1988, the Persian Gulf
Easily balanced on the slightly rolling and pitching deck of the port bridge wing of one of a series of ghostly ships on the morning mist-shrouded Straits of Hormuz in Persian Gulf, a slight figure bent down behind powerful binoculars mounted on a pivot. Sighing, he straightened up, taking a sip from a Thermos flask.
"You think they'll make a move?" he asked, hearing the light beat of footsteps on the metal deck.
"It's possible. We're a hundred miles from the turning point past the Musandam Peninsula. That's about seven and a quarter hours, then another hundred from there until we leave the Iranian missile boats' hunting ground." grunted Robert MacGuire, the fleet commander.
Harry Potter settled for simply listening to the distant throb of the engines. When he'd first found out about magic, the magical world and his family, he had decided against following his father and mother's footsteps in attending the wizarding school, but instead quietly acquired control of a quite large estate that his grandfather had been the last head of.
While Harry wasn't old enough, technically, he'd found no death certificates for his parents, and because the estate was held in the non-magical world, he'd simply used his uncle's money to hire a representative in his father's name. One estate later, he found that Charlus, father of his father James, had been gearing up for a major blood war in the magical world, possibly resulting in a war with Russia. Even after his death, the estate had been at work in building up for this conflict.
An odd sense of humour resulted in a military contractor company named 'Sink Inc.' with Robert MacGuire as Commander of Seaborne forces. A year ago, they'd been sat off the coast of Angola, just one vessel instead of the three Sink Inc. warships in the Gulf, at a cost of one-hundred and fifty thousand pounds per day from the South African government. It wasn't much, adding together the cost of paying the crew of nearly seven-hundred ratings and fifty officers, the cost of the ordnance that they were 'delivering' to the Angolans on behalf of the South Africans and the 'cost' of the fuel. The current cost was about sixty pounds per tonne, they carried seventeen-hundred tonnes, but at a twelve-knot cruise, they burnt nearly fifty-thousand pounds-worth of it in twenty-four hours.
It was good fortune that each vessel carried a wizard who could use a simple refilling charm to refill the bunkers at no cost except magic. Their customers didn't need to know about that and a significant profit could be made.
Their current contract was to a major shipping company, for a million pounds a day, the cruisers Ceylon, Blake and Nigeria, each saved from the breaker's yard, provided escort and a force of twenty assorted Admiralty Type-A Dark Class, Brave Class and Gay Class fast patrol boats stationed in Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Oman to provide an escort to the Musandam Peninsula, another escort away from it, and a quick-reaction force if they were engaged.
"Red three-zero, about twelve-hundred yards, got something in the water." Harry suddenly announced; "Looks like a drifting mine."
"Damn. Can't hit something that close, the guns won't depress that far." cursed Robert.
"Send for a rifle, I can probably hit that with the light fifty." Harry grinned. He'd won three out of the last four annual Sink Inc. long-range shooting competitions.
"Seaman! Get a Barrett fifty from the armoury, and a couple of magazines of ammunition." Robert barked to one of the seamen on the bridge.
It took a minute for the sailor to return with the rifle, leaving the floating mine even closer. Harry snatched the rifle from him, standing on a folding metal plate which could be used as a seat on long watches. Unfolding the bipod and resting the gun on the wall of the bridge wing, slotting in a magazine and racking the charging handle.
They'd lost maybe a third of the distance between the flagship, Ceylon, and the mine. Harry hadn't bothered with school in a few years, preferring to teach himself, and one of his strengths was mathematics. Cut a third of the distance, eight-hundred yards. It took a second to set the scope's zeroing to eight-hundred yards, and had already checked the windage, sixteen knots headwind.
He fired.
"Short. Fifty yards." reported Robert from behind the naval binocular-rangefinder.
Harry angled the rifle up a couple of degrees and fired again. The recoil jerked the rifle back, but didn't slam it heavily into his shoulder like some game rifles he'd fired. Even as the round travelled, Harry knew he'd missed as the ship had rolled as he was firing. The splash wasn't far off the sea mine. He cursed and took aim again, hearing Robert guessing three or so yards beyond of his target.
Breathing lightly and counting the waves, he waited until the warship was rock-steady and fired. The shockwave could be felt on the bridge of Ceylon as the mine detonated, a huge spout of water erupting from the blast.
"Charlie Alpha One, we just detonated a floating naval mine." Robert stated over the intercom, using his callsign as he'd also selected to radio it to Bravo Alpha and November Alpha, the cruisers Blake and Nigeria, each leading a column of tanker vessels in echelons port and starboard of Ceylon's column. At about forty dollars a barrel, with the thirty ships in their convoy carrying an average of three million barrels of oil, the three cruisers and the five fast patrol boats accompanying them were protecting a value of three billion, six-hundred million dollars in black gold.
Nearer Kuwait, ten of Sink Inc.'s Algerine Class minesweepers with five fast patrol boats were doing a similar job of minehunting, but with specialised equipment. It had been embarrassing for the US Navy when they had found they had no ocean-going minesweepers, and had been forced to hire Sink Inc.'s antiquated vessels to work in the Persian Gulf.
"I took the night watch, d'you mind if..." began Robert.
"Not at all, get a few hours sleep, I'll send someone to get you up if anything goes down." Harry nodded.
"Captain's off the bridge!" announced the bridge control officer as Robert headed down to his cabin; "Are you taking over Commander Potter?"
"For now." Harry nodded; "Keep me updated with radar and sonar reports, let me know as soon as the relief patrol boat screen is on radar. Anything unexpected, tell me. Seaman Barnes, port bridge wing."
On Ceylon, the bridge wings were set well back, giving him a better view forward from the interior of the bridge, where he settled, grabbing Robert's Zeiss binoculars from their case on the ledge of the bridge windows. Three hours into his shift and suddenly the peace was shattered with a call from the sonar crew.
"Diesel engine just started magnetic three-four-zero!" called the sonar officer.
Harry strode out onto the bridge wing, jamming his face against the eyepiece of the powerful naval binoculars mounted there, scanning the surface urgently until suddenly he spotted something out of place. A stream of disturbed water, and at the root of it, a periscope.
"Prepare to come about two-seven-zero!" he snapped, focusing on the periscope; "Stand by depth charges, Limbo and forward port four inch turret! Radio the USS Wadsworth and inform them of the situation."
Sparing a moment's glance to ensure his orders were followed, Harry returned his eyes to the binoculars as the submarine, stationary, allowed the cruiser Ceylon to sail perpendicular to him. Then two distinct wakes in the water.
"Engines one and two back full, engines three and four ahead full, rudder hard over!" Harry ordered, making sure to keep his voice level and calm, if sharp; "Forward port four inch is to open fire."
A cacophonous roar erupted from the twin-gun mount as the loaders almost threw home shells into the breech, the guns immediately firing. Spouts of water erupted from around the submarine as Ceylon shook, her four massive propellers thrumming under them, churning the sea into an angry froth. The stern dug in and the bow rose slightly. The deck tilted to starboard as the ten-plus thousand ton warship swung around to port and charged straight towards the submarine which swiftly dived.
"Four inch cease fire! All engines full ahead flank!" he stated. One. Two. Three.
Calculations were running in Harry's head. The submarine had been near a standstill when they charged. Ceylon had gathered twenty knots. Four. Five. Six. There was a loud clang which echoed through the ship as two torpedoes failed to arm prior to hitting the warship, and, allowing a grim smile, the teenager on the bridge kept counting. Seven. Eight Nine. One mile distance to cover from the turn. Add five-hundred and fifty-five feet of ship for the stern depth charges. Sixty seconds exactly at twenty knots for depth charges, ten seconds to bring the Limbo mortar to minimum range. TEN!
"Fire Limbo!" Harry snapped.
A Sink Inc. after-market modification of two triple-barrelled spigot mortars on the bow coughed, sending depth charges over the bow. Fifteen. Twenty. Twenty-five. At thirty seconds, he snapped on the intercom directly to the crew on the stern of the warship even as Ceylon sailed through the plumes of water from the first Limbo mortars.
"Roll depth charge one." and waited, counting patiently for five seconds; "Roll depth charge two." allowing another interval before continuing the attack.
Finally, with six massive plumes of water erupting from the sea as, one after another, the six depth charges, Harry called off the engagement.
"Make turn two-seven-zero." he ordered; "Hold for thirty seconds, repeat, repeat."
Just as the ship was partway through making the first of three ninety degree turns to rejoin the convoy, there was a call from the port bridge wing.
"Sir, I think you ought to see this!"
Harry walked out onto the bridge wing as a dark shape erupted from the water. A submarine no doubt, but a small one, maybe sixty feet in length and a distinctive rudder set-up of two fins visible above the water in a butterfly shape.
"It's a Yugoslavian midget submarine. Koreans are fond of 'em." commented Seaman Barnes.
"You know, I've always wanted to do this." Harry grinned, pressing the push to talk on the bridge wing intercom; "Secondary batteries, free fire zone."
Immediately two batteries of four inch guns began blazing away at near point blank range. Suddenly, the submarine erupted with a column of smoke and fire from just behind the sail, before lifting out of the water and shattering in half before each end made its final dive.
"Cease fire." he stated before returning to the bridge; "Helmsman, bring us back on station."
"Aye sir."
"And call the crew down at the flag locker to hoist Calico Jack's Jolly Roger below the Raven." Harry added.
"I believe that would be a nice touch." commented a voice from behind Harry, causing him to spin around suddenly and nearly lose his balance, meeting the visage of Robert leaning against the back wall of the bridge; "I thought you were going to get me if anything happened."
"Things happened and there wasn't exactly time." Harry replied sheepishly; "Besides how long were you stood watching."
"Most of the engagement." Robert admitted; "You did damn well. You kept your cool but acted quickly and decisively. I both look forward to and dread the day you captain your own ship. You'll be a damn good captain but you'll put me out of a job."
"Navigator, range to point two?" Harry barked the question.
"Point two on the Musandam Peninsula is forty-eight miles sir." replied the navigator.
"Mind holding the fort Robert, I need a drink before I'm sick." Harry muttered.
"You okay?" asked Robert.
"Never had someone directly try to sink me." replied Harry before slinking off in search of some water.
Robert MacGuire shook his head. The boy was barely in his teens but was cunning as a fox and mature beyond his years. A slight grin broke out on his face as he walked out onto the bridge wing and saw the crossed scimitars below a skull being run up the flag mast below Sink Inc.'s own flag, a Nordic raven.
"Reduce speed, twelve knots, hold station." he called as they ran back up the convoy to the head of the centre line of ships.
Half-an-hour after the sinking, Harry walked into his cabin, briefly going to the sink to wash his face. The water was reinvigorating, and he felt a touch better as he towelled off and redid all but the top button of his white shirt. Uniform on Sink Inc. warships not in the cold climes of the Atlantic, the North Sea, the far north or the far south was a short-sleeved white shirt and trousers with peaked cap for officers and a white sailor suit and seaman's cap for those not of officer rank. A single thick gold ring adorned each of his epaulettes, signifying the rank of sub-lieutenant, the rank he'd agreed with Robert to hold until he was sixteen in exchange for coming out on operations with his ships.
Other sub-lieutenants held posts such as the command of a turret or other parts of the warfare systems. While the patrol boats providing an escort screen for the tankers and cruisers were commanded by Lieutenants, on board Ceylon, Blake and Nigeria, the Lieutenants held command of a type of warfare system, such as the main battery of three triple six-inch turrets or the four dual four-inch turrets, while.
The bridge was typically occupied by several Lieutenant-Commanders, the navigator being the most important, while the others fulfilled the roles of command surface and anti-air warfare including all detection and weapons systems, running anti-submarine warfare with all detection systems and weapons systems and the fourth of that rank who was in charge of engineering matters on the ship.
Nigeria and Blake's captains were both of the rank of Commander, while Robert MacGuire, as well as being ship's captain, was convoy escort commander and held the rank of Captain. At their home port built in the western isles of Scotland, the senior officer was a Commodore Bran Jones, a late middle-aged Welshman with several decades of naval experience who was in charge of the combined fleet of ships Sink Inc. owned.
After leaving his room and climbing up a series of staircases in the central citadel of the cruiser, Harry walked onto the bridge, making a beeline for Robert who was sat in the captain's chair, surveying the sea.
"I've been thinking, why didn't that submarine go for one of the tankers with all the fuel on board?" Harry said quietly; "They wouldn't have been able to turn into the attack or fire back."
"If they'd sunk us, another ship, one of the warships, would have stopped to pull us out of the water." Robert replied thoughtfully, running a hand along his beard; "That ship would have been vulnerable to a torpedo. Two warships in one go, but at greater risk to themselves. Submarine captains are always the risky gamblers."
"But if the plan had gone according to their script, we and probably another warship would be sunk, reducing the escort to either two cruisers or one cruiser and the Yank frigate down the back." stated Harry; "Either way, halving the escort."
"Further attack, you think?" asked Robert.
"If I were arranging the devastation of this convoy, based on my actions already in the submarine attack, having sat on the bottom of the Gulf waiting for the convoy with engines silent, a targeted attack. If I've halved the escort by sinking two warships, I'll hold back because the patrol boats have finite range, they'll peel off to Ras al-Khaimah but the relief is joining us off Khasab, there's a gap there in our cover." Harry replied slowly.
"Missile boats, it's within range Qeshm Island, swarm the convoy." Robert commented grimly; "Radioman, to patrol boat screen commander, can you remain with us until relieved, stop."
"Yes sir." replied the radioman as he prepared to make the signal to the patrol boats.
"Honestly, I'm rather looking forward to getting out of this place." admitted Robert.
"We let this lot go as we pass the far-eastern point of Oman, we hold for a day or two, pick up one more convoy, bring it into Kuwait and then our contract's over, we pick up the Algerines, the various patrol boats and head out of here. I think that we can spend a day or two off Sharm el-Sheikh." said Harry; "God knows the men deserve a break."
"Agreed." nodded Robert; "But then we need to get home. Three cruisers, ten minesweepers and twenty-five patrol boats, we've got about three-thousand five-hundred men out here. This business is fairly young and we need people ashore. Until employment picks up a bit..."
"Mhmm." Harry replied.
He knew the problems and he knew some of the solutions. The fleet was immense, but most of it was in covered drydock under stasis charms essentially halting the ravages of time and protected from the ravages of the weather, otherwise the cost would be horrifically prohibitive in terms of money and manpower. One battleship, one battlecruiser, one French heavy cruiser, one Swedish light cruiser, a British complement of two helicopter cruisers, a mine-laying cruiser and four light cruisers.
The American complement was made up of ten heavy cruisers, fourteen light cruisers with a further three heavy and four light cruisers awaiting reconversion from SAM cruisers to their original configuration. When big guns weren't the answer, there were also seven frigates, three sloops, thirty-four destroyers, various minesweepers, patrol boats and half-a-dozen diesel-electric submarines. All acquired since Charlus Potter began, in a fit of paranoia, ramping up for a major naval war.
They currently had about two-hundred officers and five-thousand ratings. If he tried to equip just the battleship Jean Bart and the battlecruiser Yavuz, they'd use up half of that complement of men. Two-thousand five-hundred men. The British cruisers needed a total of four-thousand eight-hundred men, the American ones far more.
"Sir, signal from patrol leader, will have to reduce patrol screen to five Dark Class and two Brave class but will remain with convoy until relieved." the radioman reported.
"Thank you." Robert replied; "Bloody inconvenient. The Braves have gas turbines which run on jet fuel, the Darks have Deltic railway engines which burn diesel and the Gays burn aviation-grade petrol in their Packards. And we don't have enough wizards to have each vessel equipped with one."
"We do what we have to do and what we can do." Harry sighed; "I'm already working on a few ideas on that front. Converting all the Gays and Darks to turbines. Expanded fuel tanks and more wizards. More crews full stop."
"D'you think..." began Robert.
"That you could have one or two of the Packards to put in a car?" Harry sighed, remembering what had happened when he'd recently had a refit done of the Type Two high speed launches used for pottering about the dockyard, replacing their three Napier Lions with three Rolls-Royce Tynes at the expense of part of the onboard sickbays. Quadruple the power. However, what he hadn't expected was for the engineering department at Robert's behest to come up with a series of nineteen-twenties style luxury and racing cars using some of the thirty Lions they removed. Harry shook his head, trying to concentrate on the present "Do we call Blake, ask them to put up one of their Sea Kings helicopters to scout ahead?"
"Time to turn?" Robert asked the navigator.
"Turn in forty miles or two-hours fifty minutes at current speed." Lieutenant-Commander James 'Sarney' Sandwich replied; "The Sea King will complete the requested reconnaissance in approximately twenty minutes before returning in a similar time."
"Thank you James." said Robert; "Kennedy, what's the surface radar looking like?"
"My surface-and-air warning Type Two-Seven-Seven is giving me thirty miles surface range." Kennedy, the surface warfare officer replied; "Fire control is working at optimum sixteen mile range."
"Hold off on the Sea King, we're pretty much covered with radar" Robert ordered before commenting to Harry quietly; "Wish we had Newfoundland out here."
"I know. But the refit she's going through should allow us to do the job of two warships with just one." replied Harry; "Semi-automatic Mark Sixteen eight inch guns. A the fourth turret, a two-layer enclosed bridge with an open top and a two deck CIC, better sonar, radar, homing torpedoes, Goalkeeper CIWS on the sides of the superstructure, the whole lot. And you'll be captain."
"I suddenly remember why I agreed to your job offer." Robert grinned.
"Sir, request from A turret captain for a practice shoot." stated the surface warfare officer.
"Denied. If we get through safely to Oman, I'll allow them to let off a few broadsides." replied Robert; "If we don't get through safely, then we'll let off a few broadsides a bit earlier."
"I'd prefer to conserve every shell we've got. The magazines only have seventy-five high-explosive incendiaries, fifty armour-piercing capped, fifty cannister rounds and fifty high-explosive rounds per gun." Robert commented; "Two-hundred and twenty-five rounds will go in half-an-hour of battle."
Two hours later, Harry had just entered the bridge, clutching a toasted beef sandwich wrapped in greaseproof paper, relieving Robert to go and get himself some food. A relief watch was due in an hour to take over from the current bridge crew when suddenly, in the bowls of the ship, the radar screens began lighting up.
"Report from radar, twenty individual vessels have just appeared at fifteen miles ten o'clock. Too small for us to get much warning, we are Calculating speed with radar sweep... thirty knots." reported Kennedy, one ear glued to a phone down to radar control.
Harry took a bite of his toasted sandwich, pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed.
"Would it be too much to simply say 'kill the bastards'?" he growled; "I suppose not. Radio to Blake to remain with convoy, detach Nigeria to follow us. Make full ahead flank three-zero-zero relative. All hands Condition Zulu, Kennedy, get me a firing solution for the main battery and someone call the captain up here!"
With the thrum of the powerful steam turbines and the propellers vibrating through the ship, Harry stood and waited, keeping half-an-eye on his watch. Three minutes later, the damning news came through via Lieutenant-Commander Sandwich, a nervous university meteorology graduate who had a habit of blushing any time he heard the rum language of the seamen.
"The captain appears to be... otherwise occupied." he stated, receiving a flat stare from Harry in return, making him to elaborate smartly; "Enthroned."
"He's on the bog." Harry said blankly before letting loose a muffled curse; "Speed, closing speed and range."
"Speed twenty-six knots, closing speed fifty-six, range is twelve nautical miles, reduced three from target acquisition." Kennedy replied.
"Nigeria?" Harry rapped out, wanting to know the location of the other cruiser.
"Proceeding two miles relative bearing two-zero-zero." was the quick response from the navigator followed by a call of; "Firing solution ready!" from the surface warfare officer, causing Harry to scowl. He had to decide what to do. Either he could wait until the small boats opened fire, wait and gain visual identification and approximately five miles or open fire from beyond the horizon, which would be about three miles away for the small boats.
"Load high explosive." Harry ordered. He wasn't going to chance it. The two cruisers were outnumbered ten-to-one, and he'd seen these types of boats before, laden with rocket projectiles and heavy-machine guns. "Radioman, please inform Nigeria of a free fire zone encompassing the flotilla we are facing. Mister Kennedy, if you wouldn't mind."
"Not at all. Attack boats are splitting into two distinct columns" he grinned, lifting the telephone to the turrets; "Fire control, this is the surface warfare officer, train A turret three-four-zero. I say again A turret three-four-zero. Train B turret zero-two-zero, I say again B turret zero-two-zero. Range, nineteen-thousand yards. Elevate twenty-four degrees and fire for effect."
The crash that reverberated through the ship was cataclysmic. Often naval ships would fire salutes with blank shells or just powder shells, one gun at a time. But with fifteen kilograms of cordite behind a fifty-kilo shell being fired from all six guns... the barrel of each gun contained the propellent charge and the shell, which created an immense compression behind the shell and the resulting blast was amplified. Each gun was slung back in the turrets by the recoil before they sank to reload.
The entire bridge was silent with baited breath. Over the entire flight of the shells, they'd average about two-thousand feet per second, a little bit short of Mach Two. At thirty seconds from the first barrage, Kennedy received the report from the radar operators.
"Initial radar reports suggest barrage was successful. Three radar contacts lost." he stated.
"Resume firing." Harry grinned; "Try and get the captain off the throne."
"Wilco." replied Kennedy, lifting the phone to the turret directors and to the fire controllers; "Fire control, you are to concentrate on radar contacts zero-two-zero. Rolling barrage, maximum rate of fire, begin."
The forward turret rotated to face the relative bearing zero-two-zero, and almost immediately, the first blast rocked the ship. Then with relentless fury, the barrage began. Each gun fired a shell and the very next second, another gun fired until each gun had fired, by which time the first had reloaded and the cycle began again. They were hurling a shell every second from the forward battery in a deadly cacophony.
Harry moved to the rear of the bridge where screens connected to the radar centre in the bowls of the ship showed what the operators down there could see. He wasn't an expert, but he had a fair idea what the blips on the bright orange circular displays were. Kennedy joined him in surveying the radar displays before both froze. Blips in a neatly arrayed line were moving in from the lower right quadrant behind them, putting themselves between Ceylon, Nigeria and the convoy.
"They're either trying to attack the convoy while we're engaged or they're trying to surround us." Kennedy stated.
"Make two-zero-zero degrees relative and maintain full ahead flank." Harry ordered, the two-minute barrage having closed the range to just seven miles; "Train the rear turret and the four inch guns on the first group, broadside until the forward battery is unable to train, and keep firing the rear battery until we're out of range or out of targets. Ask the engine room for everything they've got, I want to cut in between the southern group of targets and the convoy. Request Blake deliver fire, hopefully that will slow them and they'll try and dodge the fire."
"Did something interesting happen?!" demanded a rather ruffled-looking Robert who was panting slightly, having dashed through the ship, having to open and close hatches to get to the bridge.
"We decided to let off a few dozen barrages just for fun." Harry said with a deadpan look as the entire ship was rocked by a staccato ten-second rolling broadside from all the guns followed by a single huge broadside with all the guns let off at once.
September 1990, Sink Inc. Headquarters in the Western Isles of Scotland
In the impressive Queen Anne-style complex known to one and all as 'The Admiralty', Harry Potter propped up his boots on his desk, pushing a pile of paperwork into his 'out' tray. He glanced at a large poster on the wall, an enlarged copy of a popular London tabloid simply entitled 'BANG' with an image taken from a supertanker in a convoy his company had been protecting. In the foreground were the two light cruisers Ceylon and Nigeria simultaneously firing a massive broadside of eighteen six-inch main-battery guns and eight four-inch secondary guns.
Three years had passed since that photograph was take, and Sink Inc. had increased manpower to fifteen thousand sailors, their cruisers escorting dozens more convoys through the Persian Gulf, fighting off the coast of Liberia and providing shore bombardment for the Americans off Panama while destroyers had been hired by Senegal to protect their fishing rights and assisting in the border war. Clever investment of returns from these operations allowed them to cover costs, mainly paying the sailors, and make a healthy profit.
However, Harry was expecting further engagement of their services. In the weeks just passed, Saddam Hussein had invaded Kuwait when they refused to forgive his debts to them made in the Iran-Iraq war. Kuwait being an old British protectorate and a close ally of the west, it was likely that if Hussein didn't withdraw, war would descend on him.
So he had just come up with a plan for several battlegroups based around their capital ships. The battleship Jean Bart and the battlecruiser Goeben would be the centre of two fleets. All three of the Crown Colony class cruisers had all received the upgrades including American self-loading eight-inch guns, modern radar, CIWS, homing torpedoes, a better CIC and a larger bridge.
The three of them, with a crew of seven-hundred, along with the lone French heavy cruiser Suffren who had a similarly-sized crew, two Oregon City class heavy cruisers and the eight Baltimore class heavy cruisers with crews of a thousand would make the cruiser force one of fourteen ships and thirteen thousand men. Add in the battleship Jean Bart and the battlecruiser Goeben with new oil-fired boilers and the limit would be reached for personnel. He intended to place one Crown Colony class cruiser in the Jean Bart battlegroup as the battleship had her own CIWS emplacements, and the cruiser would be able to provide anti-air cover for the six American heavies that would form the rest of the group. Goeben didn't have much in the way of modern equipment, so would have two CIWS equipped Crown Colonies, Suffren and four American heavies.
In the fortnight since the invasion, Harry had authorised the covered drydocks opened, the ships floated and brought out into the bay in readiness for exercises which were to begin in five hours. He could hear the distant whine of jets in the launches and patrol boats ferrying out crew to the ships. Despite having not turned sixteen, Harry's jacket now had two gold stripes of a Lieutenant, having been sailing for three years with several combats under his belt. It helped that he owned the fleet though.
Stepping onto the port bridge wing of the battleship Jean Bart, Harry first surveyed the ship he was on. She was long, two-hundred and fifty more than one of the United States Navy's newest Ticonderoga Class cruisers. Sleek, with a raked bow presenting a forward battery of eight fifteen-inch naval guns capable of two rounds a minute per gun.
The secondary armament of nine five-point-nine inch guns split between three turrets had been replaced with the spare six-inch guns left from the conversion of the Crown Colony class cruisers, doubling the rate of fire. Her twelve twin three-point-nine inch anti-aircraft weapons had been replaced by Quick-Firing Four-and-a-Half Inch Mark Fives with autoloaders. This gave Jean Bart the capability for each of the twenty-four barrels to put up a shell every two-and-a-half seconds, the same as the previous guns but with twenty-five kilo shell, double the weight of the previous projectiles. The murderous armament was completed with fourteen light anti-aircraft emplacements being replaced with four Goalkeeper CIWS mounts and three more QF 4.5 Inch Mark V mounts to give her thirty of the guns.
Then in the bay, the six remaining ships of the battlegroup were raising steam to make for the sea. Suffren had undergone a rather less radical modifications program, simply replacing her eight inch main battery with American Eight Inch Mark Sixteen autoloading guns, her eight ninety-millimetre single anti-aircraft guns were replaced with QF 4.5 Inch Mark Vs to double the rate of fire and nearly triple the shell weight. The same single QF 4.5 Inch guns replaced four twin thirty-seven millimetre gun emplacements, which slightly increased the rate of fire and multiplied shell weight by nine.
Jean Bart and Suffren were to be accompanied out by Ceylon, which had received QF 4.5 Inch Mark Vs in four twin mountings, her main battery turrets modified to take eight inch Mk.16 autoloading guns and four Goalkeeper CIWS replacing her four quadruple 'pom-poms'. The remaining ships, four Baltimore Class heavy cruisers had also received a bit of a makeover with the auto-loading Mk.16 naval guns and six twin QF 4.5 Inch Mark Vs.
Harry quickly calculated that between them, in a single minute, they could fire a barrage of sixteen fifteen-inch shells, nine-hundred and eighty eight-inch shells, seventy-two six-inch shells, two-thousand seven-hundred and fifty four-point-five inch shells, plus Bofors forty-millimetre, Goalkeeper thirty-millimetre and Oerliken 20mm.
"Looking forward to getting to Cape Wrath?" asked Robert, nearly bouncing out onto the bridge wing.
"Very much so." Harry allowed himself a slight smile; "I heard you went out yesterday with her and went through the more interesting bits of the Western Isles, how did it go?"
"For a warship of her size, she puts a shift on. Plenty of rudder authority and good ability to use the outer propellers to yaw. I think I may have given a fishing trawler out of Oban a heart attack." Robert grinned; "You can imagine. There was quite a sea fog and I came bearing down about three quarters of a mile off his starboard side, going flat out at about thirty-four miles an hour."
"Yes, I think I can imagine." Harry laughed; "Well, Commodore, if you'd like to get us underway."
September 1990, Cape Wrath Firing Range, Scotland
"Why d'you think the First Sea Lord himself has us out here?" mumbled a patch of rough gorse to a nearby rock, which unfolded itself into a burly humanoid figure, raising a set of binoculars to his eyes.
"Apparently some military contractor's going to be coming up here with some boats to do a bit of shooting. People with scrambled egg on their hats want to know what kind of heat they're packing." the second camouflaged man replied.
His words were followed by a distant rumble as Jean Bart fired a full broadside at twenty-two miles. The shells climbed in a parabola faster than the speed of sound while the sound travelled a lesser distance. The result was incredible.
"Thunder?" asked the first camouflaged man.
His answer came as eight fifteen inch shells plunged into the small island about four miles from their observation post. They cratered it heavily, the best part of seven tons of metal and explosive descending at Mach one-point-four and nearly forty degrees from the horizontal.
"Jesus feckin' Christ!" yelled the patch of gorse over the residual noise from the blast; "That was no peashooter."
They both quickly pulled on hearing-protection equipment at retreated to a garishly-pink painted Alvis Saracen used for range maintenance, closing the doors and hatches just as another salvo erupted on the island. After the first two, another sixteen salvoes were to be heard before all hell broke loose. Ten minutes of shelling had allowed the heavy cruisers to enter the range of their eight inch guns. Ceylon, Suffren and four Baltimore Class opened fire with their forward batteries, totalling thirty-four guns in addition to Jean Bart's eight.
"The team in the lighthouse report that there are at least five ships out there, maybe as many as forty-two. The first barrage came from approximately twenty-three miles, closing to seventeen miles before intensifying." the man camouflaged in rocky grey stated after listening to his radio for a moment.
"Twenty-three miles? Seventeen miles? Can any of our destroyers do that?" asked the gorse-camouflaged observer.
"Best you'll get for naval bombardment from them is thirteen miles." was the negative response.
"Bloody hell. Whoever this company is, they're packing enough heat to take out our ships before they can get off a single round unless an Exocet frigate takes them out."