Sneak Attack from the South- Dystopian Wars game

The wind whipping at Fleet Commander Proclus's coat was hot and humid, bearing the toxic stench of sulphur and burnt coal. He stood gazing out over the black night, noting the small orange flecks in the distance, tell tale signs of coal boilers burning full steam. Proclus' fleet had been observing the parley at Bangkok from afar, observing every word, every fleet movement through a carefull wrought system of drones. Best of all, the enemy fleets had no clue that they were under observation from an unknown party...

A detachment of his fleet had been sent to eradicate the prescence of the Japanese in the area, his spies had already made it clear that the Brittanians had no intention to honour the treaty, nor honour the other members of the treaty itself. The two Prussian equipped fleets were bickering amonst themselves, it would take very little effort to bring the two to blows. This left the Japanese the most imminent threat.

Proclus had once been a citizen of the city state of Venice, once the centre for art, architecture and praised as a haven for free thinkers, radicals and idealists. The repression upon Venice had been swift and brutal, all those ideals the Venetians held so dear were crushed without mercy or thought; forcing men like Proclus out into exile, the greatest thinkers of the Italian states fleeing like whipped dogs. Proclus had been on the run for years, hiding out in Marakesh; until word came of the safe haven in Antarctica.

Now was not the time for reminiscing, as dawn broke over the small pacific islands, Japanese spotter planes were observed in the distance. It was not long before ranging shots from the enemy vessels began causing geysers of water around the vessels. Any shots which would have caused immediate danger to vessels were observed to visibly deflect away from their targets before exploding harmlessly into the water. It was at this point that Proclus ordered his crew to begin targetting the enemy capital class ship, as with all of these nations built upon lies, once the head had been cut off, only chaos would remain. The gunners were experts at targetting, their shots striking home among the superstructure of the enemy vessel, fire directed at the crude shield generator of the enemy vessel. The shield generator offered no defense against the charged ion bombardment, erupting into flames rendering the battleship defenseless. The supporting vessels poured their fire into the battleship, fires were visibly breaking out over the ship as the ionized fire cascaded into blue explosions over the superstructure in the dawn haze.

The enemy aerial assets began engaging, launching long range rocket salvoes, targetting Proclus' captial ships. Proclus laughed at the attempts made by these rockets, so crude, so neanderthal. Without any guidance system whatsover, it was a simple matter for the automated Anti-Aircraft fire to annihilate the rockets in the air before they were of any danger to the vessel.

Proclus dispatched his destroyers to deal with the enemy air asset, the five destroyers moving forward with all haste offered by their unique design. A their turrets began to engage the enemy (operating using standard Anti-Aircraft procedure, the first unit brackets the enemy and passes targetting information to the following vessels), enemy frigates appeared from behind the nearby island. Clearly the Japanese fleet was larger than Proclus had realised! The Iron Men aboard the vessels fought bravely, but were outnumbered and out gunned by the large number of ships. In spite of the withering enemy fire, the destroyers were able to down one enemy vessel, causing it to collide with a frigate on the surface. It was in a short amount of time that four of his destroyers were sinking quickly, the fifth was swarming with enemy boarders utilizing crude rocket packs.

With a sigh, Proclus pressed the destruct button for the destroyer, causing a blue hemisphere of ionized atmosphere to erupt from the centre of the vessel, instantaneously vapourizing the destroyer, the boarders and the frigate who had sent the boarders over.

Rubbing his eyes from the explosion, Proclus again looked forward, towards the sinking wreck of the enemy battleship. A perfect circle had been carved through the centre of the superstructure, just above the waterline. Through the hole, a second perfect circle could be seen through the cruiser which had been in a tight formation following the battleship. "I must commend the designers" thought Proclus, it had been the first time he was required to fire the Particle Accelerator Cannon at anything more than an iceberg.

As he was admiring the destruction, two silent shapes had slipped unnoticed in front of the bows of the dreadnought. To anyone watching, two streams of wake began to appear, before lines of jagged teeth appeared out of the water. Anyone watching would have been able to prevent it. Anyone watching would have been able to direct fire, to warn the Thermopylae about the imminent threat, but there was no one watching; the Antarcticans were obsessed with observing and recording the armour penetration statistics of the Particle Accelerator Cannon.

Great steel tentacles burst forth from the water, entangling themselves around the Thermopylae; tearing through her bridge, crushing her gun turrets and ripping her particle accelerator clean from within it's housing. Before Proclus could react, the Thermopylae was literally torn in twain, the last transmission from her captain bearing only the screams of the human bridge crew and the sound of tortured metal.  Proclus could only stare in disbelief, in the full knowledge that Antarctica had been betrayed by one of their own. Jiro Horikoshi had been one of their best naval architects, a wizard at creating articulated servoes. The enemy vessels bore all of the signs of Horikoshi, clearly talks of his death had been greatly exaggerated.

It was when one of the enemy behemoths wrapped up the particle accelerator, drawing it in closer to its armoured central body, that the attack became clear to Proclus. The Japanese clearly had enhanced detection capability, they knew he was coming. Their goal was then to garner as much technology as possible to further their own war effort. Horikoshi knew of the destructive powers of the Antarctican fleet; but had been stonewalled by the Antarctican designers, who operated strictly about "need to know"; and simply he had not needed to know.

Proclus was left with no choice but to open fire upon the wreck of the Thermopylae with all weapons, in an attempt to cause a critical reactor failure, which would cause the destruction of both it and its two attackers. Muttering apologies to his old friend Cato aboard the Thermopylae; Proclus gave the order. The explosion caused by the destruction could have been witnessed for miles around. The sturginum reactor in the Aristotle class was highly stable under normal circumstances, but when placed under extreme stress due to ionizing radiation, the reactor simply became as crude a weapon as a stick of Nobel's trinitrotoluene. 

In the ensuing blindness and disarray that occured after the explosion, Proclus made his escape with his remaining vessels. His goal of crippling the Japanese war effort in the Pacific had been hampered by the involvement of Horikoshi. How many other vessels had he created? Proclus knew he must contact the Wells Chasm at once, the ships needed better detection and destruction methods to counter this new threat....

Well, that was my game vs Jason last night. No pictures, why? Because my antarcticans are not painted, and I would be too ashamed to put them forward without them being painted! Here is what my colour scheme will look like.

One Antarctican Frigate

 In other news, the Analogue Painting Challenge has begun! But an update on that later tonight.

Watch out or the penguins will get you!

CP 

Revenge in the Coral Sea

It had taken a week of furious work before the Warspite could return active duties, the British dockworkers as well as those colonials worked furiously day and night to put the damages done back right. The reason for the haste was that the initial elements of the Southern Fleet were arriving from their long journey from New Zealand, and higher command were anxious to resume engagements against the Japanese in the Coral Sea theatre.

Meanwhile, Cooper had received a commendation for his actions amongst the Archipelago (now unofficially renamed Aria Atoll) as well as a new posting as First Mate aboard the H.M.S. Achillies, a brand new Ruler Class Battleship, equipped with the latest in offensive and defensive capabilities, technology which Cooper had not a single chance in comprehending. All he knew was that the Captain was legendary amongst the men, and had led several highly successful engagements against the Krauts, but was yet to combat the Japanese, which Cooper assumed was his purpose in being there.

The plan was simple, activate a battlegroup and sail north as a bait for the Japanese. Cooper predicted that they would again attack in the same fashion, attempting to use their fiery rockets at extreme range, before attempting to close and maneouvre for broadside gunnery attacks. The smaller ships then would act as the hounds, chasing, baiting and goading the Japanese, before the capital ships as the hunters steam in to a bugles call to deliver the killing blow.

It was again off the coast of the atoll that the Japanese sprung their attack. Long range rocket fire rippled through the sky, igniting the foredecks on the newly refitted cruiser H.M.S. Colossus. Return fire was swift and vengeful, the enemy aircraft were quickly targeted by the frigates, with one critically damaged quickly and the second damaged also. Further fire rippled from the enemy vessels, plumes of water gushed up around the Colossus. Cooper observing from his post on the Achillies could only watch in horror as from behind the haze an enemy battleship erupted forth, spewing rocket fire as well as spitting death from it’s main turrets. It only took one rocket to seal the fate of the Colossus, a single rocket plunged straight into its boilers, causing a catastrophic explosion leaving nothing left of the ship to sink. The remaining fire from the enemy battleship crashed into the beloved Vanguard, causing what appeared to be crippling damage. 

However the Vanguard was made of sterner stuff, steaming forth at full speed, placing herself in a position to fire all of her guns simultaneously in a gallant act of fury. Her fore and aft turrets spat fire at some nearby frigates, her torpedoes rippled out of her hull in all directions, as her Ack-Ack crews attempted to bring down the lone enemy bomber from the sky. It did not take long for the Japanese to realize the threat this vessel posed, as the bomber and multiple frigates fell to this fullsalide, and it took the battleship mere seconds to turn and acquire the target. Cooper could only watch in horror as the Vanguard like the Colossus before her had simply erupted into a fireball of green flame, the tell tale sign of a reactor explosion, meaning any chance of survivors was lost.

It was now that Her Majesties’ Royal Flying Corps joined the engagement, two Doncaster bombers swooped down from high in the clouds firstly directing torpedo salvoes onto the enemy battleship, followed by a crippling bombing raid. Cheers rang forth from the crew of the Achillies and efforts were redoubled in an attempt to pour more explosives onto the enemy battleship.

Unbeknownst to all but Higher Command, a secret weapon had been dispatched with the battlegroup. Once the enemy battleship had been damaged, it was elected that the time was right to unleash a coup de grace onto it. The captain of the Achillies simply said the codeword “Overlord” into the wireless, and pointed to the starboard side of the ship. Emerging from the water were two grey, animalistic vessels, bristling with firepower. Torpedoes raced forth from their jagged snouts, erupting in catastrophic explosions on the enemy battleship, until finally she broke apart from the stern, and began to list violently to the port side.

It had been a successful engagement for the Kingdom of Brittania, but at high cost. There was nothing left of the two cruisers, but the Achillies had performed admirably for her first engagement, claiming two confirmed enemy capital ship kills, as well as smaller vessels and an aircraft.

Time was now taken to refit, receive further reinforcements from the oncoming Southern Fleet, as well as to allow time for Cooper to grieve the loss of his beloved Vanguard. Sadly, it was not to be, as the look out from the lighthouse confirmed dark shapes looming on the horizon……

CP

Coral Sea naval engagement

A tropical haze had spread across the island archipelago that the small battlegroup sheltered in. It was getting towards the hottest part of the day, when all operations were forced to a virtual standstill by the unrelenting temperature. The Captain of the H.M.S. Warspite, a Tribal class Cruiser, John Cooper surveyed his position. It had been weeks since he had left the safe port of Christchurch on a long range scouting patrol with the small battlegroup comprised of the trio of cruisers and their supporting frigates. No contact had been made, save with a few hostile locals. Naturally the fuzzie-wuzzies were educated in the pure excellence that is British doctrine and once swearing an oath to Her Royal Highness, they were immediatly put to work.

But aside from the haze and the memories of past glories, there seemed to be nothing afoot in this calm archipelago. It was not until the H.M.S. Exeter, an Attacker class Frigate erupted from a magazine explosion that the calm morning was broken into cries of action. More columns of smoke erupted around the support vessels as out of the haze loomed rounded prows bristling with murderous guns. Rockets began to rain down, setting a nearby oil derrick alight and forcing all hands to sprint for cover. Around the other flank small support vessels arrived, pouring their lethal fire into the frigates. The H.M.S. York was hit in her bridge, and remained blazing for the remainder of the engagement. It was about now that the well Cooper's disciplined crews began to set about their work. Main guns blazing at the smaller vessels ahead, the Warspite sought to put an island between herself and the pursuing capital ships.

On the other flank, the Brittanians were not faring well. The cruiser H.M.S. Colossus was struck in her rear boiler, causing a catastrophic eruption of flame as she sank briskly, with the loss of all hands. Other frigates lay burning hulks in the water. An order was relayed by the Commander of the H.M.S. Vanguard for the Warspite to break engagement at top speed, and the last Cooper saw of him was the cruiser moving at full steam, firing all torpedos and guns directly towards the oncoming enemy.

The Warspite was able to break engagement, but due to damage suffered during the engagement was unlikely to survive any further encounters, so Cooper elected to head straight for the safe port at Darwin, carrying stories of the carnage the Japanese fleet unleashed upon the unsuspecting Brittanians.

With the Warspite laid up in port, Cooper was interrogated by Higher Command as to the tactics, firepower, structure and nature of the Japanese attack in an attempt to understand and comprehend the engagement on the archipelago, so that when the full Southern Battlegroup arrived, the Brittanians would not be caught unawares again....

For the Japanese account, head here. Note that it is all lies and propaganda, nothing from Kruger can be trusted!

In other news, the Federated States of American are entering the Coral Sea also, and are expected to make first contact with the Japanese tonight....

CP