(12) Once More Unto The Breach1914Germany added three frigates and two troop transports to
Kaiserliche Raummarine by March. In April, USA launched their second naval shipyard - Caplette Enterprises. May was a proper ship launching month with
Royal Navy adding two more transports to its Landing Fleet, the
k.u.k Kriegsmarine getting three more Salamander class frigates, Italians seeing
Regia Marina grow with further three Cavour class frigates and the US Void Force growing by three as well. France became the fifth country to develop powered armour suits for infantry. This leads the French Army to hastily update their plans for their Martian expeditionary force so that the
Poilu can be better protected. As a show of good will, United States released the technical details of Cryogenic Transport - Small to the rest of the world. Most powers were happy and grateful as it would allow the building of rescue shuttles, though Germany, Britain and Austria-Hungary already knew the tech. US made this public gesture as their spy ship managed to get the specs of Cryogenic Transport - Emergency from the Germans and they knew that details of the somewhat more primitive technology would soon leak anyway. They also stole improved shipyard management techniques from France and technical details of Visible Light Laser from Italy. The cost of researching, designing and building the spy ships had been gained back with plenty of interest!
Japan added two Akagi class frigates to the
Standing Fleet in June and July brought three more Stürmschiff for Germany and three more frigates for Russia. Germany added three more Scharnhorst class frigates to their roster in September.
In October, Germany invited representatives of the other powers to Berlin. The Martian Conference of 1914 was a tumultuous affair. German delegation opened the conference by introducing their new Hansa class passenger/cargo vessel. This caught the other delegations by surprise and led to accusations of Berlin playing a dangerous game of national expansion with Earth's fate still in question. Chancellor Julius Hayek went into pains to explain the dire financial situation of all the powers after years of war, devastation and frenzied preparation for counter-invasion of Mars. Several powers, including Great-Britain, were in debt. The rest had budgets in the red despite constructing financial centres whenever possible. Only Russia had healthy reserves thanks to shrewd leadership of Prime Minister Maykova.
Hayek then outlined a solution. Germany would create a lunar colony and foster in a new era of international trade, between the Earth powers themselves as well as colonies on the Moon. While the other delegations could accept the general argument, they were outraged that Berlin had not discussed the matter but presented it almost as an afterthought, a fait accompli. President Tad Sieren of USA came up with a compromise that solved the problem: Germany would grant passage to all other powers aboard their ships so that they could create their own colonies without having to play catch-up by developing and building their own ships when most could not afford any distractions from the main mission. They would have to construct the necessary support infrastructure on their own, however. While the other powers were not completely satisfied with this arrangement, it was a workable compromise. Before the ink was dry on the treaty, British shipwrights were hastily making their version of the Hansa, called the Empire class. It could carry five hundred passengers and ten thousand colonists, as well as sufficient infrastructure to enable a colony to be started. At 40,000 tons, it would take a while before Burke Fabricators could start construction and the Admiralty wanted Kirby Shipyard to continue with the Tribal class transports.
The second part of the conference, the military one was more peaceful albeit with some points of frustration. Admiral Eschenbach of
Kaiserliche Raummarine in his introduction outlined the problem: the smaller powers were lagging behind the greater powers and while the Martian Menace seemed quiet for the moment, this calm should not be taken for granted. The Grand Alliance could currently muster 86 ships, divided as:
Kaiserliche Raummarine 15 frigates
Royal Navy 15 frigates
k.u.k Kriegsmarine 9 frigates
La Royale 6 frigates
Rossiyskaya Inmperatorskiy flot 15 frigates
US Void Force 9 frigates
Regia Spazio 9 frigates
Nippon Kaigun 8 frigates
Fuerza Ibérica and
RIM Rymd had no ships yet. Only Germany and Great Britain had troop transports. Additionally, Germany had six assault shuttles and America had a single scout left. The problem was how to use this force. The Martian orbital constructs were a logical first target. The big question was should the ground invasion proceed together with the frigates or should the frigates go at it alone. There was a real risk that the Menace could eliminate the initial Anglo-German force before reinforcements could be brought up. As frigate construction was proceeding well for most of the powers, the conference came to a conclusion of authorizing the national fleets to eliminate Martian orbital forts and then to withdraw back to Earth. This operation would start on the first day of December to allow two months of preparation time. The Iberian Union delegation protested that the mission should wait until their frigates could take part but as that would most likely take at least a year if not two, the other powers ignored them. The conference ended in an amiable mood - the Grand Alliance had been preserved for now.
On 6 October, the Germans landed on the Moon, though it would take until the next day until the two ships were fully unloaded and
Luna Stadt would begin to take form. France constructed their first troop transport and American espionage netted them 15cm Laser Focal Size, Fire Control Speed Rating 2000 km/s, 12cm Railgun and 25cm Carronade. In order to build further goodwill, USA made 12cm Laser Focal Size public information, act that benefited Great-Britain, Austria-Hungary and France. October also saw the first two British Royal Marine Squadrons get ready. They were the British answer to the German Stürmtroops.
November saw three more Salamanders for the AHM and the first days of December three Lexingtons for the US Void Force. With these last reinforcements, the attack on Mars would commence.
The small asteroid Aten was chosen as the mustering location. National contingents would move there and, once assembled, the attack would commence. Ships departed Earth orbit on 9 December, each squadron making their best speed:
Boyevoy Flot reached the asteroid first, being there at 15 December and 07:30 GMT. Sturmflotte of AHM came second, arriving the next day at 04:00. Japanese Standing Fleet got Bronze in this improvised race between nations, arriving around 10:30. A whole day went by until Home Fleet became the fourth to arrive on 18 December at 17:30. American 1st Fleet was the fifth, 19 December at 16:15. Stürmflotilla of Germany was the sixth, arriving just before midnight on the same day. The Force d'Action Navale was seventh, around 20:15 on 20 December. The slowest group was the Italians - Squadrone di battaglia took until 04:45 on 23 December to reach Aten. While would have been embarrassing enough, nobody cared about the Italian speed because the eyes of all contingents were on the Germans. Somehow Berlin had mixed up orders and instead of sending the Hochraumflotte, ie the frigates, they had sent the Stürmflotilla, the assault shuttles. In good Prussian tradition, nobody had questioned these orders. Germans acted quickly to fix the issue but the battle would have to be delayed. Luckily all ships had sufficient supplies on board to be able to wait for three days. While the German frigates had not participated in the race, they showed their superior speed as they pushed their engines hard to reach Aten as quickly as possible. Russians were disappointed to realize that their ships weren't the fastest.
Hostiles detected...
Prepare for termination...
Ready...
After a brief meeting between the eight admirals, a decision was made for all fleets to make for Mars but to stop at 1,000,000 kilometres away and regroup, as the Red Planet was still almost 150 million kilometres away. Once all ships were at that point, they would attack independently as per their own doctrines with the goal of destroying as many Martian orbital forts as possible and then make their way back to Earth.
The tension on the human ships was palpable but the Menace did not react even though they must have been aware of the human ships. While the fleets waited for French and Italian ships to arrive, they had to manoeuvre multiple times to keep at the agreed upon range from Mars.
1915On 1 January, at 09:57 GMT the Squadrone di battaglia arrived at the jump-off point. This signalled the start of the attack. Eight fleets moved forward towards Mars. As if waiting for this, twenty small vessels were launched from the orbital forts and with mind boggling speed of 3866 km/s, they raced towards the human frigates. At 453 tons, they were quite small but everything the Menace did was threatening. A warning ran across the Earthling fleets as they prepared their weapons to meet the incoming Martians.
Situation when the German ships opened fire:
The incoming Martians were headed past the German flotilla so Vizeadmiral Stiller commanded all ships to fire at one Martian vessel - to both see what happens as well as to help out the other fleets. Most shots went wide and the Germans scored only three hits, all of which were stopped by armour. Then the Russians fired, also focusing all weapons on a single Martian vessel. Canoloth 001 was hit only twice but one of the hits penetrated armour and the ship disintegrated. The Japanese fired on Canoloth 005 but the only hit they scored did not penetrate armour. Royal Navy was next, all of their frigates aiming at Canoloth 019 that was heading towards them. HMS Active got the honour of One-Hit, One-Kill. with her BL 9" C2 Carronade. At the same time, Japanese ships bombarded Canoloth 005 and destroyed it. Austrians wrecked Canoloth 017 with multiple volleys of railguns and Russians blew up Canoloth 019. This wasn't a cause for celebration since the Martian vessels turned out to be assault shuttles and most of them had already unloaded their deadly cargo on the hulls of the much slower human ships. The Russian fleet was, for some reason, targeted heavily. Royal Navy was happy - the only shuttle coming at them had been speedily destroyed.
Italians were having their own little engagement:
Next in turn were the French and Italian fleets while the Austro-Hungarians, Russians and Japanese tried to exact revenge on fleeing Martian shuttles. The good news was that the Italians hit Canoloth 002 multiple times and Russians hit Canoloth 010, causing the destruction of both boats. The French struck Canoloth 014 and while the boat did not blow up, its troop compartment was wrecked and sensors recorded Martian murder machines floating harmlessly into the void. The bad news was that 13 human frigates now had boarders on their hulls, busy cutting holes into the armour.
Akatsuki missed Canoloth 018 but Abukuma hit it and the Martian shuttle exploded into little pieces, as did Canoloth 015 when the railguns of SMS Nagelring found their mark. But now 16 frigates had boarders on their hulls. The French scored a single hit on Canoloth 003 and the Germans one as well on Canoloth 007 but without causing any effect. All the shuttles were now streaking towards Mars and their orbital forts. Except for Canoloth 014 that suddenly vented all its fuel into space and thus became an easy target for Aiglé. few seconds later, Caonoloth 004 and 013 were destroyed by Actée and Albatros, respectively. The French killed three of the four shuttles that assaulted them.
Firefights erupted in several Russian frigates as Martian hunter-killer droids broke through airlocks. Not much later, same happened on Japanese, Austrian and French frigates. For some reason, Germans had not been targeted and the British and the Italians had successfully shot down the lonely shuttles approaching them. Assault Drones and Heavy Assault Drones poured inside and reaped the crews like a scythe of death. Every now and then a murder machine would break down under fire but for every little victory, at least twenty crew members were lost, if not more.
At 10:09:15 a life pod shot out of Admiral Kharlamov and the ship self-destructed as the engines were forced to load. Nine survivors out of a crew of 116, led by rear admiral Zory Grigoriev, had made it out of the abattoir.
As the close quarters' battles raged on,
Hochraumflotte was the first to come into contact with Martian shore batteries. At 10:14:25, SMS Augsburg was attacked from an incredible range of 294,625 kilometres by four different weapons, causing significant armour damage but ship remained unharmed as the weapons hit different spots on its hull:
35 seconds later, the shore batteries fired again. Two shots were absorbed by the armour but the other two penetrated causing grievous damage - the ship lots its bridge and secondary laser battery, its reactor went offline, and most of its fuel were vented outside. SMS Augsburg was the command ship of
Hochraumflotte and Vizeadmiral Stiller had barely survived the loss of the bridge. He did not give abandon ship command, knowing that the Martians would fixate on his ship until it was destroyed, giving the other ships more time to reach firing distance.
Admiral Kucherov was the next ship to be abandoned. 11 survivors made it to life pods. Soon after SMS Augsburg received its coup de grace at a distance of 247,375 km. Admiral Stiller and 37 survivors made it to life pods. Worryingly for all humans, the Martian shore batteries damage was increasing as the distance to the Red Planet grew shorter. Unluckily for the Germans, SMS Baden-Württemberg was hit in the same spot multiple times and immediately exploded, though 40 survivors escaped in life pods.
Admiral Tributs was scuttled next, quickly followed by Admiral Levchenko. 13 and 17 survivors, respectively. Hand-to-hand fighting was going poorly in all human ships.
At 10:16:45, at the distance of 200,125 kilometres from Mars, SMS Bayern became the third victim of Martian shore batteries. Hit five times and once again each beam of light was more powerful than they had been previously. Austro-Hungarian SMS San Michele - the only k.u.k Kriegsmarine ship to be boarded - was scuttled at the same time. 11 survivors reached life pods with admiral Teltschik.
Situation at 10:17:00 when the first Orbital Forts joined the battle:
Quite luckily for the Germans, both Baernoloth forts missed with their lasers. Worryingly, where the shore batteries were fixated on a single ship at a time, the orbital forts were clearly aiming at multiple ships simultaneously. The forts kept firing and had firing rate twice as fast as the shore batteries down on the surface but their aim was much worse and they kept missing.
Akatsuki became the first Japanese ship to self-destruct. Katanas could not cut steel, it turns out. Akishimo followed just seconds after. There were only 23 survivors, combined, from the two ships total crew of 226. Adroit was scuttled as well, leaving behind 17 bloodied crew members.
Unlike their brethren in orbit, the Martian shore batteries did not miss. SMS Braunschweig was absolutely gutted at the distance of 152,875 km. And as the range fell to under 150,00 kilometres, the massive Baernoloth class forts sorted their aiming as SMS Scharnhorst was hit and lost an engine. The German frigates only had two engines but Commodore Steinbach stubbornly ordered the ship to keep moving forward.
As the German ships took scorching laser hits, the Japanese scuttled Akagi. Human numerical superiority was melting away under the high-tech Martian defence. As if to underscore this, the shore batteries blasted apart both SMS Scharnhorst and SMS Bremen. Simultaneously, the few surviving spacers of Actée knew they had lost their ship to the Menace and overloaded the engines. Short while later SMS Hessen was badly savaged by laser beams and left floating alone, a burning husk with its crew desperately trying to control the damage. Out of the remaining seven ships, only three were intact, with the other four having had much of their armour blasted away. The crew of Hessen might as well not have bothered as the ship was seared apart by surface batteries, now dealing terrifying amounts of damage. SMS Brommy stood no chance.
Russians had to scuttle two more ships - Admiral Zakharov and Admiral Basisty.
At the distance of 82,000 kilometres, Germans lost SMS Graf Spee and SMS Emden. But they were finally in range, having endured the most terrifying gauntlet to sail through. SMS Gneisenau got two shots off, missed with both and was then torn apart by laser fire from Baernoloth 002. SMS Hipper blew up without getting to fire. SMS Erfurt hit Baernoloth 001, blackening its armour and was then blow up by shore batteries which also finished SMS Hamburg. The entire Hochraumflotte had been wiped out with only a smattering of doomed life pods.
But the German defeat wasn't without its lessons. The Italian commander, Ammiraglio di Divisione Mezzastris, signalled the other fleets and urged them to rendezvous with his ships. Then all human ships could move together in a single group towards Mars. It meant that they would be under fire longer but they would not be taken out in small packets, like the Martians had done to the Germans. The other admirals agreed and ordered their fleets to meet the Italians. During the movement, Aconit had to be scuttled, followed by Admiral Chabanenko and Akebono. Admiral Chabanenko took armour damage from Martian shore batteries, the Russians having strayed bit too close to the Red Planet just before its crew gave up the fight. SMS Blutgang also had its armour scorched and the next salvo took out one of its engines. SMS Nagelring was the next victim of the Martian shore batteries. Austrian ships only had a single engine so losing it meant being dead in Aether. SMS Salamander was struck as well. All three ships were eventually destroyed - the extreme range meant that the Martian weapons did minimal damage and often misssed.
At 10:52 the human fleets had convened together and the Squadrone di battaglia led the charge towards Mars. There were still 56 frigates itching for a fight. Five minutes later, the Martian shore batteries opened up again but this time Lady Fortuna smiled to the humans as the first salvo went wide. Distance to Mars was 309,757 km. Next salvo had one hit - Admiral Panteleyev had her armour blackened but it still held. Every 35 seconds, like a clockwork, the Martian guns fired, fixated on the same ship. Her armour pierced at multiple locations, at 11:01:00 the ship exploded, taking Vitse-admiral Melnikova with her. The next target of Martian was Admiral Spiridonov and the poor ship was wrecked immediately by multiple heavy hits. then Admiral Ushakov was hit, her engines wrecked, followed by Admiral Vinograd. It seemed that the Maritan shore batteries targeted the fastest ships and as soon as their engines were knocked out, they switched targeting. Avtroil followed her sisters into helplessness. Baku was unlucky as the ship was blasted to atoms by several heavy shots. Bditelny suffered the same fate with the next salvo, followed up by Bditelnyy. Her destruction signalled the end of the Russian participation as their remaining frigates were ineffective hulks, their crew trying to restore power to engines.
Austro-Hungarians were next as SMS Eckesachs was pierced by beams of coherent light, exploding into thousand pieces, followed by SMS Mimung and SMS Zulfiqar. SMS Santa Elisabeta was struck by six beams that all penetrated her armour and the frigate was turned into plasma. But now that all human ships were close enough to Mars to be targeted by the shore batteries, admiral Mezzastris signalled the fleets to attack independently using their best speed.
SMS Tizona reached 114,367 kilometres from Mars when it was blown up. SMS Tyrfing made it to 86,287 km. SMS Drache was the next to go, leaving SMS Kaiser as the last k.u.k Kriegsmarine ship to advance. But the shore batteries were merciless and from this distance could not miss. No Austrian ship ever got to fire their rail guns at Martians.
The Baernoloths opened fire on Italian ships and while none were destroyed, Aliseo was seriously damaged. The Japanese Standing Fleet got to 57,757 kilometres from Mars and Abukuma's plasma carronade burned the armour of Baernoloth 001. The return fire from Baernoloth 001 damaged Alessandrio Poerio and Alfredo Oriani but when Baernoloth 002 added its fire, both Aliseo and Alfredo Oriani were destroyed. Akigumo and Akizuki scored hits on Baenroloth 001 in return.
Then the shore batteries fired again and Abukuma was blasted into fragments, killing Kaigun Taisho Hideaki, the Japanese fleet commander. British fleet reached firing distance but their ships mostly missed, scoring only two hits, as did the Americans. Alessadrio Poerio was destroyed and Aldebaran was damaged.
But as the range shortened, the human accuracy improved. More and more plasma slugs and laser beams struck Baernoloth 001. Martians blew up Akigumo and critically damaged Akikaze as well as Alcione. French ships reached maximum range and opened fire as Akizuki exploded and seconds later Akikaze was shattered. The Japanese were the third fleet to be wiped out - fourth if you counted the German solo attack. And Baernoloth 001 showed no signs of actual damage.
Martian lasers shafted Alcione. As the Baernoloths fired upon the Italians, it seemed more and more likely that their fate would the same as Austrians - never getting to firing range of the enemy. To drive home this point, Aldebaran exploded and the Martian surface bloomed as the ground-based lasers struck at HMS Achilles, the hapless frigate immediately destroyed. Alabarda followed suit after ten seconds. Airone was next, followed by HMS Active and Achille Papa and HMS Ajax. HMS Alacrity survived only few seconds longer and five seconds later HMS Amazon was destroyed. To their horror, the humans discovered that Martians had additional ground-based defences: fast firing batteries firing kinetic slugs with a very limited range. Rear-Admiral Jennings desperately ordered his frigates to turn and retreat but that took time and meanwhile HMS Ambuscade was turned into Swiss cheese. The Italian fleet had been wiped out and the British one would not survive much longer.
The orbital forts switched fire to the American fleet and USS Abel P Upshur was their first victim, soon followed by USS Abbot and USS Aaron Ward. The ground batteries destroyed HMS Andromeda. The Americans realized what was happening to the British and followed their example but not quick enough for USS Lexington. At the same time, one of the sensors on Baernoloth 001 turned off. This was proof that their sacrifices were not in vain - the orbital forts could be hurt!
The cost was high and getting higher as USS Albert W Grant blew up, taking Reard-Admiral (lower half) Witt with her. Now both Anglo-American fleets were sitting at 31,000 kilometres from Mars, pouring fire on the orbital fort while getting hammered in turn. HMS Antelope got cut in half by lasers. They were joined by the remaining three French frigates even as USS Alden and USS Agerholm turned into burning wrecks. As more and more shots were clearly penetrating the torn armour of Baernoloth 001, the forts exacted revenge on USS Abner Read. Ground batteries took out HMS Antrim. Baernoloth 002 had no problems in shooting up USS Adams but at the same time, Alcyon's particle beams found something fragile inside Baernoloth 001 and the orbital fortress exploded into massive chunks.
The remaining British and French captains knew that there was no escaping the Martian shore batteries so they instead switched targets to Baernoloth 002, the other orbital fortress. Before they could fire again, Aigle was destroyed by the fort while shore batteries killed HMS Apollo. Particle beams and plasma carronades struck Baernoloth, gouging its armour but Albatros was struck repeatedly and blown apart. While her weapons were recharging, HMS Ardent was taken out from the surface. Alcyon miraculously survive three hits before the fourth blew her up. This left only British ships in the fight. HMS Arethusa was the first to go, followed quickly by HMS Argonaut. The last two ships both got a hit in before they in turn were destroyed. Then the Martian shore batteries finished the damaged Russian frigates. By 11:24:00 it was all over, the human attack on Mars had failed.
Flags were lowered and church bells rung as the people across Earth mourned.
(There will be a separate post for actual 1915 update as this all happened on 1 January and the battle took two days to play so I need a little break before continuing.)
