Turn 113 - St. Anger
QM Note - the cost for the Normandy-class was incorrect and has been corrected in the sheets, I mistakenly saved a version with a mobile HPG, which ballooned the cost enormously
The snarls with transports and such all conspire to push back any reasonable start date for the Rouges Noir operation by at least a few years, unless you want to send in your troops in inadequate transports liable to result in heavy casualties in contested landings. Since you aren’t a sadist, nor a monster, and your troops' lives are rather important to you, you decide that this would not be the best course of action.
Unfortunately a rather heavy Black Steel attack also conspires against you. Once more Arvum comes under assault, much more quickly than past intervals raising some very worrisome issues for you.
Even more unfortunately, this battle is a brutal trial by fire for Admiral von Falkenrick’s replacement as Grand Fleet CO. Admiral Xi is well-respected, and known to be very competent, but he isn’t the absolute genius that the late von Falkenrick had been. And sadly he’ll never have the opportunity to show his potential, because his flagship was taken out early in the main phase of the battle.
It could be said of this battle that the enemy came, in the same old way, and were repulsed, in the same old way. But the cost in blood and metal was enormous, and not nearly as favorable as it had been under von Falkenrick. The Grand Fleet is utterly savaged once more, against a weaker force than had been present at Fourth Arvum. Admiral Xi’s death in only the second exchange of capital fire between the core battlelines of the two forces caused shockwaves of chaos within the Grand Fleet, shredding the tight formations that are so critical to this sort of battle. The Black Steel took vicious and brutal advantage of this, pounding your battleline into scrap.
There was general panic within the Grand Fleet at this point, your spacers had given so much, time and time again, but this was almost too much. They’d fought, over and over, barely winning victories under the command of a bonafide genius, and now they were rudderless, left to their own devices, and some captains started to prioritize their own command’s survival over that of the fleet.
All seemed lost, as a routed fleet was easy prey. But then things changed in a somewhat unexpected manner that proved that God looks out for fools, drunks, and the Griffon Empire.
Your forces somehow rallied, ironically under a relatively junior admiral whose ship managed to barely survive the pounding long enough to reestablish proper command and control.
It was a tenuous sort of grip, but Rear Admiral (Lower Half) Silvana de Palo managed to shout officers technically senior to her in the chain of command down, simply by using brute transmission strength to drown out their contradictory orders. She then more or less informed the rest of the fleet that she intended to win this battle, or die trying, and anybody too cowardly to join her were free to keep on running and bear witness to how real Griffons die.
It worked. The Grand Fleet renewed the battle with vigor.
Fortuitously, the Black Steel forces had gotten a bit of ‘Victory Disease’ and when the disjointed and panicked fire switched back to disciplined, coordinated volleys they were caught in a fire sack. None of the Black Steel forces managed to escape at this point, as de Palo rather aggressively drove home the attack, leading the Grand Fleet into a point blank death grapple with the Black Steel with the remaining capital ships of her command. Her own flagship, HMS Agincourt, resembled a spinning top as she continuously rolled the ship rapidly so that each broadside would come to bear the moment it was ready to fire.
Vice Admiral Demoulis almost sparked a mutiny at this point, when the nominally senior surviving officer ordered Rear Admiral de Palo arrested for violating the chain of command. Considering that Demoulis had been ordering the fleet to scatter and flee for the KF limit independently, and was on board one of the few ships that hadn’t joined in the victorious conclusion to the battle, this raised a… certain level of quite justified resentment, especially since the ass had broadcast his order for Admiral de Palo’s arrest over fleet wide comms.
De Palo defused the entire situation quite neatly, by promptly turning to the Marine contingent on her own flag and ordering them to escort her to the brig in accordance with orders, while also having her communications section, which still had an operational HPG, transmit her report and the recording of the action back to HQ.
Now this isn’t to say that Demoulis was a coward. He was in command of the escorting elements to the fleet train, and the heaviest unit under his command were a pair of England-class Frigates that would have been hard-pressed to contribute anything regardless. He also is the sort of by-the-book, follow the rules and stay within the lines officer that any Navy needs, perhaps not in the top command slot, but certainly within the structure to keep the mavericks from running wild. De Palo had violated regulations, therefore she needs to be arrested until things are sorted out, Q.E.D.. You have a pretty good idea that personal resentment, peevishness, or fear of a bad comparison never even entered into his mind. He’s far too legalistic a sort for that, and the instant the order came down from General Fleet HQ confirming de Palo as being breveted to full Admiral and endorsing her actions he instantly complied, with no hesitation whatsoever. Orders were orders, and he followed them like a good soldier.
Not a very imaginative soldier, but a good one.
This is another Pyrrhic victory, but at the very least it revealed a brilliant naval commander in the person of Admiral de Palo. All damaged units have been towed into repair docks, mostly in the Arvum system itself.
You find yourself just a little nervous about your daughter Mary’s intention to join the Navy at this point, considering the massive casualties that they are taking in these engagements. But you also fully realize just how major a morale hit it would be if you refuse to let her do so. So you’ll smile, nod, look proud, and conceal the terror in your heart as you send her off to the Naval Academy.
And now it’s budget time.
Amaunet is looking a bit somber for a cat, as she’s well aware of just how devastating the losses of Fifth Arvum are, and how damaging this is for morale. The cracks are starting to show in Navy morale. Interestingly, Admiral Fisher isn’t present for some reason, although you’ve not gotten any notices about any medical issues, with Admiral Sims sitting in for him.
“Padrone,” Amaunet begins, a bit more seriously than usual. “Production levels are rising, and, callous as it may sound, we can replace all of our recent losses in relatively short order, apart from the Prinz Eugens. What we can’t replace are the crews, nor can we simply wave a magic wand and prop up morale.” She looks steadily at you. “It is possible that focusing on the Rouges Noir like we are was a mistake. That we should have been aggressively focusing on the Black Steel. On the other hand, we have the Rouges Noir contained for now, so we might want to begin considering shifting our full focus back to the Black Steel and simply keep to the status quo for now.”
She grimaces a little as she turns the podium over to General Bradley. “Your Majesty, the Army is ready regardless of your decision. We are in a very solid position vis-a-vis our production capacities, so we will not be requesting any adjustments in that area. What we will be wanting to focus on is building up our offensive forces, regardless of what is decided.”
She pauses, as if she wants to say something, then simply brings up the budget request.
General Romanov is still off overseeing the Aerospace Force refit plans, so you didn’t expect her at this meeting.
Admiral Sims takes the podium then. “Before you ask, Your Majesty, Admiral Fisher is fine. His wife, and those of us who actually care about that cantankerous old man, decided to force him to stay on vacation and rest. For the record, I believe that technically I’ve been fired, but I don’t think he really means it.” There’s a brief flash of a smile there. “The same way I’ve been fired a few hundred times before, whenever I disagree with him on something. But Angie is keeping him from working himself straight into his grave, and the rest of us are covering for him as best we can until we’re sure he’ll be fine.”
You nod at that, a bit touched that Fisher actually, despite his insistence otherwise, has subordinates who do, in fact, care about him.
“That being said, 5th Arvum does show that we remain behind the eight ball. The Black Steel has the strategic initiative on top of their ability to rapidly replace their losses. Your Navy is holding the line, Your Majesty, but that line is getting painfully thin. We also need to strengthen our transport assets, both modernizing existing ships and bringing the new classes into widespread service. Thankfully the one area where we aren’t critically short is in parasites, so this won’t be a significant issue.” She checks her notes. “The few Battles at Fifth Arvum performed spectacularly well, if I might add. We took no hull losses among that subtype, so that’s another piece of potentially good news.”
She then takes a deep breath. “There is on other fly in the ointment, Your Majesty. Despite our need for hulls, this year we will be keeping a few Small Warship slips empty due to the ‘python lump’ problem we’re facing in manning our new construction. We’ll likewise be leaving 50 Escort slips open, for the same reason. Crew quality notably degrades for ships commissioned as part of these lumps, simply due to overstressing our training pipeline every couple years. The problem is most acute with Escorts, thus the immediate action being taken. Hopefully this will even things out so we can go back to regular production next year. On a positive note we’ll be laying down 12 battleships this year, thanks to the aggressive program building large warship yards.”
Elizabeth Lee is up next, once Admiral Sims sits back down she nods to Amaunet and takes the podium. “Your Majesty, as always Interior is ready to build whatever the military needs. In addition we have the following recommendations.”
She takes a breath. “We only have a single DoME team available this year, the Planetary Optimization specialists. We propose turning them loose on Steingarten. While that system is one of the wealthiest on a per-capita basis, it is most certainly not anything even vaguely resembling a garden spot, so improving it is of quite high priority.”
“For general economic projects, Your Majesty, we have the following recommendations.” Elizabeth brings up her charts.
You blink as you look at it, as you’d not realized that Glorreich was already a Core world. Elizabeth confirms that they indeed have been so classified. This means you are now up to 18 total Core worlds, which is a quite impressive number.
Dr Kamoto is participating in a diplomatic conference with his counterparts from your allied states, so isn’t available.
Tiberius has quite accurately read the room, his usual antics would be quite inappropriate today. Instead he keeps things nice and professional. “Your Majesty, the only recommendation from us is that we continue to expand the civil service. I would also like to report that we are working closely with Justice and Interior to more closely integrate our colonization efforts, which in the future should allow us to handle all three main aspects of the process in a more unified manner.”
Grace is looking rather serious. “Your Majesty, I am going to have a somewhat odd request. We have one free team, but I’d like to keep them in reserve this year. The reason being is that, god willing, we’ll complete at least two projects later this year, allowing us to start on researching the next largest mass class of Warships, 1.75 million tons. We should have the budget to support this by then, and this is the sort of critical capability that we badly need and which is worth holding back one team for a year.”
General Messerschmidt is absent, he’s currently overseeing some counter-intelligence ops near Rouges Noir space, but has informed you that there are now pressing budget concerns from his shop this year.
Martina is absent, her eldest is in the hospital giving birth to her first grandchild and you’d given her permission to take a short vacation for that purpose. Like Messerschmidt, she’s sent you a note indicating that there are no budget requests this year from Justice.
QM Note - the cost for the Normandy-class was incorrect and has been corrected in the sheets, I mistakenly saved a version with a mobile HPG, which ballooned the cost enormously
The snarls with transports and such all conspire to push back any reasonable start date for the Rouges Noir operation by at least a few years, unless you want to send in your troops in inadequate transports liable to result in heavy casualties in contested landings. Since you aren’t a sadist, nor a monster, and your troops' lives are rather important to you, you decide that this would not be the best course of action.
Unfortunately a rather heavy Black Steel attack also conspires against you. Once more Arvum comes under assault, much more quickly than past intervals raising some very worrisome issues for you.
Even more unfortunately, this battle is a brutal trial by fire for Admiral von Falkenrick’s replacement as Grand Fleet CO. Admiral Xi is well-respected, and known to be very competent, but he isn’t the absolute genius that the late von Falkenrick had been. And sadly he’ll never have the opportunity to show his potential, because his flagship was taken out early in the main phase of the battle.
It could be said of this battle that the enemy came, in the same old way, and were repulsed, in the same old way. But the cost in blood and metal was enormous, and not nearly as favorable as it had been under von Falkenrick. The Grand Fleet is utterly savaged once more, against a weaker force than had been present at Fourth Arvum. Admiral Xi’s death in only the second exchange of capital fire between the core battlelines of the two forces caused shockwaves of chaos within the Grand Fleet, shredding the tight formations that are so critical to this sort of battle. The Black Steel took vicious and brutal advantage of this, pounding your battleline into scrap.
There was general panic within the Grand Fleet at this point, your spacers had given so much, time and time again, but this was almost too much. They’d fought, over and over, barely winning victories under the command of a bonafide genius, and now they were rudderless, left to their own devices, and some captains started to prioritize their own command’s survival over that of the fleet.
All seemed lost, as a routed fleet was easy prey. But then things changed in a somewhat unexpected manner that proved that God looks out for fools, drunks, and the Griffon Empire.
Your forces somehow rallied, ironically under a relatively junior admiral whose ship managed to barely survive the pounding long enough to reestablish proper command and control.
It was a tenuous sort of grip, but Rear Admiral (Lower Half) Silvana de Palo managed to shout officers technically senior to her in the chain of command down, simply by using brute transmission strength to drown out their contradictory orders. She then more or less informed the rest of the fleet that she intended to win this battle, or die trying, and anybody too cowardly to join her were free to keep on running and bear witness to how real Griffons die.
It worked. The Grand Fleet renewed the battle with vigor.
Fortuitously, the Black Steel forces had gotten a bit of ‘Victory Disease’ and when the disjointed and panicked fire switched back to disciplined, coordinated volleys they were caught in a fire sack. None of the Black Steel forces managed to escape at this point, as de Palo rather aggressively drove home the attack, leading the Grand Fleet into a point blank death grapple with the Black Steel with the remaining capital ships of her command. Her own flagship, HMS Agincourt, resembled a spinning top as she continuously rolled the ship rapidly so that each broadside would come to bear the moment it was ready to fire.
Vice Admiral Demoulis almost sparked a mutiny at this point, when the nominally senior surviving officer ordered Rear Admiral de Palo arrested for violating the chain of command. Considering that Demoulis had been ordering the fleet to scatter and flee for the KF limit independently, and was on board one of the few ships that hadn’t joined in the victorious conclusion to the battle, this raised a… certain level of quite justified resentment, especially since the ass had broadcast his order for Admiral de Palo’s arrest over fleet wide comms.
De Palo defused the entire situation quite neatly, by promptly turning to the Marine contingent on her own flag and ordering them to escort her to the brig in accordance with orders, while also having her communications section, which still had an operational HPG, transmit her report and the recording of the action back to HQ.
Now this isn’t to say that Demoulis was a coward. He was in command of the escorting elements to the fleet train, and the heaviest unit under his command were a pair of England-class Frigates that would have been hard-pressed to contribute anything regardless. He also is the sort of by-the-book, follow the rules and stay within the lines officer that any Navy needs, perhaps not in the top command slot, but certainly within the structure to keep the mavericks from running wild. De Palo had violated regulations, therefore she needs to be arrested until things are sorted out, Q.E.D.. You have a pretty good idea that personal resentment, peevishness, or fear of a bad comparison never even entered into his mind. He’s far too legalistic a sort for that, and the instant the order came down from General Fleet HQ confirming de Palo as being breveted to full Admiral and endorsing her actions he instantly complied, with no hesitation whatsoever. Orders were orders, and he followed them like a good soldier.
Not a very imaginative soldier, but a good one.
- Fifth Battle of Arvum
- Friendly Casualties
- 5 Dreadnought-class Battleships
- 65 Prinz Eugen-class Heavy Cruisers
- 125 Dido-class Light Cruisers
- 50 Guiseppe Garibaldi-class Light Cruisers
- 200 Fubuki-class Destroyers
- 33 Hosho-class Light Carriers
- 50 Saipan-class Parasite Carriers
- 120 Aetna-class Parasite Missile Battleships
- 60 Meteor-class Parasite Missile Battleships
- 179 Mikasa-class Parasite Battleships
- 595 Bainbridge-class Parasite Destroyers
- 100 Shimakaze-class Parasite Destroyers
- 210 Long Beach-class Parasite Destroyers
- Black Steel Casualties
- 8 2.5 million ton ‘Brawler’ type battleships
- 10 1.75 million ton unidentified battleship type
- 25 1 million ton unidentified heavy cruiser types
- 50 1 million ton ‘Blitzer’ heavy cruiser types
- 50 750kton ‘Sniper’ type light cruisers
- 100 Lola III destroyers
- Over a thousand drone parasites
- Friendly Casualties
This is another Pyrrhic victory, but at the very least it revealed a brilliant naval commander in the person of Admiral de Palo. All damaged units have been towed into repair docks, mostly in the Arvum system itself.
You find yourself just a little nervous about your daughter Mary’s intention to join the Navy at this point, considering the massive casualties that they are taking in these engagements. But you also fully realize just how major a morale hit it would be if you refuse to let her do so. So you’ll smile, nod, look proud, and conceal the terror in your heart as you send her off to the Naval Academy.
And now it’s budget time.
Amaunet is looking a bit somber for a cat, as she’s well aware of just how devastating the losses of Fifth Arvum are, and how damaging this is for morale. The cracks are starting to show in Navy morale. Interestingly, Admiral Fisher isn’t present for some reason, although you’ve not gotten any notices about any medical issues, with Admiral Sims sitting in for him.
“Padrone,” Amaunet begins, a bit more seriously than usual. “Production levels are rising, and, callous as it may sound, we can replace all of our recent losses in relatively short order, apart from the Prinz Eugens. What we can’t replace are the crews, nor can we simply wave a magic wand and prop up morale.” She looks steadily at you. “It is possible that focusing on the Rouges Noir like we are was a mistake. That we should have been aggressively focusing on the Black Steel. On the other hand, we have the Rouges Noir contained for now, so we might want to begin considering shifting our full focus back to the Black Steel and simply keep to the status quo for now.”
She grimaces a little as she turns the podium over to General Bradley. “Your Majesty, the Army is ready regardless of your decision. We are in a very solid position vis-a-vis our production capacities, so we will not be requesting any adjustments in that area. What we will be wanting to focus on is building up our offensive forces, regardless of what is decided.”
She pauses, as if she wants to say something, then simply brings up the budget request.
- Imperial Griffon Army
- Procurement
- Regular Units
- 9 Regimental Combat Team Divisions
- Garrison Units
- 21 Garrison Divisions
- 21 Militia Divisions
- Regular Units
- Procurement
General Romanov is still off overseeing the Aerospace Force refit plans, so you didn’t expect her at this meeting.
Admiral Sims takes the podium then. “Before you ask, Your Majesty, Admiral Fisher is fine. His wife, and those of us who actually care about that cantankerous old man, decided to force him to stay on vacation and rest. For the record, I believe that technically I’ve been fired, but I don’t think he really means it.” There’s a brief flash of a smile there. “The same way I’ve been fired a few hundred times before, whenever I disagree with him on something. But Angie is keeping him from working himself straight into his grave, and the rest of us are covering for him as best we can until we’re sure he’ll be fine.”
You nod at that, a bit touched that Fisher actually, despite his insistence otherwise, has subordinates who do, in fact, care about him.
“That being said, 5th Arvum does show that we remain behind the eight ball. The Black Steel has the strategic initiative on top of their ability to rapidly replace their losses. Your Navy is holding the line, Your Majesty, but that line is getting painfully thin. We also need to strengthen our transport assets, both modernizing existing ships and bringing the new classes into widespread service. Thankfully the one area where we aren’t critically short is in parasites, so this won’t be a significant issue.” She checks her notes. “The few Battles at Fifth Arvum performed spectacularly well, if I might add. We took no hull losses among that subtype, so that’s another piece of potentially good news.”
She then takes a deep breath. “There is on other fly in the ointment, Your Majesty. Despite our need for hulls, this year we will be keeping a few Small Warship slips empty due to the ‘python lump’ problem we’re facing in manning our new construction. We’ll likewise be leaving 50 Escort slips open, for the same reason. Crew quality notably degrades for ships commissioned as part of these lumps, simply due to overstressing our training pipeline every couple years. The problem is most acute with Escorts, thus the immediate action being taken. Hopefully this will even things out so we can go back to regular production next year. On a positive note we’ll be laying down 12 battleships this year, thanks to the aggressive program building large warship yards.”
- Imperial Griffon Navy
- Production
- Orbital Shipyards
- New Orbital Shipyards
- Griffon
- Calliope
- Nowa Warszawa
- Glorreich
- New Port Royal
- Upgrade All Orbital Shipyards
- New Orbital Shipyards
- Refit & Repair Yards
- Upgrade all Refit & Repair Yards
- Escort Yards
- Neubayern
- Neuhessen
- Nouvelle Bourgogne
- Nuova Lombardia
- Nuova Puglia
- Nuovo Abruzzo
- Nyū Shikoku
- Stenen Tuin
- New Libertalia
- Nuova Tripoli
- Awha
- Catachan
- Feurstern
- Neuthüringen
- Nowe Mazowsze
- Nox
- Platzregensburg
- Iskra
- New Algiers
- New Clew Bay
- Nubifragio
- Bellaterra
- Bohren
- Landprettig
- Porto Milano
- Small Warship Yards
- Pieklo
- New Phoenix
- Okusawa
- New Castor
- New Port Royal
- Nowy Wrocław
- Bari
- Nowy Slask
- Chuma
- Glorreich
- Large Warship Yards
- Griffon
- Calliope
- New Pollux
- Nowy Warszawa
- Orbital Shipyards
- Procurement
- Standard Dropships
- 200 Shimakaze-class Parasite Destroyers
- 150 Spruance-class Parasite Destroyers
- 35 Lublin-class Transports
- Large Dropships
- 80 Mikasa-class Parasite Battleships
- 90 Normandy-class Transports
- 9 Charleston-class Transports
- Jumpships
- 5 Windjammer-class Jumpships
- Escorts
- 50 Battle-class Destroyers
- 100 Lyr-class Corvettes
- Small Warships
- 30 Dido-class Light Cruisers
- 10 Guiseppe Garibaldi-class Light Cruisers
- 20 De Grasse-class Light Cruisers
- Medium Warships
- 10 Prinz Eugen-class Heavy Cruisers
- 10 Algérie-class Heavy Cruisers
- Large Warships
- 12 Dreadnought-class Battleships
- Standard Dropships
- Fortress Command
- Black Tower
- Griff's Leap
- New Phoenix
- New Eden
- Okusawa
- New Castor
- Black Tower
- Production
Elizabeth Lee is up next, once Admiral Sims sits back down she nods to Amaunet and takes the podium. “Your Majesty, as always Interior is ready to build whatever the military needs. In addition we have the following recommendations.”
She takes a breath. “We only have a single DoME team available this year, the Planetary Optimization specialists. We propose turning them loose on Steingarten. While that system is one of the wealthiest on a per-capita basis, it is most certainly not anything even vaguely resembling a garden spot, so improving it is of quite high priority.”
“For general economic projects, Your Majesty, we have the following recommendations.” Elizabeth brings up her charts.
- Economic Foci, Investment, and Infrastructure/Zoning
- Focus
- Core
- New Castor
- Periphery
- Grand View
- Core
- Major Investment
- Core
- Glorreich
- Periphery
- Nubifragio
- Core
- Investment
- Nox
- Infrastructure & Industrial Zones
- Arvum
- Nouvelle Bourgogne
- Bohren
- Landprettig
- Nuova Puglia
- Focus
You blink as you look at it, as you’d not realized that Glorreich was already a Core world. Elizabeth confirms that they indeed have been so classified. This means you are now up to 18 total Core worlds, which is a quite impressive number.
Dr Kamoto is participating in a diplomatic conference with his counterparts from your allied states, so isn’t available.
Tiberius has quite accurately read the room, his usual antics would be quite inappropriate today. Instead he keeps things nice and professional. “Your Majesty, the only recommendation from us is that we continue to expand the civil service. I would also like to report that we are working closely with Justice and Interior to more closely integrate our colonization efforts, which in the future should allow us to handle all three main aspects of the process in a more unified manner.”
Grace is looking rather serious. “Your Majesty, I am going to have a somewhat odd request. We have one free team, but I’d like to keep them in reserve this year. The reason being is that, god willing, we’ll complete at least two projects later this year, allowing us to start on researching the next largest mass class of Warships, 1.75 million tons. We should have the budget to support this by then, and this is the sort of critical capability that we badly need and which is worth holding back one team for a year.”
General Messerschmidt is absent, he’s currently overseeing some counter-intelligence ops near Rouges Noir space, but has informed you that there are now pressing budget concerns from his shop this year.
Martina is absent, her eldest is in the hospital giving birth to her first grandchild and you’d given her permission to take a short vacation for that purpose. Like Messerschmidt, she’s sent you a note indicating that there are no budget requests this year from Justice.