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Yes; ironically, Ireland actually survives Churchill by four days.
 
71. The Lion Falls

1/JG 52 Patrol Route Cäsar
Off Ile d'Ouessant, Occupied France
12 February 1942


Oberleutnant Hans-Joachim Marseille was bored. The Royal Air Force stayed on their side of the Channel these days, since the bombers had been mauled so heavily during the Dutch phase of the war. He smiled in recollection - he had shot down four of them over Cologne in August - and stifled a yawn as he banked the Fw 190 out to sea. Most of what they did out here was watching for convoy ships headed for England; it was one of the most dangerous waters in the world for the Engländer what with the Americans doing their silly "neutrality patrol" as far east as Ireland now.

He blinked several times, the morning still dark in the west, and rubbed at his eyes. That little French blonde had been very willing to get an extra ration, and the result was that he was dead tired. That, and there was apparently a fly in the cockpit with him. He flicked his hand at it in irritation - and froze, instantly coming wide-awake. To the west, low against the water, the "fly" remained where it had been, crawling across the waves. He flicked the radio on, yawning ostentatiously. "Hey Mackie, got a bird down there, around eleven o'clock low, working toward twelve." His Rottenführer, Johannes Steinhoff, sounded exasperated and resigned. "Where'd you say? Don't... wait, got it. That's odd. Follow me in for inspection, Jochen, and don't play cowboys-and-indians on me."

The two planes curved down toward the unknown, Steinhoff requesting radar information from Brest, where the Flak direction radar operator gave him the bored reply that they saw nothing in that direction. By that point, Marseille needed no confirmation from the land radar for what he saw.

10_Sqn_%28AWM_042259%29.jpg

It was a Short Sunderland flying boat, an easy target for the two 190s. Marseille edged his fighter forward, passing Steinhoff. "Damn it, Jochen, what did I tell you?" Steinhoff battered at his canopy in protest, knowing it would do no good. Marseille simply ignored him and cried out, "Horrido!" as he began a banking pass at the flying boat. There was no guile to it, no finesse - there was no need for these, the Sunderland was like shooting a barn. The dorsal turret replied and the pilot tried to haul his plane around to the north, realizing that he was in terrible danger, but it was to no avail. The Focke-Wulf's twenty-millimeter cannons stitched a line of explosions across the joint of wing and fuselage, walking into the port engine as Marseille rocketed past, nearly hitting the waves before pulling back up again.

Steinhoff hung back, watching the Sunderland shudder, smoke pouring from its engine, and slowly disintegrate. As the port wing folded, the plane rolled toward that wing, as if snapping a wishbone, and the high-side starboard wing churned its way in a short arc so that the flying boat was cartwheeling when it hit the water. There was no chance of survival, no one exited the aircraft, and there was no explanation for why there was a lone Sunderland out this far with no fighter escort.

churchillk.png

Two hundred and fifty kilometers to the north, a flight of Spitfires circled slowly over their expected rendezvous. They lingered as long as they could, then swung homeward, uncertain about what had become of the Prime Minister's Sunderland. Their report spurred a frantic search, and in response a Luftwaffe fighter sweep. By the time they had established that Churchill was lost, they had lost an additional three Sunderlands and seventeen fighters ranging from Hurricanes to Mosquitoes that Fighter Command could ill afford.

It took a week for word to reach the Germans; it arrived at the same time that Lehmann-Willenbrock was returning from the Irish rescue. There was satisfaction in the General Staff, for the soul of the British war effort had cartwheeled into the Atlantic, but at Charlottenburg, Wilhelm observed a moment of silence for Churchill and called upon Speer to build a monument to the old man at Ouessant.

Characteristically, Marseille spent three days confined to quarters except for fighter sweeps for disobeying Steinhoff's orders and engaging. Once it was ascertained what had happened, he was quietly, in a ceremony directed expressly by Grauert from Berlin to contain only members of his Gruppe and receive no publicity, awarded with the Order of the Crown, Fourth Class, with Swords.

441px-Bundesarchiv_Bild_146-2006-0122%2C_Hans-Joachim_Marseille.jpg
 
A Sunderland an easy target for two 190s? Somehow I doubt that, with 16 .303 and two .50s, but then again OTL their normal enemy were long-range Ju88s.


Speaking of planes, the Yellow 14 is radial engined, good to hear. In the AAO-verse Marseille is on the way to commabd JG26 one day....


EDIT: Just so you know, the German pilots called the Sunderland "Fliegendes Stachelschwein" (Flying Porcupine)...
 
There were passenger conversions of the Sunderland, and from a steep angle above, the only turret that can reply is the dorsal turret... which doesn't outrange the 20mm cannons on the Fw 190.
 
Been following this awhile. Truly masterful good sir.
Impressed me so much went, out and shot down a Sunderland in Il2 - actually it was a Kawanishi H8 with British markings but what the hell.
Now if I could only figure out how to post it, you might like it. I did manage to seperate the stbd wing from the plane like in the narrative.
Bestest and keep up the magnificent work.
 
Not Churchill... Does this mean Lowd Halifax will sign the act of surrender? Or will we see old guards as Baldwin or even Lloyd George return?

Also, did I hear something about the Peoples Republic of New England :D.
 
Macki Steinhoff in the update. That, somehow, reduces the sin of killing Winston.

Well, when is London to rise the white flag?
 
Macki Steinhoff in the update. That, somehow, reduces the sin of killing Winston.

Well, when is London to rise the white flag?

It may surprise you to hear this from me of all people, but killing Winston the way they did it wasn't much of a sin. Had they sat there with specific intent to kill the British PM instead of just whatever happened to come their way then I'd agree with you.
 
Been following this awhile. Truly masterful good sir.
Impressed me so much went, out and shot down a Sunderland in Il2 - actually it was a Kawanishi H8 with British markings but what the hell.
Now if I could only figure out how to post it, you might like it. I did manage to seperate the stbd wing from the plane like in the narrative.
Bestest and keep up the magnificent work.

Well, thanks! Glad to have you aboard.

Not Churchill... Does this mean Lowd Halifax will sign the act of surrender? Or will we see old guards as Baldwin or even Lloyd George return?

Also, did I hear something about the Peoples Republic of New England :D.

Attlee. Yes, you heard something about the PRNE, which is what I figure the US partisan problems metastasize into. Harry Truman will go down in American history as the hands-down worst president ever.

Macki Steinhoff in the update. That, somehow, reduces the sin of killing Winston.

Well, when is London to rise the white flag?

Novemberish?

Well, a statue for such a great man is the least he deserved in this timeline...but nice written again!

I realize we're all attached to Churchill, but in this history, what has he actually done? He gets a monument largely because of longevity; he's got a reputation, at best, as Don Quixote from WW1, and unlike OTL, he doesn't get the chance to lead Britain all the way through the war. I suspect future interpretations of his career will put him somewhere between Dan Quayle and King Arthur (broad spectrum, I know, but this timeline's great what-if would be "What if Churchill had lived?", hence Arthur).

It may surprise you to hear this from me of all people, but killing Winston the way they did it wasn't much of a sin. Had they sat there with specific intent to kill the British PM instead of just whatever happened to come their way then I'd agree with you.

Yeah, the way I read the event, Churchill's plane gets lost and mistakes Brittany for Cornwall. If anyone sinned on this one, it's the navigator. I was hoping for a trace of "Well that's not supposed to be here!" in the writeup.

In response to a number of "when will Britain surrender?" questions, here's the general answer:

The Royal Air Force has been beaten back to the English side of the Channel, but losses are starting to tell from the round-the-clock fighter sweeps on the German side. The Royal Navy Home Fleet is divided into two forces, the Channel Squadron in the south and the forces at Scapa Flow. Additionally, there's the French Navy, which sortied from Brest and therefore escaped its Toulon moment, in the Irish Sea. As a matter of fact, I think it's about time for Fraser to try to sortie. The German bombers have been given just one task: Destroy, or at least contain, the Channel Squadron. I'll deal with how successful they have been in the near-future, same as Fraser's sortie. Germany has transport enough to make a landing feasible, and convoy transports enough to keep them fed once a port is taken. HOWEVER, from the British perspective, even mauled and beaten, the Royal Navy outguns the Kaiserliche Marine at least two-to-one in every category except carriers and submarines, and they have nominal parity in carriers if they could just bring them together. To Britain, this is very much like Napoleon all over again. There's no reason to surrender just yet, especially with American "neutrality" consisting of escorting supply convoys as far as Ireland.
 
I really need to start writing my updates in Word.

I had written the Battle of the Three Navies up to Lindemann's two carriers pulling a Taffy 3, and I get a "compatibility error" that kills my post. Grr. Hooray rewrites.
 
I use Microsoft Notepad, is easier to insert links etc. easier adaption to forum style.

Well starve Britain to peace would be a nice strategy except that it might bring the USA quicker into the war. Good Luck!
 
72. The Battle of the Three Navies

HMS Nelson
Scapa Flow Anchorage
2300 22 February 1942


Admiral Bruce Fraser was a desperate man - not for the usual reasons that British commanders were desperate in these times, but because Churchill had died. Fraser had pried command of the Coastal Command squadrons in the Highlands from the Royal Air Force, appealing to the unconventional and now deceased Prime Minister that their sole purpose was to screen him against the German fleet. Churchill had agreed, but that greement had vanished with his death and the appointment of the more conventional Clement Attlee. Churchill had kept Albert Victor Alexander, the First Lord of the Admiralty, well under his thumb, but Alexander had already begun to take the place which that position warranted. Through all of these factors, Fraser saw his freedom of action vanishing into a London-centered vacuum if he did not produce results quickly.

At least the Nelson had been floated. The ship, put through a crash modernization as part of the repair process after her intentional grounding, was now at her most dangerous. She had been fitted with air detection radar, Fraser not caring whether it interfered with flying his admiral's pennant or not, rangefinding radar - all the conveniences of modern war-fighting. In addition to the eight battleships he had under his immediate command, he had been promised the Free French fleet out of Belfast was steaming north to join him in breaking the German blockade.

The plan was to locate and engage the German fleet, ideally their carrier squadron, and crush them against the French anvil. Every time he thought of the German carriers, his hands involuntarily balled into fists, and he remembered the wreckage that was Scapa Flow upon his arrival. When he imagined the Graf Zeppelin in flames, a smile spread across his face. Now was such a moment. Finally, he shook himself from his reverie, gazing out across the flag bridge and turning to his flag captain. "Make signal to all ships, prepare for action, set course between Holm and Ronaldsay..." He paused, hesitating, worried that his next command might appear overly dramatic, too Nelsonian. Finally, he decided that, if there was a time to imitate Nelson, this was it. "Beat to quarters."

The order spread rapidly; Nelson's captain, bleary-eyed and on his third cup of coffee already, translated the last command into the more appropriate Action stations, but the ship's band obeyed Fraser's order. Thus, as the ship departed Scapa Flow, its decks were a curious mix of the drumroll of the old command, and the five-alarm klaxon of the new. Ashore, sailors saw Fraser's ships, prepared for action and sliding past the blockships, and cheered. On his flag bridge, he saw the shore crowd and solemly returned their collective salute, then got back to the important work of finding the Germans.

---

U-47
Wolfpack Prien
Between the Butt of Lewis and Cape Wrath
0200 23 February 1942


Günther Prien dreamed in battleships. Where Peter Volkmann had dreamt of sinking the Hood, in the context of Scapa Flow, Prien dreamed of becoming a new Weddigen, though hopefully emptying his tubes before a British battleship ploughed over him. It was a dream that he could not voice to anyone, for fear of being seen as an idiotic stuffed-shirt heel-clicking Prussian militarist. In the U-waffe, it was far better to be seen as a little carefree, unconcerned with such things and more worried about when the next shore leave was. Still, the dream was there.

He suspected that today, if ever, was the day for his dream. Spread out before him was the entire panoply of the Free French fleet. He had been following them for a day and a half, since they departed Belfast, under orders from Admiral Dönitz and the northern U-flotte. He expected the order for general engagement any time now; he knew that boats from all over the area had been gathering in the largest of Dönitz's wolfpacks. There were a hundred and fifty-eight boats in this area, of which he could probably concentrate the overwhelming majority with almost two days' notice.

Ahead of him lay the French fleet in all its glory - Richelieu, Jean Bart, Dunkerque, Strasbourg, Provence, Lorraine, and Bretagne... and Bearn. The moment he saw the carrier, his breath caught, his hands trembled on the binoculars, and he changed his mind. There were seven battleships, but only one carrier, and as of Scapa Flow, the carriers were in ascendance anyway. This was a chance he simply could not pass up.

Here at the limit of observation, they were able to pursue Admiral Muselier's forces by straining their diesels and braving rough seas. Otherwise, chances were very good that they simply would have lost the French. Tonight, though - tonight, Prien suspected that they would make up for two days of engine wear. He turned to his signal officer and quietly ordered, "Let the others know, close up. Listen on the wireless for Lion, let me know the moment the order comes down." A quick nod was all he got in response, and he went below, checking the torpedo room one last time to make sure all was in order.

---

SMS Hindenburg
1. Flugzeugträgerdivision
Between North Ronaldsay and Fair Isle
0400 23 February 1942


Peter Volkmann was a poor sailor in the best of seas. In the North Sea, in winter, he was absolutely miserable. Hindenburg's sea characteristics did not help; she had not been built as a carrier, but rather as a pre-dreadnought battleship under the name Hannover. Thus, the alterations made to turn her into a carrier had made her more mobile than usual in high seas, and made it exceptionally unlikely she would ever launch aircraft in winter. He had asked Admiral Langsdorff why they had not been peeled off and posted to, say, launch attacks on Dover or something useful, and Langsdorff had looked at him like he had grown a separate head and told him to stick to running the ship. Relations between the two had been strained for days.

It had not improved Peter's general situation that his only conversational companion had not particularly wanted to speak to him. He was lonely. He had heard of the "loneliness of command," but had never really seen it, since pilots were closer-knit than most naval personnel, and he had never been in command of a ship before. Now, he found that when he sat down to eat with his officers, no one moved, no one ate, no one drank until he did. It was exceptionally depressing for a man who by nature was fairly shy that he had to begin every conversation.

Right now, he was asleep in Hindenburg's cramped captain's cabin, luxurious compared to his usual shipboard berth, but still tiny even compared to Charlottenburg. A knock sounded at the door, and a discreet moment later, a messenger entered with a sheet of onionskin. Only Langsdorff would wake the captain like this without him first giving permission, so Peter did not even bother mumbling a reprimand, just flicking on his lamp and squinting at the message.

FRENCH FORCE SPOTTED HEBRIDES - FLEET IN PURSUIT - DETACHING 1 CARRIER DIVISION FLEET REARGUARD - C

So that was it. Canaris had decided to leave behind his two slow, under-armed carriers as a rearguard, and was instead joining Raeder in pursuit. Peter could not blame him, but he was certain that Langsdorff upstairs was despairing of getting into the action again. He rolled over, pulling his pillow over his head, moaning as his stomach lurched in time with the ship.

---

Submarine_attack_%28AWM_304949%29.jpg

U-47
Wolfpack Prien
Off Cape Wrath
0600 23 February 1942


The first phase of the Battle of the Three Navies did not occur according to Grossadmiral Raeder's plans. It occurred according to Vizeadmiral Karl Dönitz's. Dönitz chose to engage his U-boats in a vast wolfpack the likes of which had never been seen, as much to prove the submarines were viable in numbers against a surface force as to steal the glory before Canaris and his carriers could arrive.

At the tail of the French fleet, the seven boats of Prien's pack were given exceptionally favorable attacking circumstances: the fleet before them was in disarray, the escorts haring off after the lead boats, and the Bearn had just begun to turn broadside when Prien began his attack run. Standing on the conning tower, he gazed out through the Zeiss lenses at the French carrier. It was to his north, ink-black against the dim, overcast sky, its lights doused, and he pursed his lips. "Load tubes one through four, fuse for contact, no magnetics. Seal tubes one through four. Open outer doors, tubes one through four. Fire on my mark, five-degree spread, three, two, one, mark, Aale los! Log, four wakes, running hot, straight, and clean, all stop, bring us about and load tubes five and six, fuse for contact." The boat obediently reversed its position, Prien anxiously watching the four torpedo wakes. Moments later, two more shudders told him that the aft tubes had fired, and the boat picked up speed again, at an oblique angle to the wakes.

He watched the silver phosphoresence of the torpedo wakes as they sped away, fingers unconsciously gripping the binoculars ever tighter. "Come on... come on... come on!" he ground out, almost hopping foot-to-foot. The crew pretended not to notice their normally easygoing captain on the verge of nervous breakdown, and then the sea split around Bearn. Two great orange fireballs opened in her starboard side, one forward, opening a fuel tank and lighting its contents to throw the entire scene into sharp relief, one aft in her delicate engine and steering areas. Immediately, the ship began to list, though it was not down yet - Bearn was, after all, a converted battleship.

The Bearn was fatally damaged, and obviously so. The rest of the French fleet could not stop to pull off its crew, leaving them to fend for themselves as the wolves circled. The most that Muselier could do for his crippled aircraft carrier was to sink it himself. It was in the center of his formation, hindering his ability to maneuver, and eventually, he gritted his teeth and gave the order. The cruiser Primauget launched a textbook-perfect torpedo run into the stricken ship, marred only by the fact that they were scuttling their own carrier. Bearn sank at 0715 Paris time, 0815 Berlin.

Prien, watching this from a distance, readying for his second pass, laughed and joked with his crew: Well, least it proves that Admiral Raeder was wrong, the French can sink a ship with scuttling charges!

To the northeast, Raeder himself dispatched his scout squadron, consisting of the two fast Bismarck-class battleships, the Scharnhorst-class battlecruisers, and all of the Deutschland-class cruisers, under Admiral Günther Lütjens. Raeder privately envied Lütjens; the last time he himself had been in combat, it had been at Jutland, serving exactly this same role with the I. Aufklarungsschwadron as Admiral Hipper's Chief of Staff. Lütjens was being sent in to complete the disarray before the massive guns of the Kaiser Wilhelm III-class superbattleships could finish the French.

---

HMS Nelson
Off Fair Isle
0700 23 February 1942


As the first reports of the French debacle came in, Fraser grew desperate, deciding to attempt to draw Raeder and, ideally, Canaris in to him. He gave the order for radar to switch to active mode, sending a radio pulse out, sweeping the sea in the hopes both of locating the Germans and of letting them know where he was. With an hour of darkness left, it paid off.

"Captain Vian's compliments, sir, and he wishes to report a radar contact, bearing two-ninety, range twenty-five miles, sir," bobbed the messenger on the flag bridge. Admiral Fraser nodded, replying, "My thanks to Captain Vian, and ask him if he would bring the ship to bear on that course with all speed. Signals, pass the message to the rest of the fleet - form battle line and make all steam on two-nine-zero. Galleys to serve breakfast by runner, and strike up 'Hearts of Oak.'"

Fraser's last eccentric order went to the ship's band, and the Royal Navy swung to do what it did best. In an eerie, off-key bellow, thousands of sailors' voices struck up their march in response to the bandsmen, shoving mouthfuls of oatmeal and bacon down when they could.

Come, cheer up, my lads, 'tis to glory we steer,
To add something more to this wonderful year;
To honour we call you, as freemen not slaves,
For who are so free as the sons of the waves?


---

SMS Hindenburg
45 Kilometers West-Northwest of HMS Nelson
0700 23 February 1942

Peter had arrived on the bridge relatively late, drawing Langsdorff's disapproving glare and making an apologetic face as he got a cup of coffee. The sun was just starting to threaten to peek above the eastern horizon, lightening that part of the sky, and Langsdorff was gazing out in that direction, frowning. "Sir?" Peter asked, sipping. "What is it?"

"Smoke," Langsdorff replied absently. "Radar?"

"Sir... large contact bearing one-ten. Surface contact, too numerous to count."

Langsdorff's eyes goggled. He knew exactly what that meant - that the rearguard was in fact going to be needed today. Immediately he spun to Peter. "Captain Volkmann. Bring your ship into the wind and throw everything in the air." Peter had already calculated the moves required, and nodded, yelling into the ship's intercom. "All hands, battle stations, prepare for surface engagement. All aircraft to prepare for action, launch as they bear, that is all."

Belowdecks, the men of the Kaiser's oldest carrier heaved their aircraft onto the elevators, often strapping bombs into place even as they rose to the deck, and the fuelers cursed and swore every time a set of tires crimped a hose. It was a madhouse, but it was the only way to get a single aircraft airborne in what rapidly promised to be a massacre. Peter, for his part, was in the wireless shack, banging the operator's shoulder as he fired off message after message to Canaris. By 0715, as the Bearn was sinking and Langsdorff was attempting to determine ship identities through his binoculars, Peter was transmitting in plain text: WHERE ARE YOU? IN GOD'S NAME SEND HELP!

---

HMS Nelson
25 Kilometers East-Southeast of SMS Hindenburg
0730 23 February 1942

Fraser, for his part, was gazing grimly at the two ships they pursued. He recognized them from the Coronation Review and Kiel Week - Hindenburg and Germania. In other words, the ships the Kaiser could most afford to lose. Still, their presence, and the frantic radio traffic they were emitting, might draw Raeder back. "Signals. Make flags for 'England Expects, et cetera.'" Without looking, he picked up the intercom to call down to the bridge. "Captain Vian. Yes. Thank you, maintain present course, do not pull parallel. You may fire at discretion. Your guns lead the fleet, Captain."

"Signals. 'Cruisers to engage at discretion, battle line to fire in order.' Thank you."

The flags snapped up, Nelson's famous signal followed by the first orders of the battle. Below, Vian relayed his orders, the Nelson's rangefinders seeking out the two German carriers as the first aircraft left their decks, mere specks at this long distance, certainly no threat to the battleships. Between them, they carried perhaps sixty planes, including both bombers and fighters. Fraser grunted in amusement. He had about that same number of planes in catapult-launched float planes spread across his ships.

HMS_Nelson_during_gunnery_trials.jpg

Fraser predictably scored the first blood of the engagement. At 0742, Nelson's guns began to fire, at the long but not impossible range of twenty thousand meters. The initial salvo splashed up red water well short of Hindenburg, still frantically launching her aircraft. For one terrible minute, the German crews endured those great guns marching toward her, splashes closing to within three hundred meters of the Hindenburg's fantail before the last Messerschmitt was airborne, leaving behind only the Storks. It was now the turn of HMS Renown, a beneficiary of the Royal Navy's massive modernization of the late 1930s.

Fed gunnery information from Nelson, Renown laid her guns and began to fire. Her B turret put two rounds through the hangar deck, but the gun crews registered them as misses, because the thin-armored Hindenburg merely let the rounds pass right through, creating splashes on the far side. Hindenburg was exceedingly fortunate that the last aircraft were away and the deck clear of munitions; as it was, the 380mm shells tore furrows through the steel deck and punched through the ship's laundry before blowing out the other side.

There was every reason to think the cruisers would end the two German carriers. As he watched them, Fraser's lips pursed. His eyes widened in sudden shock as his cruiser line, rather than continuing their attack run, wheeled back into his formation, a critical blunder. Moments later, he saw why.

Battle_of_Java_Sea_-_HMS_Exeter_under_Attack.jpg

Against all odds, the Stuka pilots did their jobs, and did it well. Despite appalling casualties, for of the forty launched, only ten would land at day's end from both torpedo and bomber runs, the German bombers came in low and slow against the British cruiser line, the immediate threat to their home ships. Even the survivors had no clear idea who gave the order; the entire thing resulted in the Iron Cross, First Class being collectively awarded to the bomber squadrons. They registered eight hits against three vessels, the treaty cruisers Norfolk and Northumberland and the light cruiser Enterprise. In the confusion, Northumberland ploughed into Norfolk's stern, dooming them both, and the two German carriers began blowing smoke as if their lives depended on it - which, in point of fact, it did.

Fraser cursed and ordered his ships to continue west, firing as they bore on the two German carriers, trying desperately to seek the main German line before day broke completely. He had lost three cruisers, the French had lost a carrier, and the German baby carriers were fleeing for Germany with their wings clipped, transmitting their panic the whole time. It was, he decided grimly, in danger of becoming another Jutland - a tactical victory for the strategic loser.

Sadly for Fraser, these thoughts, and the distraction of the German rearguard, held his attention a moment too long.

---

Eagle Flight
10 Kilometers Above, 50 Kilometers West of HMS
Nelson
0815 23 February 1942

Wilhelm Canaris had heard Peter's pleas; it had just taken him time to respond to them. He had wheeled his four ships into the wind just as the two baby carriers had done, and thrown the aircraft he had planned on sinking the French with into the air in what even he admitted was probably a quixotic gesture to save Langsdorff and Volkmann.

Hans-Ulrich Rudel, for his part, did not believe in quixotic gestures, or for that matter waste of any kind. When he went aloft, he fully intended to find and sink something. As Zeppelin's new air group commander, he had drilled this into his people as best he could, but it was not until today that they had really had a chance to put it to the test. "All units, Eagle lead, we have smoke bearing one-two-zero, proceed that bearing, over," he ordered in short, clipped tones.

Thus guided by the two smoking cruisers, Rudel's pilots homed on the battle. His dive bombers first spotted the British fleet, and unlike the pilots from Hindenburg and Germania, he made a conscious decision. "Flight leaders, pick your battleships. Sink them all. God save the Kaiser. Eagle lead out."

Repulse-8.jpg

Rudel's planes hit their apogee, then tipped over. If Fraser's fleet detected them, it was only at the last minute, on the assumption that they were from the two fleeing carriers. Still, Rudel was a dive-bomber pilot, not a torpedo pilot, and the dive bombers learned the hard way that ships on the move, under a curtain of anti-aircraft fire, were difficult targets. The bombers stooped and dove into a much denser cloud of fire, under fear of Coastal Command Hurricanes appearing any moment, and it showed in their accuracy.

HMS_Barham_explodes.jpg

He led a hundred and eighty attack aircraft; of those, exactly eight hit. Six of those hits were on HMS Malaya. Only one of those hits mattered, penetrating to her magazine and destroying the ship in a catastrophic explosion that could be felt even in the retreating bombers. Aboard Nelson, Fraser gritted his teeth and ploughed on, certain that there could at least be no follow-on strike.

---

U-47
Off Cape Wrath
0900 23 February 1942


Prien's boat submerged and pulled back as the sun rose, watching Lütjens at work instead. The German battle line came out of the dawn like ghosts against the smoke of the Bearn's oil slick, led by Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, then the two Bismarck-class, followed by the three Deutschlands. Prien frowned, puzzled, as he watched through the periscope - why the battlecruisers first? Perhaps it was because of their speed, he eventually decided.

The truth was that Bismarck had lost her fire-control radar for reasons unknown, so Lütjens had simply pulled her back in line. Instead, the two battlecruisers, generally felt to be more than a match for the French, sped forward to take her place. The French fleet, in utter disarray and just starting to recollect, were unprepared for them. Rather than slowing to maneuver at all, Lütjens punched straight across the mass of the French fleet, then wheeled to the north again. In that first pass, the Germans scored hits on the three old Bretagne-class dreadnoughts, but were unable to bring the two great prizes, Richelieu and Jean Bart, to ground. Then began the circling, with the French frantically trying to withdraw and Lütjens doing everything in his power to keep them trapped between him and Raeder's line.

Raeder appeared at ten, just after Gneisenau's A turret was knocked out by Richelieu. Rather than risk the battlecruiser further, Raeder ordered it eastward under escort by the cruiser Lützow. The final stage of the battle, as far as the French, began to unfold. Admiral Muselier, aboard Jean Bart, sent one last wireless signal: The battle is lost. Save your ships. Vive la France. Destroyers and light cruisers fled aimlessly, whichever direction they saw no Germans. Jean Bart pointed her bow straight on at the Kaiser Wilhelm III and pulled every last measure from her overtaxed turbines in an apparent death ride.

Yamato_explosion.jpg

It did her no good. The 480mm guns fired regularly, three times a minute, as the meters closed, and inside ten thousand meters, there was simply no missing. The Jean Bart took one massive round between the fore turrets, dropping into the forward magazine and detonating catastrophically. Afterwards, there was simply nothing left of the ship.

Their jobs done, Raeder's ships turned serenely away from the sinking wreckage of the French fleet. In three hours of intense ship-to-ship fighting, the longest naval battle in memory, they had sunk all seven of the French battleships, a tremendous triumph for a navy not even ten years old. Raeder was already preparing his dispatch for Berlin when the word came back: The battle was not yet over.

---

HMS Nelson
Northwest of Westray
1100 23 February 1942


Fraser had received Muselier's last signal. He was quietly furious. So far today he had lost a battleship and three cruisers, and the French had lost their entire bloody navy. He might as well walk forward and jump off the bow, get towed under, and be cast through the propellers for all the good he would do here. These were his thoughts as he stalked Nelson's flag bridge.

"Sir," the messenger coughed nervously, the entire ship on edge after twelve hours at stations, "Captain Vian's compliments, and we have two contacts at two-one-zero, thirty miles." He wheeled on the messenger, biting back the immediate reply, and said instead, with infinite, icy patience, "Then by all means, give chase, please!"

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Because Gneisenau was damaged, the Lützow took the lead. Thus, Fraser was momentarily disappointed, thinking he had found only a cruiser squadron, doubtless to report his position to Raeder and bring the battleship line crashing down on his head. Instead, to his delight, he saw moments later that one of the two ships was part of the battle line. Today might be salvaged yet!

The British battleships, disdaining the cruisers which had performed so abysmally against the two baby carriers, formed line again, Nelson beginning the relentless pounding. The two German ships were simply outclassed. Gneisenau was victim to the full, vindictive wrath of his battleship line, with official credit for the sinking going to HMS Wiltshire. Lützow was Nelson's own, with the ship capsizing and sinking after only three salvoes. Fraser pressed relentlessly onward, determined to come to grips with Raeder.

Raeder evaded him, withdrawing northwards, quite certain that Fraser outgunned him - after all, it was the Royal Navy, and reports from the reclaimed carrier planes told him with absolute certainty that there were at least a dozen battleships remaining in the force, plus cruisers. The truth was far more prosaic, that numerically the battle lines were evenly matched, but Rudel's pilots over-reported the British force. Thus, Fraser was forced to content himself with one of Raeder's picket ships, set to watch for his approach as night drew on, the Nürnberg, which was sunk by HMS Renown. Raeder fled north of the Faeroes; Fraser proceeded, dispirited and tired, to Liverpool.

The end result was thoroughly mixed, as far as Whitehall was concerned: Fraser had sunk three cruisers for the loss of four of his own and one battleship, but he had escaped Scapa Flow, effectively ending the stalemate in the north. All in all, it was not enough to cost him his fleet command - though it certainly cost Muselier his, and cost Giraud a tremendous deal of respect in Britain. Fraser still had a fleet-in-being; what he lacked was an effective presence on the east coast of Britain.

The North Sea, for all intents and purposes, belonged to Germany.
 
Oh dear oh dear oh dear....Nelson, Howe, St. Vincent and Fisher will rotate in their graves....
 
Who would have guessed. Well, at least the PoW hasn't been sunk.
 
Oh dear oh dear oh dear....Nelson, Howe, St. Vincent and Fisher will rotate in their graves....

In Fraser's defense, I really was trying to avoid a surface engagement with the Home Fleet, so there was a massive bait-and-switch between the Minch and Pentland Firth. A lot of game that went into that update was the hounding of the French fleet combined with the evasion of the Home Fleet.

Who would have guessed. Well, at least the PoW hasn't been sunk.

See "The American Intervention:"

The promised battleship engagement never materialized. Instead, the Imperial Japanese Navy sustained the loss of IJNS Shokkaku, the battleships Yamashiro and Mutsu, and three cruisers. In return, Britain lost HMS Prince of Wales and two light cruisers and sustained crippling damage to HMS Courageous. Cunningham characteristically refused to scuttle or sink the ship, instead ordering it towed to the Andamans until something more could be done about it. Admiral Nagumo, the Japanese commander on the spot, retreated in puzzlement, unsure how the British could have withstood his massed carrier group.

Really, from a strictly Royal Navy point of view, the "our Jutland" epithet is apt; they inflicted casualties on Raeder's fleet, but neither side felt it was a truly decisive engagement. Fraser at least has broken out of Scapa Flow, which in the era of the U-boat has some severe resupply difficulties, since the Orkneys aren't connected to Britain proper, and the overwhelming majority of his battle fleet is intact.

Meanwhile, the Channel Squadron has been under air attack continuously, more on that later.
 
Well thats a graet strategic victory for the Germans, the British Jutland indeed. Guess the rest of the Navy will act as port defence for the remainder of the war.

Also, guess Prien will receive a nice, shiny new decoration for his uniform? His hitlist is growing by the day.

Lastly, if the Germans will invade, I hope they realize even an adapted river barge hardly stands a chance in the North Sea on a windy day. They need specialized boats, build from scratch.
 
Well thats a graet strategic victory for the Germans, the British Jutland indeed. Guess the rest of the Navy will act as port defence for the remainder of the war.

Yep, and given that the ports they're defending are deliberately kept far from the planned invasion site, the Channel Squadron is the last practical defense for Britain.

Also, guess Prien will receive a nice, shiny new decoration for his uniform? His hitlist is growing by the day.

So far, he's gotten a couple light cruisers... and the Bearn. His role at Scapa Flow was to pick up downed aviators. The Bearn is in lieu of the Royal Oak. It does mean he is the first of the prominent U-boat aces, though.

Lastly, if the Germans will invade, I hope they realize even an adapted river barge hardly stands a chance in the North Sea on a windy day. They need specialized boats, build from scratch.

I refer you to "The German Home Front:"

The first step in this process was the conversion of prewar cruise ships to invasion motherships. The Hamburg America Line was shut down for the duration of the war, as was Norddeutsche Lloyd line. Every Holland-America ship caught in European waters was nationalized and converted, over the vehement protests of Queen Wilhelmina. By stripping out amenities and stringing bunks three and four deep, they managed to put together enough transport capacity for twelve divisions' worth of troops by the end of 1941, with the promise of six more divisions' worth of capacity by March, when the weather was expected to start changing.

The second task was the actual landing craft. The motherships acted in concert with specially constructed barges, the Marinefährprahmen that had done so well on the Nile, to transport tanks, vehicles, and heavy equipment. Some MFPs were converted into gunboats, because Raeder made absolutely clear that the fleet's task remained the containment of the Royal Navy, not the support of the invasion beach. The result was that some of the MFP gunboats were equipped with K5 280mm guns, similar to those on the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, and massive rocket batteries. This of course depleted valuable landing numbers, but it was felt, especially by Generalfeldmarschall von Brauchitsch, that this was less important than the ability to suppress any beach defenses. Infantry troops were to come ashore in the Pionierlandungsboot 1941, an improvement of the original L-Boot 40 inspired by the Japanese Daihatsu. The L-Boot 41 was the first tangible result of the new Combined Arms staff under General Ramcke, and could carry either a rifle platoon or a Panzer IV into action.

The third stage of invasion preparation was the supply situation. It was immediately obvious that no amphibious landing could guarantee resupply once it was ashore. The invasion fleet would therefore have to carry sufficient supplies with it to keep the Landsers and Panzers moving once ashore. Ramcke's staff uncovered two unique solutions to this problem, an artificial harbor designed by Krupp on the Navy's specifications, and an Army system designed to build an artificial harbor from extended versions of the pontoon bridges commonly deployed with any engineering force. They combined the two into a single project, designed to allow at least partial resupply of the landed force, but still cautioned that the offensive needs of the landing force must be met by integral supply rather than resupply.

Finally came the actual landing planning. The obvious candidate was the Dover coast; however, this was unlikely, as it was obvious, even if ground fire could be provided by the Channel batteries. Second was the Channel coast, the coast used by William the Conqueror. This was ruled out because of the Royal Navy: the Channel Squadron, bottled up in Portsmouth and battered as it was, would still savage any landing made in the Channel, and there were grave doubts that the U-waffe could provide enough force to hold them back. Some consideration had been made to invading Wales, using Ireland as a base, but that collapsed with Irish hopes in February.
 
Your attempt to explain away the faults of the game and engine actually sound way more plausible than a lot of the other stuff I've seen on here. I always like to use the Real-life plan for Sealion as an example of the "a Snowball has more chances in hell" type scenarios. My reasons for shattering the illusions of a few persistent folks always consists of two words: Royal Navy. In the Siegerkranz-verse obviously not true, but in RL that was the main factor, a Fleet that would have willingly sacrificed itself down to the last rowboat even in the unlikely chance of Fighter Command being destroyed instead of just pulled back from the Coastal Airbases.
 
Fighter Command has been effectively destroyed. Unlike Goering, though, Grauert's role in preparation for the invasion has been to concentrate on the Channel Squadron. I haven't written it up because it happens basically simultaneously with Three Navies, but they sank another of the completed Illustrious-class carriers (Eagle) in Portsmouth, plus two CAs and a double handful of CLs. One of the advantages of focusing on a near-battlefield-support air force is that dive bombers are equally effective against stationary targets whether they're afloat or on land. I figure that between Churchill's death, the Irish betrayal, and the consistent beatings, morale's at absolute ebb just about now... which means that, as Herbert Hoover might say, prosperity is just around the corner!

As a side note, I find it hilarious that all of the Illustrious-class which have been sunk have been sunk by aircraft. In reality they were one of the more dive-bomber-proof designs out there thanks to that heavily armored flight deck.