edit: That said, Dunne is about to solve the fleet's maintenance issue. I hope getting the Crown Prince killed doesn't throw the Kingdom into succession turmoil.

This will be complete destruction of Manticoran Expeditionary Force most likely. I wonder how this will affect the government. It was after all Countess New Dijon, who overruled First Space Lord.

Hot damn dude, half of the thread length is this naval conference! That's amazing 🤩

Anyway, sorry for not commenting earlier, always something came in the way of reading this thread. But you've really spun a lovely story here so congratulations and I'm eagerly looking forward for.the next installment.

Fortunately the British Imperial Space Inch is much larger than it's terrestrial counterpart, the reformation of the unit system was quite radical and perhaps not entirely thought through. But it is traditional now so the Empire sticks with it.

Much like the British Imperial Space Ton, or the British Imperial Space Btu. Actually, given the identity of the game's developer this makes a lot of sense...

Such static defences would be quite counter to the spirit of naval doctrine. It's not quite The Legions "Fly me closer so I can shoot them in the face" but it is in a similar vein.

Faces are for infliction upon of violence, if this were not true why would politicians have two?

Chapter Five: Kingdom Under Siege (1589-1590)

29 May 1589

HMS Casey and her division mate HMS Locatelli had been at Readiness Two, with their weapons charged, nodes hot, and all stations manned for over ten months. This had put an immense strain on their hardware and personnel. In the beginning, no one begrudged the grueling duty schedules or increased maintenance requirements because every spacer knew they were the Star Kingdom’s first line of defense. Now, they were utterly exhausted and ready to rotate home for some well-deserved rest and recreation.

Any other crew would have gotten sloppy. Fatigued people often cut corners or lapsed in vigilance through no fault of their own. But Commander Nikos Franklin ran the tightest ship in the RMN. Where his peers considered assignment to an aging light cruiser undesirable, he felt only tremendous pride. HMS Casey was the service’s most decorated command, with a rich storied past and unmatched battle honors. He believed living up to that legend was his duty and expected nothing less than perfection.

Some officers can attain such performance through sheer charisma, instilling a sense of comaraderie and loyalty that inspires their subordinates to go above and beyond. Commander Franklin was not one of those. Everyone on his ship despised him. They knew their CO might appear anywhere, anytime, seemingly materializing out of thin air to peer over their shoulders and offer unsolicited feedback or criticism. He never stopped talking about the important mission, or forcing them to run rigorous daily combat drills, as if there wasn’t enough work. Phrases like “meddling busybody”, or even less charitably, “slave driver” were applied liberally outside his hearing.

But when seven alien LACs shot out of the wormhole, not a single member of the bridge crew was slacking.

ONI’s analysis showed they got off a missile launch in under five seconds. A remarkable feat for a Navy with so little actual combat experience. Tarnished somewhat by the fact that nine of the twelve missiles missed. Through no fault of the junior officer who fired, ONI hastened to add, because the aliens’ speed and electronic countermeasures rendered the Mark 4A Light Missile only 40% effective under idea circumstances, which these were assuredly not.

Both light cruisers unleashed their beam armaments on full rapid-fire, cycling as fast as their capacitors could recharge. Energy torpedoes tore gaping wounds in the enemies’ flanks, lasers stabbed through their armor, and then autocannon switched to offensive mode hammered the gaps. The LACs turned to run, but the Manticoran vessels charged after them, spitting death, and one by one the alien craft died under heavy bombardment. The enemy, their sensors confused by the wormhole transit, hadn’t fired a shot.



Careful analysis of the debris uncovered a shocking truth. The LACs weren’t ships at all. They were living organisms, space going creatures capable of traveling through wormholes. The Star Kingdom’s scientific community, staggered by the implications, would debate them for years to come. Meanwhile, ONI wondered what had happened to the horrifying humanoid monsters who boarded Wayfarer and slaughtered her crew.

The scouts’ arrival ended the era of uncertainty at the Admiralty. The RMN trained to defend the home system and the strategic situation, limited to one wormhole terminus, was simple enough. Mere hours after the incursion, they dispatched CruDiv 2, the heavy cruisers HMS Kodiak and HMS Hexapuma, reinforced by the older energy armed cruiser HMS Gryphon, to join the Hennesy picket. By seniority, this placed Captain Pryce Dunne in overall command.

Concern that the invaders might discover an alternate, unknown route between Aral and the other wormhole chains meant parceling out frigates to monitor those termini as well. Between accompanying survey squadrons, escorting convoys, picketing various wormholes and defending colonies, the RMN’s light units were stretched thin, and some had already gone dangerously long without overhauling. The Admiralty was juggling deployments as best it could, but the situation was unsustainable.

In response, BuShips developed the Mark 1 Gravitic Detection Buoy and Active Sensor Buoy 4R14, stationary drones with almost unlimited endurance that could be launched from standard Mod 4 missile tubes. HMS Galactica filled her magazines with probes and set out to deploy them at each of the Wormhole Junction termini. If the program proved successful, the Admiralty intended to extend coverage to other systems.



Two months after the initial incursion, seven more LAC sized aliens appeared. This time, their translation vector put them squarely under the guns of CruDiv 2. The heavy cruisers were slower off the mark but just as effective. This time the battle lasted forty-five seconds, and the Manticoran ships again received no damage. The Kodiaks’ outstanding performance boded well for the Mercury-class destroyers.

First Space Lord Summervale waited for the other shoe to drop, and it happened on August 12th, when HMS Kodiak detected two creatures emerging from the wormhole. Not LACs this time. Her active sensors pegged them at 9300 and 22500 tons hydrogen displacement. The larger beast was even bigger than the Manticoran heavy cruisers, though CruDiv 2 enjoyed a 5:3 advantage in tonnage. Still, it was the RMN’s first proper battle in fifty years.

Captain Dunne brought his ships to action stations, and all three opened fire. Unlike in previous encounters, these intruders recovered rapidly from the transit effect and started shooting back. ONI later concluded the creatures spat, farted, or otherwise emitted globules of a greenish substance that could burn through duranium at a hundred thousand kilometers. Really, this was no more unlikely than cruiser sized aliens living in vacuum. However, it would spark an intense debate in military and academic circles about how and why such an extreme defense mechanism might have evolved. That question would haunt xenobiologists’ imaginations for decades.

At the moment, the strange green goo splattered across HMS Gryphon, striking at least sixteen times and dropping her armor to 90%. In response, the heavy cruiser savaged the smaller alien with a vicious salvo of energy torpedoes that ripped it apart. The larger one, caught under the combined firepower of HMS Kodiak and HMS Hexapuma, soon followed it to the grave.

This decisive victory catapulted Pryce Dunne to celebrity status overnight. The Liberal government needed to show the public that their tough stance on military spending hadn’t harmed the Navy’s ability to defend the Kingdom. A rakish aristocrat wasn’t their first choice for a hero, but they couldn’t pass up a good publicity campaign when one dropped into their lap. It didn’t hurt that his face was straight out of a recruiting poster.

In the battle’s aftermath, Captain Dunne received the Order of Gallantry, a promotion to Commodore, and command of the entire Junction Fleet, including the wormhole tenders, support vessels, their escorts, picket ships, and any theoretical future bases. In reality, it amounted to a couple cruiser divisions, but to him it seemed better than being appointed CO of Home Fleet. The action happened out there.

Research projects continued to deliver results in rapid succession: Maintenance Modules, Research Rate 240 RP, Maximum Engine Power x2.5, Terraforming Modules, Fusion Boosted Warheads, 20cm Plasma Carronades, Magnetic Mirror Fusion Reactors and Max Tracking Time for Bonus vs Missiles: 30 Seconds were all developed during this period. The propulsion division at BuShips switched gears to work on wormhole transit devices.

Proposals for a new missile series incorporating the upgraded engine and warhead technology floated around the Admiralty, but gallicite was still in short supply. They deemed present stockpiles sufficient, since the RMN hadn’t fired many missiles yet. Mass production and deployment could wait for mining to ramp up in Basilisk.

Commodore Dunne’s mettle was tested again in October 1589 when another heavy cruiser sized alien arrived. For the moment, he retained direct command of HMS Kodiak. She and her consorts in CruDiv 2 engaged and destroyed the intruder without incident.

Late that year, four Mercury-class destroyers—Mercury, Venus, Terra, and Mars—completed their builder’s trials and set out to relieve the heavy cruisers. Since the defenses seemed to be holding, Parliament declined to fund a second flight. The new ships proved their worth almost immediately by destroying a pair of cruiser sized adversaries.

The incursions’ increasing frequency suggested the aliens had now taken full control of the wormhole chain beyond Hennesy. One faction in ONI argued the creatures lacked intelligence and were just migrating. This explained why they kept lumbering into the Navy’s guns and hadn’t attacked in force.

The Royal Manticoran Marine Corps demonstrated a modified reconnaissance drone capable of scanning planetary surfaces for hidden mineral deposits. They began training specialized Survey Companies intending to deploy them throughout the system late next year. The Marines also launched another pair of transports: Ancona and Asiago. This gave them six such vessels with a combined capacity of 150,000 tons. They decided not to build more Anzio-class ships for now.

The civilian yards continued to churn out freighters, completing two Vegas and three Clydesdales this year. These brought the total up to eight of the larger Vega-class, capable of moving 500,000 tons but limited to operations in the Manticore system, and sixteen smaller Clydesdale-class, with a capacity of 400,000 tons. The Royal Merchant Marine also had four Orpheus-class colony ships which could carry 400,000 passengers. These were ferrying people to Medusa.

In June, the reconstituted 1st Survey Squadron made up of the survey cruisers HMS Explorer and HMS Pioneer, accompanied by the frigates HMS Amphitrite and HMS Antheia, set out to finish the geological survey in Reevesport and probe the wormholes there. They found large, high accessibility deposits of Neutronium, Corbomite, and Corundium on the third planet. The system also had several promising comets. Next, they transited into a system called Poicters, which had seven planets, eighty-two moons and over two hundred asteroids. The second world had water and a nitrogen atmosphere with trace amounts of oxygen.

It had now been seven months since the last attack. ONI wanted to send a frigate to check if the aliens had moved on. The animal migration theory had gained a lot of traction and if the creatures weren’t intelligent, they wouldn’t have posted guards. The First Space Lord reminded them that something had boarded Wayfarer and killed her crew.

Finally, the Admiralty decided on a course of action. HMS Gryphon was due to rotate back to the Hennesy terminus in August. First, she would go to Sphinx, detach her marine assault pinnace, and take two Mark 1 Wormhole Probes into her boat bay for transport. This new shuttle sized drone had enough conventional thrust to hurl itself through an open wormhole.



Although the strategic situation hadn’t changed, dispatch boats would be ready soon and BuShips expected to have HMS Swiftsure converted next year. The Admiralty decided it was time to reconnoiter the Hennesy system, determine if the aliens were still present, and attempt to establish a beachhead for future operations. All six light cruisers had just completed overhauls, so orders were dispatched sending them to the terminus, along with a destroyer escort division, and HMS Trailblazer to provide transit.

On October 14th, HMS Trailblazer sent the first probe into Hennesy. It broadcast back active sensor recordings for several seconds before disintegrating in a cloud of corrosive spit. Obviously, the creatures were smart enough to guard the wormhole after all. ONI spent several hours trying to make sense of the brief jumbled data. In the end, they determined that forty-five of the LAC sized aliens waited almost on top of the terminus. They identified three unique subspecies, all of which had been seen before. During the original Wayfarer analysis, ONI labeled each enemy ship class after a city from Old Earth’s Australia continent and this convention stuck so their final report stated the OpForce included 30 Brisbanes, 11 Adelaides and 4 Melbournes. 

The First Space Lord was content to settle back into a defensive posture. Commodore Dunne was not. The Admiralty had tasked him with leading the expeditionary force and he had planned to transfer his flag to HMS Donnelly, still commanded by Crown Prince Michael. Having the future King of Manticore as flag captain while he led the Kingdom to a glorious victory over the alien menace could only be good for his career. He refused to abandon the operation when faced with a few mere animals.

The Commodore called his staff and captains to a meeting aboard HMS Kodiak to discuss the issue. Together, the forty-five aliens totalled only 31500 tons. They would enjoy the advantage of the wormhole transit, which Manticore had used to devastating effect. It would scramble his force’s sensors for critical minutes, during which the beasts would be free to ravage his ships. But he had over four times their displacement. True, the Donnellys hardly counted, since their only short-range weapons were a few autocannon, but they would add to the confusion.

To his credit, no Manticoran had ever assaulted a wormhole. No human anywhere had. The Naval Academy didn’t have training for this. There were no established doctrine or rules to follow. He would write the book. The staff estimated they would lose several ships in those critical first minutes, but enough should survive to finish the job. Losing ships would be a tremendous blow to the Navy, but since Wayfarer’s crew, the aliens had killed no one in the fighting. Most captains agreed a few casualties would help solidify the public’s opinion of the RMN as valiant defenders of the Kingdom. Noone expected *their* ship would be among those destroyed.

In the end, the tactic that developed was slightly more complicated than crash translating everything into Hennesy and hoping for the best. HMS Trailblazer’s wormhole transit device could drop three ships about fifty thousand kilometers from the terminus. One of those would have to be Trailblazer herself, whose low speed of 3200 km/s and complete lack of armor made her a significant liability, since they would be well within range of the alien’s spit weapon. That couldn’t be helped. HMS Trailblazer’s CO, as a mere Lieutenant Commander, wasn’t invited to the meeting and therefore had no say in this plan.

Commander Nikos Franklin settled the question of which ships should make up the vanguard by volunteering HMS Casey. It was only proper for his historic ship to lead the charge. As it had the heaviest armor and energy weapons, the other Captains agreed. CruDiv 5 would accompany HMS Trailblazer into Hennesy and move away from the terminus. With luck, the aliens would pursue. Then, the expeditionary force could drop in behind them.

With this decided, Commodore Dunne adjourned the meeting, had his chief of staff dispatch orders for HMS Pathfinder to join the fleet, and wrote up a hasty proposal to send to the Admiralty.

The First Space Lord rejected the plan outright, calling it absurd and reckless. However, Defense Minister New Dijon had become enamored with Commodore Dunne’s recent wave of successes and overruled him. The operation would go forward as planned at the Commodore’s discretion.

The Junction Fleet - October 1590

CruDiv 1: HMS Manticore, HMS Gryphon (Hennesy wormhole terminus)

CruDiv 2: HMS Kodiak, HMS Hexapuma (Hennesy wormhole terminus)

CruDiv 4: HMS Condor Owl, HMS Peak Bear (Basilisk wormhole terminus)

Transit Tenders:  RMAS Arrowhead, RMAS Alyssum, HMS Pathfinder (Basilisk wormhole terminus)

Expeditionary Force - October 1590

CruRon 2 (Light) - HMS Casey, HMS Locatelli, HMS Donnelly, HMS Heissman, HMS Marcello, HMS Shapira

DesDiv 6 (Escort) - HMS Honourable, HMS Galahad, HMS Gargoyle, HMS Grizzly

DesDiv 7 (Beam) - HMS Mercury, HMS Venus, HMS Terra, HMS Mars

FrigDiv 1.2 - HMS Akheron, HMS Amymone

Attached Survey Cruiser: HMS Trailblazer.

Total Tonnage: 129,300 tons

It returns in the least surprising long delay followed by an unsolicited update in the history of this forum, as is traditional.

Chapter 4 - When is a Frigate not a Corvette?

If the Dreadnoughts are the avatars of the ideals of Empire, then frigates are the embodiment of the practical gritty realities.

Clearly the ideals of the Empire are centered on silly turret designs, ugly superstructures, and and mercurial admirals who grant +300% construction rate through sheer force of will.

Controversially the main armament being fifty Hawker 5" 'light torpedo' tubes externally mounted around the hull.

Much of the controversy is due to the rather hilarious sight of 2.5-ton torpedoes which are only 5" in diameter but several dozen meters in length, giving the Leanders rather the appearance of an ammunition belt wrapped around a frigate hull.

Though in fairness some of that was an expectation of another failure and great scandal.

Naturally.

the most interesting of these alternatives was the Castle class. The design was another attempt to answer the same question but one which resulted in a quite wildly different outcome.

Despite the name, and the above-mentioned considerations regarding STOs and planetary defense, curiously this was not a design for a heavily fortified orbital platform in which an old-money nobleman would ensconce himself in the face of the alien menace.

Castle Mk.I class Corvette
[...]
Brown Curtis Gorgon Mk.I SFR-B 25MW (1)     Total Power Output 25 kBTU/s    Exp 10%

I note approvingly that the confusion about proper Imperial units for things has reached new heights in this promising future you write of.

There were many productive meetings and discussions about what classification to give these new ships, not productive in the sense there was any useful output but in the sense that it kept the people involved safely distracted and unable to ruin anything else.

The absolute best and most critical to society sort of production.

Considering the what-ifs is a challenge here, because the frigates that were built very rarely fired a shot in anger themselves. In the guard ship role or distant picket mission the design would doubtless have performed well, because such missions were about presence more than capability.

NPR fleet doctrine in a nutshell.

The Raj

Truly, some things never change no matter how alternate the history...

Aside, I begin to suspect that this AAR is actually being cobbled together from multiple campaigns, with a prodigious application of timey-wimey-flavo(u)red Handwavium used to disguise the joins. Such an approach would not only explain the sporadic nature of the work, not that such ever requires an explanation, but also would allow the author to stealthily partake of the latest updates with no great loss to the work itself.