With Kitty Hawk

The quartet of Destroyers from DesDiv 11 bulled ahead of the rest of the fleet, letting them trail in their wake as the first Naval mine detonated against the lead ship's prow. It flinched backward, but after getting prodded by a Cruiser acting as a shepherd, it continued onward.

"Any Idea what the humans will have to face us with?" Ta-01 said, a tad worriedly. It was understandable, as she'd only been commissioned relatively recently to replace the standard Battleships Jersey liked to play with. She wasn't used to an enemy that shot back, and losing two of her sister-ships must have shaken her badly. That would change, well, if she survived, nothing was certain in combat. Kitty Hawk held off for a moment as another one of her Sea Kings returned to her. Once it was safely stowed, she responded.

"The humans are mostly entrenched along the riverbank with tanks and a large amount of infantry. I spotted a fair amount of fishing vessels and small-craft flitting about, what they hope to accomplish I don't have the foggiest." Another Naval mine went off against one of the Destroyers, putting a large hole in its port side, it was expecting the damage this time, and didn't even slow down. "More important are the Kanmusu and Abyssal forces present" And the fact the words 'Abyssal' and 'Kanmusu' were being used to describe the same belligerent was, disturbing.

"At least two Kanmusu Seaplane tenders, one Cruiser-sized, they also have a Ri-Heavy Cruiser and... Something else. I'd almost say a Wo-class from the outline." They had finally cleared the minefield, it having ended just before the bend in the river. The Destroyers were in hard shape, but that was nothing that hadn't been expected, the fact all were still afloat with only minor lists was impressive. "Well?" Ta-01 startled, looking at Kitty Hawks nonchalant visage.

"Maam?"

"I do recall Jersey putting you and your sisters in temporary command, and I hardly expect them to give any orders anytime soon." The Ta's face fell briefly, before setting into a frown as she raised the ships of the main task force.

"All ships, reduce to standard speed and assume formations! Destroyers, lead-in around the bend, screen for the Cruisers. Cruisers, if anything so much as moves I want it destroyed, Battleship's will reserve fire for hardened targets. Kitty-Hawk, are you able to lend any of your craft?" The Carrier nodded.

"The MIG's finally decided they've had enough, what few are left are retreating as we speak. Once my f-4's land and re-arm for air-to-ground merely indicate what you wish destroyed and it will be done." The Fast Battleship nodded in visible relief as they separated, Kitty staying in the back of the formation with her escorts as the Ta moved up among the Cruisers as some cheeky PT Imp nearby began blasting some of Jersey's music over her intercom, why she listened to human music and insisted the smaller craft have speakers installed to blast it the Ta had no idea.

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The lead Destroyers started to take fire almost immediately as they finally turned the bend in the Song river and got a direct visual on the City. Guided missiles and Recoilless rifle-fire pattered the water and smashed into their hulls as they immediately returned fire with their 5" cannons, continuing to steam forwards as the Cruisers moved into firing positions behind them. They began to take scattered RPG fire from the supposedly empty buildings to their port side flank, the humans whooping and hollering as they unloaded into the Abyssal formation to little real effect, causing mild damage among a handful of the Destoyers and doing the equivalent of scuffing the paint on a couple of Cruisers.

Two Ri-class Heavy Cruisers dedicated their firepower to suppressing the ambushers, practically flattening the old colonial-era buildings with their 8" guns as their AA mounts stitched holes through the walls in neat lines at chest level. This gave the PT Imps the opportunity to close the distance, coming to a stop a stone's throw away from the shore as they opened up with their turret-mounted flamethrowers, sending streams of fire into the open windows and doors, before coating as much of the rubble created by the Cruisers as they could with the gelled solution.

Screaming figures rose out of the rubble flailing, only to be immediately gunned down by the suppressing Cruisers. The rest of the fleet pushed on undeterred, even as one of the PT Imps took an unlucky rocket from further in amongst the buildings, detonating its fuel storage and coating its squadron in napalm, chattering in their own Imp-speak as they rolled around on the water.

Motorized junks traded fire with Destroyers on the river in what swiftly became a largely one-sided brawl, as the human vessels matched the Abyssal craft's charge with their own, getting close enough to fire off whatever mounted platforms they had installed before trying to maneuver out of the way of return fire. Paired with the almost frantic pace of the Abyssal advance, both forces found themselves entangled within each other's formations. Basically knife-fight range, enough so that the human vessels had to be careful not to damage themselves with the blasts of their own armaments. One or two men probably could have reached out and touched the Destroyers at some points as they passed each other.

The heavier mounted weapons started to take their toll on the Abyssal small craft over the next thirty seconds of fighting, many ships taking damage, and at least five Destroyers going limp as something important was hit. In return, over two-dozen junks were turned to splinters with semi-accurate 5" rounds, entire vessels simply disappearing in explosions as men were tossed into the water bonelessly. Or were mulched by their smaller guns, which quickly proved to be far more effective, both against the humans, as well as avoiding serious friendly fire incidents, as the 20mm rounds did negligible damage against the Abyssals, leaving them able to fire more freely at such short range.

The aerial battle had mostly wound-down at this point, though several squadrons were still battling in the air with a few lone floatplanes, occasionally one of them would weave through the combat below. As she watched, a Flying Fish recon plane went into a tailspin, right into a Ro-class as it fought two of the smaller junks. The explosion capsized one of the junks, sending its crew into the drink with yelps of alarm. And the Ro began to list dangerously, its starboard severely damaged at the waterline.

The Cruisers had difficulty finding targets at first, the forces too intermingled and moving too fast to be confident enough that they wouldn't strike their own forces. Eventually though, the human force began to retreat, more than half their number obliterated, with them fully disengaged from the Destroyers and PT boats, the Cruisers had clear firing angles.

They opened fire, as the Kanmusu forces upriver did the same.

As this happened, Ta-01 and the Re-class took up positions slightly behind the Cruisers, a tank round passed by perilously close to her bridge, and she swiftly tracked it back to its launch point. The front of a Soviet T-62 could be seen just as it finished backing up around the intersection it had shot at her from. She consulted her map of the area, that place wasn't near the enemy HQ, fair game. She fired a single round from one of her 15" turrets, firing through the building the tank was hiding behind. Hopefully she'd hit it, but the lack of secondary explosions or smoke made that hope a small one.

She looked at the Kanmusu/Abyssal forces upriver in the distance. They appeared to be playing rear-guard for a series of civilian-model car ferries and other bulk craft as they cruised North, she prepared to engage as the Re-class joyously took a shot at a nearby old fishing trawler with her hilariously overkill 16" cannon. Blowing off its aft and likely pulverizing the crew as it tried to reach the East shore. What the vessels were doing in the middle of a warzone like this the Ta had no idea, though they seemed to have suffered a malfunction or some kind of damage beforehand, as they were all leaking what looked like oil quite heavily... Far more than any ship would conceivable need or have. Now that she looked at it through the heavy rain, she could see the trails from the trio of ships extended clear through the area where the short-lived skirmish with the human junks had been, to the Western shore. Why would they-?

That was about the moment she noticed some of the crew of the remaining two vessels rush to the aft of their vessels, M9 flamethrowers in hand as they lit the fuel in the water.