IT BEGINS

>>40809479
FUCKING HABBENING

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>>40809479
SETTLE BACKSTORY TIME

>>40809479
MY BODY IS READY

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>>40809479
IT'S

HAPPENING

If we've caught a Japanese cold we panic.

>>40809521
hahaha, this image fucking kills me

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“Skipper,” he says, passing the glasses to you. You apply your eyes, your privileged position high on the ship letting you gaze over the rooftops on the mole. The surface of San Pedro bay is a dazzling, shimmer of flaming orange light, but on the smooth surface you can just make out -

“Well, well.”

“Yeah,” Hate says. “Like I said. Ain't gonna miss this for nuthin.”

“Shall we?” you gesture at the door leading off the wing and onto the bridge proper.

“Visibility is better from here, Skipper,” Hate says straight-faced, and you find yourself unable to deny his logic. You lean against the railing again and take a deep breath as the Higgins glides towards the exit channel at a sedate four knots.

“Happy to be going out again?” Hate asks.

You open your mouth to reply – then pause, tapping your mug on the rail to make some noise. “Always,” you reply with a smile that doesn't reach your eyes. “Harder for the paperwork to find me... usually.”

Hate sips at his carafe again, glancing back at the bay. You lean over the railing a bit, studying the white lids of Higgin's forward 29-cell VLS. A moment passes in companionable silence as your ship slips alongside the mole at fast walking speed, the purring props barely disturbing the glimmering waters.

“Think they'll work?”

>>40809479
...but everything changed when the Fire Na- I mean, the Abyssals, attacked.

>>40809541
Bomber Grape, man.

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KONGOU
O
N
G
O
U

>be at Long Beach airport right now

I hope I live!

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HAHA TIME FOR FUN

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>>40809551
BAD KONGOU
STOP THIS

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You almost drop the damn mug. “What?”

“The LRASMs,” Hate replies, applying the optics to his face again.

You glance back at the VLS doors, freshly loaded with the latest greatest firecrackers not two days ago. “Oh. They'll work.” You tap your mug on the railing again, and give in with a sigh. “You ever get some just-in-country FNG start talkin bout how bad he wants to frag a haji? What'd you think of him?”

Hate's eyebrow quirks underneath the binocular's eyepiece before he responds. “Every time he opened his mouth we shit down his throat till he couldn't squeeze a word out. Why?”

You just snigger and return to staring at the VLS doors, hands cupping your cooling mug. Hate drops his optics again and sliiiides his pupils to the corner of his eyes to study you.

“They're still talking about promoting you, aren't they?”

You click your mug on the rail again, a little too sharply. Hot coffee splashes out and a drop sears your finger. “Dammit – uh, yeah.”

“When?”

You kick the deck with your toe, leaning further over the rail. “They laid this girl's keel in 1990. She's getting along, you know. And my Holy Nation says there might be a flag slot opening up in a few years.”

“Just when everything's going to hell,” Hate observes.

“Yeah.”

>>40809579
Is it a bad sign that as this quest progresses this is looking more and more of a good idea?

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>>40809551
This doujin should be recommended reading. Because it's probably going to be close to cannon.

>>40809605
Settle should just carry his academy sabre around with him 24/7 now

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You both keep the peace for a few minutes more, and you even drink some of your damn coffee. You can hear Hate thinking; a reluctant, rusty sound of just-woken entropy flaking off. Before he can finish, the Higgins rounds the mole and turns for the main channel, giving you both a good look at the twenty-foot launch lying in wait for you to starboard, just barely outside the restricted passage. Their banners and signs are already deployed. You borrow Hate's optics and read the signs from three hundred yards distant.

“Uranium?” You lower the glasses and glance at Hate quizzically.

“Depleted uranium,” Hate says. “New warheads have some penetrator-rod bundle... thing in'em. I dunno.”

As you pass even with the fire-boat station, muted voices begin to reach you over the water; the banners and signs on the launch beginning to jiggle and jostle exuberantly. You sliiide your eyes towards Hate, who's already slipping the tablet out of his pocket. He flips the cover up with exaggerated flair, and gives you a sly look.

“I dunno,” you say thoughtfully. “They wouldn't be stupid enough to do anything here, would they?” You nod at the not-too-distant shape of a Coast Guard cutter prowling near the breakwater.

“They never do,” Hate replies. “They just shadow you to the AO and start shit there.”

“Hmmm,” you muse as the Higgins approaches the launch; which is, if you remember the chart right, *awfully* close to nosing into the protected channel. “Can't have that... but, still.” Now the tranquil air is disrupted by the faint strain of music being blasted out of speakers being pushed past their limit for maximum volume; the tortured measures wailing across the water.

“... what the fuck is that?” you ask.

“Green Day, sir,” Hate replies with unmitigated disgust.

“Right, *that* does it,” you mutter. “Let'em have it.”

>40809467
I would put the prioties as

1. Fire control
1. Radar upgrade
2. Gun caliber upgrade
3. Streamlining
4. Boiler upgrades

Ooooooooh fucking good. Here we fucking go.

You just gotta tell 'em this story, don't you?

god fuck. and the day started out so fucking well.

>Chow finishes just in time for the other shoe to drop
ohboyohboyohboyohboyohboyohboyohboy

>>40809611
I see Goto there too.

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Jes' gonna leave these here, aye

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With a truly predatory grin, Hate hovers his finger over the tablet. “And let slip... the dogs of war,” he sniggers, before tapping the screen.

The evening solitude is shredded by the bright screams of outboard engines coming up fast from the rear. Six small rigid inflatable boats come screaming past the Higgins, three to a side, kicking up towers of spray behind them as they tear past. You see a panicked flailing aboard the launch as the boats fall upon it like a wolfpack on a three-legged cat.

“AAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAA!” Hate screams across the water as the boats smash their rubber nose-bumpers into the launches side and begin hustling it away like team of bouncers. “FLY, MY PRETTIES! FLY!” He taps his screen again and the robotic boats change programs, taking turns ramming the launch away from the channel before roaring away and soaking the decks with propeller spray as they circle around for another go. The self-driving drones swarm the hapless launch until the pilot manages to gun it. It flees for the breakwater, the hand-lettered GREENPEACE banner drifting lazily into the water behind it as the robotic RIGs pursue, driving and nipping at its heels as they herd it safely away.

“I fucking *love* these things,” Hate says with rapture.

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>>40809667
n-no don't

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>>40809667
Two!

>>40809667
I fucking love War Damage Reports. Some of the best reading I've ever had.

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Midway in a nutshell...

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>>40809680
Oh man.

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>>40809680
HAHAHA drone zodiacs bumping the shit out of fucking greenpeace. Harass the sea sheperds next.

>>40809680
MY FUCKING SIDES. Now we know why Hate gets the corgis

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>>40809698

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You turn sideways and lean against the rail as the Higgins putters down the channel towards the gap in the breakwater, heading for deep water. Terminal Island is strangely empty-looking in the failing rays of the Californian sun. The major drydock and shipyard that cranked out so many Liberty Ships during The War now lies empty and desolate of the Chinese freighters that usually crowd its piers in the modern era – the most serious indicator yet of the rising tensions. The commercial anchorages are better populated; men moving about their decks as they secure for the night. You glance towards the mouth of the main channel as Higgins clears the breakwater, wondering idly if there'll be a museum berth for an Arleigh-Burke one of these days...

“Oh fuck me,” you mutter, whipping Hate's optics off his neck and pressing them to your eyes. Sure enough, you're looking at the high green prow of the MV Arctic Sunrise. You don't know what they're planning – Greenpeace has been squigglier than usual the last couple years – and you really don't care to find out, not on this deployment. “Hate,” you say as you point. “Take your team over there and inspect those assholes. And take your time, please.”

“SO IT SHALL BE WRITTEN,” Hate declares dramatically, completely failing to keep a shit-eating grin off his face – not that he was trying very hard. “SO IT SHALL BE DONE.” He double-times off the wing, and a moment later you hear the intercom calling the VBSS team to the rear boat deck. You sigh, drain your mug and finally stroll onto the bridge. The XO looking at the Greenpeace icebreaker with his own binoculars. “Captain on the bridge,” he says lackadaisically. “Finally.”

“Meh,” you say, waving away the smell of his shitty opinions.

“We waiting?” the pilot asks.

“Hell no,” you reply. “Take us straight out, they'll catch up once those clowns are too far behind to catch up.”

“Want me to step on it, Captain?”

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>>40809698
I know, right?
Three!

Oh for fuck sake. Fuck this, Fuck you, I'm going to go get fucking hammered.

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“No need,” you say, imagining the fuming on the bridge of the Greenpeace boat as the Higgins sedately slides out of reach, into the sunset. Poetry. Besides, cutting Hate's playtime short would be... unproductive.

You take your seat, the old pleather creaking under your ass as you settle in. You've spent a lot of time in this chair, staring out these weather-beaten windows. The thought of leaving it for the last time – leaving the sea – doesn't sit well with you. You know every creak and groan of Higgins, every quirk and foible. When you wake in the middle of the night, you can tell what she's doing just by her sound; what speed she's making by the vibration in the deck; how sharp she's turning by the groaning of her structure; even the sea condition from how it drums against her steel sides. Your old boat lasted longer than she was intended, but the new generation of surface combatants are finally arriving, and for a Flight I destroyer... the breakers are in sight. And you know that the museum berth will go to Arleigh-Burke, the name ship of her class – not old worn-out Higgins.

But until then – she's yours, and you are hers.

Dusk is dying before you; a last sliver of the sun resting on the horizon. The thin, wispy cloud deck has been set ablaze by the day's last light; the shimmering waters mirroring their brilliant orange glow. As the sky and sea seem to melt together; only the sun's bright blazing ribbon of radiance stretching into the horizon is distinct. Down that golden path the Higgins sails, heading out past the drab silhouetted bulks of freighters sailing into port.

The magic minute is soon over, the orange radiance fading as the sun finally slips below the waves. The clouds turn pink, then purple as darkness claims dominion.

“Captain. Boarding team's on the phone.”

You start slightly, your reverie broken, and reach for your bridge phone. “Patch him through.”

>>40809720
Four!
Uploaded to uguu.se because too big
http://a.uguu.se/orvbzw_PlateIV%5B1%5D.jpg

>>40809718
>That worthless, piece of shit 70s ice breaker Arctic Sunrise
They get blown up, yeah?

>>40809707
I'm guessing that artist is making fun of Japan's ability to make reliable armored carriers?

>>40809732
Definitely earned it

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Hate's voice sounds even smugger than you thought possible. “Skipper,” he says. “Seems there's a problem with their logs. We're going over it, but their handwriting is horrible.”

“Shame, isn't it?” you smirk into the phone. “They don't even teach kids cursive anymore.”

“Sure is. We'll catch up with you in a bit, skipper.”

“Roger that. Over and out.” You hang up the phone with a discreet click, and turn back to the ocean, turning your eyes towards the sky. The darkness spreading through sea and sky has gained a grainy texture, snarled and coarse with clouds. The full moon, so crisp in the cornflower blue Californian skies a few hours ago is nowhere to be found.

Your eyes flick towards the electronic display over the windows; a brief synopsis of wind, (none,) sea state (flat) and mercury (1020.21 milibars.) Red sky at night, et cetera. A vague sense of duty itches at the back of your brain, making you grope guiltily for your clipboard, but something keeps your eyes glued to the window. Darkness is full upon the sea; too closely upon dusk's heels. The water ripples like rumpled velvet under a steady breeze that slices in through an open vent window somewhere, clean and sharp. The minute squeak behind you; a slight change in the deckplate's thrum as the helmsman adjusts his wheel and tweaks the throttle to fend off the waves.

You spin your chair around – you remember the morning's weather forecast just damn fine. “Nav, anything on your scope?”

The navigation officer is glaring at his screens like they're a lying wife, eyes twitching suspiciously between weather radar, satellite feeds and the surface scope. “No, sir.”

You open your mouth to express doubt, and you hear your ears pop. Your eyes flick back to the barometer-

>>40809765

Maybe armored deck, no torpedo blisters?

>>40809720
Man, Hornet took a beating before going under, just like her eldest nee-chan.

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>>40809720
They just have this special talent for presenting horrifying information in a clinical context.

>Men manning the filling lines were killed at their stations. The man on watch in the after gasoline pump room immediately stopped the pumps and secured the system so as to permit gasoline in the lines to drain back into the stowage tanks. He then left the pump room, closed and dogged the hatch on the second deck, and pulled the CO2 control. The trunk and pump room subsequently flooded to a depth of about 20 feet through the hatch at the second deck which apparently had not been tightly dogged.

>>40809718
Blue guns?

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“The fuck?” your XO summarizes eloquently. Your boots are clanking over the deck before you realize you've left your chair, spooking the bridge watch as you slam the hatch open. He salutes warily as you stand in the growing sea breeze – *all* sea breeze; Higgins isn't making enough headway for a foamy wake. You're forced to snatch at your cap by a strong crossbreeze that buffets you and tugs at your uniform; a wild wind that throws faint spray in your face as it dashes waves against Higgin's bow.

You check your watch, noting the scant minutes since Higgins slipped her mooring.

This literally can't be happening, and yet – it is. You glance out to sea again, where minutes earlier you gazed into a serene sunset. The last fading light is enough to silhouette a tall column of cloud rising rapidly for the stratosphere, roiling overhead into a ceiling on the sky. That itch behind your brain leaps to your neck and runs down your spine, your cap damn near lifting off your head as your close-cropped hair stands on end. You bolt back into the bridge.

“XO!” you shout, making him jerk as he tears his eyes away from the windows.

“Sir?”

“Take the conn. Now.” You sling yourself into the skipper's chair, queasiness fluttering around your stomach as the harbor pilot trades with your usual helmsman, exchanging formalities with the XO.

“Sir, VBSS on-”

“Tell him I want his ass back on the boat, double time,” you say, cutting the radioman off. Hate's a vet; he can smell funny air fine, but you doubt he knows – hell, you don't know, either. The sea's supposed to rush out before a tsunami hits, but not always, not everywhere – but the birds, the bees, everything knows it, senses it smells it before it rolls in, a tension, a tightness in the air – but the barometer is still falling, your ears popping.

You're the first to see it.

>>40809796
You don't just SINK a Yorktown-class carrier. You have to expend an entire fleet on them and even that's not a sure-fire method.

>>40809785
motherfuck

>>40809809
Training weapons.

>>40809732
I'll pour your drinks sweetie.

>>40809811
Here she comes.

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>>40809811

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Wispy blue radiance rising, tail chasing it upwards as it winds and wends into nothingness; a sinuous blue flame crawling like cloud-lightning. Your head turns to track it as Higgins swings through her turn, and -

“The fuck,” your XO breathes as he catches sight of the blue-white light snapping and leaping just under the water's surface with electrical hysteria; crawling wider in an oval just off the bow some indeterminate distance out. It draws every eye and optic like moths to flame; ethereal and spellbinding. The radiance brightened as it spread; the choppy waves catching fire as more wisps of licking electric flame leap heavenward. Backlit by the blue ghostlights rising from the black sea a silhouette is seen, a void against the luminance. Your eye seeks the familiar shapes of ships; your spinning thoughts left out-of-gear till you've something tangible to mesh them with. You stare at it uncomprehendingly, searching the sea for *more,* the rest of it, when two bright winks of blue flicker into being. They rivet your eyes; condensed and intense, wispy blue flame rising from them like smoking coals of light. The tremors of the optics blur any details into mere suggestions of shape glimpsed in the afterimage... but for the bright nuclei of the cerulean embers.

You stare into those motes, enraptured, optics fixed to your eyes firmer than Odysseus lashed to his mast. As you gaze into the dark abyss it completes a circuit somewhere deep in your soul; the place that *knows* without asking, believes without seeing and fears without doubting. The ancestral Id which compelled your ancestors to sacrifice to their gods before trusting their tiny boats to the dark and fathomless Sea – eternal and unchanged within you. You shiver, awestruck and cowed as the abyss stares into you.

And then those blue motes *blink.*

>>40809845
NOoOOOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE

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panic

>>40809845
>And then those blue motes *blink.*

Oh, fuck all kinds of duck.

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>>40809845
SHIT'S GETTING SPOOKY

>>40809845
haHA WE HAVE WON THE STARING CONTEST

Surely the battle will go well for us now!

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>>40809845

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>>40809845
FUUUUUUUUUUUUU-

>>40809845
shit

>>40809845
WRITE FASTER ANGEL OF FAP.
We must see how fucked Settle truly was that day.

>>40809875
>stared into the abyss
>abyss stared back
The hell makes you think this was a contest?

Music to set the mood
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WNOGjdFJ5Fg

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The spell snaps with a flash of pure terror as you seize control once more, hurling the optics away from you. “GENERAL QUARTERS! SOUND GENERAL QUARTERS!” You scream at the pilot station, ignoring protocol - “EOT TO FLANK, HELM COME LEFT TO 090!”

Every man on the bridge stares at you for a long, terrible second, rattled out of their reverie by your cries. The bosun recovers first; leaping to the 1MC and snatching the mic off the hook. “General Quarters, General Quarters! All hands man your battle-stations!”

The deckplates of Higgins thrum awake; the vibrations of hundreds of feet rushing through narrow passages, heavy hatches being slammed shut and her own gas-turbines snarling up to full power giving her very steel a living pulse.

“Jesus-” the XO breathes; hands gripping his binoculars white-knuckled. Applying your own you find those eyes they're EYES once more; their auroral luminance fading into the inky pool of the Pacific. But behind them the gloom is coalescing into a void in the water; a sharp absence upon which the waves crash.

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>>40809845

>>40809913
fucking perfect timing /k/ripple.

>>40809932
It just randomly came up on Pandora, and it fit so perfectly.

>>40809918
Who is it?

Which elder ships soul have we wronged so?

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>>40809918

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>Nothing but trauma incoming

>>40809949
I think PF said in an earlier thread that it was an Ironclad of somesort.

HERE WE GO GENTS

BATTLE STATIONS, BATTLE STATIONS

>>40809964
A torpedo ram, I believe.
We're about to find out rather thoroughly, in either case

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High above, a star-shell ignites – probably from the coastie. Hot orange light shimmers across the waves but the coal-black carapace of the silhouette seems to soak up the luminance hungrily. Its smooth inward-sweeping sides yield to a towering mass of skeletal masts and ghostly billowing sails barely glimpsed through the haze of black smoke billowing from the stack amidships. Gun ports along its broadside open to present cannon muzzles. Its somewhere between the floating castles of old and the sleek modern lethality; a gothic beast of smoke and sail and wrought-iron.

And it's coming right at you.

Your snatch up your phone before it can ring; the TAOs steady voice on the line. “Five contacts due South, range six-thousand, coming straight in at ten knots! One - battleship!?, two destroyers and three gunboats by the RCS. Recommend heading two-seven-zero-”

The bugling center battery of the ironclad flashes; flames lancing down her sides as she fires dead ahead. The echoing concussions of her guns chase the supersonic scream of shells across the water, but they sail clean over Higgins without effect. The sea blazes alight with muzzle flashes and bass thunder as the mystery flotilla opens up in earnest; all of it sailing overhead without harm.

“Sir,” - the TAO - “shellfire, shooting high-”

You look left in time to see the fuel tanks near the mouth of the main channel go up; a colossal fireball climbing into the sky over Los Angeles. Burning oil comes raining down across the port and San Pedro as shells continue to plunge into storefronts and freighters and piers; an indiscriminate massacre at maximum range.

As the sound of the blast rattles the bridge-windows of Higgins, something closes with a gentle 'click' in your mind. You stab the 21MC, sending your voice bellowing throughout the command decks.

“SHOOT SHOOT SHOOT!”

>>40809964
>inb4 Thunderchild

http://ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USN/WarDamageReports/ More battle damage info

Bentus is on station.

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>>40809977

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>>40809977
>Five contacts
Wait.
What?

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>>40809977
>Redoubtable

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>>40809977
FIRE EVERYTHING!

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>>40809977
>six Abyssal ships
Oh god oh fuck oh shit

>torpedo ram

Jesus Christ no

Of all the things that Poseidon decided to spit back at us.

To the Anon in the last thread who said "Pennsylvania was never given any upgrades". This is untrue. She was refitted, as ALL the battleships damaged at Pearl Harbor were, with more modern radar and fire control equipment. Also, her original 5 inch guns were all removed and replaced with the standard twin barrel DP 5 inch gun turrets mounted on all the other US ships. Not sure, but I believe it was 8 turrets, 4 per side. She also recieved a healthy supply of 40mm and 20mm anti-aircraft weapons. These changes are known as "upgrades". There is a very excellent book from Squadron/Signal Productions about US Battleships. It is two volumes, but was initially printed about 20 years ago, may be hard to find. The publisher has an EXTENSIVE library of books covering numerous kinds of ships, aircraft, and armored vehicles. They average about 80 pages or so each and are filled with photos and other information.

And you guys thought it was just a single abyssal that creamed Los Angeles that day.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfskFravnWM

The 5-inch mount's heavy KAWHAM! thumps through the bridge before you've finished shouting; a bright flash blossoming on the ironclad heartbeats later.

“No effect on target, no effect on target!” a lookout is yelling into his phone. The Mark 45 slings high-explosive shells; the Navy never figured on having to shoot through 14-inch iron plates again. But it does have an effect – the hulking ironclad's bow swings eastward, billowing shrouds climbing towards their spars as she rigs for combat sail. The gun KAWHAMs again, the blast bounding off her iron sides without effect.

The rumbling roar of a rocket engine igniting sounds aft as Higgins hurls a Harpoon from her crisscrossed tubes, the bright flame lancing into the night sky before plunging straight for the ironclad, barely beyond minimum range. You watch it just miss the deck; detonating against the stack. The 488 pound warhead blasts the nightmare's rigging asunder; timbers and flaming ropes arcing away from the stricken vessel; her stack shattered. An eerie, keening note underlies the flat sound of the detonation as it races over the water, like a stifled scream. The ghost ship's gunports flash with staccato thunder; a line of reports marching down her beam; and you duck instinctively as the shells come screaming in, the shots falling just short, giant plumes of water so close the starboard bridge watch shies away from the railing.

“The fuck!?” you demand of your phone, linked to the CIC's main circuit.

“No track!” comes the reply. “Returns are hopping like frogs!”

>>40810051
We've only been told so much about this day, man.
Oh god my hype

>>40810064
did it just scream in pain?

>>40810064
>That music
oh god why are you so good at this planefag
oh god

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The forward VLS hatches pop open and SM-2s come rippling out, blinding your forward view in pillars of flame and smoke as the igniting rockets rattle the bridge windows; angling towards the ironclad before the weapons officer brings them hurtling down on command guidance like flung meteors. A few miss just abeam, but elation surges through you as two plunge clean through the deck before detonating; the blasts flinging flaming shreds of decking through the air. The 5-incher KAWHAMs! again and this time the bright flash of detonation leaves a jagged scar in the smooth armor; the gunner's switched to time-delay fuzes. The spent casing flies out of the breech ejector and clangs against the deck at almost the same instant a ten-inch shell punches clean through Higgins bow; smashing through the deck at a shallow angle and blowing out the other side in a cloud of shredded chain links. It detonates a few feet left of the exit wound; the hardened glass before you crazing as it catches a chunk of twisted shrapnel.

“He's firing AP,” the bosun says.

“Make your heading two-twenty-five, hard-over!” the XO demands. The helmsman swings the wheel against the stops and Higgins heels over, sending everyone flailing for handholds as your warship demonstrates the power of her gas-turbines and sleek destroyer hull. The ironclad hoves into sight before you; the bright flames engulfing her rigging making her hard to miss.

“Keep us AWAY from the son-of-a-bitch!” you demand, but your XO just chops his hand through the air sharply.

“SIR, LET ME DO MY JOB, SIR!”

In the distance you see muzzle-flashes from the ironclad's waterline. The XO's jaw tightens as he waits, silently counting the seconds till towering columns of spray erupt to port; drenching the deck and sending a tremor through the hull.

>>40810085
yes, yes it did.

Wait, you saying your car doesn't do that when you take it on the highway?

>>40810085
Yes, yes it did. And that is freaky.

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So when is Higgins going to track down Settle in Japan. Mount him in his sleep as she watches silently, only to tell him MAKE US WHOLE. MAKE US WHOLE AGAIN. when he wakes up staring her straight in the eyes?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwLyIMqfbf0

RAM IT HOME

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>>40810104
>“SIR, LET ME DO MY JOB, SIR!”
Pictured, his current job

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“Eight,” the XO whispers. “Slow. Old guns. He's at long range!” He keeps you on that heading for long seconds, stray splashes from the ironclad's secondaries dotting the dark water as the five-incher keeps slamming away, bright winks of light sparking on the foe's sides as shells connect. Presently its broadside lights up again; flat thunder of cannon shot booming across the ocean with death following close behind.

“HARD PORT!” the XO demands, and Higgins heels over sharply; a salvo straddling where you would've been a few seconds later. He keeps her in the turn for a while before ordering rudder amidships; keeping oblique angles to the enemy. From somewhere aft you hear rocket engines igniting as Higgins tosses four Sea Sparrows over her shoulder at the ancient battleship. They angle downwards, achieving good track and slamming one after another into the target.

“You have a solution!?” you demand into the phone. “Harpoons?”

“No,” the TAO replies. “We're illuminating with the main radar - we got that fucker lit up like a Christmas tree!” Higgins shudders as another tube's worth of Sparrows scream into the air. “Aiming for his gunports-”

>>40810104
Motherfucker is chasing the splashes. Hot Damn.

>>40810114
Only to find either Shoukaku or Arizona holding on to him as they sleep.

>>40809804
Now, just for fun, see if we can do one for the Higgins after this thread.

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>>40810160
>>40810154

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMejhjMfKj4

Your XO keeps chasing salvos, always presenting obliques to the enemy as the CIC flings a steady stream of missiles and shells at the ironclad; steering Sparrows with pencil-thin beams of radio energy, the missiles twitching spasmodically like kittens chasing a laser pointer; angling towards the muzzle flashes of the battleship's main batteries. The SM-2s need no help; blasting into the dark sky on pillars of smoke and flame before hurtling down, their terminal IR sensors homing on the flaming ruins of the ironclad's rigging. You watch through your binoculars as Higgins gives her everything she's got; but your missiles are SAMs, and their tiny warheads just aren't doing enough damage. The ironclad sails along like the ghostly fireships of maritime legend; dancing flames of the burning rigging mirrored in the water below, with the ghostly iron carapace barley visible between them.

The ghost ship jitters and vanishes as something smashes into Higgins and knocks her right out from under you. Struggling upright, you look at the XO, who's still standing, feet braced wide like a boxer.

“Near miss off the bow,” he explains. “He finally switched to HE. Don't have to worry about raking fire now.” He orders another course change; and you see Higgin's bow move to point directly at the enemy; the distant blob of fire obscured by the regular muzzle-flash of your forward gun.

“Katie, we're not doing enough damage!” you yell into your phone.

“I know, I know! The LRASMs can filter out ECM but we've got no preprogrammed profile i-”

An awful sound shreds the air like God's buzzsaw growling -

- something hits the starboard side of the bridge like a rubber mallet, a diffuse KWHAM! that kicks in your eardrums. Everyone staggers for a moment as their ringing ears slowly return to normal.

“Katie, what the fuck?”

Here's some high-energy music to go with the thread, I think

>>40810173
I think you mean both Shoukaku and Arizona, one on each side.

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WHELP

Where's that spooky gif of the ship shilouettes that people used to post when we needed it.

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>>40810173
No, Higgins wants you inside of her and she will not stop until you are. So Settle and Higgins can be one again.

>>40810207
I forgot my link.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=raxEmANPTVc

I wonder how abyssal gun crews work. I mean, a lot of ships of that time period had mostly-unshielded gun crews

>>40810154
rip in peace unnamed XO, you done gud

>>40810173
>>40810209
In all truth, Arizona is going to be freaking out when Settle wake up. We might have to let her spend the night in our room to keep her from worrying.

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“CIWS just nailed a shell.”

“What.”

“CIWS just nailed a shell,” she says again, voice brittle, the victorious whooping of the CIWS operator audible in the background.

“Skipper,” another voice cuts in, “those destroyers are flanking east and west, western contact is closing at twenty-five knots.”

“Katie?”

“Must be a short sumbitch, RCS is nothing;” she replies. “Recommend the gun-”

“Do it!”

Desperation screams through your nerves as another SM-2 leaps from the VLS - Higgins only carries so many missiles; and your luck against those huge shells can't hold much longer. You'd been sailing to join 7th fleet as an auxiliary picket; your cells are stuffed with Sparrows and SM-2s - but even that can only last so long.

The ironclad's secondary batteries have fallen silent at last shattered by shellfire or torn to shreds by shrapnel from airbursting Sparrows. Replacing it is a hail of shellfire from left and right; the destroyers that flanked you. The XO keeps Higgins chasing salvos, weaving and darting through the towering columns of spray the ironclad's big guns kick up, but no matter how he turns at least one enemy has a wide-aspect shot on you. You hear the CIC staff cursing as auxiliary sensors are knocked out by a shell detonating in Higgins mast; infrared imagers, short-range surface radar-

“Sir,” the bosun says from behind you. “We just took a shell in the forward engine room!”

“Damage?”

“Can't tell - a fire started; they pulled everyone out and hit the HALON.”

Before you can reply a heavy shell detonates against the forecastle; just below and forward of the bridge. You hear the shouts in the CIC as the blast buffets them. Higgins is armored against blast and fragmentation; kevlar/steel armor layered over her vitals and the CIC, but she was never meant to take a beating like this, trapped in a triangle of guns.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DRtnWVvDX6k
'...Tongues of fire on Idris flaring...news of foemen near declaring...'

List of hits thus far:

>bow, possibly skimming through the deck
>mast, destroying IR and short-range radar
>forward engine room
>forecastle

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“New contact west!” the TAO snarls into your ear, his control slipping. “Returns are solid, though-”

The port lookout *screams,* “YES YES YES YES GET'M GET THAT MOTHERFUCKER GET HIM-” You pick up your glasses to find the low, curved hull of an old ironclad monitor, scuttling through the waves like some armored prehistoric horror returned from hell. It's circled by the foaming wake of the coast guard cutter; sailing circles at it as it slams 3-inch shells into its iron sides from point-blank range. The monitor's twin turrets are helpless, turning too slowly to track the brisk-moving cutter. Sparks fly up and down the sides; bright tracers leaping and bouncing high into the dark night as the cutter's fantail 20mm CIWS rakes it with tugsten-tipped AP rounds.

“Contact two engaged in close action with USS Sherman! Contact three is breaking off!” the TAO cries jubilantly. “The gun got the son-of-a-bitch, he's burning!”

Another salvo of ten-inch haymakers lands nearby, bracketing Higgins - but the CIWS nails one of them; shrapnel rattling off the window and forecastle as it detonates fifty yards forwards of the bow.

“Skip-” your radio shack on the horn - “I've got Edwards AFB on the line - they're vectoring Strike Eagles they had doing night maneuvers! ETA, fifteen minutes!”

Fifteen minutes is a lifetime. But Higgins is dodging, your crew's learned how to draw blood and you even have help. You might just last a lifetime.

You might just win.

>>40810300
>Edwards AFB
Ha-hey, go home team!
15 minutes is too much, but I guess the thought counts.

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“SONAR CONTACT, HIGH-SPEED SCREWS BEARING 227!”

“HARD PORT!” the XO screams. Alarms sound throughout the ship as the helmsman puts her hard over once more and the EOT slams port throttle to emergency back. Higgins digs into the waves as she heels over sharply. You watch the digital compass above your chair rotate with dizzying speed.

“Sonar?” you demand.

“Going active... fifteen hundred yards!”

Every asshole on the bridge tenses for the sledgehammer shock that will signal a torpedo snapping Higgins keel.

“Eight-hundred!”

Someone is praying, low and intense -“hallowed be thy name-”

“KAWHAM!”

“Thy kingdom come, thy will be done-”

“on earth as it is in heaven-”

“KAWHAM!”

“Four hundred!”

The XO says nothing, still standing braced wide, hands balled into white-knuckled fists as he seems to will the ship to turn tighter.

“ONE-HUNDRED-”

You brace, your entire body cringing in expectation of the blast -

DAMN THE TORPEDOES! FULL SPEED AHEAD!

>>40810219
>Mech Engineer quest will never run again

>>40810323
late 1800's torpedoes?

Have to be contact fuses. Hopefully sucky ones at that.

>>40810323
is this where hate blows it up with the .50?

>>40810256
Ciws operator is a god

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>>40810300
>Monitor

wait

USS Terror?

>>40810323
HAAATE! SHOOT THEM! SHOOT THEM! SHOOT THEM!

>>40810344
That's what I was betting on.

>>40810121
While I love watching Jap ships burning, these old depictions of the Battle of Midway really irks the historian in me.

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“.... One-hundred fifty close astern starboard! Two hundred! Clean miss, clean miss!”

You turn to the XO, a wild whoop of success on your lips, and that's when everything goes dark.

You wake up against a console, blood dripping down your face. There's a buzzing in your ear, and the XO is kneeling in front of you, snapping his fingers. His lips are moving, but you can't make anything out.

“Can't hear you.” Glancing over his shoulder, you see the window in front of your captain's chair has been crazed and pocked by shrapnel - and as you feel the side of your head, you discover a few small bits embedded firmly in your skull.

... strange. Just sunk in there firmly, like they belong - like horns.

“Skipper?” the voice comes through a long tunnel with a bad synth distort added, like the Jefferson Starships. “Skipper, you here?”

You grab his shoulder and let him heave you upright. “S-status,” you slur.

“We took a salvo,” the XO says grimly. “Fire in the foreward berthing spaces. Sonar's out, too.”

You pick up your phone, your link to CIC. “Report.”

“Phalanx is down, remote fifty-cals and Bushmaster out of action,” the steady voice of the TAO replies. “Flooding in the rear shaft gallery, one might be bent. Direct hit to rear DC locker.”

The XO calls out another evasive maneuver, but you don't even flinch this time as heavy shells fall just shy of the ship.

You're not doing enough damage. The old Harpoons can't properly track that... thing, if it's moving. And its only a matter of time before your ship is shot out from under you, or a shell nails the VLS magazine.

>>40810350
fjuk off,.

there is no hate only zull

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>>40810223

>>40810361
Here it comes...

>>40810369
Where the hell is this from?

>>40810394
a cancelled game, IIRC.

>>40810366
Fine. ZUUULLL! SHOOT IT!

>>40810366
No dear, I am here too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXRJBK8oJSA
No one's left. Everything's gone. Kharak is burning...

Settle's current BGM:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGtEH1i78sI

Does the Higgins have any torpedoes?

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lHfF5dsZB4

Just after nightfall, trapped between nightmares from demenses unknown and the burning ruins of Long Beach harbor, you have to make a decision. Squeezing your phone, you speak into the CIC circut.

“Can you make the Mark 46s do a straight run?”

“A bearing-only-launch, yeah-”

“From the ASROC?”

“No. They've got a gyroscope, not a compass.”

“Fuck. Get the tubes ready, then,” you order. “We're making a torpedo run.”

The XO stares at you. “With *what!?*”

“Whatever we've got,” you tell him grimly.

“They've got 100 pound warheads,” the XO says dubiously. “What are they gonna do?”

“Shear his fucking screws, that's what,” you reply. “Get us as close as you can!”

>>40810436
Not yet. We're not fucked yet.

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>>40810439
>>40810442
>MUSIC

>>40810442
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

Fucking torp runs in the 21st Centuryyyy

>>40810442
right,

NOW were fucked

>>40810436

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03qBqP2I4p8

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The XO studies you for a heartbeat; fear in his eyes - then they harden over, a strange, bright luster coming into them. “Aye, Captain,” he breathes, and turns back to the shattered bridge windows again, studying the burning ocean before commanding the helm again. Usually you'd be commanding from the CIC, watching the battle unfold on the plotting screen, but with radar unreliable and the visual ranges involved, the bridge is better. The CIC is the best protected place on the ship, of course - but admirals of old remained here, by their windows and wheel rather than hide in the armored citadel of the conning tower. Deep in the bowels of the ship, the CIC protects the men who can keep her fighting. Your job is to make the best decisions you can, while those decisions can still change anything.

Higgins swings her burning, holed bow southward and holds course, accelerating towards her tormentor. Even with the battle damage, your destroyer is pushing past 30 knots. You soon lose sight of the dueling monitor and coastie cutter as Higgins thunders straight down the throat of the battlewagon's guns, a 3,000 yard run to your launch point.

“Switch the five-inch to WP marker,” you order. The forward gun has finally fallen silent as the crew strains to reload the ready magazine, groping their way through smoke-choked compartments in emergency respirators as the fire eats towards the magazine. Every muscle in your body tenses as the ironclad fires again, and again, shells screaming past you as the helmsman jinks the ship; the ironclad unable to handle the rapid closure rate. Soon, though, you'll be in his flat trajectories, and then he can't possibly miss.

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The XO orders another sharp evasive maneuver to escape the high-climbing flare marking your position. The five-inch opens fire again; a cloud of flaming phosphorus blossoming in air just over a torpedo destroyer. It plows through it, unconcerned; no crew visible on its exposed deck; black smoke pouring from its stack. It heaves to port, aiming in front of Higgins, preparing to loose its fish -

- and then it explodes; bow and stern climbing upwards as it folds in half down the middle and vanishes in flames. The clean white shape of the Sherman appears from behind, cutting through the wakes of the torpedo boats as her sides light up with gunfire; 40mm, .50 cal, small arms; even the tiny bright pops of grenades, fired and flung. The boats scatter, the slow staccato cracks of their hand-cranked Nordenfelt guns returning fire. The Sherman circles through the boats once and is in the middle of a high-rate turn when the ironclad, with a clear shot at last, puts a carronade shell into her forward hull.

The 76mm gun heaves and lurches as its ammo hoist is torn from underneath it; but miraculously the magazine survives. You stare helplessly as Sherman begins sinking by the bow, her keel snapped. She turns sharply, still answering the helm; a fantail of water kicking up from the elevated screws as the pilot overrevs her for everything she's got. A streak of light screams over the water and smashes through her forecastle from fore to stern; kindling fires throughout her superstructure - incendiary shot; rolled out of the monitor's boiler furnaces before loading into the cannons.

Burning, broken and sinking, USS Sherman picks her target and accelerates; cutting across your bow.

>>40810436
/k/ripple, you bring great happiness and terrible sadness to my heart simultaneously.

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The torpedo ram changes course too late, barely beginning her turn before the cutter bears down on her. The forward gun is impossibly still firing; the gun crew still loading the ready ammunition instead of escaping. Burning men leap for the embrace of the dark waters as Sherman's superstructure goes up like a pyre; the glass of the bridge windows shattering and blowing outward from a pressure wave as something amidships detonates. Her narrow, clean bow smashes into the curved, low hull of the ironclad at twenty-five knots; powerful gas-turbine engines driving the doomed ship up and over its foe. Thousands of tons of steel and iron crumple against each other, twisting and squealing with violence audible from hundreds of yards distant. The collision was almost head-on, leaving the twisted vessels nearly motionless -

- and the low-profile torpedo ram with the massive, flat-sided hull of Sherman atop her. You stare at the entwined ships, a silent scream racing through your soul as you watch men still racing down her decks, leaping from the ship, seeking escape -

- but Sherman's pilot has given you a chance, a chance you don't dare discard.

You press your phone against your ear forcefully, its shattered plastic edges cutting your hand. “Alpha strike,” you instruct. “Alpha strike. Empty the cells!”

>Harpoons can't track the ironclad
>Target the cutter

damn

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The foreward VLS erupts; SM-2s and Sea Sparrows thundering heavenward on pillars of smoke and flame; a curtain that blinds you to the carnage outside - until they come down again and again and again; slamming into the ruins of Sherman relentlessly, detonating her foreward magazine against the torpedo ram's narrow bow. The coast guard cutter and her crew are obliterated in a hail of missiles, and still they come down; blowing craters in the ghost ship's decking; clouds of burning wooden splinters filling the air before more and more come slamming into the wounds; the light warheads hammering deeper and deeper with every blow until one reaches the torpedo magazine.

“Contact three, eliminated,” the TAO says, his voice hollow.

Higgins charges past the flaming pyres at flank speed; her way clear to the ironclad.

>>40810521
Oh shit...

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>>40810495
>>40810473
>>40810514

>>40810473
TORPEDO RUN

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ErxIUWTz7U

Fucking christ. There is not enough booze in the world for that.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AniH_l_ViTE

The bright phosphorus flame is subsiding from the huge battlewagon's sides as your destroyer heels sharp to the left. After a heartbeat, you hear the FWHAAA-HISSS! of Mark 46s hitting the water from the rear triple-tube launcher. The ironclad is hardly 3,000 yards distant now and his fire is horrifically close, but his shells are now flying high, one exploding in your stacks just aft. You've got seconds till he finds the range again, and then - then, your ship will be blown into little pieces. The XO heaves to, unshadowing the port-side launchers and they fire too; the tiny anti-submarine torpedoes with their miniscule warheads streaking away through the dark water. With her rigging shredded and stack blown off the ironclad is slow, so you might - might - just have a chance.

In olden days you'd have a stopwatch to track the time. You raise your wrist to find your own watch stopped a nasty-looking piece of shrapnel. The TAO's voice rasps through your damaged phone, counting down the seconds to expected impact.

It doesn't look like much through your fifty-power optics - but with the long, empty muzzles of the battleship's central battery tracking you, you realize just how long it is. Without sonar, all you can do is watch the dark, blurry waterline of the enemy - and pray.

A blast -

- a gout!

Two, three, four gouts of water spouting from the bastards aft end!

Cheering erupts on the bridge as the ironclad begins to visibly slow, it's screws blasted off her shafts along with her rudder.

“Unshadow the Harpoons,” you order, “and let's MURDER that cocksucker!”

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>>40810532

>>40810410
Diluvion got cancelled? Naw

>34k out of 40k funding goal

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“Aye! Helm, hard to p-”

This time, you wake up in Hell.

Half the bridge is nothing but shredded metal and torn flesh splattered around the interior; shreds of fabric tangled with chunks of meat. An arm here, a finely shredded console there - a twisted jigsaw puzzle of the world you know. Looking up, you see stars - a ragged hole in the starboard side of the bridge's roof. Where the bridge wing should be, only a twisted metal catwalk that ends in thin air.

You grab the nearest console with numb hands and try to hoist yourself up, but your right leg won't work; dangling limp. You look down and find a shard of twisted metal the size of your palm sunk deep into your thigh. It burns like hell, like a red-hot poker, searing your leg - but it's not bleeding. You look for your XO, but you can't find him, unless he's - he's one of the -

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UtKlQNMIAAQ

Fire up that thread music.

>>40810571
>Diluvion
Huh. Interesting.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1075607244/diluvion Link to kickstarter.

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>>40810555
>MUSIIIIIIIIC

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- he's busy, you decide. You crawl deeper into the bridge, finding the pilot slumped against the rear wall, mouth twitching, glassy-eyed. Pushing him aside you drag yourself up against the pilot's console. You find your optics around your neck, still intact by some miracle, and press them to your eyes, trying to orient yourself. You don't realize Higgins is still turning till Long Beach appears in front of you, the bay well-lit by the towering orange flames from the shattered fuel facility. The dark shapes of torpedo destroyers are scuttling through puddles of burning oil floating on the surface; the hulking humpacked silhouette of the monitor amongst them. As they move in to shell the city, you see something massive slipping out of the main channel; sleek lines half-glimpsed against the billowing pyre of flames behind it. Before you can process it your eyes snag on motion; a rigid inflatable go-fast skipping through the water, outboard engines chased by a rooster-tail of spray as the pintle-mounted gun twinkles. You've hardly spotted it when a cannonball detonates almost underneath it; the boat flipping backwards through the air as tiny bodes tumble and cartwheel into the water.

“Haaa,” you wheeze through the numbness in your mind - then shove it away, groping for your purpose through the haze. Turning. Turning. Muscles screaming in chord with a tired, weary part of your hind-brain that just wants to lie down and sleep, you crank the wheel the opposite direction, bringing Higgins broadside once again. The ignition of rocket motors roars loudly from aft as the TAO takes the shot; the remaining three starboard Harpoons thundering out of their tubes and angling for the stationary ironclad. They sway to and fro, seeking the center-mass of shifting returns, but at this range against a stationary target they cannot possibly fail. The titanic blasts of the huge warheads races across the water and slaps against Higgin's side.

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The 21MC is making noise. You stagger towards it, careening into the bulkhead next to it and stabbing the button. “I'm... here,” you say lamely.

“Skipper?” The TAO.

“BDA?”

“The lookouts are dead,” he replies flatly, “and we lost the director optics when the bridge was hit - but she's still firing on us.” As if to underscore the point, the ship bucks and leaps underneath you.

“You...” your forehead clangs off the bulkhead forcefully, the pain bringing you back into focus. “Fuck, fuck, what just happened!”

A pause. “Torpedo in the forward engine room. They're dogging the hatches. Turbines are fucked.”

“Prepare port tubes,” you order, and crawl back to the pilot station to turn the wheel. You lose your grip and slip to the floor, feeling Higgins buck and shudder beneath you as shells continue to pound her - and then the remaining four Harpoons plunging into the ironclad with titanic blasts. The few LSRAMs in your foreward VLS are modified cruise missiles; almost like little planes with pop-out wings. They take time and space to deploy and stabilize and track; at least nine or ten miles of space - but the humble old missile-shaped Harpoon has no such problems. But they have the newest warhead; the explosive-driven AP penetration rod bundles buried in a heavy fragmentation jacket; and you know that huge armored bitch isn't going down for the count until you use them. If it wasn't for the Harpoon's pop-up attack, their massive warheads would have been spent impotently on the beast's iron hide - they were never meant to penetrate armor like that. In time, the fire will eat downwards from the ironclad's shattered upper decks, find her coal bunkers and her powder magazines and finish her.

But you don't have time. Higgins doesn't have time. Long Beach and Los Angeles doesn't have time. And somewhere between you and the shore, the monitor and its massive carronades is still waiting, untouched.

>>40810607
>As they move in to shell the city, you see something massive slipping out of the main channel; sleek lines half-glimpsed against the billowing pyre of flames behind it.
>>40810587

I can't select an image in a timely manner to express how jesus fucking christ planefag holy fuck I am shaking

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You put the wheel over and cut behind the burning ironclad's stern from a few hundred yards, the five-incher still slamming away with whatever ammo it has left, the brittle iron plates cracking under the HE blasts as your gunners aim for optics and gun ports. The battleship is listing badly to port, perhaps from your torpedoes; her lethal primary battery's snout is aimed too high to threaten Higgins as you cut behind it, using the smoke and flames to shield yourself from the monitor's searching eyes. You steer north-east, hoping to beach Higgins Huntington Beach - you've no idea how many times she was holed, and you can't risk your ship and everyone on her on guesses.

From the dark Pacific to the south comes distant flashes - and then the scream of shells, ragged salvos landing wide on either side.

As the ringing in your head slowly subsides, you realize that the Eagles aren't going to get here in time. Your XO is dead, splattered across the deck besides you. Hate... Hate is dead. And Higgins will follow soon.

The directors might be out, but your spotting glasses and the intercom still work - you can give CIC one last lookout. If you can light up something with the 5-inchers Willy Pete, the LRASM's terminal infrared guidance should be able to track for that, no problem. It should give the crew time to get away.

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>>40810607
>As they move in to shell the city, you see something massive slipping out of the main channel; sleek lines half-glimpsed against the billowing pyre of flames behind it.
Something massive, with sleek lines, coming out of the main channel of San Pedro?

I haven't hit F5 in a long time due to 4chanx. I am hammering it tonight.

>>40810593
3-dimensional sonar in pitch black underwater sounds thrilling.

Next closest thing is that crude 8-bitesque I-20000 indie game on Playism.

>>40810675
Dunno. Possibly the container ship Greenpeace had. Ramming speed motherfuckers.

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>>40810675

I fucking love having an overactive imagination sometimes

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>>40810642
Try this

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>>40810675

>>40810607
>As they move in to shell the city, you see something massive slipping out of the main channel; sleek lines half-glimpsed against the billowing pyre of flames behind it.
Incoming Big Stick~

Not that I don't love this flashback, I'm really looking forward to seeing Settle wake up.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRZ07C4c4CA

The Port of Long Beach lights up with a brilliant flash, and a roaring report that blasts over the water like thunder; thrice as loud and long as the old ironclads main battery. You look towards the port, expecting to see another freighter in flames and sinking - but instead you only see the briefest flash of gunfire; the barest glimpse of a sillouete - and now you hear the low, sibilant whistle of a very big fucking shell moving very fast.

The flaming wreck of the ironclad is blown clean through, the thick armored hide which resisted so much punishment caving before some titanic force. A third report sounds from the beach and it's blown asunder; the shell sucking flames into a powder magazine.

You press your binoculars to your eyes. Backlit by the burning city you can see something massive moving towards the breakwater passage, the snouts of mighty guns visible over a long, clean flush-deck design. You're still trying to process how it got past you, why it fired on its fellow (confusion, fog of war in the general melee!?) when a hostile star-shell ignites high over the bay.

Cutting through the burning water and past the shattered freighters is the USS Iowa, her snapped mooring lines still trailing in the water beside her.

And she is pissed off.

My god. The crew of Higgins and the Coast Guard cutter. It's enough to bring a tear to the eyes.

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>>40810733
FUCK YEAAAAAAA

>>40810532
>Crew of 167... gone
Damn

>>40810555
>>40810587
And then it got worse...

>>40810733
OH YES, HERE WE GO! GET FUCKING HYPE! HERE COMES THE BB TRAIN!

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>>40810733

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>>40810733
YES

YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

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>>40810733
ASDFGASTGFSHDHFJ,

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>>40810733

Oh my. Here comes a fine lady, indeed.

HUMANITY CALLS FOR AID
AND THE IOWA ANSWERS

>>40810733
THE HYPE IS REAL

>>40810733
The Grey Ghost

>>40810733
Wait... is the Iowa crewed, or is it just FUCKING PISSED OFF MACHINE SPIRITS REMOVE ABYSSAL REMOVE ABYSSAL WO-CLASS CARRIERS A SHIT SUPPLY RUN MASS MURDER BEST OPERATIONS OF MY OPERATIONAL LIFE SPAN

>>40810733
...Planefag. Why the hell do you believe Decu writes better than you when you can pull off a thread like this one?

>>40810786
wrong ship

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AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

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>>40810733

>>40810786
Nah that's Houston bud.

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IT WAS EVERYTHING I HAD HOPED FOR

AND MUCH

MUCH

MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORRRRRRRE

>>40810733
Poster of >>>40809481 here.

Let this post stand for all time as a record that I fucking called it.

>>40810733

I thojt wae weren't going to tal k abut ths.

I thougt we werejt going to atalk about HER.

>>40810786
nah, that's cv6.

>>40810733
EVEN AS A MUSEUM SHIP SHE STILL SERVES DAMNCOMMIENAZIALIUMS THEIR ASSES

>>40810798
the USS Iowa was called the grey ghost during the Korean war

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>>40810733

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>>40810792
I... I think the latter

>>40810792
no way you can gather the skeleton crew of folks who know how to operate a BB in less than an hour.

Thats her alright.

>>40810815
Fine, we'll take all of the Grey Ghosts of America then.

So... it seems like real-life guns cut both ways too.

Doesn't that mean you could refurbish an ancient museum ship and laugh and shout Ave Roma as all the abyssal stuff turns into sticks arrows and rocks and bounce off?

>>40810811
Settle's having a nightmare/dream/flashback thing. How did you get here?

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>>40810792
I hope it's just the fucking machine spirits

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>>40810733
>Iowa shows up
>Uses an image of the New Jersey

>>40810826
In less than fifteen minutes. Holy fuck planefag you glorious bastard.

>>40810811
Go home hate, you're drunk

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>>40810811

>>40810831
Same way he's in threads at all

>>40810835
Hey, shut up.

>>40810826
Veterans association was having a meeting

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YBg66wA19Dk

>>40810839

WAR IS HJOME

>>40810811
Oh, dear... are you all right, Corporal? You seem to have drunk way too much... Tatsuta-kun, you should not let the good Corporal drink himself to oblivion. It is bad for his liver.

>>40810831
Shitposting need not obey the laws of time and space.

What power starts the engines of a battleship turned museum?
What force loads the guns of a decommed warship?
Only the ghosts of the sea know.

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I AM GOING TO SEA AGAIN

TO SEA

TO SEA

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Iowa Class BB-61-64

BB-61 Iowa "The Big Stick/The Grey Ghost"
Motto: "Our Liberties We Prize, Our Rights We Will Maintain"

BB-62 New Jersey "Big J"
Motto: "Firepower For Freedom"

BB-63 Missouri "Mighty Mo/Big Mo"
Motto: "Strength For Freedom"

BB-64 Wisconsin "Wisky"
Motto: "Forward For Freedom"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=piOYjQJd974

>>40810733
Looks like Iowa decided to bring the thunder
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fU0bKMj9Kgo

>>40810835
To an anon that only has alot of book knowledge about the military, how do you tell the different ships of the Iowa class apart?

>>40810812
Iowa picked up the nickname during the Korean War.

Sailors are unimaginative.

Rolled 10 (1d10)

>Ships can just up and leave port and fight on their own
...rolling SAN loss

>>40810874
Dan Forrest's a fantastic composer. Great guy, too.

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I HAD TO COME OUT OF RETIREMENT FOR THIS SHIT

This.... This is going to end with the Iowa's last transmission being "Superman" isn't it?

>>40810852
Go drunk home, you’re Hate.

>>40810904
Sorry for waking you, ma'am.

>>40810905

ijts going to end with me tellig my end of it. Fuckin A. Gie me oxygen from some fucking zoomie i don't give a fuckj

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>>40810886
Iowa has the presidential tub

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It devolves into a haze after that; just flashes; impressions as brief as the glimpses of Iowa as her muzzle flashes lit her up - backlit in one second, a hulking, vengeful silhouette, then revealed in the fire and thunder of her guns as she engages targets on both sides, secondary batteries slamming away at the torpedo boats as they try to close with her. You remember the flames eating towards your position as you dragged somebody for the door; somebody who would they were already dead they never pleaded with you to kill them, the burns hurt too much, leave them be; the shudder through Higgins hull as the CIC touched off the LRASMs and (as they told you later, oh so much later,) vectored them towards the burning decks of ships scoured by Iowa. The odd moment of perfectly-recalled clarity as you stared across the water at Iowa, exiting the breakwater not a few hundred yards distant; firing from Y turret; Y turret, that was shattered and should never speak again, but spoke, and spoke and spoke, unstoppable and alone as she took on the vast dark Sea - and won.

The explosions that tore Higgins; the screams, the voices calling for you as fire-suited men reached out to pluck you from the flames. The thunder of salvation; the sternum-shaking roar of Strike Eagles on full afterburner screaming overhead; skipping iron bombs across the water; the throaty ripping roar of 20mm guns, and then just the thunder, thunder thunder as they made dry runs to draw fire and guide Iowa's fire, as if she needed guidance.

Smoke.

Fire.

Death.

The glowing blue coals of something....

something...

something....

... very

a n g r y

>>40810918

>>40810660
>Hate... Hate is dead.

Aren't you supposed to be dead?

>>40810905
why superman?

>>40810886
Iowa herself is easy: she's the one with only two working turrets.

>>40810892
>>rolling SAN loss
>>Rolled 10 (1d10)
Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn!

>>40810934
Iron Giant

>>40810811
Me? I'm flattered.
>>40810853
I don't let him do this often at all. But I feel that once in awhile he needs to do this. It's... for the best. Please understand.

>>40810930
>as if she needed guidence

divine forces guide her shells

>>40810950
Isn't CoC a d100 system?

>>40810944
>The odd moment of perfectly-recalled clarity as you stared across the water at Iowa, exiting the breakwater not a few hundred yards distant; firing from Y turret; Y turret, that was shattered and should never speak again, but spoke, and spoke and spoke, unstoppable and alone as she took on the vast dark Sea - and won

Y turret is working bub. The Fae don't give a fuck.

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>>40810853
Oh look, this anon showed up again. Was looking for an excuse to post this.

>>40810930
>firing from Y turret; Y turret, that was shattered and should never speak again, but spoke, and spoke and spoke
>>40810944

FAT LOT OF GOOD THAT DOES US, APPARENTLY

>>40810733
Oh fucking god. This is, I have no words.

>>40810969
Well, I assumed anon was asking how to tell them apart IRL.

>>40810873
You forgot NJ's best nickname dude, the Black Dragon.

>>40810930
I... I can't express my emotions.

Go Iowa!

>>40810982
FUCKING MAGICAL SHIPS COMING TO LIFE TO SMACK THE SHIT OUT OF OTHER MAGICAL SHIPS. Y TURRET'S STATUS SHOULD NOT BE A CONCERN

>>40810930
This is some Bolo tier shit right here

>>40811017
FOR THE HONOR OF THE PACIFIC FLEET

>>40810979
(arch eyebrow) Katori-san? Care to explain?

I think this the quietest a planefag thread has ever been, holy shit...

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So is there, uh, a new category we should be considering? Ships crewed by men. Ships sunk and given human form...
And now terrifying revenant hulls without a speck of humanity in or around them?

Jesus christ

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>>40811033
houshou is best mom of the fleet

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Return to sender.

>>40811017
...Bolo girls.

Yeah, I could definitely dig it.

>>40811046
We're fucking riveted to our seats. Now shut up and listen.

>>40811052
Mum boat a best.

The fact that she didn't appear in the command centre with the other CVs (meaning shes not here) makes me sad.

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>>40811033
>(arch eyebrow)

>>40811052
If it wasn't for Shokuhou or Arizona Maybe Hornet I wanted Houshou.

>>40811033
>(action posting)
I really can't tell if you're new, or just dumb. Half the time your posts are garbled, so it's probably the latter.

>>40811060
+1
>>40811051
>Iowa is off the table in the present because she's still there in LA. Watching, waiting, empty save for purpose.

>>40810933

I live, I die, I live again.

You get the fucking idea. Also, pure oxygen and IV lines may cure a lot of things but god FUCK are they not fucking fun.

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O7

>>40811098

Every days a lovely day for you ain't it?

>>40810959
Is that so? I see... then, Tatsuta-kun, we should keep him company so that he doesn't hurt himself. I would not want to lose such a fine student.

>>40810979
Oh, my, you caught my good side there. I'm flattered, thank you~

>>40811033
Ufufu, I was caught red-handed... I was attempting to teach your sister Tenryuu the difference between bravado and bravery, but my lesson got out of hand. It was a shame since Goto-teitoku went out of his way to help, too.

>>40811104

You have no fuckin idea.

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>>40811104

>>40811090
dumb probably. reading the posts with that name makes me die a little inside.

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>>40811109
Christ...

>>40811099
Which ship eventually got the gun barrels?

>>40811098
Calm your tits. IT'S are nothing and pure O2 is not gonna kill you unless your army.

Well, are you?

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>>40811051
A ship that needs no harbor, powered by the souls of her crew and the rage of generations past. Her and her sisters sorrow, the last of an extinct breed.

For half a century she protected us, and she will continue to protect us until her decks rot and her hull rusts. Until her mighty screws turn no more and the barrels of her rifles are stripped of their lining. Then and only then will she allow herself and her sisters to slip into the deep.

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>>40811052

She's got yakuza ties, don't fuck with her

>>40811121
Ara, I became so engrossed in my memory of that prank that I completely forgot my identification. My apologies for horrifying you~

>>40811124

I should be allowed to enjoy being fucking drunk. It's one of the few vices I get to have anymore and they're trying to take it the fuck away too. Always on duty the fattest, hairiest part of my fucking ass.

>>40811124
No he's a marine. Which means that IV+O2 makes his system run too rich. Too much fuel, not enough engine to use it all.

>>40811123
Pennsylvania, though some were installed as shore batteries http://www.fortwiki.com/Battery_Arizona

>>40811113
Every day you're with me, it's a good one.

Hey, you fuckers who are roleplaying poorly, cut that shit out right now. You're ruining this glorious thread.

>>40811141

Why don't you take Harder out drinking?

You can write it off as an on duty expense.

>>40811123
Went to the Coastal Battery "Arizona"

>>40811139
>>40811150
Please stop sullying this beautiful thread

>>40811147
Don't you mean it causes circular runs

>>40811154
This. It is wholly unnecessary and benefits no one but yourself.

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[spoiler[Roll Tide.[/spoiler]
I'm really a LSU fan

>>40811150
No really stop posting. Shit is cringe worthy. And not in a good way.

>>40809479
>BEGINNING OF BOOK II
So that's a thing, how many books are there?

>>40811154
>>40811160
>>40811170
Anons, do you even know where you are at? This shit is normal for a planefag thread.

>>40811176
bollocks.

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Contain the bullshit RP crap, were having a serious moment here.

It's not every day that one of the greatest ships ever built decides that shes going to break her moorings and blast some uppity ironclad back to the 1800's.

>>40811185
You get the fuck out too

>>40811185
Shut up fluff, you are an even more persistant problem.

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The first thing you notice is the beeping. It's persistent, and steady, and rather annoying. There's a slight breeze and it feels chilly on your skin - you've been sweating?

Cranking your eyes open, you find a shadowed ceiling; the boring white squares typical to every office building everywhere. A vague memory swims through your mind of being amongst ships andsmokeandfire[/i] girls, shipgirls, the command room, the dim glow of the monitors...

... but there are none. Just a small, claustrophobic room. A white curtain hiding a sterile white-sheeted bed from the world. And something, some*one* breathing slowly and quietly, and why the hell is your hand tingling?

You groan with exertion as you force yourself up a little on one elbow - your head feels like it weighs a million goddamned tons. You try to raise your tingly hand, see what cut off the blood flow, but it's trapped by something soft and warm and firm -

- glancing down the bedspread, you find a shock of short red hair, mussed and frazzled by a long day underneath a tight hat; the rich red locks spread free across the white bedclothes. She's shed her jacket; and from the gentle, steady rise and fall of her slender torso you guess that she fell asleep while kneeling by your bedside and keeled right over to fall asleep in your lap. She's still got your hand clasped in both of hers, fingers entwined so tightly you can't recover it.
You fall back onto the pillow and sigh with relief, the memory - the nightmare - of LA still screaming through your head. The steady beeping is slowing in pace - you glance to the side and watch your heart-rate slowing in realtime as you adjust to Arizona's presence.

Thank god. Thank god for shipgirls.

>Let her sleep.
>Wake her up.

>>40811185
And it's always shit, but we tolerate it, because there's a lot of commotion in these threads. Not so much now, because this is a substantially more engaging thread.

>>40811210
>>Let her sleep.

Get out of bed. Put her in bed.

She needs her rest. Time for us to do our job.

>>40811210
>loltags

too lazy to fix it sorry

>>40811210
>>Let her sleep.
pet her head a little.
She's a good girl.

>>40811210
>>Wake her up.
Can't move if she's got a grip on out hand.

>>40811210
>Let her sleep.

She's been through a lot today, and we've got experience dealing with things being fucked up

>>40811210
b-but what happened to Iowa?

Nice spoiler btw

Also, mega dawwwwwwww at Arizona

>>40811210
If we can leg go of her/she can let go of us without waking up
>Let her sleep

Otherwise,
>wake her up

>>40811210
>Wake her up.

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>>40811210
>>Wake her up.

She needs to know we're ok

>>40811210
>>Wake her up.

She's probably worried sick. We should let her know we're fine.