Reich Marshal of the Belkan Reich

RM Vol 3: For a World without Boundary – Chapter 21-9: The Hunt for Bismarck (Part 9)

The 26th of August features an atrocious weather conditions. Nonetheless, despite being battered by the bone-chilling Atlantic storm, aircraft belonging to Admiral John Tovey's Home Fleet sortie in a daring effort to find the elusive Belkan battleship, now identified as the RMS Bismarck. Frustratingly, the only reason why they were able to figure out the name of Belkan warship was due to the early morning propaganda, broadcasted by the Belkans themselves across the world. Just this alone is more than enough to demoralize the servicemen of the Home Fleet as many are friends with the men in the late Vice Admiral Holland's squadron.

It's not just the Royal Navy that was in total disbelief at the front-page news, but also the rest of the world. Japan, China, Rusviet... All eyes are now gathered in this hunt across the Atlantic, with the Royal Navy being called foolish sailors that dared to hunt for the Moby Dick that is the Bismarck. It's unknown how the Belkans managed to attain the news, but they ridiculed the pilots of the Ark Royal in their wrongful attack on the Spanish cruiser yesterday. As such, coupled with the official condemnation from the Spanish Inquisition, the reputation of the Royal Navy is at an all-time low, having also lost their proud HMS Hood and Prince of Wales due to two vessels that they tried to ambush.

They sorely need a victory, and now, all hope is pinned on the prowling Home Fleet. It's not just the deployed aircraft from the carriers that joined the hunt, however, but also long-range recon in the form of Catalina flying boats and a few other destroyers and cruisers that the Royal Navy could spare. In total, there are currently more than thirty Erusean vessels that are searching for the battleship Bismarck and her escort. Nonetheless, many of these ships are low on fuel, having been called in from the middle of their other tasks. As such, only those that serve in the Home Fleet can effectively pursue and engage the enemy should the alert is given. Unfortunately for everyone involved, the extremely low visibility means that if they come across the Bismarck, it will be near the point-blank range. As such, Admiral Tovey has explicitly stated all elements of the task force not to engage the enemy battleship on their own. They need only shadow the Belkans until help can arrive or if they have the greatest chance to slow the Bismarck down.

For an entire morning of blanketed search at the locations Admiral Tovey marked last night, the Eruseans fail to come up with any trace of the Bismarck. That is until 10:30, RMS Bismarck and RMS Prinz Eugen are detected by a Coastal Command Catalina reconnaissance aircraft from 209 Squadron RAF that had flown over the Atlantic from its base on Lough Erne in Northern Nordlands. Their current coordinates shocked the officers in charge of Home Fleet, John Tovey included, for the pair of Belkan vessels are steaming forth leisurely on an intercept course for the Home Fleet. A course that Admiral Tovey hasn't ordered for any surface patrol.

Contact with the Catalina is soon lost, with other attempts at directing an aerial scout to survey the Bismarck ending up dead silent after they report the updated coordinates of the Reichsmarine battleship. At least, with the sacrifices of the airmen, the Home Fleet knows what's about to come down, giving them enough time to plan ahead.

Now then, although Tovey knows that the Royal Navy severely outnumbered the Reichsmarine detachment, he is extremely wary about the unknown firepower the Bismarck possesses. If the words of the Belkan propaganda are to be trusted, then Bismarck had gone out of sinking an entire squadron completely unscathed. There could be other factors in play but with lacking intelligence, Tovey chooses to err on the side of caution, a fact that his subordinates also agree on. Hence, he starts diverting a sizeable force of fast-moving vessels, consisting of two light cruisers and five destroyers:

• The light cruisers HMS Sheffield (Town-class cruiser detaching off from the Home Fleet formation) and HMS Arethusa (Arethusa-class cruiser detaching off from a trans-Atlantic convoy mission).
• Destroyers HMS Cossack, HMS Maori (Tribal-class destroyers detaching off from the Home Fleet formation), HMS Icarus, HMS Imogen, HMS Isis (I-class destroyers detaching from a trans-Atlantic convoy mission and from patrolling duty).

Forming up in a squadron, led by the HMS Sheffield, Admiral Tovey tasks them with shadowing and constant harassment of the Belkan ships, and mostly to test the water. They're to do whatever is necessary to buy enough time for Home Fleet to get into a favorable position. An aerial observer will be circling them to help relay battlefield data to the rest of the Home Fleet. By 15:00, Sheffield's squadron has come to the edge of the visual range of Bismarck and Prinz Eugen. They report the coordinates of the battleship to Admiral Tovey and give him an ETA until the Bismarck crosses paths with the Home Fleet.

By the time the two Erusean battleships HMS Rodney and King George V locate Bismarck, they will have the setting sun silhouetting them while Bismarck remains in the evening gloom. Tovey observes this and, to the surprise of his staff, orders that the final action will further be delayed until the following morning. In so doing, he ensured that the benefits of the light will be reversed to the Royal Navy's advantage and that the Belkan crews would be fatigued by constant harassment by Sheffield's squadron. He even tasks the air wings from Ark Royal and Hermes to constantly attack Bismarck on a rotational basis. The risk is that Bismarck would, somehow, escape but Tovey accepts this.

There's a problem with extending the engagement time, however, and that is fuel. Most of the patrols spreading around the Atlantic won't have enough fuel to come and reinforce the Home Fleet if things go South. This means that John Tovey will only have his Home Fleet and no chance of reinforcement. The Home Fleet themselves is also facing draining their fuel supply at a dangerous rate. Leaving only enough for one engagement before they have to call off the pursuit. Understanding the problem, Tovey plans for Ark Royal and Hermes to stay out of the eventual battlezone, having them escorted by the low-fuel patrol and only sending out air wings to attack Bismarck. He, aboard his flagship, will be sailing out with the rest of the fleet to meet with the enemy by tomorrow morning.

The final close-combat engagement will only feature:

• HMS King George V and HMS Rodney
• HMS Repulse
• HMS London
• HMS Sheffield and HMS Edinburgh
• HMS Cossack, HMS Maori, HMS Zulu, and HMS Sikh
• HMS Icarus, HMS Imogen, and HMS Isis

Thirteen vessels in total and air attacks from the two aircraft carriers. This will be the most ambitious attack on a single battleship to date if you also included the lost HMS Hood and her escorts.

Until then, however, it rests upon Sheffield and her squadron to delay the Bismarck long enough. Care also must be taken to avoid losing a single vessel until the destined hour. Let's just hope Bismarck will be merciful to her harassers.

Before Tovey can rest his tired mind though, a signal arrives from the Erusean mainland. "Bismarck must be sunk at all costs, even if it means towing the entire Home Fleet back to Farbanti."

The signal initially caused amusement amongst Tovey and his staff, but its risks and implications almost immediately angered them.

"It was the stupidest and most ill-considered signal ever made!" Tovey exclaimed his frustration, one that was shared by his staff. "If the situation makes it so that only by leaving the entire fleet stranded in the middle of the Atlantic just to sink a single vessel, I would gladly be court-martialed instead!"

In that circumstance, it would have been highly likely that Home Fleet would have been lost to either the Reichsmarine U-boats or the returning warships of convoy Fur Spaniard.

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Bismarck and Prinz Eugen, of course, have long picked up the radar signatures of the entire Home Fleet, even intercepting their radio transmission to extrapolate Admiral Tovey's plan. As such, when Sheffield's squadron comes into range in a vain attempt of harassing the battleship, Bismarck and Prinz Eugen have already trained their guns and fire at the leading destroyers. But by proceeding with cautious evasive maneuvers all the while approaching the Belkan warships, the destroyers dodge the incoming shells with minimal damage. Nonetheless, the sheer accuracy of almost hitting the evading destroyers at a range of 25 km does give the Eruseans a fright. After a few more near-hits on the destroyers group, with HMS Cossack receiving moderate flooding when a 432mm shell detonated near her, Sheffield forbids a torpedo attack which requires them to close into a range of less than 8 km. It will be nothing short of a one-way trip and they still have to conserve their firepower.

They then try again in closing the gap, intending on bringing their guns into firing range. This time, the destroyers are to deploy a smoke screen to cover their approaches. The Belkans, however, seemingly scoff at their futile attempt. Despite a thick smoke screen and erratic evasive maneuver, the shelling from Bismarck and Prinz Eugen keep landing too close for comfort. When a shell from Bismarck over-penetrating the D-turret of HMS Sheffield before exploding midair on the other end, thus still disabling the turret altogether alongside carving a sizeable chunk of the cruiser, the entire squadron immediately pulls back. HMS Cossack and HMS Sheffield then have to take the back seat, with Cossack pumping out seawater while Sheffield works on putting out the fire on her stern.

When advised by the aerial spotter above Sheffield of the new development, Admiral Tovey has no choice but to stop Sheffield's squadron from getting into the effective firing range of the Bismarck. He now realizes just how good the accuracy of the Bismarck is to hit warships maneuvering in smoke. It's unheard of and to have that happened on multiple occasions? That's no mere fluke, that's the Belkans upgrading their technology to an unseen level. One that has proven to be way above what the Royal Navy has to offer. Admiral Tovey doesn't know how they have done that. Frankly, the situation doesn't bode well for them.

With Sheffield Squadron unable to employ themselves, Tovey and his staff can only watch on with their hands tied behind their back as the air wings from Ark Royal and Hermes try to achieve what the warships have failed. In total, the two Royal Navy aircraft carriers have 70 aircraft, with Ark Royal carrying 50 and Hermes fielding 20. Their complement of aircraft consisted of two types:

• 38 x Fairey Swordfish torpedo bomber
• 32 x Blackburn Skua dive bomber

They have no combat air patrol aircraft whatsoever, having thought that they're safely outside of the range Belkan air wings.

Sending out ten Swordfishes and eight Skuas as the first attack wave, the officers are still of the mind that it will be enough to slow the Bismarck down while saving the rest for later use.

What they don't know is that by sending only a small air wave each time, they're serving the airmen on a silver platter for the anti-air crew of Bismarck and Prinz Eugen. They would have a much better chance of scoring a crippling hit on the Bismarck had they gone all in, sending out all 70 bombers to try and overwhelm the air defense. Even that, however, won't be enough considering the Belkan warships can thin out the herd by using their Sea Iris and 150mm dual-purpose turrets (with Eugen having 128mm guns instead) at long range. By the time any surviving aircraft gets into short-to-medium-range, the 57mm Goalkeepers and 30mm Gepard turrets aboard the two vessels will swath them out of the sky thanks to their fire-control radars.

Funnily enough, there was a consideration by a few naval architects to outfit the main guns of the Bismarck-class with anti-air shells. However, such development was canned by Yuki herself, finding it to be woefully superfluous and useless when their smaller anti-air equipment can achieve much higher efficiency while not sacrificing the main guns' firepower.

The two bomber wings from Ark Royal and Hermes fly above the watchful gazes of Sheffield's harassment squadron and the Erusean spotter aircraft. Shockingly for them, eight streaks of barely visible flame crash into the Skuas dive bombers, having been flying higher than the torpedo-carrying Swordfishes. The ensuing explosions leave no survivor from the dive bombing formation, only falling carcasses and fragments. The Skuas were destroyed by none other than the Sea Iris missiles launched by the Gepard turrets aboard RMS Bismarck.

Traveling at a lower altitude than the Skuas, the Swordfish pilots look up in astonishment as they see their peers exploding out of nowhere. A few scream out whether there are Belkan fighters in the air, only to come up with almost nothing. Almost because multiple flak bursts suddenly appear in the middle of the formation of Swordfishes. The sudden anti-air flaks knock out two aircraft immediately, one taking a direct hit while another having its pilot decapacitated with a sizeable shell fragment. The leading Swordfish reacts quickly and immediately orders a dispersion and all remaining aircraft are to lower their altitude while flying at their best speed to the target. This happens all the while taking increasingly accurate and dense flak bursts around them. The aerial spotter in a Supermarine Walrus flying boat coldly sweats as he idly wonders why is he still up in the air when the others are being shot down like a duck hunt.

The Erusean observers, both in the air and on the sea, watch on with hopelessness on their features as the Swordfishes are clipped one by one. By the time they reach the distance of 15 km, the number of Swordfishes is reduced to a measly three. And when those three reach the 10 km mark, their path forward is literally blanketed in flaks as the Goalkeepers on the Bismarck and Prinz Eugen open up, sending multiple proximity-fuze 57mm shells downrange. By the time the flak screen dissipates, there's nothing left remaining of the two bomber wings from the Ark Royal and Hermes. RMS Bismarck and RMS Prinz Eugen proceed completely undeterred.

A feeling of utter worthlessness can be heard over the radio as the spotter aircraft relays what just happened to Admiral Tovey and his staff. By the time he's done, the entire bridge of King George V is dead silent. Nobody knows what to say in response to the absurdity that is Bismarck. Ultimately, it's the sound of running from the Ensign manning the radio station that dispels the silence.

"Sir, long-range communication with the Admiralty is cut-off. Also, you need to see this." The Ensign then hands over a paper, showing Tovey the latest transmission he suddenly received from an unknown source.

Tovey gives the paper a look, frowning with a grim face before throwing it on the map table for the rest of his posse to see. The men-in-charge give the message a one-over before looking at Tovey with grim acceptance.

"What do you need us to do, Admiral?" One of them asked, to which Tovey replied. "Call back Sheffield's group and have them rejoin the formation. It's high time we do what we are told to do."

"Sink the Bismarck!" Tovey said before gesturing for the radio operator to come with him for a try at getting through to the Admiralty for a report. With him gone, the rest of his staff also spring into action, preparing the entire Home Fleet for the eventual naval battle. On the now vacated map table is the discarded paper with lines of message, saying.

"This is Admiral Tallulah, commanding the RMS Bismarck, to Admiral John Tovey of the Erusean Home Fleet. Admiral, you have seen what my warship can do against your petty attempts of attacking my fleet unprovoked. The world is up at arms against your Royal Navy because of that. I also know of your plan to stall for time, thus giving you a more favorable engagement opportunity by the morning. As such, I hereby challenge you to a duel, here, in the middle of the Atlantic. My battleship and her escort, the Prinz Eugen, against you with your entire Home Fleet, in the oh-so-favorable conditions that you so desired. A final battle to determine whether the Royal Navy will get triumph over its nemesis, or will this relic of a bygone era will fall from grace, having crossed an insurmountable foe. Regardless of whatever choice you make, Admiral Tovey, your Home Fleet will sink. For that, I can assure you. End transmission."