For King and Country

Vann - Thanks! I try to be... different from time to time.

GeneralPaisley - Don't ya just love 'em?

Lord E - Thank you, sir. As for the Empire's armed forces... I can only hope and pray that they prove worth the cost to expand!

stnylan - Many thanks. As for our spy's reaction... stay tuned!

Cloudyvortex - Just you wait!

Maximilliano - As am I, which is why MY Matilda has got a 90mm howitzer. Remember, at the time, that's considered (and to a certain extent can still be) a large caliber cannon. How it rates in actual combat, we'll all have to wait and see, eh?

BigBadWolf - Should I send my Uncle Guido around you way to explain things to ya? HA HA HA HA HA

GhostWriter - I can only hope that the description meets or surpasses reality. As for the tubes on the side of the turret, they'd be smoke grenade dischargers.

Sir Humphrey - Tell me 'bout it. I almost didn't post that picture 'cause it so clashes with my description of my Matilda... but hopefully most people can look past the pic and recall the description, eh? Thanks, by the by.



Oh folks, next update is being polished as we speak... well, you know what I mean, and should be ready in the next couple of hours barring anything unforessen rearing its ugly head! Stay tuned!

DW - Thanks, and our friend looking over the numbers is not really gonna like some of the other things he's about to read!

Storey - Why thanks for thinkin' that way, Joe! You like the Matilda II? I just wish the Brits in RL would have had my Matty, 'cause I dare say things would have turned out a wee bit differently in several battles, for in this TL they... oops, can't say no more, I'd be givin' away state secrets and that'd get me in to big trouble!

VILenin - Truly it did! First in the form of my new immediate boss, she who shall be known as Bromhilda, and then in the more pleasent form of my wife deciding that we needed some personal alone time away from our kids. Naturally, I complied, I mean, what man wouldn't, right?

BigBadWolf - I was, honest! Just not AAR related.





But, since you all asked so nicely, I promise that I will have the next update uploaded within the next, ah, fourteen hours (I'd do it sooner, but I left the next section at work and won't be back there for about ten hours... yes, I know, silly me for leaving AAR notes and such not at work.). Stay tuned!

Well, the new boss is far from as sympathetic as the old boss, which is puttin' a big hurt on my writing time here at work... but I have my ways around her.

As for moddin' my Matilda, I didn't because the "generic" heavy tank brigades cover a whole gamut of tank sizes from the RL Matilda II to the colossal King Tigers, so I just tweaked the numbers story wise to reflect the Empire's new outlook on warfare.

Update coming in thirty seconds... honestly! o

CHAPTER NINETEEN - PART THREE​

London
December 9, 1937
Late evening
A Private Flat

Picking up a bundle of papers from his left, the cigar smoking man unclasped the bindings and began evaluating the information he had been provided on the Royal Navy, which was not much at first glance. While the Fleet was currently only expanding slowly, the expansion was more of a technological one than material, and it appeared that was what matter most to the First Sea Lord at this point in time, and thus most of the time and resources the Fleet were allocated by the Crown was being poured into the research side of Research and Development. That did not mean, however, that the Fleet shipyards were silent and empty, for in fact they were in the process of launching and commissioning the I-Class destroyers as well as the first order of the newer Tribal-class destroyers. Looking over the design specifications for the, the cigar smoker was shocked to see that the two classes were both very powerful in comparison to the destroyers his own country’s navy currently had sailing the high seas.

The I-class destroyers, with a complement of one hundred and thirty-eight men, were designed to be the Royal Navy’s catch all combat vessel able to do any task assigned with a reasonable amount of success. Three hundred twenty-three feet long with a displacement of one thousand three hundred sixty tons, the I-class were powered with two oil fired geared turbines linked to twin screw shafts and producing 34,000 hp, which allowed the I-class ships to cruise through the waves at a top speed of thirty-six knots. When taken into consideration with the four 4.7” guns in single gun turrets, two quad-mounted .50 caliber machine gun mounts, twin depth charge racks on the fantail and the ten 21” torpedo tubes mounted in two five tube mounts amidships that made up the class’s weapon’s suite, the entire class seemingly fit the roles of fleet bird-dog, escort ship, convoy protector, and submarine hunter perfectly.


Following Royal Navy tradition, the fifth hull of the class was modified to serve as a flotilla flagship, and therefore had some different specifications. This included an increase of fifteen feet, a displacement weight growing to one thousand five hundred forty-four tons, an additional 4.7” gun as well as an additional quad .50 caliber anti-aircraft mount, a slightly larger engine suite that produced 38,000 hp to keep the heavier “flagship” up to speed with her consorts. The “flagship” also grew in crew size to a maximum of one seventy-five men to crew the extra weapons as well as a command staff for the flotilla leader.

Evidently not satisfied with a class that had not even yet had their hulls taste water, the Admiralty canceled its orders for the I-class after the eleventh keel was laid down and had the Empire’s shipyards begin to build the Tribal-class destroyers. The Tribals traced their roots to a 1934 Fleet White Paper that detailed the threat posed by destroyers being built in Japan, Italy and Germany that were much larger than those currently in service with the Royal Navy and larger than what the Admiralty had proposed to launch in the coming years. The threatening ships weighed in around two thousand tons while current and forthcoming Imperial destroyers were closer to thirteen hundred tons. After eight design proposals provided by various shipping companies and even members of the Fleet itself, the Tribals were finalized.

Displacing two thousand five hundred fifty-nine tons when fully loaded and reaching a length of three hundred and seventy-three feet, the Tribals were the larges destroyers to be built for the Royal Navy. Armed with four twin gun mounts containing 4.7” guns and four 21” torpedo tubes in single tube mounts along the sides of the hull as their main offensive firepower, the Tribals carried four 2-pdr cannon in single mounts and four .50 caliber machine guns in twin mounts for anti-aircraft defense, and twin fantail mounted depth charge racks for anti-submarine combat.


Crewed by two hundred officers and men, the Tribals were able to race across the waves at thirty-six knots thanks to twin oil fired geared turbines producing 44,000 hp and driving twin screws. A powerful yet extremely beautiful looking vessel, the Tribals were, despite having most of the armaments supplied by the breakup of the older destroyers as ordered by the Crown the year previously, very expensive ships (a fact that was while not stressed to their captains, was made widely known), with the average cost just over five hundred thousand pounds.

Apparently not satisfied with the Fleet’s destroyers, the Admiralty refused to order a second production run of Tribal-class ships and were in the process of designing yet another new destroyer class, so far named the Battle-class with the hull of the lead ship of the class already laid down in a secret Fleet shipyard. This new class was supposed to be a step ahead, technologically speaking, of the Tribals and outclass any existing or upcoming destroyer design put forth by any other major navy.

Recalling experiences of the Great War in which there were many instances in which the Royal Navy’s had found a need for combat vessels that crewed less than fifty men, the First Sea Lord had recently endorsed a plan to provide the Royal Navy with a new generation of Motor Torpedo Boats (MTBs), the Hell Boats of the Great War. The MTBs, like their Great War ancestors, were to be unarmoured, highly maneuverable and high speed vessels, using their speed and agility to avoid enemy fire while maneuvering to firing range of their targets. The nick-name of Hell Boats was double-edged, as while they little boats could and had played havoc and hell upon the enemy, their size made living conditions harsh and their non-armoured wooden hulls provided next to no protection from enemy guns. Despite that fact, the MTBs were never short of volunteers during the Great War, and apparently the Admiralty was banking on the same thing twenty years after the end of the War to happen again.

The designs that the Admiralty agreed upon was a vessel envisioned and built by Commander Peter Du Cane CBE, the Managing Director of Vosper Ltd based in Portsmouth. The Vosper boat was seventy-three feet long, fifteen feet at the beam, displaced forty-nine tons and was propelled across the surface by three Packard gasoline engines to a speed of 40 knots. Having a range of two hundred and forty nautical miles while traveling at top speed and with a full combat complement of fourteen men, the Vosper boats were able to attack their enemies with four 21-inch torpedoes, a Bofors 40mm gun forward, a 20 mm Oerlikon cannon aft, and two twin 0.303 Vickers MG mounts. The Royal Navy was expected to begin taking delivery of the little vessels in the early spring of 1938.









Up next: Our spy reads of the Air Ministry. Stay tuned!

Oh, and as always, comments are always welcome!