding Peregrines on runway or cockpit alert and scrambling after any contacts.
Right now there are three Revenants left heading for Genoa:
Warhammer 03 Spirit of Rio- Rosemont. Bomb carrier.
Warhammer 07 Truth, Justice, and the American Way- Saint-Laurence. Eastern diversion aircraft.
Warhammer 09 Snake Eater- Yarrow. Flying with bomb carrier to provide chaff and decoy support.
Wonder if it might hurt the Drakans more if they keep Genoa for the moment. When the next American bombers arrive (maybe B-29s or whatever can fly from Gibraltar or England) with a nuclear payload, they could catch a lot of Drakians waiting in Genoa to try to embark across the Mediterranean.
Turns out that a five way cross over between It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, the Ali G Show, Fargo, Idiocracy and Veep is a lot less funny when you're actually living in it.
Especially if the US sub fleet moves into position in time; the B-29's essentially pound the tail of the Draka force, kill big concentrations too deep in Europe to move south and evacuate by utterly screw with the railways and roads, when they are not bombing concentrations directly of course.
In essence, stop any sense of a coordinated or controlled retreat and turn it into a rout, despite the best efforts of the surviving Citizen officer corps. And then they reach their port only to find a limited amount of shipping, so of course its the Master Race first, then whatever ships left over are simply packed well beyond safe limits with cattle...I mean Serfs; but still, half of the remaining Army is left behind to be incinerated in a nuclear initiation.
And THEN, just as the Citizens think looking at the flash on the horzien think 'By Loki that was close, but we're home free!...their evacuation transports suddenly start getting these big holes in them from the allied Submarine force that had been patiently waiting for this chance.
And its only a combination of grim Citizen crews quite literally steering the ships packed with serf auxiliaries into the torpedo salvos and the sacrifice of the last of the Draka Navy that let even a chunk of the Citizens reach North Africa.
ChaserGrey wrote:1) I know the Draka use fake-Roman ranks for just about everything, including Navy and Space Navy in Under the Yoke and The Stone Dogs. On the other hand, we have Pilot Officer (IIRC) Johanna von Shrakenberg in Marching Through Georgia. I decided to square the circle by using regular Navy ranks and saying that there was some kind of "rationalization" movement between 1945 and the time of Under the Yoke three years later to bring the rank structure more in line across services.
2) There isn't much in canon about the Draka Navy, but I think what I have here is reasonable. Hell, even the Draka have to make choices somewhere, and as long as they can dominate the Med and secure the African coastline itself I don't think they have any other big naval missions. In particular, I can't imagine anyplace they need the sea-based power projection that led the British, Americans, and Japanese to develop aircraft carriers.
A bit late, perhaps, but if you are still interested, both of these lines are borne out, more or less, in the short stories in the Drakas! anthology. The Navy is portrayed as the short-end service (it is said, probably hyperbolically, to be smaller than their State Security Coast Guard equivalent), and also as a hold-out for the Draka opposition (the "liberals" of the Dominate, although that is of course a highly relative definition). And, yes, they do use regular naval ranks; the main character in one of the shorts is an admiral.
"But there's no story past Episode VI, there's just no story. It's a certain story about Anakin Skywalker and once Anakin Skywalker dies, that's kind of the end of the story. There is no story about Luke Skywalker, I mean apart from the books."
That was actually my source for the stuff about the Draka Navy. Drakas! may only be kinda-sorta canon but let's face it, kids- there just isn't that much out there.
I even put a shout-out to the story you're talking about a few chapters back, if you really feel like looking
Another corollary to the weak Draka navy is that their ASW techniques are probably going to be quite bad. The only serious submarine-warfare power they've ever fought was Germany, and by the time the Draka jumped in against Germany, the own U-boat force was significantly trimmed back by the Western Allies. Besides which, the bulk of Drakan shipping (coastal traffic, mostly) operates beyond the strategic reach of the bulk of the U-boats.
So, like the historical IJN, the Draka will have major problems trying to deal with American submarines, even though by global standards US submarines of the period aren't that good.
A/N: Admit it. You missed me. Seriously, sorry this is so late, but work's been a killer and the holidaze has hit as usual. This is massively late and drawing near an end, I think, but hope people enjoy the latest offering nonetheless.
2210 Hours
Aboard Spirit of Rio
“Sidelobes dropping off, Skipper.” Walker’s voice was soft, regretful. “Remaining Night Eyes set is heading for home, and there’s nothing else radiating over there.”
Commander Rosemont kept his eyes fixed on the artificial horizon, altimeter, airspeed indicator in an evenly flicking scan, barely blinking. There was no room for spare action two hundred feet over the nighted Mediterranean and little room for spare thought, but he still managed a muffed “Goddammit” over the intercom as the implications of that sunk in. Walker’s receivers had been picking up a scattered mess of radar emissions from over by Night Terrors’ flight path for the past ten minutes or so, and if they’d all shut off there was really only one explanation.
“Twenty minutes to IP.” There was no particular need to for him to know that, but after a year of training together Fujita could read his silences as well as his words. He’d needed something to distract him from thinking about Applebaum and his crew, and that had been enough to refocus his thoughts onto flying and the mission.
“Anything up ahead, Jimmie?” Walker could probably use something similar.
“Wait one, Skipper.” Rosemont could almost see the boy bending over his scopes as Spirit thundered through the night, eating up the miles between them and Genoa. After a long half-minute Walker came back on the intercom.
“Watchtower and Night Eyes sets up ahead, Skipper. The real fun ought to be kicking off in a couple minutes.”
2215 Hours
Air Defense Operations Room, Genoa Area Command
Air Marshall Vorhees was not a happy man.
They’d shot down one damnyank nuclear bomber, but for all the crowing that had been going on in the ops room when the news came in the victory tasted sour in his mouth. Three planes lost and four Citizens dead to stop one of the Wotan-damned things? At that rate the Race would find itself in considerable shit before long.
What was worse was the current threat board, and what it showed. Which was, other than the penciled-in patrol stations and etched locations of radar sets and airfields, precisely fuck-all.
The singleton they’d had coming in just after sunrise had been one thing- that had smacked off desperation, a hasty attacked launched because doing it half-assed was better than not getting the chance to do it at all. Not this time. The strike Graiae had seen had launched over twelve hours later, and the Yankees would have known it would be their last shot. They were too good not to have gotten all their shit in one sock.
All of which meant there were more bombers out there, reaching for the center of that plot like claws reaching through the night. Reaching for him, and the last chance for the Draka Race. And he couldn’t find the damned bastards!
“Contact!” Vorhees started up and watched as a new trace was grease-pencilled onto the plot, coming in at an oblique angle towards Genoa the way the other one had. He opened his mouth to snap out an order, but the young duty officer was already in motion, lifting the direct line to the Peregrine fields even as he snapped his fingers and pointed at the director officer patched into the Night Owls for that sector. Good man. Vorhees let his eyes wander back to the plot and frowned. Something about it…yes.
“Oh, you are a clever Yankee, aren’t you?” Vorhees wasn’t aware he was speaking aloud until he saw the phone talkers turning to look at him, staring at the chart as he spoke to his absent American adversary. “Such a very clever Yankee…but you shouldn’t have made the hole that obvious.” He motioned the duty officer over.
“Sir?” The Pilot Officer’s face was carefully neutral. Even in the relatively informal Citizen Force, it didn’t generally pay to look at your C.O. like he was a complete raving lunatic. Even if his behavior seemed to warrant that assessment. Vorhees grinned and pointed at the plot.
“What do you see, Pilot Officer?” To his credit, the boy didn’t treat the question as rhetorical, turning and furrowing his brow at the plot. After a moment he shrugged.
“I don’t know, Sir.”
“I think you do. Plotter.” The serf NCO looked up from his place. “Add in the first and last positions of that last Yankee we splashed, line between them.” The Janissary’s eyebrows rose, but he kept his face perfectly impassive as he paged through his logbook and went to work with grease pencil and straightedge. Vorhees turned to the duty officer.
“Do you see it now, son?”
“Yassuh.” The boy was smiling too, the glow of excitement and pride at seeing what his superior did washing over his face. “Ninety degrees apart. Which means if they doin’ a standard Yankee multi-axis attack pattern, and assumin’ they can’t fly too far over the ocean, would put the last part of the attack force right about…there.” He pointed his stick at an area due south of the port, on a more or less straight line between them and the position Graiae had given in her report. Vorhees nodded.
“Full marks, Eyes.” The young man grinned even wider at the traditional nickname for a Domination fighter controller. “Now get your reserve Night Owls moving down there and kick the Peregrines up to airborne alert.” That would wear the squadrons down in a hurry as planes constantly rotated to relieve CAP birds low on fuel, but it would save precious minutes when they mattered. Besides, Vorhees expected they wouldn’t have to keep it up for very long, one way or the other.
“We get lucky, we might just catch us a poacher sneaking in the back gate. And give him what he deserves.” The grins in the center were even sharper at that. Draka law still allowed a landowner to hang other Citizens caught poaching on his land, and for feral serfs like these-
Well, it would be a very satisfying experience indeed.
2220 Hours
Aboard Spirit of Rio
“Here they come.” Walker grabbed a square of Navy-issue toilet paper from one pocket of his flight suit and cleaned off one of his scopes for a last look. “If they’re not onto us now, Skipper, they will be soon. I say we do it.”
“Agreed. When you’re ready, Jimmie.” Walker took in a deep breath and blew it out. He’d done this once. They’d all done this once. They could do it again.
“Roger that.” He reached over and flicked power onto his jamming boards, counting off a long minute to make sure the tubes were warmed up. He carefully dialed the electromechanical leads for his main jamming transmitter onto the frequency for the Draka Night Eyes fighter radar and switched it to audio, setting the secondary for noise-mode against the more powerful Watchtower set. As the jammer started up, Walker was peripherally aware of Snake Eater climbing up and out of formation behind them to release her first salvo of chaff bombs. He could see the electronic noise of her jammers coming onto his other scopes, locking onto other frequencies and blotting them out, and the more distant signatures of Truth, Justice, and the American Way’s transmitters. All of that faded away as he concentrated on the incoming pulses on his primary scope, and the beeping in his headphones as he rocked his finger on the transmit button, sending carefully distorted pulses back at the Draka fighters.
Had to get it right.
2222 Hours
Air Defense Operations Room, Genoa Area Command
“Gods curse it!” Air Marshall Vorhees watched as the screen for their primary search radar dissolved, snow and false returns filling the screen even as the contacts, both the old one and the new one that had cropped up right where he’d thought it would be, disappeared into blobs of jamming. From intel reports and what distant stations had seen during last night’s attacks he'd expected the Revenant to have good jamming systems, but he hadn’t thought they’d be that good. “Eyes, tell the Night Owls they goin’ to have to take over. Ask them for the locations on their contacts.”
“Suh.” The young Pilot Officer’s face slowly drained of blood as he listened into the fighter frequency. “They report that their contacts-“
“Out with it, man! I need position and speed on their contacts!”
“Suh…Black Buck 41 to the south has eight of them. Four for 11 to the east.”
“Damnation!” They were fuckin’ blind back here, and now the Yankees had some other trick up their sleeves that was making their night fighters see double. “Order them to close, work through the targets. Launch all Peregrines. Get the Eagles and Falcons up, close perimeter, now! Max illumination pattern, all guns, now!” A few carefully controlled looks of fear at that- the Draka Eagle and Falcon fighters had only secondary night-fighting capability, and the close-perimeter tactic was widely regarded as a last-ditch move. Put as many planes as you could into the air, pray that somebody was close enough to vector in when your radar saw something, pray that not too many of them blundered into each other in the pitch blackness, and pray that somebody got a lucky visual sighting. It was all Vorhees could think of, until the Yankees got close enough for their radars to burn through the jamming.
There was a pit in his chest, though, where a hunter’s confidence had once been. Something that told him that the Draka had spent too long pissing off too many gods for their prayers to carry much weight now.
2223 Hours
Aboard Spirit of Rio
”Yokatta!” As Fujita watched out the glassed nose from his position, the entire arc in front of their nose seemed to explode with brilliant light. Hair-thin tracer streams scored across the night like glowing live wires, while immense flare shells burst thousands of feet over the ground and cast cold yellow-white circles brighter than moonlight on the ground below.
“Yeah, don’t see that every day.” Commander Rosemont sounded calm as ever as he steered Spirit towards the center of the storm. Fujita grinned.
“Yes. I’d say it’s a very good sign!”
“How the fuck does that go?” Walker sounded more amused than pissed off. “The Snakes are throwing everything but my Gran’s bloody washtub into the sky, and that’s a good thing?”
“Hai.” Fujita grinned wider. “If they’re shooting this much, they must be afraid of us. Wouldn’t you say that’s a good thing?”
“Mind on the job, people.” Fujita could hear the smile in their pilot’s voice despite his words. “Scared of us or not, there are still a lot of Snakes out there that really, really want us dead.”
“Copy, pilot.” Walker sounded a bit calmer, at least. “I have what looks like a Night Owl fighter in my tail warning arc, can I engage?”
“Closing?”
“No, crossing the arc, left to right.”
“Hold your fire, then. If that idiot hasn’t figured out what inning it is yet, don’t point him at the scoreboard yet.”
“Got it. If he turns towards us?”
“Smoke him with my blessings. How we doing on the bomb run, Fuji?”
“Four minutes. Standby…” Fujita bent over his scope and worked the tracking handle, sliding his cursor over the green phosphor screen and carefully matching the radar presentation against the one unspooling in his mind. He was just starting to get enough reflections off the land to figure out what was what, there was the harbor, which meant that right there-
Fujita squeezed the tracking trigger. Then squeezed it again, then frantically clawed at his circuit breakers and reset switches before he squeezed again. He stared at the bomb system console in disbelief, then swore violently into the intercom.
“Kuso! Pilot, tracking radar’s packed it up. We can’t toss bomb!”
2229 Hours
Air Defense Operations Room, Genoa Area Command
“Trackin’, trackin’…yes!” The serf radar operator had a bandanna tied around his head to keep the sweat from his forehead and shaved scalp from running down into his eyes. Now, as Vorhees and the duty officer stared over his shoulder, he finessed the radar picture down onto a pair of returns. “Two blips, movin’ too fast to be chaff clouds. Jammin’ on the other side is headin’ north and away from the city now. Got to be them!”
“Good man!” Vorhees slapped him on the back. Beside him, the Pilot Officer was already starting to talk Peregrines and Falcons towards the contacts. Vorhees stared at the screen, his experession feral.
“Gotcha, Yank.”
2230 Hours
Aboard Spirit of Rio
Rosemont’s mind raced. This was falling apart in a hurry. Without a track radar or toss bombing computer, they’d have to overfly their target and lay the bomb down with a parachute. Saint-Laurence and his crew would be expecting them to stay on the toss-bombing run, and he didn’t dare try to radio them- they’d have dumped their remaining chaff bombs and headed for Switzerland by now.
Well, he still had Yarrow on his wing. And there was nothing left but to try for it.
“Allright, high-altitude laydown it is. Set it up, Fuji.” He thumbed on the boost pumps, pushing the Allisons past their safety lines as he yanked Spirit up into a climb.
In the nose, Fujita let out a breath, then turned carefully to his bomb panel. The Draka were closing in, they had no time, but he would not make a mistake by panicking like a yokaren cadet on his first day. Master delivery switch from TOSS to LEVEL. Release control from BRAIN+MANUAL to MANUAL ONLY. Fusing from AUTO to 2K’- that was about as low as the bomb could go and still give them a good airburst. Parachute package- ARM. Sure. They might have to worry about getting away.
Then there was nothing more to do, except watch his radar scope for the contacts that would tell him he was approaching the target. Presently he switched his eyes over to the other eyepiece, linked to the Revenant’s Norden bombsight, and stared patiently down at the city below, and the streams of fire reaching up from it.
It was, he noted in abstract, very beautiful.
2234 Hours
Aboard Snake Eater
“That’s not right.” Dan Yarrow watched his leader keep on into his climb, matching it automatically. At first he’d thought Rosemont was just climbing a bit before he started his toss, but Warhammer 03 was still climbing, with no sign of pulling up into the high-g release. That didn’t make any sense, unless-
“Cross Hairs!” His gunner barely had time to yell the warning out before Snake Eater’s cockpit filled with the hammering of the 20mm guns. Yarrow could see Spirit’s tail cannon joining in as well. The Snakes were here, and Rosemont had some kind of problem. Couldn’t toss bomb. He needed time, had none. Have to buy him some.
Yarrow yanked the control yoke back, standing his Revenant on her tail and pulling her back into an arc across the sky, zoom-climbing for Heaven as the airspeed indicator unwound.
“Boss, what the hell are we doing?” Yarrow keyed his intercom as he craned his neck backwards to look at the world below them.
“Toss bombing!”
“We ain’t got a nuke!” Yarrow laughed.
“Yeah, but the Snakes don’t know that.” As he watched, two sparks beneath them broke away from the Spirit and screamed up after them. He laughed again.
“That’s right, you bastards. Watch the birdie…”
2235 Hours
Air Defense Operations Room, Genoa Area Command
“Separation!” The serf operator’s warning was unnecessary as the two blips on the close-in radar split apart. Vorhees watched, his lips pursed. This was it. The moment of decision. What were the Yanks doing? Both climbing, one fast, horizontal rate almost to zero-
Almighty Thor. Vorhees grabbed the phone from the duty officer and yelled into it.
“All fighters, all fighters, this is Manorhouse Actual. Hit the trailer! Repeat, hit the trailer! Hit that bloody damn Yank with everything we’ve got, now, before he drops!”
2236 Hours
Aboard Spirit of Rio
“They’re off us, Skipper!” Walker watched as the two Peregrines pulled away, shaking his head. “Yarrow’s got ‘em fooled!” Up front, Rosemont closed his eyes. He knew all too well what that was likely to mean for Yarrow and his crew. Briefly, he wondered if the man was trying to make up for missing takeoff the first time, or if he’d have done the same thing regardless. It hardly mattered. What mattered was that they had the extra minute or two they’d need to seal this deal.
The engine temperature gauges were well above the redlines, but he ignored them. One of his instructors at Pensacola had had a saying that seemed apropos at the moment.
Red-line limits, Mister Rosemont, are only valid if you wish to fly that specific aircraft again. If subsequent flights do not appear likely, then there are no limits.
2238 Hours
Air Defense Operations room, Genoa Area Command
“Got the bastard!” The Peregrine pilot’s howl of victory was tinny in Vorhees’ headset, but he still reached over to slap palms with the Duty Officer. One down, one to go.
“Target altitude 21,000 and climbing.” The serf operator stayed fixed on the blip. “All units vector for intercept.”
2239 Hours
Aboard Spirit of Rio
Spirit of Rio burst out of the thin, scattered clouds that had covered her for most of her flight. Looking up for an instant, Rosemont could see the stars, gleaming clear and bright above him, with the yellow-white fires of Draka antiaircraft guns reaching up from below.
“Now, Skipper!” Automatically, Rosemont pushed the nose over, leveling off by the artificial horizon. The Book said they needed more altitude, but they were out of time. Have to hope it was enough.
Down in the nose, Kenichi Fujita watched the outline of the Genoa docks slide beneath the reticle of his bombsight. He slapped the doors open, then jerked the release handle.
“Bomb away!”
The Spirit jerked with the sudden weight loss, seeming to surge forward as the power of her engines caught the lightened plane and pushed it forward through the air. Below her, the bomb’s built in accelerometers sensed its release. Radar and pressure altimeters flicked on, pyrotechnics snapped, and a drogue chute blossomed from the tail in a long, flapping ribbon for a few seconds before the main parachute blossomed On the bomb’s casing, a silver Dragon medal fluttered in the airstream from the twine that held it on, falling down towards the city below. Inside, its brain patiently watched the altimeter inputs unspool.
2239 Hours
Air Defense Operations Room, Genoa Area Command
“Speed shift!” The operator frowned as he looked up from his scope, where he had been coaching Peregrine fighters onto the remaining contact. “Suh, she just stopped climbing and picked up a hell of a lot of speed.” Vorhees frowned. Extra speed. That meant-
The bottom dropped out of his stomach, and he turned to the young Pilot Officer beside him. The man was a subordinate, but he was also the closest member of the Dragon Race. The future he’d hoped to nurture.
“I’m sorry.”
The fates were not kind to Air Marshall Andrew Vorhees. He had just enough time to watch the dawning comprehension and horror on the young man’s face before the nuclear fireball bloomed over him, leaving only bits of ash and bone that no man would know or care had once belonged to a member of the Master Race.
2255 Hours
Draka Seventh Army Field Headquarters
“Strategos.” For just a moment, Eric von Shrakenberg thought he was having a nightmare of the last time he’d been awakened this way. Then he heard Sophie’s feet hit the floor next to him, and he knew it wasn’t. For just another moment, he wished that it had been. Eric turned to the Tetrarch in the door and asked the only question that mattered.
“Genoa?”
The boy nodded. Eric ran his hand over his face and sat up in bed, waving the messenger away. His mind was working in smooth arcs, like the looted Turkish automaton his father had once owned back on Oakenwald when he was a child. Dancers had whirled around and liveried servants served a miniature ball, but all powered by cold, precise mechanical movement behind the scenes. Possibilities, options, consequences, and futures all unspooled in his mind, and he found himself thinking about what Roosevelt had said yesterday.
Rule, die, or change.
He knew that whatever he chose, some of the Race wouldn’t follow him. They would try to rule, because they didn’t know how to do anything else. And most likely they’d die. Once he’d have thought Yankees too idealistic to really finish the job, too ready to believe that the villain can see the error of his ways and change, but the last two days had shown that was far, far from the truth. Any Draka that stood where they were would die.
And that left him. Eric von Shrakenberg, commander of the last Draka field army. Scion of an old Draka family that was now reduced to one, or two if Johanna had been lucky over the last twenty four nightmare hours. Not the only one in a position to make that choice for a significant number of Draka, but one of damn few.
“Sophie?” She looked up from fastening her boots at his tone, and slid in next to him. Her hand was warm over his chest.
“Yeah?” Her voice was soft. She knew he didn’t need to talk to an NCO right now.
“Yo’ remember Dale Smythe-Thompson? Ran the armored cars back at Pyatigorsk, took us all to dinner in Alexandra after?” She nodded mutely against his chest. Unspoken between them was the fact that Dale and his trademark hunting horn were now miles behind them, trying to hold a rearguard and perimeter against vengeful Europeans as the Draka fell back towards a haven that no longer existed, and that the manor house he’d dined them all in was leveled with the rest of the city. “Remember the family motto that was carved into the mantelpiece?”
She nodded. “’Death before dishonor’. Always thought it was a silly notion myself.”
“Oh?” Answered the question before I asked. I love you, Sophie.
Sophie nodded again. “Just a track-foreman’s daughter, Eric, not a big-time planter. But, well, dyin’ don’t necessarily prevent dishonor, do it? An’ if yo’ dead, nothin’ yo’ can do about that, ever. No chance to make things right, or at least make ‘em better. Hell, yo’ and I both know sometimes dyin’s the easy way out. Ends everything, no more responsibilities. Seems to me the harder thing…the nobler thing, sometimes…is to accept dishonor, so that our children can live.” Eric smiled at that.
“Our children, Decurion?”
“Speakin’ metaphorically, Strategos.” She looked up at him with a small smile. “Of course, I’m still plannin’ on yo’ makin’ it non-metaphorical soon. Or I will have to hurt yo’.”
“Can’t have that.” Eric straightened and pulled his uniform blouse on. “Let’s go then, Decurion. It seems we have an appointment to keep with dishonor and inglory.”
2357 Hours
Aboard Spirit of Rio
Julius Rosemont finally felt safe enough to take one shaking hand off the control yoke and wipe blood out of his eyes. Spirit of Rio hadn’t had nearly enough time to get away from their bomb before detonation, and he still wasn’t sure how they hadn’t been flipped over or dashed to the ground by the blast. As it was, he’d had to fight like a demon to get her back under control before they smacked in, and his head was still oozing blood from where it had smashed against the instrument panel. But they were still alive.
For the moment, at least. As he swept his eyes over the instrument panel, Rosemont’s face drew tighter. Engine one seemed to be leaking oil, and both of them were overheated. Even with the auxiliary fuel injection off and the cowl flaps all the way open, he didn’t know how long they’d last. The plane was out of trim, wobbling from side to side and nosing up every time he eased off the yoke, indicating that something in the airframe had bent. He keyed the intercom, wondering if that was out too.
“Everyone alive?”
“I hope so.” Fujita’s voice was dry as ever. “If my spirit is in Yasukuni Shrine, I’m putting in a complaint about the quarters. Nav radar’s gone, my sextant’s smashed. We’re down to compass and chart navigation. I suggest north.” Rosemont laughed. North was Switzerland. Anywhere else was Draka territory.
“Yeah.” Walker sounded pretty shaky, but they probably all did. “Half my scopes are blown out and I’m really glad I had my flash shield down, but I’m here. Got tail radar and the guns, not much else.”
“Okay.” Rosemont took a shaky breath. “We’re not in such hot shape, but it’s less than half an hour to the Swiss border. We can make it.”
“Maybe not, Skipper.” Walker’s voice was tight. “I’ve got something on the tail radar. Draka fighters…and they're probably just a bit unhappy with us."
Last edited by ChaserGrey on 2010-12-27 12:39am, edited 1 time in total.
Honestly though, I'm surprised the Draka night fighter is still back there and not spinning out of control screaming from their eyes being blinded by the detonation flash they probably were not expecting or prepared for...
Yeah, that was my thought. The Snakes had everything they could scramble in the air. Most of it is probably toast, but somebody had to be pointing the right way and far enough away that the overpressure didn't do for them. They're going to be...motivated in their pursuit, and they can talk to anyone with a working radar down there if their radios still work.
[Which isn't as absurd as it sounds. The Draka Watchtower set is pretty high-powered, range 100-150 miles, and I figure the Snakes probably put considerable effort into hardening their gear against EMP given their habit of kicking off every new major offensive with a nuclear fireworks show. Simple radios built with vacuum tubes are pretty resistent, anyway.]
And thanks, it's good to be back, and good to know people are still coming along for the ride.
So I assume that Voorhees must have been far enough from ground zero to have little ashes of him left behind instead of just becoming an outline on a wall.
Any cease fire should allow an American search and rescue team to get Rosemont if the Spirit doesn't make it. And there's that B-29 raid about to hit the railyards at Vienna (or is it Munich)?
Wonder how Drakian commanders are going to want to play Baron Model and New Swabia?
Turns out that a five way cross over between It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, the Ali G Show, Fargo, Idiocracy and Veep is a lot less funny when you're actually living in it.
Well, the raid on Vienna took off about twelve hours ago, so they've hit their target and come back by now...but they're definitely coming back for more. The idea is to make sure the Draka salvage as little as possible from the lower echelons of their supply chain and to give the maximum freedom of movement to the remaining European resistance movements.
Yep, another update. Short chapter that didn't really fit in with what comes before or after, so consider it a cutscene. One more, then an epilogue.
2300 Hours
Seventh Draka Army Field Headquarters
The situation room was quiet when they walked in, all the senior commanders staring at him- less Vorhees, but he somehow doubted Vorhees would be making any more staff meetings. Eric swept his eyes over the room.
“So.”
Thunorssen was the only one to break the silence. “Sir…we are preparing flareships and a photo recon flight to look the Genoa port over as soon as possible. But realistically…”
“We have to assume a total loss, yes.” Eric seated himself carefully at the head of the table. “Any more wonderful news I should know about?”
“Easthaven.” In the nightmare world they’d entered, Thunorssen just had to say the name of the city. “From the other carrier. They’d evacuated some, but not enough- ‘nother few thousand Citizens gone. The other cities in Abyssinia Province are pretty far north, so the Yanks might still have bombers en route. Or they might be plannin’ to hit them tomorrow night. Not much we can do either way. Full-scale uprisings in some of the Combine areas, those that are left, and not enough troops to put them down.” Eric put his hands on the table, willing himself to calm.
“Suggestions?” Vashon, the Security man, cleared his throat.
“Suh…we continue our retreat. In another day, two at most, we’ll be inside Italy. We can link up with the Draka there, get a critical mass together and put the serfs down in at least part of the peninsula. Get as many as we can out of the Police Zone, either prop up Syria and Araby or evacuate as best we can, and hunker down. Preserve the State, Suh.”
“Is that yo’ recommendation, Strategos?”
“It is, Suh.”
“And a good one, too.” Eric kept his voice quiet, but didn’t bother to hide the venom. “Except fo’ the part where’s it’s fuckin’ idiotic! Strategos Vashon, yo’ were in the room when I talked to Roosevelt, at your own insistence. You heard what he said. Do we go to Italy, do we go to Syria, do we go to fuckin’ Siberia, it don’t matter. The Yankees will be back just as soon as they can reload their carriers with mo’ bombs, and they’ll finish us. Hell’s bells, as it is we’ll be lucky to keep the locals around here and our own Janissaries from slittin’ our throats! They hit us with another round of nukes, and we are fuckin’ gone!”
“Suh.” Vashon stared into the distance. “Regarding the Janissaries, we do have nerve agent-“
“And they have no protective suits. Which is grand, but we are in close quarters with them, and they outnumber us four to one. Even if we have enough agent to kill them all- and please, yo’ and I both know that those numbers about needing a drop or two to kill are under perfect lab conditions only- it would take time to disperse it. Time during which the ones not getting’ gassed could still do too much damage. It would cost them, probably wipe them out, but we’d be just as dead.”
“Only one thing left, then.” Vashon paused. “Fenris.”
Eric laughed humorlessly. “Grand idea. Laager up, kill as many human beins’ as we can out of pure spite, save the last bullet for ourselves. Security’s perfect little plan, ends with everyone dead so nobody can tell anyone anythin’. No thank yo’, I believe I’ll pass.”
Vashon’s eyes darkened. He took a step towards Eric, Thunorssen and some of the other staff types falling in behind him. The rest of the Draka in the room kept their seats, either staring at Vashon’s group with the fixed look of a combat veteran about to take on an enemy or nervously flicking their eyes back and forth between the two.
“May I ask what yo’ plan is then, Arch-Strategos?” Eric nodded, reaching into his battledress tunic with elaborate casualness. Drawing out a pack of cigarettes, he selected one and let it, taking a puff before answering in the same tone of wary formality.
“Yo’ may, Strategos. I plan to take the only option open to us. I will contact President Roosevelt, and arrange to surrender the Seventh Draka Army on his stated terms.”
“Yo what?” Vashon took a step forward, his confederates behind him. “May I remind yo’, von Shrakenberg, that you are speaking treason against the State and Race. The Race does not surrender. It dies, but it does not surrender.” Eric pushed himself to his feet and glared at the older man, taking a step forward. He saw Vashon tense, and kept his hands carefully at his sides.
“That’s been our way, hasn’t it, Vashon?” His words were quiet, barely above a whisper. “It’s how the Draka have always been. Nothing matters but ourselves, our will, and to Hell with the rest of the world, hey? We use the past as a weapon and the future, pfft-“ he snapped his fingers. “We say we do what we do fo’ the future, the destiny of the Race, but it’s all horseshit. We do it because we want to see the world truckle under and play pony for us, and to hell what it does to them. Or us. Or our children. Well, that’s goin’ to have to stop. The rest of the world’s just served notice that it’s goin’ to have to stop, one way or the other, and they givin’ us a chance to stop it ourselves before they wipe us out. Which is a hell of a lot more than we’d do, were we in their position.” He paused. “Do you know I have a daughter, Vashon?”
“It’s in your krypteia file, von Shrakenberg.” The Security man was purple-faced now, and snarling. “Not that it matters. Yo’ve said enough in the last thirty seconds to put a whole magazine worth of bullets in yo’ head.”
“Ah, good. Then I can save myself the tedious task of tellin’ the tale again. What matters, Vashon, is that when I had to choose between what was good for her and what was good for me- I chose her. I always will choose her, and the children I haven’t had yet. I choose life, Vashon. Choose it over my own pride, my own honor, and who I am. I choose that rather than death, the last dishonor from which there is no recovery.” He locked eyes with the Headhunter. “Do enough join me, and do we somehow keep the world from killin’ us all off…well, then we’ll have to see what futures we can make.”
“Yo’ not makin’ anything, von Shrakenberg.” Vashon’s hand was at his sidearm, ready to snap it up and fire in one motion. “Yo’ can’t outdraw me.”
“No.” Eric took a drag on his cigarette, then carefully blew smoke into the other man’s face. “Then again, I don’t have to.”
There was a muffled thumping from behind Vashon, and the Security man’s eyes bulged with surprise and hydrostatic shock as his chest jerked with the impact of low-velocity bullets. Behind him, Thunorssen and the other conspirators stumbled, and fell. Eric took another drag on his cigarette when all the bodies had hit the floor, then looked over at Sophie, who had shifted to cover the rest of the room with her Tolgren machine pistol. He looked over at her, and was rewarded with a small smile. Eric cleared his throat.
“Anyone else?” A pause. “Good. Somebody get a long-range radio and start callin’ on Roosevelt’s frequency. I want to see all the Master Sergeants of the Janissary regiments in here soonest, and a complete report of what supplies we got out of Genoa before it went. Inform anyone who's still answerin' the radio of what we doin’, and offer to let them join us. Then we-“
The room broke into activity around the corpses of the Draka on the floor. The only ones to take notice of them were the flies, which had already landed and begun to lay their eggs in the dead flesh.
Last edited by ChaserGrey on 2010-12-27 12:44am, edited 1 time in total.
I only started to read this a few hours ago. I approve highly.
I bring graphs:
Early A2J Super Savage concept. Note Arado 234 style nose.
Later A2J Super Savage concept. Note restyled nose. Squint hard and imagine some windows in the nose for the bombardier and a tail gun...
"If scientists and inventors who develop disease cures and useful technologies don't get lifetime royalties, I'd like to know what fucking rationale you have for some guy getting lifetime royalties for writing an episode of Full House." - Mike Wong
"The present air situation in the Pacific is entirely the result of fighting a fifth rate air power." - U.S. Navy Memo - 24 July 1944
Now. If you really want to see what was offered for OS-111 -- Long Range Heavy VA for the United States to carry the BOMB.......I have done some research on this at the National Archives:
These basically were alternatives to the A-3 Skywarrior which won the contest:
North American Aviation Proposal
Curtiss-Wright Proposal
Fairchild proposal. Carry a wing full of fuel and take off like a biplane, and then jettison it for less drag. Fairchild bought out Republic in 1960s to become Fairchild-Republic.
"If scientists and inventors who develop disease cures and useful technologies don't get lifetime royalties, I'd like to know what fucking rationale you have for some guy getting lifetime royalties for writing an episode of Full House." - Mike Wong
"The present air situation in the Pacific is entirely the result of fighting a fifth rate air power." - U.S. Navy Memo - 24 July 1944
Why Shep, they're beautiful (I am partial to the early A2J Super Savage).
Silly Vashon. One attempts a coup after the meeting (so at least you can be doing things from a place you control).
Turns out that a five way cross over between It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, the Ali G Show, Fargo, Idiocracy and Veep is a lot less funny when you're actually living in it.
Pelranius wrote:Why Shep, they're beautiful (I am partial to the early A2J Super Savage).
Silly Vashon. One attempts a coup after the meeting (so at least you can be doing things from a place you control).
That's probably why he never got the promotion to Arch-Strategos, which also gives me the mental image of them playing board games to get their promotions.
Pelranius wrote:Why Shep, they're beautiful (I am partial to the early A2J Super Savage).
Seconded- thanks a lot, Shep. The A2J was actually the major inspiration for the Revenant. I may have to shrink down the A2J line drawing and see if it looks any better on the VAH-1 patch. And I feel good about getting the official Seal of Approval from the resident nuke-dropper here.
Edit: Wow. I just took a good look at the later A2J line drawing. Except for the high tail and shorter canopy it's almost eerie how close it is to my mental image of the AR-1. If you want to know what it looks like, that's probably as close as you're going to get. Thanks again Shep!
Silly Vashon. One attempts a coup after the meeting (so at least you can be doing things from a place you control).
Well, yes. But I've hated the S.O.B. so much ever since I read Under the Yoke that I couldn't go with delayed gratification. I wanted him dead. Now.
A/N: And so, it has come to this. Last regular chapter, but there will be an epilogue, probably quite a long one, that will tie off all the plot threads. Posted a bit earlier than I intended in honor of the views for this thread officially being OVER NINE THOUSAND, because I'm that much of an internet geek.
One quick question: I do have an idea for a sequel, set about twenty years later as some of the...longer term consequences of what happens here start to trickle in. Any interest in reading that?
Thanks to everyone who's come along for the ride, and especially those who joined the discussion here. And without further ado, because I know you're not reading this for the notes, the last regular chapter of Proof Through the Night.
2315 Hours
Aboard Spirit of Rio
“Here they come!” Walker’s voice was tight with tension over the intercom. Rosemont barely paid attention, his eyes fixed on the instruments, the airspeed indicator that was wavering past 300 knots and the altimeter hovering somewhere around 500 feet barometric as they shot through the foothills of the Alps. He was in the zone now, a place he hadn’t been since he lead his squadron back to their carrier over a pitch-dark Bismarck Sea, and before that off the African coast on his way to Cape Town. The charts he’d looked at before takeoff were bright in his mind, and with the radar out only the instincts and reflexes of a seasoned mail pilot kept him from spreading Spirit of Rio across the side of a mountain.
“What do we have, Guns?” It was almost like listening to someone else speaking in his voice, as he banked the plane around a hilltop and shot across the valley below.
“Two fighters, Skipper, coming in fast and high! Unknown type, something we haven’t seen before. Too fast for Night Owls, too slow for Peregrines. My guess is some kind of day fighter working off a ground controller, but I dunno how they’re getting us on radar.”
“I do.” Fujita laughed darkly. “The Snakes wanted to make sure the Swiss didn’t make trouble while they Yoked Spain, so there are Watchtower sets all up along the Alps. Closer we get to the border, the better return they’re going to have on us.”
“Bloody marvelous. Were you going to tell us about this then, Fuji?”
“Only if it came up. It’s not as if we can do anything about it.”
“Point.” Rosemont nudged the Spirit’s control yoke to the left, dipping the wing and curving them neatly around a mountain peak jutting up out of the dark Earth. “How long, Walker?”
“Starting their runs now. Any fancy pilot tricks, Skipper?”
“Sorry, Jimmie.” Rosemont pulled them up and along an upward slope, narrowly dodging the snow-capped crest. “I think missing the ground is about all I can manage right now.”
“Ah well. Cheers.” As Walker scanned the sky through the back of the Spirit’s canopy, he saw a pair of brilliant white lights snap on above them, then swoop down in deep power dives like angry ghosts. He pushed down on the butterfly grip and tried to center the leader in his ring sight, sqeezing grips and sending a stream of 20mm shells into the night. The Draka fighter showed no response, and he cursed under his breath. Both tried to pull into position behind the Spirit, but there was something wrong with the leader’s controls- while the wingman pulled out without a problem he only managed to pull from a deep dive into a shallow one. There was no time to react or compensate at the altitudes the Spirit was flying at, and the Draka Falcon fighter disintegrated into a fiery mess as it plowed into the Italian countryside at nearly four hundred knots.
Jimmie Walker stared at the sight- only for a moment, but it was a moment he and his crew no longer had. Before he could slew the sight around to aim the turret at the other Snake it was already closing for the attack, malevolent orange light winking from its guns.
In the cockpit, Rosemont felt the Spirit shudder under the impacts, felt the yoke go mushy in his hands and the pedals go slack as his elevators and rudder were shot away. The Spirit shot out over an ancient pine forest and into the clear, moonlight reflecting off the vast expanse of water that was suddenly below them. Even as he mentally cursed the lack of cover Rosemont recognized its long, winding shape from the maps he’d studied in Reprisal’s intelligence center what seemed a lifetime ago. Lago Maggiore, nestled among the Alps and running north into Switzerland.
The Draka Falcon came in again, its tracers lashing in Rosemont’s peripheral vision and stitching across their right wing. Spirit of Rio staggered, airspeed indicator dipping as the engine nacelle disintegrated into a pile of whirling metal fragments. Instinct slammed the throttle for the other engine forward until it screamed protest, fighting to hold the crippled plane in the air as Rosemont pulled up into a climb. Maybe, just maybe he could get enough altitude to glide them to the other shore. The Falcon shot past, crossing in front of the nose and looping easily up and over for another firing run. This time it was head on, the Falcon’s prop coming straight at him out of the darkness. Brilliant white sparks danced across the nose in front of Rosemont’s eyes, a machine gun bullet starring the glass in front of his eyes and whizzing past his shoulder.
He could see the northern shoreline now- visible mainly as a black void without any reflected moonlight to mark its surface. It rushed closer as the Spirit forged forwards, air rushing in through the bullet hole in the canopy with a mad, piping whistle that seemed to merge with the strained scream of the last Allison. Safety was achingly near, almost close enough to vanish under the nose and sweep under them, but the Draka Falcon was bending around again, coming in for what would surely be the final pass. No orange sparks reaching back in the rearview mirrors- Walker wasn’t firing. The Spirit shuddered as tracers began to strike home.
The eye saw. The hands and feet reacted, before the mind could form the intent. With her last bit of power the Spirit of Rio snapped up into a half barrel roll, inverting and barely clearing the crest of the ridge that had appeared out of the night. The Falcon tried to follow, but all the agoge trained reflexes in the world didn’t match a veteran’s pilot touch, the feeling in his spine for just how much his mount could take. The pursuing machine slammed into the hilltop, scattering itself across the landscape in a smoking ruin. There was no fire. No explosion. No marker for what was perhaps the ultimate grave of the Draka.
There was no time to celebrate for Julius Rosemont. The last strain had sent the temperature gauges of his last remaining engine far past their red lines, and already he could see the red glow of fire starting to lick from the outside of the nacelle. He shoved the yoke over, using the last power he could wring from the faithful Spirit to get her right side up. He mashed the button down and screamed into the intercom, hoping it wasn’t shot away or blanked out by the mad piping that filled his cockpit.
“Eject, eject, eject!” An eternal moment, and then the glass nose in front of him shattered, a bright yellow flash, and a pair of steel rails were sticking up in his vision. Fujita’s, guiding his seat up and clear of the Revenant’s high tail.
The nose began to dip, and Rosemont could feel the Spirit edging towards a stall from which she would never recover. He yanked his oxygen hose and interphone cords clear, straightened his spine, and pulled the yellow-striped handle between his legs.
There was an almighty bang, and a giant slapped him open-palmed across the face. When he opened his eyes again it was because he had fallen out of his seat, and his parachute had jerked him from a terminal-velocity fall to a gentle, floating descent. Below him he could see the yellow-orange streamer of flame from the Spirit of Rio’s left engine, falling away into the blackness until it struck the ground and sent a last fireball up into the night.
Rosemont fell through the blackness, unable to see anything but a few vague shapes by the light of the moon and the burning wreck of his plane. When he did see the ground it was almost too late, but he managed a decent tuck-and-roll the way he’d learned a lifetime ago in survival school. His parachute caught the wind and threatened to drag him against a tree at the edge of the clearing where he’d come down, until his fingers found the Koch fittings on his chest and released them. Freed, the parachute’s white sheet climbed away into the night sky, circling once in the wind before it was gone.
Rosemont laid on his back and groaned out loud. His whole body ached, his spine felt like it had been played like an accordion, and somebody inside his skull was pounding on it with a sledgehammer. It was a long minute before he managed to draw a decent deep breath, and another before he sat up. A twig snapped in the woods, then another, and Rosemont wheeled around, stumbling to his feet as he fumbled for his revolver. Just as he got it out and managed to raise it in one shaking hand, he could see a human figure at the edge of the treeline, holding a pistol on him. Rosemont’s eyes were wide, his heart pounding. In the haze of adrenaline and pain pounding through his head, nothing seemed impossible. An ex-SS partisan band. Draka deep reconnaissance patrol.
The figure took a step forward limping a bit on one leg, and Rosemont looked into Kenichi Fujita’s face. For a moment they just stood there, gaping, holding their pistols on each other. Then Fujita started laughing, and Rosemont started too, and before they knew it they were embracing and laughing together, because they were alive, whole, back on solid ground, the task they’d set for themselves accomplished. When they moved on from that place, Rosemont’s arm around Fujita’s shoulder to help the man limp through the woods, they were still laughing- every time they trailed off, it seemed one of them would start again and get the other going. They crashed through the forest, heading for the firelight.
Spirit of Rio’s wreck was only burning in a few places by the time they reached it. It lay in the middle of a newly made clearing, the trees around the edges fire-blackened and split from the explosion. One of the wings stuck out of the ground at a crazy angle, but other than that the only recognizable piece of the plane was the rear fuselage. And it was there that they found Jimmie Walker, eyes open and staring up at the sky, his throat ripped away in a bloody mess by a Draka machine gun bullet.
Rosemont stared down at Walker through a glassy pane of shock, a familiar black bile rising in his throat. This wasn’t right. It had been his sin they were blotting out. Walker had never supported an alliance with the Draka, had never done all the other thousand things Rosemont hated himself so viciously for. It shouldn’t be him lying there dead.
“It should have been me.” He wasn’t aware he had spoken aloud until Fujita said,
“But it wasn’t. What now?” After a long moment, Rosemont knelt down and reached through the twisted remnants of the canopy frame. He took one of Walker’s dog tags from around his neck, leaving the other one in place to identify the body. Reached up, and gently closed Walker’s eyes. Some hidden impulse from childhood told him he should say something. He tried to recite the 23rd Psalm, but it wouldn’t come out right- his head was still pounding and stuffed with cotton, and he kept mixing the phrases up after the bit about laying down in green pastures. After a while he gave up and just said,
“Goodbye, Jimmie. Thank you.” Next to him, Fujita knelt down and reached into his flight suit, drawing out a still miraculously unbroken bottle- the sake they’d all shared the first night. He reached down and left it by Walker’s side in the ejection seat, saying quietly,
“See you in Valhalla, Jimmie.” Rosemont glanced over, and somehow Fujita managed a wan grin. “I’m sure they’ll let me visit.”
They were halfway down the mountain, two hours later, when a Swiss militia patrol found them.
Last edited by ChaserGrey on 2010-12-27 12:59am, edited 1 time in total.
First off, I really do like this story; though I must admit to skimming over the sections with the Snakes feuding or strategosizing to get to the plucky Naval Aviators bombing them with ATOM BOMBS part.
While I like the concept of VAH-1 being made up of all foreign expatriates; It's sort of implausible to buy the concept of them being a nuclear attack squadron.
In 1945; even if we're using the advanced tech timeline of the canon Drakaverse; the Atomic Bomb is going to be a very rare item, rare enough to have very heavy security around it -- and back then; manpower was cheap -- losing a squadron to knock out a couple of cities is well worth the price.
But.....since you decided to go with the near-canonical Draka; we can easily throw plausibility out the window in favor of "Cowboys riding Tyrannosauruses with laser rifles." rule-of-cool.
Also; I really really do love this scene -- I love it so much I wish I had written it:
The nosewheel dipped off, diagonal to the bow. The rest of the Revenant followed. Yarrow hauled back desperately on the yoke. Come on. Come on. Not like this! We’re finally on the mission! Not like this!
“Come on, you bitch!” The ocean filled his windscreen. “Come on, fly!”
The wings caught.
Snake Eater’s nose came up, and Yarrow barely managed to reach over and wrench the gear up in time. Otherwise the tires might well have caught a wave and swamped the plane.
The AR-1 climbed away into the sky, with three utterly astonished men aboard as it rose to join its fellows.
As for the air battle against the Reprisal, at first I thought you were giving too much credit to the Draka -- but then I realized this:
The Draka aren't the Japanese of 1944 launching at Phillippine Sea with re-warmed over 1940 planes against a task force with 1943+ era aircraft and advanced radars/fighter direction.
I found the following papers in the National Archives II dealing with North American's NA-133 liquid cooled VF proposal -- basically they proposed taking a P-51H and adding a tailhook.
24 July 1944
....The present air situation in the Pacific is entirely the result of fighting a fifth rate air power. The problem of protecting a carrier in the near future will be that of meeting an enemy attack force picked up at radar range and coming in at 400 m.p.h. Their missiles will probably be of the homing variety. No longer will slow attack groups circle your task force prior to attack. To stop such an attack, you will not want a fighter that is also a dive bomber, also a ground attack plane, also a long range scout. You will need the best flying machine that can be built or carrier aviation will disappear on the first attack...
That makes me wonder -- why Corsairs as VFs? Shouldn't the Reprisal's fighters be some sort of pure turboprop fighter? Take a Bearcat; shrink the diameter of the fuselage some, and put the Allison turboprop in.
Or are all of the Allison turboprops coming off the production line being reserved for STRATEGIC platforms, like the RA-1 Revenant and whatever B-52 concept the USAAF has? Remember that the B-52 was originally concieved around this period.
I also found this in some random Bureau of Ships papers:
STATEMENT OF THE CHIEF OF THE BUREAU OF SHIPS AT GENERAL BOARD HEARINGS, 24 JANUARY 1944
...
(a) That because of guided missiles the five-inch/25 cal. gun is entirely inadequate as of January 1944 as an AA gun and that we are accepting heavy expense, long delay and a reduction of 1/2 to 3/4 of a knot in speed of the SAVANNAH as typical of the early CL's to rearm with a 5-inch/38 cal. AA battery in 4 twin mounts.
(b) That we ourselves are working on the development of corresponding guided missiles which render even that battery of doubtful effectiveness.
...
(f) That we are discussing not ships to go into service against Japan in the spring of 1944 but ships which must look at least 2 to 3 years to the future and we hope to many more years.
(g) The contest between anti-aircraft guns and plane attack is exactly parallel to every other contest against a new offensive weapon. Each advance in offense brings an equal or better defense. Torpedo planes and dive bombers have a tough time today getting in against an American ship. The controlled bombs struck from outside the range of the AA batteries of our 6-inch cruisers at Salerno. The present 5-inch/38 cal. gun was the AA gun of 1930 developed to provide a dual-purpose gun for the FARRAGUT Class of destroyers. The 5-inch/54 cal. gun was selected for the 60,000-ton battleships in 1941 and confirmed in 1942 for the 45,000-ton CVB, before the advent of controlled-missiles as an accomplished fact. Every chapter in past human experience promises further offensive developments of aircraft.
He then goes on to say that we should take the last seven CLs presently under contract and cancel the plan to build them as MODIFIED CLEVELANDS and instead build them as 6" DP CLAAs.
You pretty much have atom bombing runs sewn up -- my only quibbles are that you have your AR-1s flying too low; they should be flying higher -- the A2J-1 would have cruised up after launch, reaching 35,000 feet about 100 nautical miles from the target -- and bombed doing 396 knots at 35,000 ft. Oh, and this speed is with a 10,500 lb bomb
This altitude and speed makes it a swine to intercept. But I can't fault you for trying for the low and fast dramatic route; since it's a change from fly in very high and fast above 90% of defenders story-wise, and allows for GLORIOUS TOSS BOMBING.
Speaking of toss-bombing I just loved the Atom Bombing of Genoa as a dramatic and technical device.
Take that you snakes for assuming that the AR-1 can only toss bomb.
While I can understand the dramatic concept of the head guy in Genoa saying "We're fucked. I'm sorr---"; wouldn't Anti-Aircraft Command (for lack of a better name) in a lot of cities be in a semi-hardened concrete building?
Of course you can have them stumbling out of the bunker into the fallout plume and all dying of 10,000 rads
Also; I like that last chapter you posted. It's pure WIN, although...Poor Spirit of Rio. I was hoping she'd end up in the NASM in a position of glory.
"If scientists and inventors who develop disease cures and useful technologies don't get lifetime royalties, I'd like to know what fucking rationale you have for some guy getting lifetime royalties for writing an episode of Full House." - Mike Wong
"The present air situation in the Pacific is entirely the result of fighting a fifth rate air power." - U.S. Navy Memo - 24 July 1944
The 10,000 lb weight of FAT MAN? 2,830 pounds of it was a 3/8 inch (9.52 mm) thick steel case intended to protect the device from antiaircraft fire as it descended to the target -- since it was literally worth several hundred times it's weight in gold -- and we didn't want to take the chance of enemy AA fire dudding it and leaving the enemy with a damaged atomic bomb.
"If scientists and inventors who develop disease cures and useful technologies don't get lifetime royalties, I'd like to know what fucking rationale you have for some guy getting lifetime royalties for writing an episode of Full House." - Mike Wong
"The present air situation in the Pacific is entirely the result of fighting a fifth rate air power." - U.S. Navy Memo - 24 July 1944
