Turn 118 - Get It Up
<Rouges Noir Combat Report>
There has been no significant changes in the four separate battles in Rouges Noir space. The Bourbon’s have requested that you leave the jump point defense and recharge stations in position and are offering to subsidize your expenses for maintaining them. As you suspect that the recharge stations, especially, will be useful for trade and supporting future expansion to the galactic north, you are more than willing to permit it.
<Black Steel Combat Report>
A heavy Black Steel raid strikes Waypoint 3 before you can build any defenses at the jump points. In some ways this is advantageous as it gives your forces total freedom of maneuver. Due to the overwhelming nature of the Black Steel force, Admiral de Palo initially declines battle, leading the Black Steel on a long chase across the system. The higher sustained acceleration rates of the Black Steel mean that it will be impossible to completely avoid battle, however, but de Palo desires to minimize the vulnerable window as much as possible.
When battle becomes inevitable de Palo orders a forlorn hope of vessels to decelerate and engage, in order to give the bulk of her fleet time to reach the jump point and escape. She had intended to lead the rear guard herself, but her captain’s convinced her not to and she reluctantly agreed. Rear Admiral Danilovich instead is in command of the formation.
The bulk of the Grand Fleet is able to jump clear, unfortunately the rear guard was utterly overwhelmed by the massive Black Steel force. Several
Omaha-class vessels were in system and observed the last stand, although they were too far away and enemy ECM was far too intense to get more than the most basic data back.
The Black Steel forces departed the system once they reached the jump limit, but evidently they’d taken enough damage that they didn’t show up at any of your other systems.
- Second Battle of Waypoint 3
- Friendly losses
- 16 Dreadnought-class Battleships
- 50 Prinz Eugen-class Heavy Cruisers
- 20 Guiseppe Garibaldi-class Light Cruisers
- 70 Dido-class Light Cruisers
- 170 Battle-class Destroyers
- 80 Lyr-class Corvettes
- 500 Shimakaze-class Parasite Destroyers
- 300 Spruance-class Parasite Destroyers
- 230 Mikasa-class Parasite Battleships
- 50 Carrier Wings
- 100 CAP Wings
- Enemy Losses (Estimates)
- ‘Multiple’ Battleship sized vessels, unknown classifications
- ‘Multiple’ Heavy Cruiser sized vessels, unknown classifications
- ‘Large Numbers’ Light Cruiser sized vessels, unknown classification
- ‘Large Numbers’ Destroyer sized vessels, unknown classification
Several days after the battle, with no reports of returning Black Steel forces, the Expeditionary Fleet jumps in and re-secures the system.
Coming so soon after the major victory in the First Battle of Waypoint 3 there is relatively little impact to morale with this semi-defeat. Your forces hit far above their weight and the majority of the Grand Fleet managed to escape the Black Steel. You likely delayed the Black Steel by a significant margin and hopefully bought yourself some breathing room in combination with the destruction of the Black Steel forward base last year.
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You’d been so wrapped up with the battle reports that you’ve not been paying any attention to the Olympics this year. You’ve been aware that they’ve been going on, but it’s not really registered like it usually does. Your athletes are doing moderately well, certainly leading the medal boards, but the other nation’s teams are doing almost as well, limiting the number of gold medals this time around. You’ve even gotten a good fight in motor racing this year, as the NRR team comes within 5 seconds of snatching the gold away from your stock car racing team.
It is now time for your budget.
Amaunet is up first, the big cat looking quite relaxed. “Padrone, I know the defeat at Waypoint 3 is a bit depressing, especially after the big victory, but looking at it with a degree of cold-blooded detachment our losses are within a fraction of equalling our production levels. It’s cold comfort, especially to the families of those lost, but this was a loss we could afford. In less than two years we’ll have completely recovered all of our losses.” The big cat looks over at Admiral Fisher, who is looking… angry. “In the last two years we’ve inflicted heavier losses and taken lighter casualties than in any other pair of major actions against the Black Steel. I submit, Padrone, that this means that our Navy’s strategies are working, and we need to stay the course. We’re in a position to keep the pressure up, starting next year.”
She looks around, then nods to General Bradley who takes the podium.
“Your Majesty, the fighting on the four Rouges Noir planets remains fairly static. They keep on coming, in the same old way, and we keep on crushing them, in the same old way. We’ve accelerated the rotation schedule for our forces in an effort to fight PTSS, with great success.” She checks her notes. “Our production levels are adequate for now, Your Majesty, although we will be wishing to expand Mech production in the near future.”
She brings up the request chart, which is quite short all things considered. You are a bit surprised at one entry, and lift an eyebrow at the General. “Yes, Your Majesty, we intend to expand the Imperial Guard. We currently have one division in the Griffon system, one in the Nowa Warszawa system, and we intend to station one in the Calliope system.”
- Imperial Griffon Army
- Procurement
- Regular Forces
- 4 Heavy Combat Team Divisions
- 1 Imperial Guard Division
- 6 Infantry Divisions
- Garrison Forces
- 26 Garrison Divisions
- 25 Militia Divisions
General Perkins is up next. “Your Majesty,” he begins. “We will need to replace our losses from the recent battle, unfortunately the ASF wings involved were total losses so we cannot simply reconstitute them. That being said, we can come very close to doing so completely in just this one year. We are focusing first on the CAP wings, as the threat from Black Steel drone swarms is still very high.”
- Imperial Griffon Aerospace Force
- Procurement
- 100 CAP Wing
- 25 Carrier Wing
Admiral Fisher looks much like your grandfather sometimes did, like an ancient war god in the mortal plane. “It’s cold-blooded, but Amaunet is right. We can rebuild from these losses quickly and continue to expand our forces. We’ll soon be able to build even more powerful battleships too, so there’s that as well. We’ll be continuing to grow the Grand Fleet but also reinforcing the Expeditionary Fleet. Our new logistics ships aren’t ready for production yet, but we’re planning on procuring several more
Supply-class ships to fill the gap for now. We’ll also be building new orbital shipyards, assuming that we colonize those three habitable systems.” He glares around as he brings up the budget request for you to look at.
- Imperial Griffon Navy
- Production
- New Orbital Shipyards
- Hot Mess
- New Narnia
- The Hub
- Glorreich
- Shin Tōkyō
- Upgrade All Orbital Shipyards
- Construct Refit & Repair Yard
- Upgrade all Refit & Repair Yards
- Escort Yards
- Neubayern
- Neuhessen
- Nouvelle Bourgogne
- Nuova Lombardia
- Nuova Puglia
- Nuovo Abruzzo
- Nyū Shikoku
- Stenen Tuin
- New Libertalia
- Nuova Tripoli
- Awha
- Catachan
- Feurstern
- Neuthüringen
- Nowe Mazowsze
- Nox
- Platzregensburg
- Iskra
- New Algiers
- New Clew Bay
- Nubifragio
- Bellaterra
- Bohren
- Landprettig
- Porto Milano
- Shin Tōkyō
- Hot Mess
- New Narnia
- The Hub
- Small Warship Yards
- New Castor
- New Port Royal
- Nowy Wroclaw
- Nowy Slask
- Chuma
- Medium Warship Yards
- Glorreich
- New Phoenix
- Okusawa
- Pieklo
- Bari
- Large Warship Yards
- Nya Kopenhamn
- Kainga
- Edelsteine
- New Capricorn
- Procurement
- Regular Dropships
- 200 Shimakaze-class Parasite Destroyers
- 200 Spruance-class Parasite Destroyers
- 91 Wright-class Dockable ASF Platforms
- Large Dropships
- 200 Mikasa-class Parasite Battleships
- 30 Saipan-class Parasite Carriers
- Jumpships
- 4 Windjammer-class Jumpships
- Escorts
- 100 Battle-class Destroyers
- 100 Lyr-class Corvettes
- 20 Supply-class Logistics Ships
- Small Warships
- 40 Dido-class Light Cruisers
- 40 Guiseppe Garibaldi-class Light Cruisers
- 2 Hosho-class Light Carriers
- Medium Warships
- 25 Prinz Eugen-class Heavy Cruisers
- Large Warships
- 10 Dreadnought-class Battleships
- 6 Jean Bart-class Battlecruisers
- Fortress Command
- Jump Point Defenses
- Waypoint 3
- Hot Mess
- New Narnia
- The Hub
- Oasis II
- Waypoint 3
- Hot Mess
- New Narnia
- The Hub
- Black Tower
- Waypoint 3
- Hot Mess
- New Narnia
- The Hub
- Nubifragio
Elizabeth Lee looks on worriedly as Admiral Fisher stumps back to his seat, then gathers her notes and heads to the podium. “Your Majesty, as the Admiral implied, we are strongly recommending colonizing the three habitable worlds discovered in the latest round of survey work, but also holding off on additional surveying until the fleet is back up to strength from the recent losses.” She brings up a small graphic.
- Colonize+System Government+Justice System
- Hot Mess
- New Narnia
- The Hub
“We have six DoME teams available this year. We recommend that one continue expanding the arcology complexes on Shin Tōkyō, while the others work on terraforming worlds to make them more self-sufficient.”
- Department of Mega Engineering
- Expand Shin Tōkyō Arcologies
- Terraforming
- Feurstem
- New Clew Bay
- Nyū Shikoku
- Neubayern
- Grand View
She checks her notes briefly. “Finally, we have our economic focus and investment recommendations. I will note that in a year, at the outside two, we should have two more Core worlds, which should be very helpful in regards to expanding our shipyard capacity. Awha and Kaiyo are on the verge of achieving that status.” She smiles a bit as she brings up another chart.
- Economic Focus, Investment & Infrastructure
- Economic Focus
- Major Investment
- Investment
- Infrastructure & Industrial Zones
- Arvum
- Nouvelle Bourgogne
- Bohren
- Landprettig
- Nuova Puglia
Your Foreign Minister is off at the Olympics representing the Empire. Tiberius therefore comes up next. “OK, Parliament doesn’t like us as much as we might wish they liked us, but considering the fast one they tried to pull I’m torn as to whether or not you should have me go schmoozing with them before the next election. If you want I can do it, but it’s probably not really that important.”
General Messerschmidt speaks up from where he’s seated. “With Agostina absent it falls on me to inform you of this, Your Majesty, although it doesn’t require any immediate action. Both the NRR and the NRI have expanded and now share a border south of Nya Köpenhamn, cutting off expansion in that area. In addition, the NRI Navy has started production of a Destroyer sized version of their
Pilum corvette following the same design philosophy. They anticipate them entering service next year.”
You grimace a little at that, you’d considered driving a wedge between the NRI and NRR in order to keep them separated, but circumstances evidently mean that is now impossible.
Grace is absent, but she sent a note recommending that you fund R&D into Improved Communications this year, in anticipation of eventually being able to upgrade your automation and educational facilities in the relatively near future.
Martina takes the podium briefly. “Your Majesty, we at Justice strongly recommend initiating our next review of the Legal Codes in order to fully rationalize them. Luckily, thanks to the solid groundwork laid in previous rationalization passes, we should have a somewhat easier time of it this time around.”