The scheming, the planning and the preparation: 1905 - 19061905The Berlin Space Conference of 1905 saw representatives of all the powers of the Grand Alliance meet in preparation for what was already dubbed the "second contact". The argument was the same old: whether the Alliance should proceed with what ships they had at hand or whether they should wait until all members had corvettes ready. Unsurprisingly, the countries without ships advocated waiting while countries with ships were keen to get a move on. Both factions feared the same thing: the collapse of the Grand Alliance, which would lead to the return of human conflict, and thus another chance for the Martian Menace to prevail. The haste faction believed that the longer the humans waited, the higher the chance of a fracture, whereas the slow faction believed that acting unilaterally would cause such a fracture for certain. The problem wasn't helped that several powers were still (or again) in debt.
Wealth situation in January 1905:
- 5,928 British Empire
- 2,923 Austro-Hungarian Monarchy
- 2,512 République francaise
- 1,559 United States of America
- 1,426 The Rim Pact
- -55 Deutsches Kaiserreich
- -72 Iberian Union
- -89 Dai Nippon Teikoku
- -228 Regno d'Italia
- -541 Rossiyskaya Imperiya
The conference ended inconclusive, with a statement that the powers would meet again in July in London. Soon after, La Royale welcomed their first corvette
Dunkerque. With four gauss cannons with unparalleled rate of fire, it's firepower was tremendous albeit extremely short-ranged.
Late in the month, British scientists made a new active sensor that increased the sight range from 17.5 mkm to 31.4 mkm with a resolution of 100. This would catch all known Martian classes. Royal Navy wasn't going to accept the current three classes to be expanded into six, so instead a new class was created - Vanguard - that was quite a bit larger than the previous ones:
Vanguard class Corvette 1,999 tons 54 Crew 107.2 BP TCS 40 TH 21 EM 0
520 km/s Armour 1-14 Shields 0-0 HTK 14 Sensors 0/0/0/0 DCR 0 PPV 8
Maint Life 1.03 Years MSP 8 AFR 128% IFR 1.8% 1YR 8 5YR 113 Max Repair 24 MSP
Commander Control Rating 1 BRG
Intended Deployment Time: 9 days Morale Check Required
Whitehouse-Lambert Conventional Engine EP5.20 (4) Power 20.8 Fuel Use 124.81% Signature 5.2 Explosion 10%
Fuel Capacity 10,000 Litres Range 0.7 billion km (16 days at full power)
Foster-Burton 15 cm C2 Plasma Carronade (2) Range 60,000km TS: 2,000 km/s Power 6-2 RM 10,000 km ROF 15
Tyler-Hussain Beam Fire Control R60-TS625 (1) Max Range: 60,000 km TS: 625 km/s 13 10 8 5 3 0 0 0 0 0
Bryant-Green Pressurised Water Reactor R2-PB10 (2) Total Power Output 4 Exp 7%
Fletcher Electronics Active Search Sensor AS31-R100 (1) GPS 2400 Range 31.4m km Resolution 100
This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
Carrying two 15 cm Carronades, the improved active sensor, and four engines, Vanguard-class could outsee, outrun and outshoot any of the Tribal variants. However, to be able to fix all of that inside a hull of 2,000 tons, crew amenities were at a minimum as was maintenance and fuel storage. Carpenter & Brother started immediate re-tooling.
Due to this change in shipbuilding, Royal Navy re-organized itself. A new admin command was created to manage the corvettes, named Corvette Command. Under it, the corvettes were organized in four squadrons: First for Tribal 25s, Second for Tribal 20s, Third for Tribal 15s, and Fourth for Vanguards.
In February, three more Azov-class corvettes joined the CMF.
As May saw the completion of two more Kaiserin Augusta "12"-class corvettes, Kaiserliche Raummarine saw it prudent to organize better for the coming battles. The Germans saw no need for another layer of administrative command at this point. Instead, they grouped all their corvettes together into the Hochraumflotte, though as there were now three different speeds among the classes in use, the Flotte was sub-divided into four squadrons. I and II Geschwader would each have six Kaiserin August "12"-classes while III Geschwader had six Kaiserin August "10"-class ships and the IV Geschwader had the five older Blucher-class ships.
May also saw the opening of Kirby Shipyard Incorporated, a commercial yard that was owned by the Kirby conglomerate but was operating solely on government contracts, though it was tacitly assumed that when it wasn't building commercial designs for the Crown, it would build civilian ships for private use, even if such ideas seemed far fetched with the Martian Menace right next door. Hankel was expanded to 3,000 tons and the Germans interrupted the construction of new corvettes. They already struggled to maintain the ship they had and with the new capability, engineers and shipwrights were eager to experiment with frigate sized hulls. To save money, the shipyard was ordered to stay idle for now.
The London Space Conference of 1905 took place in the last days of July. Nine participants were ready to butt heads over the same issue as before but one had a novel proposition that changed the strategic picture. The Rim Pact scientists had figured out a way to emplace a void weapon on Earth and make it work. RIM called it the "Baldr Kanon" or the Baldur Cannon. Utilizing a Particle Beam, it could hit ships up to 60,000 kilometres from Earth. Best of all, all countries could design and build their own versions. With this new avenue of attack, a general plan was agreed upon:
1. Grand Alliance members would build such Surface-To-Orbit weapons as they could manage in as high numbers as possible until the end of 1906.
2. Grand Alliance members would continue to build up their fleets until the end of 1906.
3. Operation Bait would commence in January 1907.
Operation Bait itself was simple: the human ships would advance towards Mars until they provoked a reaction from the Menace Void Ships. They would then turn around and flee to Earth, luring the Martian vessels into the range of human ground artillery. Then the surviving corvettes would counter-attack. Between the hammer and the anvil, the Menace would be destroyed and the invasion of Mars could begin.
The moment the conference ended, design work began in nine capitals. The Germans came up with the "12 cm leichte Raumkanone 05 C2", the British with the "9in Star Cannon Mk.1", the A-H with the "10 cm Erdenkanone R-10", the French with the "Petit Paris Cracheuse", the Russians with the "120mm Kosmischeskaya pushka R-15", the Americans with the "M100 Space Howitzer", the Italians with the "L10/1 Kanone il Vuoto", the Japanese with the "Type 1 Ame-no-Murakumo", and the Iberians hadn't researched any naval weapons yet, leaving them to scramble to catch up with the others.
In September the Americans got their first ship as
USS Abercrombie floated off its slipway.
By December, the German commercial yard, Mayo Manufacturing, was completed.
1906January saw the British refocus their research. Royal Society had determined that there was plenty of improvement possible across the British industrial sector. New techniques and technologies across the board would result in noticeable gains in shipbuilding, shipyard operations, construction, mining, refining, supplies, maintaining, research, and even wealth. This was made possible thanks to the Royal Navy being content that their future frigate would basically just be a larger version of the Vanguard-class. The Agincourt-class, clocking in at exactly 3,000 tons, had more of everything compared to the Vanguard but brought no new technologies to the battlefield.
Agincourt class Frigate 3,000 tons 87 Crew 149.7 BP TCS 60 TH 21 EM 0
346 km/s Armour 1-18 Shields 0-0 HTK 26 Sensors 0/0/0/0 DCR 0 PPV 24
Maint Life 1.20 Years MSP 15 AFR 144% IFR 2.0% 1YR 11 5YR 160 Max Repair 24 MSP
Commander Control Rating 1 BRG
Intended Deployment Time: 1 months Morale Check Required
Whitehouse-Lambert Conventional Engine EP5.20 (4) Power 20.8 Fuel Use 124.81% Signature 5.2 Explosion 10%
Fuel Capacity 51,000 Litres Range 2.4 billion km (81 days at full power)
Foster-Burton 25 cm C2 Plasma Carronade (3) Range 60,000km TS: 2,000 km/s Power 16-2 RM 10,000 km ROF 40
Tyler-Hussain Beam Fire Control R60-TS625 (1) Max Range: 60,000 km TS: 625 km/s 13 10 8 5 3 0 0 0 0 0
Bryant-Green Pressurised Water Reactor R6-PB10 (1) Total Power Output 6 Exp 7%
Fletcher Electronics Active Search Sensor AS31-R100 (1) GPS 2400 Range 31.4m km Resolution 100
This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
In February, the last 3 Azov-class corvettes joined the CMF, which now had 4 squadrons ready for battle, three made up of six Azovs each, and a reserve squadron with the older Krivak-class. Since the Russian budget was still heavily in debt, the Tsar had to pause shipbuilding at least temporarily. Italy had to follow suit after
Alabarda and
Alcione were completed near the end of the month. Americans happily kept building more corvettes after
USS Ahrens was done, as did French once
Actée floated off.
April brought a puzzle to those human powers with DSTS capability. One of the Martian Menace frigates, Dergholoth 005, that had been tracked based on its active sensor output, vanished off the scopes. Later, astronomers confirmed that one of the smaller objects in Martian orbit was no longer keeping station with the other vessels but was almost appearing to be a derelict or a wreck. It took weeks of detective work but eventually, the scientists figured it out: ever since the First Contact, the Menace vessels had communicated with Martian surface and humans had been able to intercept some of those messages. Whatever stasis mode had kept them preserved for untold millennia was no longer possible due to human presence. Martian surface had only occasionally communicated to the ships. Some sort of deterioration process was ongoing and might, given enough time, to completely destroy the Martian space capability. The generals and admirals refused to cancel Operation Bait. There was no evidence that the Menace could not, again given enough time, to halt or even reverse this decay. It might even be able to deploy new vessels. So humans had to push ahead while this weakness was present.
The presence of the Martian wreck - if it indeed was a derelict - combined with the human wrecks between Earth and Mars orbits, gave the idea of salvage operations to several of Earth's powers that added such capabilities to their research plans.
In October, Japan became a space power as its naval shipyard opened.
The situation of Earth at the end of the year:
