The British in Điện Biên Phủ...showing the French how to win there. Nice touch, Draco.
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Isn't that just a Westland Wyvern? Which was designed by Petter and did have a turboprop engine come to think of it, but it's also a 1949 first flight like the Canberra so I think it's still too early.
Which is why I thought of the Turbine Fury. The basic idea for the Wyvern is sound and if realized earlier might make a difference.
The delay was the engine though, the prototype Wyvern flew about 3 years before the turboprop engine was ready for it (the prototype used a massive RR H-block piston engine instead of a turbine).
And there is our Pippy, distributing aircraft lore to the unsuspecting for lo these many years now.
Vann
Vann
Sorry for being M.I.A., have had a lot of STUFF come up suddenly and it has taken a LOT of my time as of late. But, I have not forgotten my loyal readAARs and LurkAARs!
Kurt_Steiner - My friend, issues with the ladies take presedence of the entertainment I can provide! Besides, its not like you cannot come back to my prose later, eh?
On a side note, I recall many a night of difficulties with a few of the ladies that have passed through my life. I feel your pain!
trekaddict - well, Whittle already completed the jet turbine back in '39 (this TL) and the RAF has been investing HEAVILY in advanced tech... so there are some interesting possibilities...
El Pip - So VERY true, my friend. It is so bloody difficult translating the HOI2 tech tree to real life history! Your predictions are quite interesting, howeve, a touch, just a touch off the path the RAF is working on... I will simply say that the fact that we've already developed, ah, I mean the British Empire, has already developed and deployed the early cruise missles (flying bombs, i.e. V-1) in 1941 should prove that all things are possible tech wise.
trekaddict (2) - Now that would be interesting....
Vann the Red - I was feeling the same way... and then the other shoe dropped. And hard.
Kurt_Steiner (2) - Right about now, the threat stretches from Capetown to Pearth and all areas in between!
Lord E - Cockiness always comes around to kick you in the arse! I, the player, wasn't paying enough attention and paraded those freaking transport fleets around like a red flag in front of a enraged bull... and paid the price for it, and that's not even close to the disaster that I alluded to... ugh.
Nathan Madien - Ya liked that, eh? You did notice that I did NOT gloat all that much about the Imperial success at Điện Biên Phủ. I thought that was a nice touch as well.
El Pip (2) - I like the Wyvern idea, but the RAF is in the driver seat on this development and the Wyvern is a Fleet Air Arm toy, so that's not it...
trekaddict (3) - Very true and I would LOVE to see the FAA launching Wyvern's off the flight decks of the Fleet's carriers... but again, the RAF is running this particular show...
El Pip (3) - Sad, but true... however, I'm going to give you a hint... step away from the idea of turbo prop engines... but keep the turbo idea....
trekaddict (4) - I didn't either, so don't feel bad!
Vann the Red (2): you gotta love our Pippy! He does keep me on my toes (and has proven must useful) in pointing out tech possibilities... as I said, you gotta love Pippy!
***
Okay, I promise, and I mean PROMISE, to have the next update posted. Stay tuned!!
Kurt_Steiner - My friend, issues with the ladies take presedence of the entertainment I can provide! Besides, its not like you cannot come back to my prose later, eh?
On a side note, I recall many a night of difficulties with a few of the ladies that have passed through my life. I feel your pain!
trekaddict - well, Whittle already completed the jet turbine back in '39 (this TL) and the RAF has been investing HEAVILY in advanced tech... so there are some interesting possibilities...
El Pip - So VERY true, my friend. It is so bloody difficult translating the HOI2 tech tree to real life history! Your predictions are quite interesting, howeve, a touch, just a touch off the path the RAF is working on... I will simply say that the fact that we've already developed, ah, I mean the British Empire, has already developed and deployed the early cruise missles (flying bombs, i.e. V-1) in 1941 should prove that all things are possible tech wise.
trekaddict (2) - Now that would be interesting....
Vann the Red - I was feeling the same way... and then the other shoe dropped. And hard.
Kurt_Steiner (2) - Right about now, the threat stretches from Capetown to Pearth and all areas in between!
Lord E - Cockiness always comes around to kick you in the arse! I, the player, wasn't paying enough attention and paraded those freaking transport fleets around like a red flag in front of a enraged bull... and paid the price for it, and that's not even close to the disaster that I alluded to... ugh.
Nathan Madien - Ya liked that, eh? You did notice that I did NOT gloat all that much about the Imperial success at Điện Biên Phủ. I thought that was a nice touch as well.
El Pip (2) - I like the Wyvern idea, but the RAF is in the driver seat on this development and the Wyvern is a Fleet Air Arm toy, so that's not it...
trekaddict (3) - Very true and I would LOVE to see the FAA launching Wyvern's off the flight decks of the Fleet's carriers... but again, the RAF is running this particular show...
El Pip (3) - Sad, but true... however, I'm going to give you a hint... step away from the idea of turbo prop engines... but keep the turbo idea....
trekaddict (4) - I didn't either, so don't feel bad!
Vann the Red (2): you gotta love our Pippy! He does keep me on my toes (and has proven must useful) in pointing out tech possibilities... as I said, you gotta love Pippy!
***
Okay, I promise, and I mean PROMISE, to have the next update posted. Stay tuned!!
Stuned I stay, I swear it to thee!
True. She manages to keep me away from my own prose... I also have a few of my own, but none like this one. Dear God, I begin to sound like Jane Austen! O'Rourke, give me some of your darned and hellish Irish Wiskhey at once!
About the Japanese threat (trying not to write Japs), too true. But their numbers must be too stretched somewhere, somehow.
True. She manages to keep me away from my own prose... I also have a few of my own, but none like this one. Dear God, I begin to sound like Jane Austen! O'Rourke, give me some of your darned and hellish Irish Wiskhey at once!
About the Japanese threat (trying not to write Japs), too true. But their numbers must be too stretched somewhere, somehow.
Hmm, well that rules out something amusingly mad like the Italian Thermojet. Not alot else you can do with a turbine apart from a turbojet so it must be that.
But Griffith still makes me wonder. If it had been say Halford I could understand. He worked for Napier (who got brought out by English Electric in OTL) and the H-1/Goblin was a decent engine which was shoehorned into a Meteor for testing.
However, best guess Griffith has knocked up something like the Metrovick F.2 and pushed into something like Petter's far later Folland Midge. A bit of a mismatch on eras (and performance) but it would fit the way the two of them worked.
Of course it's also possible that what emerges bears no resemblance to anything either man did in OTL, which is fair enough because if there weren't any changes from OTL there would be nothing to write about.
If you even think of putting a turbine engine into a tank, I and a mob wearing MTU shirts will come to you.
Funny you mention that:
Contrary to popular belief, bulls actually don't care what color a flag is. It's the movement of the flag that gets them mad. You can wave a yellow flag around and still get the same result.
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED THIRTY-FIVE – Part One
Storming the Gates of Hell
Operation SEXTANT
November 28, 1942
0515 local time
South China Sea
Arising from his crouch and allowing his body to roll with the pitch of the assault craft he was riding ashore in, Major William Creighton, executive officer of 3 Battalion and company commander of D Company of the Queen’s Own Royal Marines Regiment, checked the luminous dial of his wrist watch and growled impatiently. He hated waiting almost as much as he hated storming an enemy occupied beach, something he had first done in September 1939 when the Royal Marines landed in Denmark at the start of the war and in every subsequent landing since. The sound of a man vomiting the traditional Royal Marine breakfast of bacon and beans into the bottom of the boat broke his concentration. “Bloody Hell, Cooper! You are a bloody Royal Marine for Christ’s sake! How the hell is it that you end up always tossing your bloody stomach every time we take a ride to the beach?”
The aforementioned marine wiped his mouth with the sleeve of his combat smock as he looked up at Creighton, a touch green in the face. “Sorry, Major, I think it’s those damn ship’s cooks attemptin’ ta poison me. Request permission to return to the ship and be checked out by the ships surgeon.”
“More than likely it was that damn Chinese liquor you smuggled aboard when we left Hong Kong than the breakfast provided by the ship’s cooks,” Creighton replied laconically. “But be my guest, Cooper, swim back to the ship and report to the surgeon.”
“Swim, sir?”
“Aye, swim. Otherwise the only way you’re going back with a great bloody hole in your body in which case you’ll have other concerns on you mind.”
Amid the chuckles from the marines around him, Cooper smirked in grim humour. “You’ve got that right, Major. I’ll await the surgeon upon the beach, if that’s alright with you, sir.”
“Very well, Cooper, you do that,” Creighton replied with a wry grin. Cooper was a good marine once the shooting started, his Conspicuous Gallantry Medal with bars for actions in both Europe and India a firm reminder, but sometimes needed to be prodded along between battles.
Turning his attention back to his original line of thought, Creighton lifted his head to scan the forward horizon, a task made difficult by the rough waves that were tossing the assault craft about and not helped at all by the pre-dawn darkness, Creighton cursed to himself again as his nervousness started to manifest itself in a slight tremor in his hands. A quick glance around the boat showed that none of his men could see the tremor so he continued his scan outside the bobbing vessel. To either side was revealed only the vague blacker than night shapes that occasionally had the luminous sea spray of a breaking wave clarifying the presence of other assault craft waiting for the appointed time. Shaking his head at his discomfort, the marine officer finally cast a glance behind his assault craft, knowing even as he did so that he would not see the comforting presence of the Fleet’s warships cruising about the waves close by. Despite months of intensive training before the war, despite surviving all four beach landings conducted by the Royal Marines and despite being a veteran officer who had survived unscathed the Royal Marines’ march across Europe and the liberation of northern India, Creighton felt his mere search for the warships pointed out that he was still a novice at what the Royal Marine Corps considered its primary job, amphibious assaults upon enemy held beaches. He could, but did not, take some solace that he was far from alone within the Corps feeling that way.
“About ten more minutes, sir,” the young lieutenant next to Creighton said softly, his words breaking into the Major’s drifting thoughts. He was a replacement freshly graduated from the Royal Marine Academy in England and had taken the place of one of Creighton’s platoon leaders who had died during the invasion of Hainan. The freshness of the young man rubbed Creighton the wrong way and despite himself he snapped back, “Yes, Richardson, I know that. I do know how to read time.”
“Yes sir, sorry, sir,” Richardson hastily replied. Shaking his head at himself and his lieutenant, Creighton refused to apologize for his curt behaviour but cursed himself mentally. You could at least be kind to the lad since he’ll more than likely never make if off the bloody beach alive. The bitterness at the probability of Richardson’s loss came as a comfort to Creighton as it fended off the numb feeling that had been growing over the last several months. The euphoric feelings shared by many following the end of the war in Europe and apparent growing successes in the Far East following the liberation of Indochina and Burma in the spring of 1942 were dashed with the onslaught of the Imperial Japanese Army into India at the end of May.
Creighton recalled the briefing he and his fellow Marine officers received on May 26, 1942 in which it was determined that the invasion of Punjab and Kashmir by Japanese forces and the loss of Lahore and Srinagar were mere feints being made by the Japanese to distract from the major offensive that was launched from China’s Yunnan province into Indochina and resulted in the loss of Luang Prabang and the threatening of both Burma and the rest of Indochina. It was understood by those both providing and receiving the briefing that the counter-attack by the British Army of Sub-Sahara toward Luang Prabang and the counter-offensive by General Heath’s British Army of India against the weak Japanese feint would quickly crush the enemy. The fact that General Auchinleck’s troops became bogged down in the jungle terrain against strong Sino-Japanese forces was taken in stride, however, the near complete annihilation of the British Army of India by General Tomoyuki Yamashita’s 25th Army was completely unexpected.
In complete secrecy, the 25th Army marched from bases in Chinese Turkestan (known alternatively as Sinkiang and to the Chinese as Xinjiang), advanced over and though the mighty Himalayas to capture Lahore and Srinagar. Yamashita then continued his offensive and first crushed the veteran Wallajahbad Light Infantry and Garhwal Rifle Regiments in a battle that resulted in the expansion of the Japanese foothold in Punjab with the capture of Ludhiana, and then the overwhelmed the fresh from training Bombay Grenadiers, Queen Victoria's Own Rajput Light Infantry, King George's Own Ferozepore Sikhs, and Rajputana Rifles Regiments in a battle that brought the 25th Army into India proper with the loss of Meerut on June 4, 1942.
“Five minutes, Major,” Richardson said softly, his voice so soft that it seemed his words were more a mantra to himself than advisement to his commander. Creighton ignored the young lieutenant and recalled the shock he felt when he learned of the Japanese pounce upon virtually unprotected India. Not bothering to rest long after his stunning successes General Yamashita unleashed his troops in a fast paced advance, one corps (7th and 28th Infantry Divisions with the 6th Tank Brigade) striking along the Thar Desert for the coast while the other corps (3rd Guards and 56th Infantry Divisions and the 1st and 3rd Tank Brigades) driving for the capital of British India, Delhi. In quick succession the Japanese captured the cities and surrounding territories of Jaipur and Bikaner on June 9 and then Jabalpur and Delhi fell on June 10, 1942. The second shoe, so to speak, fell the same day when Sino-Japanese forces, while still holding off the British Army of Sub-Sahara in northwestern Indochina, counterattacked westward into Burma, pushing into the Shan States and towards Lashio. The Shan States fell on June 20 and Lashio was recaptured a day after that. General Yamashita had continued his own advance and captured Nagpur in central India on June 25.
Two days after the loss of Nagpur the first spark of resistance to the Japanese invasion of India occurred when the 1st Corps of the Royal Nepalese Army (the Shree Purano Gorakh and Shree Barda Bahadur Regiments) marched down out of Nepal and liberated Delhi and Creighton arrived in Bombay with the rest of the 1st and 2nd Royal Marine Expeditionary Units. However, that spark was simply that, a spark for the Japanese invasion was bolstered by a second wave comprised of several Chinese Army Groups that drove into the Sindh district of British India’s Bombay Presidency the week the Nepalese began their march and quickly captured Sukkur, Hyderabad and most damning for the British Empire, the port city of Karachi. At the same time a large counter-offensive was launched by the Chinese against Hong Kong and northeastern Indochina with the port of Hải Phòng nearly captured. To add further insult to injury, the liberation of Delhi became short lived when the Japanese returned to the city and after crushing the Nepalese regiments through heavy use of their tanks, not only re-captured the city but continued marching to capture Kanpur, then Lucknow on July 2 and then the capital of Nepal, Katmandu, on July 5, 1942.
Creighton recalled July looming as a very dark time for the Empire. Despite being clearly victorious in Europe, it appeared as if the Empire was unable to stop the Japanese onslaught in the Far East. A capable, if not gifted, tactician, Creighton knew at the time, as did many others within the Imperial military, that the primary reason for the Sino-Japanese successes in the Far East was due to an insufficient number of defensive forces for the amount of land needing to be protected. Despite the fact that every Sino-Japanese success had come when Imperial forces were sorely outnumbered, the simple fact that territory of the British Empire had been lost to enemy forces was damaging to morale. And for Imperial forces in the Far East, specifically India, in July of 1942, morale needed to be boosted.
That boost came in the form of the 1st Royal Marine Expeditionary Unit’s commanding general, Lord Louis Mountbatten. Assigned as Commander-in-Chief India, Mountbatten delivered a speech via radio to both the 1st and 2nd RMEUs and the newly arrived 3rd RMEU commanded by General Sir Robert G. Sturgese and the British Army of the Midlands commanded by General Cameron G.G. Nicholson. It was a short speech and Creighton could recall each word,
“I have always tried to crack a joke or two before, as you lads know, but today I’m afraid I have run out of jokes. I am under no illusion about the difficulty of our task. The Japanese and Chinese forces have taken a wide swath of India and we have to take it back. In the end, we will not only drive our enemies from Imperial soil but take the war to the lands of our enemies, for King and Country!”
It was not the speech that delivered the morale boost, it was the speedy victories over Sino-Japanese forces and the liberation of territory that allowed morale to bounce back. Within a week not only had General Nicholson’s mechanised forces crushed the Chinese advance into Sindh district to retake Karachi and Hyderabad but the Royal Marines had liberated Nagpur. Four days later, the Japanese were evicted from Jabalpur. General Yamashita and his 25th Army, fresh from their victories in Nepal, responded to the British counter-offensive and the destruction of the Sino-Japanese forces that had followed in their wake made for Japanese forces in Burma by marching out of Nepal and into the Bihar region of eastern India. Quickly capturing and looting the cities of Ranchi and Darbhanga before marching on Calcutta.
Creighton glanced at his watch yet again, suppressing a shudder at the memories of the battles that had taken him from Bombay as a company commander within the regiment to the far side of India and executive officer of the regiment. The battles were, as predicted by Lord Mountbatten, hard fought and bloody affairs, but also as predicted, victories for British forces. Following the great naval battle of the Red and Arabian Seas at the end of July and the beginning of August that witnessed the destruction of the Imperial Japanese Navy’s Kido Butai at the expense of the last of the French Navy’s four battleships, the battleship HMS Rodney and the American battleship USS Texas and aircraft carrier USS Wasp, the sea lanes between Africa and India were once more opened. By the end of August, all of northern India from the Karachi to Calcutta and Nepal were once more within the Imperial fold.
However, the war was far from over. The Japanese were still in control of the Punjab region as well as Bengal and were striving to march eastward to link up with Japanese forces in northern Burma. There was also the fact that Sino-Japanese forces were battling hard against Imperial forces in Burma and northern Indochina. To address this situation the Imperial General Staff deployed the British Armoured Army, the British Army of South Africa and the British Army of West Australia to India. General Norrie and his eight armoured regiments and Field Marshal Smuts and his eight infantry regiments were landed in Karachi to work in conjunction with General Nicholson’s British Army of the Midlands on not only the liberation of Punjab and Kashmir but an invasion of Chinese Turkestan. While that was occurring, General Sir Thomas A. Blamey and the six infantry regiments of the British Army of West Australia (the Penong Grenadier, the King's Australian Highlander, the Royal Wyndham Rifle, the Duke of Perth's Rifle, the King's Own Australian and the Mount Isa Fusilier Regiments) and General Henry D.G. Crerar’s British Army of Laurentian (formerly known as I Canadian Army and comprised of the Royal Montreal Fusilier, the Royal Algonquin Rifle, the Labrador Grenadier, the Royal Yukon Highlander, the Canadian Highlander, the Royal Ottawa Rifle and the Nova Scotia Highlander Regiments) landed in Calcutta to replace all three Royal Marine Expeditionary Units in the pursuit of the Japanese 25th Army’s destruction before it was able to link up with Sino-Japanese forces in northern Burma.
A series of loud booms that heralded the arrival of the Royal Navy’s big guns forced Creighton into a flashback that was barely sixty days old. The warm morning of September 26, 1942 was just as black as it was this morning before the battleships, battlecruisers and heavy cruisers of the Royal Navy’s Channel, Mediterranean and Far East Fleets lit up the sky with a massive bombardment of Sino-Japanese positions upon the island of Hainan. It was the first time that all three RMEUs conducted a landing together and while the corresponding confusion that went hand in hand with such operations was minor, the ferocity of the Chinese and Japanese defense of the island more than made up for the lack of widespread confusion. Casualties were higher than expected among the Royal Marines, however, losses to the Sino-Japanese defenders were near total. Of the fifty-five thousand troops defending Hainan, after two weeks of battle the Royal Marines were able to only induce the surrender of four hundred twelve Chinese and Japanese soldiers, most of who were so badly wounded that they were unable to resist.
Creighton and the rest of the Royal Marines had learned valuable lessons on how not only to coordinate the landing of all three RMEUs as well as how Sino-Japanese forces defended what they considered home territory. They were lessons that they analyzed in depth while the British Army of Pretoria crossed the Hainan Strait into the Chinese mainland at the Leizhou Peninsula to capture Zhanjiang and the British Army of North Africa crossed the Pearl River Delta to capture the city of Kong-Moon (Jiangmen) as a part of securing the southern coast of China. As Imperial forces struggled to expand the foothold that had been established on the southern Chinese coast, the Royal Marines were practicing and planning their next major operation, the invasion of Formosa.
Known as Operation SEXTANT, the taking of Formosa was considered a necessary steppingstone to the central China coast in the Hangchow Bay area, the northern China coastal areas, the Ryukyu Islands as well as the southern Japanese Home Island of southern Kyūshū. The occupation of Formosa would allow Imperial air and naval forces to possess a far closer staging area for interdiction raids that would work toward severing the Japanese lines of communication to the Chinese mainland much more effectively than from Hong Kong and the south China coast alone. Additionally, the taking of Formosa, which was considered by a good many in the Far East as the rice bowl of Japan due to the vast amount of food stuffs produced on the island, would deliver a drastic negative impact upon the Japanese home front.
The looming dark shape of a Saints-class battlecruiser materialized several hundred yards behind Creighton’s assault boat, signaling that the harassment bombardment that Formosa had experienced over the last several weeks was about to become an earnest invasion bombardment. Whistling over the din of the naval artillery traveling overhead, he gathered the attention of his men. “Listen up, lads! St. George is taking up station aft of us now which means in about two minutes the Japs on the beach are about to find out that the Fleet’s little visit this morning is the real thing. Five minutes after that we’ll be hitting the beach. If Hainan is an indication of how the Japs will be greeting us… well, saying things are going to be dicey would be an understatement. However, we are Royal Marines and as such we are expected to storm the beaches of the Empire’s enemies and own them and I expect you all to do you duty to ensure that beach belongs to the Empire by midday.”
Whatever Creighton was going to say next was lost in the sudden and violent discharge of the nine 16” naval rifles aboard HMS St. George. Forced to scramble for a handhold as the resulting shockwave swept over the assault boat, Creighton frowned over his shoulder as he and the men in the small craft attempted to clear the ringing from their ears. This landing was going to be different from previous landings in that the Fleet was moving the majority of the bombardment ships closer to the beach in an effort to cover landing craft more effectively. Now that the moment was at hand, Creighton briefly questioned the wisdom of placing some of the Fleet’s newest capital ships so close to land and counter-fire from Japanese shore batteries. However, as the shells fired by St. George landed hard upon a known gun emplacement and secondary explosions marked a direct hit upon an ammunition bunker, he decided the decision had merit.
“The Andrew might be a tad early,” Cooper announced to the landing craft at large, a devilish grin showing from under his helmet, “but by Christ they be knowin’ ‘ow ta get the job done!”
Coming a few seconds late, the signal for the first wave of assault craft to charge for the beach, a large star shell, exploded over the beach to illuminate the beach and several Japanese defensive positions. As the coxswain of Creighton’s boat thrust the throttles forward and the craft surged ahead, Creighton tuned out the growing din created by the Fleet firing their second and third salvos and concentrated upon the Japanese beach. He did not have to wait long for his expectations to be met as the defenders began to return fire from both known and previously unknown emplacements. Watching the incoming tracer rounds, each one glowing sickly green in colour, streaking out from the beach toward the approaching Royal Marines, Creighton muttered aloud an old Fleet prayer that had passed down for generations. “For that which are about to receive, bless us, oh, Lord.”
No sooner had the last word escaped his lips when all hell broke loose in the form of explosions and screaming bullets impacting upon wood, metal and human flesh. The invasion of Formosa had officially begun.
**
Up Next:
A visit to the beach!
Stay tuned!!
Well, the fun is going to begin in earnest, as Wilde stated so wisely.
Oh, the masochistic upper lipper stiff strikes back.
Oh, the masochistic upper lipper stiff strikes back.
There are four things in life that are certain: death, taxes, British AI wandering around North Africa aimlessly, and Japanese AI invading India.
I can't imagine many things worse than having to storm a beach. More info on the fleet action please?
Vann
Vann
Thing to remember when writing the beach scenes, all of the coastal cities in Taiwan with the exception of Kaohsiung are not coastal. They tuck them all 7 or 8 km inland. Or are they invading Penghu? ( The small islands 50 km west of Taiwan proper. They're not a province in game, but it would make a great staging area for an invasion of the big island as the Japanese used them for this historically and there is currently a Japanese naval base there that would make any invasion of the big island by the Royal Navy impossible.) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mako_Guard_District.
Kurt_Steiner - You can say that again, Mr. Wilde!
'snot really the masochistic upper lipper stiff striking back, more like a grim resignation of reality.
trekaddict - He might be in the Andrew, but he is a Royal Marine and to most landsmen that's just about the same thing, right?
Nathan Madien - True that!
Vann the Red - Air assaulting a prepared and hot LZ without air support?
Battle the Arabian and Red Seas? Let us just say that as bad as the French Navy was against the Kriegsmarine they were far worse against the Imperial Japanse Navy. And I will say that the quite surprising arrival of the U.S. Navy's Atlantic Fleet into the battle (coming up by way of Capetown) was unexpected AND very beneficial. For a RL comparision, image the Battle of Surigao Strait, the Battle off Samar, Coral Sea, and the loss of Force Z mingled together with a heavy dose of land based Imperial aircraft supporting the allies. Force Z being the French and the rest mixed together to result in destruction of the Kido Butai and significant damage to both the U.S.N. Atlantic Fleet and the RN's Channel Fleet.
Porkman - I saw that when I was prep'ing... that is a very interesting feature of Tiawan that I like.
As for the Mako Guard District and Rear-Admiral Akira Matsuzaki... the combined efforts of the Royal Navy's Fleet Air Arm and surface ships and the RAF's Bomber and Strike Commands have done to Makung and the other military installations in the Pescadores Islands what the US did to Truk in RL's Operation Hailstone.
'snot really the masochistic upper lipper stiff striking back, more like a grim resignation of reality.
trekaddict - He might be in the Andrew, but he is a Royal Marine and to most landsmen that's just about the same thing, right?
Nathan Madien - True that!
Vann the Red - Air assaulting a prepared and hot LZ without air support?
Battle the Arabian and Red Seas? Let us just say that as bad as the French Navy was against the Kriegsmarine they were far worse against the Imperial Japanse Navy. And I will say that the quite surprising arrival of the U.S. Navy's Atlantic Fleet into the battle (coming up by way of Capetown) was unexpected AND very beneficial. For a RL comparision, image the Battle of Surigao Strait, the Battle off Samar, Coral Sea, and the loss of Force Z mingled together with a heavy dose of land based Imperial aircraft supporting the allies. Force Z being the French and the rest mixed together to result in destruction of the Kido Butai and significant damage to both the U.S.N. Atlantic Fleet and the RN's Channel Fleet.
Porkman - I saw that when I was prep'ing... that is a very interesting feature of Tiawan that I like.
As for the Mako Guard District and Rear-Admiral Akira Matsuzaki... the combined efforts of the Royal Navy's Fleet Air Arm and surface ships and the RAF's Bomber and Strike Commands have done to Makung and the other military installations in the Pescadores Islands what the US did to Truk in RL's Operation Hailstone.
Sorry to hear of the loss of Storeyville's old flagship but at least she and the ol' Texas went down punching I presume. I hope Storeyville isn't getting a reputation as a Jonah among the fleet considering the ships he has left behind.