The Battle of the Fuchs Sea
Despite the SENSE naval disaster at the Prussian Straits, cutting
off supply lines for the SENSE troops in Prussia, things went much
better for them at the Sea of Fuchs, with the massive Prussian 1st
Heavy Fleet engaging the Xing Shiana Navy (XSN) Task Force Tyrant
King guarding the convoy lines for the Sea of Fuchs.
It was the first time in regional history that a 21st century
information-warfare naval fleet engaged a conventional surface
fleet, with numerous aegis cruisers, destroyers, frigates and heavy
cruisers and several Virginia class SSNs on the Prussian side
versus the XSN task force half its size, consisting mainly of
advanced Alberto-class stealth frigates, Tom Holtz destroyers, two
Trex Osborn-class carriers and three Imperator arsenal ships, with
a screen of five Alabaster class SSNs as submarine support.
The battle showed quite clearly the superiority of the form of 21st
century warfare over conventional forces. Due to the vastly
increased intelligence and situational awareness awarded by the
eint network, every move the Prussian fleet made could be analysed
and countered long before they even showed up on radar, and even
longer before the Prussians knew what was before them. The
fiendishly low radar, infrared and sonar signatures of the angular
XNS ships also greatly diminished the little forward warning the
Prussians had. The Prussians knew the task force was somewhere out
there, but were groping around in the dark trying to locate their
elusive prey, which the XNS already had its eye on the jugular of
their tiger opponent.
The first indication of enemy presence the Prussian 1st Heavy Fleet
had was when ADCAP-D Torpedoes from the XNS Alabasters came upon
the Prussian Virginia SSNs, who despite there own advance-ness were
badly outclassed by the XNS advanced submarines, their stealth and
sonar outfits outclassed, their own ADCAP torpedoes outranged over
two times by the Xing Shianan weapons, launched from the
ultra-stealthy Alabasters from long range. The Prussian return
snapshots all fell short, the Xing Shianan torpedos found their
mark, sending four Virginias to the bottom with all hands and
damaging two. Effectively eliminating the Prussian submarine force
in the area in just twenty-five minutes. And all this was the work
of any one Xing Shianan sub, the XSS Alabaster, registry number
NCC-1701. Slipping through the gap created by the sudden removal of
the Prussian submarines, another Alabaster SSN, the XSS Bethlehem,
scored a bonus for the XSN by taking out an Aegis cruiser with an
extremely long range shot with a ADCAP-D.
XSN carrier airpower followed, blasting out of the sky with heavy
jamming support from EW JSFs. The stealthy X-35s JSF and XF-35
Bobcats, utilizing the electronic chaos created by their EW
supports to the maximum, dodging the confused aegis SM-2s fired
blind from the remaining aegis cruisers and splitting the sky above
the Prussian fleet with into a pyrotechnic display of advanced
anti-ship munitions and stealthy smart bombs, of which sheer number
overwhelmed the automated, but one-generation-behind defences.
Desperate Prussian anti aircraft fire filled the sky with a
spectacular display of tracers and exploding radar fused rounds,
dashing two JSFs and a Bobcat to the sea, but the damage they had
taken was far worse then they had given, one heavy cruiser lay
wreathed in smoke and fire from aft to stern, while several smaller
ships had been either destroyed outright by the attack or were
badly damaged. Another aegis cruiser had been damaged, while
another had expended its magazines futilely in a mad rush to stop
the XSN airpower. That left the Prussian Aegis cruiser capacity at
three and a half ships, down from their original five.
And then things got worse, barely had the air attack departed when
the advanced cruise missiles launched from the XSN arsenal ships
arrive en masse. Naval warfare had never seen anything quite like
it before; the cruise missiles consisted of two types, and were a
defence nightmare, one type was stealthy, small, fast, nimble and
flying unpredictable paths before homing in onto their terminal
patterns, firing their final stage rocket motors to accelerate them
to incredible velocities, punching through the hulls the Prussian
ships with sheer velocity and a tungsten shaped nosecone before
exploding their small warheads within.
The other type was larger, slower and more reminiscent of
conventional cruise missiles, some flying in to dump smart sub
munitions where were essentially mini smart bomblets to detonate on
the fragile radar masts and other vulnerable exposed systems.
Others carried full warheads which they crashed kamikaze-style into
their targets. Worse, others were simply drones that carried
extensive jamming equipment, dumped chaff and flares, and employed
used radar reflectors that were so strong that they blinded what
Prussians radars that were trying desperately to make some sense of
the confusing picture from the overwhelming assaults. The air
defences of the fleet fired and fired away until they either ran
out of ammunition or overheated and destroyed their barrels from
the constant firing. They stopped some, but not anywhere near
enough to take serious damage. Over five thousand warheads rained
down on the Prussian fleet in a short space of ten minutes.
Left with just twenty five percent of his ships functional, with
all damaged to some extent, the Prussian admiral, in his disabled
and rapidly sinking heavy cruiser, ordered every antiship missile
fired off in the general direction of the Xing Shiana fleet off
whatever platforms that were still working in the decimated fleet.
Eighty missiles lifted off from the Prussian fleet in the general
direction of the XSN task force. The seeking missiles found nothing
on their onboard sensors, ran out of fuel, and fell into the sea,
far short of their targets.
Undeterred, the last thing the Prussian admiral did before going
down with his flagship was to order the surviving ships onward at
flank speed in the direction of the XNS task force (based on
outdated intelligence, their actual foe being more then 50 nautical
miles away from their supposed location.). And to engage the XNS
fleet the old fashioned way with their guns if need be.
It never came to pass, now with their Aegis cover destroyed and
their sensors more or less disabled, the survivors of the Prussian
fleet steamed at full throttle on their erroneous bearing to do
their final battle. They didnt get far, sailing into a death trap
of torpedoes and missiles. In just two hours, the Prussian 1st
Heavy Fleet, seventy-eight ships crewed by 15,120 Prussian sailors,
ceased to exist. The 8,200-odd Prussians who survived the
annihilation of their fleet clung on through the night in the warm
tropical waters to their life rafts and life preservers while the
sharks picked away at their number. By daybreak, when the decimated
SENSE fleet steaming in full from the defeated at the Prussian Gulf
to regroup in the Sea of Fuchs, passed the area, there were only
about 3,100 survivors left to pick up. Seventy-six ships destroyed
and over twelve thousand lives lost in the brief naval battle that
left only two damaged submarines (one of which would be written off
in dry dock due to unsalvageable structural damage) to limp home to
tell of the disaster, which like the Battle of Midway, would be
hushed up and with the Great Leader being told of a great victory
at sea instead. All the XSN lost in that battle was three planes
along with their aircrews. All thirty-five XSN ships in the task
force emerged unscathed, the closest enemy fire having landed being
50 nautical miles away.
But the Prussians had not given their lives away completely in
vain, for the naval mismatch ultimately ended up tying down the XSN
task force in battle, while a Prussian invasion force snuck on
behind in a daring bid to land troops on the western back door of
440mhz. Arsenal ships and XAF airpower pounded the force, and
destroyed the single Aegis cruiser defending the invasion force.
But they were moving out of reach and it was too late. Despite
inflicting terrible casualties on the landing Prussians, they
managed to struggle on land in significant numbers. The invasion
fleet was utterly destroyed shortly after, as they attempted to
return to Prussia, costing 6,000 more Prussian lives. But their
mission had been completed.
The sakes in the Malayan campaign had just grown higher, Prussian
forces, on limited supplies and ammo had landed on 440mhzs back
door. Unless SENSE finds some way of responding quickly, they would
face the loss of 440mhz, their staging grounds, and along with it
the whole of Malaya.
