Post by Bullethead on Sept 5, 2016 18:50:52 GMT -6
NOTE: The author was a bit tipsy when all this happened, and that was a couple days ago, so there are no doubt quite a few inaccuracies in the details (such as number of ships and their deployments), but the gist of the story is true.
Setting: US, Historical Resources, Very Large Fleets, Varied Tech, Admiral difficulty
Protagonist: Admiral Jebediah Bullethaulsey, Esq. 2nd son of a wealthy industrial family. He passed the bar before entering the navy, has an insatiable lust for prestige and spends his time on the inactive list being a state senator. This means I'm playing the game with much more of a tendency to make choices that give me prestige than when I played the Italians, regardless of whether that's actually a good idea on the big picture.
Ship Naming Conventions:
The Legacy Fleet:
Pretty pictures thanks to "Ship Parts for Everyone" by @nuno dos Santos.
There were also 40x 200-ton MS, 10 each on the east and west coasts, the Caribbean, and SE Asia. Also, Bullethaulsey ordered 12" batteries at the Philippines and Hawaii and an 8" battery for Guam. Strangely, these weren't complete when the game actually started, but had the normal construction time even though paid for during the legacy fleet construction phase.
The heavy iron was divided into a Pacific and an Atlantic Fleet based on the east and west coasts, each with 3 Bs, 1 of the Austin-class ACs, 1 of the Houston-class PCs, and 5 DDs. Immediately after building the legacy fleet, I laid down 2 more Texas-class Bs to give each fleet 4 prior to the commencement of hostilities. The DDs had 1 torpedo tube each side to allow a centerline armament of 2x 4".
The Mike Fink and John Colter classes were intended for commerce raiding and defense. They were mostly concentrated in SE Asia and the Caribbean, but some left in on the E and W US coasts.
Other construction in the pre-game warmup was another 5 DDs for SE Asia.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
On with the Show
Bullethaulsey's main goal was to pick a fight with Japan, just to see how War Plan Orange might play out in the early 1900s. After all, tensions were highest with Japan at the start so why not? So for the 1st 2 years, Bullethaulsey pursued a careful policy of antagonizing the Rising Sun. Of course, he never missed a chance to grab prestige even if that meant annoying somebody else, but none of these side deals had much effect on the international scene. Meanwhile, relations with Japan were deteriorating rapidly, well into the yellow range, and Bullethaulsey was quite content.
But then, in late 1901, for unknown reasons, relations with the UK suddenly soured dramatically without any action on the part of Bullethaulsey. In fact, he had deliberately turned down an offer to sabotage a Brit battleship just to avoid antagonizing them (if there'd been any prestige to be had, though....). Bullethaulsey supposed the sudden diplomatic crisis probably had something to do with the US trying to build a navy "second to none" while the UK adhered to its "2-power standard", because this happened just when his 2 new battleships commissioned. In any case, suddenly war was more likely with the Brits than the Japanese.
Shortly thereafter, there was yet another routine coup d'etat somewhere in South America and US nationals had to be evacuated. When asked what size of ship to send to cover the evacuation, Bullethaulsey, a firm believer in the Monroe Doctrine and also a prestige-hound, naturally decided on a battleship. This was just enough to cause the UK to declare war, in January 1902.
The War of 1902. (aka the 3rd War of Independence)
The decadent, effete, and dastardly British Empire, despite imposing ridiculous Victorian ideals on the rest the rest of the world whether they liked it or not, utterly failed to follow the diplomatic channels of civilized nations and commenced hostilities without fair warning, catching the USN somewhat flatfooted. As had become somewhat traditional in wars between the US and UK, the 1st action was just off Boston harbor, where the Atlantic Fleet's CL and DDs were on a routine training exercise. Suddenly, a Brit cruiser squadron with DDs appeared and attacked without so much as a "by your leave". The US DDs were badly mauled at the outset and quickly retreated to Boston where, sadly, USS Prebble sunk just before reaching a dock. Meanwhile, New Orleans, being fast but never intended for a stand-up fight with anything stronger than a DD half-flotilla, led the superior forces of Perfidious Albion on a merry chase in the opposite direction, then broke contact with the coming of night and also made it back to port.
As soon as hostilities commenced, all the USN's raiders immediately set to work, although the AC Davie Crockett immediately ran out of fuel and was interned, despite having just run into Boston to top off. Meanwhle, the Pacific Fleet moved to SE Asia in the hopes of capturing Singapore, Hong Kong, or anything else in the area worth having. But it wasn't long before a massive RN fleet arrived off the US east coast and imposed a blockade. Thus, the Pacific Fleet continued on around the world towards the US east coast to break the blockade, an objective it eventually accomplished when the decadent, effete, and cowardly RN battlefleet ran away at its approach. Then, the Glorious American Fleet crossed the Atlantic to blockade the UK for a short while, just to see how they liked it, before returning home for lack of basing in Northern European waters. While the combined US fleet was in Brit waters, the decadent, effete, and cowardly Royal Navy declined the opportunity of a fleet action.
But before those Glorious Events happened, the Atlantic Fleet was on its own for some months, and 2 fleet actions came up. Both pitted 3 US Bs against 8 or 9 Brit, plus the Brits had more light forces. Bullethaulsey, of course, accepted both. The first was the Glorious Battle of Maine, in which the greatly inferior forces of the Glorious American Navy maneuvered successfully, despite much confusion of signals, between several squadrons of the overwhelmingly powerful, but decadent and effete Royal Navy, inflicted more damage than they received, and managed a Glorious Escape back to New York harbor despite several tense moments when all seemed lost.
The 2nd such action, the very next month, was the Glorious Battle of Wllmington, 3 of the Glorious American Navy's battleships against 8 of the decadent and effete Royal Navy. Again, the Glorious American Navy's small but pugnacious force, despite even more confusion with signals, managed to exploit its unwelcome "central position" to attack various enemy units in isolation. This resulted in cutting out (in the cowboy sense, not the naval sense) and destruction of an armored cruiser of the decadent and effete Royal Navy just SW of Cape Lookout on the Carolina Banks. The light cruiser Jim Bridger which, somehow, was on hand despite being ordered to raid commerce, was detached tomachinegun rescue the survivors and was nearly trapped herself in turn, but managed to show her heels to the pursuing units of the decadent and effete Royal Navy. All units of the Glorious American Navy returned to Charleston in triumph (in the Roman sense) and the cowardly, decadent, and effete Brit prisoners were paraded through the center of town, being pelted with rotten fruit. Charleston's Glorious Citizens had many grudges to settle with anybody who threatened them from seaward. Despite once again overcoming very heavy odds and successfully bull-baiting John Bull, this was again rated as a minor victory by the inscrutable International Court of Battle Scoring. Bullethaulsey swore eternal vengeance on that body and began investigating ways to pack that court with judges of his own selection.
The next action of any note occurred off Guam, where an important convoy from Stateside was arriving. This was escorted by several dedicated DDs all the way from the West Coast, and was picked up by the local Glorious SE Asia DD Flotilla once the convoy got close to its destination. The Glorious American Tincans gleefully sacrificed themselves to protect the convoy, driving off the decadent and effete Royal Naval PC without harm to the convoy, and with the attacker rather damaged and low on ammo. Sadly several Glorious American Tincans paid the ultimate price but, to paraphrase the decadent and effete French General Louis Lepic at Eylau, "Heads up, gentlemen. Those are 6" shells, not turds." Even though the inscrutable International Court of Battle Scoring ruled this as a minor Brit tactical victory, the real outcome was a strategic victory for the Glorious American Navy because the convoy got through without loss. Obviously, Bullethaulsey's attemts at court-packing had yet to pay off.
Shortly thereafter, the decadent and effete British Empire put out peace feelers. The terms were not acceptable to Bullethaulsey and he minced no words saying so. And thus the War of 1902 dragged on thanks mostly to Bulethaulsey's desire for prestige.
About this time, while the Glorious American Pacific Fleet was still in the Caribbean, rumors arose of some half-heated effort by the decadent and effete Royal Navy trying to invade the further reaches of the Aleutian Islands. Thus, the Glorious American Pacific Fleet was told to round Cape Horn once again to sort things out there. This was at least their 3rd time to pass Cape Horn in one direction or another while trying to counter various moves of the decadent and effete Royal Navy, and put new emphasis into building the Panama Canal. Meanwhile, encouraged by Bullethaulsey's firm response, the Aleutian garrison valiantly resisted the invasion.
None of this reduced the tempo of operations off the US East Coast, and this soon resulted in the running down and sinking of a Brit PC with the numerical advantage for once being on the side of the Glorious American Navy. In addition, this destruction of an isolated PC by overwhelming forces off the Glorious American Navy was adjudged a major victory for the Clorious American Navy. Apparently, Bullethaulsye's court-packing efforts had finally paid off.
And so, after 19 months of war, the Glorious American Navy has clawed its way back to nearly being in a draw with the decadent and effete Royal Navy, despite the initially unfavorable terms.
While all this had been going on, the Glorious American Industrial Base had not been idle, so Bullethaulsey laid down several new classes of ship, plus put some in port for refits.
Will the Glorious American Navy save the Aleutian Islands for Democracy? Will the technological advances of the Glorious American Navy finally put paid to the decadent and effete Royal Navy? Tune in next time to see.
Setting: US, Historical Resources, Very Large Fleets, Varied Tech, Admiral difficulty
Protagonist: Admiral Jebediah Bullethaulsey, Esq. 2nd son of a wealthy industrial family. He passed the bar before entering the navy, has an insatiable lust for prestige and spends his time on the inactive list being a state senator. This means I'm playing the game with much more of a tendency to make choices that give me prestige than when I played the Italians, regardless of whether that's actually a good idea on the big picture.
Ship Naming Conventions:
- Battleships: states
- Fleet heavy ACs: state capital cities
- Fleet CLs: big but non-capital cities
- Long-range light ACs: major badasses of the American frontier
- Long-range CLs: less-famous frontier badasses and lesser-known mountainmen
- Destroyers: Dead naval heroes and patrons of the game's past (and the future of the real world). The 1st DD was named after my own dearly departed DDG-12 from the real world, which was herself named for some bureaucrat, not a hero.
- 200-ton Minesweepers: Random, seemingly drawn from the names of known steamboats and tugboats.
- Other: to be determined.
The Legacy Fleet:
Pretty pictures thanks to "Ship Parts for Everyone" by @nuno dos Santos.
There were also 40x 200-ton MS, 10 each on the east and west coasts, the Caribbean, and SE Asia. Also, Bullethaulsey ordered 12" batteries at the Philippines and Hawaii and an 8" battery for Guam. Strangely, these weren't complete when the game actually started, but had the normal construction time even though paid for during the legacy fleet construction phase.
The heavy iron was divided into a Pacific and an Atlantic Fleet based on the east and west coasts, each with 3 Bs, 1 of the Austin-class ACs, 1 of the Houston-class PCs, and 5 DDs. Immediately after building the legacy fleet, I laid down 2 more Texas-class Bs to give each fleet 4 prior to the commencement of hostilities. The DDs had 1 torpedo tube each side to allow a centerline armament of 2x 4".
The Mike Fink and John Colter classes were intended for commerce raiding and defense. They were mostly concentrated in SE Asia and the Caribbean, but some left in on the E and W US coasts.
Other construction in the pre-game warmup was another 5 DDs for SE Asia.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
On with the Show
Bullethaulsey's main goal was to pick a fight with Japan, just to see how War Plan Orange might play out in the early 1900s. After all, tensions were highest with Japan at the start so why not? So for the 1st 2 years, Bullethaulsey pursued a careful policy of antagonizing the Rising Sun. Of course, he never missed a chance to grab prestige even if that meant annoying somebody else, but none of these side deals had much effect on the international scene. Meanwhile, relations with Japan were deteriorating rapidly, well into the yellow range, and Bullethaulsey was quite content.
But then, in late 1901, for unknown reasons, relations with the UK suddenly soured dramatically without any action on the part of Bullethaulsey. In fact, he had deliberately turned down an offer to sabotage a Brit battleship just to avoid antagonizing them (if there'd been any prestige to be had, though....). Bullethaulsey supposed the sudden diplomatic crisis probably had something to do with the US trying to build a navy "second to none" while the UK adhered to its "2-power standard", because this happened just when his 2 new battleships commissioned. In any case, suddenly war was more likely with the Brits than the Japanese.
Shortly thereafter, there was yet another routine coup d'etat somewhere in South America and US nationals had to be evacuated. When asked what size of ship to send to cover the evacuation, Bullethaulsey, a firm believer in the Monroe Doctrine and also a prestige-hound, naturally decided on a battleship. This was just enough to cause the UK to declare war, in January 1902.
The War of 1902. (aka the 3rd War of Independence)
The decadent, effete, and dastardly British Empire, despite imposing ridiculous Victorian ideals on the rest the rest of the world whether they liked it or not, utterly failed to follow the diplomatic channels of civilized nations and commenced hostilities without fair warning, catching the USN somewhat flatfooted. As had become somewhat traditional in wars between the US and UK, the 1st action was just off Boston harbor, where the Atlantic Fleet's CL and DDs were on a routine training exercise. Suddenly, a Brit cruiser squadron with DDs appeared and attacked without so much as a "by your leave". The US DDs were badly mauled at the outset and quickly retreated to Boston where, sadly, USS Prebble sunk just before reaching a dock. Meanwhile, New Orleans, being fast but never intended for a stand-up fight with anything stronger than a DD half-flotilla, led the superior forces of Perfidious Albion on a merry chase in the opposite direction, then broke contact with the coming of night and also made it back to port.
As soon as hostilities commenced, all the USN's raiders immediately set to work, although the AC Davie Crockett immediately ran out of fuel and was interned, despite having just run into Boston to top off. Meanwhle, the Pacific Fleet moved to SE Asia in the hopes of capturing Singapore, Hong Kong, or anything else in the area worth having. But it wasn't long before a massive RN fleet arrived off the US east coast and imposed a blockade. Thus, the Pacific Fleet continued on around the world towards the US east coast to break the blockade, an objective it eventually accomplished when the decadent, effete, and cowardly RN battlefleet ran away at its approach. Then, the Glorious American Fleet crossed the Atlantic to blockade the UK for a short while, just to see how they liked it, before returning home for lack of basing in Northern European waters. While the combined US fleet was in Brit waters, the decadent, effete, and cowardly Royal Navy declined the opportunity of a fleet action.
But before those Glorious Events happened, the Atlantic Fleet was on its own for some months, and 2 fleet actions came up. Both pitted 3 US Bs against 8 or 9 Brit, plus the Brits had more light forces. Bullethaulsey, of course, accepted both. The first was the Glorious Battle of Maine, in which the greatly inferior forces of the Glorious American Navy maneuvered successfully, despite much confusion of signals, between several squadrons of the overwhelmingly powerful, but decadent and effete Royal Navy, inflicted more damage than they received, and managed a Glorious Escape back to New York harbor despite several tense moments when all seemed lost.
The 2nd such action, the very next month, was the Glorious Battle of Wllmington, 3 of the Glorious American Navy's battleships against 8 of the decadent and effete Royal Navy. Again, the Glorious American Navy's small but pugnacious force, despite even more confusion with signals, managed to exploit its unwelcome "central position" to attack various enemy units in isolation. This resulted in cutting out (in the cowboy sense, not the naval sense) and destruction of an armored cruiser of the decadent and effete Royal Navy just SW of Cape Lookout on the Carolina Banks. The light cruiser Jim Bridger which, somehow, was on hand despite being ordered to raid commerce, was detached to
The next action of any note occurred off Guam, where an important convoy from Stateside was arriving. This was escorted by several dedicated DDs all the way from the West Coast, and was picked up by the local Glorious SE Asia DD Flotilla once the convoy got close to its destination. The Glorious American Tincans gleefully sacrificed themselves to protect the convoy, driving off the decadent and effete Royal Naval PC without harm to the convoy, and with the attacker rather damaged and low on ammo. Sadly several Glorious American Tincans paid the ultimate price but, to paraphrase the decadent and effete French General Louis Lepic at Eylau, "Heads up, gentlemen. Those are 6" shells, not turds." Even though the inscrutable International Court of Battle Scoring ruled this as a minor Brit tactical victory, the real outcome was a strategic victory for the Glorious American Navy because the convoy got through without loss. Obviously, Bullethaulsey's attemts at court-packing had yet to pay off.
Shortly thereafter, the decadent and effete British Empire put out peace feelers. The terms were not acceptable to Bullethaulsey and he minced no words saying so. And thus the War of 1902 dragged on thanks mostly to Bulethaulsey's desire for prestige.
About this time, while the Glorious American Pacific Fleet was still in the Caribbean, rumors arose of some half-heated effort by the decadent and effete Royal Navy trying to invade the further reaches of the Aleutian Islands. Thus, the Glorious American Pacific Fleet was told to round Cape Horn once again to sort things out there. This was at least their 3rd time to pass Cape Horn in one direction or another while trying to counter various moves of the decadent and effete Royal Navy, and put new emphasis into building the Panama Canal. Meanwhile, encouraged by Bullethaulsey's firm response, the Aleutian garrison valiantly resisted the invasion.
None of this reduced the tempo of operations off the US East Coast, and this soon resulted in the running down and sinking of a Brit PC with the numerical advantage for once being on the side of the Glorious American Navy. In addition, this destruction of an isolated PC by overwhelming forces off the Glorious American Navy was adjudged a major victory for the Clorious American Navy. Apparently, Bullethaulsye's court-packing efforts had finally paid off.
And so, after 19 months of war, the Glorious American Navy has clawed its way back to nearly being in a draw with the decadent and effete Royal Navy, despite the initially unfavorable terms.
While all this had been going on, the Glorious American Industrial Base had not been idle, so Bullethaulsey laid down several new classes of ship, plus put some in port for refits.
Will the Glorious American Navy save the Aleutian Islands for Democracy? Will the technological advances of the Glorious American Navy finally put paid to the decadent and effete Royal Navy? Tune in next time to see.
.
