Author Notes:
This is quite literally the last chance to get the newcomers discount in this month's Monthly Recruitment Drive! Big shoutouts to Ouroboros for taking the chance to get a 1-year Private donation! And yes, even the 1-year package comes with the discount as well!
As for the new RM chapter, it may not be as climatic as usual, but I think we all can agree it will be a bit much if things keep go boom-boom willy nilly without much sustance to it, no? Do comment about the things you find that are either interesting or need improving. I am all ears for them!
Marshal Yuki: https://postimg.cc/y3138Z6H
Battle of Mers-el-Kébir Phase 4: https://postimg.cc/hzwNS91J
Battle of Mers-el-Kébir Ending Phase: https://postimg.cc/tnxw7YBB
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"Fleet, hard starboard!" Vice Admiral Somerville shouts, running to the starboard side of the Valiant's conning tower to try and see the incoming torpedoes.
Per his order, the helmsman of HMS Valiant spins the wheel, and he spins it fast, with the remainder of Force H mirroring the flagship's action.
"I need star shells, in the air, starboard side!" Somerville barks the additional order.
Yet, before it can be transmitted fully by his XO, another alarming report comes in.
"Torpedo... To Port!"
"Wasn't it starboard that you said!?" Somerville nearly curses the sonar operator, but his next words stun him.
"They're coming at us from both sides!"
"H-How many!?" The Erusean Admiral asks in reflex. However, his brain has already conjured up the worst possible answer that he has been fearing.
"Too many!"
When the torpedo alert is raised, the entire Force H scrambles to try and spot the approaching explosive fish in the water. While they haven't forgotten the risk posed by Mogador's Flotilla, they have been maneuvering to dodge the torpedoes deployed by the Ustian bombers, coming at them from the South. Yet, in the process of dodging, they have shown their broadside to yet another wave of deadly fish, launched by Mogador's Flotilla at around the same time as the Ustian Bombers'. Mogador's formation has been saving this very attack for the right moment, which is now. Although it's been a bit of guesswork, and even a gamble and a half that Force H will be executing a hard starboard turn, the torpedo firing solution that Mogador's Flotilla uses proves to be the correct one. When viewed from above, the numerous torpedoes launched by Mogador's Flotilla will form a beautiful cross with those deployed by the Ustian Bombers. Now caught between a rock and a hard place, there's only one thing that Force H can do.
"Formation disperse!" Somerville shouts the worst command he has ever made in his life in the heat of the moment. "Maneuver at will!"
This is the only order that is remotely applicable in this situation. By giving the ships their freedom of movement rather than adhering to a strict formation, they will have more room to evade the approaching torpedoes, or at least that's what Somerville is hoping to achieve. Force H has noticed the air-dropped torpedoes much too late, and there has been no screening force in its starboard flank. So, even with the hard starboard maneuver, the lumbering Erusean battleships fail to evade all of the torpedoes.
HMS Valiant hits one torpedo first in the part that isn't covered by an extensive anti-torpedo bulge. While the bomber-launched torpedo is smaller than its ship-based counterpart, the underwater explosion still tears a gaping hole for seawater to rush in the foreend. In moments, nearly 1/4 of the bow compartments are taking in water. To prevent even worse flooding, Somerville slows the Valiant down, even further than the already slow cruising speed of the Revenge-class battleship, and seals off the bow bulkhead. HMS Valiant is not the only vessel to be hit by this spread of torpedoes, as even the Revenge herself takes two nasty hits. Only this time, HMS Revenge is hit twice, in the worst possible location, her aft. The two repetitive hits in one spot cause significant flooding and knock out her rudder and two of her shafts, most certainly knocking out more than 70 percent of her speed.
HMS Ramilies, as well, takes two torpedo hits; however, she's lucky that her anti-torpedo bulges prevent the worst of the damage. Only HMS Royal Oak emerges from the first torpedo spread unscathed. Nonetheless, it will be much too early for celebration, as merely a few seconds later, Force H is immediately within the no-escape distance of the last torpedo spread. Although Royal Oak has been lucky previously, it's doubtful that luck will hold true now.
Because the targets have been the entirety of Force H, and not any particular vessel, Mogador's Flotilla launched its torpedoes at shallow depth, ensuring that they can even hit the draught of opposing Erusean destroyers. Of course, in such an indiscriminate barrage of fishes, the torpedoes are spread in a manner akin to a gigantic fan, which would have made them quite inaccurate if not for the number of torpedoes being used. All three ship types of Mogador's Flotilla: the Mogador-class, the Le Fantasque class, and even the La Galissonnière-class, they emptied all the torpedo tubes they had on the side that was trained on Force H. And the result can only be described as devastating.
Since it's every vessel for itself, Force H's screening force falls apart, scattering to try to thread themselves in between the spotted torpedoes. Unlike a certain game, real-life destroyers don't feature the same ability to turn on a pivot, especially not the Eruseans'. It's also not a guarantee that sailors can spot all of the torpedoes and provide course correction for the helmsman, not when the sea is rough, and inadequately lit by the fading star shells above. And in this chaotic circumstance where the sound of screws drives an entire ocean mad, sonar or hydrophone operators can barely offer anything substantial. As such, it's mostly up to luck that an Erusean destroyer can spot and then dodge the inbound torpedoes. Obviously, not all of them are able to do all of that, with half of the Erusean screening force being hit amidship. Needless to say, a destroyer being hit amidship by a Ustian torpedo no less is a death sentence. Being a size or two larger than those air-deployable torpedoes, a 550 mm torpedo can straight up cut these old Erusean destroyers in half, and that they do.
Many Erusean sailors can't even react when they're either blown apart by the devastating. Some are unable to escape from the home-away-from-home that is now breaking down into pieces and are left drowning inside sealed compartments. The Erusean destroyers that are lucky enough to escape the net, however, quickly find themselves isolated and immediately falling prey to separate detachments from Mogador's Flotilla. Outgunned and outnumbered, it won't be long until these vessels find themselves joining the fate of those less fortunate to stay alive for a bit longer. If anything, perhaps a less fiery demise would have been a better way to go. That way, they could at least spare themselves a death or the humiliation of receiving a thousand cuts.
In the moments that made Force's H screening force defunct, however, is the moment when the last of the torpedoes reach the struggling battleships' location. Adding salt to injury, HMS Revenge takes yet another hit, this time on the port side, and she's struck amidship. Surprisingly, perhaps the Ustian's 21.7-inch torpedo is much too large, or the Revenge's anti-torpedo bulge is subpar in construction and maintenance, the damage is more catastrophic than expected, with the battleship's boiler rooms breaking down and taking in an unhealthy amount of salty water. As her power plant is taken offline, being dead in the water is the last of Revenge's concern. Right now, she is at a very great risk of being sunk by flooding. Her Damage Control Party is trying its best to seal off the flooded area, but the listing is getting more and more evident by the second.
HMS Ramilies runs headfirst into a torpedo, but other than it making a noticeable bump against her bow, with its warhead failing to detonate, the torpedo-stricken battleship got out more fortunate than her big sister. It's the Royal Oak, however, that is hit the hardest out of all the Revenge-class battleships. While her two sisters emerged worse for wear, Royal Oak has less than stellar luck when her sailors and officers only see the torpedoes coming at the very last moment. Still having her speed bleeding out from her earlier maneuver, Royal Oak is unable to evade three torpedoes that hit along its port side. Two of those torpedoes hit successively in her fore end, right where the magazine for her A and B turrets is. And when the first torpedo explosion creates a gaping hole in the armor scheme, the second torpedo utilizes that weakness to slip in right next to the shells and powder storage before going off. The resulting explosion is unquestionably eye-catching and heart-pounding as the Royal Oak is torn in half by an ammo detonation. HMS Royal Oak's detached front bow, or what's left of it, is even flung by a hundred meters along the surface of the dark ocean, before the rest of the ship goes down with its conning tower disappearing in but a couple of minutes. The Oak sinks so fast, and so ferociously is the whirlpool she generates in doing so, that it will be a miracle if anyone can escape her hull.
"My god..." Admiral Somerville mutters while gazing at the billowing husk that is now more than halfway under, which is the Royal Oak.
The losses of his destroyers and cruisers didn't sting as much as this, partly because they didn't come with such a heart-wrenching spectacle. Surely the Ustian side is celebrating right now, but for the Eruseans in Force H, or what's remaining of them, this is a crushing, despairing moment. For a moment, the crews aboard the remaining battleships of Force H even forget to fire back at their enemy. And while HMS Valiant has been able to dodge any further torpedo hits, mostly because she got lucky that a destroyer out in the yonder ate them for her, it's no news big enough to raise the bottomed-out morale of the Erusean sailors. But when shells suddenly land around you, kicking up seawater and whatever fragments that can knock a head clean off someone's shoulders, instinct takes over, at least to a certain extent. Tired, both physically and mentally, a shell that used to take 36 seconds to load now takes nearly three times that length.
There is literally no hope left for Force H to turn this around, and Somerville's wistful thinking of getting as many lives as possible out of this mess is fed to the crabs at the bottom of the ocean. He knows this, his XO knows this, and even their enemy knows this. So what now, what can be done? The sound of the Valiant's main guns firing shocked Vice Admiral Somerville out of his stupor. In his momentary introspection, he has realized how foolish he was back then to make such a rookie mistake. Instead of heading Eastward to immediately engage an enemy who had both positional advantage and combat effectiveness, Force H should have headed Westward and immediately fled. That singular mistake has thrust the last effective Erusean naval formation into a spiralling downfall with a very, very hard crash landing.
Somerville disdained the fossils that are now the Erusean Admiralty, but look at him now, making a grave blunder that would see his men dead and disgraced.
"Bumbling fool..." Somerville curses himself. "You should have stayed on that medical bed..."
Before Somerville can make up his mind fully on his last orders, a large shell, coming from a Southwestern angle, strikes the turret plating of the Valiant's B-turret. However, due to the acute angle of penetration, the shell ricochets from the turret armor and somehow flies and penetrates the foot of the Valiant's conning tower instead. While it luckily doesn't explode, risking a total collapse of the conning tower, the large-caliber warhead does crush a couple of sailors. It will be a miracle to figure out which one is which now that they're body parts and paste. But their untimely demises are not the point. When the spotters see flashes of gunfire in the Southwest, they report to Somerville with pale faces and grim looks.
"A-Admiral! W-We have vessels spotted at bearing 247!"
In this report, the Erusean Vice Admiral says nothing but doing a mental mapping with what he knows. Finally, after a whole minute of uncomfortable silence and exploding artillery, Somerville can only let out a wry, disappointed chuckle before sitting back in the Captain's Chair. The man looks like he has aged way more than he should. Knowing who the leader of his current enemy is, Somerville can only comment.
"Well played, Admiral Gensoul... Well played, indeed."
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"I have him..." Admiral Gensoul comments with a smirk while viewing the ruined, incohesive formation of Force H. "I have him right where I wanted."
As if to express her agreement in the matter, the eight main guns aboard the Richelieu sing a prayer for the poor, unfortunate Erusean souls. Although very clearly, this is a hymn for sending the living to the afterlife, not to cherish them. Task Force Richelieu, alongside Task Force Jean Bart, Surcouf's Flotilla, and the battle-damaged but still combat-capable Mogador's Flotilla, have formed a complete encirclement over the now dead in the water Force H. Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide, and even their methods of fighting are being chipped away after every shot, every minute. When HMS Ramilies and HMS Valiant start registering some serious damage by either the Jean Bart, Gascogne, or the Richelieu, however, an unsurprising radio message can be heard on all channels.
"This is Vice Admiral James Somerville of the Royal Navy to opposing Ustian warships. Cease fire. I repeat, cease fire!" The aged, tired, yet still somewhat steady in the face of overwhelming odds says. "We surrender!"