|
Dark Earth - The Red Shadow Chapter 4
It was a fey and wan sun that now shone over the great city, matching the quiet trepidation of its multifarious masses. Rumour and whispers abounded through her streets, factories, markets and warrens as to what had occurred and what would occur.
The passage of any large aircraft in the skies above evoked much declamation and opining as to their purpose and target, replete with baleful and silent glances to the east. From the floating islands in the clouds to the subterranean depths miles below, though, one note rang out in all deeds and enterprises. One thought overshadowed both hushed conversations and the councils of the high.
One word sat poised on the lips of the people of the city.
War.
…………………………………………………………………………………………..
Cabinet War Bunker, 3200 yards beneath Whitehall
The news of the potential breakthrough travelled most swiftly through the organs of the British government and was in the hands of Sir Obo Macinreish faster than one can gaily whistle the refrain to Land of Hope and Glory. With a seemingly effortless flap of his wings, the Cabinet Secretary flew from his comfortable alcove perch at the back of the subterranean briefing room to hover at the shoulder of the Prime Minister and whisper his report behind cupped paw.
The Prime Minister acknowledged the news with a nod of his head and a quiet word of thanks. Despite his …eccentricities…it did seem that Ratcliffe could be trusted to yet again do sterling service for his country, and hopefully without doing too much damage to her infrastructure, reputation and moral fibre; on reflection and past precedent, the latter two were those facing the greater danger, particularly given his erstwhile companions. Their capability was beyond doubt, but their methods were not. Alas, such was the price of centuries old tradition and the demands of eldritch forces.
“I can see now why Winston kept him quietly lost away in India.” muttered the Prime Minister to himself, much more loudly than he initially intended.
“What was that, Prime Minister?” The Deputy Chief of the Imperial General Staff looked up from his notes, temporarily halting his rumbling briefing on the disposition and readiness of home forces and harrumphing ever so softly. His spectacular white moustaches quivered with faint vexation and tremulous mortification at being interrupted, something exacerbated by the current crisis preventing him from luxuriating in his favourite Turkish bath, as was his habit of a morning.
“Nothing, nothing. Please continue with your briefing, Field Marshal Blimp.”
“Very good, sir. As I was saying, we have a total of twelve regular and four Territorial divisions currently available for contingency operations and home defence, with four further Territorial divisions completing training prior to their rotation to Imperial duties, and the twelve reinforced Territorial infantry brigades fully active on home defence duties. The four armoured and four airborne brigades are active as a general strategic reserve. Selected high readiness Army Reserve units have been activated, and will be ready on schedule for operational duty, albeit on a somewhat limited basis. The Home Guard continues to mobilize, although we are having scour arsenals far and wide to supply them with rifles and machine guns, let alone mortars and transport.
In addition, the Canadian Army has-”
“ Somewhat limited basis, Field Marshal? This is a rather disappointing set of circumstances considering the increase in emergency funding the Reserve Forces have received over the past four years.”
The Chancellor of the Exchequer leaned back as he spoke, mellifluously rumbling his objection over tented fingers. A gleam of what seemed to be regret flashed in his slate grey eyes, and his lips drew ever so slightly back pensively. The time honoured relationship between the Treasury and the Armed Forces as implacably opposed foes had mellowed significantly over the course of his tenure, albeit forced by circumstance.
“Indeed, setting the current situation aside, one could almost say that if we cannot get our money’s worth from ₤150 million a year for the Reserves, can we ever? I have no wish to deny the Army funds that are vitally needed, but we do not have a bottomless purse, despite all rumours to the contrary.”
“Sir Harold, the current budget enables us to pay the men, maintain equipment, conduct the bare minimum of training exercises, stockpile appropriate war materiel and gradually introduce modern equipment. The last factor is constrained by the productive capacity of the arms industry and Royal Ordnance Factories under enhanced peacetime mobilization levels -not to mention the transport capacity of the Army railways- and concentrates on essential war fighting equipment – tanks, guns and small arms.
The Regular Army, the Territorial Forces, the Commonwealth armed forces and our allies rank above the Reserves in order of priority for new equipment deliveries, and they thus have to rely upon older, slower and less reliable support vehicles, wartime tanks and whatever small arms we can find from our stocks. Even with production from Canada and our factories in America, there are finite limits on how much can be produced and shipped to where it is needed. It simply is not a matter of money and is one that has caused immense strain on the logistical planning sections of the Imperial General Staff; one of our best chaps cracked under the strain and had to be retired. Has a hotel somewhere in Torquay, as I recall.”
“Thank you, Field Marshal,” interjected the Prime Minister “We are all well aware of the constraints that industrial capacity place on deployment of forces. We can only hope that it will be enough, as we cannot afford full mobilization on any level. Every day of this crisis is costing us upwards of ₤5 million. The Empire can afford neither war nor much more of this kind of peace.”
“Additionally, Prime Minister, as I was saying, the Canadian Army has initiated preparations for the reinforcement of the Canadian Expeditionary Force, with the first elements preparing to embark on RCAF Ashtons and Duchesses at Halifax later today. The arrival of their heavy equipment by sea will take substantially longer.
The Newfoundland Division has been based at Oxford as GHQ Strategic Reserve.
Finally, the Calais Garrison is being reinforced by a provisional division of Regular and Territorial troops, along with assorted assets from the Machine Gun Corps, the Commandos and the Royal Marines. The Grande Armée has moved a further corps to the area but still only outnumber our forces eight to one.”
“Only eight to one, Field Marshal?”
“Considering the size and power of the French military, sir, it could be much worse. Britain may have one of the best armies in the world, but the French have one of the largest. However, with our war machines, landcruisers, armoured trains, strategic artillery and atomic infantry weapons kept in readiness at Calais, we can hold them for 72 hours – enough time to get four divisions across the Channel by hovercraft.”
“Indeed. My first priority is needed to release our regulars from home defence for other contingencies. What measures can be taken to increase our active manpower, short of a full call up of reserves?”
“There are three steps we can take, Prime Minister. Firstly, we can issue a recall for soldiers who retired to the Special Reserve over the past two years. Secondly, a selective call up of Combined Cadet Force boys in the final years of schooling, and finally, there is the Knightly Service Act. Including the military orders, the last alone could raise well over fifty thousand men.”
“Proceed immediately with the first two methods. I will speak to Her Majesty later today on the last. We still need more troops, though. General Niemczyk,” he turned to face Lieutenant General Count Jan Niemczyk, Minister of Defence of the Polish Government in Exile and Commander in Chief of the Polish Army in the United Kingdom “What can the Polish Army deploy?”
“We can potentially mobilize four divisions and two armoured brigades with equipment, Prime Minister. As for when they can be ready, that is a question for our Prime Minister and King. I am instructed by my government to offer to place my forces at your disposal with the caveat that they are to be available for independent Polish operations as the need may arise.”
The Prime Minister pursed his lips as he mulled over the proposal before nodding his grateful acceptance to Niemczyk. The conditions were to be expected and perfectly understandable under the circumstances. The ground forces were now looking almost sufficient for what he had planned. Now for the air. He looked towards a lavishly decorated Air Marshal who sported the obligatory enormous handlebar moustache and an ornate monocle. “What can Fighter Command deploy against any further aerial threats, Sir James?”
“We have thirty two operational wings with just over a thousand air superiority fighters, augmented by the Royal Auxiliary Air Force fighter squadrons, with the remaining aircraft being fighter bombers and strike fighters. It seems a large number, but we are spread thinly and have very limited reserves.
Our frontline fighters are concentrated in No.11 Group and No.12 Group, with No. 9 Group covering Ireland, Lyonesse and the West and No. 10 Group in Scotland operating the Merlin strike force - with them, we can flatten Leningrad or Kiev three hours after you give the order, or just as easily engage in dogfights over the Baltic
The Poles have one composite wing – almost double the strength of one of ours- in Lyonesse and one in the Midlands, which provides us with badly needed depth.
Our potential enemies in Europe - the Luftwaffe, the Red Air Force, the Royale Service Aéronautique, the Ejército del Aire and the Regia Aeronautica - have several thousand jet bombers between them, with the main threat coming from Soviet Long Range Aviation as discussed earlier. Our role is deceptively simple – Fighter Command is the hammer and Air Defence Command’s missiles are the anvil.
Until we have a full supply of atomics and Skyblade Mk IVs for the Lightning, Arrow and Delta II squadrons, our studies predict a kill rate of sixty eight percent, based on an eight wing raid on London at high altitude. This morning alone, we used up almost half of our current stocks of Skyblades, and once they are gone, we slip below fifty percent. There is currently a weeks worth of war stocks of medium range missiles, mainly Blue Dolphins, and over double that of Firebolts. After that, it is down to good old fashioned rockets and cannon.
I will not avoid nor gild the issue, Prime Minister – I’ll be a lot happier when the Commonwealth squadrons begin to arrive in strength and we have a proper reserve of modern weapons. Every day that conflict can be held off allows us to grow stronger and gives our factories time to turn out more planes. One month and we’ll have enough for a new squadron of Lightnings and can begin phasing out the Hunters.
Nevertheless, we are ready today and far better off than four years ago or twenty years ago. If any one of our enemies comes at us by themselves, we can take them on with a very strong margin of assurance. If it comes to several adversaries at once, we’d be outnumbered, but we can handle them long enough for Bomber Command to go in.”
“And we are most certainly ready to do so, Prime Minister.” began the AOC of Bomber Command “Two wings of Vulcans are holding at the limits of their airborne patrols over the North Sea and Arctic, two more are sitting in their aircraft waiting to scramble, and the other four are on five minute alert status at their dispersal stations. We can hold this force posture for another eighteen hours. The Valiants from 3 Group and 4 Group are standing by to be loaded with either conventional or strategic weapons, as are the Eagles. And,” he paused to check his notes “There are currently two hundred and thirty nine Blue Streaks in full operational status – still lagging behind schedule, but enough to blast open the way for our bombers.”
“I see. Let us hope that it does not come to that, Air Marshal Broadhurst.
Pull what fighters can from our air stations in Bermuda and the West Indies as a general reserve.” He saw Air Marshal Bigglesworth begin to object and cut him off with a wave of his hand. “I know what you are going to say, Air Marshal, and agree that we must be careful about the Americans. However, they are not the threat at the moment, and we can ask the Canadians and Newfoundland to move some older fighters in to replace them. They will be more than sufficient when combined with the Royal Naval Air Service and the air groups off the Navy’s floating fortresses.”
The mention of the latter caused a slight pause around the room. Almost as large than the great iceberg carrier Habakkuk that sat dormant in the chilly waters of Northern Canada, the four Floating Fortresses were part aerodrome, part dreadnought and part leviathan. Carrying upwards of ten thousand sailors each, along with thousands of Royal Marines, airmen and soldiers manning heavy guns, guided weapons, hundreds of aircraft and strategic rockets, the behemoths continually crawled the Atlantic Ocean, frequently visited by squadrons of V.1000 transports and RNAS Valiants. Although unquestionably the mightiest objects afloat on the seas – they were thought to be resistant to all but a direct hit by a hydrogen bomb, a dragon or a powerful wizard - they could hardly be called true men o’war, just as the Landcruisers of the Army could hardly be called tanks. Should they be in position, they would truly be more than adequate to cover the Caribbean.
“As for now, we’ve done all we can.” The Prime Minister rose from his chair, quickly followed by the rest of the War Cabinet. “We will reconvene in four hours time after I meet with Her Majesty and address an emergency session of the House before speaking to the country on the events of this morning and our response. Good day, gentlemen.”
As he walked down the corridor to his private offices, surrounded by several heavily armed detectives, one image remained foremost in his mind. A globe balanced precariously on the wickedly sharp edge of a long red knife.
.............................................................................................................................
Sir Charles Ratcliffe strode purposefully down the marbled entrance corridor of the Special Operations Executive, closely followed by his three companions. A look of forthright determination and inexorable zeal was firmly fixed on his face, his flowing moustaches twitched with concentration and profound anticipation and his right hand rested on the bejewelled hilt of his sword. Throngs of rushed personnel, soldiers and messengers parted in front of the advancing party as they reached the great oaken doors, flanked by a quartet of impassive and inscrutable sentries and glowing with the lustrous glow of the sunlit day without.
“Is my carriage ready?” he inquired of the nearest sentry
“Yes, Sir Charles. Just outside next to the Army chaps. Good luck sir.”
“Thank you kindly, Sergeant. I have a feeling we’ll need it.”
The party emerged into bright sunlight and the nearby bustle of the city streets. Below the polished granite steps on the pavement was a heavily sandbagged guard post, topped with bladewire and dominated by a pair of Vickers heavy machine guns covering the street in both directions manned by a section of hard faced soldiers from the South Wales Borderers. A few pedestrians on official business hurried by on the other side of the mostly empty street. Ratcliffe glanced up at the barricades sealing off both ends of the street. One had a Centurion tank sitting behind it somewhat absurdly in the middle of the road. Yet another sign, he thought to himself.
Juxtaposed incongruously against the grim tableau of emergency security was his carriage, a deep ebony stagecoach gilt with elaborate fantastical designs, heavily tinted crystal windows and a plush green leather interior visible through the wide open door. A team of six huge grey horses stood before it, flanked by the driver and guard who both wore Sterling submachine guns slung across their chests.
“The British Museum, my good fellows, with great haste.” Ratcliffe remarked nonchalantly over his shoulder as he climbed into the carriage, closely followed by Flint and Gallows, with Mandeville leaping in to curl up on velvet cushion as the door slammed and the coach began on its rattling journey through the streets.
“Why the Antikythera Mechanism, Sir Charles?” inquired Flint with a raised eyebrow.
“Simple enough, Brother. The mechanism is primarily used for astronomy and what not, yes?”
“Of course, even most schoolboys would be able to tell you that!”
“Naturally. The inscriptions on the door plates are in Archaic Greek, but in one section, there is a small passage in Old Atlantean light runes– perhaps the longest intact section remaining above the waves to this day. And just like the Rosetta Stone, it is quite useful for deciphering ancient tongues.”
“They’ve kept rather mum over that.” trilled Sir Jingles, interrupting his diligent cleaning of his paws.
”For certain, my dear fellow! With the amount of Atlantean artefacts they are still pulling out of the sea, we can’t be letting every nation know we can read a bit of the bally stuff. Oh, and by the way, consider all of this covered by the Official Secrets Act. Can’t forget that bit.” Sir Charles turned to look out of the window as he spoke.
“Why on earth would antiquities come under the category of national secret? Is there something vital on old bits of pottery?” Mandeville whispered as he leaned across to Gallows surreptiously
“I believe it was intended to use it as a reserve code type…rather superfluous now the Byzantines have beat us to it. Of course, the fact that the Home Secretary aspires to the largest collection of Atlantean curios in the world would have nothing to do with it. Nothing whatsoever.” The wizard closed his eyes and started softly humming Elgar.
Flint shook his head in disbelief. Drunken elephants, pottery hoarding ministers…this was hardly the adventure he had once dreamed of, and a long way from the grim realities of war that he had seen four years earlier in the desert.
The carriage pulled up to a steady halt outside of a huge set of steps leading up to neo classical marble building. Waiting eagerly on the steps were a gaggle of curators who ushered the companions into the museum, past two sections of heavily armed guards who held their hand cannons and bastard swords somewhat nervously, occasionally glancing to the skies.
“We’ve been rather careful about security here ever since the Tibetan poppy affair of 1925. Very careful.” explained a curator in answer to a whispered inquiry from Gallows.
Passing through the looming bronze doors, the procession wound its way quickly through a series of labyrinthine passages into a succession of grand rooms that contained a panoply of wonders unsurpassed by any other collection in the known worlds. To one side lay the grand sarcophagi of Tutankhamen and Alexander, overlooked by the fabled shattered remnants of the Statue of Ozymandias and the Standard of Ur. On the other stood the great Bust of Nefertiti and the Discobolus. Ratcliffe gazed fondly at the latter, remembering the expedition to recapture it from a marauding pack of gibbons twenty five years earlier.
They finally emerged into the office of the Chief Curator, a dark and cavernous chamber replete with soaring bookshelves packed with dusty tomes and dozens of bizarre curios from half a hundred countries and worlds. The room was dominated by a elaborately fashioned bronze desk covered with precariously poised piles of paper, paraphernalia and the paranormal, along with a small steam powered autowriter topped with a crystal screen thrust roughly to one side and a steaming bowl of boiled mutton, with drips of unctuous broth glooping down the sides and staining a rather nicely written inquiry to the Viceroy of Southern Mars about acquiring a Jabberwock for the Library collection.
Leaping to greet them from behind it was the eminently renowned head curator of the museum, Professor Emeritus Väinämöinen Fitzmauriss, a hunchbacked toadstool of a man clad in garish raiments of cheapest calico, a luxuriant velveteen smoking jacket and an elaborate fez perched precariously on his noble and knobbly cranium. Despite his typically eccentric appearance, he was a stolid and respectable old cove, with much to be stolid and respectable about.
“My dear Charles! It is so good to see you again. How has India been treating you?”
“Much better than he has been treating India, I’ll wager…” Murmured Sir Jingles
“Absolutely spiffing, Fitzmauriss! The sheer life of the place sings in one’s heart. Now, as much as I’d love to sit down and have a natter, we do need to have a gander at the Antikythera thingumabob.” beamed Ratcliffe in blissful ignorance of the feline aside, twirling one of his moustaches whilst his other hand shook uncontrollably behind his back.
“Ah yes, the Old Atlantean runes. Always a bit of a mess there. Well, follow me through to my inner sanctum,” huffed Professor Fitzmauriss mellifluously as he shuffled towards a beaded curtain in one corner of the book lined chamber “And I wager we’ll be able to sort you out in a jiffy.”
Passing through the curtain swiftly - with the exception of Flint who managed to catch his unruly hair on one of the strands of amber beads and had to be extracted by Gallows with much howling and gnashing of teeth – the intrepid group entered a dank, dimly lit brick chamber. In the centre of the room on a granite pedestal sat the Antikythera Mechanism.
Lying under a sorcerous blanket of blue light to halt the onrush of contamination and time, the bronze engine was covered with faded carvings and astronomical symbols. A marvel of gears, cranks and levers, the Grecian artefact from more than a century before the birth of Christ remained a mystery to most scholars. What had been deciphered was the basis for their visit – a tiny series of circles of Greek and Old Atlantean text.
Fitzmauriss beckoned for the snuffbox lid and leaned forward towards the mechanism, his thick spectacles perched on the very tip of his gnarled and protruding nose. He murmured to himself softly as he glanced back and forth between the objects.
“Tipharz…Higulsig…Orcym…Æintroth…Tipharz…Karez. Very strange, yes, very strange indeed. It is quite the conundrum. Tipharz, the first rune, is quite simple. It corresponds with Thanatos, or Death. Orcym is aligned with Enyo, companion of Ares, so that could be war. Higulsig is the old Atlantean for Hermes, Æintroth is Athena and Carez is Demeter.”
“’Death, Hermes, War, Athena, Death, Demeter.’ That isn’t a lot to go on.” scowled Ratcliffe.
“Jolly thing has me stumped, Charles.” whispered a thoroughly surprised Gallows.
“There is perhaps one further option, Sir Charles,” began Professor Fitzmauriss slowly, as if thinking aloud. “You could enlist the services of a code-breaker. You’d need a thoroughly esoteric one, though – a chap with a twisted mind and obscure knowledge. A chap who thinks and operates like a vicious and corrupt serpent. You could even say a chap who is thoroughly, thoroughly mad.”
A chill quiet spread across the room. They all knew of such a man.
“You will need to enlist the services of The Wastrel St. John Barrington Bel Inconnu.” intoned Professor Fitzmauriss sonorously and with not a small tinge of regret at having to proffer such a suggestion.
Sir Jingles’ tail flew up as if he had been stung by a rather vicious hornet.
Flint swiftly crossed himself and mouthed an incantation against devilry.
Ratcliffe bit down upon his ubiquitous cigarillo and spat the ruined remnants against a wall.
The Wastrel. Renowned among the lowest circles of London as a sordid, nefarious, mephistophelean and depraved character with a finger in every wicked and corrupt pie in the foulest nether regions of the underworld and a profound penchant for pernicious perversion.
“Desperate times call for the most desperate of measures, it would seem.” Ratcliffe grunted magniloquently. “I thought the Wastrel had decamped to Amsterdam after that scandal back in ’58.”
“That…man…returned triumphantly late last year after his lawyers were able to prove that the goat was fake.” Flint ventured, unable to hide his utter distaste for the subject.
“What ripping luck. I don’t suppose you’d know where to find him, Professor?”
“Thankfully, Sir Charles, I do not move in such circles.”
“Zounds! What about you other fellows? I dare say he’d be your sort of chap, wouldn’t he, Simon?”
“Our dealings have been few and confined to rather…rare…spell components and such requirements of my Art. However, I’d say that this time of day, he’d most likely be in with his catamites.”
“And where would they be?”
“Ensconced intimately with him, as I said.” grinned Gallows.
“Simon!” Ratcliffe moved towards the wizard with a warning glint in his eye.
“Oh, location. He generally holds court in the dining room of the Ritz, as I recall.”
As they turned to make their way out of the bowels of the museum, Flint sighed plaintively. One needs the patience of Job with this undertaking.
…………………………………………………………………………………………..
The carriage clattered away through the streets and the previous idle conversation between its occupants gave way to silent contemplation of what little clues had emerged.
Death.
Hermes.
War.
Athena.
Death.
Demeter.
...........................................................................................................................
Royal Naval Dockyard, HMNB Portsmouth, England
The huge yard throbbed and teemed with more activity than a recently disturbed anthill, a comparison that Captain Sir Andrew Sutherland KBE, DSO, RN found extremely apt given the air raid alert less than an hour ago.
Such uproar even extended into the skies above, he noted, glancing at the squadron of languidly circling de Havilland Vanguard F.2s that patrolled the skies above, each with eight Armstrong-Whitworth Galahad ramjet missiles poised menacingly under their wings and fuselage. They must be from the Reserve Carrier Wing, though Sutherland. Yes, that would have to be it. All the other Vanguards were out with the new carriers, providing a new long range shield in their role as fleet air defenders.
The guardians of the vaulting heavens were matched with the buzzing sentinels of the nap of the earth, with a dozen Saunders-Roe SR.A/4 Phantoms circling around out in the Solent ready to pounce on the first hint of untoward activity. The light blue jet seaplane fighters raised thick wakes of white foam on the all too calm water as they held their stations on a knife edge. The thin wings of their sleek aircraft were heavy with rockets, guided bombs and air to air missiles and a pair of cannon protruded like cruel tusks from each side of their pointed nose.
Captain Sutherland nodded to himself. The air belonged to us, as it should. A far cry from 1940, when he had stood ready to sortie out and engage the enemy more closely in another great ship – back then it had been Spitfires, Hurricanes and Meteors covering from above.
He turned back to face the dockyard itself. To one side, he saw the black iron gates slowly opening on the massive grey concrete and steel submarine pens that protected those latest and most deadly of the Royal Navy’s weapons, the atomic cruiser submarines of the Churchill class. Among the largest and heaviest defended structures in the world, the pens sported a roof no less than twenty five yards thick, backed up by two foot of magically reinforced steel. The cost had been utterly horrendous, and on a scale with the construction of the Congo Dam or the works at Mount Everest, but the value of the Churchills was of equal importance to the Empire, if not more so due to the sheer power they possessed.
Purportedly armed with dozens of Lancelot supersonic cruise missiles, rocket guns, eight torpedo tubes and other more outlandish capabilities, these jet black nautiloids were very much closely kept secrets with their existence barely acknowledged by the Admiralty. One of them alone could smash an enemy fleet like a megalodon let loose in a child’s paddling pool, or menace far off cities and aerodromes with their missiles carrying terrible power of the sun and poised to hurtle down towards them at over five times the speed of sound. Well over twice as big as any submersible vessel previously built, faster, unlimited in range and protected by a double hull of titanium, the Churchills were the silent trump card of the Andrew.
If they were sortieing, then matters were most dire - indeed, it could be only be worse if Resolution and her sisters were slipping out from their top secret underwater bases somewhere off the Outer Hebrides…Such an image made for unsteady times, thought Sutherland as he fumbled with his pipe and puffed contemplatively.
“Sir.”
Sutherland looked up from his musing turned to face his First Officer who waited patiently at the entrance to the bridge.
“Matthews. Are all of our special passengers aboard?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And the Admiral’s staff have been taken off?”
“Yes, sir. The last of them left on a Wessex ten minutes ago.”
“Excellent. Please have the others join me in my quarters directly. There are a number of things to go through before we weigh anchor.”
The special passengers obliquely referred to by Captain Sutherland were a dozen Fleet Air Arm pilots and their Harrier P.1154 jet fighters secured in her aft hanger deck, replacing the usual component of Rotodynes and seaplane fighters carried by the modern battleships of the Royal Navy. Quite ironic that what had been so incorrectly rumoured for the then-revolutionary Nelsons so many years ago was coming to pass now – a combination of guns and airpower, albeit of the experimental variety in the latter case.
Unlike the Nelsons, however, two of which were still laid up in this very Dockyard as silent witnesses to a world that had moved beyond them, his ship was far from helpless against modern aircraft. More so than any other battleship or cruiser in the fleet, this ship sported a battery of literally hundreds of modern SAGWs and the long range RDF suite to match them.
Most powerful of them were the long range Triumph missiles encased in protected launchers for’ard and aft of the main superstructure, with each cylindrical magazine penetrating deep into the ship and carrying sixty four ramjet powered and active radar equipped missiles capable of striking planes, rockets, missiles and airships at ranges beyond two hundred and fifty miles and heights well above one hundred and twenty five thousand feet. Complimenting these weapons were the four twin Talisman medium range batteries arrayed on the beams of the ship, with their armoured launching turrets enjoying wide sky arcs. Brand new Sea Cat missile launchers dotted the superstructure, providing a potent close in defence against aircraft and flying bombs.
Backing up the missiles was perhaps the finest collection of anti aircraft gun power that had ever put to sea. Two dozen 6”72 QF guns served as the secondary armament of the ship, firing new 125lb dual purpose shells out to twenty five miles away at an unprecedented rate of thirty two rounds per minute and providing a potent anti aircraft screen up to sixty thousand feet. However, their utility was somewhat limited against modern supersonic bombers, with arguably their greater value coming from anti surface and shore bombardment capacity.
Similar to post-war construction Soviet, French, American, German and Japanese battlewagons, his ship sported a strong medium battery, quite possibly the strongest ever placed on a battleship. Forty eight 3.75”/75 automatic guns provided the true backbone of the anti aircraft defence of the ship, firing a 25lb VT shell at over 125rpm per barrel and capable of shooting down attacking aircraft, rockets, missiles and assorted malign flying creatures. Power consumption and cooling had caused initial problems with the new gun mounts in the late 40s and early 50s, but they had been resolved by the time this ship had been laid down.
Dozens of quad automatic Red Queen and 1” Vickers DACR turrets covered the superstructure, rear decks and sides of the ship, with their spherical armoured roofs protecting the crew and machinery from the worst impact of the blast effects of the main guns. Whilst they lacked the range of the larger guns, they made up with sheer rate of fire, clear sky arcs and concentration of numbers, as well as integral radar guidance and coordination by a powerful dedicated analytical engine situated deep within the armoured citadel. Vigorous combat testing had seen them perform successfully against a whole spectrum of threats, ranging from light surface craft, sea skimming missiles and guided bombs to mass attacks by strike fighters and jet dive bombers.
The self defence capacity of the ship was completed by a number of less conventional weapons systems. Placed high in the soaring superstructure about the ship were eight stocky steel cylinders sporting a pair of multi-barrelled autocannons, with four square boxes containing Super Firestreak guided missiles on either side. They were known simply as Legion, with the operational details of the system a very closely guarded secret. Sutherland liked to think of them as his goalkeeper.
Even more eldritch were the four white adamantine domes fixed high up on the fore and aft superstructure. Standing orders were to avoid use of the Archimedes Ray save in the gravest of emergencies, and they were officially described as long range RDF apparatus. Only in and around London itself could similar systems be found, secreted high up in the anti aircraft towers and on the forts in the Thames Estuary.
It was this array of weapons that made Sutherland and his ship so valuable as a defence asset for the protection of South East England; the VSTOL fighters simply added cream to an already heady air defence cake.
Cream indeed, thought Sutherland, as he walked briskly towards his quarters for the final briefing. Let us just hope the cat doesn’t get us.
……………………………………………………………………………………….
Forty two minutes later, the largest vessel in Her Majesty’s Royal Navy finally got underway towards her defensive station in the North Sea. Whilst security was tight around the naval base, none who saw her could mistake her for any other vessel.
HMS Hood steamed onwards into the morning sun and an uncertain future.
Last edited by Simon Darkshade on Tue Jun 01, 2010 3:18 am, edited 1 time in total.
|
Login
Register
FAQ
