Soviet Union. 21st December 2073. Zero Hours.
Continuing from where we left offThe Operation Midnight Storm is a go
The Scout Ship Anadyr is to head for Alpha Centauri Jump-point, transit and hold distance on the jump-point incase the enemy fleet follows throught. Should that happen, Anadyr is to bait them away from the jump-point.
Anadyr succesfully transmits and immediately positions itself between the Lalande and Sol jump-point. Fortunaly, the alien fleet doesn't follow throught. It is suspected that the alien ships are system-defence force and have no jump drives at all. A week later, Battle Division Kursk and Leningrad transmits into Alpha Centauri and positions on the Lalande jump-point, waiting for permission from the Admiral to jump.
Both Battle Divisions have identical formation;
1 Kirov-Class Battlecruiser
2 Gordi-Class Destroyers
2 Grisha-Class Frigates
2 Sverdlov-Class Missile Frigates
Scout ship Astrakhan is still in the Lalande system, running passive sensors. After a week of quietly moving in space, the ship finally receives new orders from Sol. Kapitan pervogo ranga (Captain First Rank) Yurik Tkachyov is ordered to activate his ships Active radar system and bait the alien fleet from the Alpha Centauri jump-point so that the Soviet ships can transit safely.
Immediately upon activation, the radar detects the alien fleet within 250 million kilometers, which immediately takes pursuit.
Astrakhan sends message to Earth, informing the Red Navy High Command that the jump-point is clear.
Within seconds, the Battle Division Leningrad and Battle Division Kursk jumps into the system. The ships receive live-feed of sensor information regarding the alien fleet in the system, the crews of the ships are still unaware of what is really going on, since they have been informed falsely, that this is a military excercice, practicing naval combat against old decommissioned civilian vessels equipped with automated systems and practice missiles. A lie that only tells them half of the truth.
The Battle Division activat their Radars and head towards the alien fleet.
Four hours later, the Alien fleet is still not within the range of the Missiles.
One hour later, the enemy fleet changes course towards the Battle Divisions.
45 Minutes later, at 0939 Hours, the enemy fleet comes in range of the missiles and their guidance systems. Missile Frigates Gorkiv, Kazan, Dikson and Donskoy Kasak target two ships. At 1000 Hours, the targeting systems achieve a lock and all the missile frigates open fire. Launching two salvoes of B-800HR Bastovat-series size-5 anti-ship missiles, which are fitted with passive radar guidance to automatically home in on the enemy's active radar should the original target get destroyed before reaching it. No further Bastovat missiles are launched by the frigates until the anti-missile capabilities of the target fleet can be determined.
Forty minutes later, while the missiles launched by the Missile Frigates are still in flight, the enemy ships come in range of the Kirov Battlecruisers. They immediately lock-on and both launch a salvo of 30 P-1800 size-6 Granit series anti-Ship missiles against the 15,350 ton cruiser. The Granit series is the main fast long-range missile of the Red Space Forces, having a maximum speed of 45,000 kilometers per second, strenght 8 nuclear warhead, manouveur rating of 16 and inbuilt electronic counter measures.
As the two salvoes of B-800HR Bastovat missiles close in, they detect active radar signals.
Suddenly, small thermal flares of 6 explosions are detected, as 6 of the 20 missiles vanish. The crews of the soviet ships are surprised about their "practice" targets shooting back.
The first salvo is reduced to 7 missiles by what is assumed to be Anti-Missile-Missiles (AMMs). The second part of the salvo close behind loses two of it's missiles to AMMs.
The first salvo is further reduced by 3 AMM's, leaving only 4 missiles to slam on their target at extremely high velocities. Nuclear fire engulfs the target ship, code named "Guardian", revealing to the sensors of it having strenght 2 armour plating.
The weak armour stands no chance of protecting the superstructure from the blasts as they melt the plating away, punching right throught into the ship. The "Guardian" suffers massive damages, yet there is no sign of athmospheric loss, which confirms the earlier theory about these alien vessels being automated "robots". It then breaks formation with the speed of 5194 km/s and heads towards the center of the system as the rest of the salvo is reduced to 10 missiles by AMMs and then reduced to 3 missiles by point-defence weapons before hitting Medstar 02 and 03, both also have strenght 2 armour plating. Medstar 03 is damaged the most. However both ships retain their speed and stays with the formation.
Many minutes later later, the second salvo slams into the enemy fleet with 16 missiles slamming into the already damaged Medstar 03, the ship is engulfed in small secondary explosions before blown in half by one massive explosion. It is suspected to be caused by the ships' magazines detonating.
The thirty P-1800 Granit missiles launched by Kirov Battlecruiser "Admiral Apraksin" slams into the enemy cruiser, code named "Type-II", completely shattering it into pieces.
Forty-four minutes later, the missile early warning systems across the fleet sound alarms as a salvo of fifteen missiles are detected approaching the fleet at 39197 km/s. The automated "TOR" AMM launch systems automatically target them and start launching missiles.
Fortunaly, all of the incoming missiles are intercepted and destroyed. However several salvos more appear, with every single one of them destroyed by the AMMs.
At 1230 Hours, the second salvo launched by Kirov Battlecruiser Admiral Zhdanov reaches the remaining two enemy ships and obliterate them. The heavily damaged guardian that broke off it's formation earlier was intercepted and destroyed by missiles launched by the frigates.
Scans reveal no additional contacts nor lifepods.
The Battle Division Kursk and Leningrad proceed to move towards the center of the system. Their course should take them within the radar range of planet A-III and it's two unknown type of constructs.
Three days later, the Kirov Battlecruisers detect those forementioned constructs on the planet. Most of the fleet are down to 50-70% of their magazines, only handful of P-1800's remaining in the two Kirov Battlecruisers.
The fleet moves within 136 million kilometers of the planet and start launching missiles at the two targets.
However, massive anti-missile defences are encountered and entire salvoes disappear before reaching the two targets, those that go throught are destroyed by what seem to be overwhelming amount of point-defence weapons of unknown type. Despite this, handful of missiles got throught and hit their targets, occasionally causing secondary explosions and what seems to be magazine detonations.
Crews of the soviet ships were growing increasingly suspicious of their "Fleet excercise", the officers of the ships have began questioning the true nature of their mission. The Captains could only short explanations related to field testing against new prototype weapon systems installed on decommissioned civilian vessels.
Massive anti-missile measures of the enemy forced the Soviet fleets to manouveur closer, to begin launching their shoter-ranged missiles in massive salvos.
This produced even worser results, even thought many more got throught, the point-defence activity only increased massively in quantity. In one instance, over 20 missiles were simultaneously oblitared within spitting distance of hitting their targets.
It took a massive salvo of 41 missiles to bust throught 10 missiles, which detonated successfully on their targets. Only to find out from the sensor readings that the targets had strenght-3 armour plating.
This "grand slam" of missiles was the last attack by the soviet ships. The remaining Anti-ship missiles could be counted by one hand, it was worthless to send them into what was 100% certain interception by enemy AMM's. Shaken, the crews of the soviet ships were given order to turn back and head home. Battle Division Kursk went ahead with the withdrawal while Battle Division Leningrad took a longer route to scan the area just in case.
Within 20 minutes, the Active radar of Kirov Battlecruiser "Admiral Zhdanov" detected radio signals emitting from planet A-II which lay right ahead, indicating ground forces.
