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Marvelous, simply marvelous update!

I almost had a tear in my eye from channeling the emotion of Admiral Cunningham.
 
As I said on MSN... FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF-

Amazing update. you channeled the emotions quite nicely.
 
Ciryandor A genuine typo. Has been edited though.

humancalculator Thank you. The concept isn't mine though, I was inspired by someone else's work to write this.

Griffin.Gen Thank you!

Carlstadt Boy Thank you. Her successor will have these nifty new, glow-in-the-dark engines, and be the first of her class and type.
 
Simply amazing piece of writing. It just may be my favorite in this entire AAR.
 
Trekaddict

Do you mind! The eyesight is not what it was so it's hard enough reading without trying to do it through water.

Seriously great piece.:D We can't save all the old ladies but at least in you're TL some of them get the treatment they deserved. A scandal it didn't happen OTL.:mad:

Steve
 
I wonder what will be the fate of Vimy Ridge and, uh, the Aussie one.
 
Methinks that this AAR began some years after Vimy...
 
stevep Mission accomplished then.

ViperhawkZ HMCS Vimy Ridge soldiers on until the early 80s when she's replaced by something along the lines of a souped up and of course totally modernized CVA-01.

Melbourne is pretty much the same, although there is five year gap with no active Aussie CV.


Vimy Ridge is preserved after a lengthy, lengthy battle over sense and funding for the museum, Melbourne is scrapped.
 
*bawls*

That is all.
 
Cunningham has gone a bit soft in his old age TTL it seems, I don't recall him being that sentimental about ships. He always struck me as being at the practical end of that particular scale, but then a different war makes different people I suppose.
 
Pretty much. The Lusty was Cunningham's break into the big league and he fought her a lot.
 
Could be worse. Least it wasn't bought out of service by his doctor friend and turned into a privateer/botanical expedition.

Though I think the Brazilians are still trying to sell one of their carriers, which was an old Colossus... so if you did want to buy a carrier for a botanical expedition, you still could to this day.
 
If you want a Carrier just wait a few years (saving up!) - Her Majesty's Government are building two but as they can only afford to run one (without planes for a bit) the second one is for sale.
 
Cunningham has gone a bit soft in his old age TTL it seems, I don't recall him being that sentimental about ships. He always struck me as being at the practical end of that particular scale, but then a different war makes different people I suppose.

people can be funny that way. i for instance always pat my forklifts on the ass when i walk round that end. other than the fact you tend to want to let your horse know you are passing by the end that kicks i cannot imagine where that habit came from. course i've never had enough dealings with horses to actually pick up that habit.
 
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Chapter 301


With Singapore effectively neutralized in spite of the failure of the Japanese to actually take the Island they could speed-run through the slot between Singapore's Artillery range and Borneo without Carrier escort. The troop convoy had red-lined it's engines and was thus already nearing the area where the Allied fleets were operating. The forward Vanguard consisted of the Heavy Cruisers Maya and Kumano, supported by the Light Cruiser Nata and six Destroyers of DesRon 25, the group that was permanently stationed at Cham-Rhan bay to combat the few Allied Submarines that dared venture that far north. It normally consisted of eight ships, but one had run into a French seamine that were still encountered occasionally and the other had sprung a bearing in one of her shafts and was currently under repair.

Still, Rear Admiral Kurita was confident, after all the Imperial Japanese Navy was a world beater in night combat and the Allies would never risk their battlefleet in these confined waters at night. Intelligence had plotted the Allied Battleforce steaming eastwards when last encountered, probably retreating behind their submarine screen. In any case, the main force was several hours behind and would enter these waters early in the next morning during daylight. Kurita didn't ponder the wisdom of this overmuch as he had a job of his own to do. He was to find out what, if any, enemy Naval Forces were in the area. This was somewhat hard to do in standard Battle Formation, but he was not inclined to take any risks, the death of Admiral Yamamoto was still far too close on everyone's mind.

He contemplated turning in for the night but he had had trouble sleeping for some reason and was thus still pacing the deck, consuming what had to be the fifteenth cup of tea of the day.

“Any contacts?” he asked his Bridge crew.

“None, Sir.”
“Good.” Kurita nodded. Maybe a change in formation was needed after all. They were north of the western end of Java now and it was here that the Allied Fleet often operated.

“Signal to DesRon 6. Tell them to engage in a standard sweep pattern ahead of our course.”

The Destroyers acknowledged the signal via blinker lights and dashed ahead to sweep the seas and Kurita was cursing at himself for not having ordered that move earlier. The problem was that DesRon 6 was a backwater unit, a mixture of ships of four different classes and not very experienced at full-strength operations, however that none of his ships, cruisers included, had RDF was not a matter. Was not the IJN the master of night combat?

Continuing on for another two hours no ships were encountered but that was about to change because some twenty miles to the east Battle Group Able Two-One was steaming towards them, spaced out over less than two miles.
HMS Euryalus, a Dido-Class Light Cruiser and the Destroyers HMS Battle, HMS Hotspur, HMAS Albania[2] and HMAS Gallipoli were it. Battlegroup Able Two-One was the forward van of the the Allied Fleet, and Commodore Blackwood, fittingly in Euryalus, was well aware that the contacts his RDF operators had detected a few minutes ago were bound to be just the Vanguard of a larger fleet and his orders prevented him from seeking an engagement anyway. Van Doorman and Somerville had been insistent that he was to lure the Japanese towards the Allied fleet if at all possible, but he first had to make sure that these ships were Japanese. He couldn't possibly think of them being anything else, but he had to make sure.

Photo06clBellona1NP.jpg

Hotspur and Battle were the picket of the picket and slowy but surely they made their way towards the contacts.

Aboard Hotspur her Captain always had one ear on the passage to the compartment back of the bridge where two men were huddled over the screens of their RDF system and another straight ahead to where he half-expected the entire Japanese Line of Battle coming at them any second.
“We're almost within range.” the XO said.
The Captain opened his mouth and was about to give an order, but the muzzle flashes stopped him. “Bloody hell!” he exclaimed instead and then: “Open fire!” even as the forward turrets twin guns spewed fire and hurled their shells at the enemy flashes. The number of them told him that he was facing more than a picket and frantic calls for help resulted.

It came in the person Euryalus and the two Australian Destroyers who were less than a mile to the south of Hotspur and Battle. Blackwood turned ordered a turn and even as Euryalus settled and her turrets turned towards the enemy large splashes fell between her and the two British Destroyers. The British were aware of them but not that they were fired from Kurita's cruisers.
“Sir, these new targets are too large for Destroyers.” came the voice of his XO. Blackwood wasn't surprised that he was running into Japanese Cruisers and he was sure that these were some of the fearsome Japanese Heavy Cruisers.

“Signal to Group. Disengage and withdraw towards Point Luck at best speed.”

Point Luck was wherever the main force of the fleet was located and Blackwood would feel immensly better when he was under the guns of Richelieu and her consorts. But alas, it was not going to be this easy. A shell from Maya slammed into her rearmost turret, not by skill or accuracy but sheer bad luck for the British. It didn't slow the British down one bit, but the explosion illuminated the ship for a few precious seconds and told the Japanese exactly where she was.

The Allied ships however were determined to continue their withdrawal and simply red-lined their own engines while the Destroyer Battle descended into a murderous fistfight when even the light anti-aircraft weapons fired at each other. Battle was had a small fire astern but was still under way, Albania had lost her bridge and was steered by the Third Lieutenant from the after conning position and was limping eastwards in the general direction of allied waters to a long stay at the docks of Australia.

Hotspur had so far escaped damage and was already out of range of the Japanese cruisers that were still lagging behind their Destroyers, Gallipoli was only a few yards behind her. Battle meanwhile was circling around to the rear of Euryalus as her momentary loss of control had put her on a course exactly opposite to the rest of the Battlegroup. When she was hidden behind shell splashes from one of the Japanese Cruisers but emerged without significant additional damage, and five minutes later the guns fell silent as the Japanese charged off in the direction the British Cruiser had taken when last seen.

Right towards the waiting Allied ships , and ten miles farther west Yamato and her consorts were changing course to do the same.


For the next four hours the Japanese Squadron charged eastward and Admiral Kusaka was slowly becoming ever more worried. The British van had near disappeared, even the six crippled Destroyers that had been reported where nowhere to be seen and nor was the Battlefleet that the sunk Cruiser had been covering. Where were the British? They had to be around here somewhere, but the RDF scopes aboard Yamato were clear of any surface contacts.

Where were they? Had they fallen back after the annihilation of their van? Were they somewhere to his south, where Allied Aircraft could more easily support them? Were were they?

He craved the Battle, a battle that would not only sweep the seas clean and lead to the eventual conquest of Java but that would also make his name and the weak Allies were shrinking away from it. He supposed that this was to be expected by a European alliance of multiple nations, but he still was personally offended. They had strong forces here, and he himself would have fought.

So where were they?


The Allied Battlefleet was around forty miles ahead of Kusaka's force and racing for the Javanese coast at best speed to make way for a whole other kind of Allied Naval presence. Another sixty miles to the north-east of the Allied Battlefleet five Allied ships with flat decks and few guns turned into the wind and began launching their planes.

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Comments, questions, rotten Tomatoes?
 
An update, yay!

Five Allied ships with flat decks = Tokio, we have a problem... :D
 
Carrier battlegroup is go!